Földessy Edina, Szűcs Alexandra, Wilhelm Gábor: Tabula 3/1 (Néprajzi Közlemények; Budapest, 2000)

VÁRI ANDRÁS: Etnikai sztereotípiák a Habsburg Birodalomban a 19. század elején. Szövegek és szerzők

ANDRÁS VÁRI Ethnic stereotypes in the Habsburg empire at the beginning of the I 9th Century Texts and authors The paper attempts to present the set of ethnic stereotypes in two generations of writers of nonfiction. That includes works of the so-called descriptive statistics, geographical handbooks and somé travel diaries, white their authors are the generations born between I 745-1770 and I 770-1800. The approach chosen here tries to contrast the texts with the social backgrounds of the authors and with the public role they have played. The results are, that although there are ascertainable, specific social origins of the set of authors taking up the themes of ethnic specificity, the texts are no pure products of a specific social group. The opposite is true, the set of stereotypes generated by one group was taken over by a very mixed assortment of authors. They had not the origins but the aspirations in common. That was the project of integrating State and society under the rule of the law, thus creating the civil society that supplants the older, many-tiered society of Orders. The stereotypes contain several references, almost repetitively referring to central values of a postulated civil society. The most conspicuous of these is the expected ability of different ethnic and social groups to abide by the commonly accepted rules, to live by a fixed set of norms and not to let their members lose their temper, indulge in aggressive behaviour, or generally, to act in affect. Just as it has turnéd out that ethnic stereotypes have no intrinsic ethnic content but depend on a central scheme, programme of social change, it is arguable, that the distancing implied in the stereotypes was dependent on the relationships of the groups described to the programme of social change. Groups were measured against this programme, i.e. whether they were or were not able to participate in it. Despite politically incorrect language, "us" and "them" had no fixed membership, anyone could jóin in the reform work of "us", provided he betters his ways and gets civilised.