The numerous discoveries of disintegrated skeletons of large terrestrial vertebrates within several thin levels of the Upper Silesian Keuper initiated broad investigations into the palaeoenvironment ...and age of the bone-bearing sediments. Despite years of research, the depositional history of the Upper Triassic continental succession and its controlling factors are still poorly recognized. This paper reconstructs the depositional evolution of the Upper Triassic strata in Upper Silesia, Poland, discusses the tectonic and climatic control on deposition, and identifies the sediment provenance. Detailed sedimentological analysis enabled the recognition of three major palaeoenvironments: (1) playa; (2) distal floodplain featured by gilgai micromorphology; (3) fluvial system (sand-dominated meandering, sand- and gravel-dominated braided, and potentially anastomosing river system). The transition from one palaeoenvironment into another reflects climatic changes throughout the late Triassic. The Carnian interval is dominated by gypsum-rich playa mudstones deposited under hot and arid conditions, with only one wet episode recorded as meandering river sandstones (the so-called Carnian Pluvial Event). In contrast, Norian sedimentation was controlled by strong seasonal climatic variations, which is reflected in alternating palaeosol horizons (vertisols and calcisols), thin claystone beds (small water-pond deposits), and conglomerates (rapid flood events). This facies assemblage was formed in a relatively stable floodplain which became the main habitat of numerous vertebrate organisms. The Rhaetian is represented by a gravel-dominated braided river system developed in response to significant climate humidification, with tectonic controls on flow direction. Clast types from Norian and Rhaetian conglomerates revealed that the studied area was fed from the south and south west by the San River and Moesian Massifs. Geochemical analysis of Norian palaeosol horizons suggests mean annual precipitation of ~720 mm/yr in agreement with the palaeoclimatic reconstructions for the area, pointing to seasonal sub-humid to semi-arid climate conditions.
•Carnian-Norian terrestrial deposits from SE Germanic Basin represent playa and gilgai-type floodplain environments.•The evolution of gilgai environments was mainly controlled by climatic changes through Late Triassic.•Gravel analysis indicates San River and Moesian platform sources.•Palaeosol type and geochemistry indicate climatic seasonality with precipitation at 720 mm/yr.
The newly dicovered complete corpus of the Jewish poll-tax lists provides a totally new outlook on Jewish autonomy in eighteenth century Poland from which a full reconstruction of the Jewish ...settlement can be drawn. The book includes series of tables and maps.
In the nineteenth century, state policy towards prostitution was primarily shaped by an assessment of its role in spreading venereal diseases. In this book, the author traces normative and ...organisational efforts of the authorities of the Kingdom of Poland, which sought to maintain control over prostitution and the health of women who offered paid sexual services. The author uses data collected by the police and medical authorities supervising legal and illegal prostitution to provide a demographic and sociological picture of the big-city and small-town market of sexual commerce. It was only in the early twentieth century when prostitution became an important subject of the Polish public debate, a process which is described in the book against the backdrop of the major issues and fears of the epoch.
In this important and accessible study, Rafal Pankowski makes sense of the rapid growth of organized radical nationalism on the political level in Poland by showing its origins, its internal dynamics ...and the historical, political, social and cultural context that has made it possible.
From political obscurity to the heart of mainstream politics, the recent rise of the extreme right in the Polish context surprised many observers. In the 1990s Poland was usually referred to as a country without significant extremist or populist movements. It was considered to be a stable, even if young, democracy, and ‘extremists’ were perceived as just a little nuisance to the liberal-democratic consensus. By the mid-2000s, the picture changed completely, two populist radical right parties entered into a coalition government with the right-wing conservative Law and Justice Party. All of a sudden, racist extremist affiliations were not a hindrance to a high-level career, but were tolerated or even seemed positively valued. The entrance of extremists into state structures was no longer a matter of isolated individual cases, but took on systemic features.
Presenting a detailed analysis of the Polish national populism, the book will use theories of social movements (in particular the concept of discursive opportunity structure), as well as relevant theories of transition and democratization. In particular, the specific cultural resources of Polish nationalist populism are to be analyzed because they are deemed to be among principal reasons for the relative success of the radical nationalists and their particular brand of identity politics
The book not only provides a detailed analysis of Polish nationalism but will also have a much broader trans-national significance, essential reading for scholars of national populism in the context of post-communism and beyond.
Rafal Pankowski has served as deputy editor of ‘Nigdy Wiecej’ (Never Again) magazine since 1996. He has published widely on racism, nationalism, xenophobia and other issues including the books Neo-Fascism in Western Europe (1998) and Racism and Popular Culture (2006). He currently works as a lecturer at Collegium Civitas and head of the Warsaw-based East Europe Monitoring Centre.
1. Pre-communist legacies 2. Communist-period legacy The national question and the communist regime 3. After communism 4.The league of polish families and its integral nationalism 5.Self-defence: radical populism 6. The anti-liberalism of law and justice 7. Nationalist populism in power: the 2005-7 experiment and beyond 8. Conclusion
'This book's credibility comes not simply from the author's success in unearthing previously hidden material, but in its serious analysis of the historical, economic and cultural factors behind the emergence of Law and Justice, which is examined in the context of its links to other far-right parties and movements in Poland' - Richard Howitt, New Statesman, April 2010
'The book by Pankowski is undoubtedly an important voice in the debate on the ideological identity and the sources of success of the national populist parties in contemporary European democracies.' - e-Extreme (Electronic Newsletter of the ECPR-SG on Extremism and Democracy) , Volume 11, No. 4, December 2010
As a writer, critic, and philosopher, StanisÊaw Brzozowski (1878–1911) left a lasting imprint on Polish culture. He absorbed virtually all topical intellectual trends of his time, adapting them for ...the needs of what he saw as his primary mission: the modernization of Polish culture. The essays of the volume reassess and contextualize Brzozowski's writings from a distinctly transnational vantage point. They shed light on often surprising and hitherto underrated affinities between Brzozowski and intellectual figures and movements in Eastern and Western Europe. Furthermore, they explore the presence of his ideas in twentieth-century century literary criticism and theory.
An amalgam of personal reminiscences of a bright young man with later observations of a mature scholar bring to life the mighty pulsation of Jewish life in Poland in its last two decades of ...existence, 1919-1939--an extraordinary, perhaps unique, mode of Jewish life in the diaspora.
The mass migration of East European Jews and their resettlement in cities
throughout Europe, the United States, Argentina, the Middle East and Australia in
the late 19th and early 20th centuries not ...only transformed the demographic and
cultural centers of world Jewry, it also reshaped Jews' understanding and
performance of their diasporic identities. Rebecca Kobrin's study of the dispersal
of Jews from one city in Poland -- Bialystok -- demonstrates how the act of
migration set in motion a wide range of transformations that led the migrants to
imagine themselves as exiles not only from the mythic Land of Israel but most
immediately from their east European homeland. Kobrin explores the organizations,
institutions, newspapers, and philanthropies that the Bialystokers created around
the world and that reshaped their perceptions of exile and diaspora.
Kazimierz Moczarski (1907–1975) was a journalist, soldier, and political prisoner. His life exemplifies a Central European biography under Nazism and Comunism. The addictive and moving Civility in ...Uncivil Times reveals the story of a man who defended law and democracy all his life. Moczarski fought for it in the authoritarian Poland of the 1930s. During the Second World War, he partook in the resistance movement. After the war, he spent eleven years in a Stalinist prison, including nine months in one cell with the Nazi Jürgen Stroop, who commanded the brutal pacification of the Warsaw Ghetto. The communists imprisoned Moczarski’s wife. After release, he rebuilt the broken marriage, rejoined social life, and wrote a work about meeting Stroop. Translated into many languages, Conversations with the Executioner is a thorough study of totalitarianism.
Since the end of Communism, Jews from around the world have visited Poland to tour Holocaust-related sites. A few venture further, seeking to learn about their own Polish roots and connect with ...contemporary Poles. For their part, a growing number of Poles are fascinated by all things Jewish. Erica T. Lehrer explores the intersection of Polish and Jewish memory projects in the historically Jewish neighborhood of Kazimierz in Krakow. Her own journey becomes part of the story as she demonstrates that Jews and Poles use spaces, institutions, interpersonal exchanges, and cultural representations to make sense of their historical inheritances.
