Hispaania kuvand eesti reisikirjades. Teekond Tuglaseni ja Tuglasest tänapäeva
The image of Spain in Estonian travel literature. A journey to Tuglas and on from Tuglas to this day

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses the image of Spain in Estonian travel literature, taking the axis at the travelogue Teekond Hispaania (“Journey to Spain”) by Friedebert Tuglas (1918) and basing on the popular imagological view that literary texts, in particular those written by prestigious authors, can have a significant and long-standing effect on one’s idea of a certain country and its people, even to the extent that the brightness of vision gained from the texts can surpass that of personal experience. The article surveys, on the one hand, the historical image of Spain in Europe and how the centuries-long “black legend” and the 19th-century romantic approach gained from both fiction and travel literature may have affected Tuglas’s image of the country, and on the other hand, how Tuglas’s travelogue has in turn been shaping the expectations for Spain in later Estonian travellers. In addition to Tuglas’s groundbreaking book, the images of Spain manifested in the travelogues by Johannes Vares-Barbarus (1930), Jüri Talvet (1985), Ilmar Külvet (1994), Janika Kronberg (2013) and Jaan Undusk (2016) have been analysed. Attention has been paid to contrasts between North and South, East and West, centre and periphery, as well as the authors’ self-image as reflected in the texts, and also the stereotypic images of Spain recurring from text to text, such as the Inquisition, bullfighting and terrorism; oriental, Arabic heritage and a Romantic femme fatale like Carmen.

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