Völkertafel (Styria)

The panel of nations (unknown painter, 18th century)

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.

Brief description of the peoples in Europe and their characteristics

×	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

1. ↑ ^{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.