„Muł na to zrobiony, żeby nosił księży i podróżnych uczonych”. Wizerunki zwierząt we Wspomnieniach z podróży Teodora Tripplina
“The mule was made for carrying priests and scholarly travelers”. The Images of Animals in Wspomnienia z podróży by Teodor Tripplin

Summary/Abstract: In this paper the author analyses Teodor Tripplin’s Wspomnienia z podróży from the perspective of animal studies. The book is a travel memoir containing elements of fiction and it was published in the 19th century. Beginning with an introduction to the situation of animals in that time, the author of the article moves away from the protagonist and his human companions and instead focuses on their perception of the animals they encounter while traveling across European and African countries. There is a clear division between those animals that are close to humans, classified as “intelligent” (like dogs), and wild animals, which are divided into four categories: food, fur, entertainment and danger. The author often attributes human characteristics to dangerous animals in order to “prove” their real nature to the reader. Wild animals should be killed or tamed, while the purpose of companion animals establishes their usefulness to humans. There are tropes of speciesism and examples of the use of animals, not only in practice (physical labor) but also in symbolism and language, including stereotypically common terms and phraseological patterns. The purpose of this article is to analyze Tripplin’s works in order to illustrate how the traveler viewed and described animals and how this relates to the history of the formation of animal rights.

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