Völkertafel (Styria)
The Völkertafel or Steirische Völkertafel is an oil painting by an unknown painter that was created in Styria in Austria at the beginning of the 18th century . The painting is an illustrated compilation of European peoples with attributions of various properties in tabular order. The early modern representation can be seen today as a source of historical ethnic stereotypes .
Emergence
Exact dates about the year and place of origin of the table of peoples are not known, but it probably originated in the first third of the 18th century. There are at least six copies of it, although it could not be determined which of them is the original.
A copperplate engraving from Augsburg with the title “Real presentation and description of the princely land peoples in EUROPE” is very similar in content and structure to the table of nations . The so-called Leopold engraving (after the name of the engraver Fridrich Leopold ) was created between 1718 and 1726 and, in all likelihood, apart from the pictorial representation of the individual peoples, served as a template for the peoples table . The linguistic forms and spelling used in the Völkertafel correspond to the Upper German writing language that was common in Austria and southern Germany in the 18th century .
Storage locations
Three of the copies are in private ownership, three more are kept in the collection of the Austrian Museum of Folklore in Vienna and in the local museums in Bad Aussee and Moosham, one is in the reception rooms of the former Machern monastery on the Moselle (near Bernkastel-Kues) to see. One is in the Gailtaler Heimatmuseum in Möderndorf Castle.
Structure and content
The heading of the table of nations (104 x 126 cm) is "Brief Description of the In Europe Befintlichen Völckern And your Aigen managed". At the upper edge of the picture there are side by side pictures of ten men in contemporary clothing who represent the peoples treated, below a table with the names of the countries in the horizontal (matching the pictures) and the properties in the vertical.
Listed by name from left to right: "Spanier", "Frantzoß", "Wælisch", "Teutscher", "Engerländer", "Schwœth", "Boläck", "Unger", "Muskawith" and "Tirk or Grich" ( Spaniards , French , Italians , German , English , Swedes , Poles , Hungarians , Russians , Turks or Greeks ). In this order, a certain linearity in the assessment of the peoples can also be recognized, i.e. a gradual change from west to east. This is not entirely without exceptions, but this can be seen especially with the latter, for example when it says under the property of “Untugent” that the “Unger” is a “Veräther”, the “Muskawith” is “Really ethereal” and finally the “Tirk or Greek” “even more ethereal”. The “mind”, on the other hand, is suddenly referred to in the last column as “top outside” after the assessments “low eighth”, “still less” and “nothing at all”.
Among the 17 listed properties in this compilation can be found among others "Nature And Character", "Loving", "Krig's Tugente", "Worship", "Comparison with Thiren" and "Your Life End".
For the compilation of the descriptions, not only historical encounters with representatives of the respective foreign peoples or the climate zone theory were decisive , but also, according to Franz K. Stanzel , primarily written evidence, that is, in addition to lexicons and ethnographic writings, travel reports, collections of letters and mocking verses, to name just a few to call.
The content
The following table contains the entries in the table of nations in a linguistically modernized form for better understanding.
× | Spaniards | Frenchman | Italian | German | English people | Swede | Pole | Hungarian | Russian | Turk or Greek |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Occur | Haughty | Reckless | Sneaky | Frankly | Enjoyable | Strong and big | Rural | Unfaithful | Wicked | Like the April weather |
Nature and character | Wonderful | Friendly and talkative | Jealous | Quite well | Amiable | Horrible | Even wilder | Most cruel | Really Hungarian | Lying devil |
understanding | Smart and wise | Careful | Shrewd | Clever | Graceful | Persistent | Contemptuous | Disrespectful | Nothing at all | "Above out" |
properties | Male | Childish | Opportunistic | Always there | Female | Inscrutable | Mediocre | Bloodthirsty | Infinitely coarse | Tender |
Sciences | Scripture | Art of war | Canon Law | Legal system | geography | Liberal arts | Linguistics | Latin | Greek | Fraudulent policy |
dress | Honorable | Inconsistent | Honest | Imitate everything | According to French fashion | leather | Long-skirts | Multicolored | Furs | Effeminate |
Vices | Vain | Fraudulent | Lustful | Wasteful | Restless | Superstitious | Devoured | Treasonous | Even more treacherous | Most treacherous |
preferences | Honor and glory | war | gold | Drink | Amusements | Delicious food | Noble | revolt | Beatings | Infatuation |
Diseases | constipation | syphilis | Bad plague | Podagra | Consumption | Dropsy | The breakthrough | At the Fraisen | whooping cough | Exhaustion |
Your countries | Fruitful | Well ordered | Handsome and pleasant | Well | Fruitful | Mountainous | Woodland | Rich in fruits and gold | Icy | Lovely |
Virtues of war | Magnanimous | Malicious | Careful | Insurmountable | Sea heroes | Undaunted | Impetuously | Inflammatory | Laborious | Lazy |
religiousness | Outstanding | Well | A little better | Very pious | Changeable like the moon | Zealous in faith | Believe all sorts | Active | An unbeliever | One of those |
Acknowledge as their ruler | A monarch | A king | A patriarch | An emperor | Sometimes this, sometimes that | Free domination | A chosen one | An unruly | A volunteer | A tyrant |
Have an abundance | of fruits | of goods | of wine | of grain | on pastures | at ore mines | on furs | of everything | of bees | On delicate and soft things |
pastime | Play | Cheat | Chatter | Drink | Work | eat | Fight | Idleness | Sleep | Ail |
Counterpart in the animal world | elephant | Fox | lynx | lion | horse | Ox | bear | wolf | ass | cat |
Your end of life | In bed | In war | In the monastery | In the wine | In the water | On earth | In the stable | Under the saber | In the snow | When cheating |
literature
- Franz K. Stanzel : Europeans - An Imagological Essay . Winter, Heidelberg 1997, ISBN 3-8253-0616-X ( searchable in the Google book search; 2nd edition published in 1998).
- Franz K. Stanzel: European Völkerspiegel - Imagological-ethnographic studies on the people tables of the early 18th century . Winter, Heidelberg 1999, ISBN 3-8253-0784-0 .
- Michael Portmann u. a .: "Nation, nationalities and nationalism in Eastern Europe", 704 pages
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Franz K. Stanzel : Europeans - An imagological essay . Winter, Heidelberg 1997, ISBN 3-8253-0616-X , pp. 13-36 and 44-54.