Russia's First "Orient": Characterizing the Crimea in 1787

Abstract

Russian culture discovered its first "Orient" in the late 18th century when Catherine II extended the boundaries of her empire to Southern Ukraine and the Crimea. While Russians had interacted for centuries with their Asiatic neighbors, they had not systematically characterized them as Oriental "others" until Catherine's reign. 1 The 1783 conquest of new territory on the shores of the Black Sea, which coincided with the rising popularity of Oriental fashions in West European literature and culture, provided an opportunity to do so. Accordingly, these southern borderlands were the first landscapes in the empire to be elaborately imagined according to the Western parameters of Oriental stylization. 2 An especially powerful stimulus to representations of the Crimea as an "Eastern" or "Oriental" territory was Catherine II's trip to the Crimea in 1787. Commentary on the journey, written by the empress herself, members of her entourage, and her various correspondents, illustrates the initiatory formulation of an exotic Crimean imaginary-a year before Byron's birth and 12 years before Pushkin's. This was not yet the full-fledged Orientalism of Said's classic model. 3 A concerted institutional effort at the political and cultural control of colonial territories would develop only in the 19th century, largely in response to the Russian empire's conflicts further south and east with the peoples of the Caucasus. 4

Crimean Tatars in explorative and travel writing: 1782–1802

“…Sara Dickinson argues that Russians saw Crimea as their own 'orient' in the West (2002). There are marked differences between the laboured orientalism in the writings of the literati who travelled with Catherine in 1787 (Wolff 1994;Dickinson 2002) and the writings of the travellers discussed in this article, of whom Sumarokov resorted most often to established tropes.…”

“…This article considers the writings of nine men and women who were in Crimea between 1786 and 1800, and one who visited in 1782, just before the annexation. It excludes (but refers to) those who travelled with Empress Catherine on her tour of Crimea in 1787, as this ground has been well covered (for example Wolff 1994;Dickinson 2002). Catherine's retinue included Joseph II of Austria, ambassadors and other notables, such as the Prince de Ligne, Comte Louis Philippe de Ségur and members of her court.…”

“…Equally, the location of the Parthenion or Partenizza-Parthenit, the site of the temple and statue of Artemis (Diana), as described by Herodotus (4.103), was mentioned by the travellers as a curiosity of historical geography (for example Guthrie 1802: 106-08; Pallas 1803: 129, 179-80; Clarke 1816: 258-60). Guthrie cites Herodotus' account of the sacrifice by Taurians to Tauric Diana and/or Iphigenia 1 of 'unhappy Greeks who were shipwrecked on their coast', but she does not bring in the association of Catherine with Artemis (surrounded by savages) found in the literature of the Russian court at the time of annexation, where Euripides' tragedy Iphigenia in Tauris had been extremely popular (Dickinson 2002: 12-14 and passim; Hall 2013: 177 and passim for the extraordinary life of this play in the 18th century). Rather, she prefers to cite parallels for such sacrifices in Sanskrit mythology (Guthrie 1802: 107, n.61, as discussed by the orientalist Sir William Jones).…”

An Enlightened path towards conservatism: critical junctures and changing elite perceptions in early nineteenth-century Russia

“…By adopting Western techniques of "otherization", Russia was able to describe itself as comparatively "more European" than peoples such as Ottoman Turks and Crimean Tatars. ' 20 When overlooking the impressive amount of letters, reminiscences and memoirs 21 that circulated after this journey, indeed to a certain extent, 'the conceptualisation of the Crimea was the fruit of an international group effort. ' 22 Yet maybe of more lasting influence were people who accompanied her on this cruise and further developed their relations with Russia, like the Belgian Prince Charles-Joseph de Ligne.…”

“…20 When overlooking the impressive amount of letters, reminiscences and memoirs 21 that circulated after this journey, indeed to a certain extent, 'the conceptualisation of the Crimea was the fruit of an international group effort. ' 22 Yet maybe of more lasting influence were people who accompanied her on this cruise and further developed their relations with Russia, like the Belgian Prince Charles-Joseph de Ligne. A 'true European' , well connected with the French and Austrian courts, de Ligne had already spent two months in Saint Petersburg in 1780.…”