Potemkin village

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As a Potemkin village ( Russian потёмкинская деревня ) - mostly in the plural as Potemkin villages , more rarely also Potemkin villages or Potjomkin villages (according to the Duden , lower case letters are also allowed : Potemkin villages , etc.) - pretenses or false pretenses are used. denotes: Through material and / or organizational effort (" dummies ", actors, etc.) the illusion of demonstrable success, prosperity, etc. is created. The name goes back to the untrue story that Field Marshal Potemkin (modern transcription : Potemkin ) set up the scenery of villages and had alleged villagers transported from one to the next to tell Catherine the Great on a trip to New Russia about the development and prosperity of the to deceive newly settled area.

Former castle brewery in Kolín : only the usually visible side (facing the Elbe) was renovated, the rest remained untouched

In a more general way, the term is now also used for good “looking” objects that actually hide a bad condition: They appear elaborate and impressive, but they lack substance. In particular, the term is sometimes used for buildings or settlements that are attractively spruced up on their front sides, but on the other side are shabby or uninhabited, i.e. have the character of a backdrop city . In contrast to the original meaning of the word, the existence of a thing is not faked, but its supposedly good condition or prosperity is certainly faked.

origin

Potjomkin and Catherine II

The phrase goes back to a story about the Russian field marshal, imperial prince Grigori Alexandrovich Potjomkin , which does not correspond to the historical circumstances. According to this legend, Potjomkin, governor and military reformer, who under Tsarina Catherine II (the Great) tried to develop New Russia , had villages built along the route using painted backdrops before his ruler visited the newly conquered New Russia in 1787 to hide the real face of the area.

Some historians suspect that this anecdote was created by Potjomkin's opponents at court, who envied his good relationship with Catherine the Great. The Saxon diplomat Georg von Helbig is named as the author, who first put it into circulation in his dispatches and immortalized it in his biography Potemkin the Taurier (1809) after Potjomkin's death . Von Helbig himself did not take part in the inspection trip.

Examples

The historian and former prisoner Stanislav Zámečník compared the infirmary of the Dachau concentration camp with a staged Potemkin village. In the early years of the camp, some selected visitors were given the opportunity to take a guided tour that presented its alleged harmlessness.

Potemkin village? According to some sources, Kijŏng-dong is supposed to be an actually uninhabited propaganda town

The North Korean village of Kijŏng-dong is said to be actually uninhabited and to serve only propaganda purposes. In the Washington Post it was referred to as the "Potemkin village".

The expression is used, for example, by the Sächsische Zeitung in an article on economic fraud ( fake news from the Infinus headquarters ) : "According to his [the prosecutor's] view, the managers invested too late, too little or not at all on long-term profitable investments, but kept afloat with pseudo-business within their own corporate conglomerate. [...] This is how Potemkin villages were built. "

In a 2018 review on Deutschlandfunk , it was similarly stated : "With half-truths and alleged facts, theoretical structures are created that, like Potemkin villages, satisfy the casual observer as proof of reality."

"The term 'Potemkin villages' is used [today] whenever politicians are accused of fooling the citizens," the Frankfurter Neue Presse translates the term into modern times.

The term is also used to describe the procedure for state visits, to spruce up inner cities or individual streets in order to create a positive impression.

  • For example, Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt visited the city of Güstrow together with Erich Honecker on a state visit to the GDR in December 1981 . They were completely shielded from the residents of Güstrow by Stasi employees. According to Honecker's ideas, the picture was staged “of a happy people in a cozy Advent mood”. Most of the “visitors to the Christmas market” were employees of the Ministry for State Security (MfS) in civilian clothes, charged with creating a festive atmosphere and cheering for Erich Honecker. 35,000 security forces were deployed: 14,000 from the MfS, 21,000 from the People's Police . There were 81 arrest warrants , 11,000 people were under control for three days, 4,500 home examinations were carried out. For the hours of Schmidt's visit, the city was transformed into a Potemkin village. The actual political talks had previously taken place in Hubertusstock Castle .
  • During the state visit of Nicolae Ceaușescu in 1988 to Erfurt , the side of the Erfurt Opera House facing the street was painted, while the invisible sides of the opera remained in their poor condition.
  • For the G-8 summit in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, in June 2013, the British government had empty business premises covered with photo wallpapers to simulate hustle and bustle.

Web links

Wiktionary: Potemkin village  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Potemkin villages in duden .de
  2. ↑ Catherine the Great: Everything about Prince Potemkin was real. Also Die Dörfer In: Die Welt Online, February 28, 2011.
    The Straight Dope: Did “Potemkin villages” really exist?
  3. ↑ Simon Sebag Montefiore : Catherine the Great and Prince Potemkin (Orig .: The Prince of Princes: The Life of Potemkin ). Frankfurt am Main 2009, p. 550 ff.
  4. ^ Stanislav Zamecnik: That was Dachau. Luxembourg, 2002. pp. 95-99. Chapter Potemkin Village
  5. ↑ Kevin Sullivan: Borderline Absurdity: A Fun-Filled Tour of the Korean DMZ. In: The Washington Post , January 11, 1998.
  6. ↑ Ulrich Wolf: Fake news from the Infinus headquarters. In: Sächsische Zeitung Online , June 9, 2018.
  7. ↑ Ralph Gerstenberg: Schwawinski: Conspiracy! Deutschlandfunk , June 25, 2018.
  8. ↑ As in earlier times, Moscow relies on illusion theater. In: Frankfurter Neue Presse , June 26, 2017.
  9. ↑ Stefan Wolle: The ideal world of dictatorship. 2nd edition, Bonn 1999, p. 168 f.
  10. ^ Jan Eik, Klaus Behling : December 13, 1981: Güstrow ghost town. In: classified information. The greatest secrets of the GDR. Verlag Das Neue Berlin, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-360-01944-8 , p. 204 f.
  11. ^ A Chancellor visits the Chairman of the State Council >
  12. ^ Helmut Schmidt in Güstrow
  13. ↑ Fake shop fronts used to make towns seem neater for G8. Article of the RTE dated June 6, 2013.