Abstrakt: | Travellers’ discourses thrive on anecdotes. According to Stephen Greenblatt, they interpose between a series of similar,
narrow experiences and a wider pattern they may indicate. This analysis deciphers how an anecdote from Passenger to
Teheran (1926), the travelogue written by Vita Sackville-West, is not just an isolated flash but can indicate larger representational
strategies. In her epic journey Vita Sackville-West travelled from London to Egypt, India, Persia, and then
back to England, through Russia, Poland and Prussia; by boat, train and car. In the episode which is subject to a detailed
analysis, the travellers were stopped at the Polish–East Prussian border and forced to leave the train. The consequences of
what could be just an anecdote about an “unwelcome incident”, reverberate – as it turns out – far beyond the incidental
because what is at stake at almost every border incident is a socio–political, geo–political, military and ideological reality.
No matter whether such events are presented as adventures or in all seriousness, each border trouble has consequences
beyond any “local moment”. To disclose some of the less obvious implications of the Polish–Prussian passage in Vita
Sackville-West’s book is the aim of this essay. |