Layers of Tradition in Lilla Bulyovszky’s Travelogue

Abstract

The paper offers an analysis of Lilla Bulyovszky’s Norwegian travelogue, published in 1866. An important context for the interpretation is the socio-historical connections of the author’s biography, particularly her conflicts concerning gender and nationality. Lilla Bulyovszky’s subversive career led to a deprivation of her social roles in two senses: the contemporary press responded to both her “anti-national” and “unfeminine” behaviour with discursive exclusion. The second part of the paper tries to identify the cultural and literary historical traditions that enabled Lilla Bulyovszky to write Norvégiából: Úti emlékek in a way that bears virtually no marks of her conflicts concerning social roles. The comparative investigation ends with the conclusion that the travelogues produced by classical authors of European literature (especially Dante), and female writers (above all, Mary Wollstonecraft and Polixéna Wesselényi) provided a tradition to build on and to continue for Lilla Bulyovszky. The confidential conversational tone of her travelogue was the result of a conscious connection to available traditions.

Keywords

• female travelogue
• conflict of social roles
• gender and nation
• female literary tradition
• nineteenth-century hungarian literature