The Biographical Landscapes of Raphael Lemkin

The book is the first biography of Raphael Lemkin to draw on a comprehensive body of research into Lemkin as a person and his background and will be of interest to both non-specialists and academics. Drawing on archival materials, a nuanced description is provided of the ethnically mixed Belarusian-Polish-Jewish border region where Lemkin grew up and which shaped him, clarifying at the same time some of the misinterpretations that have surrounded Lemkin's life.
Lemkin's professional career and intellectual interests up to the time of his flight from Poland after the German aggression of 1939 are exhaustively described. In the latter part of the book, the author poses, among other things, the question of how Lemkin's activities in the United States were influenced by the experience of the first almost 40 years of his life.

List of contents

Introduction. Part 1: Lemkin's early days. 1. Childhood 2. National divisions at the dawn of the Second Polish Republic. Part 2: In the Second Polish Republic. 3. Final exams 4. University days 5. A lawyer in the Second Polish Republic 6. Lemkin's analysis of criminal law under totalitarian systems 7. Lemkin's research in international law 8. Professional career after 1933. Part 3: Wartime and the Nuremberg Trials. 9. The escape 10. "A Pole discovers America" 11. Axis Rule in Occupied Europe 12. Lemkin's role in Nuremberg. Part 4: After the war. 13. Hard choices in a world split by the iron curtain 14. The final years.

About the author

Piotr Madajczyk is currently affiliated with the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland. Their research interests include recent German and Polish-German History, Social Engineering, and the biography of Lemkin. Publications include Social Engineering in Central and South-East Europe in the First Half of the 20th Century, in: Poland, Soviet Union, Russia. From Past through Memory to Politics (2020).

Product details

• Authors: Piotr Madajczyk
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 27.10.2025
• EAN: 9781032584904
• ISBN: 978-1-032-58490-4
• No. of pages: 286
• Weight: 540 g
• Illustrations: schwarz-weiss Illustrationen, Raster,schwarz-weiss
• Series: Routledge Approaches to History
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > General, dictionaries; Europe, History: theory & methods, First World War, HISTORY / Jewish, HISTORY / Modern / 19th Century, HISTORY / Europe / Poland, Social & political philosophy, social and political philosophy, Fascism & Nazism, Second World War, The Holocaust, Genocide, Far-right political ideologies and movements, Modern warfare, Modern Period, C 1500 Onwards, History: theory and methods, HISTORY / Modern / 20th Century / General, HISTORY / Modern / 20th Century / Holocaust