Eastern European history

In 1900, the German Empire was extremely shaken by a violent crime. To the east of the country , in the province of West Prussia in the town of Chojnice (Ger. Konitz), a junior high school student, Ernst Winter, was murdered. The circumstances of the case and the manner of the crime led the local population to believe that the boy had been killed by the Jews in order to win his blood for ritual purposes. The accusation of the local Jewish population resulted in a rapid increase in the hostility of Christians (Germans and Poles) towards their Semitic neighbours. The lie about the guilt of the Jews quickly went through the entire province, and then reached the furthest corners of Germany. In Chojnice, riots and numerous attacks on Jews and their property took place. Anti-Jewish excesses have spread rapidly in West Prussia. The course of the investigation and its relationship with the anti-Jewish riots was described by the main representative of the Polish press in West Prussia – Gazeta Toruńska. Słowa kluczowe: antysemityzm, mord rytualny, przesądy, Żydzi, katolicy, Chojnice, ekscesy anty-żydowskie, Prusy Zachodnie, oskarżenie, Rzesza Niemiecka, " Gazeta Toruńska " W XIX wieku prasa stała się głównym środkiem rozpowszechniania informacji. Było tak do czasu zmonopolizowania rynku medialnego przez telewizję w XX wie-ku. Za pośrednictwem gazet propagowano różne idee społeczne i polityczne, w tym antysemityzm, który wzmógł się w Niemczech po 1871 roku. Rynek prasowy w zjed-noczonej Rzeszy był jednym z najlepiej zorganizowanych w Europie – obok Anglii i Francji. Z każdą dekadą poprawiała się jakość i szybkość dziennikarstwa na szczeb-lach lokalnych, gdzie prowadzono dyskusje o palących kwestiach, opisywano afery kryminalne lub nawoływano do głosowania do sejmiku itp.

There are more types of borders today than ever before in history. Borders of all kinds define every aspect of social life in the twenty-first century. From the biometric data that divides the smallest aspects of our bodies to the aerial drones that patrol the immense expanse of our domestic and international airspace, we are defined by borders. They can no longer simply be understood as the geographical divisions between nation-states. Today, their form and function has become too complex, too hybrid. What we need now is a theory of the border that can make sense of this hybridity across multiple domains of social life.

Rather than viewing borders as the result or outcome of pre-established social entities like states, Thomas Nail reinterprets social history from the perspective of the continual and constitutive movement of the borders that organize and divide society in the first place. Societies and states are the products of bordering, Nail argues, not the other way around. Applying his original movement-oriented theoretical framework "kinopolitics" to several major historical border regimes (fences, walls, cells, and checkpoints), Theory of the Border pioneers a new methodology of "critical limology," that provides fresh tools for the analysis of contemporary border politics.

Una versión reducida del texto “An Unexpected Twist of Ideology. Neoliberalism and the Collapse
of the Soviet Bloc publicado en "Praktyka Teoretyczna", núm. 5, 2012. Traducción de Luis Martínez
Andrade. Metapolítica: marzo 2013.
The full English version also at Academia.edu: https://www.academia.edu/11798198/An_Unexpected_Twist_of_Ideology._Neoliberalism_and_the_Collapse_of_the_Soviet_Bloc

This study analyzes controversies and public attitudes concerning the Bandera faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B), the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)
and Stepan Bandera in Ukraine. The research question is: Which factors affect attitudes toward the OUN-B, the UPA and Bandera in contemporary Ukraine? This article employs comparative and regression analyses of surveys commissioned by the author and conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) in 2009 and 2013 to determine the effects of regional and other factors on attitudes toward these organizations and the OUN-B leader. The study shows that regional factors and perceptions of these organizations' involvement in mass murder were the strongest predictors of the views concerning the OUN-B, the UPA and Bandera. Their public support is strongest in Galicia and weakest in the East and the South, in particular, in Donbas and Crimea, two major conflict areas since the “Euromaidan.”

This study examines the role of political factors in attitudes toward World War II in contemporary Ukraine. The question under examination is which factors determine public views of the principal warring sides and their leaders in Ukraine. This paper uses a representative national survey specifically designed for this research project and conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in 2012. It analyzes the roles of regionalism, political party preferences, ethnicity, language, age, and sex in attitudes toward the Red Army, Soviet partisans, the German Army (Wehrmacht), and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) during the war, as well as toward the wartime leaders of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and the UPA. The analysis of the survey data shows that regional values, political party preferences, ethnicity, language, and age have significant effects on views of the Soviet Army and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army during the war and attitudes toward the wartime activities of Joseph Stalin and Roman Shukhevych. Public perceptions of the German Army and Adolf Hitler in Ukraine do not vary much across regions, political parties, and ethnic, language, age, and sex groups.

The period between the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century is one that witnessed the rise and spread of anti-Semitism throughout Europe. This paper attempts a historical analysis of the development of anti-Semitism in Romania and a comparison with the case of Hungary in the period between 1866 and 1913. Such a comparison is interesting as the process of Jewish emancipation in the two countries could not have been more different: while in the Romanian principalities Jews were almost completely excluded from political life, and faced important restrictions in all areas of activity, in Hungary they enjoyed full civil and political rights. As a result, anti-Semitism in these countries took different forms as well. In Hungary, anti-Semitism is usually viewed as a reaction to emancipation, while in Romania it accompanies the offi cial policy of discrimination and exclusion. As a result, this paper follows the development of legislation dealing with the
Jewish populations in the two countries, and tries to challenge the common perception of anti-Semitism as a phenomenon appearing as a reaction of the majority population to Jewish emancipation. This comparative discussion is carried out taking into account the different historical contexts of the two neighbouring lands and their impact on the situation of the Jews.

This review essay on Jewish "traditionalism" (Hasidism, musar, Orthodoxy,etc.) argues that, notwithstanding a past tendency among historians to magnify secularist trends within modern East European Jewry, several new works suggest a revitalization of traditionalism in the region during the modern era.

ABSTRACT. In the years following the end of the cold
war in 1989, Western feminist scholars and activists
expressed disappointment in the failure of the newly
democratic Eastern and Central European countries to
sustain mainstream women’s rights movements and
achieve a marked increase in women’s participation
within the new political parties and political life in
general. The authors, historians of Hungarian women’s
movements with a broad East-West perspective, offer a
novel explanation for this phenomenon. Following an
outline of the main stages of Hungarian women’s
movements and women’s political participation, they
focus on two instances in twentieth-century Hungarian
history that resulted in a rapid transition from antidemocratic regimes to liberal, parliamentary systems:
the 1918 bourgeois democratic revolution and the
1990 re-introduction of free parliamentary elections.

DOI 10.1080/08038740410004623

Erschienen in der Klaus Zernack zum 80. Geburtstag gewidmeten, von Robert Traba hg. Festschrift Deutsch-Polnische Beziehungsgeschichte = Historie. Jahrbuch des Zentrums für Historische Forschung Berlin der Polnischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 4, 2010/2011, S. 117-124] Das Wintersemester 1977/78 war mein zweites Semester. Ich studierte in Köln Germanistik, Osteuropäische Geschichte und Skandinavistik. Die lange Pause zwischen Sommer-und Wintersemester hatte ich in Finnland verbracht, auf einem Bauernhof in Karelien, im Nordosten des Landes nahe der russischen Grenze. In diesem Sommer 1977 lernte ich auch zwei Schriftsteller kennen. Der eine, Jahrgang 1931, stammte aus Ostpreußen, seinem nördlichen Teil, und er lebte seit Ende der fünfziger Jahre in Finnland; der andere, Jahrgang 1905, stammte aus Wien und war Ende der dreißiger Jahre nach einer abenteuerlichen Flucht über Memel, Kaunas, Riga und Tallinn nach Helsinki gekommen und war dort geblieben. Mit der M/S Gryf fuhr ich im Herbst von Helsinki über die Ostsee nach Danzig und dann mit dem Zug über Warschau und Berlin zurück nach Westdeutschland, in den Deutschen Herbst, den Herbst der Ermordung von Hanns Martin Schleyer (dessen böhmische Jahre in den Nachrufen verschwiegen wurden), den Herbst der Entführung der Lufthansa-Maschine Landshut und ihrer Erstürmung in Mogadischu durch die GSG 9, den Herbst der Stammheimer Selbstmorde am 18. Oktober 1977. Am selben Tag wurden in Prag die Initiatoren der Charta 77 zu langjährigen Haftstrafen verurteilt, unter ihnen Václav Havel. Osteuropäische Geschichte hatte ich -neben Germanistik und Skandinavistik -als drittes Studienfach gewählt, weil mich der Osten interessierte und die Rolle, die wir Deutsche dort gespielt haben, im Laufe der Geschichte . Im Sommersemester hatte ich bei Günther Stökl die Vorlesung Von der Autokratie zum Absolutismus gehört und bei seinem Assistenten Hans Hecker ein Proseminar über die Anfänge der polnischen Geschichte absolviert. Jetzt im Herbst ging ich in Stökls Vorlesung über

""Archaeologist, Teacher, Friend. Nicolai Telnov’s Anniversary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

MONOGRAPH INSIDE THE JOURNAL
N. V. Zhilina (Moscow, Russia). Stamped Jewel Attire Reconstructed Based on Old Rus Hoards of 10th — 13th Centuries (from the ornamental stamping to the emblem of the princely power). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS
V. Ivanišević (Belgrad, Serbia), M. Kazanski (Paris, France). Justinian’s Heruli in Northern
Illyricum and Their Archaeological Evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
N. D. Russev (Kishinev, Moldova). North-Eastern Possessions of the First Bulgarian Kingdom in 7th—10th cc.: History and Burial Sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
A. V. Kurbatov (St.-Petersburg, Russia). Raw materials for leather crafts, technical means
for leather processing and assortment of leathers in Mediaeval Rus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

JEWELLER’S CRAFT
A. G. Shpilev (Kursk, Russia). Adornments of Romny Time from Kursk Oblast
(second half of 8th — late 10th cc.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Y. V. Stepanova (Tver’, Russia). Temple Rings from Ancient Russian Rural Archaeological Sites in the Upper Volga . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
S. S. Ryabtseva (St.-Petersburg, Russia — Kishinev, Moldova), N. P. Telnov (Kishinev, Moldova). A Hoard from Alcedar and Centers of Jewellery Industry in Eastern Europe in late 9th — early 11th Centuries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
А. Boldureanu (Kishinev, Moldova). The Byzantine and Islamic Coins from Alcedar Hoard . . . 301

ARCHAEOLOGY OF REPRESENTATIONS
Y. V. Mysko, S. V. Pyvovarov (Chernivtsi, Ukraine). Finds of Knives with Curls on the Handles in the Region of the Upper Prut and the Middle Dniester . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . 309
I. Berdzenishvili (Tbilisi, Georgia). Early Christians in Abkhazia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
List of Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
References Transliterated from Cyrillic into Latin Alphabet 329
Requirements to contributions to Stratum plus. 345

Содержание

AD GLORIAM 

Р. А. Рабинович (Кишинев, Молдова), С. С. Рябцева (Санкт-Петербург, Россия — Кишинев, Молдова)
Археолог. Учитель. Друг. К юбилею Николая Петровича Тельнова 15

МОНОГРАФИЯ В ЖУРНАЛЕ 

Н. В. Жилина (Москва, Россия)
Тисненый убор по древнерусским кладам X—XIII вв. (от орнаментального рифления до эмблемы княжеской власти) 23

ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ И ПУБЛИКАЦИИ 

В. Иванишевич (Белград, Сербия), М. Казанский (Париж, Франция)
Герулы Юстиниана в Северном Иллирикуме и их археологические следы 147
Н. Д. Руссев (Кишинёв, Молдова)
Северо-восточные владения Дунайской Болгарии VII—X вв.: история и погребальные памятники 159
А. В. Курбатов (Санкт-Петербург, Россия)
Кожевенное сырье, техническое обеспечение его выделки и сортамент кож средневековой Руси 169

ЮВЕЛИРНОЕ ДЕЛО 

А. Г. Шпилев (Курск, Россия)
Украшения роменского времени из Курской области (вторая половина VIII — конец X вв.) 221
Ю. В. Степанова (Тверь, Россия)
Височные кольца из древнерусских сельских памятников Верхневолжья 275
С. С. Рябцева (Санкт-Петербург, Россия — Кишинёв, Молдова), Н. П. Тельнов (Кишинёв, Молдова)
Алчедарский клад и центры ювелирного производства Восточной Европы конца IX — начала XI вв. 285
А. Болдуряну (Кишинёв, Молдова)
Византийские и исламские монеты из Алчедарского клада 301

АРХЕОЛОГИЯ ПРЕДСТАВЛЕНИЙ 

Ю. В. Мысько, С. В. Пивоваров (Черновцы, Украина)
Находки ножей с волютообразными навершиями в Верхнем Попрутье и Среднем Поднестровье 309
И. Бердзенишвили (Тбилиси, Грузия)
Раннее христианство в Абхазии 317

ДОПОЛНИТЕЛЬНАЯ ИНФОРМАЦИЯ 

Список сокращений325
References Transliterated from Cyrillic into Latin Alphabet327
Требования к материалам, предоставляемым в редакцию журнала «Stratum plus»
Требования 341

The Sedlec Ossuary is a small Roman Catholic chapel, located beneath the Cemetery Church of All Saints (Czech: Hřbitovní kostel Všech Svatých), part of the former Sedlec Abbey in Sedlec, a suburb of Kutná Hora in the Czech Republic.
The ossuary is estimated to contain the skeletons of between 40,000 and 70,000 people, whose bones have, in many cases, been artistically arranged to form decorations and furnishings for the chapel.

Four enormous bell-shaped mounds occupy the corners of the chapel. An enormous chandelier of bones, which contains at least one of every bone in the human body, hangs from the center of the nave with garlands of skulls draping the vault. Other works include piers and monstrances flanking the altar, a coat of arms of the House of Schwarzenberg, and the signature of František Rint, also executed in bone, on the wall near the entrance.

In 1278, Henry, the abbot of the Cistercian monastery in Sedlec, was sent to the Holy Land by King Otakar II of Bohemia. He returned with a small amount of earth he had removed from Golgotha and sprinkled it over the abbey cemetery. The word of this pious act soon spread and the cemetery in Sedlec became a desirable burial site throughout Central Europe.

In the mid 14th century, during the Black Death, and after the Hussite Wars in the early 15th century, many thousands were buried in the abbey cemetery, so it had to be greatly enlarged.

Around 1400, a Gothic church was built in the center of the cemetery with a vaulted upper level and a lower chapel to be used as an ossuary for the mass graves unearthed during construction, or simply slated for demolition to make room for new burials.

After 1511, the task of exhuming skeletons and stacking their bones in the chapel was given to a half-blind monk of the order.

Between 1703 and 1710, a new entrance was constructed to support the front wall, which was leaning outward, and the upper chapel was rebuilt. This work, in the Czech Baroque style, was designed by Jan Santini Aichel.

In 1870, František Rint, a woodcarver, was employed by the Schwarzenberg family to put the bone heaps into order, yielding a macabre result.
The signature of Rint, also executed in bone, appears on the wall near the entrance to the chapel.

The article introduces the biographic notes of the countess Klementyna Tyszkiewicz (born Potocka, 1856 1921), the owner of an impressive city residence near the river Neris, known today as the Wróblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. Neither the building nor the countess have been studied by researchers before. The article aims to present this aristocratic personality, the early influences on her character formation and explicate how her personal traits and taste shaped Vilnius cultural life during 1882–1913. The countess was born in Lviv into the influential Galician family of Alfred Józef Marian Potocki (1817– 1889) and Maria Klementyna Sanguszko (1830–1903). Most of her youth was spent in Vienna due to her father’s employment. Growing up in Vienna meant that she was introduced to the highest circles of society and maintained a close relationship with the children of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria. She married a Lithuanian nobleman Jan Leon Tyszkiewicz (1852–1901) in 1878 and moved to Paris, spending approximately 4 years there. The couple came back to Vilnius in about 1882 where she gave birth to a son Alfred (1882–1930). Initially they resided in luxury apartments decorated by the famous architect Friedrich Gustaw von Schacht. In 1884, the construction of a new residence began following the project of Cyprian Maculewicz. The need for a personal residence was grown out of the countess’ desire to become an influential person in local society replicating her mother’s successful example back in Lviv. Klementyna Tyszkiewicz also wished to recreate a similar environment to the one she experienced in earlier days while living in Vienna and Paris. A big Renaissance style residence in the central part of Vilnius was completed in 1888. A new type of lifestyle typical of Europe’s richest aristocratic circles was introduced. It included endless receptions, visitations, luxurious banquets followed by dances, amateur theatre performances, billiard games and discussions. All feasts and gatherings were intended for a close circle of people, mainly the polish speaking aristocracy, as a way of discerning their identity and rejecting the regulations of the dictating tsarist government. A few important changes took place in the early 20th century. Having buried her daughter and husband in 1901, the countess closed the residence and left for Paris. Visiting only briefly, Klementyna Tyszkiewicz finally returned in 1905 upon hearing that Tsar Nicholas II had published a manifesto proclaiming “the civil liberty to the people based on individual inviolability, freedom of faith, speech, and social gatherings and associations”.
The Tyszkiewicz residence was reopened and gained a significantly wider social and cultural importance. It housed a Warsaw Art School students’ exhibition in 1907, an exhibition of Polish artists living locally and in Poland in 1908. The residence lodged Vilnius Science and Art Museum Association chaired by Władysław and Antoni Tyszkiewcz in 1907–1914, and organised many other charitable events. The public life of Klementyna Tyszkiewicz was not restricted to the palace as she was also a member of the Music Association and the main initiator of the Polish Theatre in Vilnius. The countess was regarded as a cultural patron of Vilnius until 1913 when she left the city for the last time. She died in Paris in 1921. The residential property was inherited by her son Alfred Tyszkiewicz who sold the palace to the Ministry of Polish Religion and Public Education, which later established the Wróblewski Library there.
Despite the contributions to Polish culture, Klementyna Tyszkiewicz was criticised by her contemporaries for leading a hedonistic lifestyle. This was claimed to be inappropriate in Vilnius at the times of resistance to the dictating tsarist government. Many years later history proved that the western lifestyle introduced by Klementyna Tyszkiewicz had significantly influenced the aristocratic and local culture at the turn of 19th and 20th centuries.

Interview with Rossen Djagalov, Mariya Ivancheva, Mary Taylor, on behalf of the LeftEast collective, interviewed by Greek journalist Stratis Bournazos. First published in Greek on “Enthemata” of the newspaper “Avgi”, 1st of May 2016. Reprinted in English on AnalyzeGreece.Gr.

The collapse of socialist regimes across Central and Eastern Europe was
a turning point in European history. What is often referred to by the shorthand “1989” significantly accelerated a process of the reintegration of a continent divided by the Cold War. Yet this regional transformation was also part of larger world-historical developments. Europe’s “1989” extended the processes of democratization that had taken place in Southern Europe in the 1970s, and in Southeast Asia and Latin America
in the 1980s; it marked an acceleration of globalization and the neoliberal restructuring of economies that had begun just over a decade earlier; and it was the end of a longer-term process of imperial disintegration that stretched across the twentieth century.

The archival holdings of the Rockefeller Archive Center (RAC) are a valuable resource for the history of expertise. I have used several of the RAC collections to write a social history of the interchange of knowledge between Polish social scientists and American internationalists in the 1920s and the 1930s. I would like to see this story as the Continental prehistory of American area studies. This report offers an overview of my work at the RAC, in particular, the types of materials I have looked through. It briefly discusses how the evidence enriched my understanding of the ways that expert knowledge traveled between Eastern Europe and the United States.

Every invading army conveys its message first through brutal force, guns, shells, and bullets, and only later occupies itself with explaining to the locals that in fact they come in peace and providing reasons it might be a good thing to be occupied. Communication with the occupied population is always conducted through language specialists who either come from within the army itself and who have cultural knowledge and foreign language skills, or those who are recruited on the ground. Those who come from the second group usually experience endless problems as they can be seen to be collaborators. Despite the outright genocidal nature of the campaign the Wehrmacht unleashed in the USSR in June 1941, the Germans needed to address the issue of how to talk to people.
https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030270360

In the chapter, Zabrzewska analyzes Polish politicians’ responses to the 2020 protests against the abortion ban through the lens of feminist philosophy. Using selected sources (e.g. the transcript of the Committee on Administration and the Interior) provided in the Gender, Voice, and Violence in Poland: Women’s Protests during the Pandemic sourcebook (Zabrzewska and Dubrow 2021), the author provides insights into how contemporary right-wing rhetoric relies on the body politic metaphor and on the gender bias inherent to mainstream notions of embodiment. She exposes how the facilitators of the anti-abortion law conceptualize the protesters and their demands as a disease or even a virus that threatens the state, as defined by the Catholic right wing. At the same time, the article shows how pro-abortion protests – as an example of what Judith Butler (2015) called “plural embodied action” – place the actual human body at the forefront of politics, heralding a possibility of arriving at a more livable future.

"La démocratie est un projet idéal qui a joué un rôle clef dans les évolutions des deux derniers siècles, en se matérialisant de façon imparfaite dans une variété de constructions politiques. L'Union européenne ne fait pas exception, en présentant un discours dont la démocratie est certes une valeur essentielle, mais qui est néanmoins différent de celui des États-nations à cause de l'emphase qu'il met sur des valeurs dites "européennes" (diversité, tolérance, liberté de mouvement des personnes et des biens, etc.).

Or ce discours ne dit pas tout sur les idéaux philosophiques qui ont mené à la construction européenne, ni sur les compromis quotidiens voire les contradictions de la politique communautaire. Dans une perspective historique, cette contribution illustrera l'évolution de ces trois "niveaux" des valeurs, du XIXe siècle à nos jours. Leur opposition dialectique, toujours en mouvement, fournit un éclairage sur la "crise identitaire" que vit l'Europe élargie d'aujourd'hui."

Using objective measures of investor protections in 170 countries, I establish that the level of investor protection matters for cross-country differences in GDP growth: countries with stronger protections tend to grow faster than those with poor investor protections.

This article begins with an observation of a contemporary and yet reoccurring political dilemma that small nation-states face with respect to larger states in being either inside or outside of supranational political entities regarding political and economic asymmetries. Employing an intellectual history approach, the article explores this dilemma with reference to the Georgian nation in late-nineteenth century Tsarist Russia and the early twentieth century, when that territory briefly became a nation(state): it explores this through the language of political economy articulated in the thoughts and actions of two founding Georgian national intellectual and political figures, the statesman Niko Nikoladze and Noe Zhordania, who was one of the first prime ministers. It argues that conceiving of the nation(state) primarily in economic terms, as opposed to exclusively nationalist ones, was more conducive to the option of remaining inside a supranational space.

Keywords: Georgian nation-state; political economy; Russian empire; small versus large nation-states; Nikoladze; Zhordania

The Nazis’ exploitation of Jewish labor differed over time and place. This study focuses on the implications of that exploitation for women in the city of Radom, an important economic and administrative center for the Nazis between 1939 and 1944. I examine the availability of work, the types of work that were done, the skills required for them, the ages and family status of the workers and the conditions and compensation for their work during five specific periods: The beginning of the war (fall 1939–spring 1941), the ghetto period (spring 1941–summer 1942), the liquidation of the ghetto (summer 1942), the work ghetto (summer 1942–fall 1943) and the factory camp (fall 1943–summer 1944). In the summer of 1942, laboring for the Germans became a plausible route to survival. I also look at how women’s work experiences during the first three years of the war affected their chances to be sent to Treblinka when the ghetto was liquidated. Money and political connections bought most of the new work placements
filled in the summer of 1942. The findings of this study indicate that the success of the Jewish strategy of “survival through labor” was largely dependent on gender and socioeconomic factors.

His father, Valter, was a "generous" partisan in the Spanish Civil War. The Romanian communist regime opposed his father and later him. His dissent against Ceaușescu's repression will accelerate the Revolution of '89. His commitment was essential in Romanian democracy construction; Romania is a NATO outpost on the new Cold War's chessboard. A dialogue with one of the twentieth century's History protagonists, Professor Petre Roman, former Prime Minister of Romania, Member of the Club de Madrid, and recently Dean of the prestigious Swiss UMEF University in Geneva.

Gathering pace in Poland in 1955, the thaw marked a break in Stalin’s order. An increasingly visible division within the communist elite was reflected in inconsistent government policy, including towards the press. On one hand, the pressure on the central and local party and state apparatus was increasing; on the other hand, the policy was causing frustration among journalists. As early as the beginning of 1956, many young journalists, particularly in Warsaw, protested against the model of the press as a tool of the party propaganda: they wanted to write for readers and enjoy a greater freedom. The Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as well as the death of Bolesław Bierut, head of the PUWP, gave the impetus to a period of intense crisis for the government system. The significance of press publications and of journalists acting for liberalization was invaluable at that time. The press gained in significance proportionally with the rapidly increasing readership, while numerous articles issued between April and October 1956 forced the authorities to face facts and compelled those in power to react, which often revealed their helplessness. The press policy was one of the main fronts in the fight within the PUWP for the direction and scope of changes, although neither of the two compet- ing party coteries – the “Puławy” group and the “Natolin” group – had a concrete programme towards journalists. The Department of Press of the Central Committee, controlled by those of the “Puławy” group, galvanized the press against the position of new party leader Edward Ochaba, and on the eve of the Poznań protests it expressed a positive view of the revival of the press, which nevertheless did not satisfy the journalists. Those of the “Puławy” group, wishing to make the press more attractive and the propaganda more effective, accepted a foggy form of autonomy. The dogmatic approach of those of the “Natolin” group set forth a radical – through purges – enforcement of the complete availability of the press. Both fractions unified in their negative assessment of radical left-wing journalism and diverged as to the question of how and when to crack down on the press: those of the “Natolin” group wanted to do so immediately, whereas those of the “Puławy” group – being aware that a purge would be counterproductive if carried out at a time of social tensions – planned to do so after the social ten- sions had calmed down. The journalists who after the Poznań protests, irrespective of their objections, obediently copied the deceitful propaganda message imposed by the party leadership were accused of stirring up a revolutionary atmosphere and even of driving society into turmoil in autumn 1956. In September, the authorities faced the announcement of autonomy by the Association of Polish Journal- ists and an increasing number of people demanding that the role of censorship be specified by statute or even that party magazines stop being censored. The press found itself at the epicentre of the conflict dividing the party establishment: none of several attempts to carry out purges in the editorial boards and censorship offices, which were approved by the Politburo, came to pass, which was a consequence of the unstable position of new party leader Edward Ochab; at the beginning of October 1956, these were not possible anymore in the revolutionary atmosphere of rallies and mass meetings.

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Odwilż, przyspieszająca w Polsce w 1955 r., naruszyła stalinowski ład. Coraz wyraźniejszy podział wewnątrz elity komunistycznej przekładał się na niekonsekwentną politykę władz, m.in. prasową. Z jednej strony rosła presja wywierana na centralny i lokalny aparat partyjno-państwowy, z drugiej strony polityka ta powodowała frustrację środowiska dziennikarskiego. Już u progu 1956 r. wielu młodych dziennikarzy, zwłaszcza w Warszawie, buntowało się przeciwko modelowi prasy jako narzędzia partyjnej propagandy: chcieli oni pisać dla czytelników i mieć więcej swobody. XX Zjazd KPZR i śmierć przywódcy PZPR Bolesława Bieruta były impulsem, który rozpoczął ostrą fazę kryzysu systemu władzy. Znaczenie publikacji prasowych i dziennikarzy działających na rzecz liberalizacji było wtedy nie do przecenienia. Rola prasy rosła wprost proporcjonalnie do lawinowo rosnącego czytelnictwa, a wiele artykułów ukazujących się od kwietnia do października 1956 r. stawiało władze wobec faktów dokonanych i zmuszało rządzących do reakcji, często świadczącej o ich bezradności. Polityka prasowa była jednym z głównych frontów walki wewnątrz PZPR o kierunek i zasięg zmian, choć dwie konkurujące ze sobą partyjne koterie – „puławianie” i „natolińczycy” – nie miały skonkretyzowanego programu wobec dziennikarzy. Kontrolowany przez „puławian” Wydział Prasy KC stymulował prasę wbrew stanowisku nowego przywódcy partii Edwarda Ochaba, a w przededniu buntu Poznania pozytywnie oceniał ożywienie w prasie, co skądinąd już nie satysfakcjonowało dziennikarzy. „Puławianie”, którzy chcieli uatrakcyjnienia prasy i skuteczniejszej propagandy, dopuszczali mglistą formę autonomii. Dogmatyczne podejście „natolińczyków” zakładało radykalne – za pomocą czystek – wyegzekwowanie pełnej dyspozycyjności prasy. Obie frakcje nie różniły się w negatywnej ocenie radykalnej publicystyki lewicowej, różniły w odpowiedzi na pytanie jak i kiedy spacyfikować prasę: „natolińczycy” chcieli to zrobić od razu, „puławianie” – świadomi, że czystka przeprowadzona w momencie poruszenia społecznego będzie przeciwskuteczna – chcieli to zrobić po spadku napięcia społecznego. Dziennikarzy, którzy po buncie Poznania, mimo oporów, posłusznie powielili kłamliwy przekaz propagandowy narzucony przez kierownictwo partii, oskarżano o stworzenie rewolucyjnej atmosfery, a jesienią 1956 r. wręcz o doprowadzenie społeczeństwa do wrzenia. We wrześniu władze stanęły w obliczu autonomizacji Stowarzyszenia Dziennikarzy Polskich i coraz liczniejszych głosów domagających się ustawowego określenia roli cenzury, a nawet zrezygnowania z cenzurowania czasopism partyjnych. Prasa znalazła się w epicentrum konfliktu dzielącego establishment partyjny: z kilku zatwierdzonych przez Biuro Polityczne prób czystek w redakcjach i cenzurze żadna nie doszła do skutku, co było konsekwencją chwiejnej postawy nowego przywódcy partii Edwarda Ochaba, a na początku października 1956 r. nie było już możliwe w rewolucyjnej atmosferze wieców i masówek.