Download or read book Memoirs of the Polish Baroque written by Jan Chryzostom Pasek and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1976-01-01 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Baroque was a rich period in Polish literature, yet it is poorly represented in English translation. This great work, which stands apart from the majority of diaries and memoirs of the period, is one of the most important of Polish literary and historical documents. Although it has never before appeared in print in English, it has been translated into several other languages and has been published in dozens of editions in Polish. Few nations have been more entangled in military, religious, social and political crosscurrents than Poland in the seventeeth century. Pressured from every side in neighboring states, hobbled by a weak central government, it had become a European counter-culture: libertarian, democratic, prvoincial and hopelessly divided internally. Pasek, a nobleman, solider, parliamentarian, adventurer, was in the thick of the struggle. Although irascible and a pompous egotist, he was a keen observer and a spirited writer who freely employed a racy, colloquial idiom; his chronicle is filled with whimsy, color, excitement, action and humor. For the political scientist and historian, the Memoirs provides insight into Poland's odd form of egalitarian parliament, and is a rich source of social and military history. Religious scholars will find a new context for the study of the Counter-Reformation and radical Protestantism. And there is much for the student of comparative literature: so well do Pasek's writing fit the romantic idea of a free narration in which one can feel the inflections of a living voice, unhampered by literary conventions, that when the manuscript was discovered in the nineteenth century, scholars at first suspected a forgery. Catherine Leach has translated Pasek with extraordinary clarity and literary power. She also provides extensive annotation, illustrations, map and other reference aids, and a perceptive introductory essay of 45 pages; her work is the product of many years of research and painstaking effort. She has previously published several scholarly papers and translations of many poems, stories, essays and books from Polish and Russian, including Czeslaw Milosz's Native Realm. -- from dust jacket.

Download or read book Memoirs of the Polish Baroque written by Jan Chryzostom Pasek and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-11-10 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1976.

Download or read book Memoirs of the Polish Baroque written by Jan Chryzostom Pasek and published by . This book was released on with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book War in the Shadow of Auschwitz written by John Wiernicki and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 2001-12-01 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1943: Polish underground fighter John Wiernicki is captured and beaten by the Gestapo, then shipped to Auschwitz. In this chilling memoir, Wiernicki, a Gentile, details "life" in the infamous death camp, and his battle to survive, physically and morally, in the face of utter evil. The author begins by remembering his aristocratic youth, an idyllic time shattered by German invasion. The ensuing dark days of occupation would fire the adolescent Wiernicki with a burning desire to serve Poland, a cause that led him to valiant action and eventual arrest. As a young non-Jew, Wiernicki was acutely sensitive to the depravity and injustice that engulfed him at Auschwitz. He bears witness to the harrowing selection and extermination of Jews doomed by birth to the gas chambers, to savage camp policies, brutal SS doctors, and rampant corruption with the system. He notes the difference in treatment between Jews and non-Jews. And he relives fearful unexpected encounters with two notorious "Angels of Death": Josef Mengele and Heinz Thilo. War in the Shadow of Auschwitz is an important historical and personal document. Its vivid portrait of prewar and wartime Poland, and of German concentration camps, provides a significant addition to the growing body of testimony by gentile survivors and a heartfelt contribution to fostering comprehension and understanding.

Download or read book A History of Polish Christianity written by Jerzy Kloczowski and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2000-09-14 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a single-volume history of Christianity in Poland, a subject at the core of religious history and European secular history alike. The book covers the development of Polish Christianity from the tenth century to the year 2000, placing it in the broader context of East-Central European political, social, religious and cultural history. Jewish-Christian relations, and the problematic religious history of the Jews in the region, play an important part in the story, and there are pervasive references to countries historically linked to Poland, such as Lithuania, Belarus and the Ukraine. Jerzy Kloczowski shows how the history of Poland, and Polish Christianity, are embedded in the complex systems of relations with other countries and religious denominations. A History of Polish Christianity should be read by anyone interested in the confrontation between Christianity and the totalitarian systems of the twentieth century, and in the interplay between Eastern and Western Christianity.

Download or read book Polish Hybrid and Otherwise written by George Z. Gasyna and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2011-05-05 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Polish, Hybrid, and Otherwise examines the triple compact made by displaced authors with language, their host country, and the homeland left behind. It considers the entwined phenomena of expatriation and homelessness, and the artistic responses to these conditions, including reconstructions of identity and the creation of idealized new homelands. Conrad and Gombrowicz, writers who lived with the condition of exile, were in the vanguard of what today has become a thriving intellectual community of transnationals whose calling card is precisely their hybridity and fluency in multiple cultural traditions. Conrad and Gombrowicz's Polish childhoods emerge as cultural touchstones against which they formulated their writing philosophies. Gasyna claims that in both cases negotiating exile involved processes of working through a traumatic past through the construction of narrative personae that served as strategic doubles. Both authors engaged in extensive manipulation of their public image. Above all, Conrad and Gombrowicz's narratives are united by a desire for a linguistic refuge, a proposed home-in-language, and a set of techniques deployed in the representation of their predicament as subjects caught in-between.

Download or read book A Polish Woman s Experience in World War II written by Irena Protassewicz and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-02-07 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This hitherto unpublished first-hand witness account, written in 1968-9, tells the story of a privileged Polish woman whose life was torn apart by the outbreak of the Second World War and Soviet occupation. The account has been translated into English from the original Polish and interwoven with letters and depositions, and is supplemented with commentary and notes for invaluable historical context. Irena Protassewicz's vivid account begins with the Russian Revolution, followed by a rare insight into the life and mores of the landed gentry of northeastern Poland between the wars, a rural idyll which was to be shattered forever by the coming of the Second World War. Deported in a cattle truck to Siberia and sentenced to a future of forced labour, Irena's fortunes were to change dramatically after Hitler's attack on Russia. She charts the adventure and horror of life as a military nurse with the Polish Army, on a journey that would take her from the wastes of Soviet Central Asia, through the Middle East, to an unlikely ending in the highlands of Scotland. The story concludes with Irena's search to discover the wartime and post-war fate of her family and friends on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and the challenges of life as a refugee in Britain. A Polish Woman's Experience in World War II provides a compelling, personal route into understanding how the greatest conflict of the 20th century transformed the lives of the individuals who lived through it.

Download or read book The History of Poland written by M. B. B. Biskupski and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2018-09-07 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an engaging explanation of the complicated history of Poland, one of the least well-known countries in Europe. Poland, which has one of the strongest economies in the European Union, has faced significant turmoil throughout the years. Encapsulating centuries of development, this book distills Poland's historical evolution into patterns, including those that have developed since the first edition was published nearly 20 years ago. The book begins with an overview of contemporary Poland, providing both basic information about the geography, culture, and current political climate of the country while tying these to major contemporary issues. This introduction is followed by chapters discussing Poland's long history, starting with the 10th century. The second half of the book presents a history of Poland in the 20th and 21st centuries, covering the major issues affecting the country and offering possible interpretations of them. This updated and revised edition accounts for recent events in Poland and examines the effects of the Polish diaspora globally.

Download or read book Customs and Culture in Poland under the Last Saxon King written by Jędrzej Kitowicz and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-04 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jędrzej Kitowicz was a parish priest in central Poland with a military and worldly past. In his later years, after putting the affairs of his parish in order, he composed a colorful chronicle of all aspects and walks of life under King August III. He seems to have written mostly from memory, creating in the process the most complete record that exists of society in eighteenth-century Poland. A man with omnivorous tastes, a keen sense of observation, and a wry—at times bawdy—sense of humor, Kitowicz’s realistic and robust literary technique has been compared in its earthiness and evocativeness to Flemish genre painting. A noteworthy example of eighteenth-century writing and narrative talent, his Opis reveals an astounding visual memory and a modern ethnographer’s eye for material culture. The present book consists of fifty-one chapters, including all of the most celebrated ones, from Father Kitowicz’s Opis, complete with a comprehensive introduction. Topics include religious beliefs, customs and institutions, child-rearing, education, the judiciary and the military. Particularly vivid are the descriptions of the lives of the nobility, ranging from cooking through men’s and women’s wear to household entertainments and drinking habits. A commentary by the editor introduces each chapter.

Download or read book A Concise History of Poland written by Jerzy Lukowski and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-09-20 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Poland is a country which sporadically hits the headlines of the Anglo-Saxon world. It has suffered the dubious distinction of being wiped off the political map in 1795 to be resurrected after the First World War only to suffer apparent annihilation during the Second, with reduction to satellite status of the Soviet Union only to emerge in the van of resistance to Soviet domination during the 1980s. Yet the history of Poland remains comparatively little known. This book offers a brief, non-specialist introduction to Polish history, from medieval times to the present day, and is the only short history of Poland available in English. It concentrates essentially on political development which, particularly for the pre-nineteenth-century period, still remains little known to English readers. The book also includes much material on relations with Germany, Russia, the Ukraine, Lithuania, and other neighbouring states.

Download or read book God s Playground A History of Poland written by Norman Davies and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005-02-24 with total page 628 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new edition of Norman Davies's classic study of the history of Poland has been revised and fully updated with two new chapters to bring the story to the end of the twentieth century. The writing of Polish history, like Poland itself, has frequently fallen prey to interested parties. Professor Norman Davies adopts a sceptical stance towards all existing interpretations and attempts to bring a strong dose of common sense to his theme. He presents the most comprehensive survey in English of this frequently maligned and usually misunderstood country.

Download or read book Red Eagle The Army in Polish Politics 1944 1988 written by Andrew A. Michta and published by Hoover Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rise of the Polish army elite had a profound effect on the Communist Party. Many current changes stem from the tougher attitudes the Polish military under Jarulzelski took toward Solidarity. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Download or read book The Military Revolution and Political Change written by Brian Downing and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-08 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To examine the long-run origins of democracy and dictatorship, Brian Downing focuses on the importance of medieval political configurations and of military modernization in the early modern period. He maintains that in late medieval times an array of constitutional arrangements distinguished Western Europe from other parts of the world and predisposed it toward liberal democracy. He then looks at how medieval constitutionalism was affected by the "military revolution" of the early modern era--the shift from small, decentralized feudal levies to large standing armies. Downing won the American Political Science Association's Gabriel Almond Award for the dissertation on which this book was based.

Download or read book Intermarium written by Marek Jan Chodakiewicz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-08 with total page 577 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History and collective memories influence a nation, its culture, and institutions; hence, its domestic politics and foreign policy. That is the case in the Intermarium, the land between the Baltic and Black Seas in Eastern Europe. The area is the last unabashed rampart of Western Civilization in the East, and a point of convergence of disparate cultures. Marek Jan Chodakiewicz focuses on the Intermarium for several reasons. Most importantly because, as the inheritor of the freedom and rights stemming from the legacy of the Polish-Lithuanian/Ruthenian Commonwealth, it is culturally and ideologically compatible with American national interests. It is also a gateway to both East and West. Since the Intermarium is the most stable part of the post-Soviet area, Chodakiewicz argues that the United States should focus on solidifying its influence there. The ongoing political and economic success of the Intermarium states under American sponsorship undermines the totalitarian enemies of freedom all over the world. As such, the area can act as a springboard to addressing the rest of the successor states, including those in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Russian Federation. Intermarium has operated successfully for several centuries. It is the most inclusive political concept within the framework of the Commonwealth. By reintroducing the concept of the Intermarium into intellectual discourse the author highlights the autonomous and independent nature of the area. This is a brilliant and innovative addition to European Studies and World Culture.

Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Literary Translingualism written by Steven G. Kellman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-09-30 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though it might seem as modern as Samuel Beckett, Joseph Conrad, and Vladimir Nabokov, translingual writing - texts by authors using more than one language or a language other than their primary one - has an ancient pedigree. The Routledge Handbook of Literary Translingualism aims to provide a comprehensive overview of translingual literature in a wide variety of languages throughout the world, from ancient to modern times. The volume includes sections on: translingual genres - with chapters on memoir, poetry, fiction, drama, and cinema ancient, medieval, and modern translingualism global perspectives - chapters overseeing European, African, and Asian languages Combining chapters from lead specialists in the field, this volume will be of interest to scholars, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates interested in investigating the vibrant area of translingual literature. Attracting scholars from a variety of disciplines, this interdisciplinary and pioneering Handbook will advance current scholarship of the permutations of languages among authors throughout time.

Download or read book The Power of Kings written by Paul Kléber Monod and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2001-08-11 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This sweeping book explores the profound shift in the way European kings and queens were regarded by their subjects between the Reformation and the Enlightenment. Once viewed as godlike beings, by 1715 monarchs had come to represent the human, visible side of the rational state. The author offers new insights into the relations between kings and their subjects and the interplay between monarchy and religion.

Download or read book Encyclopedia of Life Writing written by Margaretta Jolly and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-12-04 with total page 1141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.