Working on marginalised cinema audiences with the Jewish historical press website: illustrated on the quest for Jewish patrons of the palace venue in 1920s Warsaw

ABSTRACT

As is widely acknowledged in film studies and beyond, Jewish entrepreneurs and artists contributed significantly to the rise of cinema in the US and many European countries. However, apart from some research in the American and British contexts, the extent to which Jewish cinemagoers attended screenings is largely unknown. To stimulate greater scholarly interest in this topic, this paper discusses the broad applicability of the Historic Jewish Press digital collection, which contains newspapers printed in 16 different languages, reflecting the range of languages used by Jewish communities worldwide. Using the example of the search for Jewish patrons of the Palace Cinema in 1920s Warsaw, the paper shows how digital research can be used to extract information about marginalised Jewish audiences. Finally, it demonstrates how these sources can be used for new investigations and research perspectives.

KEYWORDS:

• Jewish cinema audiences
• Jewish press
• Poland
• Ufa (Universum Film AG)
• digital research

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Karina Pryt

Karina Pryt received her doctorate in modern history at the Albert-Ludwigs-University in Freiburg in Breisgau (Germany). Her PhD thesis explores the cultural diplomatic relations between Germany and Poland (Befohlene Freundschaft. Die Deutsch-Polnischen Kulturbeziehungen 1934-1939, Osnabrück 2010). Her main areas of interest also include the film policy of the National Socialists and the economic and social history of cinema. Currently, she is working at the Institute for Film Studies at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. Funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), she examines local cinema culture in Warsaw 1895/6-1939 from a transnational perspective using a variety of sources in different languages (Polish, Yiddish, Russian and German). In line with the interdisciplinary New Cinema History (NCH), she also deals with the use of digital tools, such as geographic information systems (GIS), in historical research.