Caucasia from the Perspective of the French Travelers

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Caucasia from the Perspective of the French Travelers

Journal Title: Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi - Year 2017, Vol 57, Issue 2

Abstract

The process of Enlightenment with the Renaissance in Europe paved way for the travels towards the discovery of unknown geographies. At the beginning, some of the travels were restricted to the countries in the European continent. The purpose of these travels was to survey the customs and traditions, cultural traits, the ways of life of these people in near countries; and was to give information about their languages and beliefs. There was a visible growth in the number of these travels due to the industrialization, especially during the 18th and the 19th centuries. During this period, such European countries as England, France, Spain and Portugal competed with each other in order to nd colonies. Travelers participated in this competition either intentionally or unintentionally. That the meaning and the aim of these travels evolved into economic and politic ends resulted in the lengthening of the distances and Petersburg, Moscow, Siberia, Istanbul, Syria, Jerusalem, Egypt, Persia, Caucasia, Africa, India, China and even overseas countries became sources of attraction. The travelers scrutinized every aspect of the people of the countries they visited and attached importance to recording their weaknesses and strengths. This article is about the travels that the French travelers made to the Caucasian region. Caucasia where many different ethnic groups live has been a frequent spot for the French travelers. The customs and traditions, languages, beliefs of the local people were observed from the Western cultural point of view; sometimes the traces of ethnological similarities between Western people and the local people were searched for and various inferences and hypothesizes were put forward based on references to the pre-historic times. Although they generally claimed that they were objective in their attitude, it is known that some travelers had subjective and prejudiced point of view. They could show a few positive and negative incidents they witnessed as if these had been basic characteristics of a nation and they could judge based on what they had heard. However, the travelers gathered information about the traits of the Caucasian people and contributed to shaping of the understanding of orientalism including a vast geography.

Authors and Affiliations

Erdoğan UYGUR

Keywords

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EP ID EP328118
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