THE PRESIDENT IS A BAD EDITION OF THE POLISH KING - REPORT FROM

Wittenberg offers great historical traditions, connected with Martin Luther and the whole Reformation movement – and frankly speaking, it's the only thing the town has to offer. Notwithstanding all the stiffness and sleepiness, so typical for a small German city plagued by the demographic crisis and the Ostflucht, the people here try to live up to the local academic heritage,  establishing one of the leading centers for American Studies in the Bundesrepublik.

I'm in the center of events and I'm very proud to bring you the latest news from the summer school about the American presidency taking place right now.

 

The president is a bad edition of the Polish king. Such words were used in the letter by Thomas Jefferson to John Adams in 1787, when the hot dispute about the shape of the U.S. Constitution and the way of governing the federation was at full swing. The somewhat unlikely comparison of George Washington with Stanisław August Poniatowski (in which the unfortunate last Polish monarch turned out to be superior) was just one of the remarks made by Dr Holger Kostner from Magdeburg University in his introductory lecture about the development of the concept of presidency – a really revolutionary thing in the late 18th century.

The subsequent lecturer, Dr Hans-Jurgen Grubbe, chairman of the local U.S. Studies center, focused on the origins of the mass electorate in the U.S. - one of the basic things in the democratic form of government. For him, the emergence of the voting public did not took place, as it's commonly assumed, with the enfranchisment of Afro-Americans or women, but already in the first have of the XIXth century, when Andrew Jackson in 1828 was the first president with whom common people could identify and William Harrison in 1840 was the first one to directly appeal to the masses in his campaign.

Wittenberg

But, above all, the first day was mainly about the integration (truly international team turned up, with people from such exotic places like Afghanistan) so the participants were more concerned with sightseeing and tasting the products of German breweries (prices like in Warsaw but much greater variety). Stay tuned for more info.