Collecting the Holocaust: Private Collections of Holocaust Mementos in Post-1945 Central and East-Central Europe

This article assesses and compares Land Use changes in eastern regions of Europe: East Central Europe (ECE ) and South East Europe (SEE ). This part of the continent has to a certain extent common historical experience: multinational empires, ethic nationalism, peripheral position to markets and the communist experiment within 1940s–1980s. All these developments, complemented by specific environmental characteristics, different from each other, have affected the evolution of Land Use structure over the last fifty years. Considerable differences in LU structure of SEE and ECE had existed undoubtedly already in pre-war period. Here we try to on the basis of FAO LU database reveal how geographical and historical contexts shaped Land Use structural changes in both regions and led to important distinctions. <b>LUCC v post-komunistických zemích střední a východní Evropy v letech 1960–2000 a jeho historickogeografické kořeny</b> Předkládaný článek zachycuje v komparativní perspektivě změny ve využití půdy v regionech jihovýchodní (SEE ) a středovýchodní (ECE ) Evropy. Část kontinentu, dnes vnímaná především jako postkomunistická, má mnohem širší společné novověké dějiny: periferní pozici vůči světovému trhu, opožděný nástup industrializace, mnohonárodnostní impéria před a nevelké národní státy v době meziválečné. Zatímco tyto historickogeografické faktory vytvořily předpoklady pro analogický vývoj využití půd v obou regionech, rozdílné fyzickogeografické podmínky naopak posilovaly jeho specifické stránky. Na základě statistik Organizace OSN pro výživu a zemědělství (FAO) jsou v článku sledovány a zhodnoceny hlavní trendy ve využití půdy v obou regionech a jejich dominantní příčiny

Central Europe (East-Central Europe) or Extolling Diversity and ComparatisticsThis essay is, on the one hand, historiographic and, on the other hand, politological. In the first part the author analysed ways of using the terms: “Central Europe” and “East-Central Europe” in contemporary multi-volume syntheses of the region’s history, as a rule spanning from the ninth-tenth century to the end the last century. In the second part he shared reflections on the shaping of the common, supra-national identity of Central (East-Central) Europe from the middle of the nineteenth century and the question why at present it is not expressed in the existence of a regional political or economic organisation uniting the interests of itsmembers.The author expressed the conviction that in reference to the past it is possible to apply the concept: “Central (East-Central) Europe” albeit in each epoch phenomena that granted this region its specificity represented a different intensity and range; hence, the boundaries of the region in question were frequently subjected to changes. The second postulate formulated by the author and addressed to historians is the avoidance of identity narration based on a negative reference to “outer” objects. In syntheses of the region such a point of reference is to this very day Russia, treated, predominantly in Polish historiography, as a “civilisation” that does not meet the standards of theWest.The author believes that it is possible to speak about a more permanent East-Central Europe only starting from the mid-nineteenth century, when there came being an outline of the idea of solidarity in the struggle conducted by nations against empires. The experiences of the twentieth century – symbolised by the events of 1918, 1945 and 1989 – also granted an increasing number of joint features to the region from Estonia to Albania and contributed to the establishment of regional supra-nationalidentity.Theendofthe“brieftwentiethcentury”andthepost-1989achievementbythe states of the region of membership in Western structures (NATO, EU) contributed to weakening the feeling of regional bonds. Such contemporary phenomena as: the renationalisation of foreign policies, obsessive memories of events from the 1939–1989 period,growingtensionwithneighbouringcountriesandconcernabouttheidentityofthe“small”nationsinanepochofglobalisationarethereasonwhythepro-communitypotentialofEast-CentralEurope,mouldedintheprevioushalfacentury, iswaning.

Language and Area Studies: East Central and Southeastern Europe, A Survey. Edited by Charles Jelavich. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1969. xix, 483 pp. $11.50. - East Central Europe: A Guide to Basic Publications. Edited, with a preface, by Paul L. Horecky. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1970. xxv, 956 pp. $27.50. - Southeastern Europe: A Guide To Basic Publications. Edited, with a preface, by Paul L. Horecky. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1970. xxiv, 755 pp. $25.00. - Volume 30 Issue 2

The recent spectacular surge in private collecting in Hungary – which began around the fall of Communism and abated only with the current financial crisis – can be seen as part of the steady expansion of private involvement in the art scene, with some of these developments pointing beyond local significance. This paper examines the historical roots and the current structural characteristics of this spread by looking at the motifs and the choices of collectors, their co-operation with commercial galleries and public museums, as well as the advantages and side-effects of blossoming art patronage. Based on ten years of research, including close to two-hundred interviews with the actors in the art world in Hungary, I argue that private collecting, which had already strongly benefitted from the cultural thaw of the last decades of the Communist regime in the country, has earned over the past quarter-century high social status, the promise of lucrative investment and the liberty of creative self-expression for buyers of modern and, subsequently, contemporary art. The paper aims briefly to place these multiple factors in an international context; further research into art collecting in Eastern Europe will be needed to yield a more complete comparative regional study.

This article deals with the narration of Joseph Beuys’ art in Germany. My focus is set on the ways that particular curatorial strategies have been applied to Beuys’ artistic practice in the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin. I contextualize the readings in the interests of different stakeholders involved in the rescaling of the artist’s heritage. Beuys’ framing in the two recent retrospective exhibitions in Berlin and Düsseldorf and the regular display of his works in the Hamburger Bahnhof leads me to argue that private collectors have become closely involved in the process of curating in novel ways, which in turn requires a new critical reading of exhibition practices. Narrative economy is a concept proposed for understanding these interests and their articulations in exhibition curation.

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POST-COMMUNIST TRANSFORMATION CONFRONTS all countries involved with questions of state redefinition. The strains that can be generated by these questions have been most evident, and most examined, in states newly emerged from the Czechoslovak, Soviet or Yugoslav federations and/or those with significant ethnic minorities. However, even in relatively old and ethnically homogeneous states, these issues cannot be tackled without engaging varying understandings of the national identity and the relationship between state and nation.! This article investigates the conceptions of the nature and purpose of the state presented by party political elites in one such state, Hungary. Hungary's relative ethnic homogeneity means that there has been no significant practical contestation about which national group the post-communist state is 'of and for', in Brubaker's terms.2 That is, questions have not arisen about public language use, for example (as between the language of the state's titular nationality and another, minority, national group), as has occurred in several other post-communist countries with larger and less assimilated minorities. Similarly, Hungary's well-established status has obviated any need to excavate a little-known national past to legitimate the state's existence. As then Prime Minister Viktor Orbtin commented in 1999, Hungarians could 'forget the word, invent Hungary. Hungary was invented quite well enough a thousand years ago, by St Stephen himself'.3 However, a 'national question' has consistently been identified as the single dominant dimension of the country's post-communist party competition.4 Partly, this dimension comprises familiar left-right differences over secularism and progressivism versus religiosity and cultural and social traditionalism. However, in the Hungarian context, as in many others, these differences also encompass divergent understandings of the national identity and of the nature and value of nationhood in general." In this respect, elite political competition since 1990 in part continues a central debate of modem Hungarian political and intellectual life, about what the Hungarian nation is and what its relationship to the Hungarian state should be.6 Prior to the 1920 Treaty of Trianon this debate indeed partly concerned the relationship between Hungarians, groups by then identified as being of other nationalities, and the Hungarian state. Since the

Reviewed by: Becoming America: Highlights from the Jonathan and Karin Fielding Collection of Folk Art ed. by James Glisson Jennifer Van Horn (bio) Folk art, Jonathan Fielding, Karin Fielding, Decorative arts Becoming America: Highlights from the Jonathan and Karin Fielding Collection of Folk Art. Edited by James Glisson. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press for The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, 2020. Pp. 264. Cloth, $50.00.) There is something wonderfully refreshing about this volume, which documents, analyzes, and celebrates the folk art collection that Jonathan and Karin Fielding donated to The Huntington in 2016 for exhibition in the newly constructed Fielding Wing. Perhaps it is the stimulating design, which intersperses scholarly essays with large, color photographs of objects as diverse as quillwork baskets, rachet lighting devices, hearth forks, and top hats. Choreographed before vibrantly hued backgrounds of coral, teal, mustard, rose, and green, artifacts march, swarm, hover, and dance across double-page glossy spreads. The catalogue is a Technicolor spectacle, its sensorial allure especially gripping to readers facing extended museum closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, the book recalls the brightly colored walls and sculptural display of select artifacts from the collection in the Huntington's Becoming America exhibit.1 But the images also make a potent visual argument for the Fieldings' "eye" as collectors: Their discriminating choices about what to purchase built a collection with high historic and aesthetic appeal. As John Demos notes in his essay on the Fieldings' furniture, "there is the matter of its look—its sheer beauty. Damn! These makers, these creators, knew what they were about . . . handmade meant personal, and so, too, is our appreciation personal—that is to say, heartfelt, emotion-driven" (69). The Fieldings' path to becoming major collectors began with their purchase of an eighteenth-century house in Maine. Furnishing it with period-appropriate pieces awakened their passion for "everyday objects that have both utility and beauty" (16). The resulting collection, amassed over [End Page 322] twenty-five years and encompassing some nine hundred objects, consists of artworks and artifacts made between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, primarily in New England, often by rural makers (some self-taught) for middle-class consumers. The Fieldings' belief in the democratic appeal of these artifacts, and their commitment to making them accessible to a large audience on the West Coast (where there are few public collections of early American artifacts), emerges clearly in their essay. Volume editor and former interim chief curator of American Art James Glisson shares the Fieldings' excitement over the potential of objects to tell histories of the everyday lives of middle-class Americans in the past. In their animation and vibrancy, these artifacts belie longstanding assumptions that early American artifacts are stodgy, elitist, and conservative. To some extent those associations are deserved. Many major museum collections of American decorative arts formed through the donations of private collectors who began amassing artifacts in the 1920s. These men and women, such as Henry Francis du Pont, Francis P. Garvan, and Ima Hogg, were guided by principles of collecting shaped by the Anglo American Colonial Revival and a "great white men" version of American history; they sought out high-style artifacts from major urban areas produced by famous craftsmen and used by the eighteenth-century political and social elite. Though sometimes they included provincial styles, typically Pennsylvania German fraktur or chests, the majority of their collections testified to eighteenth-century users' quest for wealth, civility, and the attainment of British style ideals. A coterie of historians, art historians, material culture specialists, and curators have demonstrated that early American artifacts can be read against the grain to tell different stories of transatlantic exchanges, of gendered contest, and of dispossession and enslavement.2 However, many collections continue to preserve a skewed version of the American past through their initial formation. [End Page 323] The Fieldings' collecting interests offer a different model for whose stories can be told through the study of American material culture and which objects are most important for public interpretation. The scholarly essays included in Becoming America offer rich case studies of artifacts organized by media (furniture, textiles, landscape and still-life painting, portraiture), unveiling the multiple...

I much enjoyed Kathryn Wysocki Gunsch’s historiographical discussion in African Arts 46 (4) of the reception given to objects from Africa in the early twentieth century (Gunsch 2014). There is a huge amount of work to be done to reassess the work of our predecessors, which—aside from the intrinsic interest of such work—helps us reassess our own efforts, our own assumptions and preconceptions; and Gunsch’s article demonstrates what can be done when the available resources are put to good use. Although I do not necessarily disagree with Gunsch’s general conclusions about the differences between the reception given to African art in Germany and the UK, however, I do want to draw attention to an aspect of her thesis that—I should argue—is in need of revision. Part of Gunsch’s argument consists of a comparison between the work of Felix von Luschan (1854–1924) in Germany and that of Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers (1827– 1900) in England. Gunsch provides a convincing account of von Luschan’s work, supported by references to the relevant literature, but her account of Pitt-Rivers’s work is unreferenced and misleading. Gunsch writes: “In the largest British collection of Benin works, at the PittRivers Museum, Lieutenant-General Augustus Pitt-Rivers arranged all of his African pieces in a ‘chronological’ order based on their perceived sophistication” (Gunsch 2014:26). This claim invites unpacking. To begin with, Gunsch fails to make clear to which museum she is referring. The well-known Pitt Rivers Museum (without a hyphen), where I work, was founded by the University of Oxford in 1884 to house a collection of some 26,000 antiquarian, archaeological, ethnographic, and folkloric artifacts given to it by General Pitt-Rivers. Unsurprisingly, its founding collection did not include anything from Benin, which was not sacked by the so-called Punitive Expedition until thirteen years later. Nor did General Pitt-Rivers pass any Benin objects to the Oxford museum after he began acquiring them in late 1897. Instead, as with all his post-1884 acquisitions, he added them to his “second,” private collection, which he had begun to assemble even before his “first” collection was transferred to Oxford. This “second” collection was housed in Pitt-Rivers’s private museum (often referred to as the Pitt-Rivers Museum; that is, with a hyphen) in Farnham in Dorset and elsewhere on his estate. After Pitt-Rivers’s death in 1900, this private collection remained in the hands of the family until it began to be sold off in the mid-twentieth century. The collection as a whole, and General Pitt-Rivers’s Benin collection in particular, is thus scattered in public and private collections around the world (including, for example, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which recently acquired thirteen ex-Pitt-Rivers Benin pieces on loan from Robert Owen Lehman; see Geary 2013).1 It was thus in the private Pitt-Rivers Museum in Farnham, and not in its un hyphenated namesake museum in Oxford, that General Pitt-Rivers’s collection of objects from Benin was displayed. Indeed, it was—in part at least—to display the Benin collection that a new gallery (Room 9) was added to the museum in 1898.2 It apparently took some time for the collection to be installed. It was not referred to in the second edition of the Short Guide to the Farnham museum (which is undated but is known to have been printed in 1900), and was not actually completed until some time after Pitt-Rivers’s death on May 4, 1900 (Saunders 2014:219). As for how it was exhibited, it is difficult to be precise, as no photograph or description survives. What is clear from the records, however, is that the Benin collection was displayed in a separate set of cases. It was not part of an arrangement of “his African pieces in a ‘chronological’ order based on their perceived sophistication.” Rather, it was a self-contained display designed to draw attention to the collection, a catalogue of which Pitt-Rivers prepared with the title Antique Works of Art from Benin (Pitt-Rivers 1900). Moreover, it never was the case that Pitt-Rivers’s “African pieces” were arranged “in a ‘chronological’ order based on their perceived sophistication.” Famously, Pitt-Rivers’s favored mode of display was what he called “typological”; that is, objects arranged by type in evolutionary series—so that all the harpoons, say, or fire-making tools were displayed together in series supposedly demonstrating the succession of ideas Page 1,634 in Volume 5 of the manuscript catalogue of Pitt-Rivers’s “second” collection.

Analyses of populism in East -Central Europe (ECE) necessarily depart from the general crisis of representative democracy in the EU and describe the ECE as a specifi c regional case reflecting the failure of the catch -up process. The first part of this article adopts this “classical” approach and considers the backsliding of ECE democracy alongside the rise of populist identity politics in the global context. In the second part, I turn to the historical trajectory of ECE populism as a “nested” or two -level game in the EU context of ECE developments. The third part of this article outlines the main contradictions in this process that has led to what I call the Juncker paradox. To understand this paradox, we need to return to what the Commission noted in the early 2010s as the Copenhagen dilemma: aft er the EU accession of ECE states, the EU had no means to control rule -of -law violations and, in fact, supported autocratic populist ECE regimes through European transfers. This article explains the worsening of this situation in the late 2010s as the EU polycrisis caused Juncker’s Commission to focus on Core -based priorities and marginalise rule -of -law violations in ECE. This inaction and neglect have produced a special case of negative externalities - the Juncker paradox - that has largely been counterproductive and further strengthened anti -EU populism in all ECE countries, especially Hungary and Poland. Despite this situation, I conclude that Juncker’s 2017 State of the Union address should be a turning point in the EU’s policy towards ECE; in particular, it should promote a better understanding of the regional situation and more effective enforcement of the rule of law.

This project explores the importance of the preservation of diverse private collections of crafted artefacts, and specifically improving digital access. The focus is on the transformation of an assemblage of 100 Syrian garments held in the United States into a museum-quality, publicly accessible archive. Private collections that are not financially endowed face various challenges, including their culturally valuable content being inaccessible and underseen. The goal of archiving and exhibiting this collection of garments is to share Syria’s dress and craft history as a form of identity, community, economy, artistic expression and technological development. Each item is unique, representing an everyday life that no longer exists. As people moved to new geographical locations, craft traditions were not always carried with them. Consequently, the garments and accessories in this collection feature dyeing techniques, metalwork and symbolic representations of different generations of Syrian people from this ancient to present civilization. Throughout the research process, we learned to synthesize the core issues of contemporary craft heritage management, with an initial goal to build a new digital archiving method and template to benefit small or private collections outside of institutions. First, we determined how to do so using affordable and accessible tools, in line with manageable industry standards. Digital photography, metadata development, object labelling, and anecdotal interviews complement the existing collection information. The long-term goal is the dissemination of the collection through exhibitions, interactive websites, symposiums and publications. Museums are working harder to diversify their collections, and many private collections represent marginalized cultures or do not fit within the established parameters of public institutions. This study touches upon the disparate and specific needs of private versus public collecting, and how to bridge some of the gaps using standardized digitization techniques towards similar preservation and outreach goals.

Scholarly debate about the prospects of democracy have undergone a fundamental change in the last three decades. While the period of the 1990s might be distinguished by extensive optimism, in the 2000s we can observe a distinct change towards a more restrained perception. Furthermore, the last decade might be evaluated as pessimistic in the social sciences on the grounds of economic recession after 2008 as well other crisis in an economic, societal and political senses. The rather distinctive terms used for the expression of doubts about the pro-democratic development and consolidation, such as ‘semi-consolidated’, ‘new’ or ‘young’ democracy, or de-democratisation, were replaced with more dramatic expressions such as illiberal democracy, democratic backsliding, hybrid, regime, soft dictatorship and ‘the light that failed’, as Krastev described the recent image of East-Central Europe in an almost dystopic manner. While in the 1990s the Slovak version of democratura – Mečiarism – was perceived as the exception, in the late 2010s populist neo-illiberal regimes became the dominant shape of regimes in (East)Central Europe. This review essay presents three recent analyses of the democratic backsliding and state capture (not only) in East-Central Europe and frames this presentation into the more extensive literature review.

This article examines the ways and means by which the German state-controlled concern Reichswerke Hermann Göring expanded into the occupied mining areas in Austria, East Central Europe and Western Europe before and during the Second World War. Only about five years after its foundation in 1937 the Reichswerke had already become the largest industrial conglomeration for heavy industry and armaments in Europe. Despite certain differences in time (before the War and during the War) and region (East Central Europe and Western Europe) the expansion of the Reichswerke is characterized in the first place by blackmail and theft. In this respect it served as a prototype for other state and party controlled enterprises and it acts as a model to partly explain the brutalization of the business practices performed by private businesses in occupied Europe during the Second World War.

This article examines the ways and means by which the German state-controlled concern Reichswerke Hermann Göring expanded into the occupied mining areas in Austria, East Central Europe and Western Europe before and during the Second World War. Only about five years after its foundation in 1937 the Reichswerke had already become the largest industrial conglomeration for heavy industry and armaments in Europe. Despite certain differences in time (before the War and during the War) and region (East Central Europe and Western Europe) the expansion of the Reichswerke is characterized in the first place by blackmail and theft. In this respect it served as a prototype for other state and party controlled enterprises and it acts as a model to partly explain the brutalization of the business practices performed by private businesses in occupied Europe during the Second World War.

Researchers are beginning to examine the impact of the internet in regions experiencing economic change and struggle. However, broad assumptions about opportunity and access to the internet in these regions still exist. An unproblematised 'global village', where equal opportunity to engage in an open dialogue, is yet to be achieved. This article examines these issues in East Central Europe and the electronic discourses emergent in and about this region. The article questions the empowering capabilities of the internet in East Central Europe. The article will present the voices from this region who assert that only with widespread access, can the internet fulfil its democratic promise. Women's access to the internet will also be discussed. Finally, the article highlights women's organisations in Hungary, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic which are creating spaces for collaboration and connectivity, and providing a forum for new voices which have previously been silent.