'An Entirely Different World': Russian Visitors to the Cape 1797-1870

Download or read book 'An Entirely Different World': Russian Visitors to the Cape 1797-1870 written by Boris Gorelik and published by Van Riebeeck Society for the Publication of Southern African Historical Documents. This book was released on 2015-11-01 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Russian view of the Cape as represented in this volume may be unique. During the period in question, Russia had no cultural, political or economic ties with South Africa. Russians saw the Cape only as a convenient stopover en route to the Far East, to their country’s distant domains that could not be reached by sea otherwise. The Cape was one of the ‘exotic’ lands they would visit on such journeys, their first and only introduction to the African continent. Although amazed and perplexed by the ‘entirely different world’ they found here, Russian travellers would often draw unexpected parallels between life in their motherland and the realities of the Cape Colony. The selections include memoirs of such important Russian personalities as Yuri Lisyansky, Vasily Golovnin, Ivan Goncharov and Konstantin Posyet. Most of the texts appear in English for the first time.