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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.
The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1795) was once the largest country in Europe—a multicultural republic that was home to Belarusians, Germans, Jews, Lithuanians, Poles, Ruthenians, Tatars, Ukrainians, and other ethnic and religious groups. Although long since dissolved, the Commonwealth remains a rich resource for mythmakingin its descendent modern-day states, but also a source of contention between those with different understandings of its history.Multicultural Commonwealth brings together the expertise of world-renowned scholars in a range of disciplines to present perspectives on both the Commonwealth’s historical diversity and the memory of this diversity. With cutting-edge research on the intermeshed histories and memories of different ethnic and religious groups of the Commonwealth, this volume asks how various contemporary conceptions of multiculturalism can be applied to the region through a critical lens that also seeks to understand the past on its own terms.
This book tells the story of Berlin's dynamic klezmer scene, tracing the ongoing dialogue between traditional Yiddish folk music and the creativity and modern urbanity of the German capital. It reveals how contemporary klezmer has become not only a product but also a producer of the city.
Author Magdalena Waligorska offers not only a documentation of the klezmer revival in two of its European headquarters (Kraków and Berlin), but also an analysis of the Jewish / non-Jewish encounter it generates.
New essays by leading scholars examining today's vibrant and innovative German crime fiction, along with its historical background. Although George Bernard Shaw quipped that "the Germans lack talent for two things: revolution and crime novels," there is a long tradition of German crime fiction; it simply hasn't aligned itself with international trends. Duringthe 1920s, German-language writers dispensed with the detective and focused instead on criminals, a trend that did not take hold in other countries until after 1945, by which time Germany had gone on to produce antidetective novels that were similarly ahead of their time. German crime fiction has thus always been a curious case; rather t...
This book explores contemporary debates surrounding Poland’s 'war children', that is the young victims, participants and survivors of the Second World War. It focuses on the period after 2001, which saw the emergence of the two main political parties that were to dictate the tone of the politics of memory for more than a decade. The book shows that 2001 marked a caesura in Poland’s post-Communist history, as this was when the past took center stage in Polish political life. It argues that during this period a distinct culture of commemoration emerged in Poland – one that was not only governed by what the electorate wanted to hear and see, but also fueled by emotions.
Essays on the restoration and revival of Jewish sites in post-Holocaust, post-Communist Poland: “Highly recommended.” —Choice In a time of national introspection regarding the country’s involvement in the persecution of Jews, Poland has begun to reimagine spaces of and for Jewishness in the Polish landscape, not as a form of nostalgia but as a way to encourage the pluralization of contemporary society. The essays in this book explore issues of the restoration, restitution, memorializing, and tourism that have brought present inhabitants into contact with initiatives to revive Jewish sites. They reveal that an emergent Jewish presence in both urban and rural landscapes exists in confl...
Jewish Odesa: Negotiating Identities and Traditions in Contemporary Ukraine explores the rich Jewish history in Ukraine's port city of Odesa. Long considered both a uniquely cosmopolitan and Jewish place, Odesa's Jewish character has shifted since the Soviet Union collapsed and Ukraine gained its independence. Drawing on extensive field research, Marina Sapritsky-Nahum, examines how the role of Russian language and culture, memories of the Soviet political project, and Odesan's place in a Ukrainian national project have all been questioned in recent years. Jewish Odesa reveals how a city once famous for its progressive Jewish traditions has become dominated by Orthodox Judaism and framed by the agendas of international Jewish organizations embedded in a religiosity that is foreign to the city. Russia's war in Ukraine has forced Jewish identities with ties to Odesa to change still further.
How was the re-emerging Jewish religious practice after 1945 shaped by traditions before the Shoah? To what extent was it influenced by new inspirations through migration and new cultural contacts? By analysing objects like prayer books, musical instruments, Torah scrolls, audio documents and prayer rooms, this volume shows how the post-war communities created new Jewish musical, architectural and artistic forms while abiding by the tradition. This peer-reviewed volume presents contributions to the conference „Jewish communities in Germany in Transition", held in July 2021, as well as the results of a related research project carried out by two university institutions and two museums: the ...
This book explores and reveals the intricacies of Jewish heritage in contemporary Germany, the role it plays as a "moral heritage" in the symbolic representation of Jews and Judaism in the national landscape, and its relevance for the cultural sustainability of local Jewish communities. The practice of synagogue music in the past and present is a central case study in the discussions. This ethnographic study examines how Jewish liturgical music as the cultural heritage of minorities has been constructed, treated, discussed, appropriated, and passed on to different actors in different forms and for different purposes over time. It also examines the resulting moral and ethical questions and po...