Daniel Unowsky. The Plunder

The Plunder: The 1898 Anti-Jewish Riots in Habsburg Galicia is a carefully researched, well-organized, and clearly written analysis of the wave of anti-Jewish violence that swept the Habsburg Empire’s Galician provinces in the spring and summer of 1898. Based on a tremendous amount of original research on German and Polish documents maintained in archives in Kraków, Lviv, Vienna, and Warsaw, Daniel Unowsky’s study makes a major contribution to the scholarly understanding of the events of 1898 and to parallel debates regarding the origins and course of anti-Jewish violence in other lands. Like many other studies of anti-Jewish violence—often referred to as pogroms—and other instances of ethnic violence, Unowsky focuses on several key questions throughout his exemplary study, including: When and why do intergroup relations pass from daily interactions to violent outbursts? Who takes part in such waves of violence and why? And how did the responses of local officials and imperial bureaucrats affect the pace and level of violence? While these are neither simple or new questions, this study demonstrates how the collection of a massive amount of relevant source material in a myriad of languages can shed light on the intricate connection between everyday relations, periodic tensions, and violence between members of different groups. As such, Unowsky’s study will be of much interest not only to scholars of Jewish history and the history of the Habsburg Empire but also to those interested in studying and preventing ethnic violence in a range of settings.

Ancient history · Archaeology · Empire · Ethnic group · Genealogy · Geography · German · Judaism · Pace · Political science · Sociology · European history and politics · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · History · Law · Polish Historical and Cultural Studies