The Collapse of the Romanov Empire

Author(s):  
Alexey Miller

This chapter considers the changing approaches adopted after the October Revolution towards Russia’s ethnic minority populations alongside efforts to construct a shared Russian or Soviet national identity within what remained a culturally diffuse land empire. Politicians and historians have produced multiple narratives of the collapse of the Romanov empire. The initial history of the Bolsheviks stressed the role of the national movements against ‘the prison of nations’ alongside the proletarian struggle against ‘the weakest link’ of imperialism. In the 1930s, the Stalin-edited ‘Short Course of the History of the Communist Party’ marginalized national movements’ roles in favour of class struggle, while post-communist national historiographies did the opposite. Recently, the growing literature on the First World War places the conflict itself at the centre of the story of imperial collapse and demonstrates how multiple factors, produced by the conditions of war, undermined empire and strengthened the ethnic and social anti-imperial movements.

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-250
Author(s):  
Sjang L. ten Hagen

ArgumentThis article contributes to a global history of relativity, by exploring how Einstein’s theory was appropriated in Belgium. This may sound like a contradiction in terms, yet the early-twentieth-century Belgian context, because of its cultural diversity and reflectiveness of global conditions (the principal example being the First World War), proves well-suited to expose transnational flows and patterns in the global history of relativity. The attempts of Belgian physicist Théophile de Donder to contribute to relativity physics during the 1910s and 1920s illustrate the role of the war in shaping the transnational networks through which relativity circulated. The local attitudes of conservative Belgian Catholic scientists and philosophers, who denied that relativity was philosophically significant, exemplify a global pattern: while critics of relativity feared to become marginalized by the scientific, political, and cultural revolutions that Einstein and his theory were taken to represent, supporters sympathized with these revolutions.


2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 212-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glenda Sluga

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to restore the history of internationalism to our understanding of the legacy of the First World War, and the role of universities in that past. It begins by emphasising the war’s twin legacy, namely, the twin principles of the peace: national self-determination and the League of Nations. Design/methodology/approach It focuses on the intersecting significance and meaning attributed to the related terms patriotism and humanity, nationalism and internationalism, during the war and after. A key focus is the memorialization of Edith Cavell, and the role of men and women in supporting a League of Nations. Findings The author finds that contrary to conventional historical opinion, internationalism was as significant as nationalism during the war and after, thanks to the influence and ideas of men and women connected through university networks. Research limitations/implications The author’s argument is based on an examination of British imperial sources in particular. Originality/value The implications of this argument are that historians need to recover the international past in histories of nationalism.


2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-83
Author(s):  
Seyyed Alireza Golshani ◽  
Mohammad Ebrahim Zohalinezhad ◽  
Mohammad Hossein Taghrir ◽  
Sedigheh Ghasempoor ◽  
Alireza Salehi

The Spanish Flu was one of the disasters in the history of Iran, especially Southern Iran, which led to the death of a significant number of people in Iran. It started on October 29, 1917, and lasted till 1920 – a disaster that we can claim changed the history. In one of the First World War battlefields in southern Iran in 1918, there was nothing left until the end of World War I and when the battle between Iranian warriors (especially people of Dashtestan and Tangestan in Bushehr, Arabs, and people of Bakhtiari in Khuzestan and people of Kazerun and Qashqai in Fars) and British forces had reached its peak. As each second encouraged the triumph for the Iranians, a flu outbreak among Iranian warriors led to many deaths and, as a result, military withdrawal. The flu outbreak in Kazerun, Firoozabad, Farshband, Abadeh, and even in Shiraz changed the end of the war. In this article, we attempt to discuss the role of the Spanish flu outbreak at the end of one of the forefronts of World War I.


Author(s):  
Н.Ю. Стоюхина ◽  
А.А. Костригин

Статья посвящена недостаточно изученному вопросу в истории российской психологии - деятельности отечественных психологов в годы Первой мировой войны. Авторы обобщили найденные на данный момент сведения о нахождении и роли разных психологов как в военных событиях, так и в научной и общественной жизни того времени. Представляются три группы персоналий в зависимости от того, в каком положении по отношению к военным действиям они оказались: участие в действующей армии; пребывание в Германии во время войны в качестве пленного гражданского лица; жизнь и научная деятельность в тылу. Среди психологов, которые служили в армии во время Первой мировой войны, рассматриваются биографические данные и воспоминания П.Н. Шефтеля, Г.Я. Трошина, В.Ф, Чижа, А.Б. Залкинда, И.А. Арямова, Л.Н. Войтоловского, А.А. Смирнова, Б.М. Теплова, М.Я. Басова, Л.А. Бызова, М.В. Шика. К группе психологов, которые оказались в Германии во время войны, относятся А.О. Маковельский, А.Ф. Лосев, И.Н. Шпильрейн, Н.Е. Румянцев. Описываются результаты научных событий, состоявшихся в России в годы Первой мировой войны, - Третий и Четвертый Всероссийские съезды по экспериментальной педагогике, исследовательские работы в Психологическом институте им. Л.Г. Щукиной, коллективные публикации. Отмечается, что обращение к деятельности психологов во время Первой мировой войны является важным с позиций не только истории психологии, но и исторической психологии: кроме изучения жизненного пути персоналий и анализа результатов научных исследований этого периода представляет интерес и описание образа и роли ученого в военное время, особенностей научной активности в военных условиях. Авторы статьи призывают профессиональное сообщество дополнить список персоналий, которые принимали участие в Первой мировой войне и на которых война оказала значимое влияние, и другими именами. The article is devoted to an insufficiently studied issue in the history of Russian psychology - the activities of Russian psychologists during the First World War. The authors summarized the information found to date about the location and role of various psychologists both in military events and in the scientific and social life of that time. Three groups of personalities are presented, depending on the position in which they found themselves in relation to military operations: participation in the active army; stay in Germany during the war as a captured civilian; life and scientific activities in the rear. Among psychologists who served in the army during the First World War, the authors describe the biographical data and memories of P.N. Sheftel, G. Ya. Troshin, V.F. Chizh, A.B. Zalkind, I.A. Aryamov, L.N. Voitolovsky, A.A. Smirnov, B.M. Teplov, M.Ya. Basov, L.A. Byzov, M.V. Shik. The group of psychologists who remained in Germany includes A.O. Makovelsky, A.F. Losev, I.N. Spielrein, N.E. Rumyantsev. The article describes the results of scientific events in Russia that took place during the First World War - the Third and Fourth All-Russian congresses on experimental pedagogy, research work at the Psychological institute named after L.G. Shchukina, collective publications. It is noted that the appeal to the activities of psychologists during the First World War is important from the standpoint of both history of psychology and historical psychology: in addition to studying the life path of personalities and analyzing the results of scientific research of this period, it is also of interest to describe the image and role of a scientist in wartime, features of scientific activity in war conditions. The authors of the article urge the professional community to add other names to the list of personalities who took part in the First World War and on whom the war had a significant impact.


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-105

The article discusses a neglected aspect in the history of the Second World War and the role of Armenians and their motivation to fight against the Nazi Germany. The author suggests that the memory of the Genocide against the Armenians perpetratrated by Turkey in the First World War with connivence from Germany played an important role in the memory of Soviet Armenians enrolled in the Red Army. This is one of the explanations why the present day Republic of Armenia still maintains – from different reasons – the name The Great Patriotic War instead of Second World War, like Russia.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 717
Author(s):  
Monika Milosavljević

The paper considers the role of Niko Županić in the processes of translation of the anthropological and archaeological knowledges into the language of the political activism during the First World War and immediately after. As recorded by Sima Trojanović, Županić was employed at the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade in May 1914, as "anthropological clerk" with the duty to "first of all measure the Serbian people, and only after that the foreigners on the Balkan Peninsula". He was officially stationed here up to 1922, although he spent the war years out of the country, involved in political activism, along with other Serbian and Yugoslav intellectuals, with the aim of creating the state of the Yugoslavs. At the outbreak of the First World War, Županić spent the first three months as a volunteer in Niš, and was then sent to Rome and London, where he took part in the activities of the Yugoslav Board. During 1916 the Serbian Government sent him to the United States, to secure the support of the American Slovenes for the Yugoslav idea. From 1915 till the end of the war, he wrote studies on the South Slavic past and political announcements, drew the borders of the desired territories, held speeches on the unity of the Serbs, Slovenes, and Croats. His book Ethnogenesis of the Yugoslavs (1920), written during the war and at first aimed at the English-speaking audience, richly illustrates the ways in which all these activities intertwined. Here Županić stresses the "creative potency of the blood and racial source" of brachycefaly of the Illyrian natives observed in the case of the Yugoslavs. The critical analysis and contextualization of this volume makes possible the new insights into the concepts of identity in the history of the Serbian anthropology and archaeology. This study did not receive much attention in the archaeological circles, but its ideas have subsequently, selectively and indirectly become the part of the history of the Serbian archaeology.


Author(s):  
Ryan Gingeras

The First World War quintessentially defined the future of ‘minorities’ on the Continent of Europe. Even before representatives met at Versailles, a number of determined national movements had engaged in bloody campaigns bent on independence or unification with their ethnic kin. Still larger numbers of ‘small peoples’ endeavoured to integrate themselves into the norms and cultures of their home states. Likewise, governments of the era were often compelled to make peace with the demographic, political, and economic realities that “national” minority populations. The arrival of refugees and migrants represented a test for provincial communities and administrations seeking to settle the meaning of integration and national belonging. The opportunity to deport, resettle, or even liquidate populations provided a tool for states seeking to resolve national questions in a capricious manner. Even with the creation of the League of Nations, minorities in Europe regularly suffered at the hands of majoritarian governments.


Author(s):  
Norman Russell

Palamas is still regarded in the West with suspicion, partly because of Jugie’s persuasive construction of Palamism as a ‘near-heresy’, and partly because of the role of Palamas in Orthodox identity politics. The history of the reception of Palamas in the Orthodox world is traced in outline up to the imiaslavie controversy just before the First World War. The response to Jugie came from members of the Russian emigration, especially Meyendorff, who wished not only to defend Palamas but also to delineate an Orthodox identity in its new Western environment. The reception of Meyendorff’s work is discussed together with the new areas of research that he opened up. In a recent article on Palamas, Robert Sinkewicz declared that it was now time to raise the larger questions. These questions, concerning the coherence and significance of Palamas’ work on the philosophical and theological levels, are addressed in Part II of the book.


Author(s):  
Bill Bell

This book examines the role of books and reading in relation to five itinerant constituencies in the long nineteenth century. It provides a critique of influential approaches to the history of reading within the context of the British empire. Beginning with the figure of the ‘hermeneutic castaway’ in Robinson Crusoe, it moves on to explore this and other phenomena as they were manifest among shipboard emigrants, Australian convicts, Scottish settlers in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, among polar explorers, and in the trenches of the First World War. In each instance, it explores the tensions between official prescriptive reading cultures and the everyday responses of ordinary readers themselves. Far from demonstrating the confidence and coherence of a British imperial project during this period, the evidence provided by a myriad reading experiences suggests an underlying disruption and tension in the way that reading subjects saw themselves and their political masters throughout the empire. Using archival, official, and other printed sources, the book sets out to show the diversity of readerly response in this period and what it can tell us about the complexity of the mentalities of ordinary subjects in an age of empire.


2000 ◽  
pp. 67-75
Author(s):  
R. Soloviy

In the history of religious organizations of Western Ukraine in the 20-30th years of the XX century. The activity of such an early protestant denominational formation as the Ukrainian Evangelical-Reformed Church occupies a prominent position. Among UCRC researchers there are several approaches to the preconditions for the birth of the Ukrainian Calvinistic movement in Western Ukraine. In particular, O. Dombrovsky, studying the historical preconditions for the formation of the UREC in Western Ukraine, expressed the view that the formation of the Calvinist cell should be considered in the broad context of the Ukrainian national revival of the 19th and 20th centuries, a new assessment of the religious factor in public life proposed by the Ukrainian radical activists ( M. Drahomanov, I. Franko, M. Pavlik), and significant socio-political, national-cultural and spiritual shifts caused by the events of the First World War. Other researchers of Ukrainian Calvinism, who based their analysis on the confessional-polemical approach (I.Vlasovsky, M.Stepanovich), interpreted Protestantism in Ukraine as a product of Western cultural and religious influences, alien to Ukrainian spirituality and culture.


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