Considerations on "Westernization" and Modernization" : El-Tahtawi and Dostoyevski

In the first half of the 19th century two different writers visited Paris, one of which was El-Tahtawi and the other Dostoyevski. Both of them wrote famous books reflecting their impressions and thoughts about "the West" and especially about Paris. In this article their views and images of "the West", their position with respect to Western culture and the process of modernization which was inevitably introduced in their native countries, Egypt and Russia are discussed and compared. The tension reflected in their work is not only a matter of "East and West" but also much more an endless search to reconcile the values and ways of life of the global and the local.