Europe and its Others (English)
Veronika Bernard
Europe and its Others:
Dracula, Death in Venice and the syphilis
Symposium “Migrant Europe”
NIHMP, Rome
11 February 2009
Dear ladies and gentlemen,
let me also welcome you at our one day symposium „Migrant Europe“, which is very kindly hosted by the NIHMP and its director Professor Aldo Morrone, who has been devoting himself to medical as well as cultural and social aspects of migrant issues: my very special thanks to him for opening our symposium with a presentation on and a tour through his institute and for chairing this morning session of our symposium. Let me also welcome our colleagues from Turkey, Lebanon, Romania, Italy, Germany and Austria and thank them for coming and participating in our symposium.
As we are discussing the question in how far Europe’s Others interfere with migration matters of nowadays this morning let me start off with some general remarks on the qualities of European Others. I will do so mainly based on literary documents, but also by including some linguistic aspects.
The several European Others have been constructed as parts of European cultural identities over the centuries, and they have been subject to an accumulating tradition.
You have realized that I use the term “European Other” in the plural. I prefer to do so for several reasons:
(1) Although there are some, so to speak, “universal” features to the European Others, we are talking of a cluster of qualities, which may include varying aspects depending on where in Europe you are and at which time of history you are there.
(2) The European Others have both a cultural side and a political side.
(3) Their cultural side includes aspects which vary according to geographical location, ethnic and religious affiliation.
(3) These cultural aspects, however, may also vary according to a special political situation. That’s one part of their political side.
(4) The second part of their political side is the fact that they have been instrumentalized by 19th century nationalization of European cultural identities; they have been declared part of national identities, so to speak. Even very special moral ideas have been included in this.
So, what you get as European Other is not one uniform set of features but multilayered and overlapping clusters of features strongly defined by your own affiliation, which have become part of the several popular European cultures.
To illustrate how the qualities of the Other are made popular and are passed on by tradition I have selected passages from one quite popular piece of literature by a 19th century British writer: Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I have chosen passages from Thomas Mann’s Tod in Venedig (Death in Venice), which was published in Germany in 1912 to demonstrate how universal those qualities are within a European context; and I will round up my remarks by including a very special field of linguistics to underline the popularity of those qualities with everyday language and communication: namely, the historically documented habits of naming diseases after the cultural and political Other, based on the research findings by Manfred Kienpointner, a University of Innsbruck colleague.
Let’s turn to Bram Stoker’s Dracula: I have highlighted those parts of the text for you which are of special interest for our issue.
You know the story I guess: Dracula is a vampire story. An Englishman travels to Transylvania on business to meet a local noble, who is interested in buying an estate in London. The aristocrat turns out to be a so called un-dead. The British can escape from the noble’s castle, his wife’s friend back in England, who is the rather emotional (or “hysterical”, as the people of the time would have called her) type of woman, becomes an un-dead shortly before her marriage. The wife herself being rather rational than emotional is turned into a medium by a Dutch doctor hunting vampires and helps to find and kill Dracula. To do so, she, her husband and the doctor travel to Transylvania. 7 years after this journey the family spend their holidays in the place where Dracula existed formerly.
Based on this plot the book conveys most of the cultural and political Others defined by the British, Victorian society of the time on its very first page.
See the route of travel: It starts in Munich, proceeds to Vienna and Budapest and further East. The text even gives an explicit interpretation of this route: it makes the protagonist “leave the west and enter the east”. This way of travelling East and the identification of Southern Germany and Austria with the East rather than the west is no invention for fictional purposes. It’s a historical fact. Still, by introducing that opposition of the west to the east the ground is prepared for those implications of the story which go beyond the simple plot. In line with this the East is identified with the “traditions of Turkish rule” which again refers to the historically true expansion of the Ottoman Empire. At the same time all popular European stereotypical knowledge of the Orient is evoked by this phrase, ranging from multi-ethnicity, despotism to a slavish devotion to their senses, in particular to sexuality.
The story takes this technique of a two-layered meaning even further: Dracula’s castle is is in Transylvania, a place which exists. The text describes it as a very remote, unexplored part of Europe with wild mountains and wild woods. By this it is introduced as a dark place, dark because of geographical conditions, dark for its unknown character and dark because of what people associate with woods: they are dangerous for all sorts of reasons. And when the protagonist reaches this multi-ethnic area with its oriental looking inhabitants it is on the “dark side of twilight”. The name Transylvania (beyond the woods) taken literally hints at the very quality of the place where Dracula’s castle is situated: It is so far east, meaning away from the west and western habits and values, that it lies even beyond the woods suggesting that it is even more dangerous and stranger than the woods. There aren’t even proper maps of the land. And of course the only proper maps are the British. So by now we have that opposition set: the West is The Empire, the East represented by the Eastern parts of Europe with historical ties to the Ottoman Empire is the dangerous unknown which is attractive to Westerners for exactly this mix of danger and exotic qualities. So, if you may be wondering why Dracula’s castle is not in Scotland, for instance, where you also have lots of dark castles and wild nature, this is an answer to it: It is a part of the Empire and could not be associated with all the Eastern implications.
And the East shows a first impact on the protagonist shortly after his arrival: he turns to believing in the protecting effects of religious symbols which till then had been mere superstition for him. The dangerous but exotic unknown is indicated as a threat to the West as soon as it is identified with the vampire qualities of Count Dracula which are detected by the protagonist. He realizes and understands the Counts dark plans of infiltrating British society and destroying it from inside by buying a house in London. The description of the London estate is telling too: it is close to a medieval chapel and next to a lunatic asylum – and Dracula likes this. So what Dracula stands for is linked to two further social phenomenons: catholic denomination and mental disorders.
When Dracula finally reaches the English coast all signs of evil accumulate: A strangely navigating Russian ship is approaching the coast in heavy storms, high seas, fog and clouds. The scene with the storm, by the way, is very impressive in the very first black and white mute filming of the story, I guess from the 1930s. Besides Lucy increasingly sleepwalks; she is seen to be approached by a figure “rather beast than man” on her nightly walk, a scene which has a clear sexual quality to it, falls ill and dies shortly after and turns into an un-dead. Apart from this we learn that Dracula has set out for Great Britain on a Russian ship, which introduces the political point, and which is even more telling: he makes his escape from Great Britain on a Russian ship as well.
But also the names are relevant within this context: The Englishman’s wife is named Willhelma, the spelling punning on her strong will and at the same time at the stereotypically iron German character of the Wilhelminean Reich.
When the group finally reach the port of Varna to kill Dracula, they learn that the person who has picked up the wooden boxes in which Dracula has made his escape and journey home from the ship after her arrival is Jewish who has been paid for this job.
Well, and 7 years after the British and the Dutch doctor killed Dracula the Britsh go on a family holiday to place of their heroic deed.
So you have that whole web of features which make the Victorian Other in that story: The values of a rational and morally pure Great Britain are endangered to be corrupted by irrational and sexualizing ideas. Those ideas are personified in the vampire who is eager to draw the blood from the British. They are originally oriental but are represented by the Eastern parts of Europe as well, in particular by those which have a Ottoman history, close ties to Russia, and where the people are multi-ethnic, catholic, orthodox or Jewish. The Northern parts of Germany, Prussia, and the Dutch are of British quality. The conclusion to be drawn from this situation of a threatened Great Britain is that the East ought to be “civilized” by GB in order to protect its own system of values: Dracula is killed in his own country, and after this the place is so safe that it is a suitable family holiday resort …
So let’s leave Dracula and let’s turn to Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice. Interestingly enough you find the same creation of an Eastern Other representing the ultimate threat to the common values as in Stoker’s text here. The only difference from Dracula is: The seductive evil is represented by the Indian cholera, not by a vampire.
But let me roughly summarize the plot for you first: An honoured and decorated German artist has been living for his work and his home country for years at the turn from the 19th to 20th century and has been hiding his homosexuality not just to the public but also to himself. When he travels to Venice he meets a young Polish noble and follows him through the city. All this happens while the cholera is striking Venice and because of his feelings for the young man the protagonists ignores all safety measures, gets infected and most probably dies in the end although the text is not explicit on this. While he is dying however, he has his coming out, though it is not a coming out for the public but rather to himself.
Again the east starts south of Munich. Munich has sort of an in-between status. Note the hint at the protagonist’s homosexual preferences. And also note how this hint is linked to a visionary and sensuous description of a sultry far-eastern nature.
The preferences are there but they are rationalised as “the wish to travel” and they are presented as some sort of illness, as the result of some mysterious “contagion”.
Health is also part of another rationalization. He finds Venice humid and because of this threatening to his health.
All this is set during the cholera is striking the city. Like Dracula it comes from the East, though from India in this case. Note the description of the swamps as the cholera’s natural environment and origin. It takes up the words of that scene of the Munich encounter. It also reaches Europe by ship, this time Syrian (oriental) trade ships and it shows its morally corrupting impact in a rise in criminality and in the protagonist’s coming-out. He is ready to turn away from his original German Wilheminian values of being a good and obedient citizen and a “real” man. And all this happens in Venice which is described as a mix of Orient and Occident in another passage of the text.
And as we have just been talking about the Cholera let’s round up this talk with some remarks on nationalized and other-izing names to illustrate how popular otherizing stereotypes may become.
remark number 1: The disease always comes from the Other: The syphilis is the French disease for the English, and the disease of the Franks for the Arabs.
remark number 2: And a passionate kiss in which you use your tongue is a French kiss for the English.
Ladies and gentlemen thank you for listening.