From Baghdad to Paris: 1897; Journal of a Journey to Europe by Land via Damascus and Beirut. (Formatted HTML Journal)

Abstract

On the 15th of April, 1897, Alexander Richard Svoboda, a 19 year-old European resident of Baghdad, set out on a long journey to Europe by caravan, boat, and train. From a large and influential family of merchants, artists, and explorers settled in Ottoman Iraq since the end of the 18th century, Alexander traveled in the company of his parents and a departing British diplomat accompanied by his retinue. They followed a circuitous route through the Middle East to Cairo and thence to Europe on a three and a half month journey which Alexander described day-by-day in a journal written in the Iraqi Arabic of his time.