The perception of women from European southeast in the travelogues of the early modern period

Abstract

The subject of analysis in this paper is the perception of woman in several travelogues of European travel writers from the 15thto the early 19thcentury. In their remarks about the population of the early modern travelogues, during the voyages through the Balkan land and sea routes to the Orient, considerable curiosity for women they encountered, in either public places or in private, was recorded by travel writers. Relatively brief accounts of woman from the first travelogues were extended in the travel writings of the 17th century. Then, they turned into more extensive comments about her position in the community in the 18th century, primarily in the Enlightenment travelogues, some kind of ethnographic record, but also in a kind of adventure reading, as well as in hybrid forms. The focalisation of woman is regularly masculine: the construct of the woman of others is part of the dominant social discourse of the writer's culture.

Predmet analize u članku je predodžba žene u nekoliko putopisa europskih putopisaca od 15. do početka 19. stoljeća. U opaskama o stanovništvu u putopisima ranoga novovjekovlja, s putovanja balkanskim kopnenim i morskim rutama prema Orijentu, zabilježena je nemala znatiželja putopisaca za žene koje na putu susreću u javnom prostoru i u privatnosti. Relativno kratak opseg opisa žene iz prvih putopisa proširit će se u putopisima u 17. stoljeću. Potom, prerast će u opširnije komentare njezina položaja u zajednici u 18. stoljeću, u prvom redu u prosvjetiteljskim putopisima, svojevrsnim etnografskim zapisima,ali i u vrsti putopisnog avanturističkog štiva, kao i u hibridnim vrstama. Redovito je fokalizacija žene maskulina: konstrukt identiteta žene drugih dio je vladajućeg društvenog diskurza putopiščeve kulture.