black legend

Etymology
Genericized use of, a calque from coined by Julián Juderías in his 1914 book . The Spanish term is in turn likely a calque of, an expression by Arthur Lévy in his 1893 book Napoléon intime.

Noun

 * 1) Historiographical phenomenon in which a sustained trend in historical writing of biased reporting and introduction of fabricated, exaggerated and/or decontextualized facts is directed against particular persons, nations or institutions with the intention of creating a distorted and uniquely inhuman image of them.

Translations

 * Finnish: musta legenda
 * French: légende noire
 * Polish: czarna legenda
 * Spanish: