The Image оf The Mediterranean in the Travel Writings of Stanislav Krakov: Constantinople

Abstract

The paper investigates the shaping of the image of the Mediterranean in the travel prose of Stanislav Krakov (The Charm of Sintra). Krakov sees the cradle of the Western European civilization as a crossroads of worlds, i.e. an intersection of different cultures. Hence, his view of the Mediterranean encompasses a wide arc, determined by different European, Asian and African lands. The way Krakov experiences the Mediterranean is to some extent determined by the way he sees his own country. So very often his travelogues are about the overflow of cultures, the intersection of worlds and landscapes. The reading of many cultural phenomena (Spain), the description of colonial influences (North Africa), and the experience of the Mediterranean landscape (Italy), as immanent to the travel writer himself, indicates the extent to which the image of the Mediterranean is ambiguous and complex. Thus, Krakov is included among the prominent travel writers of the Serbian literature of the first half of the 20th century who wrote with equal inspiration about the Mediterranean (Dučić, Andrić, Crnjanski, Rastko Petrović, etc.).