British Travellers In Wallachia At The End Of The Eighteenth-Century: Some Considerations Regarding The Negative Aspects
British Travellers In Wallachia At The End Of The Eighteenth-Century: Some Considerations Regarding The Negative Aspects

Summary/Abstract: Few travel accounts written by British travellers who visited Wallachia at the end of the eighteenth-century focus on Wallachia only. Most of these British travellers headed toward Constantinople, and it was only on their way to this imperial capital that they described Wallachia 'en passant,' spending very little time in this area. At the end of the eighteenth-century numerous foreign travellers came to visit the Principalities. Ambassadors, leisure travellers, men of science, missionaries, and other types of travellers noted down in their diaries information regarding various aspects of the cities in the Principalities, but most of them focused on the negative aspects that they had experienced. It is tempting to believe that the British travellers enjoyed their stay in Wallachia and appreciated the natural landscape and the traditional customs, but the social and political context which characterised the Principalities at the end of the eighteenth-century projected a different, usually negative, image of Wallachia. This article aims to outline those negative aspects that are common to the travelogues of all the British visitors who came to Wallachia at the end of the eighteenth-century either as officials to the Ottoman Porte, or as leisure travellers. My project articulates how the foreign domination over the Principalities, the unceasing wars, and the biased nomination of princes delayed the process of urbanization, thus revealing the foreign visitors a less illuminated image of Wallachia at the end of the eighteenth-century.

• Details
• Contents