Marianna D. Birnbaum

Esterházy, Konrád, Spiró Jeruzsálemben

The historical biography of a true Jewish heroine in her day, Gracia Mendes. Born in 1510 in Portugal, the book details this woman's extraordinary personality until her death in 1569 in Constantinople (today's Istanbul). Her life exemplified a perseverance by the Jewish culture to survive and triumph even in the worst of conditions. As a young girl, Gracia secretly married successful Jewish spice trader, Francisco Mendes. But at age 27 she became a widow, yet she went on to raise her children and run the family business all on her own. Her travels led her through Antwerp, Venice, Ferrara, Ragusa, and finally to Constantinople, from where the Ottoman Empire dominated former Byzantium territories and offered shelter for battered Conversos (converted Jews). The text recounting the last fifteen years of Gracia's life at the center of the Empire is particularly revealing. Birnbaum's biography has the unique distinction of being the first among many studies to pay tribute to a woman during this period. It is also one of the first titles to pay equal attention to the lives of the Conversos in Christian West Europe and in the Muslim East.

The Long Journey of Gracia Mendes

"After her arrival in 1553, she became the most prominent businesswoman of the community and a patron of Jewish causes. Her life exemplifies the perseverance of the Jewish culture to survive and triumph even in extremely adverse conditions."--BOOK JACKET.

Tales and Poems of the Ostyaks, Voguls, and Hungarians

An Anthology of Ugric Folk Literature

Marcell Sebők

The essays in this book provide interesting contributions to the ongoing debate concerning the representation of differing cultures, i.e., the “image of the Other” in the early modern period . They deal with images, projections, and perceptions, based on various experiences of coexistence. Although the individual contributions contain sources and references of iconography, this is not just another volume of art history or visual studies. As examples of practices in diverse historical contexts, the book includes a variety of textual material, such as literary productions, rhetorical exercises, dramatic applications, chronicles, epistles, and diary-like historical accounts that express ethnographic sensitivities. Thus, supported by a thorough research apparatus, these studies propose a new cultural history of the early modern coexistence of various communities, as identified in current research by young scholars. Another novel feature of the volume is the deliberate digression of traditional scholars’ focus and the investigation of rarely examined regions and practices. This approach allows the contributors to spotlight their special areas of research and to share a fresh new look at “the Renaissance.”

Constructions of the Other in Early Modern Perceptions

Practices of Coexistence

R. Trager-Verchovsky

Essays on the Fiction of Kazimierz Brandys, Danilo Kiš, György Konrád and Christa Wolf

History, Another Text

Janus Pannonius, Matthias Corvinus and the Buda Court

Thr Orb and the Pen

Marianna D. Birnbaum

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