This volume tackles one of the basic questions in nationalism studies as formulated by Katherine ... more This volume tackles one of the basic questions in nationalism studies as formulated by Katherine Verdery: How do people become national? To examine how the nation entered ordinary people’s ‘insides’, this book focuses on their affective lives. As such its objective is to bridge a double gap: the neglect of both emotions and the everyday realm in historical research on nationalism. On the one hand, Benedict Anderson’s question ‘why [do nations] command such profound emotional legitimacy’ , has long befuddled historians, who have been late-comers to the so-called 'affective turn'. On the other hand, historians have been taken to task for obsessing over the bells and whistles of nationalism and over-concentrating on the most articulate social groups. This collection of essays takes up the gauntlet. By analysing how nationalism harnesses, produces and feeds on emotions to pull ordinary people into its orbit, it refutes Anthony D. Smith’s critique that everyday nationalism research is necessarily imbued with an ‘ahistorical blocking presentism’. Using a variety of sources, methods and cases, ranging from Spain and the Netherlands during the age of Revolutions, nineteenth-century France and Belgium over interwar Italy, Germany and Romania, to war-torn Finland, and post-WWII Poland, this volume demonstrates that emotions are integral to understanding the everyday pull of nationalism on ordinary people.
This volume examines how ideas of the nation influenced ordinary people, by focusing on their aff... more This volume examines how ideas of the nation influenced ordinary people, by focusing on their affective lives. Using a variety of sources, methods and cases, ranging from Spain during the age of Revolutions to post-World War II Poland, it demonstrates that emotions are integral to understanding the everyday pull of nationalism on ordinary people.
2 Troje námluvy. Episoda z básně Frederiho Mistrala "Mirèio". Z provençalštiny přeložil P. Sigism... more 2 Troje námluvy. Episoda z básně Frederiho Mistrala "Mirèio". Z provençalštiny přeložil P. Sigismund Bouška O. S. B. [Die drei Brautwerber. Szene aus Frederi Mistrals Versepos "Mirèio". Aus dem Okzitanischen übersetzt von Pater Sigismund Bouška O. S. B.]. In: Vlast. Časopis pro poučení a zábavu 10 (1893/94) 516-520 und 604-611. Eine vollständige tschechische Übersetzung des Epos wurde erst 1916 veröffentlicht, vgl. Anm. 51.-Das okzitanische Original erschien erstmals im Jahre 1859 in Avignon, wobei Mistral mit Rücksicht auf den Norden des Landes eine französische Interlinearübersetzung hinzufügte: Mistral, Frederi: Mirèio. Pouèmo provençau [Mireille. Provenzalisches Versepos] (avec la traduction littérale en regard). Avignoun 1859.-Eine französische Versübersetzung, deren Auflagenhöhe allerdings nur 100 Exemplare umfasste, wurde erst 1879 veröffentlicht: La Mireille de Mistral mise en vers français par Constant Hennion. Tours 1879. 3 Zu den tschechisch-französischen Beziehungen seit dem letzten Drittel des 19. Jahrhun
, then head of YIVO's (Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut) philological section in Vilna, publishe... more , then head of YIVO's (Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut) philological section in Vilna, published an article which became one of his most popular texts to appear during his long career as a leading scholar of Yiddish language. The pamphlet, Daytshmerish toyg nit 'Germanisms are not acceptable,' is widely known for its strong impetus against the influence of German on Yiddish. 1 In blaming the Yiddish speaking masses, and even famous lexicographers and writers, for their thoughtless adaption of vocabulary and grammatical elements from German, Weinreich insisted on the purity of Yiddish klal-shprakh: in cases where there was no suitable term in Yiddish, he recommended using internationalisms. In addition to this, he instructed his readers not to be too anxious when picking up expressions from Slavic languages, 2 while introducing German words to Yiddish was regarded as a sincere "act of linguistic impotence." 3 Max Weinreich's campaign to protect Yiddish against borrowing from German should be seen against the background of YIVO's long-standing attempt to establish a standardized written form of Yiddish, which could serve the practical needs of a highly diverse society. As all proponents of early linguistic and national movements, Yiddishists like Weinreich faced the problem that Yiddish lacked the prestige of a "fully-fledged" language. Thus, borrowing from other surrounding languages was considered highly dangerous. This was especially the case with German, which had served as a lingua franca among Eastern European Jews for a long time. Moreover, the fact that Yiddish is closely related to German from a linguistic point of view, and that state authorities, and also the maskilim, regarded Yiddish as "corrupted German" (jargon), boosted the efforts of Weinreich and other members of YIVO to eliminate Germanisms. Given these facts, the relationship between YIVO and German academiaused in its broadest sense, i.e. with respect to both YIVO's scholarly work connected to German and its exchange with the scientific community in German
Abstract: Dealing with questions of gender and family, this article presents a critical survey of... more Abstract: Dealing with questions of gender and family, this article presents a critical survey of recent historiography on Jews in the Bohemian Lands. It assumes that the historiographical problems discussed in this field can be divided into three thematic groups: time, (gender) roles, and space. While a lot of research has been done on questions of gender roles ranging from the leeway that female and male worlds offered in religious and secular surroundings to ways women and men interacted on a daily basis, aspects of time, and especially space, have been largely neglected. Among the specific problems of Jewish historiography on the Bohemian Lands are its nearly exclusive focus on the capital Prague, the limited time frame covering mostly the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the almost total lack of works dealing with men’s history.
In: Grill, Tobias (ed.): Jews and Germans in Eastern Europe Shared and Comparative Histories. Berlin , 2018
The text focuses on the filologcial section of YIVO which was established in 1925 in Vilna and he... more The text focuses on the filologcial section of YIVO which was established in 1925 in Vilna and headed by Max Weinreich. According to Weinreich's wish to develop Yiddish into a fully-fledged academic language, the section was i. a. eager to collect terminologies for a diverse range of themes. to establish stable grammar rules, and to advise speakers how to use their mother tongue in a proper manner at the same time. German which is closely related to Yiddish from a linguistic point of view served as a (hidden) role model and a negative counterpart at the same time.
In: Luft, Robert / Hlavačka, Milan / Pokorná, Magdaléna / Lunow, Ulrike und Kollektiv: České země... more In: Luft, Robert / Hlavačka, Milan / Pokorná, Magdaléna / Lunow, Ulrike und Kollektiv: České země a Bavorsko: konfrontace a paralely. Praha 2017, S. 123-137.
The paper (article for a German daily newspaper) seeks to explain why the proponents of Occitan L... more The paper (article for a German daily newspaper) seeks to explain why the proponents of Occitan Language (the so-called Felibres) were not successful in building an Occitan national identity.
This volume tackles one of the basic questions in nationalism studies as formulated by Katherine ... more This volume tackles one of the basic questions in nationalism studies as formulated by Katherine Verdery: How do people become national? To examine how the nation entered ordinary people’s ‘insides’, this book focuses on their affective lives. As such its objective is to bridge a double gap: the neglect of both emotions and the everyday realm in historical research on nationalism. On the one hand, Benedict Anderson’s question ‘why [do nations] command such profound emotional legitimacy’ , has long befuddled historians, who have been late-comers to the so-called 'affective turn'. On the other hand, historians have been taken to task for obsessing over the bells and whistles of nationalism and over-concentrating on the most articulate social groups. This collection of essays takes up the gauntlet. By analysing how nationalism harnesses, produces and feeds on emotions to pull ordinary people into its orbit, it refutes Anthony D. Smith’s critique that everyday nationalism research is necessarily imbued with an ‘ahistorical blocking presentism’. Using a variety of sources, methods and cases, ranging from Spain and the Netherlands during the age of Revolutions, nineteenth-century France and Belgium over interwar Italy, Germany and Romania, to war-torn Finland, and post-WWII Poland, this volume demonstrates that emotions are integral to understanding the everyday pull of nationalism on ordinary people.
This volume examines how ideas of the nation influenced ordinary people, by focusing on their aff... more This volume examines how ideas of the nation influenced ordinary people, by focusing on their affective lives. Using a variety of sources, methods and cases, ranging from Spain during the age of Revolutions to post-World War II Poland, it demonstrates that emotions are integral to understanding the everyday pull of nationalism on ordinary people.
2 Troje námluvy. Episoda z básně Frederiho Mistrala "Mirèio". Z provençalštiny přeložil P. Sigism... more 2 Troje námluvy. Episoda z básně Frederiho Mistrala "Mirèio". Z provençalštiny přeložil P. Sigismund Bouška O. S. B. [Die drei Brautwerber. Szene aus Frederi Mistrals Versepos "Mirèio". Aus dem Okzitanischen übersetzt von Pater Sigismund Bouška O. S. B.]. In: Vlast. Časopis pro poučení a zábavu 10 (1893/94) 516-520 und 604-611. Eine vollständige tschechische Übersetzung des Epos wurde erst 1916 veröffentlicht, vgl. Anm. 51.-Das okzitanische Original erschien erstmals im Jahre 1859 in Avignon, wobei Mistral mit Rücksicht auf den Norden des Landes eine französische Interlinearübersetzung hinzufügte: Mistral, Frederi: Mirèio. Pouèmo provençau [Mireille. Provenzalisches Versepos] (avec la traduction littérale en regard). Avignoun 1859.-Eine französische Versübersetzung, deren Auflagenhöhe allerdings nur 100 Exemplare umfasste, wurde erst 1879 veröffentlicht: La Mireille de Mistral mise en vers français par Constant Hennion. Tours 1879. 3 Zu den tschechisch-französischen Beziehungen seit dem letzten Drittel des 19. Jahrhun
, then head of YIVO's (Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut) philological section in Vilna, publishe... more , then head of YIVO's (Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut) philological section in Vilna, published an article which became one of his most popular texts to appear during his long career as a leading scholar of Yiddish language. The pamphlet, Daytshmerish toyg nit 'Germanisms are not acceptable,' is widely known for its strong impetus against the influence of German on Yiddish. 1 In blaming the Yiddish speaking masses, and even famous lexicographers and writers, for their thoughtless adaption of vocabulary and grammatical elements from German, Weinreich insisted on the purity of Yiddish klal-shprakh: in cases where there was no suitable term in Yiddish, he recommended using internationalisms. In addition to this, he instructed his readers not to be too anxious when picking up expressions from Slavic languages, 2 while introducing German words to Yiddish was regarded as a sincere "act of linguistic impotence." 3 Max Weinreich's campaign to protect Yiddish against borrowing from German should be seen against the background of YIVO's long-standing attempt to establish a standardized written form of Yiddish, which could serve the practical needs of a highly diverse society. As all proponents of early linguistic and national movements, Yiddishists like Weinreich faced the problem that Yiddish lacked the prestige of a "fully-fledged" language. Thus, borrowing from other surrounding languages was considered highly dangerous. This was especially the case with German, which had served as a lingua franca among Eastern European Jews for a long time. Moreover, the fact that Yiddish is closely related to German from a linguistic point of view, and that state authorities, and also the maskilim, regarded Yiddish as "corrupted German" (jargon), boosted the efforts of Weinreich and other members of YIVO to eliminate Germanisms. Given these facts, the relationship between YIVO and German academiaused in its broadest sense, i.e. with respect to both YIVO's scholarly work connected to German and its exchange with the scientific community in German
Abstract: Dealing with questions of gender and family, this article presents a critical survey of... more Abstract: Dealing with questions of gender and family, this article presents a critical survey of recent historiography on Jews in the Bohemian Lands. It assumes that the historiographical problems discussed in this field can be divided into three thematic groups: time, (gender) roles, and space. While a lot of research has been done on questions of gender roles ranging from the leeway that female and male worlds offered in religious and secular surroundings to ways women and men interacted on a daily basis, aspects of time, and especially space, have been largely neglected. Among the specific problems of Jewish historiography on the Bohemian Lands are its nearly exclusive focus on the capital Prague, the limited time frame covering mostly the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the almost total lack of works dealing with men’s history.
In: Grill, Tobias (ed.): Jews and Germans in Eastern Europe Shared and Comparative Histories. Berlin , 2018
The text focuses on the filologcial section of YIVO which was established in 1925 in Vilna and he... more The text focuses on the filologcial section of YIVO which was established in 1925 in Vilna and headed by Max Weinreich. According to Weinreich's wish to develop Yiddish into a fully-fledged academic language, the section was i. a. eager to collect terminologies for a diverse range of themes. to establish stable grammar rules, and to advise speakers how to use their mother tongue in a proper manner at the same time. German which is closely related to Yiddish from a linguistic point of view served as a (hidden) role model and a negative counterpart at the same time.
In: Luft, Robert / Hlavačka, Milan / Pokorná, Magdaléna / Lunow, Ulrike und Kollektiv: České země... more In: Luft, Robert / Hlavačka, Milan / Pokorná, Magdaléna / Lunow, Ulrike und Kollektiv: České země a Bavorsko: konfrontace a paralely. Praha 2017, S. 123-137.
The paper (article for a German daily newspaper) seeks to explain why the proponents of Occitan L... more The paper (article for a German daily newspaper) seeks to explain why the proponents of Occitan Language (the so-called Felibres) were not successful in building an Occitan national identity.
Prague and Beyond presents a new and accessible history of the Jews of the Bohemian Lands written... more Prague and Beyond presents a new and accessible history of the Jews of the Bohemian Lands written by an international team of scholars. It offers a multifaceted account of the Jewish people in a region that has been, over the centuries, a part of the Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburg Monarchy, was constituted as the democratic Czechoslovakia in the years following the First World War, became the Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and later a postwar Communist state, and is today's Czech Republic. This ever-changing landscape provides the backdrop for a historical reinterpretation that emphasizes the rootedness of Jews in the Bohemian Lands, the intricate variety of their social, economic, and cultural relationships, their negotiations with state power, the connections that existed among Jewish communities, and the close, if often conflictual, ties between Jews and their non-Jewish neighbors.
Prague and Beyond is written in a narrative style with a focus on several unifying themes across the periods. These include migration and mobility; the shape of social networks; religious life and education; civic rights, citizenship, and Jewish autonomy; gender and the family; popular culture; and memory and commemorative practices. Collectively these perspectives work to revise conventional understandings of Central Europe's Jewish past and present, and more fully capture the diversity and multivalence of life in the Bohemian Lands.
Nur eine "Geld-Emancipation"? Loyalitäten und Lebenswelten des Prager jüdischen Großbürgertums 1800-1867, 2013
The book focuses on the question of the loyalties and lifestyles of Prague's Jewish upper middle ... more The book focuses on the question of the loyalties and lifestyles of Prague's Jewish upper middle class between 1800 and 1867, which held a special position within Bohemia's Jewish population due to its enormous economic success. Using five Prague families as examples, the book shows that the social aspirations of the Jewish upper middle class were not limited to social advancement at any price. This can be seen by the manifold connections of the Jewish upper class to places in Prague with different national-political, ethnic, and religious connotations. Along these places, the economic advancement, religious life, social and political commitment, and the family life are examined.
Jewish historiography tended to criticize the Jewish upper class because they allegedly showed li... more Jewish historiography tended to criticize the Jewish upper class because they allegedly showed little interest in Judaism and the fate of their coreligionists. Instead, they only promoted their own social and economic status. This book tells a new story: A group biography of five Jewish entrepreneurial families in Prague during the first half of the 19th century, it analyzes the various, sometimes conflicting loyalties of this small, but influential part of the local polyethnic and multilingual society.
Zwischen Prag und Nikolsburg. Juedisches Leben in den boehmischen Laendern, 2020
German version of the original English scholarly synthesis of the history of the Jews in the Bohe... more German version of the original English scholarly synthesis of the history of the Jews in the Bohemian Lands will be presented at Graz, Munich, Hamburg, Berlin, Vienna, Prague, and Budapest in January and February 2020. The book focuses on Jewish history from the period of the Reformation in the 16th century until our own time and analyzes the experience of Jews and their non-Jewish neighbors in the Bohemian Lands (Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia) based not only on prior scholarship but also on a substantial amount of original research.
This volume tackles one of the basic questions in nationalism studies as formulated by Katherine ... more This volume tackles one of the basic questions in nationalism studies as formulated by Katherine Verdery: How do people become national? To examine how the nation entered ordinary people’s ‘insides’, this book focuses on their affective lives. As such its objective is to bridge a double gap: the neglect of both emotions and the everyday realm in historical research on nationalism. On the one hand, Benedict Anderson’s question ‘why [do nations] command such profound emotional legitimacy’ , has long befuddled historians, who have been late-comers to the so-called 'affective turn'. On the other hand, historians have been taken to task for obsessing over the bells and whistles of nationalism and over-concentrating on the most articulate social groups. This collection of essays takes up the gauntlet. By analysing how nationalism harnesses, produces and feeds on emotions to pull ordinary people into its orbit, it refutes Anthony D. Smith’s critique that everyday nationalism research is necessarily imbued with an ‘ahistorical blocking presentism’. Using a variety of sources, methods and cases, ranging from Spain and the Netherlands during the age of Revolutions, nineteenth-century France and Belgium over interwar Italy, Germany and Romania, to war-torn Finland, and post-WWII Poland, this volume demonstrates that emotions are integral to understanding the everyday pull of nationalism on ordinary people.
This volume tackles one of the basic questions in nationalism studies as formulated by Katherine ... more This volume tackles one of the basic questions in nationalism studies as formulated by Katherine Verdery: How do people become national? To examine how the nation entered ordinary people’s ‘insides’, this book focuses on their affective lives. As such its objective is to bridge a double gap: the neglect of both emotions and the everyday realm in historical research on nationalism. On the one hand, Benedict Anderson’s question ‘why [do nations] command such profound emotional legitimacy’ , has long befuddled historians, who have been late-comers to the so-called 'affective turn'. On the other hand, historians have been taken to task for obsessing over the bells and whistles of nationalism and over-concentrating on the most articulate social groups. This collection of essays takes up the gauntlet. By analysing how nationalism harnesses, produces and feeds on emotions to pull ordinary people into its orbit, it refutes Anthony D. Smith’s critique that everyday nationalism research is necessarily imbued with an ‘ahistorical blocking presentism’. Using a variety of sources, methods and cases, ranging from Spain and the Netherlands during the age of Revolutions, nineteenth-century France and Belgium over interwar Italy, Germany and Romania, to war-torn Finland, and post-WWII Poland, this volume demonstrates that emotions are integral to understanding the everyday pull of nationalism on ordinary people.
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Papers by Martina Niedhammer
Prague and Beyond is written in a narrative style with a focus on several unifying themes across the periods. These include migration and mobility; the shape of social networks; religious life and education; civic rights, citizenship, and Jewish autonomy; gender and the family; popular culture; and memory and commemorative practices. Collectively these perspectives work to revise conventional understandings of Central Europe's Jewish past and present, and more fully capture the diversity and multivalence of life in the Bohemian Lands.
This book tells a new story: A group biography of five Jewish entrepreneurial families in Prague during the first half of the 19th century, it analyzes the various, sometimes conflicting loyalties of this small, but influential part of the local polyethnic and multilingual society.