Next Year in Drohobych

2011 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 581-596 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen C. Underhill
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Central Element ◽  
Complex Phenomenon ◽  
Jewish Culture ◽  
Polish Jews ◽  
Polish Culture ◽  
Bruno Schulz

In Israeli director Yael Bartana’s 2007 film Mary Koszmary—meaning “Bad Dreams” or “Nightmares”—a young Polish politician delivers a resounding speech to an empty, crumbling, communist-era Stadion Dziesięciolecia in Warsaw. The speech, he says, is an appeal: “This is a call. . . . It is an appeal for life. We want three million Jews to return to Poland, to live with us again. We need you! Please come back!” This article considers the powerful and perhaps disturbing premise of these lines and explores their possible meanings in a contemporary Polish context. What can it mean for Poles and Polish culture to need Jews—and in particular, to need those Jews who can never return? The complex phenomenon of Jewish memory in Poland and Eastern Europe cannot be contained within specific, present-day borders—whether of geography or of academic discipline: similar dynamics to those Bartana has identified in Poland exist throughout the region. Thus, against the background of Bartana’s film, the article considers the growing phenomenon and importance of local Jewish festivals in Poland and present-day Ukraine, focusing in detail on two specific festivals: the annual festival “Encounters with Jewish Culture,” held in Chmielnik, Poland, and the biannual Bruno Schulz Festival in Drohobych, Ukraine. The analysis explores ways that the memory of Polish Jews—and more specifically the figure of the absent Polish Jew—can function as a central element in the construction of new, communal Polish and Ukrainian narratives since the fall of Communism.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nurit Yaari
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
The Political ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Jewish Culture ◽  
The Past ◽  
Future State ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
State Of Israel

This chapter examines the lack of continuous tradition of the art of the theatre in the history of Jewish culture. Theatre as art and institution was forbidden for Jews during most of their history, and although there were plays written in different times and places during the past centuries, no tradition of theatre evolved in Jewish culture until the middle of the nineteenth century. In view of this absence, the author discusses the genesis of Jewish theatre in Eastern Europe and in Eretz-Yisrael (The Land of Israel) since the late nineteenth century, encouraged by the Jewish Enlightenment movement, the emergence of Jewish nationalism, and the rebirth of Hebrew as a language of everyday life. Finally, the chapter traces the development of parallel strands of theatre that preceded the Israeli theatre and shadowed the emergence of the political infrastructure of the future State of Israel.

Before the Standing Stones: From Land Forms to Religious Attitudes and Monumentality

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joyce E. Salisbury
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Complex Phenomenon ◽  
Spiritual Beliefs ◽  
Religious Expression ◽  
Religious Attitudes ◽  
Religious Feeling ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Different Cultures ◽  
Over Time

Any study of great prehistoric monuments from standing stones to pyramids involves exploring people’s spiritual beliefs. There had to be some strong sense of awe to motivate people to do the kind of extraordinary work to erect such monuments, and in the ancient world, religion served as the greatest motivator. There are many ways to study religion, and each academic discipline uses its own methods, which in turn shape its conclusions. Anthropologists compare different religions to see how different cultures express their beliefs; sociologists look at the functions religions serve to maintain a social cohesiveness. Psychologists of religion might look at the way religious feelings are manifest in individuals, and theologians try to explore deep truths about the nature of God. All these approaches reveal some truths about this complex phenomenon we call religion and the results often seem like those of the proverbial blind men describing parts of an elephant while missing the glory of the whole. I, too, will focus on one small part of the religious experience—the feeling that lies at the heart of those who have felt the spiritual, and while there have been many disciplines that have studied this religious experience, from psychology to philosophy to sociology, my approach is historical. I will try to explore the nature of people’s religious expression over time, as they change and as they stay the same. What is this religious feeling? As we might expect, there are many different interpretations and analyses of the nature of the religious experience. It may mean the capacity of feeling at one with something larger than oneself, which is the definition of ‘mysticism’. It maymean a belief in—a faith in—a supernatural being. For the purposes of this chapter, however, I will simply accept the experience as a capacity humans have to feel awe and reverence (Bellah 2011). This enduring sense of awe—what has been famously called the idea of the holy (Otto 1950)—lies somewhere at the heart of all subsequent religious impulses.

scholarly journals Ciało mitu. Piłsudski Brunona Schulza

Schulz/Forum ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 35-46
Author(s):  
Eliza Kącka
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Carlyle ◽  
Edmund Burke ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
Creative Imagination ◽  
Polish Culture ◽  
Bruno Schulz ◽  
Individual Importance

The present paper focuses above all on a variant of the legend of Józef Piłsudski presented by Bruno Schulz in his literary works. It is definitely not the best known literary incarnation of the myth of Polish First Marshall, neither is it the most quoted one, like excerpts from  General Barcz by Józef Kaden-Bandrowski or from Jan Lechoń’s book of poetry Silver and Black [Srebrne i czarne]. Still, Schulz gives us a very interesting analysis of the formation of this legend, and we can find in it Schulz’s own approach and style. His views on the formation of this legend are in fact ahistorical, free of the specific context. When he writes that “unbelievable historic maturity was incarnated in this man,” he is closer to heroic narration rather than sociological analysis. It is not a coincidence then that Schulz’s sense of historic moment is intertwined with his understanding of myth and his literary mythology. The author of The Street of Crocodiles worked on his essay “How Legends Come Into Being” [Jak powstają legendy] when he was finishing “Spring,” which brings the two texts closer and gives a historical incentive for a parallel reading of both, which is also justified by their content. Schulz puts Piłsudski in his own symbolic domain and makes him an agent/actor of his own narration. The problem of his individual importance or eminence is confronted with the views of Thomas Carlyle and Edmund Burke. The aim of the paper’s author is not just a close reading of Schulz’s text, but juxtaposing it with a few other analyses of the phenomena of birth, rise, and death of the legend. Karol Irzykowski was one of the most clear-headed analysts of those processes and that is why his views are quoted in the fragments devoted to a “socio-cultural process” which he treated not as an esoteric phenomenon but as a conscious strategy of influencing people. A short analysis of the quotation from Piłsudski about the role of legends and the oppressiveness of the legendary discourse in Polish culture is also important. Piłsudski, who understood the vampirical character of legends, became a prisoner of Schulz’s creative imagination in his essay.

Inventing Galicia: Messianic Josephinism and the Recasting of Partitioned Poland

Slavic Review ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 818-840 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larry Wolff
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Jewish Population ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Civilizing Mission ◽  
Complex Relation ◽  
National Opera ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Polish Culture ◽  
Joseph Ii

In this article Larry Wolff considers the creation of Galicia in 1772 as an act of invention, the concoction of a brand-new geopolitical entity for the ideological legitimation of the Habsburg acquisitions in the first partition of Poland. Afterwards, especially under the auspices of Joseph II, Galicia was constructed both administratively and culturally, and the arbitrarily conceived province received form and meaning. The article considers published accounts of Galicia from the 1780s, mapping the province according to the perceived distinction between "Eastern Europe" and "Western Europe," defining its imperial relation to Vienna in terms of a civilizing mission, and articulating a perspective of Josephine messianism as the redemptive legitimation of Habsburg rule. This secular messianism was sometimes inspired by the notable religious presence of the Jewish population in the province. The article analyzes the affirmation of Galician political prerogatives in 1790 and the complex relation between Galician and Polish culture in the 1790s, focusing in particular on Wojciech Boguslawski and the L'viv production of his "national opera" Krakowiacy i Górale in 1796.

Place in Modern Jewish Culture and Society

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Cultural Landscapes ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Jewish Studies ◽  
Babylonian Talmud ◽  
Jewish Culture ◽  
German Jews ◽  
Jewish Experience ◽  
Production Of Culture

Notions of place have always permeated Jewish life and consciousness. The Babylonian Talmud was pitted against the Jerusalem Talmud; the worlds of Sepharad and Ashkenaz were viewed as two pillars of the Jewish experience; the diaspora was conceived as a wholly different experience from that of Eretz Israel; and Jews from Eastern Europe and “German Jews” were often seen as mirror opposites, whereas Jews under Islam were often characterized pejoratively, especially because of their allegedly uncultured surroundings. Place, or makom, is a strategic opportunity to explore the tensions that characterize Jewish culture in modernity, between the sacred and the secular, the local and the global, the historical and the virtual, Jewish culture and others. The plasticity of the term includes particular geographic places and their cultural landscapes, theological allusions, and an array of other symbolic relations between locus, location, and the production of culture. This volume includes twelve chapters that deal with various aspects of particular places, making each location a focal point for understanding Jewish life and culture. The text sheds light on the vicissitudes of the twentieth century in relation to place and Jewish culture. The chapters continue the ongoing discussion in this realm and provide further insights into the historiographical turn in Jewish studies.

Malarstwo i rzeźba Żydów polskich w XIXi XXwieku

2003 ◽  
pp. 518-521
Author(s):  
Jerzy Malinowski
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
Active Part ◽  
Jewish Culture ◽  
Jewish Origin ◽  
Jewish Art ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
Polish Jews ◽  
Polish Art

This chapter focuses on Jerzy Malinowski's Malarstwo i rzeźba Żydów polskich w XIX i XX wieku (The Painting and Sculpture of Polish Jews in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries). Among the men Jerzy Malinowski, an authority on Polish art and Polish Jewish culture, discusses are many unknown or virtually unknown artists. He begins his story in the mid-nineteenth century with the appearance of the first Polish artists of Jewish origin, of whom Aleksander Lesser was the most important. This was an easy decision, but other decisions made by the author are more difficult and more problematic. What exactly does he mean by Polish Jewish artists? More significant is the question of what Malinowski means by ‘Jewish artists’ and ‘Jewish art’. In his very brief introduction, he explains that he has included artists who identified themselves as belonging to the Jewish national camp, and artists who, even if they did not identify themselves in this way, took an active part in Jewish life. Those who qualify on neither of these grounds are branded as ‘assimilationists’ and omitted.

The Art of Cantorial Singing in the Polish Territories

2020 ◽  
pp. 45-62
Author(s):  
Bożena Muszkalska
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Southern Germany ◽  
Jewish Culture ◽  
East European ◽  
General Overview ◽  
Foreign Universities

This chapter gives a general overview of the development of cantorial singing in the Polish lands. It discusses eastern Europe as the youngest when it came to the traditions of synagogue music. It also explains how eastern Europe is rooted in the Middle East and its direct origins lie in the medieval traditions of the Ashkenazi community in southern Germany. The chapter focuses on Poland and its pre-partition borders that became an important centre of Jewish culture, and the art of hazanut. It discusses the east European hazanim that were characterized by great mobility, which was the result of their studying with a hazan who did not live locally, of their attending Polish or foreign universities, and of travelling long distances with their meshorerim.

Cabaret Nation

2019 ◽  
pp. 273-288
Author(s):  
Beth Holmgren
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Specific Form ◽  
Jewish Culture ◽  
The World ◽  
Polish Culture

Kabaret literacki—’literary cabaret’, a specific form of cabaret consisting of comedy sketches, monologues, and songs with satirical social and political content—was a revolutionary phenomenon in terms of Polish culture, Jewish culture, and notions of Polish national identity. It flourished mainly in Warsaw between the world wars —that is, in the capital of a newly independent nation that was also a great Jewish metropolis with a third of its residents identifying themselves as Jews or ‘of Jewish background’....

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