Creating a Historical Narrative for a Spiritual Nation: Simon Dubnow and the Politics of the Jewish Past

2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 98-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roni Gechtman
Keyword(s):  
Jewish History ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
East European ◽  
Jewish Diaspora ◽  
Political Views ◽  
History Of ◽  
Diaspora Nationalism ◽  
Intellectual Leader ◽  
Second World

Simon Dubnow (1860–1941) was a towering intellectual figure in the history of East European Jewry in the half-century before the Second World War. His influence was manifested mostly in two areas: as the preeminent Jewish historian of his generation and as the main theorist of Jewish diaspora nationalism (Folkism) and intellectual leader of the Folkspartey in Russia (1907-1917). This article examines the relation between the two aspects of Dubnow’s career and legacy. As a historian, Dubnow developed a method for the study of Jewish history he called ‘historism’. Politically, Dubnow was an atypical nationalist, in that he did not demand territorial independence for his people but only the recognition of Jews as a nation with autonomous status within the states where they already lived. I show how Dubnow’s Jewish nationalism and his political views derived, to a large extent, from his historical theory and analysis, and in turn, how his historical interpretations were often informed by his ideological preconceptions. By analyzing and juxtaposing his historical and theoretical works, I argue that the writing of history was for Dubnow a means to achieve his more ambitious goal: to change the future of Jewish society and, by extension, the countries where the Jews lived.

“Russia My History”

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-57
Author(s):  
Olga Konkka
Keyword(s):  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
World War ◽  
Digital Museum ◽  
Pedagogical Tool ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Second World

This article analyzes the presentation of the Second World War in the multimedia “history parks” of the Russian educational project “Russia My History.” In these exhibition complexes, modern digital technologies offer visitors a “revolutionary” way to discover Russian history. The article first explores the history and conception of the Russia My History project, as a pedagogical tool, a digital museum, a historical narrative, and a response to current memory policies. Next, I focus on the exhibition dedicated to the Second World War (specifically, on its technical, visual, structural, lexical, and historical aspects) and assess the impact of the digitalization and commodification of history on the traditionally rigid official Russian memory of the war. I attempt to show that instead of exploiting digital technologies to develop new approaches to the history of the war, the exhibition neglects the potential of multimedia and provides a narrative close to the one used in Soviet and post-Soviet textbooks.

Alternative Historical Narrative

2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 400-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karolina Wigura
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Second Vatican Council ◽  
World War ◽  
Vatican Council ◽  
Inherent Feature ◽  
Special Character ◽  
History Of ◽  
Western Germany ◽  
Second World

“Polish Bishops’ Appeal to Their German Colleagues” of 18 November 1965 was one of the fifty-six letters written by the Polish Episcopate to episcopates all over the world on the occasion of the end of the Second Vatican Council. However, this one had a special character. In all letters, the brother bishops were first informed about one thousand years of Christianity in Poland, then an outline of the millennium history was given, emphasizing, if possible, common history. The Letter to the German Episcopate had a special significance symbolized by the famous words contained in it: “we grant forgiveness and we ask for forgiveness.” Twenty years after the end of the Second World War, in a communist Poland, where being anti-German (more precisely being anti-Western Germany) was an inherent feature of the official propaganda of the state, the Polish bishops undertook to write an alternative history of relations with the western neighbour. The article examines the Appeal, presenting the background of creating the document, recalling its text and interpreting the text, using keys derived from contemporary philosophy of forgiveness, such as for example Paul Ricoeur’s and Józef Tischner’s, as well as historical documents such as letters written by the authors of the Appeal. Thanks to the alternative history described by the letter, the Appeal has served for years not only as the first step on the way to German–Polish reconciliation but also as the first political declaration using the word “forgiveness” after the Second World War.

scholarly journals Music in a ‘classless society’: Activities of members and ‘fellow travelers’ of communist party of Yugoslavia on the construction of conceptual and practical basis of the new musical order

Muzikologija ◽  
2012 ◽  
pp. 27-52
Author(s):  
Ivana Vesic
Keyword(s):  
Dialectical Materialism ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
World War ◽  
Literary Field ◽  
The Public ◽  
Cultural Policies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Classless Society ◽  
Second World

On account of its illegal status in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the CPY underwent many transformations in its organizational structure and methods of political struggle during the 1920s and 1930s. Although there are different periodizations of the pre-Second World war history of the CPY, most historiographers designate as most important moments the termination of the five-year long dictatorship of King Aleksandar in 1934 and the implementation of new policies in Comintern in 1935. After that, the CPY began very dynamic political campaigning attempting to reach different parts of the population which affected the definition and application of its cultural policies. Closer alignment with the leftist element of the field of culture created fertile ground for the construction of a broad cultural programme as well as the institutional circuit that enabled the implementation of some of its parts. A group of music specialists among the left-oriented cultural actors contributed to the process of the conceptual and practical articulation of the parts of the programme regulating musical practice. The so-called ?left music front? activists developed plural perspectives in the discussion of the music order in a classless society, interpreting the problem of the popularization of high-art music as well as the emancipation of proletarian music from different ideological positions. In that process they leaned on a specific version of the canon of composers both in the local and international music traditions and also on a historical narrative grounded in a dialectical materialism that was deduced from the Soviet model of the history of music. At the dawn of the Second World War, ?left music front? became more homogenized which was the result of strict ideological disciplining of members of the CPY in that period. Unlike the leftist segment of the literary field in which party policies were strongly opposed and criticized publicly, there were no ideological conflicts of that sort in its musical counterpart. Because of strict political control of the public sphere, activists of the ?left music front? had difficulties in the implementation of their cultural programme. They focused mostly on cultural work within workers` and students` organizations and societies that gave them an opportunity to promote in the public some of the core concepts of that programme. Although the activities in the abovementioned organizations gave modest results in the process of the institutionalization of the CPY`s cultural policies, they could be seen as an important basis for the development of musical practices after the Second World War. Together with other artistic projects in the leftist part of the cultural field, the musical undertakings of the members and ?fellow travellers? of the CPY contributed to the pluralisation and differentiation of that field, creating an alternative understanding of the production of music as well as of cultural policies on music.

Beyond Helpless Victims and Survivor Trauma: New Historiography on Jews in the Age of the Holocaust

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 693-707
Author(s):  
FERENC LACZÓ
Keyword(s):  
Jewish History ◽  
Second World War ◽  
National Narrative ◽  
World War ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Before And After ◽  
History Of ◽  
European Jewish ◽  
Second World

This review essay explores recent scholarship on the history of Jews in the post-Habsburg territories, before and after the Second World War. The impressive wave of scholarship that has emerged in recent decades on European Jewish history shortly before, during and, increasingly, after the Holocaust, has only made historians more aware of how much they have left to do to reconstruct, at least in text, the lives of European Jews – a multilingual and culturally, economically and politically heterogeneous group – that the Holocaust so systematically and brutally destroyed. Aiming to overcome reductionist attempts that either subsume the history of Jews under a national narrative or parcel it into separate national units without comparative or transnational agendas, a growing number of scholars aim to reconceptualise Jewish history as being crucial to European and global history.

An Unrealized Staging of Weinberg's Opera “The Passenger” in 1968: Whose Fault?

10.34690/71 ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 116-131
Author(s):  
Антонина Клокова
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Politics ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World ◽  
Outstanding Work ◽  
Archive Data

Опера Мечислава Вайнберга «Пассажирка» считается центральным произведением в творчестве композитора, выдающимся по своему смысловому наполнению и актуальности. К такому выводу пришли его коллеги по цеху и ведущие музыковеды страны, когда эта опера была впервые представлена на обсуждение в Союзе композиторов СССР. В то же время постановка произведения оказалась под сомнением сразу же после его создания, и опера не увидела сцены ни в Большом театре, по заказу которого была написана, ни где бы то ни было еще - вплоть до 2006 года. Кто был в этом виноват? Новые архивные материалы, которые будут представлены в настоящей статье, помогают понять, почему советские театры отказались от постановки. Они касаются истории создания произведения и удостоверяют первоначальные планы Большого театра поставить оперу. Помимо архивных данных предметом обсуждения станет и изменяющаяся в конце 1960-х годах (культурно-)политическая обстановка в СССР, а также новый исторический нарратив, затрагивающий события Второй мировой войны. Opera “The Passenger” by Mieczysław Weinberg is regarded as the composer's central work, an outstanding work due to its theme and the incredible relevance. Both his fellow composers and the leading national musicologists came to these conclusions, when the opera was first submitted to the USSR Union of Composers for consideration. However, the opera's staging became uncertain right after its composition, and “The Passenger” did not premiere, neither at the Bolshoi Theatre that commissioned its composition, nor at any other theatre, until 2006. Whose fault was that? New archive materials that are to be presented in this paper can help to shed the light on the possible reasons for Soviet theatres to neglect the opera. They refer to the history of the opera's composition and unveil the initial plans of the Bolshoi Theatre to stage it. Besides the archive data, the paper will examine changes in the (cultural) politics of the USSR at the end of 1960s as well as its contemporary historical narrative referring to the Second World War events.

Turning Aliens into Socialists

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-93
Author(s):  
Jessica Moberg
Keyword(s):  
Outer Space ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Swedish History ◽  
Second World ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Highly Evolved

Immediately after the Second World War Sweden was struck by a wave of sightings of strange flying objects. In some cases these mass sightings resulted in panic, particularly after authorities failed to identify them. Decades later, these phenomena were interpreted by two members of the Swedish UFO movement, Erland Sandqvist and Gösta Rehn, as alien spaceships, or UFOs. Rehn argued that ‘[t]here is nothing so dramatic in the Swedish history of UFOs as this invasion of alien fly-things’ (Rehn 1969: 50). In this article the interpretation of such sightings proposed by these authors, namely that we are visited by extraterrestrials from outer space, is approached from the perspective of myth theory. According to this mythical theme, not only are we are not alone in the universe, but also the history of humankind has been shaped by encounters with more highly-evolved alien beings. In their modern day form, these kinds of ideas about aliens and UFOs originated in the United States. The reasoning of Sandqvist and Rehn exemplifies the localization process that took place as members of the Swedish UFO movement began to produce their own narratives about aliens and UFOs. The question I will address is: in what ways do these stories change in new contexts? Texts produced by the Swedish UFO movement are analyzed as a case study of this process.

ABCs of the Revolution

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 278-291
Author(s):  
Egor A. Yesyunin
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Special Significance ◽  
Development History ◽  
The People ◽  
Red Army ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World ◽  
The Revolution

The article is devoted to the satirical agitation ABCs that appeared during the Civil War, which have never previously been identified by researchers as a separate type of agitation art. The ABCs, which used to have the narrow purpose of teaching children to read and write before, became a form of agitation art in the hands of artists and writers. This was facilitated by the fact that ABCs, in contrast to primers, are less loaded with educational material and, accordingly, they have more space for illustrations. The article presents the development history of the agitation ABCs, focusing in detail on four of them: V.V. Mayakovsky’s “Soviet ABC”, D.S. Moor’s “Red Army Soldier’s ABC”, A.I. Strakhov’s “ABC of the Revolution”, and M.M. Cheremnykh’s “Anti-Religious ABC”. There is also briefly considered “Our ABC”: the “TASS Posters” created by various artists during the Second World War. The article highlights the special significance of V.V. Mayakovsky’s first agitation ABC, which later became a reference point for many artists. The authors of the first satirical ABCs of the Civil War period consciously used the traditional form of popular prints, as well as ditties and sayings, in order to create images close to the people. The article focuses on the iconographic connections between the ABCs and posters in the works of D.S. Moor and M.M. Cheremnykh, who transferred their solutions from the posters to the ABCs.

B'nai B'rith on the European continent after World War Two

1992 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-126
Author(s):  
Hans Levy
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
The State ◽  
Jewish Organization ◽  
World War Two ◽  
World War ◽  
European Continent ◽  
History Of ◽  
State Of Israel ◽  
Second World

The focus of this paper is on the oldest international Jewish organization founded in 1843, B’nai B’rith. The paper presents a chronicle of B’nai B’rith in Continental Europe after the Second World War and the history of the organization in Scandinavia. In the 1970's the Order of B'nai B'rith became B'nai B'rith international. B'nai B'rith worked for Jewish unity and was supportive of the state of Israel.

"Iets ten voordelen van onzen jeugd". John Caremans, Edgar Lehembre, Remi Van Mieghem en de Vlaamse en Duitse intriges omtrent de Vlaams-nationalistische jeugdbeweging in 1942

2011 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-193
Author(s):  
Frank Seberechts
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
National Union ◽  
Youth Movement ◽  
Youth Movements ◽  
History Of ◽  
Post War ◽  
Youth Leader ◽  
Second World

Uit de papieren van jeugdleider John Caremans, die aan de zorgen van het ADVN werden toevertrouwd, krijgen we een duidelijker beeld van de geschiedenis van de Vlaams-nationalistische jeugdbewegingen voor en tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Caremans voert in 1942 in opdracht van zijn oversten ‘verkenningsopdrachten’ uit bij vertegenwoordigers van de nationaal-socialistische jeugdbeweging in Duitsland. Uit het verslag dat Caremans over zijn reizen opstelt en uit de naoorlogse ondervragingen van Caremans en van zijn chef, jeugdleider Edgar Lehembre, blijkt dat deze reizen naar Berlijn slechts een episode vormen in de strijd die gedurende de hele bezetting woedt tussen de verschillende jeugdbewegingen in Vlaanderen en tussen, de verschillende partijen en ideologische strekkingen in de collaboratie. Alle ingrediënten zijn aanwezig: de scepsis van een deel van de Nationaal-Socialistische Jeugd Vlaanderen (NSJV) tegenover de brute nationaal-socialistische machtshonger, het onbegrip en de machtspolitiek van Duitse instanties als het Deutsche Arbeiterfront (DAF) en de Hitlerjugend (HJ) tegenover de buitenlanders – zelfs wanneer die zich in de collaboratie inschakelen, de inmenging van Vlaamsch Nationaal Verbond (VNV) en van de Vlaamsch-Duitsche Arbeidsgemeenschap (DeVlag)/SS. Het wordt duidelijk dat Lehembre en het VNV in deze strijd het onderspit zullen delven.________“Something on behalf of our young people”. John Caremans, Edgar Lehembre, Remi Van Mieghem and the Flemish and German machinations concerning the Flemish nationalist youth movement in 1942.The documents of youth leader John Caremans, which had been entrusted to the care of the ADVN, give a clearer picture of the history of the Flemish Nationalist youth movements before and during the Second World War. In 1942, Caremans was instructed by his superiors to carry out ‘exploratory missions’ among representatives of the National Socialist youth movement in Germany.The report written by Caremans about his travels and post-war interrogations of Caremans and his chief, youth leader, Edgar Lehembre, demonstrate that these trips to Berlin constituted only one episode in the struggle that raged throughout the occupation between the various youth movements in Flanders and between the various parties and ideological trends in the collaboration. All ingredients are present: the scepticism of a part of the National Socialist Youth of Flanders (NSJV) towards the brute National Socialist craving for power, the incomprehension and the power politics of German agencies, like the Deutsche Arbeiterfront (DAF) and the Hitlerjugend (HJ) towards foreigners – even when they engage in collaboration, the interference of the Flemish National Union (VNV) and the Flemish German Labour Community (De Vlag)/SS. It becomes clear that Lehembre and the VNV would come off worst in this combat.

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