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In the spring of 1898, thousands of peasants and townspeople in western Galicia rioted against their Jewish neighbors. Attacks took place in more than 400 communities in this northeastern province of the Habsburg Monarchy, in present-day Poland and Ukraine. Jewish-owned homes and businesses were ransacked and looted, and Jews were assaulted, threatened, and humiliated, though not killed. Emperor Franz Joseph signed off on a state of emergency in thirty-three counties and declared martial law in two. Over five thousand individuals—peasants, day-laborers, city council members, teachers, shopkeepers—were charged with myriad offenses. Seeking to make sense of this violence and its aftermath,...
This innovative collection of essays on the upsurge of antisemitism across Europe in the decades around 1900 shifts the focus away from intellectuals and well-known incidents to less-familiar events, actors, and locations, including smaller towns and villages. This "from below" perspective offers a new look at a much-studied phenomenon: essays link provincial violence and antisemitic politics with regional, state, and even transnational trends. Featuring a diverse array of geographies that include Great Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, Romania, Italy, Greece, and the Russian Empire, the book demonstrates the complex interplay of many factors--economic, religious, political, and personal--that led people to attack their Jewish neighbors.
"This fine collection on competing political loyalties in the late Habsburg Monarchy is framed by clear research questions.The dynasty faced formidable competitors in its own crownlands, cities and villages. [This volume] presents this competition in vibrant and varied case studies. From it readers will take a sampling of some of the best recent scholarship on the Habsburg Monarchy." - Slavonic and East European Review "Any future discussion on the last years of the Habsburg Monarchy's political history should build on this collection's significant achievements whether the point of departure is the monarchy's ultimate failure or a decidedly a-teleological perspective...It is not a book that ...
This book examines the promotion and reception of the image of Franz Joseph (Habsburg emperor from 1848 to 1916) as a symbol of common identity in the Austrian half of the Habsburg Monarchy (Cisleithania). In the second half of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century the promotion of the cult of the emperor encouraged a Cisleithania-wide culture of imperial celebration. On Franz Joseph's birthdays and jubilees, cities produced special theater productions, torchlight parades, and ethnic/historical processions. Thousands of voluntary associations sponsored local festivities. Hundreds of thousands of villagers and townspeople set transparent portraits of Franz Jose...
This work explores how colonial India imagined human and divine figures to battle the nature and locus of sovereignty.
From the 1880s to the 1940s, an upsurge of explosive pogroms caused much pain and suffering across the eastern borderlands of Europe. Rioters attacked Jewish property and caused physical harm to women and children. During World War I and the Russian Civil War, pogrom violence turned into full-blown military actions. In some cases, pogroms wiped out of existence entire Jewish communities. More generally, they were part of a larger story of destruction, ethnic purification, and coexistence that played out in the region over a span of some six decades. Pogroms: A Documentary History surveys the complex history of anti-Jewish violence by bringing together archival and published sources--many appearing for the first time in English translation. The documents assembled here include eyewitness testimony, oral histories, diary excerpts, literary works, trial records, and press coverage. They also include memos and field reports authored by army officials, investigative commissions, humanitarian organizations, and government officials. This landmark volume and its distinguished roster of scholars provides an unprecedented view of the history of pogroms.
Journalists and policy-makers in the West have often assumed that the religious and ethno-national heterogeneity of the Balkans is the underlying reason for the numerous problems the area has faced throughout the twentieth century. The multiple and turbulent political transitions in the area, the dynamics of the interaction between Christianity and Islam, the contradictory and constantly shifting nationality policies, and the fluctuating identities of the diverse populations continue to be seen as major challenges to the stability of the region. By exploring the development of intricate religious, linguistic, and national dynamics in a variety of case studies throughout the Balkans, this vol...
"This book offers a short, spirited defense of rhetoric and the liberal arts as catalysts for precision, invention, and empathy in today's world. The author, a professor of Shakespeare studies at a liberal arts college and a parent of school-age children, argues that high-stakes testing and a culture of assessment have altered how and what students are taught, as courses across the arts, humanities, and sciences increasingly are set aside to make room for joyless, mechanical reading and math instruction. Students have been robbed of a complete education, their imaginations stunted by this myopic focus on bare literacy and numeracy. Education is about thinking, Newstok argues, rather than the...
Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady (1745-1812), in imperial Russia, was the founder and first rebbe of Chabad, a branch of Hasidic Judaism that flourishes to the present day. The Chabad-Lubavitch movement he founded in the region now known as Belarus played, and continues to play, an important part in the modernization processes and postwar revitalization of Orthodox Jewry. Drawing on historical source materials that include Shneur Zalman's own works and correspondence, as well as documents concerning his imprisonment and interrogation by the Russian authorities, Etkes focuses on Zalman's performance as a Hasidic leader, his unique personal qualities and achievements, and the role he played in the conflict between Hasidim and its opponents. In addition, Etkes draws a vivid picture of the entire generation that came under Rabbi Shneur Zalman's influence. This comprehensive biography will appeal to scholars and students of the history of Hasidism, East European Jewry, and Jewish spirituality.
Teaching the Empire explores how Habsburg Austria utilized education to cultivate the patriotism of its people. Public schools have been a tool for patriotic development in Europe and the United States since their creation in the nineteenth century. On a basic level, this civic education taught children about their state while also articulating the common myths, heroes, and ideas that could bind society together. For the most part historians have focused on the development of civic education in nation-states like Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. There has been an assumption that the multinational Habsburg Monarchy did not, or could not, use their public schools for this purpose. Teac...