The Picture of Czech Society as Constructed by the Hungarian Community of Foreigners

Abstract

The following text discusses the origin and the form of the picture of majority Czech society which is constituted by the Hungarian minority in Czech Republic. The Hungarian ethnic minority consists of several different groups with different structures. This article is based on the wave of migration from Hungary after 1992, the specific position of the minority within the Czech majority and their adaptation strategies. The first part discusses theories of picture and ethnic stereotypes, mainly the theories of Walter Lippmann (“Stereotypes” and “Pictures in our heads”) and Bedřich Loewenstein (dividing of the world into “us” and “them”). The article then introduces the theories of the truthful viewing of ethnic pictures (M. Moravcová), of the historical base of ethnic pictures (E. Krekovičová) and of the two kinds of ethnic pictures, i.e. authentic and vicarious (V. Todorov, Z. Urban). In the main part, the article is focused on the role of stereotypes in the process of constituting ethnic pictures, on its different forms and modifications in the process of individual adaptation, on who constitutes ethnic pictures in the Czech Republic and on the reasons of its deformity caused by this creation. This issue is resolved by the example of field research among the Hungarian minority in the Czech Republic.