Barricades and banners : the Revolution of 1905 and the transformation of Warsaw Jewry / Scott Ury.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ury, Scott, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jews--Poland--Warsaw--Politics and government--20th century.

Jews.

Jewish nationalism--Poland--Warsaw--History--20th century.

Jewish nationalism.

History.

Politics and government.

Warsaw (Poland)--Politics and government--20th century.

Warsaw (Poland).

Poland--History--Revolution, 1905-1907.

Poland.

Russia--Politics and government--1904-1914.

Russia.

Poland--Warsaw.

Physical Description:

pages cm

Place of Publication:

Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2012.

Summary:

This book examines the intersection of urban society and modern politics among Jews in turn-of-the-century Warsaw, Europe's largest Jewish center at the time. By focusing on the tumultuous events surrounding the Revolution of 1905, Barricades and Banners argues that the metro-politanization of Jewish life led to a need for new forms of community and belonging and that the ensuing search for collective and individual order gave birth to the institutions, organizations, and practices that would define modern Jewish society and politics for the remainder of the twentieth century.

The book begins with the migration of tens of thousands of Jews to Warsaw. The sheer number of new arrivals and the scope of urban society often overwhelmed traditional Jewish communal organizations, and new groups, in particular revolutionary cells, arose to fill the pressing need for communal order and personal belonging. Although incredibly popular, these revolutionary organizations were soon superseded by newly legalized public institutions-coffee houses, popular theaters, and Yiddish newspapers-that brought Warsaw's Jews out of private, enclosed spaces and into the public realm. In doing so, these institutions helped to fortify a sense of community rooted in ethnic and linguistic commonalities. These borders of community and belonging were reinforced further by the semi-democratic elections to the Russian State Duma in 1906 and 1907 when newly created political organizations used those same public institutions to mobilize Warsaw's Jews as a political community. Polish political organizations responded similarly and flooded the streets with political fliers and newspaper articles that helped turn the elections into direct competitions between two clearly defined electoral blocs, Poles and Jews.

Thus, the rise of the modern city, the advent of new forms of popular culture, and the turn to participatory politics led to the division of Warsaw's three-quarters of a million residents into two distinct, politicized communities-Poles and Jews-that were separated along ethno-linguistic lines. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction : between past and present

Warsaw before 1905 : one city, many stories

Urbanization, community, and the crisis of modernity : Jewish society in turn-of-the-century Warsaw

Revolution, Jews, and the streets of Warsaw : between secret cells and popular politics

The rise of the Jewish public sphere : coffeehouses, theaters, and newspapers

From public sphere to public will : the elections to the Russian State Duma and the politicization of ethnicity

Democracy and its discontents : the image of the Jews and the transformation of Polish politics

Conclusion : politics, order, and the dialectics of Jewish modernity.

Notes:

Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2006.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780804763837

0804763836

OCLC:

755213610