We kindly inform you that, as long as the subject affiliation of our 300.000+ articles is in progress, you might get unsufficient or no results on your third level or second level search. In this case, please broaden your search criteria.
Trajectories of Violence in a Failing Nation State, 1918–1940
Interwar Romania was infamous for its many violent political and social scenes. Some of these scenes represented exclusionary violence in its basic form, such as riots against Jews (and sometimes against other minorities) in 1922 and most prominently in 1927. But many other forms of violence were customary in Greater Romania. Clashes between villagers, destruction of memorials and statues, armed violence against the opposition electorate, beating up of politicians and occasional revolts against the authorities concerned an ever-growing state security apparatus that was rarely able to control these eruptions. Their persistence makes them suspicious of being a systemic phenomenon. In this article I argue that violence in this widespread form was a structural characteristic of Greater Romania, the result of systemic factors in the new state. A loosening of moral constraint due to the preceding first world war, subsequent revolutions (and paramilitary endeavours) and the deficiencies of the state together had a decisive impact on the formation of a political culture that fostered violence from time to time. These factors on the one hand legitimized violence as a form of political action and, on the other hand, they resulted from and impeded successful nation building, and the realization of the state’s promises for the nation. Thus, interwar Romania became a failing nation state and as such it facilitated popular forms of violence that was widely felt being justified by the legitimacy enjoyed by the ideology of the nation-state.
More...
This article discusses the way in which three different generationsof Lithuanian patriots defined their relationship with the Czech nationalmovement; how the Czech national movement influenced the developmentof the Lithuanian national movement in the 19th century. The article ismethodologically based on a three-stage periodization of the national movementprovided by historian, Miroslav Hroch. It draws information primarily on thebasis of text analysis of the journals Teka Wileńska, Aušra, and Varpas, whichcan be regarded as generational ideological platforms, and correspondence andmemories of activists. The author researches the difference in the motivation ofLithuaanian-Polish patriots on one hand and, on the other, by later generationsactivists of the Lithuanian national movement.
More...Election System and Practice in Interwar Hungary
At first sight it may seem that the process of democratization in Hungary was markedly different than in the rest of the Central European region. The political system had not been democratic since 1919, and the open balloting, that was no longer used in other European countries, was restored in 1922. But on the eve of World War II, when in the most part of Central Europe democratic systems and free elections had already been eliminated, a parliamentary election were held with secret ballot in Hungary in May 1939. Taking a comprehensive look at this process and the Hungarian political-social system itself, however, important, opposing phenomena can be detected. Despite the antidemocratic election system set up in 1922, a multi-party parliament was operating and, mainly in the capital city, Budapest and in the major cities, the intellectual and cultural life was diverse and pluralistic. Compared to this, the restrictive, authoritarian elements of the system were strengthened in the second half of the 1930s, and the 1939 election, as in the past, was a non-democratic one, because apart from the voting method, the victory of the hegemonic government party was ensured by countless measures within or beyond the boundary of law. The study describes these features in the Hungarian electoral system starting in 1922 (open balloting, the use of government-dependent public administration, limitations on the right to vote, the restrictive nature of the nomination system, the disproportionate allocation of mandates, etc.) and demonstrates their corrupting influence on the voting behaviour, which makes it difficult to draw conclusions about actual political preferences and opinions from the election results.
More...
This article examines changes in the Holocaust/Shoah presentation in literature throughout the several past decades. According to Alvin H. Rosenfeld, the Holocaust is not percieved as an authentic historical event these days and slowly becomes a shared symbol of evil or entertainment. Rosenfeld warns about the possible “end of the Holocaust” in public consciousness. Short stories and novels by Arnošt Lustig are good examples of these changes. Later books by the author accentuate the harsher side of life in the camps (violence, brutality, hetero- and homosexual prostitution, lack of unity among the prisoners etc.). He often records stories of young Jewish girls and women. Their beauty and youth form a moving contrast to the horrors of the Shoah. In the novelette Colette, for instance, many conventional images are used in the narrative. Credibility of presented figures disappears very often, they are “omnipresent” and “omniscient” almost like the famous Forrest Gump. By using various information and statements reproduced by these characters, the author constructs a kind of Auschwitz-Birkenau encyclopedia. The result of this is the loss of authenticity. At the same time, though, a lot of data of this “encyclopedia” is inaccurate. Lustig uses elements of thriller and romance. In works by other well-known authors who write about the Holocaust, various elements can be found: elements of thriller (Jonathan Littell), fantasy, comics, horror as well as porn films (Igor Ostachowicz). Literary texts by both Littel and Ostachowicz are full of violence, brutality and sexual scenes. Like Lustig, Jonathan Littell has created an encyclopedia of Nazi crimes during the WWII with implausible characters and situations in his novel The Kindly Ones. In contrast to Lustig and Littell, Night of the Living Jews by Ostachowicz is more original and impressive. It also brings actual questions concerning the past and relations between Poles and Jews.
More...
This paper studies the influence of the publication of the novel Andromeda Nebula (1957) written by Ivan Efremov on the development of Soviet science-fiction literature and particularly of its Future perception. In this novel, Efremov, for the first time, places the events of the story in the far-away future and gives a detailed description of the Future society of the Earth and especially of its inhabitants. The novel’s publication brought about debates on the role and goals of science-fiction literature in the Soviet Union. The paper examines the social and cultural situation in the Soviet Union at the moment of novel’s publication, describes distinctive features of Efremov’s Future World drawn in the novel and attempts to explain a revolutionary effect of Andromeda Nebula on Soviet science-fiction.
More...
Historical and cultural memory is put into practice through narratives. As a narrative medium, literature plays an important role in the process of transformation of the past events in cultural memory. This transformation includes critical reflection or affirmation of various aspects of memory and its social context. Literary texts in this paper include short stories of Jan Drda, Josef Škvorecký and Zdeněk Rotrekl which deal with the final days of the World War Two.
More...
The end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century appear to have been a turning point in many ways as well as a key period for understanding the subsequent literary evolution. Areas in which tensions caused by historical processes became strongly evident were, for instance, the life styles and attitudes of the aristocracy, the intellectual atmosphere, the status of women in the society and the emergence of ego-documentary genres. With reference to the above-mentioned topics, this essay deals with two editions of ego-documentary texts written by two young noblewomen who spent their youth during the period of sentimentalism and romanticism. This essay demonstrates how strong the preserving role of states and cultural traditions was and to what extent individual – and in some passages even literary – features of the authors can be considered. (This literariness may also be caused by the fact that ego-documentaries have gradually become a valid part of literary context as well as by the fact that through ego-documentaries even traditional prose genres have been modified.)
More...
The article aims to show fundamental changes in one of hundreds of example published in Postila katolická (1691) by a Czech Jesuit Matěj Václav Štajer. The plot, worldwide known as the “awakened sleeper” (number 1531 in Aarne-Thompson-Uther system), appeared in literature in two basic forms: the older one was included into The Arabian Nights Entertainments, but all early modern versions are based on newer precedent of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy: he carried a drunken peasant into his own palace and celebrated him as a lord for one day. In the evening, all changes were put back and the sleeping peasant (again drunk) was returned into the street. Undoubtedly, this plot has a carnival character in Bachtin`s meaning, but all literary interpretations of early modern humanists (especially Ludovicus Vives) and religious writers (e. g. Ludowicus Hollonius, Christian Weise, Johannes Masenius, also Matěj Václav Štajer) put extraordinary moral and anagogic emphasis on parallel between one exceptional day and a whole life – dream; paradoxically, Philip the Good was mentioned as a typical example of a virtuous, pious and prudent aristocrat. Interpretations of this plot in lower social classes were free of all moral aspects: low urban and also rural texts put emphasis on the superordinate mockery of the drunken peasant, his immorality and incapability. In the early 17th century, a very clear example of this attitude is a Polish farce Peasant became a king: this comedy with a drunkard is organised by Polish soldiers. Drama Jeppe of the Hill (1723) by Ludwig Holberg is undoubtedly very important, because we can see a shift to a new matrimonial derision and morality: Jeppe (after a “dream day”) was sentenced to ludicrous death, but after he had been hanged at gallows, his life started in the same way again. Plots rather analougous to Holberg`s attitude appeared in Czech literature in the18th century in a farce Hašteřivá žena a zoufánlivý manžel (A Shrewish Wife and a Desperate Husband, 2nd half of the 18th century) from Kravaře in north Moravia and in the prosaic form in two jest books written by a teacher Antonín Borový from Zlatá Koruna in southern Bohemia (1792, 1796). Both versions are very similar and propably have a close relationship: a drunkard (Gibsa in Moravian text, Rylps in Borový`s version) was put in a dark room with various infernal signs at first, and later he awakes up in bright room with eternal look – so he thinks he was in the hell and heaven. This experience brings about a reconciliation with his wife and changes his all life, especially in the Moravian version. In my opinion, the changes in the plot of “awakened sleeper” mentioned above show a fundamental shift in early modern thinking. At first, it shows the difference between a late medieval spontaneous carnival and humanistic moral commentaries (with emphasis on the state order and the idea of an exemplary Christian ruler). It also discloses a shift of the social target of the mockery: it is a drunk peasant in older texts and a foolish hen-pecked husband in the late 18th century.
More...
This article deals with the literary portrayal of a Turk as a hero and with the thematization of Turkish battles and Turkish life in Slovak literature of the 16th and 17th century. We will examine genres of Latin humanistic poetry such as hodoeporicon, epigrams, civic-political compositions (including works of a Czech exile Jakub Jakobeus); historical poetry in its developmental transformations with a reflection of the Czech press about the Battle of Mohács; and Baroque memoir prose (Štefan Pilárik senior). The picture of a Turk is rather prevailingly a picture of an enemy, a cruel murderer or a traitor; in a religious poetry depictions of horrible deeds of Turks are as a “Turkish scourge” connected with the traditional scourges of famine and plague and with appeals to do penance.
More...
In this article I sketch out the general outlines of the so-called ‘Great Polish Emigration’ after the November Uprising (i.e. after 1831) from the (broadly understood) intellectual history perspective. Subsequently I present the wider intellectual background, attempting to place the output of the émigrés in the longer-term intellectual perspective of Polish history. I focus on the main dimensions and reasons underlying the ideological and conceptual evolution of the Polish community that emerged in exile. By evoking the most striking examples of their conceptual and organizational innovations and examining the scale of their publishing activity, I conclude that they brought about substantial changes in many spheres of action and reasoning. In the last part of the article I compare the Great Polish Emigration with similar phenomena in Europe, as well as with precedents and succeeding emigrations in Polish history. In conclusion I try to answer the question posed in the title, i.e. whether the emigration after the November uprising was really ‘great’.
More...
Based on the analysis of documents from the Czechoslovak and Yugoslav archive collections, the paper deals with the emigration of Czechoslovak citizens to the West through the territory of socialist Yugoslavia. Even though this phenomenon appeared already in the 1960s with the boom of Czechoslovak mass tourism on the Adriatic coast, our chronological focus lies on the 1970s and 1980s. During this period of so-called “normalisation”, the Yugoslav road became one of the most important paths of emigration to the Western countries. The paper argues that despite the efforts of Czechoslovak communist government to hinder the emigration, the urgent need to grant the raising consumption demands on the side of citizens, drove Husák’s leadership to gradually loosen the requirements for tourist trips to Yugoslavia. Thus, in the mid-1980 far more than half a million of Czechoslovaks were allowed to spend their vacations on the Yugoslav sea per year, even if thousands of them used this opportunity to flee to the West.
More...
The study focuses on the statistical evaluation of data on crime in1882–1911 published in contemporary records. Firstly, a descriptive analysis is used to compare selected characteristics of persons condemned to death. Secondly, a multinomial logistic regression model is used to identify and statistically test factors determining whether a felon deserved pardon or was eventually executed. The final evaluation of the results of both analytical methods points out the differences in various parameters of criminal behaviour and its treatment on the side of the state across the lands of the Cisleithanian part of the Habsburg Monarchy.
More...
The issue of crime and the underworld at the time of the establishment and stabilization of the socialist dictatorship in Czechoslovakia remains a seldom addressed topic. After the Second World War, Czechoslovak elites wanted to establish a perfectly virtuous and harmonious society that would avoid the mistakes and vices of previous political-economic systems. The ethos of the struggle for a better world characterized the postwar media discourse as well as the specific administrative, legislative, and legal actions of the postwar governments. Following their takeover of power, the Communists continued the “pursuit of a virtuous society,” which culminated in radical effects. But in practice, political elites were confronted with the indisputable fact that crime had not disappeared and showed no signs of its early extinction.The aim of the presented text is to outline the basic features of postwar crime, both in terms of its representations in the public space and in terms of specific acts and the involved actors. The aim to start directly after the war is the chronological and the conceptual starting point of this text. The second limit is the adoption of the new Criminal Code in 1961, an updated version of the 1950 code, which, with various amendments, was in effect until 2005 inSlovakia and until 2009 in the Czech Republic. Meanwhile, the Constitution of July 1960 declared Czechoslovakia to be a socialist state. The analysis uses audio-visual sources and the press, which are subject to a contextual examination, and the reports and statistics from the funds of the Ministry of the Interior and the Central Committee of the Communist Party, as well as the daily records, protocols, and files stored in the Archive of the Security forces and thePublic Security Corps Fond.
More...
In the end of October 1967, a spontaneous demonstrations of students protesting against poor living conditions in Prague´s Strahov Dormitory, was quashed with force. The author asks a question why something seemingly as trivial as a power blackout in a student dormitory resulted, at the end of the day, in the disintegration of structures of the Czechoslovak Union of Youth at universities. In doing so, he follows the grammar of the social conflict through a prism of social movement formation and of the so-called politics of the street. The author describes a shift in the attitude of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia toward students in the 1960s, as the latter started assigning greater importance to intelligentsia than before, embarking upon the so-called policy of trust toward students, its aim being to make them more involved in solutions of university and social problems. The author also notes a step-by-step emancipation of students and the emergence of an idea of self-governing students´ bodies, independent on official structures which were criticized as non-functional. In this respect, the author analyses conflicts with security forces during youth and students´ festivities in Prague (such as May Day gatherings in the Petřín Park and later during Majáles (“Coming of May festivities”) processions, ultimately ending in punishments of students labelled as “rioters”. He states that the confrontations taught students to adopt strategies helping them avoid repressions (such as avoiding any “disorderly conduct”, not criticizing the ruling party and the Soviet Union directly, having their own stewards to maintain order); on the other hand, the security machine learnt to respect the students´ authority and to behave with restraint. The result was a consensus on how to manage the social conflict and keep it non-violent. The tacit agreement of university students, police, and leaders of the Czechoslovak Union of Youth collapsed when policemen intervened with force against an unplanned and peaceful demonstration of students from the Strahov Dormitory, who had long been trying in vain to resolve their accommodation problems. After two months of investigations, none of the protesters or the intervening policemen were punished; however, requirements of students, such as the right to similar protests or inviolability of the academic soil, were not granted as well. Students blamed the leadership of the Czechoslovak Union of Youth for the unsatisfactory outcome, and started to leave its structures en masse. In 1968, they founded their own self-governing organization, independent on both the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and the Czechoslovak Union of Youth.
More...
This article discusses to what extent can historians use literary fiction as a historical source for their research on technocracy in state socialist Czechoslovakia. This case study focuses on the literary work of Czechoslovak economist and writer Stanislava Vácha. Since the 1950s to 1990s Vácha wrote numerous novels about socialist managers and economists. This article argues that Vácha’s novels are unique historical sources providing valuable insights in the mentality of professional middle class in Czechoslovakia before 1989. While using Vácha’s novels and similar materials as historical sources historians are able to expand our knowledge of social and cultural history of expert cultures in state socialist era.
More...
Symbols are a significant resource in preserving historical memory. Influencing the consciousness of people, they contribute to the unity of different ways of life, worldview values and individual human experience. In the complex nature of symbols ideological, educational and spiritual potential lies, taking into account a culture of memory formed. The names of the streets of Khmelnitsky city in the twentieth century received an ideological connotation and were intended to fulfill the function of demonstrating the symbolic strength of Soviet power. Many streets of the city were named after a certain person. The symbolic marking of the streets of Khmelnitsky is significantly focused on the militarist component. In such conditions, the symbolic image of the city lost its uniqueness, acquired universal features that were inherent in many average Ukrainian cities of the Soviet period. An analysis of the symbolism of the modern city of Khmelnytskyi testifies to significant shifts towards the democratization of this process and the ideological decolonization of the toponymic system of verbal markers. Historical amnesia remained virtually unchanged in relation to the multicultural issues of Khmelnytskyi in the past.
More...
The subject of this article is the ideological basis on which the study of the history of pedagogy in Serbia in the 19th century was based. The aim of the paper was to analyze the scientific and socio-ideological starting points in the conception of the history of pedagogy in Serbia. As a teaching discipline, the history of pedagogy in the research period was placed within the framework of professional education of primary school teachers and pedagogues. Therefore, the goals and tasks of the history of pedagogy were adjusted not only to the achievements of this scientific discipline in Europe at the time, but also to the projected goal of the overall education in Serbia. Textbooks on the history 424 425 of pedagogy published in this period (until 1902) represent the basic source for the analysis of the ideological foundations on which teaching in the field of the history of education was based. This analysis shows that the history of pedagogy was understood as a suitable means of harmonizing the spread of Christian principles with a “rational educational approach”, so that over time there was an increasingly professional reflection on the possibilities of using educational theories in pedagogical practice. At the same time, there was a growing awareness of the influence of general cultural history on the development of pedagogical theories, as well as the importance of the national pedagogical heritage.
More...
Review of: Rob Riemen, The Eternal Return of Fascism, published by Dereta, Belgrade, 2019, (with original title „De Eeuwige Terugkeer van Het Fascisme de Terugkeer van Europa: Haar Tranen; Daden en Dromen, Nederlands letterenfonds –Dutch Foundation for Literature, 2017).
More...