Catherine II’s Anglophilia and Lord Cathcart’s “Extraordinary Embassy” in St. Petersburg, 1768–1772

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 224-244
Author(s):  
Elena Borisovna Smilianskaia
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
The West ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Peculiar Character ◽  
British Culture

Looking at eighteenth-century relations between Russia and the West through the prism of diplomatic culture and rituals, this article concentrates on a “happy period” in Anglo-Russian contacts in 1768–1772, when Sir Charles Cathcart was dispatched to St. Petersburg to negotiate a treaty between the British and Russian Empires. The article argues that close relations between Great Britain and Russia at that time influenced ceremonial practices, individual contacts, and the transfer of the British culture to the Russian court. Study of the Cathcart’s archive points to the peculiar character of his mission – to the leading role that he, as British ambassador, played among diplomats in Russia; to the role of his wife, who became the first ambassadrice officially presented to Catherine ii; to their residence, which they transformed into an exemplar of “British taste” in St. Petersburg. The Cathcart case study opens up new perspectives on the diplomats in the Age of the Enlightenment.

Memorialising Anson, the fighting explorer: a case study in eighteenth-century naval commemoration and material culture

2019 ◽  
pp. 133-150
Author(s):  
Katherine Parker
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
British Culture

An informative example of the conscious act of naval hero-making are the commemorative medals struck in 1768 by the brother of George Anson. Anson had died in 1762, so these medals were not only a memorial to his life, but also a deliberate attempt to control his legacy. What the medals include, and omit, offers a fascinating opportunity to examine what some thought worthy of commemoration in eighteenth-century British culture. This chapter uses the medals as a prism through which to examine the interconnections between naval careers, material culture, and the process of commemoration. In addition, the paper offers a revaluation of the historiographical role of exploration in the eighteenth century and re-positions exploration as an explicitly naval activity in the British context.

Improving public housing policies that target low-income households: The value of adding proximity to discretion

2021 ◽  
pp. 239965442110411
Author(s):  
Lauro Gonzalez ◽  
Fernanda Lima-Silva ◽  
Marlei Pozzebon
Keyword(s):  
Public Housing ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Implementation Process ◽  
Positive Influence ◽  
Housing Policies ◽  
Collective Case Study ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Leading Role

Research on street-level bureaucrats has examined the various ways in which these professionals have implemented public policies in areas such as healthcare, education, and security, often emphasizing the role played by discretion in the implementation process. Despite its importance, the concept of street-level bureaucracy has scarcely been approached by housing studies. This study focuses on the role of street-level workers in the delivery of public housing to the lower-income population. We affirm the value of complementing street-level discretion with the concept of proximity, a premise borrowed from the microfinance literature, to increase the understanding of the interactions and relationships established between street-level workers and policy recipients during the implementation process. Such complementarity may contribute to a more accurate understanding of the housing policy implementation dynamics on the street-level and the possible adjustments to meet local needs. To explore this issue, we used a theoretical lens inspired by Goffman’s frame analysis that points to the importance of relational mechanisms that characterize the interactions between street-level workers and beneficiaries. These lenses were applied to a collective case study of Minha Casa Minha Vida-Entidades, a Brazilian subprogram in which street-level workers linked to social housing movements assume a leading role in the planning and execution of interventions. The results indicate that the combination of proximity and discretion has a positive influence on the implementation of housing policies. Our analysis shows the existence of nonprofit-oriented arrangements that may present different features and nuances at the implementation (micro) level and contribute to the (macro) debate on housing policies.

scholarly journals Revisiting the Organic Template Model through the Microstructural Study of Shell Development in Pinctada margaritifera, the Polynesian Pearl Oyster

Minerals ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Pierre Cuif ◽  
Yannicke Dauphin ◽  
Gilles Luquet ◽  
Kadda Medjoubi ◽  
Andrea Somogyi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Pearl Oyster ◽  
Nacreous Layer ◽  
Prismatic Layer ◽  
Pinctada Margaritifera ◽  
Microstructural Study ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Complex Process ◽  
Gathering Data

A top-down approach to the mineralized structures and developmental steps that can be separated in the shells of Pinctada margaritifera was carried out. Detailed characterizations show that each of the two major layers usually taken into account (the outer prismatic layer and the inner nacreous layer) is actually the result of a complex process during which the microstructural patterns were progressively established. From its early growing stages in the deeper part of the periostracal grove up to the formation of the most inner nacreous layers, this species provides a demonstrative case study illustrating the leading role of specifically secreted organic structures as determinants of the crystallographic properties of the shell-building units. Gathering data established at various observational scales ranging from morphology to the nanometer level, this study allows for a reexamination of the recent and current biomineralization models.

Sport and the Imperial Bond: The 1911 ‘All-India’ Cricket Tour of Great Britain

2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 261-285
Author(s):  
Prashant Kidambi
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
Key Points ◽  
Princely State ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Summary This article explores the interplay of sport, politics and public diplomacy through a case study of the first ‘Indian’ cricket tour of Great Britain in 1911, an extraordinary venture peopled by an improbable cast of characters. Led by the young Maharaja Bhupindar Singh, the newly enthroned ruler of the princely state of Patiala, the team contained in its ranks cricketers who were drawn from different Indian regions and religious communities. The article examines the politics of this intriguing cricket tour against a wider backdrop of changing Indo-British relations and makes three key points. First, it suggests that the processes of ‘imperial globalization’ that were presided over by the British in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries marked an important epoch in the evolving relationship between sport and diplomacy. In particular, it highlights the role of sporting tours as instruments of public diplomacy in the age of empire. Second, it shows how the organization of the 1911 tour reflected the workings of a trans-national ‘imperial class regime’ that had developed around cricket in colonial India from the late nineteenth century onwards. Finally, the article considers the symbolic significance that came to be attached to the tour, both in imperial Britain and in colonial India.

scholarly journals CULTURE FACTOR IN THE POLICY OF THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-71
Author(s):  
Marina Kameneva ◽  
Elena Paymakova
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Policy ◽  
Islamic Republic ◽  
The West ◽  
The Public ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
The World ◽  
Public Consciousness ◽  
Islamic Republic Of Iran ◽  
Cultural Expansion

The article notes that the theme of culture and cultural policy for modern Iran is not a marginal issue. Culture is seen by the country’s leadership as an important component of its state political and ideological doctrine. There is analyzed the role of the Islamic factor and cultural heritage in the cultural policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran over four decades of its existence. Particular attention is paid to the role of the theory of the dialogue of civilizations proposed by M. Khatami as well as to the changing attitude towards it in the public consciousness of Iranian society. It is emphasized that the theme of “Iran and the West” is becoming particularly acute in the country today, contributing to its politicization. An attempt is being made to show that Iranian culture is increasingly becoming an important factor in the foreign policy activities of the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran, contributing to the strengthening of the country’s position in the world arena as a whole and the country’s leading role in the region, the realization of the idea of exporting the Islamic Revolution and implementing Iranian cultural expansion outside the country.

scholarly journals Between gentrification and reurbanisation: The participatory dimension of bottom-up regeneration in Gdańsk, Poland

Geografie ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 120 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maja Grabkowska
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Inner City ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Transformation Processes ◽  
Careful Investigation

Urban regeneration has become a key issue in the development of contemporary cities. The paper discusses bottom-up regeneration practices performed by inhabitants of a decaying inner-city neighbourhood under post-socialist conditions, which differ notably from the widely researched Western European context. Results of a qualitative study in Wrzeszcz Dolny, Gdańsk, have indicated the leading role of newcomers to the area in animating bottom-up regeneration efforts, which in turn translate into an activation and integration of the local community. Thus, it is argued that an in-migration into the inner city, usually interpreted as gentrification, does not necessarily generate losses for the indigenous inhabitants but can also bring a desired social change and significantly contribute to the building of inclusive civil society. The presented case study therefore signals the need for a careful investigation and precise labelling of the post-socialist inner-city transformation processes, as well as demonstrates how increasing participation might be employed as the potential antidote to ills associated with gentrification.

Russian Enlightenment as a Source of National Philosophy Formation

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2-1) ◽  
pp. 213-236
Author(s):  
Ivan Kokovin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Analytical Description ◽  
Russian Philosophy ◽  
The West ◽  
Xviii Century ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Russian Soil ◽  
Cultural Origins ◽  
Philosophical Understanding

The study is devoted to the philosophical understanding of the problem of the cultural origins of Russian philosophy. In the author’s opinion, the source of diversity of modern approaches to the phenomenon of Russian Philosophy is, first of all, the absence of a unified methodological approach. The diversity of research on the phenomenon of the Russian philosophy origins is also a consequence of research susceptibility to certain methodological influences. The paper aims to identify a number of philosophical, historical, literary approaches to the problem of the genesis of the eighteenth century Russian Enlightenment. It is necessary to clarify the mechanisms and procedures for the reception of Western European ideas and concepts by Russian Enlightenment during the eighteenth century. On the basis of adaptation of natural law terms, the author considers certain trends in the theory of reconstruction of the Enlightenment phenomenon in Russia. He reveals a number of significant features of the process of reconstruction of the Enlightenment ideology formation on Russian soil, including the idea that European concepts and theories are assimilated by the domestic semiosphere in the form in which they existed in the culture of the West. The author highlights the idea, that researchers were convinced that Russia of the XVIII century already had a national philosophy. The paper also draws attention to the lack of analytical interest in the problems of transformation of the language of expression of political phenomena. In the same row, there is also the idea that the process of reception of the enlightenment heritage of the West had a revolutionary, not an evolutionary, specificity, and was devoid of cultural prerequisites. Basing on the material of historical and historical-philosophical studies, the author considers the possibilities of constructing a methodologically integral reconstruction, chronologically covering the entire period of the XVIII century. The research methodology is based on the approach that includes an analytical description of the problems of the thematic fields of discourse, concepts and theories of the Enlightenment on the Russian soil. The result of the analysis is the systematization of contradictions in the process of analyzing the phenomena of the Russian Enlightenment in the XVIII century.

A ‘milky mass’ and ‘uniform material’: white marble in eighteenth-century French discourses on sculpture and geology

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-225
Author(s):  
Marthe Kretzschmar
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Grain Size ◽  
Denis Diderot ◽  
Art Theory ◽  
White Marble ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Earth ◽  
History Of ◽  
Interdisciplinary Network

Knowledge of the materiality of stone during the Enlightenment expanded following the exploration of mineralogical structure, to alter ideas about taxonomy and challenge the role of rocks in the history of the earth. Close studies of the material of marble sculpture generated expertise on grain size, surface varieties and stone deposits. This mode of reception became intertwined with contemporary controversies about the age of the earth. This article focuses on both French sculpture and geological discourses of the eighteenth century to reveal an international and interdisciplinary network centring on protagonists such as Denis Diderot, Paul-Henri Thiry d’Holbach and Étienne-Maurice Falconet; through these figures, debates can be connected concerning both geology and art theory. Within these contexts, the article discusses the translation processes between these artistic and geological interests.

Shintō Shrines and Secularism in Modern Japan, 1890–1945

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 128-156
Author(s):  
Karli Shimizu
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The West ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Secular Institution ◽  
The Government ◽  
Academic Discourses

From the late eighteenth century to WWII, shrine Shintō came to be seen as a secular institution by the government, academics, and activists in Japan (Isomae 2014; Josephson 2012, Maxey 2014). However, research thus far has largely focused on the political and academic discourses surrounding the development of this idea. This article contributes to this discussion by examining how a prominent modern Shintō shrine, Kashihara Jingū founded in 1890, was conceived of and treated as secular. It also explores how Kashihara Jingū communicated an alternate sense of space and time in line with a new Japanese secularity. This Shintō-based secularity, which located shrines as public, historical, and modern, was formulated in antagonism to the West and had an influence that extended across the Japanese sphere. The shrine also serves as a case study of how the modern political system of secularism functioned in a non-western nation-state.

Because they are Genghis Khan’s Descendants: The Involvement of the Giray Dynasty in Tax Farming and Allocations of Timars in Eighteenth-Century Serfice

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 278-321
Author(s):  
Dimitrios K. Lamprakis
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Tax Farming ◽  
Efficient Power ◽  
The Town

The Ottoman eighteenth century is a period of decentralisation dominated by the emergence of peripheral semi-autonomous lords. This period is also marked by the spread of tax farming (iltizam), especially lifelong malikane contracts. This article is a case study of these two phenomena, through examination of the activities of minor/secondary notables in a remote corner of Ottoman Macedonia, namely the town of Serfice (today Servia, in Greek Macedonia), their relationship with the Giray dynasty ruling over the Tatar khanate of Crimea, who were in their own right the traditional patrimonial beneficiaries of the hasses of Serfice, and the role of the Ottoman administration operating as an efficient power broker. It also examines the role of the Giray dynasty in bestowals of timar grants on beneficiaries, in an era in which the timar system is described in the available bibliography as either moribund or completely defunct.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document