Browsing by Author "Holmgren, B"
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Item Open Access Acting Out: Qui pro Quo in the Context of Interwar Warsaw(East European Politics and Societies, 2013-05-01) Holmgren, BIn the turbulent context of interwar Polish politics, a period bookended by the right-wing nationalists' repression of an ethnically heterogeneous state, several popular high-quality cabarets persisted in Warsaw even as they provoked and defied the nationalists' harsh criticism. In their best, most influential incarnation, Qui pro Quo (1919-1932) and its successors, these literary cabarets violated the right's value system through their shows' insistent metropolitan focus, their stars' role-modeling of immoral behavior and parodic impersonation, and their companies' explicitly Jewish-Gentile collaboration. In the community of the cabaret, which was even more bohemian and déclassé than that of the legitimate theater, the social and ethnic antagonisms of everyday Warsaw society mattered relatively little. Writers and players bonded with each other, above all, in furious pursuit of fun, fortune, celebrity, artistic kudos, and putting on a hit show. This analysis details how the contents and stars of Qui pro Quo challenged right-wing values. Its shows advertised the capital as a sumptuous metropolis as well as a home to an eccentric array of plebeian and underworld types, including variations on the cwaniak warszawski enacted by comedian Adolf Dymsza. Its chief female stars-Zula Pogorzelska, Mira Zimińska, and Hanna Ordonówna-incarnated big-city glamour and sexual emancipation. Its recurring Jewish characters-Józef Urstein's Pikuś and Kazimierz Krukowski's Lopek-functioned as modern-day Warsaw's everymen, beleaguered and bedazzled as they assimilated to city life. Qui pro Quo's popular defense against an exclusionary nationalism showcased collaborative artistry and diverse, charismatic stars. © 2012 Sage Publications.Item Open Access Cabaret Identity: How Best to Play a Jew or Pass as a Gentile in Wartime Poland(Journal of Jewish Identities, 2014) Holmgren, BItem Open Access Holocaust History and Jewish Heritage Preservation: Scholars and Stewards Working in PiS-Ruled Poland(Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, 2019) Holmgren, BItem Open Access The art of playing patriot: The polish stardom of Helena Modjeska(Theatre Journal, 2010-10-01) Holmgren, BWhen Helena Modrzejewska, Poland's premier actress, quit the Warsaw Imperial Theaters in 1876 for a year's leave of absence in the United States, she secretly planned an English-language debut in San Francisco, a sophisticated yet less demanding theatre town than New York. Her triumph under the Americanized name of Modjeska at the California Theater in August 1877 led to almost three decades of American stardom and critical acclaim as the greatest American Shakespearean actress of her day. Yet American and Polish theatre historians have yet to analyze how this accomplished player managed a bi-national career up until her death in 1909. Modjeska did not abandon Poland for America, but discovered that the United States best served her professional and patriotic aims, garnering her greater fame and fortune as an English-language performer and enabling her national service in advertising Polish artistic genius abroad and underwriting Polish theatre at home. This essay explores how Modjeska retained and enhanced her Polish stardom by distancing herself from her homeland and perfecting both overseas and incountry modes of playing the faithful patriot. © 2010 by The Johns Hopkins University Press.Item Open Access Toward an understanding of gendered agency in contemporary Russia(Signs, 2013-03-05) Holmgren, BAssessments of Russian women's current social and political status must take into account the complicated legacy of Soviet women's "emancipation." Although the Soviet government enforced women's access to higher education and a broad array of professional opportunities, it never challenged traditional notions of masculinity and femininity, or the double burden tacitly assigned women. It did not invest in products and services that would have eased "women's work" as homemakers and caretakers, nor did it protect women from sexual harassment on the job. The transition years have bared, glorified, and globalized the patriarchal state that lay just beneath the socialist veneer of the Soviet Union. Indeed, the Putin government has repackaged that patriarchy as conventionally and commercially masculinist. Women do exercise some power as consumers and mothers; they seek other-than-material fulfillment in facilitating positions rather than face opprobrium as public leaders. Some are attempting to scout new forms of agency as managers and business entrepreneurs. Yet there is no straightforward upward ladder for women in work and no generally acceptable movement toward lobbying for women's rights. The women who wield the greatest sociopolitical influence in Russia today are media pundits, writers of serious literature, and journalists who combine writing with general social and political activism. In order to bridge the great divide in historical conditioning and contemporary circumstance that separates us from Russian women, we must work toward a better understanding of their complex forms of agency. © 2013 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.Item Open Access Transgressive Women in Modern Russian and East European Cultures From the Bad to the Blasphemous(2016-10-04) Hashamova, Y; Holmgren, B; Lipovetsky, MInvestigating the genesis of the prosecuted "crimes" and implied sins of the female performing group Pussy Riot, the most famous Russian feminist collective to date, the essays in Transgressive Women in Modern Russian and East European ...Item Open Access Warsaw 2013(East European Politics and Societies, 2013-05-01) Blobaum, R; Holmgren, B; Wampuszyc, E