Extended Antisemitism: The Case of Poznań

Extended Antisemitism: The Case of PoznańThis article examines contemporary antisemitism in Poznań. The first part of the study reconstructs how the contemporary collective memory in this Polish city was shaped, starting in the interwar period. Referring to earlier contexts, the author points to the founding myth of the medieval legend of the stolen Hosts, which prevails in Poznań. She also retraces the history of antisemitism at the Adam Mickiewicz University. In recent years, the university has disclosed archival records, including those connected with the introduction of ghetto benches and the numerus clausus rule, in this way attempting to atone for disgraceful events in its history. Reflecting on antisemitism in Poznań, the author asks what fuels it in the almost mono-ethnic city that Poznań is today, and introduces the term extended antisemitism. For the purposes of the article, she conducted interviews (using the Delphi technique) with researchers and social activists involved in Jewish issues. Antysemityzm rozszerzony: na przykładzie PoznaniaAutorka bada współczesny antysemityzm w Poznaniu. W pierwszej części opracowania rekonstruuje, jak kształtowała się współczesna pamięć zbiorowa w tym polskim mieście, począwszy od okresu międzywojennego. Następnie, odwołując się do kontekstów, wskazuje na dominujący w Poznaniu mit założycielski średniowiecznej legendy o skradzionych hostiach. Omawia też historię antysemityzmu na Uniwersytecie im. Adama Mickiewicza. W ostatnich latach uczelnia ujawnia źródła archiwalne, w tym materiały związane z tworzeniem getta ławkowego i z wprowadzeniem numerus clausus; w ten sposób stara się niejako zadośćuczynić haniebnym wydarzeniom ze swojej historii. Zastanawiając się nad antysemityzmem w Poznaniu, autorka zadaje pytanie, czym napędza się on dziś w niemal monoetnicznym mieście. Wprowadza pojęcie rozszerzonego antysemityzmu. Na potrzeby artykułu przeprowadziła wywiady metodą delficką z badaczami i społecznikami.

“Robbery Made the Kingdom of Italy, Misery Will Unmake It”

This contribution analyses the nineteenth-century debate on one of the most hotly debated topics of Italian history: public debt and taxation. Starting in the 1850s, fiscal policies were weaponised by liberal nationalist elites and their opponents alike to promote their contrary worldviews by arguing over the merits of national unification and a parliamentary system on the basis of their fiscal outcomes. First Piedmont, then unified Italy, were eagerly expected by Catholics and Bourbon legitimists to default on their debts as a result of their moral and fiscal profligacy, while liberals were concerned about popular support for the national cause in a context of rising taxes. Southern Italy in particular was very vocal in denouncing its perceived fiscal mistreatment by the Italian government, an accusation the North rejected by portraying Southerners as unpatriotic tax evaders. Today, these narratives are re-emerging not only in public debates questioning the Risorgimento as the nation’s founding myth but also in the discourse about European integration.

Rooting New European Literature: A Reconsideration of the European Myth of the Postnational and Cynical Cosmopolitanism

This essay focuses on the question of what constitutes “new European” literature and explores the potential and pitfalls of concepts such as the “postnational” or “cosmopolitanism” and their impact on European and “new European” literature. Following a brief overview of what has been perceived as “old” versus “new” European literature, it looks back at Europe’s founding myth and Moschus’ image of Europa, more specifically Europa’s dream, to reconsider the cosmopolitanism of European literature and reflect upon both the continuous strife for the postnational and the question of emergence of “new” European literature. Providing a critical outlook with the regard to the promotion and proliferation of new European literature, this essay explores literary genres which seem particularly effective for communicating new European values ideas, especially concepts of transnationalism or cosmopolitanism that are often associated with European culture. In this context, the essay proposes the hybrid genre of the Menippeian satire as an inherently cosmopolitan and transnational genre, which is based upon the continuous crossing of borders without completely overcoming them, and can thus assist the “new European” agenda of literature.

Compassion Versus Care in Healthcare Institutions: What’s the Difference?

In February 2013, the Francis Report outlined what it described as ‘systematic failings’ at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust resulting in the death and suffering of many patients through neglect (in the UK context, hospitals can apply to gain foundation trust status. Foundation trust hospitals are part of the National Health Service (NHS) but are not directed by central government and have greater freedom to decide the way services are delivered. They adhere to core NHS principles of free medical treatment based on need and not the ability to pay.) A lack of compassion, particularly among nursing staff, was identified as one of the contributing factors to poor care. The NHS was founded on the core value of compassion that today is one of six values all NHS staff are expected to demonstrate. Frequently invoked as a means to ensuring good patient care, it is a concept that is contested by a number of writers who argue that such moral emotions are not only unnecessary but dangerous. The purpose of this work is to explore the difference between compassion and care (but not medical treatment) in the context of the NHS. The paper draws on the work of Anca Gheaus, who argues there is a distinction to be made between the two and that while it is possible to be compassionate towards everybody, the ability to care, is limited to fewer people and is a more intense and engaged activity. Regarded as the founding myth of the NHS, the work also draws on the parable of the Good Samaritan to make the distinction between the two concepts more visible, and argues the roles played by the Good Samaritan and the innkeeper, remain relevant to the workings of today’s healthcare system. It also reflects on the need for kindness within the system.

The Art of Ambiguity: The Karaites as Portrayed in Judah Halevi's Book of the Kuzari

On the basis of a letter preserved in the Cairo Geniza, Judah Halevi is assumed to have originally composed his influential book of religious thought, the Kuzari, as a polemical response to a Karaite convert. However, he neither perceived nor described the Karaites as heretics. In fact, his depiction of the adherents of this alternative to Rabbanite Judaism and their origins so appealed to the Karaites that some of them believed that the author had been a (crypto-)Karaite himself, and his reconstructions of the movement's history became appropriated as the founding myth of Karaism. This paper attempts to discern Halevi's attitude toward the Karaites, and his perception of their main fault. It also addresses the fundamental question of his purpose in writing the Kuzari.

Revolutionary events of 1917 in the party historical policy of modern Russia

In the Soviet Union, the Great October Socialist Revolution was regarded as the key event in history of the country, performing the role “founding myth”. Despite the fact that three decades have passed since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, there is yet no uniform opinion to neither February nor October revolutions. Modern parties have expressed their attitude towards the events of 1917 within the framework of their historical policy. The author analyzes the attitude of the parties towards revolution, and determines the peculiarities of the image of the past they formed. The official occasion of the centenary of the Revolution. The author concludes on the absence of the unified approach of modern parties towards the revolutionary events of 1917. The parties have been divided into three groups: supporters of the October and supporters of the February single out one of the revolutions, placing emphasis on its achievements; “evolutionists” demonstrate a negative attitude towards the events of 1917, believing that the revolutions distorted the natural course of events in Russia. Among major parties, only United Russia could not formulate a clear attitude towards revolution, reducing it to the formula of “consent and reconciliation”. It can be expect that political parties will continue to develop their own historical policy.

El difícil choque entre el Este y el Oeste en el nacer del nacionalismo gallego

Spain from the historical point of view remains, without a doubt, one of the key sceneries in medieval Europe where the East and the West intersected in a fruitful way. The prominence of the Jewish people in this process played an unquestionable part in it. In this context the anti-Semitic component in the construction of Galician nationalism is interesting, while creating the founding myth contrasts the West and the East. In the background of this great cultural creation, full of consequences, we may glimpse the absent history of Galicia, the small demos of the western end of the Roman Finisterrae.

Moscow — the Third Rome? Between the Founding Myth and the Destructive Mirage

Thanks a new Italian and German historiography, the concept of the “Third Rome” is approached more critically than that applied by the historians of the 19th century. This idea is part of an eschatological historiosophy, born in Muscovy following the refusal of the union signed during the Council of Florence. The Russian princes and Church found themselves at the head of the Orthodox Ecumene and thus avoided positioning as successors to the Byzantine Empire. The theory of the Third Rome, developed by Philotheus, never became an official ideology; it was understood as translatio religionis and not as translatio imperii, with Holy Russia positioning itself as the home of the true faith.