This is now the century of transcontinental communications, when the Internet and TV allow you to see at least the crater of a volcano, at least the panties of a movie star - please, everything is there in real time. The same is the case with goods: where you want from there and ordered, where you want and what you want, bought, and in order, for example, to buy the same pineapple or coffee, you don't even have to go far. And what happened before, at the beginning of the century? Yes, then the same pineapples were sold even in my God-saved Penza. There was a store of "colonial goods" on the main street of the city - Moskovskaya Street. The only one for the whole city and the prices in it were - oh-oh! And if you want to see how people live abroad - buy the magazine "Vokrug Sveta" or go to the cinema. The famous "Pate-magazine" (He sees everything, knows everything!) For just a penny could show you a burning house in the center of Paris and zouaves marching along the Champs Elysees, battleships in the Speedheim raid, and even diamond mining in Kimberley. Well, if you were already a very advanced person, then … you could visit many exhibitions, both here in Russia and abroad.
Entrance to the exhibition of the colonial economy in Paris.
In general, the impression is that exhibitions were held then even more often than they are now. In any case, such an impression is created from viewing the Niva magazine. For example - since we are talking about colonial goods, in 1906 in Paris even an impressive exhibition of the achievements of … colonial economy was held. That's even how things were at that time. And what was there not only: sacks of coffee beans, palm oil, nuts and figs, bananas and copper bars, elephant tusks and leopard skins. However, the highlight of the exhibition program was the demonstration of living blacks from the French colonies. Yes, yes, just 7 years before the start of the First World War, when people in Europe were already, in general, quite civilized, blacks were taken from Africa and brought to a specially equipped zoo. However, this is not so surprising, because the demonstration of representatives of "primitive peoples" in menageries was at that time the most common thing and no one in Europe, even in the early 1930s, did not seem to be something terrible.
Moreover, during the year 1 million people visited the exhibition with blacks in Paris, that is, you can imagine how interesting it was for people then: to see live blacks in cages! Moreover, there were not five or ten of them, but 300 people. True, of this number, 27 people died from various diseases (but mainly from colds) in a year.
Advertising of the colonial exhibition in Paris.
And it should be noted that not only in countries with colonies, but also in the same, for example, Switzerland, they saw nothing wrong with keeping blacks in the local menageries. Since you belong to a primitive people, then all your desires and feelings should also be very primitive, and if so, then … here's a cage for you, sit in it and be happy that you are full. School teachers took their students to look at these "backward people" and clearly show how exactly people of one race differ from another, to demonstrate their behavior and activities. Scientists, in turn, were engaged in experiments on the acclimatization of blacks and their accustoming to the cold northern climate. Well, linguists and ethnographers also had their own interests in all this. After all, not all researchers had the money to repeat the travels of Dr. Livingston and visit Africa at the beginning of the twentieth century, but then it turned out that the government took care of them, and if you cannot go to the blacks, then the blacks were brought to you.
Blacks in Paris in 1904.
Do not think that the blacks in the zoos of Europe were mistreated, not at all. They were well fed, tried to treat them kindly, carried out regular medical examinations, and when they were sick, they were treated! The period of stay in the cage usually lasted no more than two years, and only the pygmies, who were very difficult to get to in Africa, were detained longer. So that blacks do not get bored and for the sake of picturesqueness, they were placed in open-air cages along with such animals as monkeys, zebras, ostriches, etc. That is, the visitors admired the “savages” in the photo of their characteristic wildlife! Were in European zoos and the aborigines of India, Southeast Asia and Oceania. So the scene shown in the Soviet film Miklouho-Maclay (1947) could well have been, although everything was in reality and not so dramatic. Well, in 1947, our filmmakers simply could not help adding fuel to the fire of Soviet xenophobia, but, in fact, they showed what happened!
"Village of Somalia" was the name of the demonstration site "with blacks" in Luna Park in St. Petersburg.
It is interesting that in 1908 blacks were brought to the menagerie and to St. Petersburg and no one was outraged by this: neither the progressive community, nor students, nor even the leftist press!
Well, why did such zoos begin to close? Has humanism developed? No, the crisis of 1929 just began, which hurt both the United States and Europe. Maintaining such menageries was by no means cheap, and the common people did not have the money to visit them. So they began to close en masse. It is no coincidence that they have existed for the longest time in such prosperous countries as Switzerland and Sweden - the crisis affected them least of all. Only in 1935 - 1936. in Europe, the last cells with blacks in zoos were eliminated - in Basel and in Turin.
Paris Zoo with blacks, 1904 - 1910s
Nowadays, the Parisian menagerie, where live blacks were once shown, stands abandoned. Buildings on its territory are being destroyed, everything is overgrown with forest. And so the mayor's office of Paris decided to allocate 6, 5 million euros to equip this place already as an ordinary park. But the local community was unexpectedly outraged by this: "Oh, it was a terrible time of colonialism, why remind about this ?!" That is, let, they say, everything here remains as it is! Changes that might disturb public memory are not desirable. The Paris City Hall thought and decided not to aggravate …
It was even very interesting for Europeans to see these "beauties"!
So the West is now ashamed of its past, even if it is the past that took place a century ago. That is, in Europe, tolerance and multiculturalism are triumphant today, and even if you are striped like a zebra, you will not be put in a cage.
But for some reason in the West, no one is outraged by the still-preserved zoo with the natives of the Andaman Islands belonging to the Negroid race. The Indian government decided to preserve the life of local natives there in its original form, especially since this is a unique ethnic group - "Indian blacks". They are small in stature - remember the story "The Treasure of Agra" by Conan Doyle, where a local aborigine almost shot Sherlock Holmes with a poisoned arrow from their air tube. And I must say that civilization did not particularly touch them up to the present time.
Moreover, the Indian authorities are categorically opposed to the natives being civilized, wearing European clothes, using the means of technology, studying and being treated. But all this would be fine if their habitat had not been surrounded by a wire, beyond which the natives are prohibited. On the other hand, roads were laid around the zoo, and tourists, sitting in cars, can observe the primitive life of the “savages”. Tourists are not allowed to feed them, but they still learned to beg their favorite treats from them - bananas and wheat bread. London travel agencies sell vouchers there, and they say so - Human Zoo (Zoo of people). Double standards again, right?
