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Timothy Snyder opens a new path in the understanding of modern nationalism and twentieth-century socialism by presenting the often overlooked life of Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz, an important Polish thinker at the beginning of the twentieth century. During his brief life in Poland, Paris, and Vienna, Kelles-Krauz influenced or infuriated most of the leaders of the various socialist movements of Central Europe and France. His central ideas ultimately were not accepted by the socialist mainstream at the time of his death. However, a century later, we see that they anticipated late twentieth-century understanding on the importance of nationalism as a social force and the parameters of socialism in political theory and praxis. Kelles-Krauz was one of the only theoreticians of his age to advocate Jewish national rights as being equivalent to, for example, Polish national rights, and he correctly saw the struggle for national sovereignty as being central to future events in Europe. This was the first major monograph in English devoted to Kelles-Krauz, and it includes maps and personal photographs of Kelles-Krauz, his colleagues, and his family.
List of contents
- List of Illustrations and Maps
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1. From Radom to Paris, 1872-1894
- Chapter 2. Dependence and Independence, 1894-1896
- Chapter 3. Sociology and Socialism, 1897-1900
- Chapter 4. Central Europe, 1901-1905
- Conclusion
- Appendix 1. Biographical Sketches
- Appendix 2. Kelles-Krauz and People 's Poland
- Appendix 3. Sources
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
About the author
Timothy Snyder is Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University. He is the author and editor of numerous award-winning and bestselling books including
The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999;
Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist's Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine;
The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke;
Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin; Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning; and
On Tyranny. This was his first book.
Summary
A study of one of the most important Polish thinkers, an intellectual who framed understandings of modern nationalism and socialism.
Additional text
The book reveals the testimony of a great thinker and passionate politician, whose ideas are as candid today as they were almost a hundred years ago....The idea that nationality is a consciousness rather than blood, geography, and language indicates Kelles-Krauz's understanding of the difference between ethnicity and nationality as it is presented today by social scientists....The author shows himself to be a meticulous and erudite researcher. I applaud Timothy Snyder for his craftsmanship in presenting Kazimierz Kelles-Kraux to the academic world of the late twentieth century.
