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The subject of this book is the economic backwardness of Poland and Eastern Europe in the modern era. The studies in the first part analyse various aspects of the region's economic and social history in the period from the 16th to the 20th centuries, such as the nature of peasant economics, the character of economic evolution, and the ambiguity of social and economic relations between Poland and "the West". The second part deals with the change following the fall of state socialism. Papers in this part argue that, for understanding the present, it is necessary to take into consideration historical legacies. It is also important to look at the process of this recent change comparatively, both within Eastern Europe and comparing this region with other parts of the world. Professor Kochanowicz's contention in these essays is that the so-called transformation has had to cope not only with the effects of state socialism, but also with a much longer legacy of backwardness.
In the second half of the sixteenth century, Scottish immigrants to Little Poland became a visible ethnic minority in numerous towns of that province and particularly in its capital, Cracow. This is the first study to examine this urbanized immigration in the period until the 1660s, when Poland–Lithuania, devastated by the mid-century Swedish invasion, was no longer an attractive migrant destination. From around the 1570s, affluent Scottish merchants developed intense commercial relations in central Europe, while peddlers of that nationality distributed so-called ‘Scotch goods’ at local markets. The majority of Scots participated in the life of local Evangelical congregations and suffered religious persecutions together with their co-religionists. This prompted their collaboration with the Swedish occupants against their Catholic neighbors.
The volume explores the stone carved shrines for the scrolls of the Mosaic Law from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth century synagogues in the former Polish Kingdom. Created on the margin of mainstream art and at a crossroad of diverse cultures, artistic traditions, aesthetic attitudes and languages, these indoor architectural structures have hitherto not been the subject of a monographic study. Revisiting and integrating multiple sources, the author re-evaluates the relationship of the Jewish culture in Renaissance Poland with the medieval Jewish heritage, sepulchral art of the Polish court and nobles, and earlier adaptations of the Christian revival of classical antiquity by Italian Jews. The book uncovers the evolution of artistic patronage, aesthetics, expressions of identities, and emerging visions among a religious minority on the cusp of the modern age.
Every epoch has its artists, thinkers, and creators, and behind many of these people, there is a patron waiting in the wings. Patronage and Humanist Literature in the Age of the Jagiellons looks at the relationship between humanist scholars and their patrons in east central Europe during the early sixteenth century. It is the first study in English specifically to address literary patronage as it existed in this particular time and place. Drawing on the writings of three itinerant scholar-poets associated with the courts of Cracow, Buda, and Vienna, Jacqueline Glomski argues that, even while they supported the imperial pretensions of the Jagiellonian monarchs, the humanist scholars of east c...
The period of the baroque (late sixteenth to mid-eighteenth centuries) saw extensive reconfiguration of European cities and their public spaces. Yet, this transformation cannot be limited merely to signifying a style of art, architecture, and decor. Rather, the dynamism, emotionality, and potential for grandeur that were inherent in the baroque style developed in close interaction with the need and desire of post-Reformation Europeans to find visual expression for the new political, confessional, and societal realities. Highly illustrated, this volume examines these complex interrelationships among architecture and art, power, religion, and society from a wide range of viewpoints and localities. From Krakow to Madrid and from Naples to Dresden, cities were reconfigured visually as well as politically and socially. Power, in both its political and architectural guises, had to be negotiated among constituents ranging from monarchs and high churchmen to ordinary citizens. Within this process, both rulers and ruled were transformed: Europe left behind the last vestiges of the medieval and arrived on the threshold of the modern.
The relationship between Germans and their non-German counterparts in Central and East Europe has been a fundamental feature of European History. The twelve essays in this volume address key aspects of this complex and multifaceted relationship which has been marked by friendship and cooperation as well as enmity and strife. The topics range from medieval peasant settlement to present-day relations between Germans and Poles. Central themes are national identity, the emergence and development of mixed communities and inter-cultural communication.
This new edition of Korea Briefing provides a timely analysis of the evolving relationship between South and North Korea. In June 2000, after years of ignoring the South Korean government, the North Korean leader Kim Jong II finally agreed to a summit meeting with South Korea's President Kim Dae Jung. As a sign of reconciliation, the summit meeting has prompted Korea and its neighbors to rethink the assumptions of the Cold War era. With contributions by a multi-national panel of Koreanexperts, the book discusses a wide range of topics, including South Korean politics and economy; Korea's relations with its neighbors and with the United States; recent changes in North Korea; the fate of North Korean defectors; and lessons in German reunification for the two Koreas. The discussions are supplemented by a glossary, a chronology of events occurring from June 1999 to June 2001, and a bibliography.
A study of national identity in Royal Prussia - the 'other Prussia', part of the Polish state from 1454 to 1793.
Peasant rebellions are uncommon. "Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance" explores peasants' foot dragging, feigned ingorance, false compliance, manipulation, flight, slander, theft, arson, sabotage, and similar prosaic forms of struggle. These kinds of resistance stop well short of collective defiance, a strategy usually suicidal for the subordinate. The central argument about peasant resistance is presented in the opening chapter by James Scott in which he summarizes and extends the thesis of his book on Malaysia's peasantry, "Weapons of the Weak". Scott's ideas are employed and refined in the ensuing seven country studies of peasant resistance: Poland, India, Egypt, Colombia, China, Nicaragua and Zimbabwe.