Introduction

Author(s):  
Marcin Wodziński

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the conflict between representatives of the Jewish Enlightenment (the Haskalah) and its rival hasidic movement, which has been seen in the historical literature as one of the most important debates to occupy Jewish society in central and eastern Europe in the modern age. Indeed, the earliest studies devoted to this question made their appearance at the dawn of modern Jewish historiography. However, a closer reading of such studies reveals that the overwhelming majority of references to the ‘age-old hostility’ of enlightened Jews to hasidism are based on stereotypes that often obscure a proper understanding of the sources. This book analyses attitudes towards hasidism among a few famous representatives of the Polish Haskalah, from the first enlightened comments concerning hasidism at the end of the eighteenth century to the demise of the Haskalah and its successors at the start of the twentieth century. It also looks at the ideas, concepts, and prejudices of a broad section of the maskilim among Polish Jews.

2021 ◽  

This book is devoted to a symbolic event that defined the life and values of several generations. Half a century ago, Czech communists tried to give a new impetus to their country’s system of government by combining socialist values with a rational market economy and the mechanisms of a developed democracy. This effort failed, and the state was occupied by the military. This book is the result of joint efforts by Russian, Czech, and Romanian historians, archivists, and cultural and literary scholars, who—exploring new documents and materials—have reinterpreted these events and their lessons from a present-day perspective. Objectively, the “Prague Spring” is from a bygone era, but it is still a milestone, and many of the problems encountered during the Prague Spring are still relevant today. The authors hope that they have contributed to the historiography of the now-distant events of 1968 and that their contributions will help in analysing the experiences of the past in order to be prepared for the events of the future. This book is aimed at specialists in the history and culture of Central and Eastern Europe, students of higher educational institutions, and the general reader interested in twentieth-century history.


Lituanistica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurynas Giedrimas

The article deals with the households of the nobles and peasants in the first half of the nineteenth century in Užventis parish, Samogitia. In the middle of the twentieth century, John Hajnal and Peter Laslett started researching the history of resident households. The researchers formulated theoretical and methodological foundations for household analysis and encouraged other historians and demographers to undertake similar studies. The researchers who analysed the households of Central and Eastern Europe either refuted or corrected many of the statements proposed by John Hajnal and Peter Laslett and established that the most common household in Central and Eastern Europe was a nuclear household, although in many cases it was also possible to find an extended household. However, it was not clarified at what age people started building new households and which household model dominated in Samogitia. Also, it was not known what the difference between a household of nobles and a household of peasants was. The data on the households of the nobles and peasants also interconnected. The households of landlords were bigger than the households of peasants and the petty nobility, because the menage of a landlord used to be part of the household. After analysing the aforementioned data, it has been discovered that in the first half of the nineteenth century, nuclear household dominated Užventis parish. Extended household models were often found as well. The Catholic inhabitants of Užventis parish married late and had a child every two years. Around 3500 Catholic residents lived in Užventis parish in the first half of the nineteenth century. The analysis of the data showed that nuclear household dominated the Užventis parish in the first half of the nineteenth century.


Author(s):  
Shaul Stampfer

This introductory chapter describes the unique aspects of the yeshivas of nineteenth-century Lithuania. These yeshivas represented a major attempt on the part of traditional Jewry to cope with the challenges of modernity. The Jews of nineteenth-century Lithuania thus defined had several distinguishing characteristics. In religious terms, most were traditional, in the sense that they had withstood the innovations of hasidism; in fact, the strength of the opposition to that movement in Lithuania was such that they came collectively to be known as mitnagedim (opponents) — that is, opponents of hasidism. Economically, they were mostly poorer than Jews in other major areas of Jewish settlement, such as Poland or Bukovina, and lived in more crowded conditions. Until 1764, they benefited from self-government under the Va'ad Medinat Lita (Council of the Land of Lithuania). By the beginning of the eighteenth century this body had ceased to function, but the distinction between the Jews of Lithuania and those of the neighbouring regions continued to exist — not least because the Lithuanian Jews spoke a distinctive dialect of Yiddish. These and other factors ensured that they continued to maintain a separate identity among the Jews of eastern Europe until the First World War.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Margot Horspool ◽  
Matthew Humphreys ◽  
Michael Wells-Greco

This introductory chapter traces the development of the European Union. Since its inception in 1952, the EU has matured and developed from a Community of like-minded states into a Union of a greater diversity of states, with a comprehensive legal system which is increasingly penetrating the national legal systems of Member States. From the six original members, the EU now counts 27 Member States. Eleven of the thirteen newer Member States are in Central and Eastern Europe, and have discarded their old Communist regimes, turning into democracies with the qualifications to join the Union. The latest developments and changes, including Brexit and the effects of Covid-19, are also discussed.


2020 ◽  
pp. 21-63
Author(s):  
Uğur Ümit Üngör

How did paramilitarism develop into the modern age? The twentieth century has seen forms of paramilitarism ranging from the Freikorps in Germany early on in the century, to the Sudanese Janjaweed militias a century later, and a myriad of armed groups in between. Although these militias all originated under differing conditions and in different societies, their functions, logics, and dynamics demonstrate compelling similarities and instructive differences. This chapter traces the historical context of modern paramilitarism by developing an explicitly global review of these scenarios. The chapter begins with a short overview of paramilitarism in the first half of the twentieth century, before it moves on to the postwar era and looks at the construction of Soviet-led paramilitary infrastructures by the new communist regimes in Eastern Europe, and the US-supported paramilitarization of Latin America in the same period. Paramilitary units also appeared in several European conflicts in the 1990s and committed widespread violence against civilians. Although paramilitarism operated differently in various international political, historical, and ideological contexts in this period, there were both structural and phenomenological similarities between the cases.


Author(s):  
Sharon Flatto

This chapter talks about Lurianic Kabbalah as the dominant kabbalistic school that had a prominent place in Ezekiel Landau's writings despite the tremendous influence of Cordoverian doctrines in central and eastern Europe during the eighteenth century. It explains Lurianic Kabbalah as the branch of Kabbalah that primarily deals with complex systems of theosophical and theurgical doctrines at the expense of ecstatic traditions. It also cites the ideal of devekut and the modes of worship promoted in ecstatic Kabbalah that play a subsidiary role in most Lurianic works. The chapter recounts how Landau frequently uses the precise linguistic phrases, terms, and ideas found in Lurianic writings, which reveal his deep immersion in Lurianic Kabbalah during his youth in Poland. It mentions Hayim Vital, who wrote one of the first and most comprehensive books of Lurianic theosophy, the Ets hayim or Shemonah she'arim.


2020 ◽  
pp. 648-706
Author(s):  
Reinhard Zimmermann

The chapter traces the development of mandatory family protection from Roman law through the ius commune to the modern civilian codifications. The Justinianic reform of 542 AD having failed to streamline and simplify the rules of classical Roman law, it was left to the draftsmen of the codifications from the end of the eighteenth century onwards to tackle that task. Particularly influential were the French Code civil of 1804 and the Austrian Civil Code of 1811. Germany adopted the Austrian model of a ‘compulsory portion’ (ie a personal claim for the value of a part of the estate). Elsewhere the French model of ‘forced heirship’ (part of the testator’s property is reserved to his closest relatives) was extremely influential, although in modern times some of the Romanistic countries have changed from forced heirship to compulsory portion. The chapter also considers the post-socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the Nordic countries, and the codifications in the Americas. A number of lines of development can be traced in comparative perspective, among them a tendency to weaken the position of the deceased’s closest family members (by granting them merely a personal claim in money rather than the position of co-heirs, by reducing the quotas to which they are entitled, and by drawing the range of the deceased’s relatives entitled to mandatory protection more narrowly). The surviving spouse’s position, on the other hand, has been strengthened. Characteristic for a number of civilian legal systems is the endeavour in various ways to render to law of mandatory family protection more flexible. The implementation of the concept of a needs-based claim for maintenance is one of the devices attesting to the quest for increased flexibility.


2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jochen Böhler ◽  
Włodzimierz Borodziej ◽  
Joachim von Puttkamer

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document