De part et d’autre du Rhin. Descriptions géographiques et représentations nationales dans les Causeries du voyage franco-allemand de Victor Duruy (1860)

• Main Author: Jean-Charles Geslot
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Société Royale Belge de Géographie and the Belgian National Committee of Geography 2013-03-01
• Series: Belgeo
• Subjects: Germany; Rhine; landscapes; territories; images; patriotism
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/belgeo/7361

French Historian Victor Duruy’s 1860 travel on Rhine and Danube gives him rise to go all over South of Germany. He let a diary of this journey, original in terms of both content and form. His geographical and ethnographical observations allow him to make a comparison between territories on both sides of Rhine, and to prove France’s superiority to Germany. So this is not so much a discovery travel as a confirmation and justification one. In places already known by many years of studies, the Historian can confirm several images and clichés. Furthermore it makes him able to take a patriotical line that allows him to defend border status quo between France in Germany in a time of rise of Prussian claims on Rhenish area.