The Causes of the Great War

1915 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Raymond Turner
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Great War ◽  
Half Century ◽  
The People ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
Military Strength ◽  
The Great War ◽  
The Middle Ages

In 1806 Prussia engaged in war with Napoleon. The swiftest of his triumphs followed. In two months the Prussians had surrendered their fortresses, and seen annihilated the greatness which Europe had failed to crush in the time of Frederick the Great. A period of humiliation followed, and for some years the people lived under the conqueror's yoke.Deliverance came when Napoleon, stretching too far his power, and arousing the spirit of peoples, was defeated by Europe in arms. The liberation which alone Prussia could not have accomplished, was yet wrought partly by herself, for deliverance was preceded by regeneration in which her military system was fundamentally reformed. But it may be that what remained after all as the principal heritage from these years was the abiding sense that Prussia had suffered from being weak, and that only through military strength could there be safety in the future.The expansion and greatness of Prussia left unfulfilled the old idea of a united Germany. Through the middle ages and down to this time Germany had remained disunited, and weak and despised because of it. The smallest states had now disappeared, but still there were larger ones, grouped under Austria in vague and shadowy empire. And the history of Germany in the half century which followed the downfall of Napoleon is a record of yearning and striving on the part of people filled with distant memories, and noble aspiration after that strength and union which had come to their neighbors and yet been denied to themselves.

scholarly journals NATIONALHISTORIE EFTER MODERNISMEN - FOLKEBEGREBET I LYSET AF EUROPAS STORE FORTÆLLINGER

1970 ◽  
Vol 42 (117) ◽  
pp. 159-174
Author(s):  
Michael Böss
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Main Role ◽  
National History ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Middle Ages

WRITING NATIONAL HISTORY AFTER MODERNISM: THE HISTORY OF PEOPLEHOOD IN LIGHT OF EUROPEAN GRAND NARRATIVES | The purpose of the article is to refute the recent claim that Danish history cannot be written on the assumption of the existence of a Danish people prior to 19th-century nationalism. The article argues that, over the past twenty years, scholars in pre-modern European history have highlighted the limitations of the modernist paradigm in the study of nationalism and the history of nations. For example, modernists have difficulties explaining why a Medieval chronicle such as Saxo Grammaticus’s Gesta Danorum was translated in the mid-1600s, and why it could be used for new purposes in the 1800s, if there had not been a continuity in notions of peoplehood between the Middle Ages and the Modern Age. Of course, the claim of continuity should not be seen as an argument for an identity between the “Danes” of Saxo’s time and the Danes of the 19th-century Danish nation-state. Rather, the modern Danishness should be understood as the product of a historical process, in which a number of European cultural narratives and state building played a significant role. The four most important narratives of the Middle Ages were derived from the Bible, which was a rich treasure of images and stories of ‘people’, ‘tribe’, ‘God’, King, ‘justice’ and ‘kingdom’ (state). While keeping the basic structures, the meanings of these narratives were re-interpreted and placed in new hierarchical positions in the course of time under the impact of the Reformation, 16th-century English Puritanism, Enlightenment patriotism, the French Revolution and 19th-century romantic nationalism. The article concludes that it is still possible to write national histories featuring ‘the people’ as one of the actors. But the historian should keep in mind that ‘the people’ did not always play the main role, nor did they play the same role as in previous periods. And even though there is a need to form syntheses when writing national history, national identities have always developed within a context of competing and hierarchical narratives. In Denmark, the ‘patriotist narrative’ seems to be in ascendancy in the social and cultural elites, but has only partly replaced the ‘ethno-national’ narrative which is widespread in other parts of the population. The ‘compact narrative’ has so far survived due the continued love of the people for their monarch. It may even prove to provide social glue for a sense of peoplehood uniting ‘old’ and ‘new’ Danes.

The General History of the Middle Ages at the V. Babeş University of Cluj (1951-1952)

2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-20
Author(s):  
Ionuț Costea
Keyword(s):  
Education Reform ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Teaching Staff ◽  
Political Transformations ◽  
The People ◽  
Socialist Realist ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
The Middle Ages

"The General History of the Middle Ages at the V. Babeş University of Cluj (1951-1952). The 1948 education reform represented, besides a new institutional architecture transposed in accordance with the model of the soviet universities, a process of recycling professors. The process of changing the teaching staff was carried out on at least two levels – the definitive or temporary elimination (sometimes accompanied by incarceration) from the education system on the one hand, and the exertion of severe surveillance and intimidation, thus remodelling the discourse and the behaviour in the spirit of the socialist realist “cultural revolution” on the other hand. The study shed light on a method that led to the expulsion of the professors was the public defamation, the accusation of immorality and of their lack of understanding of the new political transformations of the country, thus labelling the professors as “enemies of the people”. The atmosphere of fear and humiliation was sustained through press campaigns of defamation. Especially the younger university professors were instructed to attack, in the press, the more professionally well reputed and publicly well-known professors. These articles contained not only analyses of the professors’ works and ideas, but also their dismantling, their “exposé” and their human undermining. This paper is a case study on a professor from medieval department of Cluj university, Francisc Pall at the beginning of 1950s years. Keywords: Communism, Romania, education reform, cultural revolution, violence, surveillance. "

scholarly journals Once Again on Memorism…

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miklós Kalmár
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Theoretical Problem ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Architecture ◽  
Ancient Times ◽  
The Middle Ages

In 1993, Gyula Hajnóczi added supplementary thoughts to Lajos Fülep's earlier interpretation of Memorism, according to which the mentioned concept would also apply to the history of architecture, similarly to other branches of art. He perceived a remembering-like continuity in architecture, starting from ancient times, through the Renaissance, to the present day. He formulated three topics that generate a theoretical problem, thus require further investigation. According to him, the form-based approach shows the otherness of the Middle Ages. And after the age of historicism, he perceived a kind of "ago- nization" with negative content. His third conjecture was the transcendence being inherent in architecture and unfolding in history.The line of thought, originating from nearly thirty years ago, may come into new light if the history of architecture is approached not exclusively from the direction of the history of forms. If not the differences but continuity gets into the focus, and all this is extended to the problems of the present and the future. Of course, all the above issues can only be interpreted with further contemplation.Hajnóczi Gyula 1993-ban Fülep Lajos korábbi memorizmus értelmezéséhez kiegészítést fűzött, miszerint az említett fogalom az építészettörténetre is vonatkozik, hasonlóan a művészet egyéb ágaihoz. Emlékező jellegű folyamatosságot érzékelt az építészetben, az ókortól kezdve, a reneszánszon keresztül, egészen napjainkig. Megfogalmazott három témát, mely elméleti problémát gerjesztve, további vizsgálatot igényel. Szerinte, a formai alapú szemléletből kitűnik a középkor mássága. A historizmus kora után pedig egyfajta negatív tartalmú „agonizálást" érzékelt. A harmadik sejtése az építészetben rejlő, a történelemben kibontakozó transzcendencia volt.A közel harminc évvel ezelőtti gondolatsor új megvilágításba kerülhet, ha az építészettörténet nem csak formatörténet szerinti megközelítésű. Ha nem a különbözőséget, hanem a folyamatosságot vizsgálja és mindez kiterjed a jelen és jövő problémáira is. Természetesen mindez csak továbbgondolva értelmezhető

scholarly journals Medieval motives in memorialization of the Great War

2021 ◽  
pp. 67-71
Author(s):  
Sergei A. Mankov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Great War ◽  
World War ◽  
Medieval Architecture ◽  
War Memorials ◽  
European Experience ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Great War ◽  
The Middle Ages

The article examines the European experience of creating war memorials dedicated to the World War I, using the motives of medieval architecture. The fascination with the Middle Ages, spread through the art and literature of the Neo-Gothic and national Romanism period, was emotionally rethought by the generation that survived the catastrophe of the global conflict of 1914–1918. At the new stage, the symbolic harsh images of the Middle Ages turned out to be more consonant with the social creation of former front-line soldiers than the classical antique forms used in the memorialization of wars in the 18th–19th centuries. This process was reflected in the commemoration of the Great War in Great Britain, France, Germany and other countries, where the monuments to the fallen began to give the appearance characteristic of the towers, fortresses and castles of the long-gone Middle Ages, giving them a new interpretative meaning.

Cultural Memory and the Great War: Medievalism and Classicism in British and German War Memorials

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEFAN GOEBEL
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Great War ◽  
War Memorials ◽  
The Great War ◽  
The Middle Ages

This chapter investigates the overlaps between the ‘cultural memory’ of the distant past and the memory of the Great War in Britain and Germany between 1914 and 1939, looking in particular at the use of medieval(ist) images in war memorials. There was a certain tension between advocates of medievalism and supporters of classicist images, but often, they reached a compromise. The chapter combines a discussion of the concept of ‘cultural memory’ with case studies on the reception of antiquity and the Middle Ages in the era of the Great War.

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