Felietony Josepha Rotha jako przykład sprzeciwu wobec orientalizacji galicyjskiego miasteczka

The author describes the evolving perception of small towns (shtetls) in Galicia, a historical and geographical region in Central and Eastern Europe, in German-language prose and journalistic texts. He focuses on 19th-century and 20th-century reportages, travel diaries and letters whose authors (Heine, Metternich and Döblin) saw Galicia as Halb-Asien (half-Asia), an oriental region on the outskirts of the civilised world. It was only Joseph Roth who in his columns and essays began to present Galicia as a place of allure rather than that ridden with dirt, mud and lack of culture, as it was frequently described by authors who treated their peregrinations to the East as a civilising mission, orientalising eastern towns in a manner similar to Edward Said’s depictions of Asia. To paraphrase Larry Wolff, they joined the trend of ‘inventing Eastern Europe’ despite the fact that the latter had existed long before them. Born in this part of the world, Roth’s perspective was wider than that of the newcomers from the West. His Galicia was bittersweet and therefore real. Given its culture, population of mixed multiethnic backgrounds and beauty frequently imperceptible at first glance, it required to be comprehended and given a reliable account of rather than being civilised.