«Reisen bildet» as a Sociocultural Phenomenon in Western Europe at the End of the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

The article examines travel and tourism in Western Europe at the end of the nineteenth century as a socio-cultural phenomenon. The relevance of this topic lies in the fact that this period witnessed the institutionalization of tourism, the emergence of infrastructure and visual practices of mass mobility, and the intensification of the cultural dichotomy between the “tourist” and the “traveller”. The aim of the study is to identify the features of opposition and interaction between individual travel and organized tourism, as well as to interpret their role in shaping the European culture of mobility in the late modern era, when elite travel gradually gave way to the industry of mass tourism. The novelty of the study consists in applying the concept of the “socio-cultural phenomenon” to tourism at the end of the nineteenth century. This approach makes it possible to capture tourism not only as an economic or institutional reality but also as an element of broader civilizational, social, and cultural change in Western Europe. The article also employs the widely circulating aphorism «Reisen bildet» (“Travel educates”) as an analytical tool: its semantic openness reflected the capacity of travel to serve simultaneously as a sphere of individual self-education and as a form of public legitimation for standardized mass tourism. Drawing on the works of James Buzard, Eric Zuelow, William Stowe, Hasso Spode, Rüdiger Hachtmann and others, the study demonstrates how pedestrian journeys, student excursions, mountaineering, and other individual practices coexisted with commercialized forms of collective tourism. Particular attention is given to the expansion of leisure in the lives of the middle class and workers, the formation of collective models of recreation, and the spread of commercial mobility. At the same time, these developments were accompanied by attempts to preserve a space for personal freedom and cultural self-formation. The article concludes that the combination of individual autonomy and collective standardization constitutes the key ambivalence of travel as a sociocultural phenomenon of the late nineteenth century. Travel functioned as a socially approved ritual, shaping a new European culture of mobility, defining the individual’s place within the modern world, and reconciling personal aspirations for self-discovery with the challenges of globalization.