Wanderings of Scandinavian travelers in Czech periodicals at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries
Abstract
The paper focuses on the reception of expeditions by Scandinavian authors led at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries in Czech periodicals, it deals with the questions of what made the expeditions to the far corners of the country interesting to Czech readers, what they meant for Czech society, and how these travel books dealt with the tension between documentary fidelity and subjective experience. In the center of attention are travelogue testimonies to the earth's turnstiles (the Norwegian polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen went to the north under the leadership of Otto Sverdrup in 1894-1896; the steps of the Swedish polar explorer Otto Nordenskjöld led to the south in 1901-1904), but also to the center of Asia ( the Swedish traveler Sven Hedin revealed to Czech readers, among other things, India and Tibet, about which he gave a successful lecture in Prague's Rudolfinum in February 1910 as part of his European "tour").