Cultural Identity of Citizens of Gdańsk from an Ethnolinguistic Per-spective on the Basis of Chosen Texts of the Free City of Danzig
Cultural Identity of Citizens of Gdańsk from an Ethnolinguistic Per-spective on the Basis of Chosen Texts of the Free City of Danzig

Summary/Abstract: As a consequence of the First World War and in the wake of the Treaty of Versailles the Free City of Danzig was established. The image of Danzig identity was created, first of all, by the following ethnic groups: German, Polish and Jewish. Was the Free City of Danzig multicultural or was it German with Polish and Jewish minorities? Did those nationalities live beside each other, did they together, as citizens of Danzig, create a common reality? Is it possible to talk about a uniform culture/identity of Danzig? The aim of this article is an analysis of linguistic image of the world of the citizens of the Free City of Danzig, which has been carried out on the basis of characteristics of the image of relations and cultural differences in the interpretation of Polish community. Yet, the whole image of identity consists of a mosaic of smaller interpretations which, only after being reduced to the lowest common denominator, may give the holistic image of Danzig identity as an image of a common multiple subjectivity. Mutual perception of nationalities inhabiting the area of the Free City of Danzig is the starting point for the discussion on their identity and an attempt to answer the question: did the citizens of Danzig see themselves as one community – exactly the one of Danzig? The analysed research material consists of chosen texts of the local press (in Polish and occasionally in German) concerning socio-cultural and political and informative issues. The Polish Gazeta Gdańska had been published since 1891 as the first Polish Danzig newspaper in Polish. Its first aim was to integrate Polish circles and to defend the rights of the Polish. Danziger Neuesten Nachrichten, published since 1894, was the biggest Danzig conservative newspaper in German which influenced public opinion. In the analysis of the linguistic image of Danzig identities I will consider first of all the following scientific issues after Bartmiński (2007: 20): a) the way of defining common identity i.e. “who we are” – autostereotypes; b) the ways of linguistic perception and definition of the others i.e. “who they are” – heterostereotypes; c) the ways of conceptualization of space and ‘our place in the world’ and the common time in which we live.

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