Historica Olomucensia 1 (2025), 123-143 | DOI: 10.5507/ho.2025.002

A Recipe for a New Madame Chrysanthème: Alois Svojsík's Critique of Czech Stereotypical Portrayals of Meiji Japan

Jolana Krejčová
Graduate School of International Culture and Communication Studies, Waseda University, Tokyo

After Japan opened to the world in the 1860s, Czech depictions of the country, like those in many other European nations, were often sensationalised and contradictory, largely due to the scarcity of reliable information. Early Czech travellers to Japan, such as Josef Kořenský, Enrique Stanko Vráz, and Joe Hloucha, played a significant role in perpetuating stereotypes about Japanese society. This paper examines Alois Svojsík’s influential 1913 work Japonsko a jeho lid (Japan and Its People), with particular attention paid to the prologue and afterword. In these sections, Svojsík critiques Czech and Western portrayals of Japan, discussing the dramatic shift from initial admiration for Japan’s modernisation to the rise of the yellow peril ideology following Japan’s military successes. He also emphasises, from a more general perspective, the hypocrisy of Western powers, which, while maintaining colonies in Asia, expressed fear of Japan encroaching on their territories.

Keywords: Japan; Meiji Period; Czech travellers; Travel writing; Alois Svojsík; Stereotypes; Orientalism; Nationalism

Received: December 18, 2024; Revised: January 27, 2025; Accepted: January 29, 2025; Published: December 2, 2025  Show citation

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Krejčová, J. (2025). A Recipe for a New Madame Chrysanthème: Alois Svojsík's Critique of Czech Stereotypical Portrayals of Meiji Japan. Historica Olomucensia, 66(1), 123-143. doi: 10.5507/ho.2025.002
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