Wlodzimierz Borodziej

Jochen Böhler

Joachim von Puttkamer

The First World War began in the Balkans, and it was fought as fiercely in the East as it was in the West. Fighting persisted in the East for almost a decade, radically transforming the political and social order of the entire continent. The specifics of the Eastern war such as mass deportations, ethnic cleansing, and the radicalization of military, paramilitary and revolutionary violence have only recently become the focus of historical research. This volume situates the ‘Long First World War’ on the Eastern Front (1912–1923) in the hundred years from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century and explores the legacies of violence within this context. Content Jochen Böhler/Włodzimierz Borodziej/Joachim von Puttkamer: Introduction I. A World in Transition Joachim von Puttkamer: Collapse and Restoration. Politics and the Strains of War in Eastern Europe Mark Biondich: Eastern Borderlands and Prospective Shatter Zones. Identity and Conflict in East Central and Southeastern Europe on the Eve of the First World War Jochen Böhler: Generals and Warlords, Revolutionaries and Nation-State Builders. The First World War and its Aftermath in Central and Eastern Europe II. Occupation Jonathan E. Gumz: Losing Control. The Norm of Occupation in Eastern Europe during the First World War Stephan Lehnstaedt: Fluctuating between ‘Utilisation’ and Exploitation. Occupied East Central Europe during the First World War Robert L. Nelson: Utopias of Open Space. Forced Population Transfer Fantasies during the First World War III. Radicalization Maciej Górny: War on Paper? Physical Anthropology in the Service of States and Nations Piotr J. Wróbel: Foreshadowing the Holocaust. The Wars of 1914–1921 and Anti-Jewish Violence in Central and Eastern Europe Robert Gerwarth: Fighting the Red Beast. Counter-Revolutionary Violence in the Defeated States of Central Europe IV. Aftermath Julia Eichenberg: Consent, Coercion and Endurance in Eastern Europe. Poland and the Fluidity of War Experiences Philipp Ther: Pre-negotiated Violence. Ethnic Cleansing in the ‘Long’ First World War Dietrich Beyrau: The Long Shadow of the Revolution. Violence in War and Peace in the Soviet Union Commentary Jörn Leonhard: Legacies of Violence: Eastern Europe’s First World War – A Commentary from a Comparative Perspective

Legacies of Violence: Eastern Europe’s First World War

Die Volksrepublik Polen hatte mit ihrer Polizei ein ernstes Problem. Sie galt als außergewöhnlich brutal, und immer wieder kamen Menschen bei Festnahmen und auf den Kommissariaten zu Tode. Der Aufbau einer im Wortsinn schlagkräftigen Bereitschaftspolizei, die größere Unruhen niederhalten sollte, verschärfte das Problem. Der Historiker Joachim von Puttkamer untersucht die Ursachen und Formen solcher polizeilichen Brutalität. Er zeigt die halbherzigen Versuche der polnischen Polizeiführung, die eigenen Beamten zu kontrollieren, ebenso wie die abwehrenden Reaktionen innerhalb des Sicherheitsapparats vor allem in Krisenzeiten. Wie verhalten sich spezifische Gewaltphänomene kommunistischer Diktaturen zu generellen Problemen moderner Polizeien? Wie nahm die Bevölkerung die Beamten wahr? Auf breiter Quellengrundlage lässt sich zeigen, wie sich die polnische Gesellschaft seit den 1970er Jahren in Reaktion auf die eklatanten Übergriffe rekonstituierte. Diese wurden zum Taktgeber der Opposition, bis in die Verhandlungen am Runden Tisch 1989 hinein. Das Buch geht der Frage nach, wie polizeiliche Brutalität in Polen aufhörte, selbstverständlich zu sein, und moralisch verwerflich wurde. Es erzählt von der schleichenden Selbstzerstörung der kommunistischen Diktatur.

Polizeibrutalität und Gesellschaft in der Volksrepublik Polen

»Ich werde mich nie an die Gewalt gewöhnen«

Ferenc Laczó

Włodzimierz Borodziej

Intellectual Horizons offers a pioneering, transnational and comparative treatment of key thematic areas in the intellectual and cultural history of Central and Eastern Europe in the twentieth century. For most of the twentieth century, Central and Eastern European ideas and cultures constituted an integral part of wider European trends. However, the intellectual and cultural history of this diverse region has rarely been incorporated sufficiently into nominally comprehensive histories of Europe. This volume redresses this underrepresentation and provides a more balanced perspective on the recent past of the continent through original, critical overviews of themes ranging from the social and conceptual history of intellectuals and histories of political thought and historiography, to literary, visual and religious cultures, to perceptions and representations of the region in the twentieth century. While structured thematically, individual contributions are organized chronologically. They emphasize, where relevant, generational experiences, agendas and accomplishments, while taking into account the sharp ruptures that characterize the period. The third in a four-volume set on Central and Eastern Europe in the twentieth century, it is the go-to resource for understanding the intellectual and cultural history of this dynamic region.

Volume 3: Intellectual Horizons

The Routledge History Handbook of Central and Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century

Stanislav Holubec

Challenges of Modernity offers a broad account of the social and economic history of Central and Eastern Europe in the twentieth century and asks critical questions about the structure and experience of modernity in different contexts and periods. This volume focuses on central questions such as: How did the various aspects of modernity manifest themselves in the region, and what were their limits? How was the multifaceted transition from a mainly agrarian to an industrial and post-industrial society experienced and perceived by historical subjects? Did Central and Eastern Europe in fact approximate its dream of modernity in the twentieth century despite all the reversals, detours and third-way visions? Structured chronologically and taking a comparative approach, a range of international contributors combine a focus on the overarching problems of the region with a discussion of individual countries and societies, offering the reader a comprehensive, nuanced survey of the social and economic history of this complex region in the recent past. The first in a four-volume set on Central and Eastern Europe in the twentieth century, it is the go-to resource for those interested in the ‘challenges of modernity‘ faced by this dynamic region.

Volume 1: Challenges of Modernity

Throughout Eastern Europe, the unexpected and irrevocable fall of communism that began in the late 1980s presented enormous challenges in the spheres of politics and society, as well as at the level of individual experience. Excitement, uncertainty, and fear predicated the shaping of a new order, the outcome of which was anything but predetermined. Recent studies have focused on the ambivalent impact of capitalism. Yet, at the time, parliamentary democracy had equally few traditions to return to, and membership in the European Union was a distant dream at best. Nowadays, as new threats arise, Europe’s current political crises prompt us to reconsider how liberal democracy in Eastern Europe came about in the first place. This book undertakes an analysis of the year 1990 in several countries throughout Europe to consider the role of uncertainty and change in shaping political nations.

The Year 1990 in Central and Eastern Europe

From Revolution to Uncertainty

Der Auftakt-Band der Reihe „Europas Osten im 20. Jahrhundert“ versammelt die Beiträge der gleichnamigen Tagung, mit der das Imre Kertész Kolleg Jena im Sommer 2011 seine Tätigkeit aufgenommen hat. Er diskutiert historische, politische, filmische und museale Zugänge zu den Erfahrungen des östlichen Europas im 20. Jahrhundert und fragt danach, welche geschichtskulturellen Herausforderungen sich daraus für eine gesamteuropäische Erinnerung ergeben. Die Bandbreite der internationalen Beiträger aus Wissenschaft, Museen, Publizistik, Kunst und Politik spiegelt die Relevanz der Forschungsthemen des Kollegs: Wlodzimierz Borodziej (Warschau/Jena), Jan Culík (Glasgow), Taja Vovk van Gaal/Constanze Itzel (Brüssel), Volkhard Knigge (Weimar), Pawel Machcewicz (Warschau/Danzig), Jiri Menzel (Prag), Adam Michnik (Warschau), Joachim von Puttkamer (Jena), Milan Ristovic (Belgrad), Irina Scherbakowa (Moskau), Maria Todorova (Urbana Champaign), Stefan Troebst (Leipzig)

Geschichtskulturelle Herausforderungen

Europa und sein Osten

Ferenc Laczo

Catastrophe and Utopia studies the biographical trajectories, intellectual agendas, and major accomplishments of select Jewish intellectuals during the age of Nazism, and the partly simultaneous, partly subsequent period of incipient Stalinization. By focusing on the relatively underexplored region of Central and Eastern Europe – which was the primary centre of Jewish life prior to the Holocaust, served as the main setting of the Nazi genocide, but also had notable communities of survivors – the volume offers significant contributions to a European Jewish intellectual history of the twentieth century. Approaching specific historical experiences in their diverse local contexts, the twelve case studies explore how Jewish intellectuals responded to the unprecedented catastrophe, how they renegotiated their utopian commitments and how the complex relationship between the two evolved over time. They analyze proximate Jewish reactions to the most abysmal discontinuity represented by the Judeocide while also revealing more subtle lines of continuity in Jewish thinking. Ferenc Laczó is assistant professor in History at Maastricht University and Joachim von Puttkamer is professor of Eastern European History at Friedrich Schiller University Jena and director of the Imre Kertész Kolleg.

Jewish Intellectuals in Central and Eastern Europe in the 1930s and 1940s

Catastrophe and Utopia

Gabriella Schubert

Wie lasst sich die kulturelle Dimension gesellschaftlichen Wandels in Sudosteuropa in den Blick nehmen, ohne sich dem Vorwurf postkolonialer Uberheblichkeit auszusetzen? Das 2006 in Jena und Erfurt eingerichtete Graduiertenkolleg "Kulturelle Orientierungen und gesellschaftliche Ordnungsstrukturen in Sudosteuropa" macht die kulturellen Besonderheiten und Entwicklungslinien der sudosteuropaischen Region in drei Schwerpunktbereichen zum Gegenstand forschenden, interdisziplinaren Fragens: Es fragt nach Leitbildern und Alltagsmustern, nach deren Auswirkungen auf die Perspektiven multiethnischen und multireligiosen Zusammenlebens und nach der Ubernahme und Adaptation von Institutionen.Der vorliegende Band, der aus einer Tagung vom Juni 2008 entstanden ist, vereint grundlegende methodische Uberlegungen mit exemplarischen Fallstudien zu diesen Schwerpunktbereichen. Die Befunde sind notwendigerweise vielstimmig; gemeinsam ist jedoch allen Beitragen eine tiefe Skepsis gegenuber stereotypen Vorannahmen und ein stillschweigendes Vertrauen in die Fahigkeit des sudostlichen Europas, aus seinen vielfaltigen kulturellen Pragungen eigenstandige Perspektiven fur eine europaische Zukunft zu entwickeln, welche die offenkundigen Schwierigkeiten und Probleme nicht verleugnet, aber auch nicht als unuberbruckbare Hindernisse essentialisiert.Interessengruppen: alle mit Sudosteuropa befassten Disziplinen; Politikwissenschaft; Soziologie; Europaische Ethnologie und Kulturwissenschaft.

Joachim von Puttkamer

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