Kocia muzyka. Chóralna historia pogromu krakowskiego (PL/EN)
27.06.2024 - 16:00 / Festival Tent, ul. Józefa 36This book is a time machine. When we get into it, we are transported to a Saturday just after the war. The author takes us through the streets of Kraków, where a pogrom is taking place – one of the three most important ones perpetrated by the Poles against the Jews after the Holocaust. We are in the middle of events, we look at them as the victims, perpetrators and investigators saw them.
Watching history in action becomes – as it happens with time machines – an initiatory adventure. It commands us to verify the present, safe categories that we have used to understand other people’s past and our own present.
In this engaging and authoritative, and at the same time innovative work, concepts such as “robbers”, “family”, “subtenants”, “bonds”, “myths” – seemingly taken out of some distant past – allow us to see the whole world anew, and in it ourselves.
Because Kocia muzyka (Cat Music) is a book about the past which becomes its own future.
A shocking picture of the disease of the Polish society plunged into moral anomie. A fundamental contribution to our collective memory and a warning for the future. A perfect network narrative. Kocia muzyka, will be with us for a long time and it will be talked about, oh, so loudly.
Olga Tokarczuk
A great book.
prof. Jan Kula
No one has ever written such a comprehensive monograph of the Kraków pogrom. Thanks to the research method, Joanna Tokarska-Bakir proved how many new and unknown things can be said about it.
prof. Szymon Rudnicki
Maybe, like me, you have heard anecdotes in your youth about scuffles before WW2 between Polish students and the police, and only later did you understand why they were demonstrating. Joanna Tokarska-Bakir takes us from Chrobry’s swords (a symbol used by pre-war right wing organisations) preserved among family souvenirs to the pogrom that took place in Kraków right after the Holocaust. I recommend this book especially to those who love Kraków. It will disturb your peace of mind and spoil your sentimental image of the past.
Tomasz Fiałkowski
Was it really a pogrom? historians wonder. Since only one person died… (She was fifty-six years old and had the Auschwitz number tattooed on her arm. Rachele, Józef Berger, her husband, called her).
So the pogrom was not certain. There’s definitely a report. Momentous, historic. One that makes- should make – a person become more knowledgeable and better.
Hanna Krall
Joanna Tokarska-Bakir, born in 1958, cultural anthropologist and religious expert, full professor at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. She specializes in the anthropology of the Holocaust and the ethnography of anti-Jewish violence. Author of, among others: Legendy o krwi. Antropologia przesądu (2008), Okrzyki pogromowe. Szkice z antropologii historycznej Polski 1939–1946 (2012) published in English as Pogrom Cries. Essays on Polish-Jewish History 1939–1946, a two-volume monograph Pod klątwą. Społeczny portret pogromu kieleckiego (2018), published in English as Cursed. The Social Portrait of the Kielce Pogrom and the collection Bracia miesiące. Eseje i studia (2021) published in English as Jewish Fugitives in the Polish Countryside. Holder of Humboldt and Mellon scholarships, visiting professor at the Department of History at Princeton University, at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, at the Kertesz Kolleg in Jena and the Mandel Center at the Holocaust Museum in Washington. She is a winner of Jan Długosz award, The Yad Vashem International Book Award (both for the book Cursed) and the Yehuda Elkana Fellowship at Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin.
The author of Kocia muzyka takes us through the streets of Kraków, where a pogrom is taking place – one of the three most important ones that Poles inflicted on the Jews after the Holocaust took place.
Konstanty Gebert (born in 1953), psychologist, journalist at Gazeta Wyborcza daily since it was founded until 2022, and in other media. Currently a permanent contributor to Kultura Liberalna monthly. Founder (1997) and first editor-in-chief of the Jewish monthly Midrasz. Co-founder of the Jewish Flying University (1979), NSZZ PNTiO (September 1980) and the Polish Council of Christians and Jews (1989). During martial law, under the assumed name of Dawid Warszawski, he was editor and journalist of the underground biweekly KOS and other magazines published underground.
He lectured at Hebrew University, UC Berkeley, Grinnell College, Collegium Civitas. Member of councils, among others Paideia Jewish academic centre (Stockholm) and the international think-tank Einstein Forum (Potsdam). Founder of the Warsaw office of the European Council on International Affairs, and currently its associate fellow. Between 2005-2007, representative of the Polish Jewish community in the Common Council of the Government and National Minorities.
Co-founder and currently contributor to the Media Development Investment Fund, an international fund supporting independent press. On its behalf, he has cooperated with independent media, including in Russia, Ukraine, the Balkans, Africa and Latin America. Member of the preparatory committee of the European Journalism Prize. Winner of the American Jewish Press Association’s Simon Rockower Award (2018).
Author of over two thousand articles in the Polish press and over two hundred in the international press, as well as several books. The book Ostateczne rozwiązania. Ludobójcy i ich dzieło (Agora 2022) received Beata Pawlak award, Marcin Król Klio award, Jan Długosz and Józef Tischner awards and was nominated for Nike award. His latest books are Spodnie i tałes (Austeria 2022) and Pokój z widokiem na wojnę. Historia Izraela (Agora 2023), which was chosen by the monthly Książki as the Book of 2023. Author of the first Polish podcast about Israel entitled Ziemia zbyt obiecana.
