The Polish August

The Polish August PDF Author: Neal Ascherson
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1448206030
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
What has happened in Poland? Poland has erupted four times in the last twenty five years, but only the events of 1980 have had comprehensive media coverage. As a result, many questions have been raised in the minds of Western observers. How were such changes possible? What forces lay behind them? In what way did the workers' strike relate to the demands for political democracy? Although a colourful and vivid eye-witness account of the 1980 upheavals, it is to these questions that Neal Ascherson's brilliant and thoughtful analysis mainly addresses itself. Viewing the situation in perspective, he argues that the Polish working class has brought about a controlled revolution, but is not intent on taking power for itself: the real heirs to the gains of 1980 and 1981 are likely to be the intelligentsia, in or out of the Communist Party. It is this social and political ferment that poses fundamental questions about the future of the whole Soviet system in Eastern Europe.

The Polish August

The Polish August PDF Author: Neal Ascherson
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1448206030
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
What has happened in Poland? Poland has erupted four times in the last twenty five years, but only the events of 1980 have had comprehensive media coverage. As a result, many questions have been raised in the minds of Western observers. How were such changes possible? What forces lay behind them? In what way did the workers' strike relate to the demands for political democracy? Although a colourful and vivid eye-witness account of the 1980 upheavals, it is to these questions that Neal Ascherson's brilliant and thoughtful analysis mainly addresses itself. Viewing the situation in perspective, he argues that the Polish working class has brought about a controlled revolution, but is not intent on taking power for itself: the real heirs to the gains of 1980 and 1981 are likely to be the intelligentsia, in or out of the Communist Party. It is this social and political ferment that poses fundamental questions about the future of the whole Soviet system in Eastern Europe.

The August Trials

The August Trials PDF Author: Andrew Kornbluth
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674259874
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
The first account of the August Trials, in which postwar Poland confronted the betrayal of Jewish citizens under Nazi rule but ended up fashioning an alibi for the past. When six years of ferocious resistance to Nazi occupation came to an end in 1945, a devastated Poland could agree with its new Soviet rulers on little else beyond the need to punish German war criminals and their collaborators. Determined to root out the “many Cains among us,” as a Poznań newspaper editorial put it, Poland’s judicial reckoning spawned 32,000 trials and spanned more than a decade before being largely forgotten. Andrew Kornbluth reconstructs the story of the August Trials, long dismissed as a Stalinist travesty, and discovers that they were in fact a scrupulous search for the truth. But as the process of retribution began to unearth evidence of enthusiastic local participation in the Holocaust, the hated government, traumatized populace, and fiercely independent judiciary all struggled to salvage a purely heroic vision of the past that could unify a nation recovering from massive upheaval. The trials became the crucible in which the Communist state and an unyielding society forged a foundational myth of modern Poland but left a lasting open wound in Polish-Jewish relations. The August Trials draws striking parallels with incomplete postwar reckonings on both sides of the Iron Curtain, suggesting the extent to which ethnic cleansing and its abortive judicial accounting are part of a common European heritage. From Paris and The Hague to Warsaw and Kyiv, the law was made to serve many different purposes, even as it failed to secure the goal with which it is most closely associated: justice.

Joint Resolution Designating August 1984 as "Polish American Heritage Month."

Joint Resolution Designating August 1984 as Author: United States
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Polish American Heritage Month
Languages : en
Pages : 2

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Book Description


The Polish-Lithuanian State, 1386-1795

The Polish-Lithuanian State, 1386-1795 PDF Author: Daniel Z. Stone
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295803622
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
For four centuries, the Polish�Lithuanian state encompassed a major geographic region comparable to present-day Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Latvia, Estonia, and Romania. Governed by a constitutional monarchy that offered the numerous nobility extensive civil and political rights, it enjoyed unusual domestic tranquility, for its military strength kept most enemies at bay until the mid-seventeenth century and the country generally avoided civil wars. Selling grain and timber to western Europe helped make it exceptionally wealthy for much of the period. The Polish�Lithuanian State, 1386�1795 is the first account in English devoted specifically to this important era. It takes a regional rather than a national approach, considering the internal development of the Ukrainian, Jewish, Lithuanian, and Prussian German nations that coexisted with the Poles in this multinational state. Presenting Jewish history also clarifies urban history, because Jews lived in the unincorporated "private cities" and suburbs, which historians have overlooked in favor of incorporated "royal cities." In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the private cities and suburbs often thrived while the inner cities decayed. The book also traces the institutional development of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland�Lithuania, one of the few European states to escape bloody religious conflict during the Reformation and Counter Reformation. Both seasoned historians and general readers will appreciate the many excellent brief biographies that advance the narrative and illuminate the subject matter of this comprehensive and absorbing volume.

Polish Revolution

Polish Revolution PDF Author: Timothy Garton Ash
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780006388494
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Timothy Garton Ash was with the strikers in the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk in August 1980 when the trade union Solidarity was born, in opposition to the Communist government. He witnessed their bravery and defiance and the emergence of an improbable leader and hero in the country's future president, Lech Walesa. This text recreates the ideals and terrors of that time, and exposes the mechanics of oppression of the communist regime.

Soviet and American Signalling in the Polish Crisis

Soviet and American Signalling in the Polish Crisis PDF Author: T. Cynkin
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349096946
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description


US Intelligence and the Polish Crisis

US Intelligence and the Polish Crisis PDF Author: Douglas J. MacEachin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Intelligence service
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description


Soviet Deliberations During the Polish Crisis, 1980-1981

Soviet Deliberations During the Polish Crisis, 1980-1981 PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Poland
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description


The Polish Underground Army, the Western Allies, and the Failure of Strategic Unity in World War II

The Polish Underground Army, the Western Allies, and the Failure of Strategic Unity in World War II PDF Author: Michael Alfred Peszke
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476610274
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
This military history covers the attempts of General Wladyslaw Sikorski and his successor (General Kazimierz Sosnkowski) to integrate Polish forces into Western strategy, and to have their clandestine forces declared an allied combatant. It addresses such topics as Poland's part in the Norwegian and French campaigns, the Battle of Britain, Polish intelligence services, Polish radio communications, the Polish Parachute Brigade, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the Bomber Offensive, the Katyn graves, Polish air crews in the RAF Transport Command, the Tehran Conference, Polish Wings in the 2nd Tactical Air Force, the Bardsea Plan, the invasion of Normandy, the Pierwsza Pancera, the Warsaw Uprising, Operation Freston, the disbanding of the Polish Home Army, and the Yalta Conference.

Solidarity and the Politics of Anti-Politics

Solidarity and the Politics of Anti-Politics PDF Author: David Ost
Publisher: Temple University Press
ISBN: 1439903514
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
An analysis of Solidarity from it origins in the Polish "new left" to the union's resurgence in 1988-89.