„… and Freedom Lives in Poland No More…”: An Examination of the Cultural Meaning of the Concepts Concerning Poland in the Eighteenth-Century Dutch Press
The article analyzes the nomenclature concerning Poland and Poles in the Dutch seventeenth century press. The author draws attention to the Dutch feeling of cultural, political, religious, and social superiority over Poles (antitheses: enlightened West — barbarian East, free Netherlands — enslaved Poland, rhetorical conflict: Protestants — Catholics, educated West — uneducated East. This image tells us more about the Dutch than about Poles; it reveals the Dutch pretense to having a global mission of propagating the ideals of the Enlightenment, the country’s national complexes and its troubled relations with other nations.
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