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No other symbol is as omnipresent in Poland as the cross. This multilayered and contradictory icon features prominently in public spaces and state institutions. It is anchored in the country's visual history, inspires protest culture, and dominates urban and rural landscapes. The cross recalls Poland's historic struggles for independence and anti-Communist dissent, but it also encapsulates the country's current position in Europe as a self-avowed bulwark of Christianity and a champion of conservative values. It is both a national symbol – defining the boundaries of Polishness in opposition to a changing constellation of the country's Others – and a key object of contestation in the creative arts and political culture. Despite its long history, the cross has never been systematically studied as a political symbol in its capacity to mobilize for action and solidify power structures. Cross Purposes is the first cultural history of the cross in modern Poland, deconstructing this key symbol and exploring how it has been deployed in different political battles.
Civil War in Central Europe argues that Polish independence after the First World War was forged in the fires of the post-war conflicts which should be collectively referred to as the Central European Civil War (1918-1921). The ensuing violence forced those living in European border regions to decide on their national identity - German or Polish.
The thirteen authors of this collective work undertook to articulate matter-of-fact critiques of the dominant narrative about communism in Poland while offering new analyses of the concept, and also examining the manifestations of anticommunism. Approaching communist ideas and practices, programs and their implementations, as an inseparable whole, they examine the issues of emancipation, upward social mobility, and changes in the cultural canon. The authors refuse to treat communism in Poland in simplistic categories of totalitarianism, absolute evil and Soviet colonization, and similarly refuse to equate communism and fascism. Nor do they adopt the neoliberal view of communism as a project ...
Post-war Lower Silesia was intended by the communists to be a "laboratory of socialism". Hence, they developed and pursued a special policy towards the Catholic Church. The book highlights the specificity of the pastoral ministry provided by the successive rulers of the Church in Wrocław (Karol Milik, Kazimierz Lagosz, Cardinal Bolesław Kominek) in the realities of the communist state. It shows the role of Cardinal Kominek who was persecuted for his attitude towards communists, his activity in the Polish Episcopate and in the forum of the universal Church. Moreover, it presents the system of repression aimed at diocesan clergy and religious orders and limiting theological education. With the objective of secularising the Lower Silesian society, the communists put emphasis on promoting their ideology, especially among the young generation. The Church responded with speeches by hierarchs condemning these activities and with pastoral initiatives to slow down the process.
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Jesus instructed his followers to "love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you" (Luke 6:27-28). Not only has this theme long been among the Church's most oft-repeated messages, but in everything from sermons to articles in the Catholic press, it has been consistently emphasized that the commandment extends to all humanity. Yet, on numerous occasions in the twentieth century, Catholics have established alliances with nationalist groups promoting ethnic exclusivity, anti-Semitism, and the use of any means necessary in an imagined "struggle for survival." While some might describe this as mere hypocrisy, Faith and Fatherland analy...
History and collective memories influence a nation, its culture, and institutions; hence, its domestic politics and foreign policy. That is the case in the Intermarium, the land between the Baltic and Black Seas in Eastern Europe. The area is the last unabashed rampart of Western Civilization in the East, and a point of convergence of disparate cultures. Marek Jan Chodakiewicz focuses on the Intermarium for several reasons. Most importantly because, as the inheritor of the freedom and rights stemming from the legacy of the Polish-Lithuanian/Ruthenian Commonwealth, it is culturally and ideologically compatible with American national interests. It is also a gateway to both East and West. Since...
This handbook is the first to explore the growing field of experimental semantics and pragmatics. In the past 20 years, experimental data has become a major source of evidence for building theories of language meaning and use, encompassing a wide range of topics and methods. Following an introduction from the editors, the chapters in this volume offer an up-to-date account of research in the field spanning 31 different topics, including scalar implicatures, presuppositions, counterfactuals, quantification, metaphor, prosody, and politeness, as well as exploring how and why a particular experimental method is suitable for addressing a given theoretical debate. The volume's forward-looking approach also seeks to actively identify questions and methods that could be fruitfully combined in future experimental research. Written in a clear and accessible style, this handbook will appeal to students and scholars from advanced undergraduate level upwards in a range of fields, including semantics and pragmatics, philosophy of language, psycholinguistics, computational linguistics, cognitive science, and neuroscience.
The stance taken by the Catholic Church in occupied Europe during World War II remains a significant focal point of historical research. In the last ten years we have been confronted with a resurgence of the so-called 'Pius-war', the frequently emotional polemic surrounding the justification or absence thereof of the role of Pope Pius XII, the head of the Catholic Church at the time. The work presented here, however, focuses on the role of the local churches rather than that of the Pope and the Vatican. Its goal is to shed light more specifically on the position maintained by the Catholic bishops, clergy and faithful in a variety of European countries under occupation throughout the war. The...