Transleithanian Paradise: A History of the Budapest Jewish Community, 1738–1938 traces the rise of Budapest Jewry from a marginal Ashkenazic community at the beginning of the eighteenth century into one of the largest and most vibrant Jewish communities in the world by the beginning of the twentieth century. This was symptomatic of the rise of the city of Budapest from three towns on the margins of Europe into a major European metropolis. Focusing on a broad array of Jewish communal institutions, including synagogues, schools, charitable institutions, women’s associations, and the Jewish hospital, this book explores the mixed impact of urban life on Jewish identity and community. On the one hand, the anonymity of living in a big city facilitated disaffection and drift from the Jewish community. On the other hand, the concentration of several hundred thousand Jews in a compact urban space created a constituency that supported and invigorated a diverse range of Jewish communal organizations and activities. Transleithanian Paradise contrasts how this mixed impact played out in two very different Jewish neighborhoods. Terézváros was an older neighborhood that housed most of the lower income, more traditional, immigrant Jews. Lipótváros, by contrast, was a newer neighborhood where upwardly mobile and more acculturated Jews lived. By tracing the development of these two very distinct communities, this book shows how Budapest became one of the most diverse and lively Jewish cities in the world.

"Transleithanian Paradise: A History of the Budapest Jewish Community, 1738-1938 traces the rise of Budapest Jewry from a marginal Ashkenazic community at the beginning of the eighteenth century into one of the largest and most vibrant Jewish communities in the world by the beginning of the twentieth century. This was symptomatic of the rise of the city of Budapest from three towns on the margins of Europe into a major European metropolis. Focusing on a broad array of Jewish communal institutions, including synagogues, schools, charitable institutions, women's associations, and the Jewish hospital, this book explores the mixed impact of urban life on Jewish identity and community. On the one hand, the anonymity of living in a big city facilitated disaffection and drift from the Jewish community. On the other hand, the concentration of several hundred thousand Jews in a compact urban space created a constituency that supported and invigorated a diverse range of Jewish communal organizations and activities. Transleithanian Paradise contrasts how this mixed impact played out in two very different Jewish neighborhoods. Terâezvâaros was an older neighborhood that housed most of the lower income, more traditional, immigrant Jews. Lipâotvâaros, by contrast, was a newer neighborhood where upwardly mobile and more acculturated Jews lived. By tracing the development of these two very distinct communities, this book shows how Budapest became one of the most diverse and lively Jewish cities in the world"--

After the Second World War, Yugoslavia’s small regional cities represented a challenge for the new socialist state. These cities’ older buildings, local historic sites, and low-quality housing clashed with socialism’s promises and ideals. How would the state transform these cities’ everyday neighborhoods? In the Slovene republic’s capital city of Ljubljana, the Trnovo neighborhood embodied this challenge through its modest housing, small medieval section, vast gardens, acclaimed interwar architecture, and iconic local reputation. Imagining Slovene Socialist Modernity explores how urban planners, architects, historic preservationists, neighborhood residents, and even folklorists transformed this beloved neighborhood into a Slovene socialist city district. Aplenc demonstrates that this urban redesign centered on republic-level interpretations of a Yugoslav socialist built environment, versus a re-envisioned Slovene national past or design style. This interdisciplinary study sheds light on how Yugoslav state socialism operated at the republic level, within a decentralized system, and on the diverse forces behind success or failure. With its focus on vernacular architecture, small-scale historic sites, single-family homes, and illegal housing, this book expands our understanding of the everyday built environment in socialist cities.

State socialism tried to industrialize, urbanize, encourage the more frequent washing of hands, urge people to leave the church, emancipate women, and electrify cities—all within a single lifetime. Central to these initiatives was extending educational opportunities to the working class and creating a vision of an egalitarian socialist university that offered advancement for all. Limiting Privilege: Upward Mobility Within Higher Education in Socialist Poland traces the possibilities and limits of this goal by looking at a model socialist university established in 1945 in the working-class city of Łódź, Poland. Initially a flagship project of socialist modernization, the university tried to offer social advancement by privileging admission for peasant and working-class children, but these efforts were often fought by the elite who sought to preserve their privilege. By looking at first-generation students, intelligentsia faculty, and an industrial city, Limiting Privilege explores a complex story about utopian visions, failed aspirations, and reluctant academia.

Przemyśl, Poland: A Multiethnic City During and After a Fortress, 1867–1939 examines the economic, political, demographic, and cultural ramifications of Austro-Hungarian military investment in Przemyśl, Poland, from the inception of the fortress in the 1870s, through four months of siege in World War I, to the decades of social change before World War II. The city of Przemyśl lies a few miles west of the Poland–Ukraine border. In the decades before World War I, the Austro-Hungarian military poured money, troops, and material into this multiethnic city and transformed it into the Empire’s largest fortress complex. Though intended to protect the border with Russia and inspire political loyalty, the resultant garrison instead made the city a target and prompted revulsion among local socialists who opposed the army’s dominant position in town. The heart of this book is the exploration of the relationship between soldiers and civilians in urban environments. The city’s physical and demographic growth was irreversibly tied to the army, yet much of the population rejected the garrison and fought with its soldiers. By 1907, Przemyśl featured one of the largest social democratic movements in Austrian Galicia. By 1914, the city was besieged by the Russian Army, and by 1918, the city was part of the new Second Polish Republic. Przemyśl, Poland is the story of how a single city transformed radically over a few decades, with lasting lessons about the consequences of the military culture colliding with civilian life.

Combating the Hydra explores structural as well as occasion-specific state violence committed by the early modern Habsburg Empire. The book depicts and analyzes attacks on marginalized people “maladjusted” of all sorts, women “of ill repute,” “heretic” Protestants, and “Gypsies.” Previously uncharted archival records reveal the use of arbitrary imprisonment, coerced labor, and deportation. The case studies presented provide insights into the origins of modern state power from varied techniques of population control, but are also an investigation of resistance against oppression, persecution, and life-threatening assaults. The spectrum of fights against debasement is a touching attestation of the humanity of the outcasts; they range from mental and emotional perseverance to counterviolence. A conversation with the eminent historian Carlo Ginzburg concludes the collection by asking about the importance of memorizing horrors of the past.

These investigations illuminate the entangled experiences of Jews who sought to balance the pull of communal, religious, and linguistic traditions with the demands and allure of full participation in European life.