Stereotypes about Russia in discourse of Spanish diplomats in the second half of the 18th century

he article is devoted to Russia’s image as seen by Spaniards in the second half of the 18th century. It was a period characterized by the intensification of Russian-Spanish relations in trade and the expansion of both countries in North America. It was at this time that the amount of information about Russia coming to Spain grew. The article aims to describe the stereotypes about the Russian state based on diplomatic reports of Spanish envoys written in the second half of the 18th century. Particular attention is paid to the discourse analysis of diplomatic documents, which revealed the linguistic means used by diplomats that contributed to the stereotyping and fixing a certain image of the so called «other» country. It is concluded that Spanish diplomats tended to exaggerate and generalize characteristics of the Russian Empire that were negative from their point of view, for example, individual cases of corruption in the fur trade. At the same time, a positive assessment was given to some trade and economic relations between the countries, potentially bringing benefits. Based on a comparison with earlier sources on Russia, it is concluded that Spanish diplomats repeated already existing stereotypical views regarding Russia. Russia was presented as a state with a large territory, a despotic nature of government, plans for territorial expansion, while possessing significant natural resources. The article has been written in line with the problems of historical imagology based on a wide range of sources from the Spanish national archives using the methodological tools of historical and linguistic sciences.