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ETHNOCENTRISM IN THE IMAGE OF GERMANS AND POLES IN GERMAN AND POLISH TEXTBOOKS

OF RECENT HISTORY

EWA NA SALSKA (Varsovie)

AHSTRACT

This contribntion approaches the issue of images of Poles and Germans in the content of the history school textbooks in Germany and Poland. A negative stereotype of Germans has been existing in Polish culture for a long time. The same concems the German attitudes towards Poles. The well-known recent chan-ges of the political, economic and social environment in Central Europę need revision of these attitudes. The school textbooks provide the efficient means of promotion of this revision process. To what extent and into what direction the textbooks are used in this process is the main question of this contribution. The conclusion bases on the content analysis of the textbooks in both countries in the early nineties. There are two aspects that seem to be the most relevant to the problem. The first is the scent of the ethnocentric inclinations existing in the tcxtbooks. The second aspect indicates the direct relation between the image of the nation and the context of the mutual relations in which this image is pre-sented. The morę the other nation is perceived in the context of the close mutual relations, the less positive image of that nation can be noticed in the textbooks of both sides.

1. INTRODUCTION

The history of Polish-German relations is rich in events stimulating antagonisms and prejudices, especially accumulated in the twentieth cen-tury. The images of Germans in Poland and Poles in Germany have deep roots in the recent history of both countries *.

The attitude of Polish society towards Germans is frequently named "German syndrome". The meaning of this term contains the widespread awareness of the German economic and civilisation strength as well as the atrocious experience from the near past. This awareness is frequently a basis for an inferiority feeling about the western neighbour (Salcson 1993). The Polish image of Germans has two opposite levels. On the first level such virtues are located as diligence, thriftiness, cleanliness, good organisation of work,

* The paper was presented at the European Conference "Ethnocentrism and Educa-tion'¹, Delphi, Greece, May 27—29, 1994. The data concerning the German textbooks were collected by me during my stay at the Institut ftir Internationale Schulbuchforschung in Braunschweig. The work was sponsored by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

l*ev. Ćtudes Sud-Est Europ., XXXIII, 1—2, p. 53—64, Bucarest, 1995