scholarly journals Tibetan Objects in the Náprstek Museum

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 65-78
Author(s):  
Helena Heroldová

Abstract The Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures acquired two hundred items from Tibet in the 1950s: bronze sculptures, paintings and ritual implements. These items came from private collections confiscated after the Second War World according to the presidential decrees dealing with the post-war state reconstruction. Although the administration of the confiscated properties was meticulous, the transfer of items to the Náprstek Museum interrupted the history of ownership and meant the loss of the historical knowledge of its origin. As the result, the Tibet collection in the Náprstek Museum reveals more about the political and social history of post-war Czechoslovakia than about the perception of Tibetan culture in Czechoslovakia during the first half of the 20th century.

2020 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-158
Author(s):  
Gabriela Świtek

The aim of the essay is to delineate the political and artistic contexts of two exhibitions of graphic art from the Federal Republic of Germany held in the Central Bureau of Art Exhibitions, the main state art gallery in Warsaw (1956–1957). The historians consider the year 1956 – similarly to the years 1968 or 1989 – to be an important caesura in the political and social history on the global scale. In the history of modern art in Poland, the year 1956 is also perceived as a period crucial to changes in artistic life (Polish thaw). As the first show of West German artists in post-war Poland, the Exhibition of the Works of Graphic Artists from the Federal Republic of Germany opened in Warsaw on the same day when Nikita Khrushchev delivered his celebrated “Secret Speech” in Moscow (25 February 1956). The exhibition Poster Art in the Federal Republic of Germany was organized in 1957, after the events of the Polish October (1956). The idea to juxtapose art exhibitions with political events of their era follows contemporary reflections on the phenomenon of noncontemporaneity and on the heterogeneous nature of the visual time of art and exhibition histories.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 177-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Morris

This article explores the contingencies shaping a particular moment in post-war British theology, a time when sociological descriptions of contemporary society were given new authority by church leaders and theologians anxious to discover a new way through the challenges facing their churches. Attention focuses on the history of religious sociology in Britain, and on industrial mission, social history, and theological radicalism as they converged in the work of a number of British commentators in the 1950s and 1960s. The article also considers the significance of this development for the theory and historiography of secularisation.


2019 ◽  
pp. 161-190
Author(s):  
Katarina Kolbiarz Chmelinová

In post-WWII Slovakia, art history was available only as a university field of study at Bratislava University (in 1954 regaining its name Comenius University) at the Seminár pre dejiny umenia / Seminar of Art History, a separate part of the Faculty of Arts of the university, where art history had been taught as an independent discipline since 1923 before its conversion to a department. Post-war changes in state structures and the new political system radically affected Slovak society and the education system in the country. This article is the very first attempt to present in detail the extent and character of changes in university art history instruction in the part of the socialist era of the Czechoslovak Republic. It is based on the study and comparison of previously unprocessed sources from various university and state archives and their classification in the context of known historical facts. This contribution represents an in-depth probe into the post-war efforts to build a new university foundation and system of art history instruction in Slovakia within the Czechoslovak Republic, and its Sovietization as well. The text analyzes the university environment, the curriculum, the study program of art history and the relevant changes resulting from political pressure from 1945 to 1960. They were the consequence of two directly related, significant moments in the history of Slovakia: the establishment of the Third Czechoslovak Republic in 1945 and the communist coup in 1948, which was followed by the most totalitarian period in the history of the state. The article also discusses the personal changes in the art history staff forced by the political situation (J. Dubnický, V. Wagner, V. Mencl, A. Güntherová-Mayerová, R. Matuštík, T. Štrauss, K. Kahoun). After a brief presentation of the situation in Czechoslovakia at the time, the article first deals with the ad hoc activities and efforts of scientists seeking to maintain art history studies in Slovakia at the university level immediately after the end of the war. The central issue in the article is the changes in the way of teaching resulting from the political upheaval in February 1948. Against the background of political and social changes, the new law on higher education (Act No. 58/1950), which forces significant organizational transformations, is discussed. As part of the process of Sovietization of university education in Slovakia, the modified Seminar of Art History lost its independent status for a long time, and its staff was largely replaced. At the same time, throughout this period, there was a visible tendency to stabilize the teaching system and attempts to become independent again and to develop discipline, undertaken contrary to the imposed system. The 1950s, with their new rhetoric and propaganda optimism, appear to be a decade devoid of internal consistency. It started the most totalitarian period, which lasted until Stalin’s death in 1953, but was followed by a short thaw and then by a new wave of repression after 1957, which chose victims even at the beginning of the next decade. The article focuses on two sides of the 1950s – centralization and the dominant ideological control of the Communist Party, on one hand, and on the other, the obvious effort to unify and professionalize the teaching of the discipline. The factual material presented here shows the scale of changes interpreted in the context of the political and social changes of that time. The case study provides an analysis of system efforts made in the 1940s and 1950s to establish new principles of university teaching for the history of art in Slovakia as part of the Czechoslovak Republic. It aims to broaden the factual basis and existing overview of knowledge of art history in Slovakia and supplement existing studies on the history of art history in the country (J. Bakoš, I. Ciulisová, B. Koklesová).


Author(s):  
Timur Gimadeev

The article deals with the history of celebrating the Liberation Day in Czechoslovakia organised by the state. Various aspects of the history of the holiday have been considered with the extensive use of audiovisual documents (materials from Czechoslovak newsreels and TV archives), which allowed for a detailed analysis of the propaganda representation of the holiday. As a result, it has been possible to identify the main stages of the historical evolution of the celebrations of Liberation Day, to discover the close interdependence between these stages and the country’s political development. The establishment of the holiday itself — its concept and the military parade as the main ritual — took place in the first post-war years, simultaneously with the consolidation of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia. Later, until the end of the 1960s, the celebrations gradually evolved along the political regime, acquiring new ritual forms (ceremonial meetings, and “guards of memory”). In 1968, at the same time as there was an attempt to rethink the entire socialist regime and the historical experience connected with it, an attempt was made to reconstruct Liberation Day. However, political “normalisation” led to the normalisation of the celebration itself, which played an important role in legitimising the Soviet presence in the country. At this stage, the role of ceremonial meetings and “guards of memory” increased, while inventions released in time for 9 May appeared and “May TV” was specially produced. The fall of the Communist regime in 1989 led to the fall of the concept of Liberation Day on 9 May, resulting in changes of the title, date and paradigm of the holiday, which became Victory Day and has been since celebrated on 8 May.


2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 171-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wung Seok Cha

TheSŭngjŏngwŏn ilgi (Daily Records of the Royal Secretariat)is one of the major chronicles of the events of the Chosŏn Dynasty (1392–1910). Although the records prior to the year 1622 are no longer extant, the remaining records from the years 1623 to 1910 meticulously recount the daily activities of the reigning Chosŏn kings, including copious information on their physical and mental status. Because the king’s health was considered as important as other official affairs in many respects, detailed records were kept of royal ailments and how court doctors treated them. This article surveys the state of Korean-language scholarship on the medical content of theDaily Recordsand presents selected translations to demonstrate how this valuable historical source can shed light on both the social history of Chosŏn medicine and the political importance of kingly health at the Chosŏn court.


Author(s):  
Sean Hanretta

The concept of culture, in the Boasian sense of the learned, variable, and mutable “structures” underlying “the behavior of the individuals composing a social group collectively and individually,” has played an important role in the production of knowledge about many human societies. This chapter examines two moments in the history of the culture concept as applied to West Africa. First, a moment during the process of the concept's formation in the mid-nineteenth century; second, a moment in the 1950s that revealed the political limits of appeals to culture. Juxtaposing the lives of Edward Wilmot Blyden, the father of Pan-Africanism, and the Ghanaian doctor and poet Raphael Armattoe, one of the first Africans nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, the chapter illuminates the diverse networks and shifting political valences that shaped the rise, redemption, and circumscription of the culture concept in Africa from colonialism to neoliberalism.


Author(s):  
John B. Nann ◽  
Morris L. Cohen

This introductory chapter provides an overview of legal history research. An attorney might conduct legal history research if the law at question in a legal dispute is very old: the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights are well over two hundred years old. Historical research also comes into play when the question at issue is what the law was at a certain time in the past. Ultimately, law plays an important part in the political and social history of the United States. As such, researchers interested in almost every aspect of American life will have occasion to use legal materials. The chapter then describes the U.S. legal system and legal authority, and offers six points to consider in approaching a historical legal research project.


Author(s):  
Susan Brewer-Osorio

Coca is deeply interwoven into the political, economic, and social history of Bolivia from the Inca Empire to the 21st-century rise of President Evo Morales Ayma. As such, generations of Bolivians, from powerful hacendados to peasant farmers, have resisted efforts to destroy the coca leaf. Coca is a mild herbal stimulant cultivated and consumed by indigenous Andeans for centuries, and the primary material for making the potent drug cocaine. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Spanish colonizers promoted coca production on large haciendas to supply mining towns, giving rise to a powerful class of coca hacendados that formed part of Bolivia’s ruling oligarchy after independence. In the early 20th century, the coca hacendados shielded coca from international drug control. Following the 1952 Revolution, agrarian unions replaced hacendados as guardians of the coca leaf. The unions formed a powerful social movement led by Evo Morales Ayma, an indigenous leader and coca farmer, against US-led efforts to forcibly eradicate coca. During the 1990s, Morales and his allies created a political party called the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS). In late 2005, Morales was elected president of Bolivia and his new government deployed state power to protect the coca leaf.


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