https://www.ouvroir.fr/deshima/index.php?id=666 At the turn of the 19th century, the island of Rügen in Swedish Pomerania, which had long remained at the margins of the Holy Roman Empire, suddenly becomes an object of interest and a travel destination for the cultured elite. Between 1797 and 1805, four travelogues on Rügen were published, coinciding with Caspar David Friedrich’s first works including the island’s landscapes as a motive. These travelogues are at the centre of our article, which studies the key role these texts played in establishing the island of Rügen as a place set deeply the German imaginary. Drawing from the many contributions of local authors who worked throughout the 18th century to promote Rügen’s history, geography and landscapes, these travelogues made their content accessible to a wider public and drew attention to specific aspects of the island, following the tastes and interests of the time period: its baths, its picturesque landscapes, its ancient ruins, its sublime cliffs. In this context, tensions arose between the travelogues of the local elite, who wished to keep control of Rügen’s image, and the travelogues written from the perspective of outsiders whom the local elite itself had drawn here with their promotional work. Through these interactions between different perspectives, between texts and images, the island of Rügen gained a spot in the German mental geography—a spot that it has kept to this day. Numéros en texte intégral Géographies et imaginaires Géographies et imaginaires fr mer., 01 oct. 2025 11:06:48 +0200 mer., 03 déc. 2025 10:55:53 +0100 https://www.ouvroir.fr/deshima/index.php?id=666 0