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The Jews, the Left, and the State Duma Elections in Warsaw in 1912: Selected Sources
- from PART I - POLES, JEWS, SOCIALISTS: THE FAILURE OF AN IDEAL
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- By Stephen D. Corrsin, professor and chief of Research and Access Services in the Brooklyn College Library, City University of New York.
- Edited by Antony Polonsky, Brandeis University, Massachusetts, Israel Bartal, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Gershon David Hundert, McGill University, Montréal, Magdalena Opalski, Carleton University, Ottawa, Jerzy Tomaszewski
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- Book:
- Jews, Poles, Socialists: The Failure of an Ideal
- Published by:
- Liverpool University Press
- Published online:
- 23 November 2019
- Print publication:
- 06 March 2008, pp 45-54
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Summary
INTRODUCTION
THE election to the fourth Russian State Duma, in the autumn of 1912, represented a critical break in the history of Polish-Jewish relations in Warsaw. For the first time the Jewish voters had a potential majority; more importantly, they managed, for the most part, to remain united. By contrast, the Polish voters split between two nationalist lists, one headed by the National Democratic leader Roman Dmowski, the other by a member of the National Democratic ‘Secession',· Jan Kucharzewski, who was supported by many anti-Dmowski Poles.
Socialist groups in the city, on the other hand, were weak and badly split; the major ones were the Jewish Bund, Polsko Partia Socjalistyczna-Lewica (PPSLewica: Polish Socialist Party Left), and the Socjaldemokracja Królestwa Polskiego i Litwy (SDKPiL: Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania). Yet, when the time came to choose a Duma delegate in November, the Jewish electors turned to the Socialists as the only Polish elements active in the campaign which accepted, in their platforms, the idea of equal rights for Jews. The Jewish electors (mostly businessmen) resolved to cast their votes for a Polish Socialist in spite of their own misgivings and in the face of threats from practically all Polish nationalist and liberal elements; this turned out to be Eugeniusz Jagiello, a metal-turner and political nonentity from the PPS Left, whom the party had put forward because none of its leaders met the legal requirements. The main result of this was a furious anti-Jewish boycott supported by many parts of Polish society, under the slogan Swój do swego po swoje, which roughly means, ‘Stick to your own'.
This was the only occasion on which a Polish Socialist of any sort ever got into the Russian State Duma, but the Socialist parties do not seem to have been very pleased with their success. The Social Democrats claimed that Socialist parties should not be accepting bourgeois votes in such a fashion, and the PPS Left seems to have been at least embarrassed by the outcome.
Here are translated recollections and comments on these events from the memoirs of a Polish Jewish journalist, Bernard Singer, who witnessed the events as a young resident of Warsaw, and from contemporary Russian police reports describing Jewish political meetings and summarizing the scanty facts available on the city's new Socialist delegate to the State Duma.
Aspects of Population Change and of Acculturation in Jewish Warsaw at the end of the Nineteenth Century: the Censuses of 1882 and 1897
- from JEWS IN WARSAW
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- By Stephen D. Corrsin, City University of New York.
- Edited by Antony Polonsky, Brandeis University, Massachusetts
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- Book:
- The Jews of Warsaw
- Published by:
- Liverpool University Press
- Published online:
- 23 November 2019
- Print publication:
- 01 August 2004, pp 122-141
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Summary
A significant Jewish presence in Warsaw has been traced back to the fifteenth century. Until the nineteenth century, however, Jewish settlement was sharply limited; it was only in the period of Russian rule which followed the Napoleonic wars that Warsaw developed into the largest Jewish centre in Europe. An official estimate stated that, in January 1914, there were 885,000 people in the city, of whom 337,000- almost two in five - were Jews. The greatest period of growth came in the half-century between the mid-1860s and World War I, when the city's total grew fourfold. In these same decades, the Jewish community increased almost five times; this was made possible by the emancipation of the Polish Jews in 1862, which removed restrictions on Jewish residence in Warsaw.
Such figures, while impressive, tell only a part of the story. The character of the city, and of the Jewish community, was transformed in the last decades of Russian rule. This was a period of far-reaching and intensive change, in the Polish lands as well as in the rest of East Central Europe and the Russian Empire.
This essay examines selected aspects of the social development of Jewish Warsaw in the light of the two censuses that were taken in the city, in 1882 and 1897. The particular points of focus are: first, the essential data on population, including comparisons between the demographic structures of the Catholic and Jewish communities; and second, the information that can be gleaned from the censumses concerning acculturation in Jewish Warsaw. There are many other important topics that the censuses cover, for example, patterns of residence and employment and levels of educational attainment, but we will not discuss them at this time.
The development of the population of Jewish Warsaw in this period has been studied only to a limited degree. Jacob Shatzky's comprehensive Geshikhte fun yidn in Varshe goes up to 1896 and presents an enormous amount of material, but does not use the censuses, nor does it deal systematically with such issues as population growth, demographic change or acculturation and assimilation. Polish historians of Warsaw have analysed the census results in depth, but have not paid sufficient attention to the particularities of the Jewish population.
The Historiography of European Linked Sword Dancing
- Stephen D. Corrsin
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- Journal:
- Dance Research Journal / Volume 25 / Issue 1 / Spring 1993
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 22 July 2014, pp. 1-12
- Print publication:
- Spring 1993
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One of the most widespread and dramatic styles of folk dance performance throughout much of Europe over the past six centuries has been sword dancing, specifically the linked styles—often called “hilt and point” or “chain” sword dances—which were first reported in the late Middle Ages and are still practiced in a number of countries. In these dance styles, a group of dancers, normally ranging from four or five up to twenty-odd, moves through various figures, minimally lines and circles but often using very complex and demanding movements. The dancers are connected to one another by swords, or sword-like implements of metal or wood, which they usually hold with the hilt in their right hands and the point of the next dancer's sword in their left. The dancers have traditionally been men or boys, often members of a guild or profession, or in rural areas, the men of a parish or district.
The dances are usually presented in the winter, most often during Carnival time or Shrovetide in much of northern and central Europe, or on Boxing Day or Plough Monday in England. But they might also take place on a local patron saint's feast day or other popular holiday. In Spain and Portugal the dances have been performed at Corpus Christi, in the summer. In many countries they have been presented to entertain royalty, wealthy tourists, folklore collectors, or other distinguished audiences. Particular speeches, songs, or short dramas have sometimes been associated with these dances. It has not been uncommon for a piece of mock combat to take place, perhaps with a fencing scene. A dramatic moment in some dances comes when the swords are locked or laid together. They then can be displayed in a star shape to the audience; used as a platform for a performer to stand on; or placed around a performer's neck, for an “execution”, sometimes followed by a “resurrection.” Nonetheless, the emphasis and originality of this style of dancing lies in the linked movements of the dancers, connected by their swords.