Jules Verne’s Transylvania:
Cartographic Omissions
Anca Mitroi
Abstract: Focussing particularly on Verne’s Le Château des Carpathes
of 1893, this chapter looks more closely at certain geo-political particularities of the author’s work. It examines how the depiction of
Eastern European territories in Verne’s writing may be understood
not only in relation to the pervasive orientalist discourses of his time,
but also in respect of the author’s sentiments regarding (French) nationalism as well as political and cultural imperialism in a wider
European context.
The fact that Verne included Eastern Europe among the strange destinations of the Voyages extraordinaires is not too unusual for his time.
Théophile Gautier’s ironic comments about nineteenth-century rural
France being a foreign place
1 make the idea of considering Romania,
Hungary or Bulgaria as exotic more plausible. Among Eastern European lands, Transylvania was for many reasons a quasi-mythical
2
place for many writers. Verne refers to it in several novels; in Le Château des Carpathes he describes the faraway region, its strange inhabitants and its history in elaborate, almost realistic detail. With a few
___________________________
1 See Théophile Gautier, Voyage pittoresque en Algérie (1845), ed. Madeleine Cottin
(Genève-Paris: Droz, 1973), pp. 168-69. See also my article, “Fantômes peints et
Turcs réels. Illusions perdues d’un voyageur idéaliste”, Bulletin de la Société
Théophile Gautier, 23 (2001), 335-45.
2 One may say that if in Jarry’s Ubu Roi Poland means “nowhere”, in Verne’s times,
Transylvania had almost the same status, completely dissolved in the AustroHungarian Empire. Moreover, there were no “Transylvanians” since the land was inhabited by a Romanian majority that had no recognized official status and by three
other “recognized nations”: Hungarians, Saxons and Szekels.
Cartographic Omissions
Anca Mitroi
Abstract: Focussing particularly on Verne’s Le Château des Carpathes
of 1893, this chapter looks more closely at certain geo-political particularities of the author’s work. It examines how the depiction of
Eastern European territories in Verne’s writing may be understood
not only in relation to the pervasive orientalist discourses of his time,
but also in respect of the author’s sentiments regarding (French) nationalism as well as political and cultural imperialism in a wider
European context.
The fact that Verne included Eastern Europe among the strange destinations of the Voyages extraordinaires is not too unusual for his time.
Théophile Gautier’s ironic comments about nineteenth-century rural
France being a foreign place
1 make the idea of considering Romania,
Hungary or Bulgaria as exotic more plausible. Among Eastern European lands, Transylvania was for many reasons a quasi-mythical
2
place for many writers. Verne refers to it in several novels; in Le Château des Carpathes he describes the faraway region, its strange inhabitants and its history in elaborate, almost realistic detail. With a few
___________________________
1 See Théophile Gautier, Voyage pittoresque en Algérie (1845), ed. Madeleine Cottin
(Genève-Paris: Droz, 1973), pp. 168-69. See also my article, “Fantômes peints et
Turcs réels. Illusions perdues d’un voyageur idéaliste”, Bulletin de la Société
Théophile Gautier, 23 (2001), 335-45.
2 One may say that if in Jarry’s Ubu Roi Poland means “nowhere”, in Verne’s times,
Transylvania had almost the same status, completely dissolved in the AustroHungarian Empire. Moreover, there were no “Transylvanians” since the land was inhabited by a Romanian majority that had no recognized official status and by three
other “recognized nations”: Hungarians, Saxons and Szekels.