() is a derogatory term used in Spain to refer to a Catalan person. Its etymological origins are uncertain, and all existing theories are speculative, usually based on the fact that the same word also refers non-derogatorily to Polish people. The term is primarily used in Madrid and the regions bordering Catalonia. Although rarely found in literature, it is common in colloquial speech, particularly during sporting events. Within Catalonia, the term has been reclaimed in some contexts, used without its derogatory connotations to differentiate Catalans from other Spaniards. The term is generally unknown in Poland.
Antecedents
Historically the term has been twice used in Spanish as an abuse or smear. In the late 18th century, the name was applied to followers of one of two Madrid drama schools; in theatrical auditoria they used to trade insults with a competitive group, named . The name allegedly stemmed from a cleric known as Padre Polaco, who used to lead his band.Manuel García de Villanueva, Origen, épocas y progresos del teatro español: discurso historico al que acompaña un resumen de los espectaculos y un compendio de la historia general de los teatros hasta la era presente, Madrid 1802, p. 314 Both groupings were revived almost a century later with Luis Mariano de Larra's popular zarzuela (1876);La Vanguardia 10.01.1994, available here, also Chorizos y polacos, [in:] Zarzuelerías service, 18.01.2016, available here the title immortalized both names, though there is no indication that they were used beyond the theatrical realm or had anything to do with Catalonia.see e.g. the term "polacos" in the Spanish press of the 1930s at the Spanish national hemeroteca, available here Once more the term emerged against an entirely different background in the mid-1850s; the name was applied to a faction of Partido Moderado. The grouping was led by Luis José Sartorius, a politician erroneously supposed to be of Polish origin.Barbara Obtułowicz, Luis Jose Sartotius, hrabia de San Luip. Polak, który nie był Polakiem, Kraków 2012, , Barbara Obtułowicz, Luís José Sartorius, conde de San Luís: leyenda y realidad, [in:] Intinerarios 15 (2012), pp. 279-303 Because of the way the group operated, the terms , and soon began to denote favoritism, cronyism and arbitrary personal decisions; the term denoted a member of a clientelist political network.see e.g. the phrase "polaco de última hora y de última extracción", standing for a new member of a clientelistic political network, La Vanguardia 10.11.1884, available here The name disappeared from public usage following Sartorius' death, yet it enjoyed temporary revival in the 1880ssee e.g. the use of "polacada" in La Vanguardia of the 1880s, available here and made it from the press to literature appearing in Benito Pérez Galdós 1888 novel Miau.detailed analysis in Jadwiga Konieczna-Twardzikowska, Los polacos en Miau. Problema de la traducción del estereotipo, [in:] Actas del quinto congreso internacional de estudios Galdosianos, Las Palmas 1992, , pp. 209-213 The term has barely survived to the present day in Spanish and is defined in dictionaries as "an act of favoritism";polacada, [in:] Diccionario de la lengua española online, available here when denoting a crony, the word disappeared entirely.
One more episode of Poland-related naming practice occurred during the lifetime of the First Spanish Republic. Few liberal politicians dubbed Spain "Poland of the South"; the term was by no means derogatory and it was supposed to suggest that like Poland in the late 18th century, Spain faced the threat of a foreign reactionary intervention. The name was not in any way related to Catalonia. It was adopted only among a small circle of liberal intellectuals and used in the 1870s. The term did not survive as a commonly used reference.Juan Fernández-Mayoralas Palomeque, La Polonia del mediodía. Un tópico polaco en la historia española, [in:] Hispania: Revista española de historia 62/210 (2002), pp. 167-220
Origins
Origins of the anti-Catalan usage of are obscure."academics are divided over why it became used to describe Catalan as foreign", Raphael Minder, The Struggle for Catalonia: Rebel Politics in Spain, Oxford 2017, , p. 39 The numerous theories striving to clarify the issue are purely speculative and can hardly be verified. The most far-reaching hypothesis claims that supposed 17th-century merchant relations between Catalonia and Poland proved fertile soil for growth of ethnic stereotypes.allegedly the Poles arriving in Catalonia were to call the Spaniards from the South "czarni" (blacks), the term reportedly adopted in Catalan as "xarnego". This in turn triggered a counter-abuse, with the Catalans dubbed "polacos". Alicía „polaca”, [in:] Alícies service, available here. A similar and perhaps related theory claims that in the old Andalusian dialect "to speak Polish" meant to speak incomprehensibly, to mumble, Carlos Marrodan, Jeździec polski, Molina Antonio Munoz, [in:] Gazeta Wyborcza 03.11.03, available here Another theory points to the 18th-century theatrical debate, though it provides no clue as to the Catalan link.La Vanguardia 10.01.1994, available here One more speculation regards Polish soldiers in Spain being confused with their Catalan allies; specifically some point to the War of Succession,Joan Avenallada, Viatge a l'origen dels insults, Badalona 2006, , p. 30 some to the Peninsular WarLa Vanguardia 23.11.1995, available here and some to the French intervention of 1823.La Vanguardia 17.08.2006, available here Another theory points to Sartorius' supposed Catalan cronies.Per què Polacs?, [in:] directe.cat service 11.09.2008, available here Some authors dwell upon perceived parallelism between the Polish independence movement of the late 19th century and the emergent CatalanEnric Prat de la Riba explicitly referred to the Polish case when teaching his Catalan compatriots the difference between a nation and a state, see El catalanismo mira hacia Polonia con admiración, [in:] Blog de Xavier Casals service, available here or Basquecompare e.g. the reasoning of a Basque nationalist of the late 19th century: "quedo ahora plenamente convencido de que no es Vd. español, sino bizcaino. Los polacos nunca se dirán rusos o alemanes, sino polaco", referred after Fernández-Mayoralas Palomeque 2002, p. 210 nationalisms. Divided between France and Spain, Catalonia – the theory goes – resembled Poland, the country divided between Germany, Austria and Russia.this logic was well alive as late as in the 1930s, see La Vanguardia 17.07.1931, available here Another version is that Catalan deputies to the Cortes were dubbed "Poles" because of their national exaltation.Sergi Mateo, ¿Por qué a los catalanes nos llaman polacos?, [in:] sergimateo service, available here Few suggest that the derogatory term was exported to Spain by the Prussians.La Vanguardia 23.11.1995, available here Others point to the Civil War period, when allegedly Nationalist soldiers on the Aragon front confused the Polish International Brigades volunteers with the Catalan Republican belligerents.Per què Polacs?, [in:] directe.cat service 11.09.2008, available here One more group of students claim that the victorious Nationalists pledged to wipe out Catalonia from the maps just like the Germans did in case of Poland in 1939.opinion of an anthropologist; Robert Costa Solé, Per què a Espanya anomenen 'polacos' els catalans?, [in:] sapiens.cat service, available here A fairly popular thesis, partially supported by evidence, is that the insult emerged during Francoismthe first recorded abusive anti-Catalan usage of the term "polacos" is noted by the Republican POWs in the Nationalist prison or labor camps, see Polonya - ¿Per què als catalans es diu ¨Polacs¨?, [in:] YouTube service, available here; for Catalans forced into Nationalist ranks see La Vanguardia 25.01.1994, available here as part of the barrack argot; the reference to Poland was casualby the same token the English single out the Dutch or the Greeks when noting "double Dutch" or that "it is all Greek to me" and the term was to stigmatize Catalan recruits as "alien".La Vanguardia 29.01.1994, available here, La Vanguardia 19.01.2002, available here, La Vanguardia 15.01.1994, available here There is a group of theories which do not refer to any point in time but bank on presumed similarities between the Catalans and the Poles, be it linguistic (perceived "slurping" sound of the language),"because of the alien, slurping sound of their language", Richard Fitzpatrick, El Clasico: Barcelona V Real Madrid: Football's Greatest Rivalry, London 2012, , p. 16, "sounded like Polacos", Kathryn A. Woolard, Singular and Plural: Ideologies of Linguistic Authority in 21st Century Catalonia, Oxford 2016, , p.129 religious (black Madonnas of Częstochowa and Montserrat)Sergi Mateo, ¿Por qué a los catalanes nos llaman polacos?, [in:] sergimateo service, available here; see also the 1939 poem of Carles Pi i Sunyer, titled Diàleg de les Verges Negres de Polònia i Catalunya, discussed e.g. in Olga Glondys, La Polonia cercana e idealizada de los exiliados republicanos catalanes, [in:] Studia Iberystyczne 8 (2009), pp. 423-436 or other (both nations are supposedly stingy).see e.g. the blog Polacos de Polonia, available here
Usage
While some derogatory terms for Catalans exist in modern Spanish, such as , and , none of them match the prevalence of .Avenalleda 2006, p. 39 Considered by some a classic form of anti-Catalan sentiment,Jaume Subirana, Barcelona ABC, Barcelona 2013, , p. 47 the term is undeniably derogatory, though its intent can range from mildly patronizing to ironic or overtly hostile.
The origin of the term is obscure. Any original meaning has been lost, with the word now firmly entrenched as a slur. While insults like or are frequently used in politically charged contexts against perceived Catalan separatists, has broader usage.
Geographically, the term can be heard throughout Spain, including regions far from Catalonia, such as Andalusia,Francisco Garrido, Cataluña y Andalucía, [in:] paralelo36andalusia service, available here though it remains especially common in Madrid. It is also frequently used in regions neighboring Catalonia, such as the Balearic Islands,La Vanguardia 25.06.1996, available here Valencia,see e.g. cries "fuera catalanes, polacos" ("get out Catalans, you poles"), quoted after Ferran Colom i Ortiz, Repertori d'actituds i normes d'ús lingüístic entre els estudiants de la ciutat de València, [in:] Llengua, societat i ensenyament, Valencia 2003, , p. 19 and Aragon.José R. Bada Panillo, El debat del català a l'Aragó (1983-1987), Calaceit 1990, , pp. 93, 94, 137, 138 In Aragon, it is frequently directed towards residents of La Franja, the Catalan-speaking border region.Artur Quintana i Font, Conferencia: Perspectives del catala a Arago, [in:] Ramon Sistac i Vicen, De fronteres i mil•lennis, Barcelona 2003, , p. 14
is primarily used in spoken Spanish, although it occasionally appears in writing, particularly on social media.for Twitter see here, for Facebook see here Though characteristic of informal speech, it is sometimes found in literature.Vícent de Melchor, Antonio Gala, ¿serbio?, [in:] El País 29.08.1994, available here The term is generally used in the plural form and is often directed at a Catalan audience, either directly or indirectly, such as during confrontations.