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Paper short abstract:

Continental legends about the urban phantom in the 20th century Russia, Czechia, Slovakia and Germany conspicuously correlates with construction of dominant historical narratives within the corresponding national traditions and commemorative density of periods of political and social uncertainty.

Paper long abstract:

Narratives about urban phantom Spring-heeled Jack, born during the industrialization of England in the early 1800s, became international migratory legend which was transmitted to the European continent after 1904. Continental versions of the legend then adapted to local conditions in the form of folklore of isolated working class communities. However, the situation changed in the moments when these narratives suddenly took on a lot more importance – often during waves of social unrest associated with important political events and/or processes. The most significant manifestations of this dynamics include the Russian "poprygunchiki" of the Russian Civil War (1918–1920) and during the Second World War (1941), Czech "spring man" of the Second World War (1942–1945), Slovak "phosphorous man" from 1943 in Bratislava, and the German "Hüpfemännchen" from the turbulent postwar period (1948–1953) in Saxony and Thuringia. The mass occurrence of narrations about these phantoms during this period conspicuously correlates with the commemorative density of these periods in the construction of dominant historical narratives within the corresponding national traditions. The subsequent pop-cultural treatments of these materials are then focusing on precisely these formative periods in modern history: in Russia in the period of the Russian Revolution, its aftermath, and the Great Patriotic War, in the Czech lands and Slovakia on the experiences of the Second World War, and in Germany in its postwar reconstruction. These narratives thus form a kind of interesting vernacular commentary on the key moments in these individual modern national histories.