Modern Polish/European History 18-MPEH-STEM-HIST

The course introduces students to the history, culture, literature of modern Poland. The course will include various materials, including films and music works, but the vast majority of sources will be textual. Students will read selected parts of novels, poems, plays, memoirs and historical studies. Certain texts will be obligatory but students will also be able to choose particular areas of interest for more focused study. By the end of this course, students will be able to: 1) explain cultural, economic, political, and social factors impelling the various national groups in East-Central Europe (in particular Poland, but also Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary); 2) differentiate the geographical identity of Poland and East-Central Europe from that of areas to the west; 3) consider the reasons for diversion of that area from the general path of European economic, political and cultural development over the centuries; 4) discuss the situation of the main ethnic and religious social groups; 5) outline the political decline of the Poland and East Central Europe in the course of the 17th and 18th centuries and efforts to reform it at the end of that period; 6) discuss the nationalism arising from the Napoleonic era and later and its role in changing the political, cultural, social and economic relationships between the gentry and other socio-economic groups; 7) consider the role of educational institutions and societies in the changing relationships on the Polish lands; 8) discuss national independence movements and their effects; 9) outline the major events affecting the various nationalities in gaining independence during and after World War I (Versailles et al.); 10) monitor events in the inter-war period against the backdrop of the rise of Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany; 11) portray the fate of Poland and its neighboring states during World War II and in the immediate aftermath of war (the Communist Party assumption of power and its policies); 12) cover the events and personalities involved in the ebb and flow of Communist Party fortunes during various crises (1956, 1968/70, 1980, 1989); 13) consider the situation since 1989 and in the return of Poland and its neighbors to “Western Europe”; 14) explain the international context of the events and developments covered in the course.

Basic Textbooks: Lukowski, Jerzy and Hubert Zawadzki. A Concise History of Poland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001 or the later, 2nd edition 2006. Snyder, Timothy. Bloodland: Europe between Hitler and Stalin. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012. Wandycz, Piotr. The Price of Freedom. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2001. Other Books and Articles: (alphabetical by author) Anderson Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Eondon: Verso, 2006. Beauvois Daniel, “The Polish National Idea”. The International History Review, Vol. 7/1 (1985), pp. 146-158. Berend Ivan T., History Derailed: Central and Eastern Europe in the Long Nineteenth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Berend, Ivan T., and Gyorgy Ranki. Economic Development in East-Central Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1974. Bilenky Serhiy, Romantic Nationalism in Eastern Europe: Russian, Polish, and Ukrainian Political Imaginations. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012. Blejwas Stanislaus, Realism in Polish Politics: Warsaw Positivism and National Survival in Nineteenth-Century Poland. New Haven: Yale Concilium on International and Area Studies, 1984. Brown Kate, A Biography of No Place: From Ethnic Borderland to Soviet Heartland. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005. Buko Andrzej, The Archeology of Early Medieval Poland: Discoveries, Hypothesis, Interpretations. Leiden: Brill, 2008. Butterwick Richard, The Polish-Lithuanian Monarchy in European Context, Basingstoke: Palgrave.2001. Chirot, Daniel. The Origins of Backwardness in Eastern Europe: Economics & Politics from the Middle Ages until the Early Twentieth Century. Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989. Davies Norman, God’s Playground: A History of Poland, Vol. 1-2, New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. Davies Norman, Heart of Europe: The Past in Poland's Present, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Davies Norman, Rising '.44: “The Battle for Warsaw”. London: Pan, 2004. Davies Norman, White Eagle, Red Star: The Polish-Soviet War 1919-1920 and. the “Miracle on the Vistula”. London: Pimlico, 2003. Eile Stanislaw, Literature and Nationalism in Partitioned Poland, 1795-1918, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000. Fiszman Samuel, The Polish Renaissance in its European Context, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988. Frost Robert, After the Deluge: Poland-Lithuania and the Second Northern War, 1655-1660, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Frost Robert, The Oxford History of Poland-Lithuania. Volume 1: The Making of the Polish-Lithuanian Union, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Gardon Ash Timothy, The Polish Revolution: Solidarity. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. Gold Ben-Zion, The Life of Jews before the Holocaust: A Memoir. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007. Gorecki Piotr, Economy, Society and Lordship in Medieval Poland, 1100-1250, New York: Holmes and Meier, 1992. Gros, Daniel, and Alfred Steinherr. Economic Transition in Central and Eastern Europe: Planting the Seeds. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Gross Jan Thomas, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. Hertz Aleksander, The Jews in Polish Culture, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1988. Hinz Henryk, “The Philosophy of the Polish Enlightenment and its Opponents: The Origins of the Modern Polish Mind”. Slavic Review 30.2 (1971), pp. 340-349. Kemp-Welch A., Poland under Communism: A Cold War History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Kenney Padraic, Rebuilding Poland: Workers and Communists, 1945-1950. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997. Kłoczowski Jerzy, History of Polish Christianity, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Kłoczowski, Jerzy, ed. The Christian Community of Medieval Poland: Anthologies, trans. Krystyna Cenkalska. Wrocław: Ossolineum, 1981. Krall, Hanna. Shielding the Flame: An Intimate Conversation with Dr. Marek Edelman, the Last Surviving Leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1986. Labno Jeannie, Commemorating the Polish Renaissance Child: Funeral Monuments and their European Context, Farnham: Ashgate, 2011. Mahler Raphael, Hasidism and tire Jewish Enlightenment: Their Confrontation in Galicia and Poland in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century, Skokie: Varda Books, 2001. Nowakowska Natalie, Church, State and Dynasty in Renaissance Poland: The Career of Cardinal Fryderyk Jagiellon (1468-1503), Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007. Ost David, The Defeat of Solidarity: Anger and Politics in Postcommunist Europe. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006. Penn Shana, Solidarity 's Secret: The Women who Defeated Communism in Poland. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005. Porter Brian, “The Catholic Nation: Religion, Identity, and the Narratives of Polish History”, The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 45/2 (2001), pp. 289-299. Redlich Shimon, Together and Apart in Brzezany: Poles, Jews, and Ukrainians, 1919-1945. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002. Segel Harold B., Renaissance Culture in Poland: The Rise of Humanism, 1470-1543. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989. Shore Marci, Caviar and Ashes: A Warsaw Generation's Life and Death in Marxism, 1918-1968. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006. Skaff Sheila, The Law of the Looking Glass: Cinema in Poland, 1896-1939. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2008. Snyder Timothy, Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin. New York: Basic Books, 2010. Snyder Timothy, The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003. Stone Daniel, The Polish-Lithuanian State, 1386-1795, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001. Tazbir Janusz, A Slate without Stakes: Polish Religious Toleration in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Translated by A.T.Jordan. New York: Kosciuszko Foundation, 1973. Teter Magda, Jews and Heretics in Catholic Poland: A Beleaguered Church in the Post-Reformation Era, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Teter Magda, Jews and Heretics in Catholic Poland: A Beleaguered Church in the Post-Reformation Era, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Zimmerman, Joshua, ed., Contested Memories: Poles and Jews during the Holocaust and its Aftermath. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2003. Walicki Andrzej, Philosophy and Romantic Nationalism: The Case of Poland. Oxford: Clarendon, 1982. Walicki Andrzej, The Enlightenment and the Birth of Modern Nationhood: Polish Political Thought from Noble Republicanism to Tadeusz Kosciuszko. Trans. Emma Harris. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame press, 1989. Wolf Larry, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1994. Zamoyski Adam, Poland: A History. New York: Hippocrene Books, 2012. Zubrzycki Genevieve, The Crosses of Auschwitz: Nationalism and Religion in Post-Communist Poland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2006.

AMU Grading system and scale (Tests, exams, homework assignments grading scale)
5 100%-91%
4+ 90%-86%
4 85%-76%
3+ 75%-71%
3 70%-60%
2 59% and less

5 / A EXCELLENT – outstanding performance
4+ (4.5) / B+ VERY GOOD – above the average standard with only minor errors
4 / B GOOD – generally sound work with some minor errors
3+(3.5) / C+ SATISFACTORY – fair but with a number of notable errors
3 / C SATISFACTORY – fair but with significant shortcomings
2 / F FAILING
Absences for sickness will be excused; other absences cannot be made up.
All work must be completed by the close of the course.

Literature and Fine Arts: (alphabetical by author)
Braun Kazimierz, A Concise History of Polish Theater from the Eleventh to the Twentieth Centuries, Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2003.
Coates Paul, The Red and The White: The Cinema of People 's Poland. London: Wallflower, 2005.
Eile Stanislaw, Music in Chopin's Warsaw. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Herling-Grudziński Gustaw, A World Apart: Imprisonment in a Soviet Labor Camp during World War II. Trans. Andrzej Ciolkosz. London: Penguin, 1996.
Kochanowski Jan, Laments. Trans. Stanislaw Baranczak and Seamus Heaney. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995.
Konwicki Tadeusz, A Minor Apocalypse. Trans. Richard Lourie. London: Faber and Faber, 1983.
Koropeckyj Roman, Adam Mickiewicz: The Life of Romantic. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008.
Kridi Manfred, :Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855)”. The American Slavic and East European Review, vol. 7.4 (1948), pp. 340-360.
Krzyżanowski Julian, Polish Romantic Literature. Freeport: Books for Libraries Press, 1968.
Leach Catherine, “About Pasek’s ‘Memoirs’.” The Polish Review, Vol. 16/4 (1971), pp. 37-42.
Lem Stanislaw, Solaris. Trans. Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox. London: Faber and Faber, 1991.
Mazur Boleslaw W., Colloquial Polish: The Complete Course for Beginners. London: Routledge,2011.
Michaiek Boleslaw, Frank Turaj, Modern Cinema of Poland. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1988.
Mickiewicz Adam, Pan Tadeusz. Bilingual Edition. Trans. Kenneth R. Mackenzie. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1992.
Mickiewicz Adam, Poems by Adam Mickiewicz. Trans. George Rapall Noyes. New York: Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America, 1944.
Mikos Michael J., Medieval Literature of Poland: An Anthology. New York: Garland, 1992.
Mikos Michael J., Polish Literature from 1864 to 1918: An Anthology. Bloomington: Slavica Publishers, 2006.
Mikos Michael J., Polish Renaissance Literature: An Anthology. Columbus: Slavica Publishers, 1995.
Milosz Czeslaw, New and Collected Poems 1931-2001. London: Penguin, 2005.
Milosz Czeslaw, The Captive Mind. Trans. Jane Zielonko. New York: Vintage, 1990.
Miłosz Czeslaw, The History of Polish Literature. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.
Monumenta Polonica: The First Four Centuries of Polish Poetry: A Bilingual Anthology, ed. Carpenter Bogdana, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Slavic Publications, 1989.
Norwid Cyprian, Poems. Bilingual Edition. Trans. Danuta Borchardt. Brooklyn: Archipelago Books, 2011.
Orr John, Elzbieta Ostrowska, The Cinema of Andrzej Wajda: The Art of Irony and Defiance. London: Wallflower, 2003.
Orzeszkowa Eliza, The Forsaken, or, Meir Ezofowich. Bournemouth, England: Delamare, 1980
Pasek Jan Chryzostom, Memoirs of the Polish Baroque: The Writings of Jan Chryzostom Pasek, A Squire of the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania. Trans. Catherine S. Leach. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.
Potocki Jan, The Manuscript found in Saragossa. Trans. Ian McLean. London: Viking, 1995.
Segel Harold B., ed. Polish Romantic Drama: Three Plays in English Translation. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1997.
Sienkiewicz Henryk, With Fire and Sword, trans. W .S. Kuniczak. Fort Washington: Copernicus Society. 1991.
Stachura Peter, Poland, 1918-1945: An Interpretive and Documentary History of the Second Republic. New York: Routledge, 2004.
Weintraub Wiktor, “Kochanow ski’s Renaissance Manifesto”. The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 30.75 (Jun., 1952), pp. 412-424.

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