Zolotoordynskoe Obozrenie (Dec 2016)

Staryi Krym and Its Monuments through the Eyes of the Travelers of the late 18th – early 19th centuries

  • Khrapunov N.I.

DOI
https://doi.org/10.22378/2313-6197.2016-4-4.832-860
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 4, no. 4
pp. 832 – 860

Abstract

Read online

Research objective: This article addresses the accounts on Staryi Krym, a town in the Crimean Peninsula, supplied by travelogues written after the joining of the region to Russia. Research materials: Modern archaeolgoists can use these textual and visual accounts as a source of information on the condition of Moslem monuments, which were later damaged by anthropogenic and natural factors, and science historians can draw conclusions on the features of discoverying and interpretation of Moslem history and “Oriental” architecture in the period of the Enlightenment. The travelogues developed a multi-dimensional image of Staryi Krym. Abandoned and collapsing Moslem town, a living illustration from the outgoing age, with still standing ancient mosques, baths, fortifications, and graves, got virtual connections with classic past of the Crimea, finding itself to be a “heir” of one or another settlement documented by Greco-Roman geographers. Research results and novelty: Through the travellers’ eyes, Staryi Krym, by images of the Cimmerians and the Cimbrians, got a key role in the history of Crimean Peninsula, and even supplied it with the name of Crimea, which connected the “noble barbarians” of antiquity with the “modern Celts” – the Frenchs and the Scots, and the Past of Europe with its Present. Staryi Krym became a component of literatural discourse, allowing the classics of the Sentimentalism to think of the frailty of earthly life. This town also became a subject of painting, which made it a part of romantic appearance of Taurica.

Keywords