Central Europe Yearbook

Introduction

2024-02-27T15:38:56-06:00

This introduction provides an overview of the four scholarly works published in the fifth volume of the Central Europe Yearbook

The Travels of Adam Olearius

2024-01-20T13:05:21-06:00

The seventeenth century opened up the world to Western Europe like never before. Bold commercial ventures and proselytizing missions pushed to the far reaches of the globe. New technologies brought massive improvements to travel and communication. As a result, greater numbers of ordinary Europeans could hear riveting accounts of encounters with the exotic in far-off locations. European responses to their increased interactions with foreign cultures were varied. As early modern Europeans became more aware of the world's diversity, they continued to believe in the the superiority of Christendom and Western society. However, they also felt a need to reconcile this belief with their desire to interpret the many ancient cultures, religions, and customs they continued to discover.

A figure who perfectly encapsulates the tensions of the early modern intellectual world is northern German scholar Adam Olearius (1599–1671). Between 1633 and 1639, Olearius traveled to the capitals of Russia and Persia as part of a diplomatic mission. In his extremely popular 1647 travel account, Offt begehrte Beschreibung der newen orientalischen Reise (Oft-desired Description of the New Oriental Travels), Olearius chronicled the journey, documented the geography of the lands he traversed, and gave detailed ethnographic accounts of the peoples he encountered. Writing to both learned and unlearned audiences, Olearius enabled European readers to vicariously experience the sights and sounds of exotic locales. The illustrations derived from Olearius's eyewitness drawings, his firsthand narration of events, and his erudite analysis made readers feel they could rely on his version of Russian and Persian society.

Olearius's travel account is an incredibly rich source. Its interplay of text and images reveals a great deal about early modern European attitudes towards foreign peoples, places, and systems of thought. This StoryMaps project will map the journey of the Holstein delegation and analyze the images and text found in Olearius's travel narrative. Olearius provides an invaluable window into a time period when Europeans were forced to reckon with the vastness of the world and reevaluate their status as just one culture among many.

Challenges to Preservation of Holocaust Memory in Poland

2023-11-18T20:13:01-06:00

Holocaust memory in Poland has faced various challenges in its development and preservation in the last twenty years. Notably, widespread antisemitism and the political atmosphere has caused memory to form differently in Poland than in its surrounding nations. Holocaust memory is dynamic and fragile, meaning it is constantly being influenced by Polish politics, media, and institutions. Previously, historians commonly defended one of two main perspectives: that Poles were heros or helpless bystanders, or that Poles were active perpetrators in crimes against Jews. This original binary thinking ignores additional nuances such as the prevalence of nationalism in Polish history, as well as generational suffering following the Holocaust. Building upon a third perspective introduced by Jolanta Ambrosewicz-Jacobs, this paper discusses Poles as both victims and perpetrators taking into account these additional nuances and further examining societal attitudes, Poland's educational systems, and the attitudes of young people in Poland today.

Turning a War Crime into a Weapon

2023-05-29T11:36:20-05:00

On May 27^th, 1942, Nazi German SS Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich was assassinated in an infamous event called Operation Anthropoid. The Nazi German response to this assassination was razing the two Czechoslovakian towns named Lidice and Ležáky. While there have been many books, articles, and movies about the events of Operation Anthropoid, the sources omit details regarding how the Allied powers, specifically the Western Allied Powers, used the horrendous events. This paper argues that the Western Allied powers used the razing of Lidice and Ležáky as propaganda to garner public support for the war effort by galvanizing their respective civilian populations against Nazi Germany. The various methods of propaganda, the vast scope of the distribution, and the timing of the propaganda release are analyzed throughout the paper. By the end of the paper a light will be shined upon, a rarely, if ever, discussed aspect of the assassination of the highest-ranking Nazi official throughout the course of World War II. How the subsequent reprisals were used as propaganda.

Heidegger’s support for antisemitic measures as Rector of the University of Freiburg, 1933-1934

2024-02-09T22:42:21-06:00

The relationship between Martin Heidegger and Jewish colleagues has long been controversial. Although Heidegger always denied being an antisemite, he also undertook significant action against Jews during his time as the rector at Freiburg University, promoting antisemitic policies such as the Aryanization of university staff and students and the destruction of Jewish authors’ books. There were some exceptions to these policies, but even these exceptions did not completely go against the political will of the Nazi Party, thus showing Heidegger’s ultimate support of the Nazi regime.