Authors

Aleksandra Gintowt ¹ University of Wroclaw, Poland

Discussion

Polish 19th-century travelers imagined the Scotsman as depicted in literary representations, especially the works of Walter Scott and James Macpherson. The romantic "fashion for Scotland" (mysterious mountains, wildlife, tradition and culture) increased the number of trips to the northern regions of Great Britain, which as a travel destination had been gaining popularity since the mid-18th century. Scotland was considered a reflection of the Polish situation, largely due to a shared desire for sovereignty. The aim of the paper is to identify the influence of this romantic perception of Scotland in Polish travel literature of the 19th century, using the examples of travel memoirs by Krystyn Lach-Szyrma "Anglia i Szkocja" (1828-1829), and Teodor Tripplin "Wspomnienia z podróży" (1851). A comparative analysis of the texts makes it possible to observe two ways of description: 1) maintaining the romantic image: Szyrma depicts the Scottish "cult of the pas", sense of national identity and attachment to their homeland, Tripplin glorifies the "poetic landscape"; 2) debunking the myth, for example by making readers aware of the poverty of the lower classes or the "unromantic" appearance of Walter Scott in person. The reason behind the paper is to indicate how the socio-psychological condition of the voyager was able to influence his experience, and to include 19th-century Polish travel literature in a broad body of work on the history of Polish-Scottish relations.