Rafael F. Scharf

Author(s):  
Sean Martin

This chapter takes a look at Rafael F. Scharf's collection of writings. The writings concern the author's own relationship to Poland, various aspects of the history of the Holocaust, and, the subject closest to the author's experience, Kraków. The chapter shows how this book can reveal much about the history of Polish–Jewish relations. Here, the value of Scharf's writings lies in their personal nature. A native of Kraków, Scharf describes Jewish life in the city from the perspective of a middle-class Jew who grew up in the heart of Kazimierz. In recalling the details of his childhood and young adulthood, Scharf emphasizes his connection to the Polish language, literature, and landscape.

2006 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheryl S. McWatters ◽  
Yannick Lemarchand

The Guide du commerce occupies a distinctive place in the French-language literature on accounting. Passed over by most specialists in the history of maritime trade and the slave trade, the manual has never been the subject of a documented historical study. The apparent realism of the examples, the luxury of details and their precision, all bear witness to a deep concern to go beyond a simple apprenticeship in bookkeeping. Promoting itself essentially as “un guide du commerce,” the volume offers strategic examples for small local businesses, as well as for those engaged in international trade. Yet, the realism also demonstrated the expertise of the author in the eyes of potential purchasers. Inspired by the work of Bottin [2001], we investigate the extent to which the manual reflects real-world practices and provides a faithful glimpse into the socio-economic context of the period. Two additional questions are discussed briefly in our conclusion. First, can the work of Gaignat constitute a source document for the history of la traite négrière? The second entails our early deliberations about the place of this volume in the history of the slave trade itself.


2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-110
Author(s):  
Joanna Kulwicka-Kamińska

The religious writings of the Tatars constitute a valuable source for philological research due to the presence of heretofore unexplored grammatical and lexical layers of the north borderland Polish language of the 16th-20th centuries and due to the interference-related and transfer-related processes in the context of Slavic languages and Slavic-Oriental contacts. Therefore the basis for linguistic analyses is constituted by one of the most valuable monuments of this body of writing – the first translation of the Quran into a Slavic language in the world (probably representing the north borderland Polish language), which assumed the form of a tefsir. The source of linguistic analyses is constituted by the Olita tefsir, which dates back to 1723 (supplemented and corrected in the 19th century). On the basis of the material that was excerpted from this work the author presents both borderland features described in the subject literature and tries to point the new or only sparsely confirmed facts in the history of the Polish language, including the formation of the north borderland Polish language on the Belarusian substrate. Research involves all levels of language – the phonetic-phonological, morphological, syntactic and the lexical-semantic levels.


2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Elisabeth Goidanich ◽  
Carmen Rial

Abstract: The objective of this study is to interpret supermarket stores as privileged spaces for the observation of social relations. The article is based on an ethnography of shopping conducted in the city of Florianópolis, Brazil, by observing middle class housewives during their daily shopping in supermarkets. These stores are seen as places, in opposition to that proposed by Augè (1995), who affirms that supermarkets are non-places produced by supermodernity. The article discusses the history of supermarkets, their role in the cultural and social transformations of the twentieth century, as well as ethnographic data, and shows that it is possible to identify many social interactions inside Brazilian supermarkets.


2019 ◽  
pp. 107-130
Author(s):  
Samy Cohen

2006-2010: during these four decisive years in the history of the peace movement, the movement experienced a dramatic eclipse. Within an Israeli society that had grown increasingly nationalist, more attached to symbols of Jewish identity and the memory of the Holocaust, more concerned than ever about security, and less interested in making peace with the Palestinians, the movement was incapable both of promoting a message of peace and taking a stance on the subject of human rights. It seemed apathetic, paralyzed, almost non-existent in the face of the terrible events that marked the period. This chapter shows how and why this eclipse occurred. These years were punctuated by two large-scale military operations, the war in Lebanon in July 2006 and Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip from late 2008 to early 2009. These hostilities caused turmoil in the Israeli collective psychology and the perception of war and peace.


Genealogy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 52
Author(s):  
Sabine Elisabeth Aretz

The publication of Bernhard Schlink’s novel The Reader (1995) sparked conversation and controversy about sexuality, female perpetrators and the complexity of guilt regarding the Holocaust. The screen adaptation of the book (Daldry 2008) amplified these discussions on an international scale. Fictional Holocaust films have a history of being met with skepticism or even reject on the one hand and great acclaim on the other hand. As this paper will outline, the focus has often been on male perpetrators and female victims. The portrayal of female perpetration reveals dichotomous stereotypes, often neglecting the complexity of the subject matter. This paper focuses on the ways in which sexualization is used specifically to portray female perpetrators in The Reader, as a fictional Holocaust film. An assessment of Hanna’s relationship to Michael and her autonomous sexuality and her later inferior, victimized portrayal as an ambiguous perpetrator is the focus of my paper. Hanna’s sexuality is structurally separated from her role as a perpetrator. Hanna’s perpetration is, through the dichotomous motif of sexuality throughout the film, characterized by a feminization. However, this feminization entails a relativization of Hanna’s culpability, revealing a pejorative of her depiction as a perpetrator. Consequently, I argue that Hanna’s sexualized female body is constructed as a central part of the revelation of her perpetration.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 244-262
Author(s):  
Karen L. Harris

Abstract This article focuses on China’s initial encounter with the African continent from the perspective of a select literature overview. It reflects on the very earliest contacts between dynastic China and ancient Africa and shows that the current contestation in the Western media as well as literature over this more recent contact is not new. Given the dearth and disparate nature of the information on these first encounters, it does this through the lens of what has been written on the subject of the speculated first contact in a selection of secondary English-language literature. It does so by considering the prevalence of such literature in three distinct periods: prior to 1949; from 1950 to 1990; and a selection of research published thereafter. It shows that China’s encounter with Africa reaches far back into the history of the continent, but more importantly so does the volatile contestation surrounding the contemporary contact.


Aschkenas ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sema Colpan ◽  
Matthias Marschik

AbstractResearch on Jewish life in Vienna prior to the Holocaust understandably focuses on places, where it predominantly took place: the Leopoldstadt and the city centre. This view fails to consider the suburb, an area that reflects spatial aspects of Jewish life and does not evoke the connotations typically associated with being Jewish but is instructive as it regards questions of »Jewish difference«. Based on the biographies of two Jewish sports officials, the article shows that (Jewish) difference was defined primarily by parameters of space which manifest as »Bodenständigkeit« (being native): In actual fact, at least in the field of popular culture, ascriptions to a non-Jewish suburb were more powerful than the Jewishness of the officials: In self-perceptions as well as in external ascriptions the meanings of Jewishness were informed by suburban affiliations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 29-38
Author(s):  
Drobotushenko Evgeny V. ◽  

The history of the creation of the agent network of the Russian Empire has not found comprehensive coverage in scientific publications so far. The existing research referred to specific names or mention private facts. This predetermined the relevance of the work. The object of the study is the Russian agents in China in general and in Chinese Shanghai, in particular. The subject is the study of peculiarities of the first attempts in creating Russian agent network in the city. The aim of the work is to analyze the attempt to create a network of Russian illegal agents in Shanghai in 1906–1908. The lack of materials on the problem in scientific and popular scientific publications predetermined the use of previously unknown or little-known archival sources. This is the correspondence of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Russian Imperial envoy in Beijing and the Russian Consul in Shanghai stored in the funds of the State Archive of the Russian Federation (SARF). The main conclusion of the study was the remark about the lack of scientific elaboration, at the moment, the history of official, legal and illegal agents of the Russian Empire in Shanghai, China. Private findings suggest that, judging by the available data, creation of a serious network of agents in the city during the Russian Empire failed. The reasons for this, presumably, were several: the lack of qualified agents with knowledge of Chinese or, at least, English, who could work effectively; the lack of funds for the maintenance of agents, a small number of Russian citizens, the remoteness of Shanghai from the Russian-Chinese border, etc. A network of agents will be created in the city by the Soviet authorities by the middle of the third decade of the 20th century, and Soviet illegal agents began to work in the early 1920s. The History of Soviet agents in China and Shanghai, in particular, is studied quite well which cannot be said about the previous period. It is obvious that further serious work with archival sources is required to recreate as complete as possible the history of Russian legal and illegal agents in Shanghai in pre-Soviet times


2021 ◽  
pp. 377-405
Author(s):  
Angelique Leszczawski-Schwerk

Between the Pillars of Welfare, Cultural Work, Politicization, and Feminism: The Zionist “Circle of Jewish Women” in Lviv, 1908–1939 The Circle of Jewish Women (“Koło Kobiet Żydowskich”), founded in Lemberg/Lviv in 1908 and active until 1939, played a vital role in the organization of Zionist women in the city and other places in Eastern Galicia. It was founded, among others, by Róża Pomeranc Melcer, one of the pioneers of Zionist women’s associations in Galicia and the first and only Jewish woman parliamentarian in the Second Polish Republic. Nevertheless, the history of the Circle, as well as the work of its many active members—many of whom perished in the Holocaust—has been almost forgotten and is rarely explored. The author of the article argues that this organization not only represents social welfare, but it also embodies elements of social support, cultural work, politicization, and feminism. Therefore, the author emphasizes the role the Circle played in the process of organizing Zionist women in Lviv and Galicia before World War I and especially during the interwar period in the Second Polish Republic, and how it contributed to women’s emancipation. Thus, the history of one of the most important Zionist women’s organizations is reconstructed and its versatile work facets explored in more detail.


Muzealnictwo ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 59 ◽  
pp. 140-145
Author(s):  
Lucyna Kościelniak

The article attempts to approach the subject of making culture accessible for people with hearing impairment from the perspective including social, cultural and linguistic issues. The most important matters discussed in the first part of the article are: history of the sign language and the Deaf culture in Poland as well as ambiguities related to communication methods, i.e. differentiating between the sign language and the manual code for spoken language. Based upon the considerations above, the following issues are presented: the role of a sign language interpreter in the process of making culture accessible, and the role of Polish language as an uncertain medium of conveying information to people with hearing impairment. In the article, theoretical considerations alternate with practical guidelines and solutions, which might facilitate the process of creating an offer for this particular type of museum visitor. The concluding part contains a list of the most interesting projects being conducted in Poland, which might be valuable as an inspiration for beginners in organising events dedicated to the deaf and hard of hearing people.


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