Living effects of India images conveyed by Hungarian travellers

Reviewing the books about India published in Hungarian over the last 100 years, it is conspicuous that most authors attempted to publish their experiences and impressions in a generalized and typified manner, with a hint of the cultural supremacy of the West. Of course, they aimed to put their impressions in a European context and published accordingly. Besides the positive epithets−like fabulous, wonderful, mystical, magnificent, rich, exotic, interesting, the pearl of Asia−“labels” negatively influencing the public also appear. Our work was focused on those published books which were available to the public, thus influencing the image of India in Hungary. We did not include scientific articles, except the publications of the Geographical Review, the journal of the Hungarian Geographical Society. We studied the issues published between 1880 and 1945. Authors of the Geographical Review at that time often wrote about exotic travels−such as those to India−and their articles were verified by the authority of the esteemed Society, thus these were considered points of reference. As a result of the unfavourable tone generally used to describe India and presented in our work, there is a well-defined, generalized image of India in the public’s perception, clearly reflected in different questionnaires, too.

Keywords: content analysis, Hungarian India travellers, India image, travel literature