Oldal 79 [79]
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Dagnostaw Demski
the fact that the former pretended not to be images and the latter drew on humor¬
ous conventions” that formed an interpretation or a commentary rather than a
reality. To understand this distinction let us examine the illustrations, the first as a
type of serious (non-humorous) depiction and, then, humorous images of various
character and tone.
A typical picture presents the battle of Babina Glava””—and a landscape.”! The
representation seems realistic and is presumably based on the artist’s knowledge. We
do not object to what we see in it, unless we possess some knowledge of our own
regarding the event. Who is the “Other” in this picture? We cannot know that,
because there is no observable, intentional distortion of the image of either the op¬
posing sides, including the losing side. According to Peter Burke, the Crimean War
(1853-56) formed a subject of “artistic” correspondence of people, who were sent
to the battlefields by the newspapers, art dealers, and publishers (Burke 2012: 173).
Battle scenes and landscapes are among the motifs that were popular and common
at the end of the nineteenth century. Both themes were mediated by culture, al¬
though this mediation was not clear to the audience in these times and constructed
the Other in its own way. However, it remains beyond the scope of this paper to
elaborate on the former theme any further.
In contrast to the serious representations, striving to reach objectivity in the case
of the ethnic Others (such objectivity denotes the way of depicting alterity based on
knowledge, politics, and so on), humor is, as we see, an intentional tool of a nar¬
rated story. The common basis is formed by what receives attention. In serious rep¬
resentations it is a question of how they are perceived, but in the case of humor, the
construction of which is intentional and made aware to all, the focus is on the types
of Otherness that receive attention. What is significant is how and why they were
distorted, what particular features were ascribed to them, and how they were used.
In the ethnic humoristic representation, particular features associated with an
ethnic group, which can lead to the creation of stereotypes are at stake. The histori¬
cal and social contexts lie at the heart of the direction a stereotype takes—roughly
speaking, in order to solve the dilemma of whether to protect the in-group or open
up to the altered group.
This process of regulating the “distance” between two ethnic entities is based on
pretation. Description of the specific objects of reality had the task of triggering in the reader sensory
representations (i.¢., their images): the appearance of figures, objects, interiors, and landscapes (Sztan¬
dara 2006: 16)
'9 These threads are analyzed via other means. In Mitchell’s words, the image is the sign that pretends
not to be a sign, masquerading as (or, for the believer, actually achieving) natural immediacy and pres¬
ence (1994: 65).
20 The storming of the entrenchments of Babina Glava, Biesiada literacka, 1876.
2 The eminent art historian Thomas Mitchell linked the concept of landscape in painting with the
narratives of rising and falling empires, represented as a threefold process of emancipation, naturaliza¬
tion, and unification (1994: 12).