REMEMBERING INDIA: SOUTHERN ALTAI IN HAROLD SWAYNE’S TRAVELOGUE

Abstract

In most cases, Russian and European travellers compared Altai (including southern Altai) with the Swiss Alps. In this concept, the travel narrative of the British colonial officer, hunter, and famous traveller Major Swayne is very different: in his “Through the highlands of Siberia” (1904), Altai and its inhabitants are often compared to India. In literary terms, this rare text has not been studied at all and has not yet been used as a material for constructing a metatextual and orientalist image of Altai in Russian and world literature. This article attempts to introduce Swayne’s book into scientific circulation and to prove that the image of Altai in the eyes of European travellers had stable orientalist connotations at the beginning of the XX century.