Anti-Jewish Violence in Poland, 1914-1920

Widespread anti-Jewish pogroms accompanied the rebirth of Polish statehood out of World War I and Polish-Soviet War. William W. Hagen offers the pogroms' first scholarly account, revealing how they served as brutal stagings by ordinary people of scenarios dramatizing popular anti-Jewish fears and resentments. While scholarship on modern anti-Semitism has stressed its ideological inspiration ('print anti-Semitism'), this study shows that anti-Jewish violence by perpetrators among civilians and soldiers expressed magic-infused anxieties and longings for redemption from present threats and suffering ('folk anti-Semitism'). Illustrated with contemporary photographs and constructed from extensive, newly discovered archival sources from three continents, this is an innovative work in east European history. Using extensive first-person testimonies, it reveals gaps - but also correspondences - between popular attitudes and those of the political elite. The pogroms raged against the conscious will of new Poland's governors whilst Christians high and low sometimes sought, even successfully, to block them.

Author: William W. Hagen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 04/19/2018
Pages: 566
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.95lbs
Size: 9.31h x 7.10w x 1.39d
ISBN: 9780521884921

Review Citation(s):
Choice 11/01/2018

About the Author
Hagen, William W.: - William W. Hagen is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of California, Davis. He has published extensively, including German History in Modern Times (2012), which was selected as an 'outstanding academic work' by the American Library Association's journal, Choice.