“TARTARS” AND “KALMUKS” IN PRINCE SAN DONATO’S SIBERIAN TRAVELOGUE

Abstract

The article discusses descriptions of the indigenous peoples of the southern Altai found in the Siberian travelogue “After wild sheep in the Altai and Mongolia” (1900) by Elim Demidov, Prince of San Donato. The purpose of the trip was to hunt argali (Ovis ammon) as part of the European tradition of “big game hunting”, in which every traveller wanted to distinguish himself. However, the attention to everyday life, culture and history of the southern Altai makes this travelogue one of the most important documents to understand the origins of the orientalist image of Altai. In the context of European Orientalism, the images of “local savages” in Demidov’s descriptions are constructed on the basis of stereotypical characteristics typical of most descriptions of travel to the east: they are naive as children and cruel as savages. Thus, Altai is described as a typologically eastern space inhabited by eastern population at the lowest stage of development.