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Review: Understanding Multiculturalism. The Habsburg Central European Experience, ed. Johannes Feichtinger, Gary B. Cohen, Berghahn, Oxford–New York, 2014 (Austrian and Habsburg Studies 17), pp. 246 While recently the concept of multiculturalism has been an object of strong criticism from the political side, the book under review takes another turn scrutinizing and historicizing it. Looking at Central Europe through the lenses of nonessentialism, postcolonialism or national indifference, multiple authors propose not only new ways of reading the history of the region, but also of establishing categories for the future research in historical cultural studies.
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Review: The Invention of Race. Scientific and Popular Representation, N. Bancel, T. David, D. Thomas (ed.), Routlege: New York-Abington, 2014, ss. 320. The book under review is a collection of articles presenting the functioning of the idea of the human race in the scientific, social and cultural backgrounds. The main purpose is to demonstrate how the concept of race have circulated from the late 18th century in scholarship as well as in popular reception. Thus the authors focus their attention on the so-called ethnological expositions (such as Negro or Eskimo Villages) organized on the occasion of world‘s fairs, today known as “human zoo.” On the social level, this helped support the conviction of the supremacy of the white race.
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The reviewed book of Janusz Łosowski attempts to investigate the importance of written documentation in the life of peasants in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th–18th centuries, especially in the lands of the Polish Crown, basing mostly on the sources concerning Lesser Poland (Małopolska). The study of Łosowski has been based upon extensive and thorough archive query, including very interesting groups of sources (some of them excerpted in the annexes). It attempts to deepen the knowledge of early modern legal culture and mentality of peasant societies.
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„Coram iudicio”. Studies of Legal Culture in Towns in Late Medieval Poland, edited by Agnieszka Bartoszewicz is composed of four texts, the subject of which is the legal culture in Late Medieval Cracow, Lublin, and Warsaw. In his article entitled Ipsa civitas habundat furibus: Criminals and criminality in Late Medieval Cracow Maciej t. Radomski first presents the organizational structure of judicature in Cracow, then follows with a description of various criminals as individuals, (e.g. thieves, pickpockets, robbers, forgers, and rapists), reviewing their social backgrounds as well as their modus operandi. Krzysztof Mrozowski in his article Suburbanites of Old Warsaw in the latter Middle Ages (1500–1526) offers an insight into the structure of Warsaw’s suburbs. He characterizes the architecture of the places as well as the people who lived there. Miłosz Resztak in his text Studies on legal culture in the Lublin town chancellery’s activity in the Late Middle Ages analyses particular aspects of the city chancellery in Lublin. First, he focuses on status denotations in the examined book. Then he characterized the role of Polish-language words in the books of the records from Lublin. In Wojciech Patronowicz’s article Lublin citizens’ everyday life in the 1408–1532 wilkürs perspective the author presents the aspects of medieval city life regulated by the afore-mentioned wilkürs: administration, security, and trade and craftsmanship, as well as the organizational structure
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In his monograph The Hangman and His Workshop in Silesia, Upper Lusatia, and Kladsko County from the Beginning of the 16th to the Mid – 19th Century Daniel Wojtucki presents the profession of executioner. Having analysed historical sources, the author comprehensively characterizes the work of the executioner in the broad social context. He describes the profession on the background of the executioner’s family and presents a common approach to such a job. Particularly worth mentioning were some of the extraneous activities that the executioner took up and the collaborators with whom he cooperated. According to legal aspects, the author described the procedure for execution of a sentence as well as tools used in the executioner’s work. As an appendix, the author attached biographies of various executioners.
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The article presents a brief review of the book published in 2013, edited by K.-H. Spiess on behalf of the Konstanzer Arbeitskreis für Mittelalterliche Geschichte. The book is one of two important multi-authored volumes printed recently in Germany, which contribute strongly to research on and knowledge of the beginnings of the feudal law as a legal system (as Lehnswesen is understood in the book as combination of beneficiary institutions and vassality).
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The reviewed book is an extensive study devoted to criminal trial as conducted in the towns of Southern Poland of early modern period. The author relied on particularly rich source material composed of norm-setting acts, writings of lawyers engaged in theoretical analysis and a large number of court books referring to penal cases, both those presented in the form of manuscripts as well as those that appeared in print. The significance of the study consists in the exploitation by its author of the sources illustrative of legal practice. The author investigated, with a particular precision, the factual course that the municipal criminal trial used to take in more serious penal cases. He laid a particular emphasis on the fairly well source-supported evidentiary proceedings. Worthy of note is his analysis devoted to the substantial law basis according to which the judgements were passed. The analysis showed that in the 16th through 18th centuries, in the municipal courts the local customary law played significant role, apart from that played by the Saxon and Magdeburg legal systems. On the basis of the research that he made the author suggests a conclusion that, despite the differences detectable in the practice of the respective towns, there functioned a uniform municipal penal procedure. The latter was characterized by certain features. These were: 1) the absence – in general – of individualized inquiry that would precede the judicial part of proceedings; 2) the instituting and conducting the judicial proceedings through ex officio method being regarded as something absolutely exceptional; 3) the proceedings were – as a rule – instituted due to the proposal of the plaintiff although sometimes they were instituted through the handing one of the
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Review of: BARTOŠ, Martin, ŠEFČÍK, Marcel: Joseph Ratzinger – Benedikt XVI.: Konfl ikt v modernej kultúre a dilema viery v súčasnom svete. Zaex, 2015. 120 s. ISBN 978–80–89676–42–2
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Book review: Jarosław Nikodem, Witold Wielki Książę Litewski (1354 lub 1355–27 października 1430), Avalon, Kraków 2013, ss. 512
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Book review: Christian Ingrao, Czarni myśliwi. Brygada Dirlewangera, przekład Wojciech Gilewski, Wydawnictwo Czarne, Wołowiec 2011, ss. 303
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