Joanna Kodzik (MIARC) is invited to give a paper on missionary travel writing during the workshop « Travelogues and scientific discourse in Europe (18th–19th centuries) », « Récits de voyage et discours scientifique en Europe (XVIIIe – XIXe siècle) » organisend by the École normale supérieure in Lyon on 16 October 2025.
This article deals with the development of missionary travel writing practice by the Moravian Church in the 18th century, particularly in relation to its missionary activities in the Arctic (Greenland, Iceland, Lapland). From the outset, Moravian travel reports were religiously motivated and served to edify the worldwide community of believers. Over time, however, they increasingly included scientific observations that also conveyed ethnographic and natural history knowledge.
A central change took place after 1760, when the Moravians began to carry out systematic observations of nature and people. This was facilitated, among other things, by external scientific impulses, such as collaboration with researchers and the reception of Linnaeus' system for classifying nature.
As a result, missionary reports became not only a means of spiritual communication, but also valuable sources of knowledge for European science. The publication of David Cranz's ‘History of Greenland’ (1765) marked a milestone: it combined mission history with descriptions of nature and was received by such well-known scholars as Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottfried Heder and Buffon, among others. As a result of this development, the Moravian natural history collection was also systematically expanded, and instructions for collecting and documenting plants, animals and minerals were published (e.g. Bossart's ‘Kurze Anweisung Naturalien zu sammeln’ [Brief Instructions for Collecting Natural History Specimens], 1774).
Despite this openness to science, the reports remained committed to their missionary objectives. People and nature were always viewed through the lens of a religious worldview, and writing continued to serve the purposes of edification, legitimisation of missionary activity, and training of new missionaries.
Nevertheless, the Moravians' observations were often unique, as they had intensive and peaceful contact with indigenous populations where other Europeans failed or caused conflict. This combination of proximity, continuity and observational accuracy made their travelogues important sources of ethnographic and natural history knowledge – a special feature in the context of scientific exploration of the Far North in the 18th century.
