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• Germans and Poles in the Middle Ages: The Perception of the 'Other' and the Presence of Mutual Ethnic Stereotypes in Medieval Narrative Sources ed. by Andrzej Pleszczyński and Grischa Vercamer
• Julia Verkholantsev

A close look at the developments and mechanisms of stereotyping and othering is a well-timed and important task of historical scholarship in the midst of ongoing warnings about 'fake news' and parallel realities in contemporary political and social discourses. The editors explain that they have chosen to focus on the 'Polish-German bi-national barrier … to create a counterpart to the modern period [because] [d]espite generally friendly actual relations between both countries, present animosities arising from historical experiences and, in many cases prejudices, can still be recognized' (p. 2). Today, national stereotyping and prejudices are so ubiquitous that sometimes it feels that they have always existed and that their driving forces and motives have [End Page 187] always been similar. However, unraveling the history of stereotyping in medieval Europe is not a simple task for a number of reasons. We would be committing an anachronistic error by assuming that modern national identities have a one-to-one correspondence to medieval group identities, and that all medieval writers who spoke the same vernacular languages had the same experience and concept of the other. The subject of othering is thus interconnected with the thorny question of pre-modern identities of the self. The articles in this volume navigate these and other related theoretical questions by considering texts of diverse historical genres: annals, chronicles, gesta, universal histories, hagiographic legends, administrative records, songs, and poetry; most contributions focus on stereotypes and perceptions of the 'other' by German and Polish individuals and communities from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries.

In the introductory chapter, the editors explain the concept of the book, present the state of the field, and set a theoretical background for individual case studies (pp. 1–14). To create a comparative plane, the authors of the contributions in Part One explore 'Zones of Comparison in Medieval Europe' that include the Holy Land, Holy Roman Empire, England, and Bohemia. Kristin Skottki examines the chronicles of the First Crusade to talk about supra-national forms of alterity and identity constructions provoked by religious concerns (pp. 17–40); Georg Jostkleigrewe considers two cases of medieval Franco-German perceptions of the 'other' (pp. 41–56); Isabelle Chwalka examines the views on the Holy Roman Empire—especially as it is associated with German identity—in the twelfth-century Anglo-Norman and Angevin sources (pp. 57–80); and David Kalhous analyzes the image of the Theutonici in Latin and vernacular historiographic sources of Bohemia (pp. 81–97). The three chapters in Part Two examine the perceptions of the Germans in Polish hagiographic and historiographic sources. Andrzej Pleszczyński juxtaposes the images of the Germans and the Holy Roman Empire in the works of a foreigner Gallus Anonymous, the first Polish-born historian Vincent Kadłubek, and a detectibly anti-German anonymous author of the Chronica Poloniae Maioris (pp. 101–18); Sławomir Gawlas examines perceptions of the Holy Roman Empire and its diverse people among the Polish elites from the first Polish chronicles to the Annales of Jan Długosz (pp. 119–66); and Roman Michałowski focuses on Polish hagiographic literature devoted to Polish-born and foreign saints Stanislaus, Adalbert, Kinga, Salomea, and Hyacinth, written by Polish authors (pp. 167–82). Part Three includes five chapters that address the German perspectives on the Poles. Volker Scior points out that 'Poland' and 'the Poles' did not play an important role for early and high medieval Frankish-German historians, with the exception of Thietmar of Merseburg (pp. 185–94); Norbert Kersken analyzes the works of late medieval German historians, in whose midst he also includes authors writing in Bohemia (pp. 195–226); Stephan Flemmig comes to similar conclusions about 'a low regard of Poland...

审阅者：

• 中世纪的德国人和波兰人：对“他者”的看法以及中世纪叙事来源中相互种族刻板印象的存在编辑。作者：Andrzej Pleszczyński 和 Grischa Vercamer
• 朱莉娅·韦尔科兰采夫

在当代政治和社会话语中对“假新闻”和平行现实的持续警告中，密切关注刻板印象和他者化的发展和机制是历史学术的一项适时且重要的任务。编辑们解释说，他们选择关注“波兰-德国两国边境……以创造一个与现代时期相对应的障碍”，[因为]尽管两国之间的实际关系总体上是友好的，但由于历史经验和在许多情况下，偏见仍然可以被承认”（第 2 页）。如今，民族成见和偏见如此普遍，有时让人感觉它们一直存在，其驱动力和动机已经存在[完第187页]一直都是相似的。然而，由于多种原因，揭开中世纪欧洲陈规定型观念的历史并不是一项简单的任务。如果我们假设现代民族身份与中世纪群体身份一一对应，并且所有使用相同白话的中世纪作家都具有相同的经验和概念，那么我们就会犯一个不合时宜的错误。因此，他者化的主题与前现代自我身份这一棘手问题相互关联。本书中的文章通过考虑不同历史类型的文本来探讨这些和其他相关的理论问题：编年史、编年史、历史、世界历史、传记传说、行政记录、歌曲和诗歌；大多数贡献集中于十世纪至十五世纪德国和波兰个人和社区对“他者”的刻板印象和看法。

在介绍性章节中，编辑们解释了本书的概念，介绍了该领域的现状，并为个别案例研究设定了理论背景（第 1-14 页）。为了创建一个比较平面，第一部分的作者探索了“中世纪欧洲的比较区域”，其中包括圣地、神圣罗马帝国、英格兰和波西米亚。克里斯汀·斯科特基 (Kristin Skottki) 审视了第一次十字军东征的编年史，讨论了宗教问题引发的超国家形式的相异性和身份建构（第 17-40 页）；Georg Jostkleigrewe 考虑了中世纪法德两国对“他者”的看法的两个案例（第 41-56 页）；伊莎贝尔·查瓦卡 (Isabelle Chwalka) 探讨了 12 世纪盎格鲁-诺曼和安茹文献中对神圣罗马帝国的看法，尤其是它与德国身份的关系（第 17 页）。57–80）；大卫·卡尔豪斯 (David Kalhous) 分析了波西米亚的拉丁语和白话史学资料中的Theutonici（第 81-97 页）。第二部分的三章探讨了德国人对波兰圣徒传记和史学资料的看法。安杰伊·普列什琴斯基 (Andrzej Pleszczyński) 在外国人加卢斯·无名氏 (Gallus Anonymous)、首位出生于波兰的历史学家文森特·卡德武贝克 (Vincent Kadłubek) 以及《马约里斯纪事报》( Chronica Poloniae Maioris)的一位明显反德的匿名作者(第 101-18 页)的作品中，将德国人和神圣罗马帝国的形象并置在一起。）；斯瓦沃米尔·加瓦拉斯（Sławomir Gawlas）审视了从第一部波兰编年史到年鉴中波兰精英对神圣罗马帝国及其多元化人民的看法Jan Długosz 的（第 119-66 页）；罗曼·米哈洛夫斯基（Roman Michałowski）专注于波兰作家撰写的关于波兰出生和外国圣人斯坦尼斯劳斯（Stanislaus）、阿达尔伯特（Adalbert）、金加（Kinga）、莎乐美（Salomea）和风信子（Hyacinth）的波兰圣徒文学（第167-82页）。第三部分包括五章讨论德国人对波兰人的看法。沃尔克·西奥尔指出，“波兰”和“波兰人”对于中世纪早期和晚期的法兰克-德国历史学家来说并没有发挥重要作用，除了梅泽堡的蒂特马尔（第 185-94 页）；诺伯特·克尔斯肯 (Norbert Kersken) 分析了中世纪晚期德国历史学家的作品，其中还包括在波西米亚写作的作家（第 195-226 页）；史蒂芬·弗莱米格 (Stephan Flemmig) 也得出了类似的结论：“对波兰的尊重程度很低……”