GALEGOS E POLACOS NO SÉCULO XIX: ESTEREOTIPOS PARALELOS Á SOMBRA DA XENOFOBIA
Galicians and Poles in the 19th century: Parallel Stereotypes in the Shadow of Xenophobia

Author(s): Alexandre Peres Vigo
Subject(s): Cultural history, Theoretical Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Other Language Literature, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Galicians; Poles; xenophobia; 19th century; stereotypes
Summary/Abstract: An object of study since the beginning of the 20th century, marginal stereotypes of the Other have historically included attributes perceived negatively in the society, e.g. immorality, savagery, lack of intelligence and poverty. Following a long tradition, throughout the 19th century, the Iberian and Baltic collective imaginaries ascribed this type of distorted images to Galicians and Poles respectively. Such stereotyping was similar to that concerning other groups that were stigmatised in Europe in that period, such as the Irish, the Gypsies or the Jews. In the Galician case, an analysis of 19th-century Castilian literature reveals how the migratory flow, Castilian cultural supremacism and the perception of Galicia as a political periphery defined the collective imagination around the already-stigmatised figure of the “Galician”. The Polish case, though similar, was in addition strongly determined by the political relations between Poland and its neighbours, especially after the successive partitions of the Polish territory between Prussia, Austria and Russia in the second half of the 18th century. This article contributes to the study of the, as yet, little explored relationships between the heterostereotypes of Galicians and Poles functioning in their neighbouring societies, with the aim of identifying the various similarities and divergences between both ethnic images, as well as confronting the different socio-political contexts that surrounded their emergence.

• Details
• Contents