Review: "Ein Land unterwegs. Kulturgeschichte Polens seit 1945" / Markus Krzoska. Paderborn: Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, 2015. ISBN: 978-3506780850
- The German historian Markus Krzoska, who is an expert on Central European history, presents his postdoctoral thesis with the publication "Ein Land unterwegs: Kulturgeschichte Polens seit 1945" ("A Country on its Way: Cultural History of Poland since 1945"). The book changes the typical focus from confirmed knowledge (p. 13f) in the field of political and economic history towards Polish everyday life, in order to describe therein the "Normal" and the "European" (p. 21). Although research into contemporary history does link the micro and macro perspectives more often, this everyday-life approach has hardly been used in the case of Poland before. The author rightly maintains, that the functioning of a political system can only be understood by also taking into account everyday phenomena (p. 27). For this reason, he directs his attention to transnational-political frames and to small-scale and regional structures. He does so by analyzing "big events", like the accession of Poland to the European Union, but alsoThe German historian Markus Krzoska, who is an expert on Central European history, presents his postdoctoral thesis with the publication "Ein Land unterwegs: Kulturgeschichte Polens seit 1945" ("A Country on its Way: Cultural History of Poland since 1945"). The book changes the typical focus from confirmed knowledge (p. 13f) in the field of political and economic history towards Polish everyday life, in order to describe therein the "Normal" and the "European" (p. 21). Although research into contemporary history does link the micro and macro perspectives more often, this everyday-life approach has hardly been used in the case of Poland before. The author rightly maintains, that the functioning of a political system can only be understood by also taking into account everyday phenomena (p. 27). For this reason, he directs his attention to transnational-political frames and to small-scale and regional structures. He does so by analyzing "big events", like the accession of Poland to the European Union, but also through questions of lifestyle within village communities. With this broad research approach, Krzoska does not only support the idea of a paradigm shift within the historiography of Central and Eastern Europe, but he himself successfully places another type of "Cultural and Social History" (orig. "andere Kultur- und Gesellschaftsgeschichte", p. 25) in the forefront of his research.…
Author: | Katharina Kowalski |
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-11605 |
DOI: | https://doi.org/10.11584/opus4-1160 |
Editor: | Friedrich Cain |
Document Type: | Review |
Language: | English |
Date of Publication (online): | 2021/06/11 |
Date of first Publication: | 2016/09/06 |
Publishing Institution: | Europa-Universität Viadrina Frankfurt |
Creating Corporation: | Digitale Wissenschaftsplattform Pol-Int (www.pol-int.org) |
Release Date: | 2021/06/14 |
Institutes: | Zentrum für Interdisziplinäre Polenstudien |
Licence (German): | Keine Lizenz - es gilt das deutsche Urheberrecht |