Black legend

A "black legend" is a historiographic phenomenon suffered by either characters, nations or institutions, and characterized by the sustained trend in historical writing of biased reporting, introduction of fabricated, exaggerated and/or decontextualized facts, with the intention of creating a distorted and uniquely inhuman image of it, while hiding from view all its positive contributions to history.

The term was first used by Arthur Lévy in his work Napoleon Intime, in contrast to the expression "Golden Legend" that had been in circulation around Europe since the publication of the book of that name in the middle ages. In Napoleon Intime, Arthur Lévi writes

"However, if we study the life of the emperor properly, we will soon get rid of the legends, both the golden legend, and the legend that we may call the Napoleonic black legend. This is the truth: Napoleon was not a God, nor was he a monster"
— Arthur Lévy, Napoleon Intime

This description clearly sumarizes the essence of a black legend, which is often asociated to some Golden legend, even if that is not always the case.

A contemporary Historian, Alfredo Alvar, defined a black legend as:

"The careful distortion of the history of a nation, perpetrated by its enemies, in order to better fight it. And a distortion as monstrous as possible, with the goal of achieving a specific aim: the moral disqualification of the nation, whose supremacy must be fought in every way possible."^[1]
— Alfredo Alvar, La Leyenda Negra (1997:5)

The difference between a black legend and a negative national/personal image or stereotype is that a black legend is carefully and intentionally constructed and distributed by local powers or oligarchies, usually with support of local intellectuals and artists whose´s position or wealth depends on them, in order to generate hostility against the subject of such legend and consolidate their own power. A negative national stereotype, on the other hand, is espontaneous, not fabricated in origin.

A black legend tends to introduce real elements and facts in its construction, for example the Battle of Corinth-also known as the destruction of Corinth-in the case of Rome, or the sack of Rome in the case of Spain. The denunciation of the use of an event in a propagandistic way, or of its intermixing with fabrications, must not imply the justification of the event.

Black Legend in Empires

According to historian Elvira Roca Barea the formation of a Black Legend and its asimilation by the nation that suffers it is a phenomenon observed in all multicultural empires, not just on the Spanish Empire. The black legend of empires would be the result of the following combined factors:

The combined propagandistic attacks and efforts of most smaller powers of the time, as well as defeated rivals.
The propaganda created by the many rival power factions within the Empire itself against each other as part of their struggle to win more power.
The self criticism of the intellectual elite, which tends to be larger in larger Empires.
The need of the new powers consolidated during the Empire´s life or after its dissolution to justify their new prevalence and the new order. ^[2]

Common Elements of Black Legends

The defining features of a black legend is: been fabricated and propagated with reasonable degree of intentionality by intelectual groups. beyond that, they tend to share some elements.

Black Legends tend to share this elements.

Permanent decadence. Black legends tend to portray their subjects as being in a permanent estate of degeneration.
Degenerated or polluted version of something else: The subject is portrayed as a degenerated form of another, usually another civilization, nation, religion, race or person, who represents the true, pure and noble form of whatever the subject of the black legend should have been, and that tends to coincide with whomever is building the legend.
Accidentality of merit: Black legends tend to minimize the merits they can't fully erase or hide, by either portraying them as "mere luck", opportunism or, at best, as isolated qualities.
Obligatory moral actions: When a noble action by the subject can´t be denied, it is somehow presented as done out of self interest or out of necessity.
Natural moral inferiority and irredimible character. The black legend has a final tone in which no hope of improvement is given, for the defects have been there from the beginning and can´t be overcame due to, usually, moral weakness. It is usually shown by tales with:

Black Legend Narrations tend to include: Strong pathos, combined with a narrative that is easy to follow and emotionally loaded, created by:

Detailed, gruesome and morbus descriptions of torture and violence, which in many cases doesn't seem to serve practical purpose. (This descriptions tend to portray elements known to the history or literature of the person crafting it).
Sexual elements, either extreme sexual depravity or repression, or most often a combination of both.
Ignorance. Lack of intelectual refinement or independence.
Greed, materialism, accusations of disrespect for sacred, or very important institutions or moral rules.
A "theme", usually greed, cruelty, sadism or bigoty, that constructs a consistent character and remains stable through the legend, even if the specific "proofs" to support it may change or even become opposite to the initial ones.
Simplicity of elements, often repetition of the same anecdotes or scenarios with different variations. Motivations for actions are often offered, but they are either one single motivation or two, negative, clear cut, and constant.

^[3]

Allegued Black Legends

"The" Black Legend. The Spanish Black Legend

Even though "a black legend" is not just a Spanish phenomenon, the term "The Black Legend", (Spanish: La leyenda negra) has come to refer specifically to "The Spanish Black Legend" (Spanish: La leyenda negra española), a hypothesis according to which political propaganda from the 16th centuro -or earlier- about Spain, the Spanish Empire, and Hispano America, has been "absorbed and converted into broadly held stereotypes" that assumed that Spain was "uniquely evil." ^[4]. According to this hypothesis, the absortion of political propaganda and fabrications into mainstream academia, along with its use to cover up other inconvenient facts about other nations, has resulted in a systematical repetition of such bias and distortion of Spanish History a sperceived both in an out of the country. A common example of this would be the Spanish inquisition. This black legend would have the peculiarity, according to its proponents, of being particularly persistent due to the overlap of imperial, cultural and religious elements that are contending still today.

Russian Black Legend

There is an argument to be made about Russia suffering from a black legend of its own. Forgeries such as The Will of Peter the Great would be part. Lydia Black describes in her work "Russians in Alaska" what she considers part of the development of a Russian Black Legend.

The Roman Black Legend

Growing bodies of evidence have shown that many of what was "known" about Rome´s late days, regarding reports of moral decadence, sexual depravity, and excess-the stories about Romans making themselves vomit in order to keep eating- had little to no ground in reality. This elements all fit the model of a black legend, and can be the surviving remains of one who affected the Roman Empire during its life and fall, and that was reverted by Medieval authorities who needed the legacy of Rome to legitimize their power.

Anti- Americanism

Jean-François Revel, in his book L´Obsession Anti-ámericaine describes the treatment of USA in the press of various nations in terms that remember those of a black legend, even though he does not use the term. The existence of an anti-American black legend is very contested, but is a notion being discussed in some circles nevertheless.

^ ...cuidadosa distorsión de la historia de un pueblo, realizada por sus enemigos, para mejor combatirle. Y una distorsión lo más monstruosa posible, a fin de lograr el objetivo marcado: la descalificación moral de ese pueblo, cuya supremacía hay que combatir por todos los mediossine die.»
^ Roca Barea, María Elvira (2016). Imperiofobia y leyenda negra. Roma, Rusia, Estados Unidos y el Imperio español. Madrid: Siruela. ISBN 978-84-16854233.
^ Roca Barea, María Elvira (2016). Imperiofobia y leyenda negra. Rome, Rusia, Estados Unidos y el Imperio español. Madrid: Siruela. ISBN 978-84-16854233.
^ Maltby, William B. "The Black Legend" in Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture, vol. 1, pp. 346-348. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons 1996.

[1] ...cuidadosa distorsión de la historia de un pueblo, realizada por sus enemigos, para mejor combatirle. Y una distorsión lo más monstruosa posible, a fin de lograr el objetivo marcado: la descalificación moral de ese pueblo, cuya supremacía hay que combatir por todos los mediossine die.»

[2] Roca Barea, María Elvira (2016). Imperiofobia y leyenda negra. Roma, Rusia, Estados Unidos y el Imperio español. Madrid: Siruela. ISBN 978-84-16854233.

[3] Roca Barea, María Elvira (2016). Imperiofobia y leyenda negra. Rome, Rusia, Estados Unidos y el Imperio español. Madrid: Siruela. ISBN 978-84-16854233.

[4] Maltby, William B. "The Black Legend" in Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture, vol. 1, pp. 346-348. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons 1996.

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