Rethinking the Place of the Second World War in the Contemporary History of Albania

Südosteuropa ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gentiana Kera
Keyword(s):  
Military History ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
Master Narrative ◽  
World War ◽  
History Writing ◽  
History Of ◽  
Previous State ◽  
Second World ◽  
State Socialist

AbstractThe Second World War in Albania was a central topic of socialist historiography because of the importance laid upon the National Liberation War for the legitimation of the establishment of communist rule in 1944. History writing was a very centralized process, controlled by party institutions responsible for safeguarding the implementation of Marxist‒Leninist principles and party lines. Since the 1990s, the history of the Second World War has been revised in the framework of a general revision of Albanian national history. History writing developed as an open process and now included historians from countries other than Albania, as opposed to the previous state socialist isolation. The extent to which the war history had been distorted and manipulated during socialism has influenced the subsequent process of rewriting that first focused on adjusting the existing narratives. Thus, despite an increasing variety of research topics, the historiography on wartime Albania has remained dominated by political and military history, and by the national master narrative.

scholarly journals Looted Art and Restitution in the Twentieth Century – Towards a Global Perspective

2017 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 491-518
Author(s):  
Bianca Gaudenzi ◽  
Astrid Swenson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
Global History ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
World War ◽  
Global Networks ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World

Introducing the Journal of Contemporary History Special Issue ‘The Restitution of Looted Art in the 20th Century’, this article proposes a framework for writing the history of looting and restitution in transnational and global perspective. By comparing and contextualizing instances of looting and restitution in different geographical and temporal contexts, it aims to overcome existing historiographical fragmentations and move past the overwhelming focus on the specificities of Nazi looting through an extended timeframe that inserts the Second World War into a longer perspective from the nineteenth century up to present day restitution practices. Particular emphasis is put on the interlinked histories of denazification and decolonization. Problematizing existing analytical, chronological and geographical frameworks, the article suggests how a combination of comparative, entangled and global history approaches can open up promising new avenues of research. It draws out similarities, differences and connections between processes of looting and restitution in order to discuss the extent to which looting and restitution were shaped by – and shaped – changing global networks.

scholarly journals The Manchurian Strategic Operation of the Soviet Forces in 1945: Questions of Historiography and Conceptual Rationale

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-15
Author(s):  
Yuri Kuzmin
Keyword(s):  
Military History ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Diplomatic History ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
Historical Science ◽  
World War ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Military ◽  
Second World

The Soviet-Japanese war of 1945 is an important part of the Second World war, a heroic page in the military history of Russia. The Manchurian strategic operation of August, 1945 is actively studied in Russian and world historical science and considerable number of historical sources and memoirs are published. However, the theoretical and geopolitical aspect of the Soviet-Japanese war requires additional research. The place of war in national and world history, the causes and consequences of hostilities, and diplomatic history need further understanding and generalization. The article focuses on controversial issues in the study of the Soviet-Japanese war of 1945.

scholarly journals Contemporary History in Europe: From Mastering National Pasts to the Future of Writing the World

2011 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 506-530 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina Spohr Readman
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
World War ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Conceptual Problems ◽  
Second World

Debates surrounding the approach to and distinctiveness of contemporary history qua history that had been simmering ever since the professionalization of history in the late nineteenth century re-emerged with vigour after 1990. This article attempts to identify what characterizes and distinguishes (the history of) our present time, by comparing the evolution of what has been labelled ‘contemporary history’ in France, Germany and Britain over the last 90 years. In discussing some of the conceptual problems and methodological challenges of contemporary history, it will be revealed that many in Europe remain stuck in an older, ‘national’ (and transnational) fixation with the second world war and the nazis’ atrocities, although working in medias res today appears to point to the investigation of events and phenomena that are ‘global’. The article will seek to make a fresh suggestion of how to delimit ‘contemporariness’ from the older ‘past’ and end with some comments on the significance of the role of contemporary history within the broader historical discipline and society at large.

scholarly journals University as Destiny: To the 65th Anniversary of Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor S.G. Sidorov

2020 ◽  
pp. 258-263
Author(s):  
Oleg Kuznetsov
Keyword(s):  
Military History ◽  
Scientific Work ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
State University ◽  
Highly Qualified ◽  
World War ◽  
65Th Anniversary ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World

The article is prepared for the 65th anniversary of Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor of the Department of Russian and World History, Archaeology of Volgograd State University Sergey G. Sidorov. The article traces the biography of S.G. Sidorov, his pedagogical, scientific, and administrative activities. It is shown that fundamental foundations of the future pedagogical and scientific work of S.G. Sidorov were laid at the Faculty of History of Saratov State University named after N.G. Chernyshevsky, from which he graduated in 1981. Most of Sergey Grigoryevichs life is connected with Volgograd State University, where he has been working since 1986. He combined teaching historical disciplines with the administrative work. S.G. Sidorov was Vice-rector for Academic Affairs for 25 years. Being in this position he has done a lot to make Volgograd State University a leader in the region in training highly qualified specialists. S.G. Sidorov is one of the leading experts on the history of the Great Patriotic War. He is the author of the first fundamental comprehensive study of using labor of prisoners of war of the Second World War in the national economy of the USSR in 1939–1956. With his active participation, six volumes of Documents and Materials “Prisoners of War in the USSR. 1939–1956” were published. Since 2009, S.G. Sidorov has been the Head of the Dissertation Council on Historical Sciences at Volgograd State University. From 2014 to 2020, largely due to the efforts of S.G. Sidorov, Volgograd State University held five International Thematic Scientific Conferences “Military History of Russia: Problems, Searches, Solutions”.

The Transnational Beginnings of West German Zeitgeschichte in the 1950s

2007 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Astrid M. Eckert
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
National Socialism ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World

The study of Zeitgeschichte, or contemporary history, was not an invention of the postwar era. But it was in the wake of the Second World War that it carved out a space in the historical professions of the United States, Great Britain and, most pronouncedly, West Germany. In each country, it came with similar definitions: in West Germany as “the era of those living, and its scholarly treatment by academics”; in the United States as “the period of the last generation or two”; and in Britain as “Europe in the twentieth century” or “the histories of yesterday which are being written today.” Such definitions contained a generational component and left contemporary history open to continuous rejuvenation. Yet during the postwar decades, the above definitions steered interest clearly toward the history of National Socialism, the Second World War, and foreign policy of the 1920s and 1930s. The horrific cost in human lives of Nazi racial and anti-Semitic policies gave an instant relevance to all aspects of Germany's past. The German grip on much of Europe had made National Socialism an integral component in the history of formerly occupied countries, and the Allied struggle to defeat Nazism added yet more countries to the list of those that had seen their histories become entangled with that of Germany. Hence, the academic writing of German contemporary history was never an exclusively German affair. Scholars outside Germany, especially in Great Britain and the United States, were part of the endeavor from the outset. Their involvement was facilitated by the fact that the Western Allies had captured an enormous quantity of German records and archives at the end of the war, part of which would become available to historians over the course of the 1950s and 1960s.

History without a Past: On the Significance of a Non-event and the Researcher's Position in History Writing

2007 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
HANNA KORSBERG
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Theatre History ◽  
World War ◽  
History Writing ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
National Theatre ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World

The article discusses a non-event as evidence for history writing, as well as the role of historians as constructors of histories, especially those historians who have taken part in the events they are writing about. These historiographical questions are intertwined in a case study of the Finnish National Theatre's intended visit to Berlin in May 1943. Although the visit was carefully planned, it never happened, due to a change in the political situation between Finland and Germany during the Second World War. This journey, which never took place, and its absence in the history of the Finnish National Theatre, are an indication of the complex bonding between theatre, history and politics.

Turning Aliens into Socialists

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-93
Author(s):  
Jessica Moberg
Keyword(s):  
Outer Space ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Swedish History ◽  
Second World ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Highly Evolved

Immediately after the Second World War Sweden was struck by a wave of sightings of strange flying objects. In some cases these mass sightings resulted in panic, particularly after authorities failed to identify them. Decades later, these phenomena were interpreted by two members of the Swedish UFO movement, Erland Sandqvist and Gösta Rehn, as alien spaceships, or UFOs. Rehn argued that ‘[t]here is nothing so dramatic in the Swedish history of UFOs as this invasion of alien fly-things’ (Rehn 1969: 50). In this article the interpretation of such sightings proposed by these authors, namely that we are visited by extraterrestrials from outer space, is approached from the perspective of myth theory. According to this mythical theme, not only are we are not alone in the universe, but also the history of humankind has been shaped by encounters with more highly-evolved alien beings. In their modern day form, these kinds of ideas about aliens and UFOs originated in the United States. The reasoning of Sandqvist and Rehn exemplifies the localization process that took place as members of the Swedish UFO movement began to produce their own narratives about aliens and UFOs. The question I will address is: in what ways do these stories change in new contexts? Texts produced by the Swedish UFO movement are analyzed as a case study of this process.

ABCs of the Revolution

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 278-291
Author(s):  
Egor A. Yesyunin
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Special Significance ◽  
Development History ◽  
The People ◽  
Red Army ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World ◽  
The Revolution

The article is devoted to the satirical agitation ABCs that appeared during the Civil War, which have never previously been identified by researchers as a separate type of agitation art. The ABCs, which used to have the narrow purpose of teaching children to read and write before, became a form of agitation art in the hands of artists and writers. This was facilitated by the fact that ABCs, in contrast to primers, are less loaded with educational material and, accordingly, they have more space for illustrations. The article presents the development history of the agitation ABCs, focusing in detail on four of them: V.V. Mayakovsky’s “Soviet ABC”, D.S. Moor’s “Red Army Soldier’s ABC”, A.I. Strakhov’s “ABC of the Revolution”, and M.M. Cheremnykh’s “Anti-Religious ABC”. There is also briefly considered “Our ABC”: the “TASS Posters” created by various artists during the Second World War. The article highlights the special significance of V.V. Mayakovsky’s first agitation ABC, which later became a reference point for many artists. The authors of the first satirical ABCs of the Civil War period consciously used the traditional form of popular prints, as well as ditties and sayings, in order to create images close to the people. The article focuses on the iconographic connections between the ABCs and posters in the works of D.S. Moor and M.M. Cheremnykh, who transferred their solutions from the posters to the ABCs.

B'nai B'rith on the European continent after World War Two

1992 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-126
Author(s):  
Hans Levy
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
The State ◽  
Jewish Organization ◽  
World War Two ◽  
World War ◽  
European Continent ◽  
History Of ◽  
State Of Israel ◽  
Second World

The focus of this paper is on the oldest international Jewish organization founded in 1843, B’nai B’rith. The paper presents a chronicle of B’nai B’rith in Continental Europe after the Second World War and the history of the organization in Scandinavia. In the 1970's the Order of B'nai B'rith became B'nai B'rith international. B'nai B'rith worked for Jewish unity and was supportive of the state of Israel.

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