Searching for sensual delights: Frenchmen’s adventures in the Taurida in the Late-Eighteenth century
Khrapunov Nikita
After its unification with Russia in 1783, the Crimea became a travellers’ attraction; many of these voyagers were Frenchmen, not always as their nationality, but always in terms of their language and culture. Understanding the peninsula as a part of the Orient, known mostly from books, the travellers considered that there was the “other” ethics and morals, so the most incredible erotic adventures were possible. The exploits of many travellers were more theoretical than practical. Moreover, their works had the truth intertwined with imagination, so it is often hard to separate reality from fantasy. The foreigners understood the Crimea as a country where they could forget about traditional moral frames to get new experience. Having no understanding of the basics of Muslim culture, the travellers created and translated stereotypes of the “eastern jealousy,” “eastern adventures,” and “eastern beauty.” The foreigners’ adventures in the Taurida uncover both the typical ways of the “Western persons” of the use and interpretation of the reality of the East, and some specific features uncoverable, e. g., by the comparison with the accounts of Turkey. The travelogues from the beginning of the Russian Period in the Crimean history obviously influenced the shaping image of the peninsula in art and fiction, from Pushkin and Mickiewicz to the works of ill-known Russian, Karaite, Crimean Tatar, and French-speaking writers and poets.
This research has been financially supported by the Russian Science Foundation, project no. 25-28-20072 The Use of the Past of the Crimea in Russia and Abroad, 1783-1853.
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