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Please try to imagine. You say she is 17 years old and has never left the house. The merchant father and uncle, who have been absent all their lives, are leaving again for their next journey. Only this time, you will join them too.
The journey will cover 15,000 miles (24,000 km) and last 24 years. You will see things you could never have imagined and fly into the upper echelons of a powerful empire. And in the end, you will become one of the most famous travelers in Western history.
The synopsis for a blockbuster movie is none other than the biography of Marco Polo.
Born in Venice in 1254, Polo traveled the Silk Road, a medieval trade route that connected Europe and Asia, from 1271 to 1295, spending 17 of those years as a prominent figure in Kublai Khan’s flourishing Mongol empire. I spent time in China.
After returning to Italy, Polo collaborated with the writer Rustichello da Pisa to document his travels. His resulting book, “Il Milione” (The Million), is known in English as “The Travels of Marco Polo.”” eventually became a medieval bestseller, translated into many languages and read by everyone who could read and write, from princes to priests, and Christopher Columbus is said to have carried a copy with him.
Accounts that “shocked” Europeans
Polo was not the first European to travel to medieval China, much less the first individual to document it. Hyun-hee Park, a history professor at the City University of New York, said Muslim travelers were documenting both land and sea routes to China in the 9th and 10th centuries. However, at a time when Europe was closed and inward-looking, Polo was the first European to bring information about China into public consciousness, and his report did not meet European expectations.
“Many Europeans were shocked,” Polo said, describing the Mongol Empire as a great civilization with great cities. [He] He was even criticized for being a liar. ”
Margaret Kim, a professor of foreign languages and literature at Taiwan’s National Tsing Hua University, explains that Polo’s account departed from the conventions used by other Westerners reporting on non-European lands.
“European travel writers, both before and after Marco Polo, taught moral precepts and religious doctrines when describing foreign places and foreign people. But Polo has no sense of such religious doctrine.” By his account, he is primarily interested in the landscapes and customs of different parts of the world. It seems that. He is a very worldly person. ”
Adopt an “imperial gaze”
Polo’s views stand apart from future accounts of European travel, which were primarily driven by the desire for conquest and the perspective of civilizational superiority.
“Marco was amazed at the wealth and power of the Mongol rulers, at a time when the East was said to be rich and prosperous compared to medieval Europe. His attitude was therefore influenced by subsequent European explorers and combatants. “They were very different from the traditional colonialists,” Zhang Longxi said. A distinguished professor at Peking University’s Yanjing School explained in an email that any future description of China will be labeled as “backward” and “stagnant” and will fall short of the grandeur of Europe. .
In China, Polo became a respected figure in the court of the Khan. Although his exact position remains debated, there is broad consensus that he was a prominent civil servant with diplomatic responsibilities. Therefore, he saw the Mongol Empire not as a foreigner, but as an insider.
”[Marco] He left Venice as a teenager and spent the most formative middle years of his life in Asia. It was in Asia that he developed a way of thinking about the world that cannot be characterized as purely Western,” Kim explains.But he certainly had what I call the “imperial gaze”…he saw the world as divided between more or less civilized peoples. So, in Marco Polo’s world, people are either very civilized, somewhat civilized, or savages. ”
And, as Kim points out, for him the greatest center of civilization was not what Europeans had expected, but rather Kublai Khan’s Mongol Empire.
Marco Polo’s various journeys?
As a source of historical information, Polo has experienced considerable controversy, much of it based on the complexities surrounding his book.
There is no single authoritative manuscript. Instead, there are approximately 140 different versions. The role of Marco Polo’s co-author Rustichello in the production of the book and his possible influence on its contents also adds to the layer of uncertainty, which is viewed differently by historians.
Kim believes Polo was the book’s author and responsible for its content and style, and believes Rustichello may have supervised its copying and distribution.
However, Zhang believes that while Polo was the source of the information, Rustichello may have shaped the book’s content. “Rusticello, a romance writer, was an actual retelling of Mark’s story, perhaps adding great color and detail that would appeal to medieval readers,” he explained. However, the expert added that compared to other literary travelogues of the time, Marco Polo’s Travels clearly shows restraint in its imaginative features.
Some historians, such as eminent sinologist Francis Wood, have also pointed out the expected lack of information about China and the lack of supporting sources., questioning the veracity of Polo’s observations. Today, however, historians tend to agree with Polo’s important observation. very original and very specificIn the book’s prologue, Polo/Rusticello makes it clear that travelogues also contain second-hand observations, but they are unlikely to be fabricated or based solely on second-hand accounts. there is no.
Scholars including Park have also found evidence supporting Polo’s observations, including primary documents from Chinese and Islamic sources, such as the writings of the famous 14th-century North African explorer Ibn Batutta. .
Marco Polo: Man of the Day
Today, 700 years after his death, Marco Polo is highly visible to non-academics, including American pool competitions, high-end fashion companies, numerous travel companies, and even “Snapchat for baby boomers.” is known.“It all takes advantage of his famous name.
But Polo’s relevance goes far beyond its brand power.
For Kim, polo shows that “there are things in the world beyond our imagination, and while it may be unsettling and confusing, we can adapt.” In other words, “Imperial Gaze” is The property of every culture and civilization.and it’s certainly not It is the only asset of the West. ”
As for Zhang, at a time of heightened tensions between the West and China, Polo reminds us that non-hostile cultural relations are possible: It offers an alternative model of relationship, which is extremely valuable to us.’It is a model of mutual understanding and cooperation. [of] Intense competition and conflict. ”
Editor: Elizabeth Grenier
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