1st Edition
Escaping Kakania Eastern European Travels in Colonial Southeast Asia
Edited By Jan Mrázek
Copyright 2024
374 Pages
by
Central European University Press
Escaping Kakania is about fascinating characters—soldiers, doctors, scientists, writers, painters—who traveled from their eastern European homelands to colonial Southeast Asia. Their stories are told by experts on different countries in the two regions, who bring diverse approaches into a conversation that crosses disciplinary and national borders.
The 14 chapters deal with the diverse... Read more
Acknowledgements, Introductory (Dis)Orientation, 1. The Dutch East Indies in the Eyes of a Pole, 2. A Czech Army Doctor in Sumatra, 3. The First Impressions of Singapore in Serbian Literature , 4. Julian Fa?at in Southeast Asia, 5. Colonialism, Freedom Fighters and the Polish Ambiguity, 6. The Fate of the Birds of Paradise, 7. Ethnic Comparisons in Travelogues about Southeast Asia by Poles and Serbs of Austro-Hungarian Background, 1869-1914, 8. The Polish Botanist Marian Raciborski and his 1901 Wayang Kulit Performance, 9. The Identity of the Strange, 10. Islands of Paradise? Java and Bali Through a Woman's Eyes, 11. Indochina's Deadly Sun, 12. Czechoslovaks in Singapore and Malaya in the Interwar Period, 13. Unaware Colonialism Meets Empathy and Insightfulness, 14. Double vision, Contributors, Index
Biography
Jan Mrázek grew up in Czechoslovakia and lives in Singapore. He is Associate Professor of Southeast Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore. He has published widely on Southeast Asia as well as Czech travel writing. His latest book is titled On This Modern Highway, Lost in the Jungle: Tropics, Travel and Colonialism in Czech Poetry (Karolinum Press, 2022)
