V. L. Ianin and the History of Novgorod

Slavic Review ◽  
1974 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-123
Author(s):  
Lawrence N. Langer

An historian of early Russian history faces many methodological problems, not the least of which is the paucity of sources for the Kievan and Mongol periods. Because of the dearth of material, historians of the medieval Russian town, such as M. N. Tikhomirov and A. M. Sakharov, have generally presented a static conceptualization of urban society, thereby obscuring the dynamic processes and nuances of historical development. Despite the many studies of Novgorod, one can fairly state that historians have often described fourteenth and fifteenth-century Novgorod as though it were virtually unchanged since 1136, when the town declared its independence from Kiev. While recognizing the importance of the Sovet gospod (Council of Lords) and posadnik (mayor), some historians have nevertheless insisted that the veche (assembly) was the sovereign body of the republic. Its meetings were open to the town's citizens, and though the veche at times degenerated into brawls, no prince or posadnik could effectively govern without its concurrence. Indeed, George Vernadsky characterized Novgorod as a democratic republic, somewhat reminiscent of the Greek polis, while Tikhomirov viewed Novgorod's political traditions as similar to those of the urban communes of medieval Europe.

Author(s):  
Luigi Capogrossi Colognesi

This chapter gives a rapid overview of the history of Roman public and private institutions, from their early beginning in the semi-legendary age of the kings to the later developments of the Imperial age. A turning point has been the passage from the kingdom to the republic and the new foundation of citizenship on family wealth, instead of the exclusiveness of clan and lineages. But still more important has been the approval of the written legislation of the XII Tables giving to all citizens a sufficient knowledge of the Roman legal body of consuetudinary laws. From that moment, Roman citizenship was identified with personal freedom and the rule of law. Following political and military success, between the end of IV and the first half of III century bce Rome was capable of imposing herself as the central power in Italy and the western Mediterranean. From that moment Roman hegemony was exercised on a growing number of cities and local populations, organized in the form of Roman of Latin colonies or as Roman municipia. Only in the last century bce were these different statutes unified with the grant of Roman citizenship to all Italians. In this same period the Roman civil law, which was applied to private litigants by the Roman praetors, had become a very complex and sophisticated system of rules. With the empire the system did not change abruptly, although the Princeps did concentrate in his hands the last power of the judiciary and became the unique source of new legislation. In that way, for the first time, the Roman legal system was founded on rational and coherent schemes, becoming a model, which Antiquity transmitted to the late medieval Europe.


2021 ◽  
pp. 55-74
Author(s):  
Frank L. Holt

Innovative and infinitely varied, the many coinages of the ancient world inspired much commentary and speculation by philosophers, poets, playwrights, and religious leaders. Among these were Plato, Aristophanes, Pliny the Elder, and Jesus of Nazareth. These early numismatists took note of exchange rates, coin-types, hoards, counterfeits, forgeries, and monetary superstitions. Rulers and minting officials, such as Rome’s tresviri monetales, knew a great deal about the history of coins and sometimes paid homage to old designs. Folklore spun from Judas’s infamous thirty pieces of silver an elaborate tale of this money’s long journey across many lands. Medieval Europe witnessed major changes in levels of monetization and produced only one notable numismatic commentary from the pen of the scholastic bishop Nicholas Oresme.


Author(s):  
Krasovskaya A. A. ◽  

The article deals with the governing bodies of Troitskosavsk in the 1920s. Particular attention is paid to the process of their formation in the difficult time of changing the power, Civil War and foreign military intervention. We have described the structure of the governing bodies of Troitskosavsk, namely economic, financial, administrative, transport departments. The materials of the State Archives of the Republic of Buryatia (SARB) made it possible to present a complete picture of the activities of government bodies in the town. The archival sources allowed us to identify the members of Troitskosavsk district people's revolutionary committee, particularly Troitskosavsk municipal people's revolutionary committee. By studying the protocols, circulars, resolutions of the municipal governance, correspondence with other institutions, as well as correspondence between departments and appeals of the members of people's revolutionary committees, we established the main functions, goals and objectives of the emergency authorities in the town, as well as the problems they were forced to decide in the current conditions. We also determined a clear chronological framework for the beginning of the activities of both district and municipal people's revolutionary committees. The exact date of the end of their activities in Troitskosavsk is unknown till now. That is why it is necessary to continue the study of the municipal governance. Despite the few available researches on the history of Troitskosavsk, there are still gaps on the issues of municipal governance. For an in-depth immersion in the topic of research, it is necessary to refer to archival sources, periodicals of that time, as well as to the sources of personal origin — memoirs and diaries of the participants in the events of those years.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis R.A. Mans ◽  
Priscilla Friperson ◽  
Meryll Djotaroeno ◽  
Jennifer Pawirodihardjo

The Republic of Suriname (South America) is among the culturally, ethnically, and religiously most diverse countries in the world. Suriname’s population of about 600,000 consists of peoples from all continents including the Javanese who arrived in the country between 1890 and 1939 as indentured laborers to work on sugar cane plantations. After expiration of their five-year contract, some Javanese returned to Indonesia while others migrated to The Netherlands (the former colonial master of both Suriname and Indonesia), but many settled in Suriname. Today, the Javanese community of about 80,000 has been integrated well in Suriname but has preserved many of their traditions and rituals. This holds true for their language, religion, cultural expressions, and forms of entertainment. The Javanese have also maintained their traditional medical practices that are based on Jamu. Jamu has its origin in the Mataram Kingdom era in ancient Java, some 1300 years ago, and is mostly based on a variety of plant species. The many Jamu products are called jamus. The first part of this chapter presents a brief background of Suriname, addresses the history of the Surinamese Javanese as well as some of the religious and cultural expressions of this group, focuses on Jamu, and comprehensively deals with four medicinal plants that are commonly used by the Javanese. The second part of this chapter continues with an equally extensive narrative of six more such plants and concludes with a few remarks on the contribution of Javanese jamus to Suriname’s traditional medicinal pharmacopeia.


Author(s):  
Pankaj Jha

Vidyapati was a poet and a scholar who lived in the fifteenth century north Bihar and composed nearly a dozen texts on varied themes in three languages. The book focuses on three of Vidyapati’s texts: Likhanāvalī, a Sanskrit treatise on writing letters and documents; Puruṣaparīkṣā, a Sanskrit compilation of mytho-historical stories focused on masculinity and political ethics; and Kīrtilatā, a political biography in Apabhraṃśa of a prince of Mithila composed in the ākhyāyikā style. Together, these compositions provide an exciting entry point into the knowledge formations of the fifteenth century. As such, the book marks a fascinating reading of politics in the literatures of a time that is known for a notorious absence of any ‘imperial’ formation. It does so by placing each of the three texts side by side with other texts composed earlier on identical or similar themes, genres, and ideas in the same and other languages. A critical historicization of the language, composition, and contents of the texts reveal an exciting and messy world of idioms, ideas, and skills drawn from different literary-political traditions. Strikingly, each upheld the ideal of imperium and provided for the cultivation of skills, ethics, and useable pasts appropriate for imperial projects. The book argues that the literary visions that sustained (and gained from) the imperial states in the earlier centuries did not disappear with the disintegration of the Delhi Sultanate. They lingered and found hospitable grounds in humbler locations. Vidyapati inherited and reworked these visions into newer, more ‘actionable’ knowledge forms.


1990 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 69-80
Author(s):  
Urszula Borkowska

The fifteenth century was a very important period in the history of the Polish State and nation. It had a particular significance for the development of national consciousness. The union of the Polish kingdom with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1385) changed not only the boundaries of this new and unified state called the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but also created new and specific conditions for the development of the nation. The different nationalities of the jagiellonian state, Poles, Ruthenians, Lithuanians, Germans, Jews, and Armenians played an important role in the lively exchange of cultural experience on the basis of a sometimes uneasy partnership. Poland guaranteed privileges to the lords, both spiritual and temporal, to the gentry, and to the patricians, estates that had emerged in the course of the fourteenth century. These were united by common sentiment and desire for a strong political foundation. The urban and rural populations of both Polish and non-Polish speakers were bound together by loyalty to the Crown and its territory. Like other groups in late-medieval Europe they saw such a political union as advantageous.


Images ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Micha J. Perry

Abstract Eliezer Ben Joel ha-Levi’s Laws of Eruv, a crucial text in the medieval history of the eruv, redefines ancient definitions of space to fit that of a medieval town. It uses talmudic terminology to describe medieval reality; it reinterprets this terminology to fit this reality; and rules in a way that enables the whole Jewish quarter to be seen as one private space. This ruling shows that in medieval Europe the eruv was redefined to encompass the entire Jewish neighborhood. Thus, predating the walled Jewish quarter and Ghettos, the Jews defined their habitats in the town as a close (although not yet an exclusive) Jewish space, and created a city within a city: a Jewish one within the Christian one. This phenomenon corresponds to the rise of the “community” as the boundary line of Jewish identity.


1994 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 430-446 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gervase Rosser

In the history of medieval ideas about community, a prominent place must be accorded to the fraternity, or guild. This type of voluntary association, found throughout medieval Europe, frequently applied to itself the name of communitas. The community of the guild was not, however, a simple phenomenon; it invites closer analysis than it has yet received. As religious clubs of mostly lay men and (often) women, the fraternities of medieval Christendom have lately been a favored subject among students of spirituality. Less interest, however, has recently been shown in the social aspects of the guilds. One reason for this neglect may be precisely the communitarian emphasis in the normative records of these societies, which most late twentieth-century historians find unrealistic and, perhaps, faintly embarrassing. But allowing, as it must be allowed, that medieval society was not the Edenic commune evoked in fraternity statutes, the social historian is left with some substantial questions concerning these organizations, whose number alone commands attention: fifteenth-century England probably contained 30,000 guilds. Why were so many people eager to pay subscriptions—which, though usually modest, were not insignificant—to be admitted as “brothers” and “sisters” of one or more fraternities? Who attended guild meetings, and what did they hope to achieve by doing so? What social realities gave rise to the common language of equal brotherhood? This essay is intended to shed some light on these questions by focusing on what for every guild was the event which above all gave it visible definition: the annual celebration of the patronal feast day.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis R.A. Mans ◽  
Priscilla Friperson ◽  
Meryll Djotaroeno ◽  
Jennifer Pawirodihardjo

The Republic of Suriname (South America) is among the culturally, ethnically, and religiously most diverse countries in the world. Suriname’s population of about 600,000 consists of peoples from all continents including the Javanese who arrived in the country between 1890 and 1939 as indentured laborers to work on sugar cane plantations. After expiration of their five-year contract, some Javanese returned to Indonesia while others migrated to The Netherlands (the former colonial master of both Suriname and Indonesia), but many settled in Suriname. Today, the Javanese community of about 80,000 has been integrated well in Suriname but has preserved many of their traditions and rituals. This holds true for their language, religion, cultural expressions, and forms of entertainment. The Javanese have also maintained their traditional medical practices that are based on Jamu. Jamu has its origin in the Mataram Kingdom era in ancient Java, some 1300 years ago, and is mostly based on a variety of plant species. The many Jamu products are called jamus. The first part of this chapter presented a brief background of Suriname, addressed the history of the Surinamese Javanese as well as some of the religious and cultural expressions of this group, focused on Jamu, and comprehensively dealt with four medicinal plants that are commonly used by the Javanese. This second part of the chapter continues with an equally extensive narrative of six more such plants and concludes with a few remarks on the contribution of Javanese jamus to Suriname’s traditional medicinal pharmacopeia.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document