‘Taking Pride in a Jew-Free Town’. Intermediality, Anti-Jewish Imagination, Hybridization and Economic Competition in Upper Silesia (1450–1750)

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F67985955%3A_____%2F26%3A00641898" target="_blank" >RIV/67985955:_____/26:00641898 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/02656914251396397" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1177/02656914251396397</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/02656914251396397" target="_blank" >10.1177/02656914251396397</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

‘Taking Pride in a Jew-Free Town’. Intermediality, Anti-Jewish Imagination, Hybridization and Economic Competition in Upper Silesia (1450–1750)

Original language description

This study analyses a long-overlooked Upper Silesian case of ritual murder accusations which appears inspired by, yet of a markedly different profile from the better-researched Tyrolean cases of Simon of Trent and Andreas of Rinn. While iconographic and narrative inspiration for the Upper Silesian case from these earlier Tyrolean cases is evident, neither the name of the alleged victim nor the development of the cult can be documented with certainty. Despite this, the narrative of the Upper Silesian case persisted from the sixteenth century into the modern era and found one of its main memory vehicles in what we describe as a hybrid oil painting of a ritual murder. At the same time, members of the elite social strata showed economic and other interests in achieving and maintaining a permanent expulsion of Jews from their community. They cooperated to achieve this goal and used the blood libel narrative to legitimize it. Intermediality is seen as essential to reinforcing the credibility of prejudicial narratives. The ritual murder accusations are examined as an example of (dis)connected history, which allows late medieval and early modern Central Europe to be seen as closely connected in cultural transmission and simultaneously divided or disconnected by the collective projection of hatred, practices of othering and exclusion. The perspective from the Silesian duchies encourages a decentring look at Central Europe from outside and beyond Bohemian, Polish, German or Austrian historical master narratives. This article discusses the spectrum of possible interpretations of this opaque narrative and emphasizes the cognitive dissonance caused by the hybrid character of the blood libel oil painting.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60101 - History (history of science and technology to be 6.3, history of specific sciences to be under the respective headings)

Project

—

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2026

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

European History Quarterly

ISSN

0265-6914

e-ISSN

1461-7110

Volume of the periodical

56

Issue of the periodical within the volume

1

Country of publishing house

GB - UNITED KINGDOM

Number of pages

28

Pages from-to

3-30

UT code for WoS article

001615595700001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-105021865135