Rasa i rasizam u Evropi do početka 19. veka

Abstract

In the article the author differentiates between two main forms of racism, formed until the beginning of the 19th century: anti-Negroism and anti-Semitism. While anti-Negroism is understood as a phenomena sui generic oriented towards the preservation of the slave system and Negro-exploitation, anti-Semitism is seen as a more complex phenomena. As an idea, anti-Semitism was generated from two origins: medieval anti-Judaism and eighteenth century race theory. This idea of anti-Semitism was socially shaped by the Jew emancipation movement and the process of the nation building in the late 18th and early 19th century. Finally, social functions of anti-Semitism could be seen in the domain of 'national hygiene' of European states, fighting against the 'dirt' from outside (other European states and nations) and from inside as well (Jews, national minorities). In the mentioned period anti-Semitism was still reactive and served as an obstacle to the Jew emancipation in European states. But its destructive potentials were already created and would be woke up during the 19th century, after the first successes of the Jew emancipation movement and in time when nationalist politics in European monarchies exterminated the ideas of French revolution. Beginning (in the late 18th and early 19th century) as a special form of racism, anti-Semitism in its mature phase became a part of European nationalisms (second half of the 19th and early 20th century) and ended in racial nationalism of the German Third Reich (in the first half of the 20th century).