Arminius Vambery, the Eastern (br)other in Victorian politics and culture: Hungarian (Jewish) Orientalism and the invention of identities (Bram Stoker, Ireland)

Ever since Edward Said's groundbreaking work Orientalism, the word Orientalism has become inextricably entangled in a web of negative postcolonial(ist) connotations, representing a mass of undifferentiated Western scholars operating as an appendage of imperial aggression. By shifting the critical gaze from the British and French Orientalists Said discusses to Eastern Europe, Arminius Vambery, the Eastern (Br)Other in Victorian Politics and Culture: Hungarian (Jewish) Orientalism and the Invention of Identities reexamines Orientalism, identifying some of the gross misconceptions and simplifications Said's Orientalism engendered. Using Arminius Vambery (1832-1913) as a case study, this dissertation posits that the problematic subject position Vambery occupied in Hungary as a first generation assimilated Hungarian Jew, rejecting and embracing Judaism at different times in his life, had a profound impact on his political and academic writing, greatly complicating the simplistic and excessively monochromic picture Said depicts of Orientalism. Chapter One locates Vambery's life-long project of self-image making in the British context, using the concept of the Self-Made Man and traces his emergence in Great Britain, first, as a Hungarian traveler known as The Explorer and later as an authority on Central Asia. Chapter Two discusses Vambery's political activities and writings within the context of the Great Game between Russia and Great Britain in Central Asia, showing him as a supporter of Great Britain who simultaneously argued for Pan-Islamism. Chapter Three examines Vambery as a Hungarian (Jewish) Orientalist and his relationship with his most famous student, Ignac Goldziher (1850-1921) in their endeavors of self-identity construction, locating them within the larger European cultural landscape and within the field of Orientalism. This chapter argues that the problematic subject position these Jewish Hungarian Orientalists occupied greatly shaped their valuation and modes of analysis of Moslem cultural and/or religious practices they described informed by their increased level of sympathy towards the oppressed Muslim masses. Scrutinizing the relationship between Bram Stoker and Vambery, Chapter Four examines the cultural value Vambery or the Vamberian identity construct acquired in Bram Stoker's Dracula, showing Dracula as more of an amalgamation of East and West than previously argued.