Pogroms of Jews in 20th Century Central Europe: Comparative Perspectives

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

In the panel, we raise new questions and propose new ways of studying the problem of Jewish pogroms in the modern period. The first suggestion is comparative studies, over a long period of time. Their goal is to better understand the very concept and nature of pogroms. A key issue is to juxtapose the causes of outbreaks of acts of collective anti-Jewish aggression before, during and after the Holocaust. Another proposal is to study anti-Jewish violence in a comparative perspective from the point of view of the causes of violence and the ways in which it is named. The third perspective is related to the spatial turn and points to the need for spatial analyses of pogrom violence in the broader context of the study of violence in general and in comparative perspective. Using the example of the Western parts of the Russian Empire, new questions will be presented regarding the social origins of anti-Jewish violence and its place in the history of violence in general. These three research proposals presented as assumptions, but also concrete solutions to research problems, bring us closer to understanding how much we need a change of research paradigms in the study of anti-Jewish violence and how urgently we should cross chronological or territorial boundaries in the study of pogroms. The results of new research findings, conducted using new interpretive tools, will be presented in an area that has long been explored, but still insufficiently.

Sub Unit

• History: 1900-1945

Chair

• Eugene Michael Avrutin, U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Papers

• University as a Pogrom Site: Anti-Jewish Violence on Campuses in Central Europe - Natalia Aleksiun, U of Florida

• Pogroms and the Geography of Anti-Jewish Violence: What Do the Maps Say? - Artur Markowski, U of Warsaw / POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews (Poland)

Discussant

• Elissa Bemporad, CUNY Queens College / CUNY Graduate Center