Books by Curtis Murphy
From Citizens to Subjects challenges the common assertion in historiography that Enlightenment-er... more From Citizens to Subjects challenges the common assertion in historiography that Enlightenment-era centralization and rationalization brought progress and prosperity to all European states, arguing instead that centralization failed to improve the socioeconomic position of urban residents in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth over a hundred-year period.
Murphy examines the government of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the several imperial administrations that replaced it after the Partitions, comparing and contrasting their relationships with local citizenry, minority communities, and nobles who enjoyed considerable autonomy in their management of the cities of present-day Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus. He shows how the failure of Enlightenment-era reform was a direct result of the inherent defects in the reformers' visions, rather than from sabotage by shortsighted local residents. Reform in Poland-Lithuania effectively destroyed the existing system of complexities and imprecisions that had allowed certain towns to flourish, while also fostering a culture of self-government and civic republicanism among city citizens of all ranks and religions. By the mid-nineteenth century, the increasingly immobile post-Enlightenment state had transformed activist citizens into largely powerless subjects without conferring the promised material and economic benefits of centralization.
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Papers by Curtis Murphy
Lithuanian history, music, poetry and culture will be highlighted at this special event. Guest sp... more Lithuanian history, music, poetry and culture will be highlighted at this special event. Guest speakers include classical pianist Edvinas Minkstimas, Rabbi Michael Oblath (Congregation Beth Sholom), Curtis Murphy (UAA Department of History), Leslie Fried (Alaska Jewish Museum) and Svaja Worthington (Honorary Consul of the Republic of Lithuanian). This event is sponsored by the Honorary Consul from the State of Alaska to the Republic of Lithuania, Congregation Beth Sholom, UAA Campus Bookstore, UAA Department of Music, UAA Department of History, Alaska Jewish Museum, Chilkoot Charlie's and others
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At this timely event, historian Curtis Murphy (UAA History Dept.) shares his understanding of the... more At this timely event, historian Curtis Murphy (UAA History Dept.) shares his understanding of the critical developments in Ukraine and Russia today. His research on burghers and bureaucrats in Poland-Lithuania, 1776-1793 has been published in the Slavic Review and currently he is working on a book about the state and self-governing entities in Poland, Ukraine, and Russia from 1750 to 1850
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History: Reviews of New Books, 2017
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Slavic and East European Journal, 2017
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Jewish History, 2021
This article discusses a series of investigations from 1729-to 1730 into an alleged ritual murder... more This article discusses a series of investigations from 1729-to 1730 into an alleged ritual murder in the town of present-day Niasvizh. In the eighteenth century, Niasvizh, then called Nieśwież, belonged to one of the wealthiest and most powerful families of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Radziwiłłs. Unlike similar cases in the period, this ritual murder investigation did not follow the standard script of interrogation by torture and public execution, in part because the private town lord fostered a culture of legality and predictability that allowed the Jewish community the opportunity to organize an effective defense. The multiple investigations carried out by the town magistracy and the lord’s hand-picked officials also revealed a dense network of socio-economic and neighborly relations between Catholic elites and Jews of both genders, a relationship that excluded non-Catholics and non-citizen residents of the town. In such an environment, blood libel served as a weapon of resentment and revenge for the disenfranchised and excluded to destabilize the class oligarchy. The failure of the accusation to fundamentally alter relations between Catholics and Jews underscore the extraordinary significance of the supposedly “feudal” private town lord in enforcing cooperation and upholding legality, creating a framework in which the Jewish community had greater room to maneuver to combat a blood libel accusation than in royal towns or even more “modern” states.
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Journal of Urban History, 2020
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History: Reviews of New Books, 2016
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The World Beyond the West: Perspectives from Eastern Europe, 2022
In the nineteenth century, exiles from the former Poland-Lithuania and revolutionaries fighting t... more In the nineteenth century, exiles from the former Poland-Lithuania and revolutionaries fighting to restore an independent Poland developed unintentionally into ethnographers of the Russian Empire’s Eurasian frontiers. Such Poles proffered the European reading public many colorful and sensational accounts of the multinational, anti-imperial struggles against Russian “despotism.” While seeking to blacken the image of Russia first and foremost, most such texts also demonstrate broad support for the assumptions and prejudices of the Russian civilizing mission in Asia. Unlike the objects of their observations, Poles as “white Europeans” could alternate between anti-imperial rebellion and embrace of imperial policy depending on individual bias and situation.
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Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 33
This chapter highlights the civil–military commission of Lublin voivodeship that adjudicated a co... more This chapter highlights the civil–military commission of Lublin voivodeship that adjudicated a contract dispute between the town magistracy and the Jewish community of Lublin over the quartering of soldiers for the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth's rapidly growing army. It analyzes the quarrels between Jews and their Christian neighbours that punctuated small-town life in pre-modern eastern Europe. It also points out how disputes serve as a reminder that the confrontations between Jews and Christians did not arise from ethno-religious hostility. The chapter mentions historians of Poland–Lithuania that often viewed the dynamics of Jewish–Christian interaction through dramatic details, such as the escalation of ritual murder trials in the eighteenth century. It describes contacts between urban Christians and Jews that revolved around concrete and prosaic concerns that were connected with the ambiguous powers and duties of both groups.
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Slavic Review, 2012
In the eighteenth-century, European rulers embraced a common policy of enlightened centralism aim... more In the eighteenth-century, European rulers embraced a common policy of enlightened centralism aimed at undermining the prerogatives of local self-government, a trend that even reached the decentralized Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth. In this article, Curtis G. Murphy investigates an example of an Enlightenment centralist policy that failed. A new reformist king sought to convert the burghers' right to produce alcohol, known as propinacja, into a state-controlled monopoly, but the effort produced only chaos and the diminishment of self-government. Contrary to the center's complaint that insufficient force undermined a beneficial effort, Murphy argues that the law failed because the priorities of the locals did not align with the government's goals and the habits of selfgovernment clashed with the bureaucratic methods of enlightened centralism. Historians of Poland have often praised the centralizing reforms of the late-eighteenth century, but the case of the propinacja law questions whether such efforts justified the costs of destroying self-government in the towns.
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Jewish History, 2021
This article discusses a series of investigations from 1729-to 1730 into an alleged ritual murder... more This article discusses a series of investigations from 1729-to 1730 into an alleged ritual murder in the town of present-day Niasvizh. In the eighteenth century, Niasvizh, then called Nieśwież, belonged to one of the wealthiest and most powerful families of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Radziwiłłs. Unlike similar cases in the period, this ritual murder investigation did not follow the standard script of interrogation by torture and public execution, in part because the private town lord fostered a culture of legality and predictability that allowed the Jewish community the opportunity to organize an effective defense. The multiple investigations carried out by the town magistracy and the lord’s hand-picked officials also revealed a dense network of socio-economic and neighborly relations between Catholic elites and Jews of both genders, a relationship that excluded non-Catholics and non-citizen residents of the town. In such an environment, blood libel served as a weapon of resentment and revenge for the disenfranchised and excluded to destabilize the class oligarchy. The failure of the accusation to fundamentally alter relations between Catholics and Jews underscore the extraordinary significance of the supposedly “feudal” private town lord in enforcing cooperation and upholding legality, creating a framework in which the Jewish community had greater room to maneuver to combat a blood libel accusation than in royal towns or even more “modern” states.
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Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Vol. 33, 2021
This article argues that many of the conflicts between Christian and Jewish communities in the Po... more This article argues that many of the conflicts between Christian and Jewish communities in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth's small towns revolved around prosaic and secular concerns emerging from the estate structure of the polity and the civic republican mentality of all communities invloved, including the leadership of the Jewish kahals. Rather than acting exclusively out of religious hatred, communities maneuvered to maximize their institutions' authority and tax-collecting reach while mizimizing the concurrent powers of rival institutions vis-a-vis themselves. The process involved not only the magistracy and the kahal, but the starostas, private town owners, and juridical enclaves. When both threatened by a third party, Christian and Jewish urban authorities could become "foul-weather friends" and act in concert to defend thier interests, a fact that in no way preventing a return to argumentation and negotiation when the danger had subsided.
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The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: History, Memory, Legacy, 2020
Studies of republicanism in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth have typically concentrated on the... more Studies of republicanism in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth have typically concentrated on the political nation of the nobility, with less consideration accorded to the outlook of the burghers. The nobility, of course, produced virtually all the political tracts of the Commonwealth and debates in dietines have become well-known thanks to comparatively abundant records and memoirs. Scholars such as Anna Grześkowiak-Krwawicz define the political conception of the nobility as civic republican, meaning that noble citizens considered freedom to derive from a specific constitutional arrangement rather than any notion of human rights. The collection of individual privileges and “liberties” formed and buttressed “liberty,” which citizens feared might collapse absent even one such support. A closer examination of magistracy records and urban petitions, though, shows that civic republican conceptions had influenced behaviors and mentalities beyond the szlachta, reaching down to urban residents in even the smallest, least developed towns. In fact, civic republican assumptions characterized not only magistracy officials, but common burghers, Jewish communities and the residents of jurydyka enclaves, a fact which led to continuous negotiation and litigation over the limits of each groups’ prerogatives. Indeed, the multiplicity of authorities and overlapping power structures of the Commonwealth reinforced civic republican behaviors as each group had multiple and continually shifting opportunities to defend privileges and assert self-governing rights against potentially rapacious and power-hungry neighbors. Viewing urban interaction through a civic republican framework helps explain townspeople’s often seemingly irrational and selfish behaviors, which enlightened officials after the mid-eighteenth century invoked as a pretext for exerting greater centralized control over town life.
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Introduction to the book, From Citizens to Subjects: City, State, and the Enlightenment in Poland... more Introduction to the book, From Citizens to Subjects: City, State, and the Enlightenment in Poland, Ukraine and Belarus
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Book Reviews by Curtis Murphy
Canadian-American Slavonic Studies Vol. 55, 2021
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Books by Curtis Murphy
Murphy examines the government of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the several imperial administrations that replaced it after the Partitions, comparing and contrasting their relationships with local citizenry, minority communities, and nobles who enjoyed considerable autonomy in their management of the cities of present-day Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus. He shows how the failure of Enlightenment-era reform was a direct result of the inherent defects in the reformers' visions, rather than from sabotage by shortsighted local residents. Reform in Poland-Lithuania effectively destroyed the existing system of complexities and imprecisions that had allowed certain towns to flourish, while also fostering a culture of self-government and civic republicanism among city citizens of all ranks and religions. By the mid-nineteenth century, the increasingly immobile post-Enlightenment state had transformed activist citizens into largely powerless subjects without conferring the promised material and economic benefits of centralization.
Papers by Curtis Murphy
Book Reviews by Curtis Murphy
Murphy examines the government of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the several imperial administrations that replaced it after the Partitions, comparing and contrasting their relationships with local citizenry, minority communities, and nobles who enjoyed considerable autonomy in their management of the cities of present-day Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus. He shows how the failure of Enlightenment-era reform was a direct result of the inherent defects in the reformers' visions, rather than from sabotage by shortsighted local residents. Reform in Poland-Lithuania effectively destroyed the existing system of complexities and imprecisions that had allowed certain towns to flourish, while also fostering a culture of self-government and civic republicanism among city citizens of all ranks and religions. By the mid-nineteenth century, the increasingly immobile post-Enlightenment state had transformed activist citizens into largely powerless subjects without conferring the promised material and economic benefits of centralization.