殖民主義文學中的中國：以Eugen Krieglstein的小說為例探討殖民地優勢統治者之自我認知危機

Colonial literature on China: Eugen Krieglstein's novel as an example of a crisis of the self-perception of cultural dominance

冒險小說《來自受詛咒之地》(Aus dem Lande der Verdammnis) 於1909年首次出版，奧地利旅行作家兼戰事通報員Eugen Krieglstein（1873-1914）在書中敘述他20世紀初在中國北方滿洲的經歷。這本書屬殖民主義文學、描述的對象為中國人 - 尤其是主人翁的私人僕役。此文採用比較式的文本分析，比較一個人對自我和外人所投射的圖像。並著重於探討作者的敘事風格，以及所賦予書中主人翁的中國人特性，其中也包括了作者自身的行為方式和價值觀。如此，一方面可觀察到，不論是殖民統治下常有的偏見與種族歧視的思維模式，或是「白人」、例如歐洲人，具有較優越文化的想像，仍繼續出現在此書中。另一方面，從社會史的觀點來看，書中主人翁對「中國人」的態度漸有不同。此轉變反映了當時日漸萌芽的、對殖民主義統治正當性的質疑。

 

In his adventure novel Aus dem Lande der Verdammnis (published in 1909) the Austrian travel writer and war correspondent Eugen Krieglstein (1873 – 1914) wrote on his experiences in Northern China and Manchuria at the turn of the 20th century. This fictional text belongs to colonial literature and contains descriptions of the Chinese population – and first and foremost of his personal servant. This novel shall be analyzed here with a comparative method, by contrasting the self-images and external images. In the center of the analysis will be Krieglstein’s narrative techniques and the characteristics of the Chinese people, as observed and attributed by the narrator, but his behavior towards them and his own cultural values will be taken into account as well. By applying this approach, it will be demonstrated that on the one hand in this novel stereotypical and racist ideas of the colonial subjection and the perception of a cultural superiority of the „White“ respectively European are being continued. On the other hand an analysis guided by a perspective of social history reveals the narrator’s ambivalent attitude towards "the" Chinese. This altered attitude mirrors the crisis of legitimation of colonial thinking which began in those years.