You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
A study of an exceptionally interesting primary source - the Henrykow Book - and of the local and regional world which that source reflected and helped shape. This volume mines the Henrykow Book for the information it provides about the social, political, religious, and literary contexts of medieval Europe.
This volume is one of scarce studies of religious literature of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth conducted by scholars from both Poland and Lithuania. What makes this endeavour important is mainly the will to overcome the frontiers and strains of the modern world that encourage exploring separateness instead of the realities of deep mutual interdependency. Łukasz Cybulski and Kristina Rutkovska analyse secular and religious writings of secular authors as well as those belonging to the clergy and religious orders. Their main interest lies in exploring the different genres of early modern Polish and Lithuanian sermons and novels, and in tracing this heritage to its social and literary context through the works' material presence in manuscript form and in print. Other papers in this volume give insights into the origins of vernacular translations of the Holy Scriptures and the controversies surrounding them, as well as into the written testimonies of religious devotion and conversions. The aim has been not only to confront different kinds of texts and experiences, but to situate this heritage in its social and confessional context.
Being Poland offers a unique analysis of the cultural developments that took place in Poland after World War One, a period marked by Poland's return to independence. Conceived to address the lack of critical scholarship on Poland's cultural restoration, Being Poland illuminates the continuities, paradoxes, and contradictions of Poland's modern and contemporary cultural practices, and challenges the narrative typically prescribed to Polish literature and film. Reflecting the radical changes, rifts, and restorations that swept through Poland in this period, Polish literature and film reveal a multitude of perspectives. Addressing romantic perceptions of the Polish immigrant, the politics of post-war cinema, poetry, and mass media, Being Poland is a comprehensive reference work written with the intention of exposing an international audience to the explosion of Polish literature and film that emerged in the twentieth century.
Polish contemporary literature is not a closed book to European and world readers. Those not involved professionally in the production or study of literature may well have heard of Stanisaw Lem, Witold Gombrowicz, Czesaw Miosz, Wisawa Szymborska or the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2018, Olga Tokarczuk. The situation is different with Polish literature of earlier periods, including the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novel. The works of Ignacy Krasicki, Micha Czajkowski, J'ozef Ignacy Kraszewski, Eliza Orzeszkowa, Maria Komornicka, Stefan Zeromski and Bolesaw Prus - the exception perhaps is Henryk Sienkiewicz, whose novels were translated into many languages - did not enter European circulation on any large scale and have rarely been included in comparative studies. Our book attempts to change this perspective and poses the question as to whether another - expanded and more inclusive - literary canon is possible.
This book sets out to present the Polish-Russian conflict the way the elite of Russian society saw it. One of its chief research topics is the interaction between Russian public opinion, the policy the Empire pursued on its uncompliant subjects, and the impact the Polish conflict had on the evolution of Russian political ideas and movements. A major issue it addresses is the reaction of Russian society, its diverse political factions and social and philosophical trends and their relationship to the Polish national movement, and the effect of the Polish question on their evolution. Research in numerous archives and manuscript collections in Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, played a fundamental role in the work for this book. This book was originally published in Polish as Fatalna sprawa: Kwestia polska w rosyjskiej mysli politycznej (Kraków: Arcana, 2000). It was awarded the Klio Prize, a prestigious Polish award for the best monograph on a historical subject. This English translation is an abridged version (about 1/3 of the book's original size).
The Red and the White: The Cinema of People's Poland takes a fascinating look at the history of post-war Polish cinema, and how it was affected by the political, social and cultural upheavals throughout the period 1947-89. This timely study re-evaluates the legacy of Socialist Realism, the representation of the war, cinematic portrayals of national myth and cultural history, literary adaptation and surrealism, and discourses of exile and national identity. Although paying particular reference to the work of Krzysztof Kieslowski and Andrzej Wajda, this book considers the contribution of a wide range of filmmakers, including Jerzy Skolimowski, Krzysztof Zanussi, Agnieska Holland, Andrzej Munk, Jerzy Kawalerowicz, Wojciech Has and Roman Polanski. The volume also includes unique primary archival research into the role of state-sponsored censorship, and coverage of Polish-Jewish representations in film. Among the many films discussed are A Generation, Eroica, Ashes and Diamonds, Family Life, The Promised Land, The Hour Glass Sanatorium, Hands Up!, Decalogue 8, Europa, Europa and The Double Life of Veronique.
This pioneering work offers a meticulous exploration of Scandinavian presence in Viking Age Poland. Unveiling the complexities and controversies of past research and delving into the nuances of reciprocal interactions between Western Slavic and Scandinavian populations as revealed through archaeology and medieval texts, the book casts genuinely new light on a previously overlooked part of the Viking world. In setting the stage for these investigations, the monograph traces the evolution of Viking and Old Norse studies in Poland. It covers the romanticisation of Norse culture and literature, the dark days of the Second World War when archaeology was strongly driven by violent ideologies, and ...