Jules Verne’s Transylvania: Cartographic Omissions
177
time. The images recalling One Thousand and One Nights were successful enough that several years after Perrin’s book, other authors,
such as Stanislas Bellanger, copied the descriptions word for word,
adding, nevertheless, that they had been eyewitnesses to the exotic
horrors plagiarized from the Coup d’œil sur la Valachie et la Moldavie.
23
Verne’s perspective is thus similar to that of a few authors
who, instead of insisting on the frightening and savage side of Eastern
Europe, invented something that was more of a recollection of a pure
(yet primitive and also fictitious) ancient land. An example could be
Princess Soubiran-Ghika’s books on Romania. In the opening pages of
La Valachie devant l’Europe, as she witnesses a religious procession,
she meditates on a country that, through its archaic customs, is still
“une civilisation enfantée par l’idée chrétienne”.
24 In her eyes,
Walachia is, quite like Verne’s Transylvania, “[un] pays de contrastes
qui a le privilège bien rare aujourd’hui d’avoir conservé intacte sa
physionomie particulière, au milieu même du développement de la
civilisation”,
25 and which still preserves ancient practices like “cette
pratique touchante de consacrer au service de Dieu la dîme de sa
fortune, trop perdue en Occident, [qui] vient ici rappeler les premiers
âges du christianisme et l’ère de la foi”.
26 The same archaic
Christianity reminiscent of Nerval’s Sylvie is to be found in Verne’s
Carpathians where, for instance, the young girl Miriota, when afraid,
makes a sign of the cross, “se sign[ant] du pouce, de l’index et du
médius, suivant cette coutume roumaine, qui est un hommage à la
Sainte Trinité”.
27
Soubiran-Ghika thought that the Romanians had preserved
such ancient values and found in nineteenth-century Romania a preRevolutionary version of France. Her journey was thus more like a
journey in time since in the Romanian sites she constantly sees a long
lost fatherland resonating with the fairytales of her childhood.
28 The
idea of fairytales is connected with the past, and the regrettable disap___________________________
23 See Stanislas Bellanger, Le Keroutza, voyage en Moldo-Valachie (Paris: Librairie
Française et Étrangère, 1846).
24 Aurélie Soubiran-Ghika, La Valachie devant l’Europe (Paris: Dentu, 1858), p. 8.
25 Aurélie Soubiran-Ghika, La Valachie moderne (Paris: Comon, 1850), pp. 25-26.
26 Soubiran-Ghika, La Valachie moderne, p. 226.
27 Verne, Château, p. 62.
28 Verne, Château, p. 243.
177
time. The images recalling One Thousand and One Nights were successful enough that several years after Perrin’s book, other authors,
such as Stanislas Bellanger, copied the descriptions word for word,
adding, nevertheless, that they had been eyewitnesses to the exotic
horrors plagiarized from the Coup d’œil sur la Valachie et la Moldavie.
23
Verne’s perspective is thus similar to that of a few authors
who, instead of insisting on the frightening and savage side of Eastern
Europe, invented something that was more of a recollection of a pure
(yet primitive and also fictitious) ancient land. An example could be
Princess Soubiran-Ghika’s books on Romania. In the opening pages of
La Valachie devant l’Europe, as she witnesses a religious procession,
she meditates on a country that, through its archaic customs, is still
“une civilisation enfantée par l’idée chrétienne”.
24 In her eyes,
Walachia is, quite like Verne’s Transylvania, “[un] pays de contrastes
qui a le privilège bien rare aujourd’hui d’avoir conservé intacte sa
physionomie particulière, au milieu même du développement de la
civilisation”,
25 and which still preserves ancient practices like “cette
pratique touchante de consacrer au service de Dieu la dîme de sa
fortune, trop perdue en Occident, [qui] vient ici rappeler les premiers
âges du christianisme et l’ère de la foi”.
26 The same archaic
Christianity reminiscent of Nerval’s Sylvie is to be found in Verne’s
Carpathians where, for instance, the young girl Miriota, when afraid,
makes a sign of the cross, “se sign[ant] du pouce, de l’index et du
médius, suivant cette coutume roumaine, qui est un hommage à la
Sainte Trinité”.
27
Soubiran-Ghika thought that the Romanians had preserved
such ancient values and found in nineteenth-century Romania a preRevolutionary version of France. Her journey was thus more like a
journey in time since in the Romanian sites she constantly sees a long
lost fatherland resonating with the fairytales of her childhood.
28 The
idea of fairytales is connected with the past, and the regrettable disap___________________________
23 See Stanislas Bellanger, Le Keroutza, voyage en Moldo-Valachie (Paris: Librairie
Française et Étrangère, 1846).
24 Aurélie Soubiran-Ghika, La Valachie devant l’Europe (Paris: Dentu, 1858), p. 8.
25 Aurélie Soubiran-Ghika, La Valachie moderne (Paris: Comon, 1850), pp. 25-26.
26 Soubiran-Ghika, La Valachie moderne, p. 226.
27 Verne, Château, p. 62.
28 Verne, Château, p. 243.