‘O omnivorous powers, hail!’

2020 ◽  
pp. 245-262
Author(s):  
Monika Woźniak
Keyword(s):  
Focal Point ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Imperial Rome ◽  
Literary Source ◽  
Historical Films ◽  
Quo Vadis ◽  
Verbal Strategies ◽  
Second World

Dialogue in historical films is often the weakest component of the presumed ‘authenticity’ of the vision of the past to which they aspire. Its artificiality is especially evident in productions about ancient worlds, because the historical characters typically speak in a language which has nothing to do with the reality presented on the screen, yet somehow needs to convey the idea of diachronic distance and diversity. This chapter will examine the stylistic strategies used by the screenwriters of Quo Vadis in order to create a dialogue functional to the film’s ideological message, but at the same time sufficiently credible and ‘authentic’. Special attention will be paid to the way the scripts deal with forms of address and with military or honorific titles, as these are usually the most important and evident signals of ‘historicity’ in film dialogues. From this point of view, the verbal strategies of Mervyn LeRoy’s Quo Vadis (1951) are rather complex and multilayered, and they will be the focal point of the analysis. Produced in the aftermath of the Second World War, the film relied heavily on the strategy of presentism, clearly audible in large chunks of the dialogue. On the other hand, as part of a ‘trustworthy’ reconstruction of classical antiquity, its cinematographic speech had to be at least superficially compatible with the image of imperial Rome. Finally, Quo Vadis also drew generously on its literary source and adapted for the screen some of the novel’s elegant, literary dialogues. The chapter will also examine the relation between the cinematographic and literary dialogue in two later adaptations to screen: Franco Rossi’s 1985 TV miniseries and Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s Polish heritage production (2001).

“Product Not Available in Pre-War Quantities – but Quality Remains the Same”: Remarks on Advertisements as Historical Sources

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
World War ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
The Past ◽  
German Press ◽  
Post War ◽  
Second World

The article focuses on advertisements as visual and historical sources. The material comes from the German press that appeared immediately after the end of the Second World War. During this time, all kinds of products were scarce. In comparison to this, colorful advertisements of luxury products are more than noteworthy. What do these images tell us about the early post-war years in Germany? The author argues that advertisements are a medium that shapes social norms. Rather than reflecting the historical realities, advertisements construct them. From an aesthetical and cultural point of view, advertisements gave thus a sense of continuity between the pre- and post-war years. The author suggests, therefore, that the advertisements should not be treated as a source for economic history. They are, however, important for studying social developments that occurred in the past.

La citoyenneté et la construction de l'Europe : discussions théoriques

Res Publica ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 36 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 361-380
Author(s):  
Paul Magnette
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The European Union ◽  
World War ◽  
Dual Nature ◽  
European Citizenship ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Second World

This paper examines the evolving ideological content of the concept of citizenship and particularly the challenges it faces as a consequence of the building of the European Union. From an epistemological point of view it is first argued that citizenship may be described as a dual concept: it is both a legal institution composed of the rights of the citizen as they are fixed at a certain moment of its history, and a normative ideal which embodies their political aspirations. As a result of this dual nature, citizenship is an essentially dynamicnotion, which is permanently evolving between a state of balance and change.  The history of this concept in contemporary political thought shows that, from the end of the second World War it had raised a synthesis of democratic, liberal and socialist values on the one hand, and that it was historically and logically bound to the Nation-State on the other hand. This double synthesis now seems to be contested, as the themes of the "crisis of the Nation State" and"crisis of the Welfare state" do indicate. The last part of this paper grapples with recent theoretical proposals of new forms of european citizenship, and argues that the concept of citizenship could be renovated and take its challenges into consideration by insisting on the duties and the procedures it contains.

Philosophical Ideas of Yanaihara Tadao:Nationalism, Pacifism and the Concept of the “Just War”

2021 ◽  
pp. 187-197
Author(s):  
Anna D. Bertova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
World War ◽  
Postwar Japan ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
The One ◽  
Second World

Prominent Japanese economist, specialist in colonial politics, a professor of Im­perial Tokyo University, Yanaihara Tadao (1893‒1961) was one of a few people who dared to oppose the aggressive policy of Japanese government before and during the Second World War. He developed his own view of patriotism and na­tionalism, regarding as a true patriot a person who wished for the moral develop­ment of his or her country and fought the injustice. In the years leading up to the war he stated the necessity of pacifism, calling every war evil in the ultimate, divine sense, developing at the same time the concept of the «just war» (gisen­ron), which can be considered good seen from the point of view of this, imper­fect life. Yanaihara’s theory of pacifism is, on one hand, the continuation of the one proposed by his spiritual teacher, the founder of the Non-Church movement, Uchimura Kanzo (1861‒1930); one the other hand, being a person of different historical period, directly witnessing the boundless spread of Japanese militarism and enormous hardships brought by the war, Yanaihara introduced a number of corrections to the idealistic theory of his teacher and proposed quite a specific explanation of the international situation and the state of affairs in Japan. Yanai­hara’s philosophical concepts influenced greatly both his contemporaries and successors of the pacifist ideas in postwar Japan, and contributed to the dis­cussion about interrelations of pacifism and patriotism, and also patriotism and religion.

scholarly journals Guidelines of Nippon economic thinking in the period after the Second World War

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-128
Author(s):  
Marius-Ioan Mihut
Keyword(s):  
Information Society ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Management Theory ◽  
World War ◽  
Innovation And Technology ◽  
Economic Thinking ◽  
Second World ◽  
Central Management

After the Second World War, Japan knew significantly accelerated economic development. This process was influenced by a series of factors such as the economic system’s opening, the introduction of innovation and technology, the investment in equipment, or the democratization of economy and politics. The doctrine of Nipponism is based on certain fundamental pillars. We mention three of the main theories, whose essential elements are described within this paper: technocracy theory, central management theory, and information society theory. These theories are approached both from a historical point of view and through the leading promoters’ prism and the defining elements that compose the particular theory.

scholarly journals Społeczna szkodliwość — dziedzictwo komunizmu w polskim prawie karnym?

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 155-179
Author(s):  
Wojciech Zalewski
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Criminal Liability ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Criminal Proceedings ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Harmfulness ◽  
Second World

The introduction of social harmfulness (social danger) to Polish criminal law after the Second World War was politically motivated. For many, this circumstance was sufficient to formulate postulates about the necessity to remove this premise of criminal liability. Social harmfulness still remains controversial today. Before, criminal law was seen as a tool. Currently, it is to be an ultima ratio. It is clear that determining the essence of the crime and its nature, introducing into the law “what belongs to literature”, was necessary in the legal system of a totalitarian state, imposing its views and morals on society. In a legal system of a democratic state, a state ruled by law, a statutory ideological declaration regarding the essence of a crime seems redundant. However, changing the nomenclature is not enough here — there is a possibility of weakening the guaranteeing criminal law function. The social harmfulness premise contributes to the heterogeneity of jurisprudence, even in cases concerning serious crimes. The author is of the opinion that limiting the number of minor cases from the point of view of the state’s right to punish, which paralyzes the judiciary with their sheer number, should take place in a different way than introducing the social harmfulness of an act as a criterion determining the culpability. The currently adopted solution seems irrational and non-functional from the perspective of the legal certainty principle. A more appropriate move seems to be the assessing the advisability of prosecuting an act, i.e. by introducing and implementing the principle of opportunism in criminal proceedings.

An Unexpected Path to Modernisation: The Case of German Artisans during the Second World War

1996 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 401-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick L. Mckitrick
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Class Relations ◽  
World War ◽  
New Era ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Post War ◽  
Second World

On 10 July 1950, at the celebrations marking the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Wiesbaden Chamber of Artisans (Handwerkskammer), its president Karl Schöppler announced: ‘Today industry is in no way the enemy of Handwerk. Handwerk is not the enemy of industry.…’ These words, which accurately reflected the predominant point of view of the post-war chamber membership, and certainly of its politically influential leadership, marked a new era in the social, economic and political history of German artisans and, it is not too much to say, in the history of class relations in (West) Germany in general. Schöppler's immediate frame of reference was the long-standing and extremely consequential antipathy on the part of artisans towards industrial capitalism, an antipathy of which his listeners were well aware.

scholarly journals “Certainly Getting About the World”: New Zealanders’ Experience of the Middle East as a Place During the Second World War

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josh King
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
World War ◽  
The One ◽  
Second World ◽  
New Zealanders

New Zealand’s longest and most important campaign of the Second World War was in the Middle East. When New Zealand’s Middle Eastern war is discussed, the focus is usually on combat and the lives of New Zealanders on the battlefield. The limited discussion of life behind the lines is dominated by a picture of racism, drunkenness and debauchery with its focal point in Cairo. This article uses primary sources, including diaries, letters and soldier publications, and focusses on how New Zealanders saw the Middle East as a place, through the lenses of the desert, the city, the Holy Land and the ancient world. An examination of these topics reveals a complex and rich picture of respect and loathing, delight and disgust, wonder and disillusionment. Such a picture shows that the one-dimensional understanding of racism and poor behaviour is an entirely inadequate representation of New Zealanders’ Middle Eastern war.

scholarly journals FEATURES OF DEPICTION THE SECOND WORLD WAR EVENTS IN THE XXTH CENTURY RUSSIAN, AMERICAN AND HUNGARIAN PROSE (BASED ON THE NOVELS «LIFE AND FATE» BY VASILIY GROSSMAN, «FATELESSNESS» BY IMRE KERTÉSZ, «FROM HERE TO ETERNITY» BY JAMES JONES)

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 433-447
Author(s):  
Adalbert BARAN
Keyword(s):  
Historical Memory ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
World War ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
James Jones ◽  
History Of ◽  
From Here To Eternity ◽  
Second World

The present article deals with the comparative analysis of the methodological bases of depicting the authenticity, features, and character of ideological-thematic reflection of the Second World War events on the pages of the novel by Russian writer Vasily Grossman (1905-1964) «Life and Fate» (1960), the masterpiece by the American novelist James Jones (1921-1977) «From here to eternity» (1953) and the work by the Hungarian novelist Imre Kertész (1929-2016) «Fatelessness» (1975). The novels' authors did not need to interpret historical events by other people's memories and strive for a documentary. The original document in the novels was the life and unique memory of the writers themselves, and not only in the sense of the artistic reproduction of the true sides of the survived and seen, but also in terms of serious thoughts about the relationship of the past with the present in their moral, social, philosophical and ethical aspects. The article highlights the events and circumstances that predetermined the formation of features of the writers' worldview and led to the writing of the novels on military topics. The novels «Life and Fate», «Fatelessness», and «From here to eternity» can be considered as deeply personal works by the writers who have not declared, magnified the events of the history in context, but through the image system of the novels deeply examined, analyzed their roots. The authors of the novels have shown the history of the 20th century not on the background of exaggerated, politically agitating, heroic pictures, but from the point of view of the true significance of historical events for modern society. Keywords: documentary, historical memory, regime, literary tradition, writer’s consciousness, historical concreteness.

scholarly journals "De naam van mijn vader valt als een oordeel." Collaboratuers door de ogen van hun kinderen in de Vlaamse roman (1970-2000)

2018 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-26
Author(s):  
Babette Weyns
Keyword(s):  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
World War ◽  
Iconic Images ◽  
Societal Level ◽  
Post War ◽  
Second World

De geschiedenis van het Vlaamse collaboratieverleden tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog is vandaag reeds ruim gedocumenteerd: mythes zijn doorprikt en nuance is de nieuwe maatstaf om naar dat verleden te kijken. Toch leverde de lange overheersing van een vertekend beeld, voornamelijk met betrekking tot de naoorlogse repressie, een aantal iconische beelden op in het collectieve geheugen, die hier en daar nog de kop op durven te steken. Door de relatief late wetenschappelijke doorbraak in het polemische debat over de Tweede Wereldoorlog in België, loopt ons land noodgedwongen achter als het aankomt op nieuwe invalshoeken om dat verleden te benaderen. In onze buurlanden bestaat zo al enige tijd aandacht voor een belangrijke groep in de samenleving, die vaak tot op vandaag de gevolgen van dat verleden draagt: de nakomelingen. Niet alleen vanuit historische hoek, maar ook vanuit de literatuurwetenschappen bestaat er reeds een traditie aan onderzoek, dat nagaat hoe daders en slachtoffers van de Tweede Wereldoorlog hun herinneringen doorgeven aan latere generaties. Concepten als trauma- en schuldoverdracht zijn daarin heel populair. Geïnspireerd door het lopende historisch onderzoek van Koen Aerts (UGent), verkent ook deze bijdrage dat terrein. Aan de hand van zes autobiografisch geïnspireerde Vlaamse romans wordt daarbij resoluut de kaart van de interdisciplinariteit getrokken. Hoe gaan de protagonist-nakomelingen in de romans om met het verleden van hun ouders, welke effecten ondervinden ze ervan en vooral: dragen zij een overgedragen schuld met zich mee? Literatuur biedt immers een unieke blik op de werkelijkheid, en laat zelfs toe datgene bloot te leggen, wat men zelf niet wist. Het geeft met andere woorden ook een inkijk in het onderbewuste van zowel de samenleving als de personages uit het werk. Daarom leveren deze herinneringsproducten antwoorden op de vraag naar de relatie tussen een kind en zijn/haar (groot)ouder, die geen afbreuk doen aan de complexe realiteit van zowel dader- als ouderschap, maar een waardevol interpretatiekader vormen voor verder historisch onderzoek. “The name of my father weighs on me like a judgment”.Collaborators through the eyes of their children in the Flemish novel (1970-2000)Flemish collaboration during the Second World War has been researched profoundly and abundantly. Although historical research has exposed several myths and enabled a nuanced outlook onto the past, distorted memories have left Belgium with recurrent iconic images in its collective memory, especially when it comes to post-war punishment of Flemish collaborators. Only relatively recently scientific historical research is being heard within the polem-ical debate concerning new perspectives on Belgium’s wartime past. Neighbouring countries, unlike Belgium, were therefore able to incorporate descendants of collaborators far sooner into their research. As this social group often has been carrying traces of this past up until today, research focuses on how victims and perpetrators pass on their past to their children and grandchildren. This has not only been approached from a historical point of view, but in literary analysis as well. Transmission of trauma and guilt are popular concepts in this kind of research. Inspired by current historical research by Koen Aerts (UGent), this article offers an exploration of this field of research for Flanders. By discussing six autobiographical inspired Flemish novels, it takes on a fundamentally interdisciplinary approach. How do the protagonists in the novels deal with their parents’ past, which effects do they face and do they carry some form of transmitted guilt? Literature offers a unique perspective on reality, often exposing the subconscious not only of the characters within the work, but on a societal level as well. Accordingly, these products of memory offer insight into the relation between a child and its (grand)parent, taking into account the complex reality of being both a perpetrator and a parent. A discussion of these sources therefore provides a useful interpretative framework for further historical research.

Luchino Visconti

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendan Hennessey
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Antonio Gramsci ◽  
World War ◽  
Gabriele D'annunzio ◽  
Literary Adaptation ◽  
European Cinema ◽  
Historical Films ◽  
Painting And Literature ◽  
Luchino Visconti ◽  
Second World

Luchino Visconti (b. 1906–d. 1976) was one of Italy’s foremost directors of cinema, theater, and opera. A cultural figurehead of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), Visconti was seen as a major cinematic interpreter of the Italian Hegelian-Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci. To this political affiliation, one can also attach his upbringing as a Milanese nobleman and background as a gay man that would also influence interpretations of his films. Following a tutelage under French director Jean Renoir on films Une partie de campagne (1936) and Tosca (1940), Visconti inaugurated his own career in cinema with Ossessione (1942), the presumptive first film of Italian neorealism when directors in Italy turned their attention to the plight of the commoner, struggling in the wake of the Fascist dictatorship and the Second World War. Ossessione was followed by neorealist landmarks La terra trema (1948) and Bellissima (1951), and a few years later, the neorealist-inspired Rocco e i suoi fratelli (1960). These films introduced the conflux of realism, formalism, and melodrama for which Visconti’s cinema would be subsequently associated. Such characteristics were also evident in his parallel career on the Italian stage, where Visconti established himself as one of the nation’s pre-eminent directors of prose theater and opera. This activity on stage would contribute to Visconti’s reputation for working across media. In his cinema, structures from and allusions to theater, painting, and literature abound. Twelve of his eighteen films were based on one or more literary works, with Morte a Venezia (1971) celebrated as a groundbreaking chapter in European literary adaptation. His 1967 film, Lo straniero (1967), on the other hand, was panned for its slavish illustration of Camus’s book. To these and other literary-inspired works, Visconti added a few documentaries and numerous films set in contemporary Italy (episodes of Anna Magnani [1953] and Il lavoro [1961]; Le notti bianche [1957]; Vaghe stelle dell’Orsa [1965]) together with some of the largest-scale historical films in postwar European cinema. Senso (1954) and Il Gattopardo (1963) instantiate historiographically-rich analyses of Italian independence in the late 19th century. The biopic Ludwig (1974) is set in Bavaria during the same period, while La caduta degli dei (1969) pictures the rise of Nazism in Germany of the 1930s. During the filming of Ludwig, Visconti suffered a stroke that would cast a pall over Gruppo di famiglia in un interno (1974) and the posthumous L’Innocente (1976), an ornate tragedy based on a novel by Gabriele D’Annunzio.

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