The Middle Classes

Author(s):  
Moritz Föllmer

This chapter surveys the history of the middle classes in Weimar Germany from social, political, and cultural perspectives. Divisions—between industrialists and master artisans; conservatives, liberals, and left-wingers; Protestants, Catholics, and Jews; modernists and anti-modernists—were by no means new. But they were exacerbated during the First World War and in the subsequent period of rapid shifts and drastic ruptures. Occupational interests diverged, depending on how the respective groups were affected by the democratic transformation of 1918/19 and the hyperinflation that peaked in 1923. As a result, many members of the middle classes turned resentfully against the republic. Still, we should be wary of adopting the ubiquitous rhetoric of decline, for studies of associational life have amounted to a rather different picture of confidence and renewal. This middle-class renewal was initially not anti-democratic per se. But it increasingly defined itself against the perceived threat of socialist revolution and, by the mid-1920s, began to fuel the rise of the extreme right. That said, the middle classes in Weimar Germany should not be seen solely in a political perspective. They exhibited remarkably diverse consumer choices and cultural activities, although it was precisely this diversity that the extreme right targeted with considerable success.

Author(s):  
Lana К. Khubaeva

The article is devoted to the Vladikavkaz city Nikolaev school, which was opened in 1874. Documents preserved in the fund of the Public Schools Directorate of the Central State Archive (CSA) of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania indicate that the school was a male educational institution and the name of the school was named after Nikolai Ugodnik. The school was originally a four-year school, later, in 1897, it was transformed into a six-year school. It was subordinate to the Ministry of Public Education and the Directorate of public schools in the Terek region. On November 3, 1895, the Society for Aid to the Poorest Students of the Vladikavkaz Nikolaev School was officially registered at the school. The fact of the creation of such a Society testifies to the fact that the school was not intended exclusively for children of privileged classes. The October Revolution made great changes in the educational system established by this period. Many schools have ceased to function. The same fate befell the Nikolaev School, but not immediately. The educational institution managed to prepare several generations of graduates who continued their education in higher educational institutions before and post-revolutionary Russia. The Nikolaev school entered the history of Vladikavkaz as a source of enlightenment, thanks to which dozens of young people who did not live not only in Vladikavkaz, but also those who entered here from remote areas of the region received education. The school existed until 1921, having survived two Russian revolutions and the period of the First World War.


2016 ◽  
Vol 42 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 406-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cemil Boyraz ◽  
Ömer Turan

The modern republican history of Turkey and its relation with the question of ethnic diversity could be understood via the tension between the processes of system integration and social integration. This article, based on Jürgen Habermas’ conceptual framework, draws the sources of such tension with reference to the Kurdish identity in Turkey since the early republican era. For this purpose, from the 1920s to the 2000s, policies and discourses of system integration aiming at a certain degree of ethnic homogenization to eliminate ‘possible threats’ to territorial integrity and national unity are discussed in detail. While system integration processes reflect an exclusionary and assimilative-securitist logic of state practices regarding the Kurdish question, this article argues that the Kurdish challenge to republicanism and to its system integration logic promises more for the dynamics of social integration. Especially since the 1990s, while processes of system integration are still in force; national, regional and diasporic achievements of Kurdish politics and its call for a democratic transformation of the republic based on decentralist, participatory and multiculturalist values have become much more visible. This new focus on democratic transformation demands more for social integration through internalization of roles as well as through promotion of an active communication between citizens by raising the claims of active participation to social and political spheres as well as by making identity visible in different aspects of socio-cultural life. Degree of social integration and its success vis-à-vis system integration will be decisive in the democratic transformation of Turkey in the future.


2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 592-615 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rüdiger Graf

The notion of “crisis” plays an important role in both the history of the Weimar Republic and the historiography on this period of German history. Modifying Max Horkheimer's famous dictum on the intrinsic connection between capitalism and fascism, one might even say that anyone who does not want to talk about “crisis” should remain silent about Weimar Germany. In the brief period between 1918 and 1933 Germany not only had to cope with the consequences of World War I and the Versailles Treaty, but also it was struck by two severe economic crises. Moreover, strong political forces relentlessly tried to overcome the unpopular democratic political system. After the National Socialists finally succeeded in overthrowing the republic, Weimar came to be conceptualized as the ill-born precursor of National Socialism, as the critical stage of German history before the establishment of a rule of terror that intentionally led into the most devastating war in human history. This perspective on the failure of Germany's first democracy stems largely from the dominance of National Socialism as a negative point of reference in historical as well as public debates in the Federal Republic.


Author(s):  
David Davtyan

The history of the Armenian diplomatic missions in Ukraine and the history of the establishment and formation of bilateral relations of the two post-imperial states for many years did not generate interest among researchers. The article describes the prerequisites for the formation of the Consulate General of the Republic of Armenia in Odessa, the operation periods and the main activities of the institution. One of the main problems that emerged in the years under consideration and require decisions be put off was the question of the evacuation of the Armenian refugees - victims of genocide in the Ottoman Empire, who have found salvation in Odessa, prisoners of war and demobilized officers and soldiers returning from the First World War.


2018 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-195
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Chmielewski ◽  
Maciej Pająk

Recovering after the partition period, the Polish state faced many challenges and one of them definitely was the penitentiary policy. Among the legacies of the period of partition were three different prison systems and different regulations in the field of penitentiary law. The main task of the Polish legislator was to unify the national prison system by taking into account not only the specificity of the existing solutions but also the achievementsof the contemporary penitentiary. The purpose of the paper is to present the history of the organization of the Polish prison system between 1918 and 1939 in more detail. It is necessary to describe the political situation in the Polish lands during the final years of the First World War which significantly influenced the different character of the institutions in the Polish territories.The reflections on the organization of the Polish prisons during the interwar period will be centered around the following issues: taking over prisons by the Polish authorities, systematic unification of the structure of the prison system, prison stratification, the legal status of the prison staff, the education system of prison officers as well as the system of supervision of the execution of prison sentences. The literature on the subject highlights the importance of the international penitentiary congresses for the development of the penitentiary law in the interwar period. The contribution of the Polish delegations to the works of the London, Prague and Berlincongresses was significant. Taking into account the importance of the resolutions of the congresses, the paper will present the participation of Poles in the debates. Research methodology is based on the analysis of normative acts devoted to the organization of the Polish prison system between 1918 and 1939. The following are among the analyzed elements: the decree on the provisional prison regulations of the 8th of February1919, the regulation by the President of the Republic of Poland on the organization of the prison system of the 7th of March 1928, the regulation by the Minister of Justice on the rules and regulations of the prison system of the 20th of June 1931, the regulation by the President of the Republic of Poland on the Prison Guard of the 23rd of August 1932, and the act on the organization of the prisoner system of the 26th of July 1939. Memories ofpersons involved in prison activity and publications pertaining to penitentiary law issues from the interwar period were also used to prepare this article.


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.


2020 ◽  
pp. 65-80
Author(s):  
Magdalena Strąk

The work aims to show a peculiar perspective of looking at photographs taken on the eve of the broadly understood disaster, which is specified in a slightly different way in each of the literary texts (Stefan Chwin’s autobiographical novel Krótka historia pewnego żartu [The brief history of a certain joke], a poem by Ryszard Kapuściński Na wystawie „Fotografia chłopów polskich do 1944 r.” [At an exhibition “The Polish peasants in photographs to 1944”] and Wisława Szymborska’s Fotografia z 11 września [Photograph from September 11]) – as death in a concentration camp, a general concept of the First World War or a terrorist attack. Upcoming tragic events – of which the photographed people are not yet aware – become for the subsequent recipient an inseparable element of reality contained in the frame. For the later observers, privileged with time perspective, the characters captured in the photograph are already victims of the catastrophe, which in reality was not yet recorded by the camera. It is a work about coexistence of the past and future in the field of photography.


2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mbuzeni Mathenjwa

The history of local government in South Africa dates back to a time during the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910. With regard to the status of local government, the Union of South Africa Act placed local government under the jurisdiction of the provinces. The status of local government was not changed by the formation of the Republic of South Africa in 1961 because local government was placed under the further jurisdiction of the provinces. Local government was enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa arguably for the first time in 1993. Under the interim Constitution local government was rendered autonomous and empowered to regulate its affairs. Local government was further enshrined in the final Constitution of 1996, which commenced on 4 February 1997. The Constitution refers to local government together with the national and provincial governments as spheres of government which are distinctive, interdependent and interrelated. This article discusses the autonomy of local government under the 1996 Constitution. This it does by analysing case law on the evolution of the status of local government. The discussion on the powers and functions of local government explains the scheme by which government powers are allocated, where the 1996 Constitution distributes powers to the different spheres of government. Finally, a conclusion is drawn on the legal status of local government within the new constitutional dispensation.


Author(s):  
Elena A. Kosovan ◽  

The paper provides a review on the joint Russian-Belarusian tutorial “History of the Great Patriotic War. Essays on the Shared History” published for the 75th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War. The tutorial was prepared within the project “Belarus and Russia. Essays on the Shared History”, implemented since 2018 and aimed at publishing a series of tutorials, which authors are major Russian and Belarusian historians, archivists, teachers, and other specialists in human sciences. From the author’s point of view, the joint work of specialists from the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus in such a format not only contributes to the deepening of humanitarian integration within the Union state, but also to the formation of a common educational system on the scale of the Commonwealth of Independent States or the Eurasian integration project (Eurasian Economic Union – EEU). The author emphasises the high research and educational significance of the publication reviewed when noting that the teaching of history in general and the history of the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War in particular in post-Soviet schools and institutes of higher education is complicated by many different issues and challenges (including external ones, which can be regarded as information aggression by various extra-regional actors).


Author(s):  
Felix S. Kireev

Boris Alexandrovich Galaev is known as an outstanding composer, folklorist, conductor, educator, musical and public figure. He has a great merit in the development of musical culture in South Ossetia. All the musical activity of B.A. Galaev is studied and analyzed in detail. In most of the biographies of B.A. Galaev about his participation in the First World War, there is only one proposal that he served in the army and was a bandmaster. For the first time in historiography the participation of B.A. Galaev is analyzed, and it is found out what positions he held, what awards he received, in which battles he participated. Based on the identified documentary sources, for the first time in historiography, it occured that B.A. Galaev was an active participant in the First World War on the Caucasian Front. He went on attacks, both on foot and horse formation, was in reconnaissance, maintained communication between units, received military awards. During this period, he did not have time to study his favorite music, since, according to the documents, he was constantly at the front, in the battle formations of the advanced units. He had to forget all this heroic past and tried not to mention it ever after. Therefore, this period of his life was not studied by the researchers of his biography. For writing this work, the author uses the Highest Orders on the Ranks of the Military and the materials of the Russian State Military Historical Archive (RSMHA).


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