‘A bunch of wild, terrible, gloomy': The Formation of Negative Stereotypes of Russia in Germany in the Era of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648)

Abstract

The article deals with the problem of the appearance of the image of Russia in German baroque literature. Baroque literature, due to its specificity for depicting unfamiliar peoples, among which Russia was in the XVII century, offered only two poles — positive and negative. The stereotypes of Russia were largely associated with the idea of it as a wild and barbaric country, the image of which was intended to better known ourselves. Using as sources mainly not their own observations, but the already existing narrative, primarily the works of S. Herberstein and A. Olearius, German writers portrayed Russia and Russians in the image of the “Other” or even the “Enemy”.