Introduction

Author(s):  
Antony Polonsky

This introductory chapter briefly explores Jewish life and Polish nationhood within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth up until the Second World War. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dual state, created in 1569 by the union of the kingdom of Poland with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It was extremely heterogeneous in character. The history of Poland–Lithuania throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries raised the questions of who was a Pole and what should be the boundaries of the future Polish state. For the Polish political élite, there was no question that the goal was the reconstitution of the country within its 1772 frontiers. This created a new interest in documenting the ‘Polishness’ of the borderlands (kresy) of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Author(s):  
Ivan Rodionov

The article analyzes the activities of the Ostrogorski Centre as one of the most active Belarusian organizations in the UK nowadays. The research is based on the analysis of the publications taken from The Journal of Byelorus-sian Studies and the course «The Grand Duchy of Lithuania in European and Belarusian History» offered by Ostrogorski Academy. The history of the Journal of Byelorussian Studies dates back to the mid-1960s. The journal was initiated by the Anglo-Belarusian Society. The first issue of the Yearbook was published in 1965. The journal as a whole tended towards a philological (linguistic) orientation. The General theme of articles on histori-cal Belarusian topics in the journal was firstly of random, fragmentary charac-ter, without a common editorial purpose and the philosophy of the journal his-torical issues: for example, the description of individual issues of «Nasha Niva» newspaper is replaced by articles about the role of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the daily life of the nobles, presented in memoirs, the influence of Belarus-ian masters on Moscow architecture, etc. In the majority of the thematically «scattered» historical publications, one line clearly emerges –the national one. The journal was published again in 2013 due to the joint efforts of Os-trogorski Centre and the Anglo-Belarusian Society. It has acquired a more sci-entific structure. It publishes articles on Belarusian literature, linguistics, inter-national relations, civil society, history and art, as well as book reviews, which emphasizes its scientific component. The modern version of the journalcontains a larger number of articles on historical topics in comparison with the publica-tion of the second half of the 20th century. Publications of the modern journal deal with such topics as the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the early Soviet period of the 1920–30s and belarusization, Western Belarus as a part of Poland, the period of the Second World War, Stalinism, personalities, etc.


Author(s):  
Antony Polonsky

This introductory chapter provides an overview of how Poland was one of the principal areas where the Nazis attempted to carry out their planned genocide of European Jewry. It was there that the major death camps were established and that Jews were brought from all over Nazi-occupied Europe to be gassed, above all in Auschwitz, where at least 1 million lost their lives in this way. There is no more controversial topic in the history of the Jews in Poland than the question of the degree of responsibility borne by Polish society for the fact that such a small proportion of Polish Jewry escaped the Nazi mass murderers. The primary responsibility clearly lies with the Nazis. However, the recognition of the primary role of the Germans in the genocide has not prevented bitter arguments over Polish behaviour during the Second World War. Jews have harshly criticized what they see as Polish indifference to the fate of the Jews and the willingness of a minority to aid the Nazis or to take advantage of the new conditions to profit at Jewish expense.


Author(s):  
Jane Brooks

The introduction contextualises the Second World War and the position of nurses within it. It argues that the developments in weapons’ manufacture and transport technologies created a war in which mass killing and maiming could be achieved across the globe. The injuries and diseases caused by the mobility of troops and modern weaponry demanded a highly responsive medical service close to the action. This introductory chapter therefore provides a frame for the book within the historiography of wartime medical services, women’s participation in war and that of nurses more specifically. Negotiating Nursing uses written and oral testimony to explore the work and experiences of nurses on active service overseas. The introduction examines the nature of the sources and the value of personal testimony to the history of Second World War military nursing.


2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-93
Author(s):  
Jessica Moberg

Immediately after the Second World War Sweden was struck by a wave of sightings of strange flying objects. In some cases these mass sightings resulted in panic, particularly after authorities failed to identify them. Decades later, these phenomena were interpreted by two members of the Swedish UFO movement, Erland Sandqvist and Gösta Rehn, as alien spaceships, or UFOs. Rehn argued that ‘[t]here is nothing so dramatic in the Swedish history of UFOs as this invasion of alien fly-things’ (Rehn 1969: 50). In this article the interpretation of such sightings proposed by these authors, namely that we are visited by extraterrestrials from outer space, is approached from the perspective of myth theory. According to this mythical theme, not only are we are not alone in the universe, but also the history of humankind has been shaped by encounters with more highly-evolved alien beings. In their modern day form, these kinds of ideas about aliens and UFOs originated in the United States. The reasoning of Sandqvist and Rehn exemplifies the localization process that took place as members of the Swedish UFO movement began to produce their own narratives about aliens and UFOs. The question I will address is: in what ways do these stories change in new contexts? Texts produced by the Swedish UFO movement are analyzed as a case study of this process.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 278-291
Author(s):  
Egor A. Yesyunin

The article is devoted to the satirical agitation ABCs that appeared during the Civil War, which have never previously been identified by researchers as a separate type of agitation art. The ABCs, which used to have the narrow purpose of teaching children to read and write before, became a form of agitation art in the hands of artists and writers. This was facilitated by the fact that ABCs, in contrast to primers, are less loaded with educational material and, accordingly, they have more space for illustrations. The article presents the development history of the agitation ABCs, focusing in detail on four of them: V.V. Mayakovsky’s “Soviet ABC”, D.S. Moor’s “Red Army Soldier’s ABC”, A.I. Strakhov’s “ABC of the Revolution”, and M.M. Cheremnykh’s “Anti-Religious ABC”. There is also briefly considered “Our ABC”: the “TASS Posters” created by various artists during the Second World War. The article highlights the special significance of V.V. Mayakovsky’s first agitation ABC, which later became a reference point for many artists. The authors of the first satirical ABCs of the Civil War period consciously used the traditional form of popular prints, as well as ditties and sayings, in order to create images close to the people. The article focuses on the iconographic connections between the ABCs and posters in the works of D.S. Moor and M.M. Cheremnykh, who transferred their solutions from the posters to the ABCs.


1992 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-126
Author(s):  
Hans Levy

The focus of this paper is on the oldest international Jewish organization founded in 1843, B’nai B’rith. The paper presents a chronicle of B’nai B’rith in Continental Europe after the Second World War and the history of the organization in Scandinavia. In the 1970's the Order of B'nai B'rith became B'nai B'rith international. B'nai B'rith worked for Jewish unity and was supportive of the state of Israel.


Author(s):  
David Hardiman

Much of the recent surge in writing about the practice of nonviolent forms of resistance has focused on movements that occurred after the end of the Second World War, many of which have been extremely successful. Although the fact that such a method of civil resistance was developed in its modern form by Indians is acknowledged in this writing, there has not until now been an authoritative history of the role of Indians in the evolution of the phenomenon.The book argues that while nonviolence is associated above all with the towering figure of Mahatma Gandhi, 'passive resistance' was already being practiced as a form of civil protest by nationalists in British-ruled India, though there was no principled commitment to nonviolence as such. The emphasis was on efficacy, rather than the ethics of such protest. It was Gandhi, first in South Africa and then in India, who evolved a technique that he called 'satyagraha'. He envisaged this as primarily a moral stance, though it had a highly practical impact. From 1915 onwards, he sought to root his practice in terms of the concept of ahimsa, a Sanskrit term that he translated as ‘nonviolence’. His endeavors saw 'nonviolence' forged as both a new word in the English language, and as a new political concept. This book conveys in vivid detail exactly what such nonviolence entailed, and the formidable difficulties that the pioneers of such resistance encountered in the years 1905-19.


1972 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-105
Author(s):  
Gordon A. Craig

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