2007 AAASS/Orbis Books Prize Winner
The 2007 AAASS/Orbis Books Prize for Polish Studies, sponsored by the Orbis Books, Ltd. in London, is presented annually for an outstanding English-language book on any aspect of Polish affairs.
Geneviève Zubrzycki
The 2007 AAASS/Orbis Books Prize is awarded to two scholars:
- Marci Shore, for Caviar and Ashes: A Warsaw Generation's Life and Death in Marxism, 1918-1968, published by Yale University Press
- Geneviève Zubrzycki, for The Crosses of Auschwitz: Nationalism and Religion in Post-Communist Poland, published by the University of Chicago Press
In The Crosses of Auschwitz, Geneviève Zubrzycki presents a sophisticated analysis of a critically important and complex theme in Polish history: the relationship between Roman Catholicism and Polish national identity. Using a rich variety of sources and research methods – from archival research to in-depth interviews, from content analysis to participant observation – Zubrzycki examines the controversy over crosses placed on the outskirts of the Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp in the broader context of debates about the meaning of “Polishness” in a contemporary, post-communist Poland. Her book is an important contribution not only to Polish studies, but also to a more universal discussion about the relationship between religion and nationalism and to cultural sociology in general. Her analysis of the process of secularization of religious symbols and their re-sacralization as national symbols adds novel elements to theoretical themes developed by Émile Durkheim and his followers.
