The Rise of the Middle Class in Iran before the Second World War

2019 ◽  
pp. 43-63
Author(s):  
H. E. Chehabi
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Consumption Patterns ◽  
World War ◽  
Village Level ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
Modern Business ◽  
State Employment ◽  
The Village ◽  
Second World

This chapter traces the formation of a modern middle class that emerged as a result of Reza Shah's rigorous modernization policies in the 1920s and 1930s. The state expanded the educational system and bureaucracy, reaching down from the court to the village level. At the same time, it fostered lifestyles and consumption patterns modeled on those of Europe, which this new and increasingly secular middle class embraced, setting it apart from the rest of society. Given its reliance on state employment, this was not a bourgeoisie stricto sensu. This new middle class existed next to the traditional mercantile elite, which was centered on the bazaar and closely allied to the clergy. In the 1920s, however, many Iranian businessmen adopted a middle-class lifestyle, and, as a consequence, a modern business bourgeoisie gradually emerged that was to some extent a link between the traditional mercantile elite centered on the bazaar and the modern middle class.

Restoring the Memory of the Forgotten Dutch Embroidery Designer Nellie van Rijsoort

Costume ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-96
Author(s):  
Marta Kargól
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Function ◽  
Second World ◽  
Insight Into

In 1932, Nellie van Rijsoort (1910–1996), the Dutch embroidery maker and designer, opened her atelier in Rotterdam. Among her clients were prestigious fashion stores in the Netherlands as well as wealthy middle-class customers. After the Second World War, van Rijsoort left Rotterdam and continued her career in Melbourne in the rapidly developing fashion network of Australia. Today, samples of embroidered fabrics and fashion drawings by Nellie van Rijsoort are part of the collections of the Museum Rotterdam and the National Trust of Australia in Melbourne. These collections provide insight into half a century of history of embroidered fabrics. This article illustrates the largely forgotten career of the embroidery designer. The first part of the article outlines the position and meaning of van Rijsoort's atelier in the fashion networks of the Netherlands and Australia, while the second part provides an analysis of embroidery samples and drawings, which reveal the place and function of embroideries as dress decorations.

The Neutral Zone at Pisarovina

2020 ◽  
pp. 196-306
Author(s):  
Gaj Trifković
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Neutral Zone ◽  
World War ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
German Occupation ◽  
The Village ◽  
Second World

What transpired in Pisarovina, a small village located on the outskirts of Zagreb, is unique not only to Yugoslavia, but to the Second World War in general. Pisarovina was the location officially agreed by both the German occupation authorities and the Yugoslav Partisans to function as the center of the prisoner exchange cartel at the end of 1943. In order to facilitate this, the village and its immediate surroundings were declared a neutral zone, quite possibly the only such place in war-torn Europe. The system saved hundreds, if not thousands, of prisoners who faced an uncertain fate. Frequent contacts between the envoys provided both the Germans and the Partisans with a "back-channel" for talks on political issues and trade, as well as the opportunity to spy on each other.

Living Democracy

2020 ◽  
pp. 199-254
Author(s):  
Martin Conway
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Class Society ◽  
Rapid Economic Growth ◽  
Post War ◽  
Class Divisions ◽  
Second World

This chapter focuses on the consumption of democracy. What happened in the roughly twenty-five-year period from the end of the Second World War to the late 1960s is perhaps best regarded as a process of gradual acculturation. At different speeds and by different paths, a large majority of Western Europeans came to feel at home in democracy, and began to practise democracy for themselves. However, the new democracies were more equal in their formal structures than in their social reality. The reassertion of boundaries of race, gender, sexuality, and age, after the more fluid and often chaotic experiences of the war years, was reinforced by the evolving but persistent inequalities of social class. Western Europe emphatically remained a class society after 1945. The rapid economic growth that occurred during the post-war years generated new forms of affluence, but these were distributed in ways that reinforced pre-existing class divisions. In particular, the post-war years witnessed a resurgence in the fortunes of the middle class. Whether assessed in terms of its material prosperity, its influence within and over government, or its wider social and cultural ascendancy, the middle class was the dominant social class of the post-war era.

scholarly journals My Shirt Is in Mexico

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Home Front ◽  
World War ◽  
Voluntary Service ◽  
Sylvia Townsend Warner ◽  
Civil Defence ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Village ◽  
Second World

Sylvia Townsend Warner lived for nearly half her life in Maiden Newton. Surprisingly, since she was a Communist, and Maiden Newton was a working-class village, she showed little interest in its people. During the Second World War, however, she inevitably became more involved with them. ‘Miss Warner’ was a driving force in the Women’s Voluntary Service in Dorchester, and in Maiden Newton’s Civil Defence. Almost all of her short stories about the village date from this chaotic and unpredictable period. They provide a rich source of material about the village’s Home Front, and show Warner’s attitude to it all: a mix of amusement, pity and resignation which combine to make some very fine stories.

Contemporary Albanian Literature in Kosovo (Now and Here)

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 292-306
Author(s):  
Vjollca Dibra Ibrahimi ◽  
Sejdi Sejdiu
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Socialist Realism ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Communist System ◽  
Communist Ideology ◽  
And Function ◽  
Second World

Albanian literature written from the 1940s to the present day can be called contempo-rary Albanian literature, or in other words, World Literature after the Second World War. The allowed literature was the only method of socialist realism, which was ideol-ogized and politicized, i.e. subject to communist ideology and politics. It was not free literature, but entirely engaged in the service of socialism and communism. The meth-od of socialist realism had some very narrow and binding criteria for all those who thought of publishing their works. Such were the communist members, the positive hero and the struggle against foreign middle-class influences. In such a situation, we can say that it was purely subject to ideology and communist politics. Due to its very narrow scheme, most of the literary work written during this period had its own value and function during the period of the communist system. This type of literature form some writers was accepted with conviction, while others were used to compromise to publish their works. Although under very strict censure, many important works were published which could have been contrary to socialist realism. Such works were with an indirect expression or with a subtext, often in symbolic and allegorical forms. These works consist of some of the greatest values of contemporary Albanian literature, the first and the foremost authors of this kind of literature, their best works, publishers, and their echoes in the language of translation.

Cleansing the Nation: Urban Entertainments and Moral Reform in Interwar Japan

2008 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 705-731 ◽  
Author(s):  
ELISE K. TIPTON
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Female Sexuality ◽  
Japanese Society ◽  
Social Values ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Moral Reform ◽  
World War ◽  
Governmental Support ◽  
The Government ◽  
Second World

AbstractThis article focuses on Japanese government restrictions and regulation of urban entertainments during the 1920s and 1930s as examples of attempts to rectify what was perceived as the declining morals of a modernizing, industrializing Japanese society. In this respect it adds another dimension to depictions of the Second World War as opposition to the cultural as well as political hegemony of the major Western powers. However, although war no doubt gave added impetus to the state's desire to unify popular support and sense of loyalty to the nation, morality campaigns had been initiated even before war had become an imminent possibility. Restrictions were imposed on cafés, dance halls and other modern entertainments, representing opposition to Westernizing, modernizing trends in social values and behaviour that had become prominent in the cities during the 1920s—individualism, materialism, sexuality, and more particularly, female sexuality. Middle class Protestants played a significant role in promoting and shaping these policies. Although such reformers disagreed with the government on other matters, they actively enlisted governmental support to carry out a moral cleansing of the ‘spiritual pests’ infesting the nation.

(A)symmetry of (Non-)memory

2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 766-784 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mateusz Magierowski
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Institutional Support ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Working Through ◽  
The Village ◽  
Second World ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Local Leaders

During the Second World War, the village of Pawłokoma, nowadays located a dozen kilometres from the Polish–Ukrainian border, was an area of conflict between the two nations. It has been almost ten years since a ceremony was held commemorating the victims of the conflict. The ceremony was attended by the Polish and Ukrainian Presidents. Today, the village is a symbol of reconciliation between the two nations. This article analyzes the dynamics of local collective memory about the conflict, using the “working through” concept and works on social remembering as a theoretical framework. In my discussion of the causes and effects of the changes in dynamics, I use data from individual in-depth interviews with three categories of respondents: the inhabitants of Pawłokoma, local leaders, and experts. The aforementioned ceremony was an opportunity for working through the traumatic past in the local community of Pawłokoma. Although social consultations were held in Pawłokoma rather than a comprehensive working-through process, we should be talking about a symbolic substitute for this process. Despite the fact that material commemorations of the Polish and Ukrainian victims were erected, some factors essential to accomplishing the working-through process were missed, such as complex institutional support, the engagement of younger generations, and empathy towards the “Others” and their sufferings.

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