'In Times of Strife' explores the pursuit of humanitarian objectives in the face of perilous conditions of war, exile and extreme social dislocation from 1600 to 1945. Each section reconstructs the endeavours of a pair of associated intellectuals or artists within a multi-cultural European setting. This brings together the different research areas of Charles Webster, formerly of Corpus Christi College, currently an Emeritus Senior Research Fellow of All Souls College Oxford, who has written extensively on science, medicine and culture in the early modern period and also health care and the welfare state in the twentieth century. He is also an expert on German expressionism. The book applies his professional expertise to the study of family history by exploring the fate of his father's family as a case study relevant to modern European history in times of strife.
The first two chapters cover the fate of 17th century intellectuals Samuel Hartlib, Jan Amos Comenius (Komenský), John Hall and William Rand. The last two chapters discuss the artists Ernst Barlach and Jakob Steinhardt and the brothers Salo and Robert Pratzer. All relate to multi-cultural situations and they possess a European, and especially Eastern European, dimension. Although addressing disparate situations, there are many points of interconnection between the sections, and also relevance to current disasters as for instance the crisis in Ukraine. The Pratzer family were driven into exile from the Lviv region of Ukraine, while the Ukraine journey of Ernst Barlach traversed the current line of demarcation and culminated with a visit to Bakhmut, Kramatorsk and Kostyantynivka. This unusual and challenging undertaking exploits many fresh archival and related resources in pursuit of its goals of reassessment, correction and addition to knowledge on all the fronts of its coverage.
The book is richly illustrated with original artwork by Ernst Barlach, Käthe Kollwitz, Jakob Steinhardt, and earlier artists whose work reflects an engagement with the theme of displacement. The title image 'Deportation' is based on a sketch by Charlotte (Lotka) Burešová (1904-1983) who in 1942 was deported to Theresienstadt, worked in the Sonderwerkstätte there and escaped three days before the liberation.
The book is part of the 'Cultural Memory' publications of the 'Treasures of the Taylorian' series and linked with an exhibition of books and art works accessible via https://historyofthebook.mml.ox.ac.uk/book-launch-and-exhibition-in-times-of-strife/.. The series is edited by Henrike Lähnemann, Professor of Medieval German Literature and Linguistics at the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford.
