Mazeppa


Book Description




Mazeppa, Polish and American


Book Description

Mazeppa is a narrative poem written by the English Romantic poet Lord Byron in 1819. It is based on a popular legend about the early life of Ivan Mazepa (1639-1709), who later became Hetman (military leader) of Ukraine. Byron's poem was immediately translated into French, where it inspired a series of works in various art forms. The cultural legacy of Mazeppa was revitalised with the independence of Ukraine in 1991. According to the poem, the young Mazeppa has a love affair with a Polish Countess, Theresa, while serving as a page at the Court of King John II Casimir Vasa. Countess Theresa was married to a much older Count. On discovering the affair, the Count punishes Mazeppa by tying him naked to a wild horse and setting the horse loose. The bulk of the poem describes the traumatic journey of the hero strapped to the horse. The poem has been praised for its "vigor of style and its sharp realization of the feelings of suffering and endurance".




Romantic Drama


Book Description

It does not treat Romanticism as a limited "period" dominated by some construed singular master-ethos or dialectic; rather, it follows the literary patterns and dynamics of Romanticism as a flow of interactive currents across geocultural frontiers




The Taming of Romanticism


Book Description

Looking at a broad spectrum of writers--English, French, German, Italian, Russian and other East Europeans--Virgil Nemoianu offers here a coherent characterization of the period 1815-1848. This he calls the era of the domestication of romanticism. The explosive, visionary core of romanticism is seen to give way--after the defeat of Napoleon--to an expanded and softer version reflecting middle-class values. This later form of romanticism is characterized by moralizing efforts to reform society, a sentimental yearning for the tranquility of home and hearth, and persistent faith in the individual, alongside a new skepticism, shattered ideals, and consequent irony. Expanding the application of the term Biedermeier, which has been useful in describing this period in German literature, Nemoianu provides a new framework for understanding these years in a wider European context.




The Noble, the Serf and the Revizor


Book Description

First published in 1991, The Noble, the Serf and the Revizor is a historical and sociological study of the Polish nobility of the Western Ukraine between the two great uprisings that shook Poland in the 19th century is based almost entirely on original, unpublished documents. Daniel Beauvois throws an entirely new light on the Polish nobility of the Ukraine, on its development and particular mentality. Furthermore, his research reveals mechanisms of domination and assimilation, which the Czarist bureaucracy can be said to have pioneered long before the Soviet empire. During this period, the Russian revizor, a key figure in the social drama described in these pages, ruthlessly lowered the status of the majority of the Polish nobles in the Ukraine. Thereafter, their fate was defined by two basic realities: poverty and the decline of their national identity and social status. Only a small minority of rich landowners survived. The price they paid was total political subservience, a subservience which gave rise to an increasingly conservative mentality and the loss of all real contact with the Polish national movement. This book will be of interest to students of history, political science, sociology and international relations.




Great Leaders, Great Tyrants?


Book Description

Can a political leader be effective without being tyrannical? Most biographies tend to treat the tyrannical aspect of a great leader's career as a contradiction to be minimized. This book examines both the creative and tyrannical aspects as the anticipated consequences of the exercise of power. Biographical profiles of 52 major world leaders throughout history feature pro/con essays reflecting contemporary views of the creative and tyrannical aspects of their record. Coverage is global, from Indira Gandhi to Fidel Castro, and spans history from the Egyptian king Akhenaton to Mikhail Gorbachev. Among the leaders profiled are Otto von Bismarck, Oliver Cromwell, Charles de Gaulle, Elizabeth I, Ho Chi Minh, Lenin, Louis XIV, Mao Zedong, Napoleon I, Kwame Nkrumah, Juan Peron, and Tito. All biographies are written by subject specialists. This work encourages critical thinking and debate about the exercise of power. Coverage is global, from Indira Gandhi to Fidel Castro, and spans history from the Egyptian king Akhenaton to Mikhail Gorbachev. Among the leaders profiled are Otto von Bismarck, Oliver Cromwell, Charles de Gaulle, Elizabeth I, Ho Chi Minh, Lenin, Louis XIV, Mao Zedong, Napoleon I, Kwame Nkrumah, Juan Peron, and Tito. Each biography begins with full name, dates of the leader's lifetime, offices held, and a general introduction placing the leader in historical context. A full biographical essay follows. The editor then presents two essays, in debate format, contrasting the creative and tyrannical roles of the subject from a contemporary viewpoint. Each biography concludes with suggestions for additional reading about the subject. An important resource tool, students will use Great Leaders, Great Tyrants? for debate and critical examination of periods of world history and the exercise of power.




Democracy and Myth in Russia and Eastern Europe


Book Description

This book explores democracy and democratization in Eastern Europe, focusing on the influence of politically important literary and historical myths in pre-communist and communist Eastern Europe and Russia.




A History of Polish Literature


Book Description

Anna Nasilowska's A History of Polish Literature is a one-volume guide that immerses readers in the rich tapestry of Polish literature and reveals its enduring impact on European identity from the Middle Ages to the late twentieth century. By exploring key themes, writers, and works and grounding her discussion in crucial biographical context, she weaves together the lives of a carefully curated list of Polish writers to paint a vivid literary portrait, elucidating the epochs that these writers shaped. Offering indispensable insights for readers who may be unfamiliar with the world of Polish literature, it is an excellent jumping-off-point for further study and learning.




Russian Subjects


Book Description

This collection of essays resituates poetic works by Derzhavin, Krylov, Batisushkov, Pushkin, Girboedov, Lermontov, Baratynsky and Pavlova, within the force fields of contradicoty cultural pressures, as are the once best-selling prose narratives of Narezhnyi, Karamzin, Viazemsky and others.




The Shakespearean International Yearbook


Book Description

In this issue of The Shakespearean International Yearbook, the special section surveys various means of 'Updating Shakespeare'. The section treats a variety of attempts and strategies, including by artists in Japan, China and Brazil, to adapt Shakespeare's works into local and present circumstances. The guest editor for the section is Tetsuo Kishi, Professor Emeritus in English at the University of Kyoto, co-author of Shakespeare in Japan (2006). The Shakespearean International Yearbook continues to provide an annual survey of important issues and developments in contemporary Shakespeare studies. Contributors to this issue come from the US and the UK, Poland, Japan and Brazil. In addition to the section on 'Updating', essays in this volume treat Shakespeare's poems, his narrative strategies, his relation to ideas such as tolerance and representation, and the afterlives of his work in writers such as Gay, Slowacki and Becket, and in theatrical relics.