The members of the research project attended the international conference “Cosmopolitanism and World Citizenship” at the University of London, Birkbeck College, Centre for Interdisciplinary Research (20-21 May 2023). The conference brought together academics, teachers, as well as students, who discussed the latest knowledge and insights into the studies on multiculturalisam, intercultural relations, and focused on issues such as European and American multiculturalism, cultural studies, travel literatures, and so on. In our section we presented the research at Partium Christian University (Oradea, Romania) regarding English travel accounts on Hungary and Transylvania during the nineteenth century. We provided a deep analysis of the travelogues written by Julia Clara Byrne, Julia Pardoe, Nina Elisabeth Mazuchelli and Emily Gerard.
These women travelers provided more extensive accounts of a multi-ethnic Hungary, discussing various populations as being distinct from the mainstream society, as well as their folklore, history, manners and customs. In analyzing Pardoe’s and Mazuchelli’s memoirs the group was interested in the ways in which they portray Hungarian otherness as contrasted to Western, more precisely British national ideals. Moreover, through a comparative approach, we have also looked at the differences in their perception of the same country but in two very different historical and political periods: Pardoe’s journey in Hungary took place in 1840, before the Revolution, while Mazuchelli visited the country in 1881, long after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise in 1867. The papers presented concepts of heterostereotypes as well as autostereotypes, female vs. male travel writing conventions, as well as the means of romanticization in the case of various ethnic groups in the visited countries.
After the conference presentations the research group from PCU, Oradea, had the possibility to visit the greatest landmarks of London, such as: the Big Ben, the Tower Bridge, the Westminster Abbey, as well as the National and the Tate Britain Galleries.
Research group members:
Borbála Bökös (teacher)
Kádár Alexandra (3nd year student)
(Pál) Boros Izabella (3nd year student)
Nagy Dóra Kata (3nd year student)
