A critical examination of the category of "Polishness" - that is, the formation, redefinition, and performance of various kinds of Polish identities - from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives. Inspired by new research in the humanities and social sciences as well as recent scholarship on national identities, this volume offers a rigorous examination of the idea of Polishness. Offering a diversity of case studies and methodological-theoretical approaches, it demonstrates a profound connection between national and transnational processes and places the Polish case in a broader context. This broader context stretches from a larger Eastern European one, a usual frame of comparison, to the overseas immigrant communities. The authors, renowned scholars from Europe and the United States, thus demonstrate that an understanding of modern Polish identity means crossing not only historical but also geographical boundaries. Consequently, the narrative on Polish identity that unfolds in the volume is a personalized and multivocal one that presents the perspectives of a wide range of subjects: peasants, workers, migrants, ethnic and sexual minorities-that is, all those actors who have been absent in grand national narratives. As such, the examination of Polishness sheds light on the identity question more broadly, emphasizing the interplay of pluralizing and homogenizing tendencies, and fostering a reflection on national identity as encompassing both sameness and difference.

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.

It seems at first commonplace: a photograph of peasants at harvest time, after work well done, resting contentedly with their tools, behind the fruits of their labor. But when one finally notices that what seemed innocent on first view becomes horrific: the crops scattered in front of the group are skulls and bones. Where are we? Who are the people in the photograph, and what are they doing?
The starting point of Jan Gross's A Golden Harvest, this haunting photograph in fact depicts a group of peasants--"diggers" atop a mountain of ashes at Treblinka, where some 800,000 Jews were gassed and cremated. The diggers are hoping to find gold and precious stones that Nazi executioners may have overlooked. The story captured in this grainy black-and-white photograph symbolizes the vast, continent-wide plunder of Jewish wealth.
The seizure of Jewish assets during World War II occasionally generates widespread attention when Swiss banks are challenged to produce lists of dormant accounts, or national museums are forced to return stolen paintings. The theft of this wealth was not limited to conquering armies, leading banks, and museums, but to local populations such as those pictured in the photograph. Based upon a simple group shot, this moving book evokes the depth and range, as well as the intimacy, of the final solution.

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."

The book on the history of Russian philosophical thought of the nineteenth century deals with six important representatives in the sharply present context of the ideological dispute between East and West. The author has chosen for analysis such Russian concrete worldviews which either advocated dialogue between Russia and the West, or particularly sharply proclaimed the conflict between them. Agreement should be made either in the name of universal-humanist Christian principles, with a special emphasis on Catholicism, or in the name of Enlightenment principles. None of these thinkers are popular in Putin's Russia today, unlike Dostoevsky and Leontiev, the prophets of the fundamental conflict between Russia and Europe, also discussed in this work.

The volume contains some of the most incisive texts of the New School of Polish Jewish studies. The chapters present new ways of thinking about modern Polish-Jewish history and the Holocaust. The authors are reformulating the terms of current discourses in various fields of research. Introduced by Jan T. Gross, the book includes chapters by several important scholars and an extraordinary poem by Jacek Podsiad(3)o, translated and commented upon by Alissa Valles.

This powerful memoir traces the life of Karol Modzelewski, one of the preeminent Polish dissidents of the twentieth century. With humor and perception, Modzelewski describes his formative years. Born in 1937 to a Polish-born mother and Russian-Jewish father in Moscow, he spent his early schooling and underwent deep indoctrination in the Soviet Union. In 1945 he moved with his mother and stepfather, a prominent communist, to Poland when his stepfather was appointed as foreign minister in Warsaw. In the relatively "liberal" Polish atmosphere, Modzelewski gradually awoke to the realities of the party system during his university years. Modzelewski discusses the experiences and realizations that led him in 1964 to coauthor with Jacek Kuron the famous "Open Letter to the Party," for which he and Kuron were imprisoned. With keen critical insight, Modzelewski describes his role as one of the leading intellectuals of the Solidarity movement. Much more than mere autobiography, this nuanced book is a profound and highly critical analysis of Polish politics over the last fifty years. Characteristically, Modzelewski refuses to portray events in black and white terms, providing a frank assessment of the country's evolution from communism to democracy, the genesis of Polish dissidence and its success in dismantling communism, and the causes of the current crisis of democracy in Poland.

It seems at first commonplace: a group photograph of peasants at harvest time, after hard work well done, resting contentedly with their tools behind the fruits of their labor. But when one finally notices the "crops" scattered in front of the group, what seemed innocent on first view become horrific skulls and bones. Where are we? Who are the people in the photograph, and what are they doing? The starting point of Jan Tomasz and Irena Grudzinska Gross's Golden Harvest, this haunting photograph in fact depicts a group of peasants-"diggers"-atop a mountain of ashes at Treblinka, where some 800,000 Jews were gassed and cremated. The diggers are searching for gold and precious stones that Nazi executioners may have overlooked. The story captured in this grainy black-and-white photograph symbolizes the vast, continent-wide plunder of Jewish wealth that went hand-in-hand with the Holocaust. The seizure of Jewish assets during World War II occasionally generates widespread attention when Swiss banks are challenged to produce lists of dormant accounts, or national museums are forced to return stolen paintings. But the theft of Europe's Jewish population was not limited to conquering armies, leading banks, or museums. It was perpetrated also by local people, such as those pictured in the photograph. Lyrical and often heartbreaking, A Golden Harvest takes readers across Europe as it exposes the economic ravaging of an entire society. Beginning with a simple group shot, the authors have written a moving book that evokes the depth and range, as well as the intimacy, of the Final Solution.

The contributions in this volume reflect discussions and controversies during the Princeton University Conference on Polish-Jewish Studies (April 18-19, 2015). The debates examined the politics of history in Poland, as well as the scholarly and pedagogical need to move beyond national and diasporic narratives in researching and teaching Polish-Jewish subjects. They focused on the role and meaning of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews.

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.

The volume is a selection of the most incisive analyses related to the issues of gender and social transition that appeared in the pages of the quarterly East European Politics and Societies. The articles look at what was happening to women in the changing East European societies and propose new perspectives on the history of the region. Articles cover many countries and come from a period of twelve years - 1994 to 2006 - when the efforts of introducing gender into East European studies were most intense. The volume shows the trajectory leading from the introduction of the lens of gender into the East European studies to the moment at which the tools of gender analysis were applied without apology to the research on East European politics, law, history, culture and economy.

This intimate portrayal of the friendship between two icons of twentieth-century poetry, Czeslaw Milosz and Joseph Brodsky, highlights the parallel lives of the poets as exiles living in America and Nobel Prize laureates in literature. To create this truly original work, Irena Grudzinska Gross draws from poems, essays, letters, interviews, speeches, lectures, and her own personal memories as a confidant of both Milosz and Brodsky. The dual portrait of these poets and the elucidation of their attitudes toward religion, history, memory, and language throw a new light on the upheavals of the twentieth-century. Gross also incorporates notes on both poets' relationships to other key literary figures, such as W. H. Auden, Susan Sontag, Seamus Heaney, Mark Strand, Robert Haas, and Derek Walcott.

Dieses Buch ist die erste umfangreiche Zusammenstellung der Prosawerke von zwei Schlusselautoren der polnischen Moderne, Stanislaw Brzozowski (1878-1911) und Witold Gombrowicz (1904-1969). "Konarzewskas Arbeit verdient es [...], als innovativ bezeichnet zu werden und zwar auf edelste Weise innovativ: Der Polonist fragt sich hinsichtlich der Rolle von Brzozowski und Gombrowicz fur die polnische Kultur und die zentrale Stelle des Themas 'Reife' in ihrem Schaffen: Warum bin ich bloss selbst nicht auf die Idee gekommen?" Prof. Dr. Michal Mrugalski, Humboldt Universitat zu Berlin

Der Autor analysiert Tagebucher, Erinnerungen, Memoiren, Chroniken, Berichte und Briefe, die wahrend der Zeit des Zweiten Weltkriegs und der deutschen Besatzung im und um das Warschauer Ghetto entstanden. Er untersucht die Gattungsspezifik und den speziellen Status dieser Texte, die das in Worte zu fassen versuchen, was gemeinhin als unbeschreibbar gilt. Der Autor widerspricht der verbreiteten These von der Unausdruckbarkeit. Er betont die Notwendigkeit des Ausdrucks jener Erfahrung und die Notwendigkeit des Versuchs zu verstehen.