Synopses & Reviews
One of twelve children in a close-knit, affluent Catholic Belgian family, Jan Vansina began life in a seemingly sheltered environment. But that cocoon was soon pierced by the escalating tensions and violence that gripped Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. In this book Vansina recalls his boyhood and youth in Antwerp, Bruges, and the Flemish countryside as the country was rocked by waves of economic depression, fascism, competing nationalisms, and the occupation of first Axis and then Allied forces.
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Within the vast literature on World War II, a much smaller body of work treats the everyday experiences of civilians, particularly in smaller countries drawn into the conflict. Recalling the war in Belgium from a childand#8217;s-eye perspective, Vansina describes pangs of hunger so great as to make him crave the bitter taste of cod-liver oil. He vividly remembers the shock of seeing severely wounded men on the grounds of a field hospital, the dangers of crossing fields and swimming in ponds strafed by planes, and his familyand#8217;s interactions with occupying and escaping soldiers from both sides. After the war he recalls emerging numb from the cinema where he first saw the footage of the Nazi death camps, and he describes a new phase of unrest marked by looting, vigilante justice, and the countryand#8217;s efforts at reunification.
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Vansina, a historian and anthropologist best known for his insights into oral tradition and social memory, draws on his own memories and those of his siblings to reconstruct daily life in Belgium during a tumultuous era.
Review
andquot;A very readable book, dealing with complex and controversial issues of World War II and the early Cold War in a balanced and enlightened manner. Reilly shows how such events as the Nazi and Communist occupations, the Holocaust, ethnic cleansing, and forced deportations affected and continue to affect the lives of the people in the region.andquot;andmdash;Serhii Plokhii, Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History, Harvard University
Review
andquot;Reilly's engaging book, a valuable historical source, is a homage to the Lemkos, whose world has disappeared forever.andquot;andmdash;Piotr J. Wrandoacute;bel, Konstanty Reynert Chair of Polish History, University of Toronto
Review
and#147;Through the Day, through the Night is more than a memoir. Jan Vansina has brought to the story of his boyhood and young adulthood the gifts of a historian and ethnographer, steeped in oral history. He highlights and illumines the culture of Belgiumand#151;his country of originand#151;and the culture of the upper class, Flemish, Catholic, intellectual and artistic family in which he was raised. And he vividly conveys his coming-of-age experiences during World War II when Belgium was invaded and occupied by German forces.and#8221;and#151;Renand#233;e Fox, the Annenberg Professor Emerita of the Social Sciences, University of Pennsylvania
Review
and#147;A captivating read. Not only a personal narration about the Flemish struggle to achieve cultural and political recognition, but also a lesson on how history and memory work.and#8221;and#151;Bogumil Jewsiewicki, Universitand#233; Laval, Canada
Review
andldquo;Undertaking what might be deemed an andlsquo;anthropology of difficult truths,andrsquo; Elissa Helms unflinchingly examines the contradictions of womenandrsquo;s activism in contemporary Bosnia-Herzegovina. This sobering book is as courageous and complex as the women who populate its pages.andrdquo;andmdash;Pamela Ballinger, University of Michigan
Review
andldquo;This is a brave and important book of significance both for our understanding of postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina and for what it says about the unintended consequences of initiatives aimed at improving the lot of women and society as a whole in a post-conflict environment.andrdquo;andmdash;Wendy Bracewell, University College London
Review
and#147;The author takes her readers on a profound journey through time and across geographic borders. In clear, engaging language, she finds a balance between culturally rich ethnographic examples and complex theoretical interpretations, introducing a folkloric perspective that is largely underrepresented in diaspora studies.and#8221;and#151;Mariya Lesiv, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Review
andldquo;A seminal work of impressive research drawing upon interviews and archival materials,
Scattered is a work of impeccable scholarship that is written with the dynamic narrative of a novel. Informed and informative,
Scattered is highly recommended for community and academic library collections.andrdquo;andmdash;
Midwest Book ReviewReview
andldquo;Nuanced, comprehensive, analytical, theoretical, challenging, and carefully constructedandmdash;this book takes on nationalism, feminism, gender, ethnicity, and faith as the author addresses the history of the recent Bosnia-Herzegovina war and its varied impacts on a range of social actors.andrdquo;andmdash;Patrice LeClerc, H-Nationalism
Review
andldquo;Reillyandrsquo;s narrative . . . is clear and balanced. . . . A short, but skillfully crafted synthesis of family memoir and micro history that is as interesting for its uncovering of a neglected tragedy as for its portrait of a little-known culture.andrdquo;andmdash;Times Literary Supplement
Synopsis
Following World War II, the communist government of Poland forcibly relocated the country's Ukrainian minority by means of a Soviet-Polish population exchange and then a secretly planned action code-named Operation Vistula. In
Scattered, Diana Howansky Reilly recounts these events through the experiences of three siblings caught up in the conflict, during a turbulent period when compulsory resettlement was a common political tactic used against national minorities to create homogenous states.
and#160;and#160; and#160;Born in the Lemko region of southeastern Poland, Petro, Melania, and Hania Pyrtej survived World War II only to be separated by political decisions over which they had no control. Petro relocated with his wife to Soviet Ukraine during the population exchange of 1944andndash;46, while his sisters Melania and Hania were resettled to western Poland through Operation Vistula in 1947. As the Ukrainian Insurgent Army fought resettlement, the Polish government meanwhile imprisoned suspected sympathizers within the Jaworzno concentration camp. Melania, Reilly's maternal grandmother, eventually found her way to the United States during Poland's period of liberalization in the 1960s.
and#160;and#160; and#160;Drawing on oral interviews and archival research, Reilly tells a fascinating, true story that provides a bottom-up perspective and illustrates the impact of extraordinary historical events on the lives of ordinary people. Tracing the story to the present, she describes survivors' efforts to receive compensation for the destruction of their homes and communities.
Synopsis
Vansina, a historian and anthropologist best known for his insights into oral tradition and social memory, draws on his own memories and those of his siblings to reconstruct daily life in Belgium during World War II.
Synopsis
The 1992andndash;95 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina following the dissolution of socialist Yugoslavia became notorious for andldquo;ethnic cleansingandrdquo; and mass rapes targeting the Bosniac (Bosnian Muslim) population. Postwar social and political processes have continued to be dominated by competing nationalisms representing Bosniacs, Serbs, and Croats, as well as those supporting a multiethnic Bosnian state, in which narratives of victimhood take center stage, often in gendered form. Elissa Helms shows that in the aftermath of the war, initiatives by and for Bosnian women perpetuated and complicated dominant images of women as victims and peacemakers in a conflict and political system led by men. In a sober corrective to such accounts, she offers a critical look at the politics of womenandrsquo;s activism and gendered nationalism in a postwar and postsocialist society.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Drawing on ethnographic research spanning fifteen years, Innocence and Victimhood demonstrates how womenandrsquo;s activists and NGOs responded to, challenged, and often reinforced essentialist images in affirmative ways, utilizing the moral purity associated with the position of victimhood to bolster social claims, shape political visions, pursue foreign funding, and wage campaigns for postwar justice. Deeply sensitive to the suffering at the heart of Bosnian womenandrsquo;s (and menandrsquo;s) wartime experiences, this book also reveals the limitations to strategies that emphasize innocence and victimhood.
Synopsis
Exploring a rich array of folk traditions that developed in the Ukrainian diaspora and in Ukraine during the twentieth century,
Ukrainian Otherlands is an innovative exploration of modern ethnic identity and the deeply felt (but sometimes deeply different) understandings of ethnicity in homeland and diaspora.
Synopsis
Ukrainian Otherlands is an innovative exploration of modern ethnic identity, focused on diaspora/homeland understandings of each other in Ukraine and in Ukrainian ethnic communities around the globe. Exploring a rich array of folk songs, poetry and stories, trans-Atlantic correspondence, family histories, and rituals of homecoming and hosting that developed in the Ukrainian diaspora and Ukraine during the twentieth century, Natalia Khanenko-Friesen asserts that many important aspects of modern ethnic identity form, develop, and reveal themselves not only through the diasporaand#8217;s continued yearning for the homeland, but also in a homelandand#8217;s deeply felt connection to its diaspora. Yet, she finds each group imagines the and#147;otherlandand#8221; and ethnic identity differently, leading to misunderstandings between Ukrainians and their ethnic-Ukrainian and#147;brothers and sistersand#8221; abroad.
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; An innovative exploration of the persistence of vernacular culture in the modern world, Ukrainian Otherlands, amply informed by theory and fieldwork, will appeal to those interested in folklore, ethnic and diaspora studies, modernity, migration, folk psychology, history, and cultural anthropology.
About the Author
Natalia Khanenko-Friesen is an associate professor of cultural anthropology, head of the Department of Religion and Culture at St. Thomas More College, and a founder of the Oral History Program and Personal Sources Archives at the Prairie Centre for the Study of Ukrainian Heritage, all at the University of Saskatchewan. She is the founding editor of the
Engaged Scholar Journal: Community-Engaged Research, Teaching and Learning.Table of Contents
Prefaceand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
Acknowledgmentsand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
A Note on Spelling Conventionsand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
and#160;
1 First Discoveries: 1933 to 1939and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
2 A Carefree Beginning: 1933 to 1939and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
3 War Erupts: July 1939 to 1940and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
4 Hungry Years: July 1940 to Summer 1942and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
5 Ominous Horizons: July 1942 to September 1944and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
6 Unravelings and Outcomes: September 1944 to September 1945and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
7 In Search of a Vocation: October 1945and#150;July 1951and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
Epilogueand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
and#160;
Suggestions for Further Readingand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
Index