scholarly journals The Birth of the Cultural Treaty in Europe's Age of Crisis

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Benjamin G. Martin
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
First World War ◽  
Cultural Relations ◽  
World War ◽  
Central Eastern Europe ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Fascist Regime ◽  
Bilateral Treaties ◽  
First World

Bilateral treaties are an age-old tool of diplomacy, but before the First World War they were only rarely applied to the world of intellectual and cultural relations. This article explores the process by which diplomatic agreements on intellectual and cultural exchange came instead to be a common feature of interwar European international relations by contrasting two types of agreements identified by period observers: ‘intellectual’ accords, typified by the agreements France signed in the 1920s, and ‘cultural’ treaties, advanced by fascist Italy in the 1930s. Comparing France and Italy's use of such agreements in Central-Eastern Europe reveals that Italy's fascist regime responded to the crises and opportunities of the interwar period by developing a distinctive model of ‘cultural treaty’ that applied state power to international cultural exchange, and mobilised the idea of ‘culture’ itself, in a new and influential manner.

scholarly journals Școala română din Paris (Fontenay-aux-roses) – file semnificative din istoria unei instituții românești dispărută în negura timpului / Romanian School in Paris (Fontenay-aux-roses) – significant Pages in the History of a Romanian Institution that Disappeared in the Mists of Time

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-83
Author(s):  
Vasile-George Ursu
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Cultural Relations ◽  
Separate Entity ◽  
World War ◽  
European Continent ◽  
Private Initiative ◽  
The First World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
In The Mists ◽  
First World

The beginning of the twentieth century was strongly marked by the First World War. Among the unexpected results of this conflagration we can observe an exponential growth of cultural relations between the states involved in the conflict on the same side. If we explicitly look at the Romanian-French cultural relations from this perspective, it becomes obvious that we are dealing with an exceptional example of cultural collaboration on the European continent. The first concrete step of this process was the signing in Bucharest of The PoincaréAngelescu Educational Convention on June 15, 1919, a document according to which the French state provided its support for the consolidation of Romanian education, especially in the new provinces that entered the Romanian state. Thus, in Bucharest, the French university mission was created as a separate entity as a result of this convention. Later, in 1924, it was reorganized into the French Institute of Higher Studies. Through these two concrete actions, the French state took the initiative and offered its promised support for its ”Latin sister in Eastern Europe”. In the same period, the actions of the Kingdom of Romania in this sense were much slower and more indecisive, requiring a private initiative of the historian N. Iorga.

Sun Yat-sen and the Japanese: 1914–16

1972 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 385-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert A. Altman ◽  
Harold Z. Schiffrin
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
First World War ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Fair Share ◽  
Power Struggle ◽  
World War ◽  
Chinese Nationalism ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Grand Prize ◽  
First World

The First World War changed the pattern of international relations in East Asia. What had previously been another arena for the European power struggle became the cockpit for two regional forces, Japanese expansionism and incipient Chinese nationalism. The confrontation between the two, which was to last for a quarter of a century, began as a most unequal contest. Great power rivalry had enabled China to balance off her enemies and to maintain her status as a sovereign entity. But with Europe distracted, China was helpless, and Japan had a unique opportunity to pursue an independent expansionist policy. Instead of cooperating with England and the other powers in order to get a fair share of the China spoils, after 1914 Japan could make her bid for the grand prize, exclusive access to China's resources. Thus the European powers’ pre-occupation with mutual slaughter exposed China to extreme danger, greater than that which she had faced during the heyday of classical imperialism.1 But Japan was not alone in welcoming the European retreat. Japan’s opportunity was also Sun Yat-sen's opportunity.

scholarly journals The English school and the classical approach: Between modernism and interpretivism

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Bevir ◽  
Ian Hall
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
International Relations ◽  
First World War ◽  
English School ◽  
Classical Approach ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
British Committee ◽  
Hedley Bull ◽  
First World

This article analyses the evolution of the English school’s approach to international relations from the work of the early British Committee in the late 1950s and early 1960s to its revival in the 1990s and afterwards. It argues that the school’s so-called ‘classical approach’ was shaped by the crisis of developmental historicism brought on by the First World War and by the reactions of historians like Herbert Butterfield and Martin Wight to the rise of modernist social science in the twentieth century. It characterises the classical approach, as advanced by Hedley Bull, as a form of ‘reluctant modernism’ with underlying interpretivist commitments and unresolved tensions with modernist approaches. It argues that to resolve some of the confusion concerning its preferred approach to the study of international relations, the English school should return to the interpretivist commitments of its early thinkers.

French War Aims and the American Challenge, 1914–1918

1979 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 877-894 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Stevenson
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
First World War ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Industrialized Countries ◽  
World War ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
The First World War ◽  
War Aims ◽  
First World

Between 1917 and 1919 the United States made its first, spectacular intrusion into European power politics. For President Wilson, entry into the First World War was a chance not only to eliminate an immediate threat to American interests but also to transform international relations. The time had come to weld the industrialized countries into a community of interest, based on a shared loyalty to representative government and the market economy, expressed by membership of a League of Nations, and in which economic and territorial causes of tension would have been removed. But hardly had the German obstacle to this programme been overcome before, at the peace conference of 1919, Wilson ran up against almost equally determined obstruction from his former allies. This article examines one source of that antagonism, in the latent conflict before the armistice between American war aims and those of France. It argues that French policy was moulded by a tension between the Paris leaders' own desires for the settlement with Germany and their need to preserve a system of alliances deemed essential for French security in the future as well as for the war itself. By 1917 French governments were already confronted with dilemmas which were to harass them for the succeeding twenty years.

scholarly journals Friend or Foe? Representations of WWI in Italian Fascist Cinema

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 6
Author(s):  
Francesco Bono
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
First World War ◽  
Nazi Germany ◽  
Italian Cinema ◽  
World War ◽  
Special Regard ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Fascist Regime ◽  
First World

The present essay investigates the representation of the First World War in Italian fascist cinema by analyzing some of the major films about the war made during the Fascist regime and, notably, Marco Elter’s Le scarpe al sole (1935), Giovacchino Forzano’s 13 uomini e un cannone (1936) and Oreste Biancoli’s Piccolo alpino (1940). The films will be examined from an original and specific angle, devoting special attention to their portrayal of the Austrian enemy. Little consideration has been paid so far in scholarly research to this aspect. The essay will specifically address the question, investigating the changing representation of WWI and, particularly, the metamorphosis of Austria from foe to friend in Italian cinema in the course of the twenty years of Fascist regime. In doing so, the essay will place the above films against the background of the Fascist regime’s foreign policy, with special regard to the Italian-Austrian politics of friendship during the 1930s, followed at the end of the decade by Italy’s alliance with Nazi-Germany and the birth of the Rome-Berlin axis.

Repairing the entente cordiale And The New Diplomacy

1980 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Cassels
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The One ◽  
First World

At the close of World War I two schools of thought about the future conduct of international relations emerged into plain view. On the one hand, the traditionalists presumed that the principles and practices of pre-1914 diplomacy could and should be sustained. This implied a routine of continual competition among the sovereign nation states, the anarchy of which was mitigated only by the collective fear of hegemony by one state (the mechanism of the balance of power) and by a sense of belonging to a common civilization (the old Concert of Europe). Tacitly accepted as the final arbiter of vital questions was the instrument of war. On the other hand, the First World War had provided ample grounds for a swingeing critique of Realpolitik when practised in an age of mass armies and technological warfare.

BACHI, POLLI E GRANI. APPUNTI SULLA RICEZIONE DELLA GENETICA IN ITALIA (1900-1953)

Nuncius ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
CLAUDIO POGLIANO
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Economic Values ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Standard Picture ◽  
Fascist Regime ◽  
Scientific Practical ◽  
Second World ◽  
First World

Abstracttitle SUMMARY /title Italian geneticists managed to establish the boundaries and structures of their own community only after the Second World War, when they promoted, in the space of a few years, a series of initiatives culminating in the Ninth International Congress of Genetics (Bellagio 1953). This essay traces the ways in which, from the beginning of the century, the revolutionary and swift development of the discipline found its context and interested audience in Italy. In contrast to our standard picture, there was no shortage of naturalists to dedicate themselves enthusiastically to genetics, even launching a campaign in the 30's for its 'political' recognition. But cultural trends after the First World War, and especially the directives of the Fascist regime, tended to favour scientific practical and economic values and keep the theoretical and interpretative nature of their work to a minimum. This was ultimately futile, given the indifference with which the centres of power responded. It was the reason, too, for their extremely weak, or almost non-existent participation in the preparations for the evolutionary synthesis in which European and American scientists were involved, which changed appreciably the character and methods of biology.

A Last-Minute Private Peace Initiative: Albert Ballin’s Mediation Efforts between Germany and Britain, 1908-1914

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 297-322
Author(s):  
Lior Lehrs
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
First World War ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Peace Initiatives ◽  
Unofficial Diplomacy ◽  
First World

Summary As relations between Germany and Britain were deteriorating during the years 1908-1914, Albert Ballin, a German businessman, became concerned and decided to promote Anglo–German talks on naval arms limitations in order to halt the naval arms race and improve relations between the two states. This article analyses Albert Ballin’s — and his British friend Ernest Cassel’s — private peace initiatives during the years 1908-1914 as a historical example of ‘unofficial diplomacy’ long before this term was discussed in International Relations literature. It examines the tools and conditions that created the basis for Ballin’s initiatives and explores his role in the diplomatic processes between Germany and Britain before the First World War. Ballin’s and Cassel’s unofficial, persistent peace efforts had some effect on the official diplomatic sphere and led to official negotiations, but they ultimately failed in their attempt to promote an agreement or to prevent the war.

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