Survival of the Unfittest on the Eastern Front

2021 ◽  
pp. 101-136
Author(s):  
Václav Paris
Keyword(s):  
Nation Building ◽  
National Language ◽  
Cultural Divide ◽  
Eastern Front ◽  
Evolutionary Thought ◽  
The World ◽  
Positive Feature ◽  
Good Soldier

In 1911, F. T. Marinetti imagined war as “the only hygiene of the world.” Such social Darwinist visions are contested by modernism’s antimilitarist fictions. Focusing on Jaroslav Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk (1921–23), this chapter explores the dynamics of this contestation and its ramifications for understanding modernist epic. The eponymous protagonist of Hašek’s fiction, Švejk, is not a standard hero. Rather, he is imbecilic, alcoholic, lazy, rheumatic, “degenerate,” mongrel-like, and speaks an “impure” colloquial version of the national language. His only positive feature is how, ironically because of his stupidity, Švejk always manages to escape a terrible destiny, delaying his arrival at the Eastern Front. As this chapter describes, the story is a moral of survival of the unfittest, dramatizing how the underdog can succeed in a violent world and how the Czechs emerged from under the Austrian empire. Analyzing this alter-Darwinian nation-building, the chapter places Hašek’s work into relation with the larger genre of modernist epic. It shows that although Hašek was not invested in any modernist movement, and did not read Joyce or Stein, his text was nevertheless shaped in relation to the same underlying historical forces. It reveals, consequently, an encompassing narrative of evolutionary thought that different national modernisms can be coordinated against, which also crosses the cultural divide between high and low.

Managing languages in conflict situation

2000 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asmah Haji Omar
Keyword(s):  
World View ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Conflict Situation ◽  
Ethnic Community ◽  
National Language ◽  
Equal Treatment ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World

English today certainly plays a wider range of roles than before. Due to these roles and to its neutrality in not being exclusively identified with any particular ethnic community in Malaysia, English is meant to be everyone’s language in as much as the national language is. In real life the functions of English in Malaysia almost equal those of Malay, including the social function. This situation results from the image projected by English vis-à-vis Malay and an equal treatment of the two languages in the implementation of the policy. The policy on the enhancement of the use of English has helped to de-sensitise the feeling of the people towards English as a former colonial language, and to close the attitudinal gap between Malay and English. This pragmatism has also changed the world-view of Malaysians that only the use of the national language would assist in nation-building

Book Reviews

2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-106
Author(s):  
Janet Klein ◽  
David Romano ◽  
Michael M. Gunter ◽  
Joost Jongerden ◽  
Atakan İnce ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Eastern Anatolia ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
National Movement ◽  
The World ◽  
Modern Turkey ◽  
Oxford University Press

Uğur Ümit Üngör, The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia, 1913-1950, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, 352 pp. (ISBN: 9780199603602).Mohammed M. A. Ahmed, Iraqi Kurds and Nation-Building. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, 294 pp., (ISBN: 978-1-137-03407-6), (paper). Ofra Bengio, The Kurds of Iraq: Building a State within a State. Boulder, CO and London, UK: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2012, xiv + 346 pp., (ISBN 978-1-58826-836-5), (hardcover). Cengiz Gunes, The Kurdish National Movement in Turkey, from Protest to Resistance, London: Routledge, 2012, 256 pp., (ISBN: 978-0-415—68047-9). Aygen, Gülşat, Kurmanjî Kurdish. Languages of the World/Materials 468, München: Lincom Europa, 2007, 92 pp., (ISBN: 9783895860706), (paper).Barzoo Eliassi, Contesting Kurdish Identities in Sweden: Quest for Belonging among Middle Eastern Youth, Oxford: New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 234 pp. (ISBN: 9781137282071).

SYNONYMY OF STABLE PHRASES IN THE DICTIONARY OF SMOLENSK DIALECTS: THE ANALYSIS EXPERIENCE

2019 ◽  
pp. 122-132
Author(s):  
Nina Maksimchuk
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
National Language ◽  
Cultural Value ◽  
Semantic Structure ◽  
Spiritual World ◽  
Key Word ◽  
The World ◽  
Volumetric Representation ◽  
High Level ◽  
Linguistic Units

The attention of modern linguistics to the study of verbal representatives of the mental essence (both individual and collective one) of the native speakers involves an appeal to all subsystems of the national language where territorial dialects take a significant part. The analysis of dialect linguistic units possessing linguistic and cultural value is considered as a necessary way for the study of people’s worldview and perception of the world, national mentality as a whole. The ability of stable phrases (phraseological units) to preserve and express a native speaker’s attitude to the world around them is the basis for the use of the analysis of folk phraseology as a way of penetration into a speaker’s spiritual world. Volumetric representation of the external and internal peculiarities of stable phrases allows the author to get their systematization in the form of phraseosemantic field consisting of different kinds singled out in phraseosemantic groups. The article deals with stable phrases of synonymic value recorded in the Dictionary of Smolensk dialects and stable phrases forming a phraseosemantic group. These phrases are analyzed taking into account the semantic structure of the key word, the characteristics of the dependent word, and the method of forming phraseological semantics. On the example of the analysis of phrases with the key word «bit’» and a synonymic series with the semantic dominant «bezdel’nichat’», the article discusses the peculiarities of phraseological nomination in Smolensk dialects and confirms a high level of connotativity and evaluation in the folk phraseology.

The Remembered Anthropologist: Engaging with the Insights of M. N. Srinivas

2020 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 224-240
Author(s):  
Nita Mathur
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Social Anthropology ◽  
General Sense ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The World ◽  
Village Studies ◽  
Specific Sense

The plethora of M. N. Srinivas’s articles and books covering a wide range of subjects from village studies to nation building, from dominant caste in Rampura village to nature and character of caste in independent India, and from prospects of sociological research in Gujarat to practicing social anthropology in India have largely influenced the understanding of society and culture for well over five decades. Additionally, he meticulously wrote itineraries, memoirs and personal notes that provide a glimpse of his inner being, influences, ideologies, thought all of which have inspired a large number of and social anthropologists and sociologists across the world. It is then only befitting to explore the major concerns in the life and intellectual thought of one whose pioneering contributions have been the milestones in the fields of social anthropology and sociology in a specific sense and of social sciences in India in a general sense. This article centres around/brings to light the academic concerns that Srinivas grappled with the new avenues of thought and insights that developed consequently, and the extent of his rendition their relevance in framing/understanding contemporary society and culture in India.

scholarly journals THE SYSTEM OF EXERCISES IN THE STUDY OF PAREMIAS WITH LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE LESSONS OF RUSSIAN LANGUAGE

2020 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 580-587
Author(s):  
Z. Bekmambetova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Extracurricular Activities ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
Russian Language ◽  
National Language ◽  
Cultural Perspective ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Unique Object ◽  
The World ◽  
Cultural Layers ◽  
Historical Nature

This article discusses the methodological system of studying paremias in Russian language lessons. Linguistic and cultural analysis of paremia allows us to identify the existing value-significant representations of an ethnic group based on accumulated information of a cultural and historical nature, first of all, about a person in the aggregate of certain properties, qualities, activities, and his attitude to the world. Paremias are aphorisms of folk origin, characterized by conciseness of form, reproducibility of meaning and having, as a rule, an edifying meaning. Paremia is a unique object for the study of language and culture, the purpose of which is to study cultural layers in the structure of the meaning of language units. Paremia is capable not only of expressing a conclusion, but also of forming generalized ideas about the laws of life. Since paremias are part of the national language picture of the world, and therefore part of the national language mentality, in this case, in our opinion, it is also possible to talk about the existence of a proverbial mentality, that is, the mentality of the nation, reflected in the paremiological Fund. When studying the discipline “Russian language”, students have the opportunity to master the skills of linguistic and cultural analysis of language units, get acquainted with different types of exercises and tasks, prepare to apply the acquired skills and implement the skills in regular, extracurricular and extracurricular activities.

scholarly journals THEORETICAL AND LEGAL ASPECTS OF NATION-BUILDING IN KAZAKHSTAN IN 1923-1926: EXPERIENCE OF KORENIZATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF LANGUAGE LEGISLATION

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 836-844
Author(s):  
S.Sh. Kaziyev ◽  
E.N. Burdina
Keyword(s):  
Nation Building ◽  
Legal Aspects ◽  
The State ◽  
National Language ◽  
Office Work ◽  
Socialist Republic ◽  
Soviet Socialist Republic ◽  
Soviet State ◽  
Language Legislation ◽  
The Republic

The article is devoted to nation-building in Kazakhstan in the first years of Soviet power. It is noted that significant attention in this process was given to the languages of the titular nations as official languages. The authors made an attempt to present the formation of legal guarantees for the functioning of the Kazakh and Russian languages of the Kazakh Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and their use in the state apparatus of the republic. The study is based on legislative acts and documents of 1917-1924 with the involvement of archival materials. The authors examined practical steps of korenization (nativization) with respect to party and Soviet administrative structures and transition to paperwork in two state languages in the KASSR. The article reflects the main problems of the implementation of language legislation and percentage korenization as a policy aimed at the formation of national management personnel and solving the problems of serving the population of Kazakhstan in their native language. The problems of introducing office work in the language of the titular nation of material, personnel, mental and other nature are investigated. The authors drew attention to the failure of the attempts of the Soviet state to quickly create an administrative apparatus in the KASSR from national personnel and introduce paperwork in the Kazakh language, as well as to the fact that the Soviet leadership understood this. The study shows the reasons for a significant revision of the korenization policy in the USSR and Soviet Kazakhstan, as well as the introduction of office work in the national language since 1926. Among the positive achievements of the Soviet regime, the creation of strong legal guarantees for the functioning of the Kazakh and Russian languages as the state languages of Kazakhstan of the studied period, as well as the partial korenization of the administrative apparatus of Kazakhstan as a result of targeted and progressive steps of the Soviet state to create national personnel, were noted.

Contacts, Collisions and Relationships

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrés Baeza Ruz
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
State Building ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Spanish American ◽  
Cultural Encounters ◽  
Building Process ◽  
The World ◽  
State Actors ◽  
Independence Era

This is a study on the relations between Britain and Chile during the Spanish American independence era (1806–1831). These relations were characterised by a dynamic, unpredictable and changing nature, being imperialism only one and not the exclusive way to define them. The book explores how Britons and Chileans perceived each other from the perspective of cultural history, considering the consequences of these ‘cultural encounters’ for the subsequent nation–state building process in Chile. From 1806 to 1831 both British and Chilean ‘state’ and ‘non–state’ actors interacted across several different ‘contact zones’, and thereby configured this relationship in multiple ways. Although the extensive presence of ‘non–state’ actors (missionaries, seamen, educators and merchants) was a manifestation of the ‘expansion’ of British interests to Chile, they were not necessarily an expression of any British imperial policy. There were multiple attitudes, perceptions, representations and discourses by Chileans on the role played by Britain in the world, which changed depending on the circumstances. Likewise, for Britons, Chile was represented in multiple ways, being the image of Chile as a pathway to other markets and destinations the most remarkable. All these had repercussions in the early nation–building process in Chile.

(Re-)Building the World: Local Agency and Human Security in the New Millennium

2017 ◽  
pp. 247-266
Author(s):  
Trudy Fraser
Keyword(s):  
Nation Building ◽  
Human Security ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Local Models ◽  
Initial State ◽  
Mass Violence ◽  
State Security ◽  
The World ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
Local Actors

The ‘rebuilding’ of a society in the aftermath of conflict or mass violence often subsumes the dynamic requirements of human security into a technical task that belies or fails to fully comprehend the needs of the community being ‘built’. Indeed, as Trudy Fraser in Chapter Ten explains, critics have suggested that ‘building’ in the aftermath of conflict merely serves to impose externally configured normative benchmarks as a panacea for peace, privileging the goals of international actors at the expense of local actors. One of the main problems is that externally configured normative benchmarks do not necessarily conform to local models of peace and security. In order for the ‘building’ to be reflective of the dynamic requirements of human security, this chapter asserts that it must be responsive to the following questions: (1) who is doing the building?; (2) what is being built?; and (3) for whom is it being built? These three questions speak to separate but interrelated issues in the context of modern state-, peace- and nation-building, and highlights the ambiguity that currently exists between the initial (state-security-centric) and subsequent (human-security-centric) phases of intervention and ‘(re-)building’.

Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 189-222
Author(s):  
Naomi A. Moland
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Multicultural Education ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Negative Outcomes ◽  
State Fragility ◽  
Religious Extremism ◽  
The World ◽  
Education Interventions

Chapter 7, “Conclusion: Multiculturalism in a Multicultural World,” discusses the implications of the book’s findings for our understandings of multiculturalism, nation-building, and counterterrorism in Nigeria and in societies around the world. Nations with risk factors similar to those of Nigeria—such as deep demographic divisions, state fragility, and escalating conflict—may not have the luxury to “celebrate diversity.” As more countries around the world are facing challenges from religious extremism and terrorism, many are questioning the feasibility of multicultural approaches. In nations experiencing ongoing conflict, multicultural educators may need to recalibrate the balance between celebrating diversity and promoting unity, focusing more on commonalities between groups. This chapter explores other approaches that may at least help to mitigate the potential negative outcomes of multicultural education. More broadly, it concludes that peacebuilding approaches—including soft power media and education interventions—must be tailored to the particular contexts in which they are implemented.

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