Chulkov, G.I.: In Distant Lands. Africa

Title

V dalekikh kraiakh. Afrika, “Detskii otdykh”, 1899, 12; 1902, 2

In Distant Lands. Africa

Keywords

Summary

The essay was republished as a separate edition in 1910. It is unique in Chulkov’s production, as no other works of his are devoted to Africa and he never visited the continent. No information is available as to why he wrote such an essay, nor on which sources he consulted. However, his collaboration with the journal “Detskii otdykh” resulted in another, similar piece on America (In Distant Lands. America, 1900), so we can assume that they were part of a project intended to popularise knowledge of distant lands to children.

The essay provides information on Egypt, Sudan, Madagascar, Central Africa and Guinea. Written with an engaging style, it is constructed as a fictional, imagined journey through distant lands, presented to the young reader in their opulence and exoticism. Ethnographic details on the local populations are also included, as well as illustrations, among which a vignette by modernist painter Leonid Pishchalkin (1873-1930), who would end up travelling through Africa in the 1910s. Though no references are provided, it appears that the other illustrations are, for the most part, taken from the iconographic collection published in W. Sievers, Afrika. Eine Allgemeine Landeskunde von Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Sievers (Africa. A General Geography by Prof. Dr. W. Sievers, 1891). In this book, Sievers included many drawings and photographs from different sources, whose origin is usually cited in the captions (for instance, E. Reclus, H. Meyer, E. Holub, P. Sébah). Thus, we can establish that the only colour drawing in Chulkov’s publication was originally published in Oscar Lenz’s Timbuktu: Reise durch Morokko die Sahara und den Sudan (1884).

Bio

Georgii Chulkov was a Symbolist writer, remembered for being the founder and theoretician of the theory of Mystical Anarchism. Born in Moscow, where he studied medicine without graduating, he was arrested in 1901 for his involvement in revolutionary circles, and consequently spent a few years in Siberia. Once he returned to Saint Petersburg in 1904, he became part of the literary circles gravitating around Symbolism. He edited several periodicals, such as “Novyi Put’” and “Voprosy zhizni”, and authored novels, short stories and poems. His theory of Mystical Anarchism was the subject of a heated debate amongst fellow Symbolists. Between 1909 and 1915 he lived in Europe (Italy, France, Switzerland). Having served in WW1, in Soviet years he dedicated himself mainly to literary criticism.

Sources

“Chulkov Georgii Ivanovich”, in P. Alekseev, Filosofy Rossii XIX-XX stoletii. Biografii, idei, trudy, Moskva 1999; p. 878-879;

M. Mikhailova, A. Nazarova, “Chulkov Georgii Ivanovich”, in Bol’shaia rossiiskaia entsiklopediia: nauchno-obrazovatel’nyi portal, 22.05.2022, https://bigenc.ru/c/chulkov-georgii-ivanovich-4369b5/?v=2979809

A.F.

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