16 Administrators’ Time: The Social Memory of the Early Medieval State, East and West

2014 ◽  
pp. 430-467
Mediaevistik ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 370-372
Author(s):  
Bernard S. Bachrach

In 1988 Walter Goffart demonstrated conclusively that the authors of early medieval narrative texts had to be taken seriously as people of intellectual substance capable of sustaining sophisticated arguments. Their works, Goffart warns us, were not to be treated, as previously had been the case, as mere naive receptecals of fact and fantasy to be plundered by historians in search of accurate information. In the wake of Goffart’s work, it has become a cliché that text must be treated as text before it is treated as evidence if, in fact, it ever is to be used for the latter purpose. In the generation that has passed since Goffart’s paradigm has taken hold it is rare to find anyone who will read early medieval narrative works, such as those of Gregory of Tours (d. 594), as plain text.


2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (06) ◽  
pp. 19-34
Author(s):  
Luis Mauricio Escalante Solís ◽  
Carlos David Carrillo Trujillo

Las sociedades comparten un serie de formas a través de las cuales se pueden identificar, conocerse y re-conocerse, sin hacer mucho caso a la especificidad, latitud o cultura que las caracterizan y las unen. Lo primero que comparten es una memoria social, entendida como un significado compartido por los miembros que lo conforman, sin importar su veracidad o autenticidad. El recuerdo es necesario para mantener unido a los integrantes de un grupo, es por ello que se manifiesta constante e intermitentemente en el transcurso de la existencia del grupo social, se vuelve un significado adoptado por dicho colectivo que debe ser manifiesto en las actividades y la cotidianidad.El presente trabajo describe y analiza tres prácticas sociales de conmemoración denominadas alternativas que se realizan en países latinoamericanos (Argentina, Chile y México), se fundamentan sus orígenes, causas sociales y formas de organización, así como sus acciones principales. El eje rector que unifica a estas tres prácticas conmemorativas es el hecho de que reivindican la lucha social y ejemplifican mecanismos contrahegemónicos de demanda social, antes las falencias, omisiones y acciones del Estado. El estudio y el análisis de las conmemoraciones abren la posibilidad de entender distintos usos del pasado. Los eventos históricos construyen un relato que otorga identidad y sentimiento de unidad. Sin embargo, recuperar el pasado a través de la conmemoración no elimina el surgimiento de grupos contrahegemónicos que proponen una reflexión crítica sobre lo sucedido. The societies share a number of ways through which they can identify and meet. However, often irrelevant specifics of culture. It is much more important social memory. Social memory is something that is shared by members of a group regardless of their veracity or authenticity. The memory is needed to hold together the members of a group. Therefore, the memory becomes a meaning adopted by the collective manifested in everyday activities.This paper describes and analyzes three social practices of commemoration taking place in Latin American countries (Argentina, Chile and Mexico), describing their origins, social causes, forms of organization and main actions. The guiding principle that unifies these three commemorative practices is claimed that exemplify the social struggle and counter-hegemonic mechanisms of social demand, given the failures, omissions and actions of the state. The study and analysis of the commemorations open the possibility of understanding different uses of the past. Historical events construct a story that gives identity and togetherness. However, recovering the past, through the commemoration does not eliminate the emergence of counter-hegemonic groups that propose a critical reflection about what happened.


1966 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 82-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. A. Bullough

Prefatory Note.—My interest in Pavia goes back at least to 1951 when I was elected Rome Scholar in Medieval Studies. I began seriously to collect material for the history of the city in the early Middle Ages in the winter and spring of 1953 when I enjoyed the warm hospitality of the Collegio Ghislieri, thanks to the efforts made on my behalf by the late Hugh Last, to whose memory this article is dedicated. The published proceedings of the Reichenau and Spoleto congresses on ‘The early medieval town’ in the 1950s clearly underlined the need for detailed studies of particular towns; but the lack of adequate archaeological evidence discouraged me from attempting such a study of early medieval Pavia. In 1964, however, Dr. A. Peroni, Director of the Museo Civico invited me to read a supplementary paper on this topic to the Convegno di Studio sul Centro Storico di Pavia held in the Università degli Studi at Pavia on July 4th and 5th of that year. The present article is an amplified and corrected version of that paper: I have made no substantial alterations to my account of the ‘urbanistica’ of early medieval Pavia—written for an audience of architects and art-historians as well as of historians—but have dealt more fully with the social history of the city in this period. Professor Richard Krautheimer read a draft of the revised version and made some pointed and helpful comments. I am greatly indebted to Dr. Peroni, not merely for the invitation to present the original paper but also for supplying illustrations and answering queries at a time when he and his staff were engaged in helping to repair the ravages of the Florence floods.


2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (33A) ◽  
pp. 4
Author(s):  
Oleg Perov

This article presents the analysis of the main ideas which are reflected in M. Veller’s novel The Great Last Chance. This is not only a reception of a definite country, a version of her historical way, the demonstration of cultural peculiarities, the own code of civilization, people’s traditions and faith, but also an original author’s view on the process of self-identification and logical result, i.e., the national myths and ideas. The main intention is to negotiate, refute many national myths: about complicated and bloody history; about laziness and hard drinking; about the opposition of East and West; about the peace-loving nation; about the underestimation from the other world. The author asserts that the Russian national idea is not liberal: the main basis is a national self-identification, the main traits are social justice and retribution for guilty. The main problems of the country are located in a definite range: from the global to the local (stealing, corruption, negative information field). The principal way to solve these problems is to aspirate to the social justice, labour, and creative works.


2021 ◽  
pp. 282-298
Author(s):  
Mikhail B. Sverdlov ◽  

The author studies the history of the judicial natural and money forfeit for the criminal offence, moral and social content of this criminal offence in the late tribal Slavic society and in early medieval Russian state the context of the history of the Pravda Russkaya’s content. He analyzes the content of the social and legal policy during the rule of Grand Prince Vladimir Monomakh in Kiev or the rule of his son Mstislav. Probably at that time the Vast Pravda Russkaya was issued. It made judicial rights secured of all social strata including women, children, poor men on the principles of social justice and the Evangel. It kept old human tradition of the money forfeit for a crime instead of to cut off any limb or to execute as in Byzantine and in medieval vest European countries.


Author(s):  
Lucianna Benincasa

In this qualitative study of school discourse on national day commemorations, focus is on the "social creativity strategies" through which group members can improve their social identity. Discourse analysis was carried out on thirty-nine teachers' speeches delivered in Greek schools between 1998 and 2004. The speakers scorn rationality and logic, stereotypically attributed to "the West" (a "West" which is perceived not to include Greece), as cold and not human. The Greeks' successful national struggles are presented instead as the result of irrationality. They claim irrationality to be the most human and thus the most valuable quality, which places Greece first in the world hierarchy. The results are further discussed in terms of their implications for learning and teaching in the classroom, as well as for policy and research.


2021 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 417-452

Abstract The present paper analyses the precious metal artefacts, scarcely known in the huge archaeological material of the “late Avar period” (eighth to early ninth centuries AD). Unlike in the previous era the majority of the gold and silver objects of the late Avar period are stray finds; in particular high-quality goldsmith's artefacts are absent in the grave assemblages of the eighth century. The significance of precious metal objects in grave assemblages reached its low ebb around the middle of the late Avar period; afterwards not only new object types appeared but a new grave-horizon emerged comprising precious metal objects. This paper, based on the quality and morphology of the objects, their archaeological contexts as well as their spatial distribution, draws a conclusion concerning the social and cultural changes in the early medieval Carpathian Basin.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-78
Author(s):  
Tadeusz Paleczny

Cultural Heritage of Local Communities in Oral History. The Base of Constructing the Social Memory  Local communities construct their own cultural heritage on the base of speaking traditions means as oral history. Each small community protects its own set of symbols and elements of tradition, including belief, dialect and private stories and anecdotes. The oral history performs a function of a part of social memory and sustains close social bonds among members of small communities. The article concerns the oral history’s role in preserving the cultural identity of small local communities.


2018 ◽  
pp. 135-152
Author(s):  
Holly Case

This chapter examines the federative argument, according to which the erasure of boundaries was the shared ideal of the age of questions. It first considers the Jewish question as an international problem requiring a universal solution before discussing how the social and European questions followed a trajectory from indefinite to definite, as did the solutions to those and other questions. It then explains how the notion of a European question was preceded by a rhetorical bundling of emergent questions, and goes on to analyze the concern expressed by many nineteenth-century querists that unresolved questions threatened the precarious unity of “Europe” itself, along with their argument that there should be a unified European response, the creation of a true and unified European field of action. The chapter also explores the idea of federation as a solution that provides equilibrium between geopolitical and social questions, and between East and West.


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