scholarly journals The inventory of Michael Meyer’s property (1758) as a reflection of a Tallinn (Reval) merchant’s material world during the Age of the Enlightenment

2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 497-512
Author(s):  
Raimo Pullat ◽  
Tõnis Liibek

The inventory of Tallinn merchant Michael Meyer’s (1704–1758) property is one of the largest inventories of an 18th century citizen of Tallinn. Almost the entire world of his possessions is reflected in this unique source. The inventory provides a comprehensive picture of his success, lifestyle, and hobbies, and the diverse list of household items provides a good idea of a prosperous merchant’s home in northeast Europe in the 18th century. The unique body of sources (Michael Meyer’s will, property inventory, and auction reports) provides comprehensive insight into the development of Tallinn’s material culture, i.e., the material culture history of Northern Europe, during the century of Enlightenment.

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 166-182
Author(s):  
Iryna Tsiborovska-Rymarovych

The article has as its object the elucidation of the history of the Vyshnivetsky Castle Library, definition of the content of its fund, its historical and cultural significance, correlation of the founder of the Library Mychailo Servaty Vyshnivetsky with the Book.The Vyshnivetsky Castle Library was formed in the Ukrainian historical region of Volyn’, in the Vyshnivets town – “family nest” of the old Ukrainian noble family of the Vyshnivetskies under the “Korybut” coat of arm. The founder of the Library was Prince Mychailo Servaty Vyshnivetsky (1680–1744) – Grand Hetman and Grand Chancellor of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Vilno Voievoda. He was a politician, an erudite and great bibliophile. In the 30th–40th of the 18th century the main Prince’s residence Vyshnivets became an important centre of magnate’s culture in Rich Pospolyta. M. S. Vyshnivetsky’s contemporaries from the noble class and clergy knew quite well about his library and really appreciated it. According to historical documents 5 periods are defined in the Library’s history. In the historical sources the first place is occupied by old-printed books of Library collection and 7 Library manuscript catalogues dating from 1745 up to the 1835 which give information about quantity and topical structures of Library collection.The Library is a historical and cultural symbol of the Enlightenment epoch. The Enlightenment and those particular concepts and cultural images pertaining to that epoch had their effect on the formation of Library’s fund. Its main features are as follow: comprehensive nature of the stock, predominance of French eighteenth century editions, presence of academic books and editions on orientalistics as well as works of the ideologues of the Enlightenment and new kinds of literature, which generated as a result of this movement – encyclopaedias, encyclopaedian dictionaries, almanacs, etc. Besides the universal nature of its stock books on history, social and political thought, fiction were dominating.The reconstruction of the history of Vyshnivetsky’s Library, the historical analysis of the provenances in its editions give us better understanding of the personality of its owners and in some cases their philanthropic activities, and a better ability to identify the role of this Library in the culture life of society in a certain epoch.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 29
Author(s):  
Christin Conrad

The article deals with an encounter between Julie Hagen Schwarz, a Baltic German artist (1824–1902), and the Ausburg artist Moritz Rugendas (1802–1858), which was of great importance for the former, while she was studying in Munich around 1850. It also deals with the first presentation of her work in the Munich artist community, which resulted from cooperation with and promotion by Rugendas. Special attention is paid to the history of Hagen’s “Portrait of Moritz Rugendas in Brasilian Costume”, which originated from the artist’s close cooperation with the master Rugendas. Its presentation in the Munich and Augsburg Art Associations (Kunstverein) in October 1849 and May 1850 and the effect this had on the artistic career of Julie Hagen is examined. From this moment on, her works were discussed by colleagues and important personalities. She received many portrait commissions and her works were shown at several exhibitions in Munich and Augsburg. A discussion on the whereabouts of the still lost original painting and the provenance and authorship of a smaller copy in the collection of the Kadriorg Museum in Tallinn, which until now was identified as a “Self-Portrait” by Moritz Rugendas, follows. The attribution and the provenance of the preserved work from the Liphart collection are considered, along with the source texts, which suggest that Julie Hagen was the author and a correction of the attribution is in order.The collected findings published here were developed from the preserved letters of Julie Hagen, which, as rich and unique source material, show the artistic career of the painter. As a representative of her generation of female artists, it also provides an insight into the social context and educational situation of ambitious female painters around 1850. In connection with the correct attribution, the art-history investigation and positioning of the artist in the art community, it is hoped that the uncertainty that currently exists when evaluating the artistic performance of female painters and the low status assigned to them in exhibitions and the acquisition policy of museums will give way to growing interest, understanding and greater recognition.


Grotiana ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-159
Author(s):  
Edward Jones Corredera

Abstract The early Spanish Enlightenment was shaped by debates over corporations, sovereignty, and the balance of power in Europe. Spanish officials, in this context, turned to the ideas of Hugo Grotius to establish joint-stock companies that could allow the Crown to regain control over its imperial domains and establish perpetual peace in Europe. This article recovers the writings of Félix Fernando de Sotomayor, Duke of Sotomayor (1684–1767), who drew on the works of Grotius, Samuel Pufendorf, and Charles Dutot in order to show that the history of these corporations chronicled the contestation and erosion of Spanish power and the diversion of European states from their true interests. Sovereigns, not merchants, argued Sotomayor, could guarantee fair trade and the equitable distribution of wealth. The study of Sotomayor’s views on trade, natural law, and alienation challenges traditional interpretations about the Iberian engagement with Grotius, the rise of capitalist hopes in Southern and Northern Europe, and Spain’s investment in the Enlightenment.


2006 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 523-536 ◽  
Author(s):  
LORRAINE DASTON

Since the Enlightenment, the history of science has been enlisted to show the unity and distinctiveness of Europe. This paper, written on the occasion of the award of the 2005 Erasmus Prize to historians of science Simon Schaffer and Steven Shapin, traces the intertwined narratives of the history of science and European modernity from the 18th century to the present. Whether understood as triumph or tragedy (and there have been eloquent proponents of both views), the Scientific Revolution has been portrayed as Europe's decisive break with tradition – the first such break in world history and the model for all subsequent epics of modernization in other cultures. The paper concludes with reflections on how a new history of science, exemplified in the work of Shapin and Schaffer, may transform the self-image of Europe and conceptions of truth itself.


1996 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey G. McCafferty

AbstractChronology is a fundamental prerequisite for problem-oriented, anthropologically relevant archaeology. It is also the shaky foundation that has hampered attempts to reconstruct the culture history of Cholula, Mexico. Cholula is among the oldest continuously occupied urban centers of the New World, yet it remains one of the most enigmatic. This paper evaluates previous cultural sequences for the site, and summarizes recent evidence to construct a chronology using absolute dates and ceramic assemblages from primary depositional contexts. This revised sequence features a clearer understanding of Middle Formative settlement and the definition of ritual and domestic contexts from the Classic period. In addition, there is now evidence for a gradual transition between Late Classic and Early Postclassic material culture; and for the evolution of the Postclassic polychrome tradition within a sequence of short, clearly defined phases.


Author(s):  
Sean P. Harvey

“Race,” as a concept denoting a fundamental division of humanity and usually encompassing cultural as well as physical traits, was crucial in early America. It provided the foundation for the colonization of Native land, the enslavement of American Indians and Africans, and a common identity among socially unequal and ethnically diverse Europeans. Longstanding ideas and prejudices merged with aims to control land and labor, a dynamic reinforced by ongoing observation and theorization of non-European peoples. Although before colonization, neither American Indians, nor Africans, nor Europeans considered themselves unified “races,” Europeans endowed racial distinctions with legal force and philosophical and scientific legitimacy, while Natives appropriated categories of “red” and “Indian,” and slaves and freed people embraced those of “African” and “colored,” to imagine more expansive identities and mobilize more successful resistance to Euro-American societies. The origin, scope, and significance of “racial” difference were questions of considerable transatlantic debate in the age of Enlightenment and they acquired particular political importance in the newly independent United States. Since the beginning of European exploration in the 15th century, voyagers called attention to the peoples they encountered, but European, American Indian, and African “races” did not exist before colonization of the so-called New World. Categories of “Christian” and “heathen” were initially most prominent, though observations also encompassed appearance, gender roles, strength, material culture, subsistence, and language. As economic interests deepened and colonies grew more powerful, classifications distinguished Europeans from “Negroes” or “Indians,” but at no point in the history of early America was there a consensus that “race” denoted bodily traits only. Rather, it was a heterogeneous compound of physical, intellectual, and moral characteristics passed on from one generation to another. While Europeans assigned blackness and African descent priority in codifying slavery, skin color was secondary to broad dismissals of the value of “savage” societies, beliefs, and behaviors in providing a legal foundation for dispossession. “Race” originally denoted a lineage, such as a noble family or a domesticated breed, and concerns over purity of blood persisted as 18th-century Europeans applied the term—which dodged the controversial issue of whether different human groups constituted “varieties” or “species”—to describe a roughly continental distribution of peoples. Drawing upon the frameworks of scripture, natural and moral philosophy, and natural history, scholars endlessly debated whether different races shared a common ancestry, whether traits were fixed or susceptible to environmentally produced change, and whether languages or the body provided the best means to trace descent. Racial theorization boomed in the U.S. early republic, as some citizens found dispossession and slavery incompatible with natural-rights ideals, while others reconciled any potential contradictions through assurances that “race” was rooted in nature.


Prawo ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 324 ◽  
pp. 115-128
Author(s):  
Paweł Wiązek

From the history of criminal law thought in Poland of King Stanislaus’s era: legislators’ polemics over the principle of equality in criminal law in an estate countryThe article is devoted to the reform of criminal law in 18th-century Poland and is one of the effect of many years of research in the field. In analysing selected views, draft legislation and legal regulations from the reign of the last king of Poland, the author focuses on the polemic surrounding the principle of equality in criminal law in an estate country. At the same he tries to note similarities and differences in the views of legislators of the Enlightenment period, exploring the reasons for and the nature of the divergencies in their positions.Die Ansichten der Gesetzgeber der Poniatowski Zeit betreffend den Grundsatz der Gleichheit in den Reformprojekten der KriminalrechteDie Publikation ist der Problematik der Reform des Strafrechtes in Polen im 18. Jahrhundert gewidmet und stellt ein Teilergebnis vieljähriger Untersuchungen in diesem Bereich dar. Bei der Analyse ausgesuchter Meinungen, legislativer Entwürfe und rechtlicher Regelungen aus der Regie­rungszeit des letzten Monarchen der Republik Polen vor den Teilungen konzentriert derVerfasser seine Aufmerksamkeit auf der Polemik um den Grundsatz der Gleichheit im Strafrecht in den Rea­lien des Ständestaates. Der Verfasser versucht gleichzeitig Ähnlichkeiten und Unterschiede in den Ansichten der Gesetzgeber der Aufklärung zu finden, indem er Ursachen und den Charakter der eventuellen Abweichungen sucht, die in ihren Meinungen auftreten.


2020 ◽  
pp. 719-735
Author(s):  
Simon S. Ilizarov ◽  

This paper reviews the work of the Archive of the Soviet Academy of Sciences during the blockade of Leningrad in 1941–42. It is based on the archive series that contains a report detailing the work of the 22 Academy’s institutions in Leningrad (11 scientific research institutes, 3 museums, the Archive, the Library, the Geographical Society, etc.) over 7 months of 1942 and prepared for the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences. It lists Archive’s staff members who died or were evacuated during this period. It shows that, even in the hardest days under the blockade, the work in the Archive never stopped. An important part of this work was associated with the activities of the Commission for the History of the USSR Academy of Sciences (KIAN). The paper reviews the history of the KIAN creation under the auspices of the Archive of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Leningrad in 1938, soon after forcible liquidation of the Institute for the History of Science and Technology and tragic death of its first director, Academician N.I. Bukharin. A number of outstanding historians-archivists and historians of science – A.I. Andreyev, I.I. Lyubimenko, L.B. Modzalevskii, and others – participated in the work of the KIAN headed by Academician S. I. Vavilov and his deputy, Director of the Archive, G.A. Knyazev. The research and archaeographic work of the Archive’s staff was associated with preparation of publications for the “Scientific Heritage” series (it was established in 1940 upon initiative of the President of the Soviet Academy of Sciences V. L. Komarov with active participation of the eminent historian of science T. I. Rainov). During that period, the editorial work on the second volume of the “Reviews of Archive Materials” (Obozreniya arkhivnykh materialov) was completed and V.F. Gnucheva completed her unique history-of-science book “The Geographical Department of the 18th century Academy of Sciences.” Both books were published after the war, in 1946. The main result of the work of the few Archive’s staff members was safeguarding the precious historical materials and searching for, concentrating, and preserving documentation of evacuated institutions and individual scientists, some of whom were killed by the cold, famine, and diseases. The paper contains data from official reports: quantitative data concerning documents taken into the Archive’s custody in 1941 and in 1942 and processed and described series; it names institutions and scholars, whose documents ended up in the Archive of the Academy of Sciences. By July 31, 1942, the number of fonds in the Archive reached 740. Reports of such Academy institutions as the Institute of Oriental Studies, the N.Ya. Marr Institute for the History of Material Culture, the Institute of Literature, the All-Union Geographical Society, and others allow the scholars to analyze their work associated with the preservation of books and archival fonds and collections. The paper is based on documentary sources that are being introduced into scientific use for the first time.


Author(s):  
Asta Vaškelienė

The Regulation of the Lithuanian Piarists for provincial education Methodus docendi pro Scholis Piis provinciae Litvaniae (Vilnius, 1762) should be considered as the main document showing the changes in education of the Enlightenment era, announced prior to the establishment of the Board of Education, a secular institution of education. That is an important source of the Lithuanian science history of the 18th century, opening a relevant contextual panorama of cultural processes, illustrating the intersection of the values of the Baroque and the Enlightenment. The study Methodus docendi pro Scholis Piis provinciae Litvaniae deals with the specifics of daily routines which shows obvious following of Ordinationes Visitationis Apostolicae (Warsaw, 1753 [1754]–1755) prepared by Stanisław Konarski. As it can be noticed, many of the aspects of the school routine (such as the necessity to start lessons in time and not waste the time for frivolous talking, relationship between the students and teachers, personal hygiene, proper physical condition, behaviour of students at school and outside it) in the Regulations for provinces of Lithuania are defined much more laconically. The attitude to go ad rem was determined by the goal to have a document with the scope and precise presentation of the subject which could be smoothly used in daily practice. On the other hand, the differences, such as elimination of the paragraph on temperance (not mentioning the whole chapter), shows that the Lithuanian adaptation was not word-for-word (or mind) following and that only the issues that were really significant for the developers were taken over. The actualisation of the daily posture shows the efforts of the Piarists monkhood to respond to the changes of the time, to implement the principles of education covering the overall upbringing of a person. Keywords: Piarists, etiquette, household routine, teacher, student, drinking, Enlightenment, Grand Duchy of Lithuania (the 18th century).


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