The Changing Peasantry of Eastern Europe by Joseph Obrebski; Barbara Halpern; JoelHalpernReview by: J. J. TomiakThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 55, No. 4 (Oct., 1977), pp. 555-556Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4207559 .

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REVIEWS 555

demonstrations of the early i 88os which marked the beginning of the end of the hopes that the emancipation of the Jews might make them truly equal citizens of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A prison sentence forced him temporarily to retire from politics, but in the I89os he was again prominent in organizing the Pan-German party and in launching the attack on the Roman Catholic Church under the slogan Los von Rom! Hitler, whose years in Vienna before 1914 had imbued him with the ideas of the Pan-German movement, later regarded the anti-Catholic campaign as Schonerer's greatest mistake. Certainly, after 1907, Schone- rer's influence declined very fast, and by the time of his retirement from politics in 1913 aged seventy-one he was no longer an important figure, and his movement had broken up into rival fractions. Many of those who shared his volkisch and anti-Semitic presuppositions were alienated by his attacks on the Catholic Church, which indeed also embarrassed many of the Lutherans whose cause Schonerer claimed to be serving. Such people preferred the combination of radicalism and anti-Semitism with loyalty to the Church and the Emperor which Karl Lueger's Christian Social movement seemed to offer.

Professor Whiteside published in I962 a valuable study of the German radical nationalist working-class movement in Bohemia, Austrian National Socialism before i9i8. His present book provides a broader view of the Pan-German movement and adds substantially to our knowledge of the intricate sectarian quarrels and divisions among the German nationalists. As always with the history of the later years of Austria-Hungary, the more we know the more complicated it seems. Professor Whiteside has not only illuminated the complexities and rivalries within the Pan-German movement, he has also shown that the danger of Schonerer's ideas lay less in his own political activities which failed because of his temperamental deficiencies and lack of tactical and organizational skill, than in the fact that he expressed in an extreme form ideas which were very widely held by very many of the German middle class in Austria. This book is there- fore a contribution to our understanding of the background from which Hitler came and of the prejudices to which he was able to appeal. It is also a reminder of how many nasty aspects there were to Austrian society before I914, and is a salutary corrective to some of the legends current about the attractiveness of life in pre-war Austria, since it is important to remember that the glamorous and civilized Vienna of Mahler, Freud or Wittgenstein was as much, or more, the Vienna of Georg Ritter von Schonerer. London JAMES JOLL

Obrebski, Joseph. The Changing Peasantry of Eastern Europe. Edited by Barbara and Joel Halpern. Schenkman Publishing Co. Inc., Cam- bridge, Mass., 1976. 102 pp. Bibliography. Illustr. $11.25 (paper $5.95).

IT is fortunate that at least some of the writings of the Polish ethno- grapher and sociologist Joseph Obrebski (I905-1967) have now been re-

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556 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

printed thanks to the efforts of Barbara and Joel Halpern of the Univer- sity of Massachusetts at Amhurst. Obrebski's field research included studies on peasant agriculture in Dobrudzha, Bulgaria, European Turkey, Macedonia and Serbia; on peasant communities in a part of inter-war central-eastern Poland (the region of Polesie) as well as on the changing socio-cultural scene in Jamaica after 1945. From the theoretical point of view, an early follower of Kazimierz Moszyn'ski and his 'Critical Evolu- tionism', Obrebski came later to embrace Bronislaw Malinowski's func- tionalism and used it in his ethnographic research work.

The Changing Peasantry of Eastern Europe includes diverse, even somewhat disjointed elements in the shape of Obrebski's theorizing article on 'The Sociology of Rising Nations' (previously published in the International Social Science Bulletin, issued by Unesco); his lectures on the changing peasantry in Eastern Europe (a series of lectures delivered in the Univer- sity of Oxford in 1946); a peasant autobiography, a series of excellent photographs of peasant communities in Polesie as well as introductory contributions by Oksana Irena Grabowicz and Professor Halpern.

'The Sociology of Rising Nations' scrutinizes the relationship between the scientific methods used in anthropological and sociological investigations and examines the phases of national growth culminating in a fuller parti- cipation of the existing folk strata in national culture. Obrebski argues that to study the multiple, differentiated and even evasive formative in- fluences operating through the different stages, autobiographical methods ought to be used much more and thereby provide a foundation for a solid interdisciplinary link between anthropology and sociology.

The chapter 'The Changing Peasantry of Eastern Europe' occupies the central place in the book and it is worth reading, even although the title is too broad. Nevertheless, it identifies several crucial elements in the process of social change, the conflicts inherent in innovation and moderni- zation, discusses migratory movements and the role of education in up- ward social mobility among peasant youth. The analysis is explicitly based upon the evidence carefully derived from certain rural milieux in pre-war Poland, chiefly, the Polesie region. An attempt to extend the validity of the conclusions reached to the whole of inter-war Poland and even to the whole of Eastern Europe, must, however, be seriously ques- tioned. The discourse is characterized by a rigorously scientific form of analysis and interesting methodological implications. The autobiography of a peasant should be read as an appendix to the discourse.

Thirty excellent photographs portraying peasant life and village surroundings in Polesie constitute sociological evidence sui generis, each one being almost a document in itself.

It is regrettable that minor printing errors were allowed to appear in the text: Brundwig instead of Grundwig (p. 72); Obreski and Obresb- ski instead of Obrebski (p. 96); craftsman instead of raftsman (p. 52); Ludwiczac instead of Ludwiczak (p. 95); Sowian instead of Slowian (p. 98). London J. J. TOMIAK

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