Polish Origins Research Articles

Identyfikacja i poczucie dumy młodych Amerykanów polskiego i tybetańskiego pochodzenia

Ethnic diversity in the United States is a dynamic phenomenon that affects all aspects of the country’s social, economic and cultural life. This is one of the characteristics that defines American identity and makes the United States one of the most diverse countries in the world. The article focuses on the identity of young Americans of Polish and Tibetan origins living in the Tri-State Area (Connecticut, New Jersey and New York). Students attending Polish and Tibetan Saturday Schools were selected for the study. These are two distinct ethnic groups, but it is assumed that maintaining the cultural heritage of their ancestors is what characterizes both of them. The research results confirm this thesis and indicate that the sense of identity is a natural need of a young person, expressed in a dual cultural pattern and a developmental task that should be undertaken. In both studies, a strong sense of pride in ethnic origin emerged, although it was articulated in different ways by young people. Students from both groups presented high cultural competences in their country of origin and country of residence.

Unpartitionable: C.H. Alexandrowicz, Sovereign Divisibility, and the Longue Durée of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

AbstractIn recent years, scholars of international legal history have demonstrated much newfound interest in C.H. Alexandrowicz, a Polish jurist renowned for his anti-Eurocentric revisionist account of Asian and African agency within the meta-narrative of international law. Building on efforts to link his Polish origins with his studies of the Afro-Asian world, especially on matters of imperialism and state personality, my purpose in this Article is to explore these connections through a materially grounded historical sociology of international legal thought. Centering the issue of whether sovereignty is divisible, I situate the historic Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth—extinguished by a series of Partitions in 1772, 1793, and 1795—as a unique divided sovereignty-based polity that provided a basis for Alexandrowicz’s study of the juridical status of non-European sovereigns. This analogy united his overarching critique of nineteenth-century international legal positivism as an unjustifiable denial of both Polish and Afro-Asian sovereignty. In deciphering the materiality of Alexandrowicz’s imagination against this presumption, I build a narrative of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the evolution of its distinct approach to sovereign divisibility. Through analysis of the interplay between internal and external factors, I account for the Commonwealth’s medieval origins, its development in opposition to the consolidating indivisible sovereignty of its absolutist neighbors, its attempts to maintain independence in the face of Partition, and the continued assertions of its variegated legacies following its destruction. This, I argue, provides a novel means of assessing Alexandrowicz’s theory, and the materiality of international law more generally.

De “Eelsten der Polacken”. Op zoek naar Stanislas Kostka in de Zuid-Nederlandse literatuur van de zeventiende eeuw

This essay provides a first comprehensive overview of the presence of the Polish saint Stanislas Kostka (1550–1568) in the Dutch-language literature from the Southern Netherlands of the 17th century. The frequent stressing of his Polish origins serves to make the venerated Jesuit novice look like a miraculous denial of the patterns of thought of the time about the relationship between the location of countries and the nature of their inhabitants. Although the first biography of the young Jesuit hero in Dutch appeared rather late, many a song about him is included in catholic songbooks in Dutch and French. In the centenary year of the Jesuit order (1640), the Brabant Jesuit Adriaen Poirters (1605–1674) made adaptations of the poems and emblematical subscriptions in Dutch in Imago primi saeculi, including those on Stanislas. The specificity of these adaptations is explained. Poirters’s most important contribution to literary Kostka worship is the long and enthusiastic dedication poem of his Het Heylich Herte (1659). The text is explained and published as an appendix.

Metropolita Dionizy wobec kwestii narodowościowej w Cerkwi prawosławnej w okresie międzywojennym

Metropolitan Dionysius on the Nationality Question in the Orthodox Church in Interwar PolandMetropolitan Dionysius took over management of the Orthodox Church in Poland in 1923, and he continued in this role throughout the difficult period of the Second Polish Republic. At that time the Orthodox Church was identified with the Russian invader, and seen as a symbol of the partitions as well as of the religious and ethnic oppression of Poles. At the same time it was the largest religious association in Poland, apart from the Roman Catholic Church. During this period, the Orthodox Church embraced several different nationalities among the faithful (including Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians and others). This posed a significant problem in both the Church’s internal relations and in its relations with the Polish state. Some political minority groups tried to make the Orthodox religion an element of national separatism. On the other hand, for the state authorities, the Orthodox Church was an institution which carried out its policy and objectives for the benefit of a particular ethnic minority. Throughout the period Metropolitan Dionysius had to guide the Church in such a way as to meet the needs of ethnically diverse believers, in spite of the basically unfriendly or even hostile attitude of the Polish state towards the Orthodox Church. He had to reconcile the sympathies of the faithful of Ukrainian, Russian, Belarusian and Polish origins, and to deal with the various political forces existing within the Orthodox Church, which sought to shape its institutional form and to give it a specific political function.

The Historical Memory of the 1812 War in Lithuania in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries: A Complex Process

In historiography, significant attention to the memory culture of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe focuses on issues relating to the memory culture of the Franco-Russian War of 1812; however, the case of Lithuania is not commonly analysed separately, thus this article discusses how assessments of the 1812 war were maintained in the historical memory in Lithuania. The Russian government offered the population in the lands of the former GDL its official version of the historical memory of the 1812 war (of a heroic battle against an invader), which contradicted the version this population considered as ‘its own’, experienced as their support for Napoleon and the new political and social prospects they believed he would bring. The Russian government’s censorship of written literature suppressed the spread of the people’s ‘own’ local historical memory, yet it did not prove to be so effective due to the population’s very limited opportunities to use the printed word. Communicative memory dominated in the land in the first half of the 19th century, becoming the main source testifying to and passing on to subsequent generations the actual multifaceted experiences of the 1812 war, including the chance of liberation from the yoke of the Russian Empire. In the second half of the 19th century, representatives of local Russian imperial government structures and the local Russian intelligentsia, responding to the 1812 war as a Polish struggle for freedom and a symbol of political independence, explained in academic, educational and popular literature that the hopes of the Poles related to Napoleon were actually unfounded: the French emperor had no intentions of restoring the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth within its historical boundaries, but simply wanted to fill his army units with Polish forces. It was highlighted that this expression of Polish support for Napoleon stopped the Russian imperial government’s potential plans to restore the Poles’ former statehood. This so-called regional narrative which appeared in history textbooks and was used by exacting emotional and visual impact in order to influence the political and cultural provisions of the younger generation had a dual purpose. First, to justify the discriminatory policies against individuals of ‘Polish origins’. Second, to ‘block’ the path for using the 1812 war as a historical argument testifying not just to the common historical past and struggle of Poles and Lithuanians but also their possible political future, which was openly expressed in the Polish national discourse of the early 20th century. Over the course of a hundred years, despite the government’s actions, Poles managed to uphold ‘their own’ historical memory about the 1812 war; its meanings were spread in various forms of media such as fictional literature, museum exhibitions and history textbooks, and were used to shape the political and cultural position of the younger generation. In the Lithuanian national discourse on the other hand, the 1812 war, along with the 1830–1831 and 1863–1864 uprisings, was viewed as a matter concerning the Poles and the Polonised nobility, and it was thus a foreign place of historical memory. The 1812 war and assessments of its potential importance to Lithuanians in the Lithuanian national discourse of the early 20th century were one-off cases and fragmented, while their spread among broader layers of society was limited.

Local institutions, union wage effects and native–foreign wage gaps

ABSTRACT Local institutions in the shape of collective wage bargaining in firms are important for wage differences among labour of various origins. This paper considers local rent-sharing in Danish firms and finds that local wage bargaining reduces wage gaps between cross-border commuters of Danish, Swedish, German and Polish origins. Wage gaps are found to be between 6% and 12%, while individual union membership reduces the wage gap. Local peer effects, on the other hand, may increase wage gaps particularly for cross-border commuters of Polish origin, which can be interpreted as a form of local club behaviour in bargaining at the firm level.

„Meat Should Be Prescribed in Very Small Doses, Arsenic-like”. How Josephine Joteyko and Varia Kipiani Pioneered Medical Research to Improve Vegetarianism in 1906

This compilation is based on the original report on a clinical survey conducted in Brussels (1905-1906) by Josephine Joteyko and Varia Kipiani with 43 vegetarians. Having advanced expertise in physiology and experimentalism, Joteyko (with Lithuanian and Polish origins) and Kipiani (with Georgian origins) discussed their findings at the Congress of the Belgian Society for Vegetarianism in 1906. For both children and adults, females and males, regardless of age, the findings demonstrated vegetarian dietary habits to be beneficiary for human development, the subjects’ physical and mental health, welfare, and physical and intellectual efficiency. Surprisingly, Joteyko and Kipiani confirmed C. Darwin’s observation across various nutritional cultures that vegetarian food would increase the energetic balance of the human body. Additionally, their focus on the moteur humain shows affinities with Taylorism, the modernist utopias of labor, the enhancement of human faculties, the protection of workers and their rights from automation, and applied social science represented by Joteyko and Kipiani as multidisciplinary investigators. The compilation was made on: J. Joteyko & V. Kipiani, Enquête scientifique sur les Végétariens de Bruxelles, Conférence donnée à la Société végétarienne de Belgique, le 4 décembre 1906, pp. 1–77, with no further correction.

Quo Vadis Polish-Canadian Writing? Reflections on Home, Language, Writing, and Memory in Recent Texts By Canadian Writers of Polish Origins

Abstract The aim of this paper is to look at the recent publications by writers of Polish extraction living in Canada and writing in English in order to examine these texts in the context of their treatment of the concept of home, attitude to mother tongue and the usage of English, as well as the authors’ involvement in shaping the Canadian literary scene. The analysis will concentrate on selected texts published after 2014 to delineate the latest tendencies in Polish-Canadian writing. The discussion will include life writing genres such as memoirs, short stories, and novels. Since these writers have undertaken themes of (up)rootedness, identity, and memory and they have touched upon the creative redefinition of the figure of home, these aspects will also be examined from a theoretical perspective in the introductory part of the article. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek through his concept of “in-between peripherality” (2010: 87) proposes to view Central and Eastern European literature as both peripheral and in-between its “own national cultural self-referentiality and the cultural influence and primacy of the major Western cultures” (2010: 87). Moreover, as diasporic studies are inspired by the search for transcultural, dynamic exchanges and hybridity (Agnew 2005), the analysis will also include discussions on hybridity understood as a transgression of borders, both literary and genealogical as well as thematic. That is why, the classic notion of hybridity known widely in postcolonial studies, is here understood, according to Moslund (2010), as having horizontal and vertical orientations, where the former designates transgression of borders and space and the latter is connected to the movement across time. This approach is particularly interesting in the context of Polish-Canadian migrant and diasporic literature as, according to Pieterse (2001), hybridity understood as movement and translocation can offer new perspectives on migrant literatures in multi-and transcultural worlds.

ETNOGENEZA SŁOWIAN W POLSKICH KRONIKA CH ŚREDNIOWIECZNYCH

Historiography including the story of native origins created ideological bonds in new states, created the state and afterwards national consciousness. The Latin cultural roots of Christianity and the awareness of the similarities of Slavic languages played a role in ethnographical stories told in Polish medieval chronicles. While keen on presenting Polish origins, the first Polish chronicles did not deal with ethnogenesis of Slavs. Only in the 14th century did the chroniclers adopt an ethnogenetical approach. Dzierzwa introduced the Biblical genealogy to Polish medieval historiography and derived the origins of the Poles from Japhet. The Slavic Interpolator of the Great-Polish Chronicle presented the Pannonian concept of the origin of Slavs which probably emerged in Great-Moravia and was preserved in Rus’ historical tradition. This story was used by John Dąbrówka in his commentaries to the Chronicle of Vincent Kadłubek and by John Długosz who created the erudite vision of Polish ethnogenesis, based on popular tables of nations.

Natives' and Immigrants' Gender Preferences for Children in Germany.

Little research has been conducted yet investigating gender preferences among immigrant parents in Western host countries. We add further empirical evidence to this sparse literature by analyzing pooled micro-census data for the years 2005-2013 from Germany. Next to updating earlier findings on the native population, we assess parental gender preferences in two large and culturally distinct groups of immigrants in Germany, namely those with Turkish and Polish origins. Our analysis indicates both daughter and son preferences in contemporary Germany and supports the notion of potentially changing gender preferences within ethnic groups over time as well as continuous differences between ethnic groups of natives and immigrants in Western societies. Whereas the observed differences between natives and immigrants suggest incomplete cultural assimilation with regard to gender- and family-related attitudes and values, they barely contribute to explaining differential fertility behaviors, as effects sizes tend to be fairly similar across groups.

De novo and inherited loss-of-function variants of ATP2B2 are associated with rapidly progressive hearing impairment

ATP2B2 encodes the PMCA2 Ca2+ pump that plays an important role in maintaining ion homeostasis in hair cells among others by extrusion of Ca2+ from the stereocilia to the endolymph. Several mouse models have been described for this gene; mice heterozygous for loss-of-function defects display a rapidly progressive high-frequency hearing impairment. Up to now ATP2B2 has only been reported as a modifier, or in a digenic mechanism with CDH23 for hearing impairment in humans. Whole exome sequencing in hearing impaired index cases of Dutch and Polish origins revealed five novel heterozygous (predicted to be) loss-of-function variants of ATP2B2. Two variants, c.1963G>T (p.Glu655*) and c.955delG (p.Ala319fs), occurred de novo. Three variants c.397+1G>A (p.?), c.1998C>A (p.Cys666*), and c.2329C>T (p.Arg777*), were identified in families with an autosomal dominant inheritance pattern of hearing impairment. After normal newborn hearing screening, a rapidly progressive high-frequency hearing impairment was diagnosed at the age of about 3–6 years. Subjects had no balance complaints and vestibular testing did not yield abnormalities. There was no evidence for retrocochlear pathology or structural inner ear abnormalities. Although a digenic inheritance pattern of hearing impairment has been reported for heterozygous missense variants of ATP2B2 and CDH23, our findings indicate a monogenic cause of hearing impairment in cases with loss-of-function variants of ATP2B2.

Karol Wojtyła ou «Le gothique de l’âme et la renaissance du corps». Un nouvel humanisme venu de Pologne

Few years ago, a poem by Karol Wojtyła, entitled „Przełom”, that is „The Turning Point”, was discovered. Written between 1942 and 1945, the reflection of young seminarian Karol begins with questions, and a personal and very significant answer: „It is thus that the Gothic of the soul and the Renaissance of the body fight in me”. The Gothic aspect indicates the sensitivity to the spiritual world of the future Pope. The Renaissance of the body is linked to its sporting nature and the desire to open to the true relationship with every man, the friendship. This study focuses its research around these two aspects of the internal integration of Karol Wojtyła, showing their development in pastoral and scientific research in the context of its Polish origins.

“[They] would say she was betraying Poland already”: Major Themes in Contemporary Canadian Literature by Writers of Polish Origins

In June 2015 The Canadian Polish Research Institute organized a panel discussion chaired by professor Tamara Trojanowska called “Writing Change and Continuity: Culture, Languages, Generations.” The debate featured esteemed writers of Polish descent: Eva Stachniak, Andrew Borkowski, Ania Szado, Jowita Bydlowska and Aga Maksimowska. Although the writers in question do not belong to the same generation and do not share exactly the same emigration experience, nowadays they form a distinguished group of Canadian writers of Polish origins. The aim of this paper is to look at the selection of the latest texts written by authors of the Polish diaspora in Canada such as Eva Stachniak’s The Chosen Maiden (2017), Jowita Bydlowska’s Drunk Mom (2013) and Guy (2016), Ania Szado’s Studio Saint Ex (2013) and Aga Maksimowska’s Giant (2012) among others. This paper does not venture to repeat the conclusions drawn during the panel but rather to extend the exploration of the recent Polish diasporic, multivoiced writing as well as offer a modest supplement to the famous analysis of ethnic writing proposed by Smaro Kamboureli in her Scandalous Bodies: Diasporic Literature in English Canada (2009). Hence, the discussion comprises the authors’ choice of themes, (dis)appearance of immigrant motifs, references to Poland as a country of origin and Canada as the new homeland as well as an analysis of the genres the aforementioned authors use.

The New School Lecture “an army of women”: Communist-Linked Solidarity Movements, Maternalism, and Political Consciousness in 1930s and 1940s Argentina

“I carried a package for Osvaldo Pugliese,” Teresa de Gílenberg proudly recalled during our interview in 1997. One day in the late 1940s, this Communist militant of Polish origins asked Juan, a vendor in her barrio, if he would contribute potatoes and gather foods from other tradesmen in solidarity with Pugliese, a renowned tango composer, orchestra director, and Communist who was incarcerated in the infamous Villa Devoto jail. Juan brought her a large parcel containing his donations and those offered by his fellow vendors, and she personally handed it to the musician.

Christine Przybyła-Long, “And she helped four thousand people become citizens of the United States”

Christine Przybyła-Long is one of the 9 milion Americans of Polish origins living in the United States. Her descendatns came to Chicago during the mass migration from the turn of 20th century and she was born there in 1931. In her account Christine Przybyła-Long tells about her childhood and a life of a family belonging to the “Old Polonia”. She gives a lot of attention to the situation of Poles who migrated to the United States after WWII and to her own political involvement into Polish American affairs after 1990, that was crucial in the case of granting four thousand people american visas.

Depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation among 1(st) and 2(nd) generation migrants - results from the Gutenberg health study.

BackgroundEven though migrants constitute a large proportion of the German population, there is a lack of representative studies on their mental health. Hence, the present study explored mental health characteristics and suicidal ideation comparing 1st and 2nd generation migrants to non-migrants and subgroups within 1st generation migrants.MethodsWe investigated cross-sectional data of 14,943 participants of the Gutenberg Health Study (GHS), a population-based, prospective, single-center cohort study in Mid-Germany (age 35 to 74 years). Migration status was assessed according to the German microcensus criteria. Depression and anxiety were measured by the PHQ (PHQ-8, GAD-2, Panic module), social anxiety by the Mini SPIN and Distressed Personality (Type D) by the DS-14. Suicidal ideation was assessed by the single item of the PHQ-9.ResultsA total of n = 3,525 participants had a migration background; the proportion of 1st generation (immigrated after 1949) migrants was 10.6 % (2nd generation 13 %). Among the 1st generation migrants those with Polish (N = 295) and Turkish (N = 141) origins were the largest groups from single countries. Controlling for sex, age and socioeconomic status, 1st generation migrants reported significantly more depression (OR 1.24; CI 1.01-1.52), generalized anxiety (OR 1.38; CI 1.13-1.68), panic attacks in the past 4 weeks (OR 1.43; CI 1.16-1.77); Type D (OR 1.28; CI 1.13-1.45) and suicidal ideation (1.44; CI 1.19-1.74) compared to non-migrants. The mental health of 2nd generation migrants did not differ from native Germans; they had the highest socioeconomic status of the three groups. Compared to native Germans, Turkish migrants of both sexes reported more depression and panic, particularly a strongly increased suicidal ideation (OR 3.02; CI 1.80-5.04) after taking sex, age, and socioeconomic status into account. Polish migrants only reported an increased rate of suicidal ideation and Type D. Turkish migrants exceeded Polish migrants regarding depression (OR = 2.61; 95 % CI 1.21-5.67), and panic attacks (OR=3.38; 95 % CI 1.45-7.85). In the subgroup analyses years lived in Germany was not significant.ConclusionsOne of few representative community studies shows that compared to native Germans depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation were more frequently reported by 1st generation migrants, particularly of Turkish origin. Overall, 2nd generation migrants appear to have adjusted successfully. Limitations refer to a lack of data for persons without German language skills and missing mental health data in the Turkish sample. Further analyses need to address causes of mental strains and health care needs and provision.

Dr. Stanko Sielski (1891-1958): Physician, scientist, humanist.

This work presents the results of research into the life and work of Dr. Stanko Sielski, related to his professional, scientific and humanitarian work. He was born in Gračanica, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BH) in 1891, to a family of Polish origins. He attended high school in Travnik and completed his studies of medicine in Vienna in 1919. During the First World War he served on the frontlines with the Austro- Hungarian army. He began his service as a doctor in Konjic, Prozor and Glamoč, and then worked in Varcar Vakuf, Zenica, Travnik, Bihać, Banja Luka, Sarajevo and Tuzla. At that time in BH living conditions were very bad, the level of education of the people insufficient, there were many epidemics of infectious diseases, and the mortality of the population was high. Dr. Stanko Sielski made a significant contribution to treating the sick, preventing various diseases and the health education of the people. In the realm of the history of medicine in BA, he researched the life and work of doctors from previous generations, the work of medical institutions, old medical manuscripts written in Arabic, Persian and Turkish, folk beliefs about the origins and treatment of a variety of illnesses, and the role of herbal medicine and amulets in treating the sick. In addition, he undertook research in the fields of archaeology, ethnology and sociology. He published the results of his research in scholarly journals. In the Second World War he saved the lives of many Jewish doctors and their families from persecution in concentration camps, and as a result in 2014 he was posthumously declared "Righteous Among the Nations". Dr. Stanko Sielski, alongside his work as a doctor, was also involved in a variety of scientific research and publication work, which contributed to the preservation and a better understanding of the material and spiritual heritage of BH.

Tracing the Life and Work of August Rozental

Abstract Introduction . The objective of this paper was to provide an overview of the life and work of a Polish artist and painter, August Rozental, who lived and worked in Bulgaria in the late 19th and early 20th century and is completely unknown in Poland. Documentation of his work may be of interest to both art historians and Polish travel agencies, the latter for marketing purposes. Material and methods . In searching for reliable information, the focus remained on historical, icono-graphic and epigraphic sources. Archival and museum collections were consulted, as were academic libraries, periodicals and internet sites (Polish, Bulgarian, Serbian and Russian). The information thus obtained was verified on the basis of three interviews with museology specialists. Results . The information was presented in terms of a description of the location and marketing product, to address the needs of cultural tourism. Consequently, the descriptions focus primarily on the artist's surviving works and their locations in monasteries in and around Sofia. Along the way, interesting information was discovered regarding the accomplishments of his brother Juliusz, a poet, and their father August, a doctor who years earlier was exiled to Siberia along with his family. Original, newly discovered documents containing personal information about August Rozental (the painter) are also presented. Conclusion . The research confirms his Polish origins and documents the current locations of his most interesting works of art. This makes them easily accessible to both specialists and tourists interested in the subject.

THE ARCHITECTURE OF HR FUNCTION IN CAPITAL GROUPS – THE REPORT OF EMPIRICAL RESEARCH

ABSTRACT. The article presents empirical research results referring to the architecture of HR function by locating the decision-making and executive powers in 100 capital groups operating in Poland at the background of capital group definitions, their Polish origins, as well as the discussion focused on the leading role performed by a holding company determining the capital group type. The latter, in the perspective of model oriented studies presented in literature references, constitutes the crucial determinant for HR function architecture in an organizational structure of a group. The research results presented in the article, however, do not confirm the presented thesis, which seems to result mainly from the short history and the specific nature of capital groups establishment in Poland.JEL Classification M54, M59, Z1Keywords: human resources management, capital group, organic function.IntroductionIn the conditions of turbulent environment economic units, attempting to meet the set goals and perform functions subject to these goals, become involved in numerous and diverse, either direct or indirect, relations with other enterprises. A capital group represents such an example. Managing it is, beyond any doubt, a difficult process if compared to a single company management. A holding company management does not have the possibility for issuing direct orders addressed to other companies in a group which constitute independent and legally separate economic entities. The effectiveness of management in a capital group is correlated, on the one hand, with the choice of a holding company leading role and, on the other, with defining the areas of its interference in management processes of the subsidiary companies and the selection of adequate instruments. All the above-mentioned problems, in the context of decision-making and executive powers, determine the architecture (location) of management processes in a group. The article focuses on one aspect, i.e. human resources management, manifested in the realization of HR function. It was presented in the perspective of empirical studies conducted, in 2013, in 100 capital groups in Poland. The main conclusion resulting from the research does not confirm the assumptions published in literature references in the light of which the role of the dominating unit determines the architecture of HR function in the capital group structure.1. Literature review1.1. The concept of a capital groupMulti-entity organizations are established as the result of a given enterprise cooperation with other economic entities. In the conditions of turbulent transformations occurring in their environment economic entities, wishing to meet the set goals and play the underlying functions, enter into numerous and diverse, direct or indirect, relations with other enterprises. The created interdependencies between enterprises decide about the occurrence of multi-entity operations within which each participant takes into account the activities of the others (Lichatrski, 2003, p. 384).Literature references offer different approaches to the typology of multi-entity organizations. They are, however, distinguished based on the main forms of enterprise integration, such as cooperation or concentration forms, and also enterprise division into smaller units. In this context, cooperatives, multi-plant enterprises and economic groups (capital groups) are distinguished among multi-entity economic units.A capital group is a structure comprised of at least two legally independent economic entities of which one (the dominating one - a holding company, a parent company) has the possibility of influencing decisions made by another entity (the dependent one - a subsidiary company, a daughter company) (Kreft, 1999, p. 43). The essence of capital groups functioning is to implement common economic objectives through independent, in legal terms, enterprises persisting in capital relations facilitating active cooperation. …

Unheimlich: Struktury Pustki w berlińskim muzeum Libeskinda

The Museum of 2000 years of German-Jewish History in Berlin, designed in 1989 by Daniela Libeskind, an architect of Polish origins, was to make a powerful reference to the Holocaust as well. Using an underground passage, the architect connected the existing Baroque edifice of the Kollegienhaus in Kreuzberg’s Lindenstrasse, with the building created to his design (the so-called Abteilung). The external form of the buildings is a steel, flat-topped structure, composed of cubical blocks, irregular and marked by incisive edges. Inside, this zig-zagging building was intersected by a straight structure, 4.5 m wide, 27 m high and 150 long, which runs interruptedly along the main axis. The resulting empty spaces, extending from the ground floor to the roof, are tightly isolated from the remaining sections of the edifice. The analysis conducted by the author targets the comparison of that structure of the Void with the Freudian notion of the Unheimlich (uncanny). The comparison was made in a conversation with Libeskind by the originator of the theory of deconstruction, Jacques Derrida. Unheimlich is a psychological notion, which in this case denotes “secret”, “hidden” Jewishness, which instead of remaining an “internally closed” aspect is manifested as a characteristic, “negative” reflection. The term, entangled in the context of architectural theory as well as in the notion of anti-monument, represents a starting point in considering the contemporary condition of German culture, where that Void /unheimlich is a constant, “burdensome” echo of the Holocaust.