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A brilliant meditation on politics, morality, and history from one
of the most courageous and controversial authors of our age
Renowned Eastern European author Adam Michnik was jailed for more
than six years by the communist regime in Poland for his dissident
activities. He was an outspoken voice for democracy in the world
divided by the Iron Curtain and has remained so to the present day.
In this thoughtful and provocative work, the man the Financial
Times named "one of the 20 most influential journalists in the
world" strips fundamentalism of its religious component and
examines it purely as a secular political phenomenon. Comparing
modern-day Poland with postrevolutionary France, Michnik offers a
stinging critique of the ideological "virus of fundamentalism"
often shared by emerging democracies: the belief that, by using
techniques of intimidating public opinion, a state governed by
"sinless individuals" armed with a doctrine of the only correct
means of organizing human relations can build a world without sin.
Michnik employs deep historical analysis and keen political
observation in his insightful five-point philosophical meditation
on morality in public life, ingeniously expounding on history,
religion, moral thought, and the present political climate in his
native country and throughout Europe.
Istvan Bibo (1911-1979) was a Hungarian lawyer, political thinker,
prolific essayist, and minister of state for the Hungarian national
government during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. This
magisterial compendium of Bibo's essays introduces English-speaking
audiences to the writings of one of the foremost theorists and
psychologists of twentieth-century European politics and culture.
Elegantly translated by Peter Pasztor and with a scholarly
introduction by Ivan Zoltan Denes, the essays in this volume
address the causes and fallout of European political crises,
postwar changes in the balance of power among countries, and
nation-building processes.
Whether intellectuals are counter-cultural escapists corrupting the
young or secular prophets leading us to prosperity, they are a
fixture of modern political life. In The Public Intellectual:
Between Philosophy and Politics, Arthur M. Melzer, Jerry
Weinberger, and M. Richard Zinman bring together a wide variety of
noted scholars to discuss the characteristics, nature, and role of
public thinkers. By looking at scholarly life in the West, this
work explores the relationship between thought and action, ideas
and events, reason and history.
Anti-Semitism in Poland has always been a deeply problematic
subject. In the years since the Holocaust, much has been written
about the willingness of Poles to collaborate with the Nazis,
willingly handing over Polish Jews and often profiting from it in
the process. Such assertions have led to a widespread and ongoing
stereotype that Poles are a deeply, inherently anti-Semitic people.
In fact, Adam Michnik argues, while there are certainly
anti-Semites among Poles, resistance to anti-Semitism is deeply
rooted in the culture. The essays he has gathered in this unique
and important anthology-with contributions by a who's who of Polish
writers and intellectuals across the decades-both testify to and
elaborate on that premise. Michnik offers an overview of the
subject, in which lays out the four myths he argues continue to
circulate in Polish thought: that in the eastern territories
occupied by the USSR between 1939 and 1941, many Jews collaborated
with the occupying authorities; that Jews were only delivered into
German hands by Polish criminals; that after 1945 Jews formed the
core of the Department of Security and therefore bear the blame for
the suffering of the Home Army soldiers in communist Poland; and
fourth, that anti-Semitism in Poland today is so marginal as to be
almost exotic. A prologue by poet Czes?aw Mi?osz, winner of the
Nobel Prize for literature, focuses on the first third of the 20th
century, the period of crisis before the outbreak of World War II.
The essays that follow, including works by, among other leading
figures, Maria D?browska, Leszek Ko?akowski, and Jan B?o?ski,
include writings from the years leading up to World War II, and
draw from periodical and newspaper articles in addition to
scholarly essays across the twentieth century. Collectively, the
works by these writers put Polish anti-Semitism in context and in
the process reflect upon the full story of Polish history in the
20th century.
In this new collection of essays, Adam Michnik - one of Europe's
leading dissidents - traces the post-cold-war transformation of
Eastern Europe. He writes again in opposition, this time to
post-communist elites and European Union bureaucrats. Composed of
history, memoir, and political critique, "In Search of Lost
Meaning" shines a spotlight on the changes in Poland and the
Eastern Bloc in the post-1989 years. Michnik asks what mistakes
were made and what we can learn from climactic events in Poland's
past, in its literature, and the histories of Central and Eastern
Europe. He calls attention to pivotal moments in which central
figures like Lech Walesa and political movements like Solidarity
came into being, how these movements attempted to uproot the past,
and how subsequent events have ultimately challenged Poland's
enduring ethical legacy of morality and liberalism. Reflecting on
the most recent efforts to grapple with Poland's Jewish history and
residual guilt, this profoundly important book throws light not
only on recent events, but also on the thinking of one of their
most important protagonists.
A hero to many, Polish writer Adam Michnik ranks among today's most
fearless and persuasive public figures. His imprisonment by
Poland's military regime in the 1980s did nothing to quench his
outpouring of writings, many of which were published in English as
"Letters from Prison," Beginning where that volume ended, "Letters
from Freedom" finds Michnik briefly in prison at the height of the
"cold civil war" between authorities and citizens in Poland, then
released. Through his continuing essays, articles, and interviews,
the reader can follow all the momentous changes of the last decade
in Poland and East-Central Europe. Some of the writings have
appeared in English in various publications; most are translated
here for the first time.
Michnik is never detached. His belief that people can get what they
want without hatred and violence has always translated into action,
and his actions, particularly the activity of writing, have
required his contemporaries to think seriously about what it is
they want. His commitment to freedom is absolute, but neither
wild-eyed nor humorless; with a characteristic combination of
idealism and pragmatism, Michnik says, "In the end, politics is the
art of foreseeing and implementing the possible."
Michnik's blend of conviction and political acumen is perhaps most
vividly revealed in the interviews transcribed in the book, whether
he is the subject of the interview or is conducting a conversation
with Czeslaw Milosz, Vaclav Havel, or Wojciech Jaruzelski. These
face-to-face exchanges tell more about the forces at work in
contemporary Eastern Europe than could any textbook. Sharing
Michnik's intellectual journey through a tumultuous era, we touch
on allthe subjects important to him in this wide-ranging collection
and find they have importance for everyone who values conscience
and responsibility. In the words of Jonathan Schell, "Michnik is
one of those who bring honor to the last two decades of the
twentieth century."
Among the voices that speak to us from Poland today, the most
important may be that of Adam Michnik. Michnik now sits in a jail
belonging to the totalitarian regime, yet his first concern--and
herein lies one of the keys to his thinking, and one should add, to
his character--is with the quality of his own conduct, which,
together with teh conduct of other victims of the present
situation, will, he is sure, one day set the tone for whatever
political system follows the totalitarian debacle. His essays are
the most valuable guide we have to the origins of the revolution,
and, more particularly, to its innovative practices.
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