World War I and the Italian International Law Scholars

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-48
Author(s):  
Giulio Bartolini
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Law ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
World War ◽  
Centennial Anniversary ◽  
The Government ◽  
Italian Context

Abstract The centennial anniversary of World War I has generated renewed interest in the complex relationship between this event, international law and its community of scholars. In this regard the largely unexplored Italian context may represent a stimulating source of material from the point of view of both contemporary scholarly debate and current research, as Italy was one of the leading states involved in the conflict and boasts a vibrant and influential community of scholars of international law. As a result this article will focus on the shifting and active role played by Italian scholars in relation to the conflict, not only in their traditional academic and scientific activities, but also through their involvement in public debate, propaganda activities, contributions to newspapers and non-specialized journals, as well as their support to the Government.

scholarly journals The “Class Ration” and Food Reserves during the Civil War

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikhail Khodyakov
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
World War I ◽  
Food Distribution ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
Industrial Workers ◽  
World War ◽  
Russian State ◽  
The Government ◽  
Food Reserves

This article examines the evolution of the system of rationed food supplies in Russia. The author focuses on specific forms of food distribution during the Civil War, such as “class rations” and food reserves. At the same time, it is emphasised that a rationing system was already in effect in Russia during World War I, and the practice of fixing prices for bread and providing special food norms for certain categories of workers had begun taking shape long before the Bolsheviks came to power. Describing the introduction in 1918 of the “class ration” in Petrograd, the author proposes that the initiative was largely due to the authorities’ attempts to mitigate the growing crisis between the Bolsheviks and some industrial workers. Although the “class ration” dominated among the principles of food distribution, its economic importance should not be overestimated – even the deprivation of the “exploiters” of food could not significantly improve the nutrition of the working population. From this point of view, the introduction of “class rations” only had political significance. In most cases, the local food authorities failed to develop clear criteria to categorise the population. Using documents from the Russian State Archive of the Economy, the author demonstrates that the idea of “class rations” was developed after the establishment in November 1919 of a special commission for the supply of workers at the People’s Commissariat of Food Industry. The formation of the commission was a consequence of policies meant to centralise all aspects of life in Soviet society. Having received emergency powers from the government in supplying the population with food, the commission formed monthly lists of plants and factories and determined groups of enterprises in various sectors of the economy. As a matter of priority, the reservation of food supplies was made to provide workers. However, the norms of state supply were not always implemented and were significantly lower than the needs of the population. The idea of “class rations” was rejected only after the adoption of a decree on 30 April 1920, which declared the transition to a new form of incentives for workers, labour rations.

Karikatur als Kriegsdienst: Aby Warburgs »neuer Stil zwischen Wort und Bild«, 1914–1918

2021 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-95
Author(s):  
Dorothea McEwan
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
World War I ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Active Role ◽  
World War ◽  
Early Stages ◽  
War Effort ◽  
War Propaganda

Abstract This article attempts to throw a light on Warburg’s little-known engagement in political caricature during World War I. Though deemed unfit for military service, Warburg was eager to contribute to the German war effort. Perceiving Allied war propaganda as anti-German lies, he recorded what he considered its half-truths and falsehoods in his Kriegskartothek, or war archive. But Warburg, as indicated by his involvement with the short-lived La Guerra del 1914: Rivista illustrata in the early stages of the war, kept looking for a more active role in influencing public opinion: From privately commenting on the output of the Allied press, he went on to offering his own ideas for political caricatures to leading artists like Olaf Gulbransson and Max Slevogt, and to well-established satirical journals such as Simplicissimus and Kladderadatsch.

The Government of War

2014 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 791-793
Author(s):  
Dina Rizk Khoury
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
World War I ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
State System ◽  
World War ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Security Services ◽  
Short Piece ◽  
The Government

I write this piece as Iraq, following Syria, descends into a civil war that is undermining the post–World War I state system and reconfiguring regional and transnational networks of mobilization and instrumentalizations of violence and identity formation. That the Middle East has come to this moment is not an inevitable product of the artificiality of national borders and the precariousness of the state system. It is important to avoid this linear narrative of inevitability, with its attendant formulations of the Middle East as a repository of a large number of absences, and instead to locate the current wars in a specific historical time: the late and post–Cold War eras, marked by the agendas of the Washington Consensus and the globalization of neoliberal discourses; the privatization of the developmental and welfare state; the institutional devolution and multiplication of security services; and the entrenchment of new forms of colonial violence and rule in Israel and Palestine and on a global scale. The conveners of this roundtable have asked us to reflect on the technopolitics of war in the context of this particular moment and in light of the pervasiveness of new governmentalities of war. What I will do in this short piece is reflect on the heuristic and methodological possibilities of the study of war as a form of governance, or what I call the “government of war,” in light of my own research and writing on Iraq.

scholarly journals ‘‘Human soul is destroyed by war...’’: written sources of World War I period as a resource for gender-oriented history of emotions

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 246-277
Author(s):  
Olga V Churakova
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Female Students ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Historical Anthropology ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of Emotions ◽  
Women's Press ◽  
History Of ◽  
Peasant Women ◽  
Written Sources

The article analyzes the problems and prospects of using written sources of World War I period for a gender studies approach to Russia’s past, in line with the history of emotions in cultural-historical anthropology. The terms “emotions” and “feelings” are viewed as synonyms. The article states that what the historian encounters in the sources is mostly an emotional state or mood (personal or collective) as well as experiences, passions or sensations, rather than “pure” emotions and feelings. The corpus of “gender-marked” written sources of the 1914-1918 period is huge and varied, and includes materials from archives, collections of party commissions, published memoirs, letters, diaries, the women’s press, as well as profile documents (“self-census”) of female students. However, these sources unevenly reflect the feelings and the emotional background of the era. Following the conceptual framework developed by Barbara Rosenwein, we can speak of several emotional communities defined by the social affiliation and the “audibility” of the particular voices in history, i.e. the representativeness of the sources. The first category of emotional communities comprises the women of the Romanov family and noblewomen more broadly. Russian and foreign archives boast extensive collections of their personal documents. The second category includes “frontovichky” - frontline women-soldiers. Urban women belong to a third category, and are represented by memory-based stories, the women’s press, female students’ profiles, and documents from regional archives. From the point of view of emotions, the biggest yet least represented community were peasant women. While their everyday life and values have been well researched, only very few notes and diaries from their hands have survived. Letters to the front were partially preserved (esp. those intercepted by the authorities) and are now stored in the State Archive of the Russian Federation). For the identification of the psychological matrix of the era it is crucial to use the full set of these sources.

scholarly journals The Politics of Russian Memory: The Great War in the European Context

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 216-235
Author(s):  
Olga S. Porshneva
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Central Committee ◽  
Great War ◽  
World War ◽  
Politics Of Memory ◽  
Red Army ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Masses ◽  
The Great War

This article examines how the historical memory of World War I emerged and developed in Russia, and also compares it to how Europeans have thought about the conflict. The author argues that the politics of memory differed during the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. In the wake of the 1917 Revolution, Bolshevik efforts to re-format the memory of the Great War were part of its attempt to create a new society and new man. At the same time, the regime used it to mobilize society for the impending conflict with the 'imperialist' powers. The key actors that sought to inculcate the notion of the war with imperialism into Soviet mass consciousness were the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Communist Party, the Department of Agitation and Propaganda, and, in particular, the Red Army and Comintern. The latter two worked together to organize the major campaigns dedicated to war anniversaries, which were important both to reinforce the concept of imperialist war as well as to involve the masses in public commemorations, rituals and practices. The Soviet state also relied on organizations of war veterans to promote such commemorative practices while suppressing any alternative narratives. The article goes on to explain how, under Stalin, the government began to change the way it portrayed the Great War in the mid-1930s. And after the Second World War, Soviet politics of memory differed greatly from those in the West. In the USSR the Great Patriotic War was sacralized, while the earlier conflict remained a symbol of unjust imperialist wars.

scholarly journals Constitutional law and international law at the turn of the century

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
JA Frowein
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
International Law ◽  
Constitutional Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Strong Impact ◽  
World War ◽  
Constitutional Courts ◽  
Constitution Making

Constitutional law and international law operate in simultaneous conjunction and reciprocal tension. Both fields seem to have overcome the great challenges of destruction and neglect in the course of the 20th century. Both after World War I and World War II the world experienced new waves of constitution making. In both cases the current German constitutions (the Weimar Constitution of 1919 and the Grundgesetz of 1949) were influential. Characteristic of constitution-making in this century, is the final victory of liberal constitutions based on the rule of law, the Rechtsstaat, fundamental rights, meaningful control of public powers and the establishment of constitutional courts. Following the destruction of World War II, the notion of the Sozialstaat emerged strongly in Germany. In contrast to the Constitution of the United States of America, the principle of the responsibility of the state for social justice has emerged in almost all new constitutions, including Russia, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Italy and Portugal. Where courts are given the mandate to interpret bills of rights, fundamental rights have been developed into foundation stones of the legal system. The presence in a Bill of Rights of restrictive clauses, is important for its analysis. Generally restrictive clauses in new constitutions try to limit the possibilities of restriction. The importance of constitutional rules establishing and legitimizing the political organs, must not be overlooked. Of particular importance is the degree of control over the head of state, a positive attitude among political actors towards the constitution and the protection of the interests of minorities in a democratic system. In the field of Public International Law much of Kant's ideal of an international confederation of peace has been realized. Since 1990 the United Nation's Security Council has shown the potential of becoming a directorate for the community ofnations. International law has also been instrumental in the worldwide recognition of human rights. Especially in Europe, Convention Law has had a strong impact. Furthermore, global and regional systems of regulation have tended to alter the legal attitude towards state sovereignty. It may be that the South African constitutional approach in terms of which international law is subject to constitutional and other national law, is not in line with international tendencies.

scholarly journals International Recognition and the International Law Status of Poland in the 20th Century

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-48
Author(s):  
Elżbieta Dynia
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
International Law ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
World War ◽  
The Third ◽  
International Recognition ◽  
The Status

The article concerns international recognition of the Polish state established after World War I in the year 1918, the Polish state and the status of Poland in terms of international law during World War II and after its conclusion until the birth of the Third Polish Republic in the year 1989. A study of related issues confirmed the thesis of the identity and continuity of the Polish state by international law since the year 1918, as solidified in Polish international law teachings, and showed that the Third Polish Republic is, under international law, not a new state, but a continuation of both the Second Polish Republic as well as the People’s Republic of Poland.

The Influence of Utopian Projects on the Interpretation of International Law and the Healthy Myth of Objectivity

2018 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 515-538
Author(s):  
Severin Meier
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Law ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Social Darwinism ◽  
Legal Interpretation ◽  
World War ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Critical Legal Theory ◽  
State Consent

Social Darwinism as a utopian project had a decisive influence on the interpretation of the ius ad bellum before World War I. This contribution tries, among others, to draw parallels to the way today’s utopian visions of democracy and the rule of law affect international law. Approaches to legal interpretation influenced by critical legal theory are used to explain how such extra-legal considerations can play a role in the interpretation of international legal norms. Such approaches maintain that international law cannot be objective, i.e. simultaneously based on State consent and on extra-consensual standards. The article further asks how international law should be understood if it cannot be objective. In other words, it discusses the practical consequences if international law has to rely on extra-legal considerations, such as the belief in Social Darwinism or the desire to spread democracy, in order to reach solutions to legal problems. It is argued that upholding the belief in international law’s objectivity is preferable to its alternatives.

The Pyrrhic Victories of the 1920s

2020 ◽  
pp. 124-141
Author(s):  
Einar Lie
Keyword(s):  
Strong Support ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Parliamentary Election ◽  
World War ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Government ◽  
First World

This chapter describes Norges Bank in the 1920s. Following the chaotic years during and after the First World War, politics ceded the economic realm to institutional technocrats, represented especially by the governor of Norges Bank, Nicolai Rygg. Rygg started out with strong support from the political and intellectual milieus in his programme for restoring the pre-war value of the krone. Gradually, the support eroded. The growing labour movement and Labour Party came to represent the most important threat to Norges Bank’s policies in its final stage. Labour came out as the winner of the parliamentary election in 1927 and formed a new, short-lived government in early 1928. When the government was overthrown after a few weeks in office, the parity policy could be completed and ‘normalcy’ restored. However, Rygg and Norges Bank won a costly victory. In the aftermath, the parity policy was mainly seen as erroneous and misguided. Rygg’s active role in overthrowing the Labour government in 1928 became a formative element in the labour movement’s perceptions of Norges Bank’s and its governor’s past and future role in Norwegian society.

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