Pushing back the Horizon (6): Alexandre Dumas in the Caucasus

 

It was a challenging project: A journey made barely two hundred years ago by the writer, on his way back from Russia, invites us to take part in a very current lesson in geopolitical tourism.

Read about a conflict ridden area

Alexandre Dumas’ route (*), as it was put forward to the Council of Europe as a cultural route four years ago by the Ministry of Culture of Azerbaijan, is a slightly embellished route which starts in Dagestan and follows the banks of the Caspian Sea reaching Baku, where the writer saw the naphtha springs, before turning off to the East towards Tbilissi and Gori, to allow time to climb the hill towards Ossetia, and then continues along the Black Sea to Poti, in Adjhara, in a subtropical climate, before returning to Turkey. It is amazing that the names of the towns and areas covered are all have links with recent conflicts. They have all made and still make the news. The route goes to within one hundred kilometres of Grosny in the Chechen Republic, leaves Nagorno-Karabakh in the South and enters South Ossetia, whilst nearing Abkhazia.


Between geography and food

The story of this journey does not begin with a description of the men he came across or the combat along the way. Instead, Dumas provides abundant detail on the great mountainous area he was to cross: “We will tell our readers, as succinctly as possible, what the Caucasus is, topographically, geologically and historically speaking”. It is only once this concept of landscape and politics is established that the readers begins to follow the author step by step, from house to house, from meal to meal, from discussion to discussion, or from a wedding to a funeral, in the company of Russian princes and uprising tribes, as he is invited everywhere. The real idea of a meal plays such an important role because the writer, a real food connoisseur, was torn between wanting to try new recipes and a basic hunger which took hold of him at times:

“We came back and cast a glance at the people selling us our meat. How measly! To roast our ducks as quickly as possible, they had made cuts lengthwise across the breasts, losing all the juice and blood. All that remained was taut skin over protruding bones that looked more like the hemp Senusret that imported to Mingrelia than the juicy meat which our hunger, strong from being in the great outdoors, had been longing to get its teeth into.” However, there is always a dramatic aspect as he progressed along this route, part of which also forms one of the highways of the Silk Routes, where there are roadside inns and where tribal violence, murders and condemnations made purely to serve as examples are common.

Back and forth between the past and the present

Dumas discovered spinning, as is it still possible to do today, and took a silk carpet or pieces of material back with him, which were placed next to the many shotguns he had in his carriage, but he left behind pendulums made in France, which went on to become the focus of shared memories and family stories.

“My Grandmother told me about the wedding Dumas went to…” one citizen of Zugdid says, showing us the evidence of Dumas’ passing which is hung on the wall. Personal accounts make up an important part of this route, which is in progress and not yet signposted, forming an alternative to the castles, full of paintings and objects from mid XIX French and Russian courts, and the markets, real bazaars, which are still dependant on the seasons.


Voyage au Caucase (or even Caucase, Impressions de voyage) 1859. Two novels which followed « Sultanetta » (1859), a love story set against the background of revolt against the Russians and “La Boule de Neige”, an epic and legendry story about searching for water in the mountains to stop the drought. This work was republished by Hermann (Paris) in 2002.

Photo: Je vais vous raconter le passage d'Alexandre Dumas (Azerbaidjan, août 2006). I will tell you...

French version.