*** MICHAEL DÜRING, KRZYSZTOF TRYBUS (Ed.): Polen und Deutsche in Europa, Polacy i Niemcy w Europie. Beiträge zur internationalen Konferenz, 25. und 26. Oktober 2012, Kiel, Tom podsumowuj¹cy konferencjê miêdzynarodow¹, 25 i 26 paŸdziernika 2012, Kilonia. Peter Lang (1 Moosstrasse, P.O. 350, CH-2542 Pieterlen. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - Email: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). "Schriften des Zentrums für Osteuropa-Studien (ZOS) der Universität Kiel" series. 2014, 346 pp, €49.95. ISBN 978-3-631-65435-4.
This collection of articles was produced in the wake of a German-Polish conference in Kiel on 25 and 26 October 2012. Most of the participants were involved in an intercultural studies course on Poles and Germans in Europe given b Christian Albrecht University in Kiel Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznañ. The articles are in German or Polish, summarised in the other language and also in English.
The book begins with a presentation of the intercultural studies course first by a German and then by a Polish participant. The amusing tone of the first presentation makes it rather a disconcerting read: the author starts by describing types of illegible and incomprehensible explanations in order to highlight what needs to be avoided, before describing the course outline. It is possible to design a spoken presentation like this, but putting it in writing is problematic because its originality disturbs the clarity of the message for the reader. The presentation by the Polish writer is more traditional and hence seems much better adapted for the written word. The impact of the clumsy adjustment of spoken explanations for the written word is still reverberating in three articles at the end of the book, which tend to lean on stereotypes - both anti-Polish and anti-German alike. This mention of stereotypes could have been slashed right back, if it needed to be included at all. Despite this, the articles are well-made, leaving the reader with an impression of excellence after initial disappointment: in the first section of each, the author demonstrative their aptitude for subtle descriptions of situations (as demonstrated by the description of a degree of osmosis between Germans and Poles in Great Poland at the end of the nineteenth century (an aspect which is not as well-known as the traditional antagonism between the communities) and feelings (as shown by the fine analysis of the forcing back process by Christa Wolf, when she returned to her native village, Landsberg/Gorzów, which became Polish in 1945).
The use of opinion polls and statistics would benefit in several places from better dosage: there is rather too liberal a sprinkling of opinion polls at the end of the article Versöhnung und Versöhnungspolitik zwischen Polen und Deutschen; although it must be noted that the reconciliation between Germans and Poles since the last war is well-analysed and the concepts used are clearly defined. When it comes to the use of statistics, one observes in the article Literatura miêdzykulturowa na zajêciach jêzyka niemieckiego jako obcego - wyniki badania empirycznego that not enough students were polled about their interest in intercultural literature in German for learners of German (49 individuals) to be representative or to be able to draw any conclusions at all, although the article itself is certainly interesting. It is also striking that despite the meeting which this international conference gave rise to, the collection gives the impression that each contributor, whether German or Polish, provides his or her contribution in an isolated manner and there isn't really any dialogue between them. This absence of dialogue becomes manifest in two articles dealing with closely-related subjects, Polnisch-deutsche Zweisprachigkeit im heutigen Deutschland and die polnisch-deutsche Zweisprachigkeit im westlichen Grenzgebiet Polens, where the respective authors would have benefited from discussing subjects on which they have opposing views (notably the perception of the prestigious nature of the German language).
The collection devotes a number of articles to the European area: Ludwig Steindorff describes perceptions of the East European Area and Central-Eastern Europe, along with the changes in the borders between these two areas over a long period of time, depending on the observers' place of origin. In the same domain, an article by Katarzyna Kuczyñska-Koschany presents an exegesis of the work of Polish lawyer Josef Jakubowski, relating his trip to the North Pole in 1904. The author provides a detailed and personal analysis of Jakubowski's feelings and impressions as he stood before the beauty of the landscapes, but is also able to distance herself from him. Jakubowski's rather unexpected description of the city of Kiel (but wholly appropriate in the framework of the university programme that gave rise to the conference) at the start of his voyage is supported by pertinent comments and solid historical references about the city, while remaining the description of a Pole whose country no longer exists, being shared by a number of countries, including Germany. Other articles reveal great subtlety or even emotion on the part of their authors, who display an aptitude for overcoming the historical visions commonly held in their respective countries, even going as far as feeling empathy for their other country, as is notably the case for the contributions by the two participants from the Higher National Professional School of Gorzów Wielkopolski: Malgorzata Czabañska-Rosada helps readers discover the border region's poet, Gerd Fischer von Mollard, whilst Katarzyna Taborska retraces the development of various publications (literary, newspapers, official announcements, personal journals) in German Landsberg and then in Gorzów when it became Polish. There are also a number of interesting articles on specific, often original, topics, although not directly connected with the European issue: on the role of sport in relations between the two countries, on fiction in Germany and Poland based on real historical events, or on German and Polish lexicographies, to name but a few.
In fact, the rather disconcerting aspect of reading this collection of essays is perhaps due to the clumsy way the spoken word was turned into the written rather than any fundamental shortcomings as such. As a whole, despite this rather annoying fault, the collection of essays provides good articles - some of them are in fact captivating - giving the reader an interesting panel of German-Polish themes and taking him or her travelling in the Western regions of Poland, notably to Great Poland, Poznañ, Gorzów and Eastern Brandenburg via literature, poetry, linguistics and dialectology. The rich cultural and European history of the city of Poznañ is well-traced though a number of articles and the touching descriptions of the above-mentioned regions also invite the reader to discover little-known regions in the West of Europe.
Guillaume Lelorain
*** COSTAS SIMITIS: Les routes de la vie. Editions Polis (33 tue Eolou, GR-10551 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3643382 - Fax: 3636501 - Email: info@polis-ed.gr- Internet: http://www.polis-ed.gr ).2015, 688pp, €22. ISBN 978-960-435-478-8.
Although in Greece the pressing nature of the crisis and its consequences does not lend itself to the publication of an autobiography of former prime minister Costas Simitis, the book has had an impact. His 'paths of life' that are both a 'political autobiography' and a personal eyewitness account lead him to examine the state of the country from the German occupation to the dictatorship and then to the establishment of the republic. The author explains that returning to the path that has been followed enables one to better assess what has happened and learn from the past in order to properly plan the future. From his years of study in London, he remembers discovering the new lifestyle that was emerging in the 1960s; through these pages and chapters, it appears that when he became a politician, he never stopped wanting to introduce something of this new lifestyle to Greece to eliminate the old provincialism, introversion and fear of the new that was undermining politics public administration and even citizens' daily life. But, surprisingly, he confesses to not having had the 'intention to begin with to become a professional politician' and parliamentarian. In fact, he explains, he was put off by political life, hating florid rhetoric, disputes, personal conflicts, nationalism, the persecution of opponents, blinkered vision and subordination of the State to partisan interests. Without any complacency, his entire political career is therefore revisited and analysed in the book with objectivity and cold lucidity. In the chapter 'A personal parenthesis,' a sentence written in bitterness sums up the author's ideas: 'The politician plays the role demanded by the public. He stops being what he really is. He is turned into the hero sought by opinion pollsters.' No doubt a lot of political leaders feel this, although few are prepared to admit it.
(AKa)
*** PATRICIA POPELIER, KOEN LEMMENS: The Constitution of Belgium. A Contextual Analysis. Hart Publishing (16C Worcester Place, Oxford, OX1 2JW, UK. Tel: (44-1865) 517530 - Fax: 510710 - email: mail@hartpub.co.uk - Internet: http://www.hartpub.co.uk ). 'Constitutional Systems of the World' series. 2015, 280 pp, £19.99. ISBN 978-1-84946-415-4.
In this rigorously scientific work, two academic figureheads (Patricia Popelier is professor of constitutional law at Antwerp University and Koen Lemmens lectures in human rights at the Catholic University of Leuven) take a caustic look at the particularly complex history of the Belgian constitution. 'While Constitutions are supposed to bring some stability, over the last 40 years, the Belgian Constitution has, at best, offered some precarious equilibrium and a temporary pause in the ongoing debates between Walloons, Flemings, German-speaking Belgians and inhabitants of Brussels,' explains the unsigned preface which must have been written by the authors. They say the history of he Belgian constitution has a 'manic-depressive' character, with each new reform granting new powers to the federal entities being adopted with optimism and enthusiasm before being judged to be unsatisfactory due to not going far enough, work therefore starting on a new reform 'to the profit' of the federated entities without it ever occurring to the political decision-makers that it might make better sense to strengthen the federal level. The authors add that this leads to 'the Belgian Constitution (…) desperately looking for a nation' and only the nationalist parties - the N-VA which is currently in power at the federal level and in Flanders - and the far right, the Vlaams Belang, benefiting from it because they want independence for Flanders. With their work, the authors shed light on the historical, demographic, cultural and political foundations of this wholly atypical 'federal' evolution of a 'multi-ethnic' State for which 'the Belgian population is paying the price', which is why the Belgian case is examined in the light of human rights and as a possible testing ground, yet again, for the dangers that European integration could face. (MT)
*** FRANCOIS CADILHON, PHILIPPE CHASSAIGNE, ERIC SUIRE (Eds.): Censure et autorités publiques. De l'époque moderne à nos jours. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes / Peter Lang (1 av. Maurice, B-1050 Brussels. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - Email: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). 'Histoire de la Poste et des communications - Echanges et territoires' series, No. 4. 2015, 360 pp, €47.60. ISBN 978-2-87574-273-5.
Arising from a rich scientific colloquium of twenty-three contributions, Philippe Chassaigne (Université Bordeaux Montaigne) explains in the introduction that this book deals with 'the fluctuating borders of tolerance when it comes to the expression of ideas, beliefs or behavioural practices.' The authors analyse from various angles the design models and practicalities of censure over a long period of time, from the sixteenth century - a key time in the history of the censor with the arrival of the printed word - to the present day, reviewing the objects of censure (licentious publications, the press, artistic works, interpretations of history, heterodox opinions and the like), how it was exercised and the various political issues. One of the things that emerges is that direct State censure has given way to internalised forms of self-censorship, growing freedom of speech having to deal with pressure exercised by segments of civil society in the name of their values. (MT)
*** FABRICE ARFI, PAUL MOREIRA (Eds.): Informer n'est pas un délit. Ensemble contre les nouvelles censures. Calmann-Lévy (31 rue de Fleurus, F-75006 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 49543600 - Email commercial@calmann-levy.fi - Internet: http://www.calmann-levy.fr ). 2015, 234 pp., .€17 ISBN 978-2-70215865-4.
This book by sixteen French journalists describing themselves as 'investigative' arose from a rebellion against a law in France promising at the start of last year to preserve 'business confidentiality' rather than the law for keeping citizens properly informed. Since then, this planned regulation has been withdrawn from the Macron law,' named after the current finance minister, but a European directive on the same subject of business confidentiality that is now 'in the full preparation stage' has encouraged the authors to press ahead with their planned book about the pressure, threats and tapping of themselves and their investigations, not to mention their sources and whistleblowers. While multinationals, lobbyists and pressure groups find it hard to come to terms with investigations that 'upset their carefully planned communications,' as illustrated in this book, in the preface in which she curiously omits to incriminate both national and European political institutions, Elise Lucet quotes the following aphorism attributed to George Orwell: 'Journalism consists of publishing what others don't want to be published. The rest is just public relations'. (MT)