In spite of the restriction and control of masquerades under the Communist regime, and the almost complete disappearance of Jews from central Europe in the wake of the Second World War, the character of the “Jew” is still very present in these countries.  The carnavalesque figures of the Jew - as representative of another world, the procurer of benefits for the community, game-leader, clown or representative of a stigmatised group – prove varied, but they also reveal that the Jew remains an indispensable figure of otherness in the Polish imagination.

Amudena Rutkowska is ethnologist and curator at the ethnography museum in Warsaw, Poland.  She is also member of the European research project Carnival King of Europe.

Listen to Amudena Rutkowska’s presentation (in English) :

> Read the presentation : the figure of the Jew in Polish masquerades