... Belinskij and Russian literary criticism: The heritage of organic aesthetics. Post a Comment.... more ... Belinskij and Russian literary criticism: The heritage of organic aesthetics. Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author: Terras, Victor. PUBLISHER: University of Wisconsin Press (Madison). SERIES TITLE: YEAR: 1974. PUB TYPE: Book (ISBN 029906350X ). VOLUME/EDITION: ...
THE POSTMODERN CULTURE in which we live is a niche culture, where definitions of words are niche ... more THE POSTMODERN CULTURE in which we live is a niche culture, where definitions of words are niche definitions. What passes for conservative in my neck of the woods may not be your definition of conservative. My notion of being a conservative excludes any permanent attachment to a political party or a public policy. In my view, "conservative" is a philosophical term, and it designates an attitude grounded in philosophical and existential premises. I can offer an existential and a philosophical reason for why I choose to be identified with things conservative rather than things "progressive" (leftist) or liberal. The philosophical reason has to do with language and the difficulties in understanding our ability to use it. Briefly, explanations offered by the philosophical Right concerning the mystery of language seem more convincing to me than those offered by the philosophical Left. Unless one accepts a priori some kind of logocentric order underlying this most essential human tool, a sustainable philosophy of life is hard to conceive. I have written on this subject numerous times, as have others. The existential reason for my conservatism is described below. My parents were Polish Catholics born and raised in Lithuania before the Second World War. In 1945, Lithuania's substantial minority of Polonized citizens, together with 1.5 million other Polish Catholics, were expelled from what was to become an enlarged Soviet Union. The Baltic republics, together with portions of Belarus and Ukraine that belonged to Poland before the Second World War, were annexed by the Soviets after the war. The U.S.S.R. government became the owner of the Polish properties left behind. By the agreement of the Four Powers, chunks of prewar Poland were attached to the Lithuanian, Ukrainian, and Belarusan "union republics." This was part of the great migration of nations decided on in Yalta in 1945 and Teheran in 1943. The expellees were resettled in formerly German territories, from which Germans were expelled by a fiat of the Four Powers. When I hear German expellees complain about the hardships that they endured in 1945 while escaping from Czechoslovakia and Poland to the parts of Germany occupied by the United States, Great Britain, and France, I do not know whether to laugh or cry. I once heard one such former German expellee complain that he did not have a plentiful dinner until 1950. Well, I did not have a plentiful dinner until I came to the United States in 1963-and by plentiful I mean the kind of cuisine that university students enjoy. Many of my countrymen had to wait longer than that for a decent dinner. My family was sent to Danzig. It took my mother and her two underage daughters a year to reach Danzig. My father was detained by the Soviets. We traveled in cattle cars that were occasionally left somewhere on side tracks to languish for weeks. There were no toilet facilities and little food. We spent over six months in the little Polish border town of Suwalki. It was years later that I learned that, three months before we arrived in Suwalki, the Soviet NKVD had organized there a pogrom of Catholics in which between 600 and 800 persons were tortured and then taken away, never to be heard of again. The Russian authorities have not supplied information about them to the present day. In the summer of 1946 we reached the ruins of Danzig, now called Gdansk. By 1946 my father had obtained permission to join us in Poland. During the German occupation of Lithuania from 1941 to 1944, my parents hid a Jewish female physician in their home, in a little cellar under the housekeeper's room. I vaguely remember that little room: the only entrance to it was from the kitchen, and it was large enough to contain a bed, a nightstand, and a trunk where clothes and other personal items were kept. It was off-limits to us children except by invitation, and therefore a place of mystery. In front of the bed was a piece of carpet, and under it was a secret door to the cellar. When the Soviets came, the lady physician became an important person in the city administration. My father managed to obtain an appointment with her in the city offices. As he recounted later, he said something to the effect of: "I helped you when you were in need; please help me obtain a permit to leave." The lady physician did help him, and my father made his way to Gdansk in 1946.
... 387 9 The twentieth century: the era of socialist realism, 1925-53 by Victor Terras 458 10 Th... more ... 387 9 The twentieth century: the era of socialist realism, 1925-53 by Victor Terras 458 10 The twentieth century: in search of new ways, 1953-80 by Geoffrey Mosking 520 11 Afterword: Russian literature in the 1980s by Efim Etkind 595 Bibliography by Charles Moser 615 Index ...
Referat stawia tezę, że w slawistyce amerykańskiej (mowa nie tylko o filologii, ale również o his... more Referat stawia tezę, że w slawistyce amerykańskiej (mowa nie tylko o filologii, ale również o historii, socjologii i politologii), nierosyjskie narody i państwa słowiańskie są jedynie śladowo obecne. Przejawia się to m.in. w nikłej ilości naukowców, zajmujących się niegermańską Europą Środkową i Wschodnią; administracyjnym faworyzowaniem tych naukowców, którzy zajmują się wyłącznie Rosją; ukierunkowaniem grantów i stypendiów głównie w stronę studiów rosyjskich i sowieckich; brakiem recenzji (w czołowych pismach slawistycznych) książek kluczowych dla wizerunku nierosyjskich słowiańskich narodów oraz powielaniem w dyskursie naukowym rosyjskich lub sowieckich interpretacji wydarzeń historycznych w Europie Wschodniej i Środkowej.
This paper investigates a possible connection between the razing of Warsaw’s Jewish ghetto by the... more This paper investigates a possible connection between the razing of Warsaw’s Jewish ghetto by the Nazis in April 1943 and the execution of the Polish officer corps by the Soviets in the Katyn Forest sometime between March and May 1940. (Plates 36 and 37) Unlikely as it may at first seem, the available documentation indicates that these two grisly events were played off against each other by the Soviet and Nazi propaganda apparatuses, with a view to extracting from them additional benefits for their perpetrators.
Terytorium dyskursu Kolonializm w nowoczesnym tego sowa znaczeniu pojawisie w okresie, gdy w Euro... more Terytorium dyskursu Kolonializm w nowoczesnym tego sowa znaczeniu pojawisie w okresie, gdy w Europie zacz e¯a sie scala c samo świadomo śc grup etnicznych i narodowych. Europejskie grupy et niczne zacz e¯y sie masowo przeksztaca c w narodowo ści w wieku XVIII; w niektorych krajach azjatyckich proces ten rozpocz ą¯ sie wcze śniej. Kolonializmem wiec nale Ŝy nazwa c podboj terytorium i ludno ści, ktora ju Ŝ posiada swoją wasn ą samo świadomo śc , kultur e, prawo, j ezyk, literatur e i obyczaje spoeczne, w celu osi ągniecia korzy ści ekonomicznych i politycznych. Kolonializm to przeksztacenie nawet niewielkiej me tropolii w peryferie. W wieku XVIII rozpocz e¯y sie podboje terytoriow nie-europejskich przez europejs kie mocarstwa, co zaowocowao kolonializmem Europejczykow na wielk ą skale. Czasem, jak w wypadku Indii, (ktorych podboj nast ąpiwcze śniej), na kolonizowanym terytorium istniaa wysoko rozwinieta kultura, pi śmiennictwo i architektura; czasem, jak w wypadku terytoriow afryka n...
This intimate portrayal of the friendship between two icons of twentieth-century poetry, Czeslaw ... more 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.
n the first quarter of 2016 even persons uninterested in Poland have likely noted a series of unf... more n the first quarter of 2016 even persons uninterested in Poland have likely noted a series of unfavorable articles about that country in English and German media. With breathtaking frankness, the cause of media attention was suggested by George Soros in a NYRB interview on February 11, 2016. While ostensibly lamenting the weakening of the European Union (caused by Muslim migration, Greek financial crisis, and tensions between EU and Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine), Soros displayed considerable agitation when the interviewer mentioned the East Central European countries that are not the source of EU troubles. What seems to bother Soros is the mid-2015 presidential and parliamentary election in Poland and its aftermath: the defeat of the liberal-leftist Civic Platform Party and victory of the traditionalist Law and Justice Party. " Poland is one of the most ethnically and religiously homogeneous countries in Europe, " says Soros with wistful disapproval. He supports Brussels' efforts to force Poland and Hungary to accept from Germany a Brussels-appointed contingent of Muslims. But the new government in Poland and, earlier, the conservative Hungarian government have refused to obey. Soros smoothly articulates a series of insinuations: " Kaczyński [head of the victorious Law and Justice Party in Poland] was successful in painting him [the Muslim immigrant] as the devil.. . he is a canny politician and he chose migration as the central issue of his campaign. " Two untruths are present in this insinuation. First, Mr. Kaczyński did not run for any office whatever and he kept out of sight during the campaign. Second, the issue of Muslim migration was a non-issue in the election, because Poles have had more urgent matters on the agenda. Why did conservatives win in 2015? Because, 25 years after communism fell, salaries in Poland are still less than one-third of what they are in Holland or Germany. Because of two-digit unemployment during the eight-year tenure of the liberal Civic Platform. Because two million young people left Poland in search of work in recent years. Because two-thirds of enterprises that manufacture Polish exports are in foreign hands, and profits go abroad instead of into workers' salaries. Because three-fourths of Polish newspapers are owned by German media companies. Because the Smolensk air catastrophe of 2010 (in which President of Poland and 95 members of the elite perished) was never properly investigated. Because the Civic Platform government promoted those responsible for the tragic flight instead of firing them. Because the black boxes and remnants of the plane are still in Russia, and the Civic Platform government did not consider it fit to ask NATO allies for help in investigating the catastrophe—instead, it ceded the investigation to Russian officials. Because the liberal government stopped the vetting of former communist officials and retained them in their previous positions. Poles voted the way they did because they were fed up with the government that in their opinion served the interests of Brussels and Berlin. The issue of migrants was marginal, and if Mr. Soros does not know it, it is not for a lack of available information. In Mr. Soros's view, Kaczyński and Orbán " seek to exploit a mix of ethnic and religious nationalism in order to perpetuate themselves in power. " The absurdity of this statement is palpable for anyone who knows the poverty and the spirit of service that characterize Kaczyński's biography. Mr. Soros's vision of the world implies that weaker countries are obstacles to the well-being of the stronger ones, and action must be taken to correct this. Such
... The elections of February 1936, he writes, were really a kind of 125 Book Reviews Page 11. p... more ... The elections of February 1936, he writes, were really a kind of 125 Book Reviews Page 11. plebiscite on the insurrection that had begun in Asturias in 1934 when the trium-phant Popular Front side construed its victory as a mandate for violent revolution (pp. 8384). ...
... Belinskij and Russian literary criticism: The heritage of organic aesthetics. Post a Comment.... more ... Belinskij and Russian literary criticism: The heritage of organic aesthetics. Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author: Terras, Victor. PUBLISHER: University of Wisconsin Press (Madison). SERIES TITLE: YEAR: 1974. PUB TYPE: Book (ISBN 029906350X ). VOLUME/EDITION: ...
THE POSTMODERN CULTURE in which we live is a niche culture, where definitions of words are niche ... more THE POSTMODERN CULTURE in which we live is a niche culture, where definitions of words are niche definitions. What passes for conservative in my neck of the woods may not be your definition of conservative. My notion of being a conservative excludes any permanent attachment to a political party or a public policy. In my view, "conservative" is a philosophical term, and it designates an attitude grounded in philosophical and existential premises. I can offer an existential and a philosophical reason for why I choose to be identified with things conservative rather than things "progressive" (leftist) or liberal. The philosophical reason has to do with language and the difficulties in understanding our ability to use it. Briefly, explanations offered by the philosophical Right concerning the mystery of language seem more convincing to me than those offered by the philosophical Left. Unless one accepts a priori some kind of logocentric order underlying this most essential human tool, a sustainable philosophy of life is hard to conceive. I have written on this subject numerous times, as have others. The existential reason for my conservatism is described below. My parents were Polish Catholics born and raised in Lithuania before the Second World War. In 1945, Lithuania's substantial minority of Polonized citizens, together with 1.5 million other Polish Catholics, were expelled from what was to become an enlarged Soviet Union. The Baltic republics, together with portions of Belarus and Ukraine that belonged to Poland before the Second World War, were annexed by the Soviets after the war. The U.S.S.R. government became the owner of the Polish properties left behind. By the agreement of the Four Powers, chunks of prewar Poland were attached to the Lithuanian, Ukrainian, and Belarusan "union republics." This was part of the great migration of nations decided on in Yalta in 1945 and Teheran in 1943. The expellees were resettled in formerly German territories, from which Germans were expelled by a fiat of the Four Powers. When I hear German expellees complain about the hardships that they endured in 1945 while escaping from Czechoslovakia and Poland to the parts of Germany occupied by the United States, Great Britain, and France, I do not know whether to laugh or cry. I once heard one such former German expellee complain that he did not have a plentiful dinner until 1950. Well, I did not have a plentiful dinner until I came to the United States in 1963-and by plentiful I mean the kind of cuisine that university students enjoy. Many of my countrymen had to wait longer than that for a decent dinner. My family was sent to Danzig. It took my mother and her two underage daughters a year to reach Danzig. My father was detained by the Soviets. We traveled in cattle cars that were occasionally left somewhere on side tracks to languish for weeks. There were no toilet facilities and little food. We spent over six months in the little Polish border town of Suwalki. It was years later that I learned that, three months before we arrived in Suwalki, the Soviet NKVD had organized there a pogrom of Catholics in which between 600 and 800 persons were tortured and then taken away, never to be heard of again. The Russian authorities have not supplied information about them to the present day. In the summer of 1946 we reached the ruins of Danzig, now called Gdansk. By 1946 my father had obtained permission to join us in Poland. During the German occupation of Lithuania from 1941 to 1944, my parents hid a Jewish female physician in their home, in a little cellar under the housekeeper's room. I vaguely remember that little room: the only entrance to it was from the kitchen, and it was large enough to contain a bed, a nightstand, and a trunk where clothes and other personal items were kept. It was off-limits to us children except by invitation, and therefore a place of mystery. In front of the bed was a piece of carpet, and under it was a secret door to the cellar. When the Soviets came, the lady physician became an important person in the city administration. My father managed to obtain an appointment with her in the city offices. As he recounted later, he said something to the effect of: "I helped you when you were in need; please help me obtain a permit to leave." The lady physician did help him, and my father made his way to Gdansk in 1946.
... 387 9 The twentieth century: the era of socialist realism, 1925-53 by Victor Terras 458 10 Th... more ... 387 9 The twentieth century: the era of socialist realism, 1925-53 by Victor Terras 458 10 The twentieth century: in search of new ways, 1953-80 by Geoffrey Mosking 520 11 Afterword: Russian literature in the 1980s by Efim Etkind 595 Bibliography by Charles Moser 615 Index ...
Referat stawia tezę, że w slawistyce amerykańskiej (mowa nie tylko o filologii, ale również o his... more Referat stawia tezę, że w slawistyce amerykańskiej (mowa nie tylko o filologii, ale również o historii, socjologii i politologii), nierosyjskie narody i państwa słowiańskie są jedynie śladowo obecne. Przejawia się to m.in. w nikłej ilości naukowców, zajmujących się niegermańską Europą Środkową i Wschodnią; administracyjnym faworyzowaniem tych naukowców, którzy zajmują się wyłącznie Rosją; ukierunkowaniem grantów i stypendiów głównie w stronę studiów rosyjskich i sowieckich; brakiem recenzji (w czołowych pismach slawistycznych) książek kluczowych dla wizerunku nierosyjskich słowiańskich narodów oraz powielaniem w dyskursie naukowym rosyjskich lub sowieckich interpretacji wydarzeń historycznych w Europie Wschodniej i Środkowej.
This paper investigates a possible connection between the razing of Warsaw’s Jewish ghetto by the... more This paper investigates a possible connection between the razing of Warsaw’s Jewish ghetto by the Nazis in April 1943 and the execution of the Polish officer corps by the Soviets in the Katyn Forest sometime between March and May 1940. (Plates 36 and 37) Unlikely as it may at first seem, the available documentation indicates that these two grisly events were played off against each other by the Soviet and Nazi propaganda apparatuses, with a view to extracting from them additional benefits for their perpetrators.
Terytorium dyskursu Kolonializm w nowoczesnym tego sowa znaczeniu pojawisie w okresie, gdy w Euro... more Terytorium dyskursu Kolonializm w nowoczesnym tego sowa znaczeniu pojawisie w okresie, gdy w Europie zacz e¯a sie scala c samo świadomo śc grup etnicznych i narodowych. Europejskie grupy et niczne zacz e¯y sie masowo przeksztaca c w narodowo ści w wieku XVIII; w niektorych krajach azjatyckich proces ten rozpocz ą¯ sie wcze śniej. Kolonializmem wiec nale Ŝy nazwa c podboj terytorium i ludno ści, ktora ju Ŝ posiada swoją wasn ą samo świadomo śc , kultur e, prawo, j ezyk, literatur e i obyczaje spoeczne, w celu osi ągniecia korzy ści ekonomicznych i politycznych. Kolonializm to przeksztacenie nawet niewielkiej me tropolii w peryferie. W wieku XVIII rozpocz e¯y sie podboje terytoriow nie-europejskich przez europejs kie mocarstwa, co zaowocowao kolonializmem Europejczykow na wielk ą skale. Czasem, jak w wypadku Indii, (ktorych podboj nast ąpiwcze śniej), na kolonizowanym terytorium istniaa wysoko rozwinieta kultura, pi śmiennictwo i architektura; czasem, jak w wypadku terytoriow afryka n...
This intimate portrayal of the friendship between two icons of twentieth-century poetry, Czeslaw ... more 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.
n the first quarter of 2016 even persons uninterested in Poland have likely noted a series of unf... more n the first quarter of 2016 even persons uninterested in Poland have likely noted a series of unfavorable articles about that country in English and German media. With breathtaking frankness, the cause of media attention was suggested by George Soros in a NYRB interview on February 11, 2016. While ostensibly lamenting the weakening of the European Union (caused by Muslim migration, Greek financial crisis, and tensions between EU and Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine), Soros displayed considerable agitation when the interviewer mentioned the East Central European countries that are not the source of EU troubles. What seems to bother Soros is the mid-2015 presidential and parliamentary election in Poland and its aftermath: the defeat of the liberal-leftist Civic Platform Party and victory of the traditionalist Law and Justice Party. " Poland is one of the most ethnically and religiously homogeneous countries in Europe, " says Soros with wistful disapproval. He supports Brussels' efforts to force Poland and Hungary to accept from Germany a Brussels-appointed contingent of Muslims. But the new government in Poland and, earlier, the conservative Hungarian government have refused to obey. Soros smoothly articulates a series of insinuations: " Kaczyński [head of the victorious Law and Justice Party in Poland] was successful in painting him [the Muslim immigrant] as the devil.. . he is a canny politician and he chose migration as the central issue of his campaign. " Two untruths are present in this insinuation. First, Mr. Kaczyński did not run for any office whatever and he kept out of sight during the campaign. Second, the issue of Muslim migration was a non-issue in the election, because Poles have had more urgent matters on the agenda. Why did conservatives win in 2015? Because, 25 years after communism fell, salaries in Poland are still less than one-third of what they are in Holland or Germany. Because of two-digit unemployment during the eight-year tenure of the liberal Civic Platform. Because two million young people left Poland in search of work in recent years. Because two-thirds of enterprises that manufacture Polish exports are in foreign hands, and profits go abroad instead of into workers' salaries. Because three-fourths of Polish newspapers are owned by German media companies. Because the Smolensk air catastrophe of 2010 (in which President of Poland and 95 members of the elite perished) was never properly investigated. Because the Civic Platform government promoted those responsible for the tragic flight instead of firing them. Because the black boxes and remnants of the plane are still in Russia, and the Civic Platform government did not consider it fit to ask NATO allies for help in investigating the catastrophe—instead, it ceded the investigation to Russian officials. Because the liberal government stopped the vetting of former communist officials and retained them in their previous positions. Poles voted the way they did because they were fed up with the government that in their opinion served the interests of Brussels and Berlin. The issue of migrants was marginal, and if Mr. Soros does not know it, it is not for a lack of available information. In Mr. Soros's view, Kaczyński and Orbán " seek to exploit a mix of ethnic and religious nationalism in order to perpetuate themselves in power. " The absurdity of this statement is palpable for anyone who knows the poverty and the spirit of service that characterize Kaczyński's biography. Mr. Soros's vision of the world implies that weaker countries are obstacles to the well-being of the stronger ones, and action must be taken to correct this. Such
... The elections of February 1936, he writes, were really a kind of 125 Book Reviews Page 11. p... more ... The elections of February 1936, he writes, were really a kind of 125 Book Reviews Page 11. plebiscite on the insurrection that had begun in Asturias in 1934 when the trium-phant Popular Front side construed its victory as a mandate for violent revolution (pp. 8384). ...
This text examines the tendency toward authoritarianism among unelected EU officials of the "old... more This text examines the tendency toward authoritarianism among unelected EU officials of the "old" Europe. This tendency manifests itself in "speaking down" to EU members from the "new" Europe and threatening them with sanctions if they do not accept certain interpretations of their own laws and constitution.
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