Robert Pyrah
Biographic Data
| ID | 1172067 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robert Pyrah |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robert |
| FAMILY NAME | Pyrah |
| SIGNATURE | PYRAH R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Oxford |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Virtual Nationalisms? Comparative Public Uses of 20 th Century History on Selected Polish and German Websites
This article examines the role of websites as historical sources, using a comparative case study of Germany and Poland’s respective lost territories after WWII and the border changes ordered by Stalin. The article proposes a methodology derived from the ‘Toolbox’ of the Oxford Internet Institute, which includes link and referral analysis plus sourcing of data about websites in past formats via the ‘Wayback Machine’ (archive.org). Its aim is to su…
Rampart Nations
Political myths of the state as a ‘bulwark’ against external or internal threat are, the editors of this volume concede, ‘important elements of cultures of memory and provide a unifying story for “imagined communities”’. Given the burgeoning canon around memory and nationalism studies of Eastern Europe, exemplified by the 2013 collection Memory and Theory in Eastern Europe (ed. U. Blacker, A. Etkind and J. Fedor, rev. ante, cxxxiii [2018], 500–50…
Identities In-Between in East-Central Europe
The lands that once comprised the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth pose a fascinating challenge to studies of identity. In the last two-and-a-half centuries in place of an erstwhile multinational Commonwealth, countries have disappeared and re-emerged, often in new guises, in the fault-lines between land-based empires. The relationship between discourse, territory and identity has a complex history in the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, a mu…
The Burgtheater and Austrian Identity
"The collapse of the Habsburg monarchy in 1918 galvanized discussion about national identity in the new Republic of Austria. As Robert Pyrah shows in this thoroughly documented study, the complex identity politics of interwar Austria were played out in the theatres of Vienna, which enjoyed a cultural prominence rarely matched in other countries. By 1934, productions across the city were being co-opted to serve the newly patriotic cause of the Dol…
Germans in Wroclaw
After 1945, German Breslau was transformed into Ur -Polish Wroclaw at Stalin's behest. Most of the remaining prewar population was expelled, and a stable population of a few hundred with German ethnic background is estimated to have lived in the city since then. This paper is based on qualitative analysis of 30 oral history interviews from among the self-defined German minority. It pays close attention to historical context, urban milieu, and sal…
The Devil’s Chain
This original and far-reaching study is that rare thing, more than its title promises. The ‘story’ of prostitution, as told here through a dissection of its social and political aspects, amounts to a new take on Poland’s evolving national narrative in the years shortly before, and just after, independence was regained in 1918. That Poland was partitioned by three imperial overlords for more than a century complicates the picture, but by carefully…
The Paradox of Ukrainian Lviv
Since the late nineteeth century, the city of Lviv in western Ukraine has held symbolic and institutional status as a centre of Ukrainian nationalism, defined in classical ethno-linguistic terms. Amid the country’s wider geopolitics of identity, it represents a clear polarity on a variegated spectrum of identifications, blending linguistic, religious and regional forms. Deploying a keen eye for contradiction and counterpoint, Tarik Amar’s book un…
Redefining ‘sub‐culture
This paper proposes a new definition of the term ‘subculture’, as a way of better understanding hybrid identities specific toEast‐CentralEurope, before applying this definition to a case study from the now‐Ukrainian city ofL'viv from around 1900. The first section outlines the theory, arguing that the continued focus on the nation state – either from the ‘top down’, or else the ‘bottom up’ as a source of contestation, by historians and anthropolo…
From ‘Borderland’ via ‘Bloodlands’ to Heartland? Recent Western Historiography of Ukraine
It is almost axiomatic to point out that ‘Ukraine’ means ‘borderland’ in studies of the country written by Western scholars and observers.1 The first comprehensive English-language survey of the country’s history, by Orest Subtelny, initially published before the fall of Communism, begins with this observation;2 it is the title of a popular journalistic account by Anna Reid;3 and a potent leitmotif of the numerous academic articles and historical…
Never Sang for Hitler
Lotte Lehmann may no longer be a household name, but, as this splendid biography shows, her life and career as one of the foremost German lyric sopranos of the previous century merit closer contextual scrutiny. Lehmann's career took her from humble Prussian origins, through abundant talent, modest connections and sheer perseverance to the Vienna Staatsoper, America and beyond, leapfrogging Nazi Germany in ambiguous circumstances. As an authority …
Europe East and West
Enacting Encyclicals? Cultural Politics and ‘Clerical Fascism’ in Austria, 1933–1938
We intend to build a Christian‐German state in our homeland! ... We will take corporatist forms and corporatist bases, as the encyclical Quadragesimo Anno so beautifully announces to us, as the found
Redefining ‘sub‐culture
This paper proposes a new definition of the term ‘subculture’, as a way of better understanding hybrid identities specific toEast‐CentralEurope, before applying this definition to a case study from the now‐Ukrainian city ofL'viv from around 1900. The first section outlines the theory, arguing that the continued focus on the nation state – either from the ‘top down’, or else the ‘bottom up’ as a source of contestation, by historians and anthropolo…
Enacting Encyclicals? Cultural Politics and ‘Clerical Fascism’ in Austria, 1933–1938
We intend to build a Christian‐German state in our homeland! ... We will take corporatist forms and corporatist bases, as the encyclical Quadragesimo Anno so beautifully announces to us, as the found
Europe East and West
Never Sang for Hitler
Lotte Lehmann may no longer be a household name, but, as this splendid biography shows, her life and career as one of the foremost German lyric sopranos of the previous century merit closer contextual scrutiny. Lehmann's career took her from humble Prussian origins, through abundant talent, modest connections and sheer perseverance to the Vienna Staatsoper, America and beyond, leapfrogging Nazi Germany in ambiguous circumstances. As an authority …
From ‘Borderland’ via ‘Bloodlands’ to Heartland? Recent Western Historiography of Ukraine
It is almost axiomatic to point out that ‘Ukraine’ means ‘borderland’ in studies of the country written by Western scholars and observers.1 The first comprehensive English-language survey of the country’s history, by Orest Subtelny, initially published before the fall of Communism, begins with this observation;2 it is the title of a popular journalistic account by Anna Reid;3 and a potent leitmotif of the numerous academic articles and historical…
Redefining ‘sub‐culture
This paper proposes a new definition of the term ‘subculture’, as a way of better understanding hybrid identities specific toEast‐CentralEurope, before applying this definition to a case study from the now‐Ukrainian city ofL'viv from around 1900. The first section outlines the theory, arguing that the continued focus on the nation state – either from the ‘top down’, or else the ‘bottom up’ as a source of contestation, by historians and anthropolo…
The Burgtheater and Austrian Identity
"The collapse of the Habsburg monarchy in 1918 galvanized discussion about national identity in the new Republic of Austria. As Robert Pyrah shows in this thoroughly documented study, the complex identity politics of interwar Austria were played out in the theatres of Vienna, which enjoyed a cultural prominence rarely matched in other countries. By 1934, productions across the city were being co-opted to serve the newly patriotic cause of the Dol…
Germans in Wroclaw
After 1945, German Breslau was transformed into Ur -Polish Wroclaw at Stalin's behest. Most of the remaining prewar population was expelled, and a stable population of a few hundred with German ethnic background is estimated to have lived in the city since then. This paper is based on qualitative analysis of 30 oral history interviews from among the self-defined German minority. It pays close attention to historical context, urban milieu, and sal…
The Devil’s Chain
This original and far-reaching study is that rare thing, more than its title promises. The ‘story’ of prostitution, as told here through a dissection of its social and political aspects, amounts to a new take on Poland’s evolving national narrative in the years shortly before, and just after, independence was regained in 1918. That Poland was partitioned by three imperial overlords for more than a century complicates the picture, but by carefully…
The Paradox of Ukrainian Lviv
Since the late nineteeth century, the city of Lviv in western Ukraine has held symbolic and institutional status as a centre of Ukrainian nationalism, defined in classical ethno-linguistic terms. Amid the country’s wider geopolitics of identity, it represents a clear polarity on a variegated spectrum of identifications, blending linguistic, religious and regional forms. Deploying a keen eye for contradiction and counterpoint, Tarik Amar’s book un…
Identities In-Between in East-Central Europe
The lands that once comprised the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth pose a fascinating challenge to studies of identity. In the last two-and-a-half centuries in place of an erstwhile multinational Commonwealth, countries have disappeared and re-emerged, often in new guises, in the fault-lines between land-based empires. The relationship between discourse, territory and identity has a complex history in the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, a mu…
Rampart Nations
Political myths of the state as a ‘bulwark’ against external or internal threat are, the editors of this volume concede, ‘important elements of cultures of memory and provide a unifying story for “imagined communities”’. Given the burgeoning canon around memory and nationalism studies of Eastern Europe, exemplified by the 2013 collection Memory and Theory in Eastern Europe (ed. U. Blacker, A. Etkind and J. Fedor, rev. ante, cxxxiii [2018], 500–50…
Virtual Nationalisms? Comparative Public Uses of 20 th Century History on Selected Polish and German Websites
This article examines the role of websites as historical sources, using a comparative case study of Germany and Poland’s respective lost territories after WWII and the border changes ordered by Stalin. The article proposes a methodology derived from the ‘Toolbox’ of the Oxford Internet Institute, which includes link and referral analysis plus sourcing of data about websites in past formats via the ‘Wayback Machine’ (archive.org). Its aim is to su…
Political science (11 works) · History (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Art (7 works) · Archaeology (6 works) · History (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Politics (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Eastern European Communism and Reforms (4 works)