scholarly journals The Rada of Vilnius Belarusians and the Council of Lithuania: Allies or Adversaries?

2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-125
Author(s):  
Edmundas Gimžauskas

This text analyzes the relation between independent movements of Lithuanians and Belarusians in the period of the First World War. Lithuanians stood firmly for the ethnographic model of their future state, whereas Belarusians, whose national movement was weak, declared loyalty to the formula of the restoration of the historical GDL. Since the projected ethnographic Lithuania actually coincided with historical ‘Lithuania Proper’ and the boundaries of the territory occupied by Germans, the latter exploiting the national factor tolerated and promoted a certain political activity of Lithuanians and Belarusians maintaining a quite constructive dialogue between the two. The events of 1918 proved that Lithuanians objectively pursued interests of their developed ethnocentric nation and in politics attributed only an auxiliary role to Belarusians. Simultaneously, Belarusians received a strong impulse towards their independence.

Author(s):  
Antony Polonsky

The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, created in 1569, covered a wide spectrum of faiths and languages. The nobility, who were the main focus of Polishness, were predominantly Catholic; the peasantry included Catholics, Protestants, and members of the Orthodox faith, while nearly half the urban population, and some 10 per cent of the total population, was Jewish. The partition of Poland at the end of the eighteenth century and the subsequent struggle to regain Polish independence raised the question of what the boundaries of a future state should be, and who qualified as a Pole. The partitioning powers were determined to hold on to the areas they had annexed: Prussia tried to strengthen the German element in Poland; the Habsburgs encouraged the development of a Ukrainian consciousness in Austrian Galicia to act as a counterweight to the dominant Polish nobility; and Russia, while allowing the Kingdom of Poland to enjoy substantial autonomy, treated the remaining areas it had annexed as part of the tsarist monarchy. When Poland became independent after the First World War, more than a third of its population were thus Ukrainians, Belarusians, Germans, Jews, and Lithuanians, many of whom had been influenced by nationalist movements. The core chapters in the book focus especially on the triangular relationship between Poles, Jews, and Germans in western Poland, and between the different national groups in what are today Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine. In addition, the New Views section investigates aspects of Jewish life in pre-partition Poland and in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.


Slavic Review ◽  
1969 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 426-444 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley B. Winters

For forty eventful years, ending with the outbreak of the First World War, the Young Czech Party waged an unremitting struggle on behalf of Czech national interests within the limited constitutional framework of the Hapsburg Monarchy. Political activity for such a span of time would be enough to insure the party a niche in history, but in addition it dominated Czech politics for sixteen of those years and enlisted politicians of the caliber of Kaizl, Kramář, Rašín, and briefly Masaryk under its banner in their quest for elective office. The intent of this article is to evaluate the party's contributions to the development of the modern Czech political system by outlining its history and general orientation and by comparing party platforms with achievements.


2001 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-126
Author(s):  
Edmundas Gimžauskas

The paper is devoted to a relatively recently researched subject – the relations between the Lithuanians and the Belorussians and the role of the latter in the genesis of the Lithuanian state in the early twentieth century. At the start of the First World War in the German-occupied regions there was a chance to re-establish the Republic of the Two Nations for the first time after 1795. However, that was not the German intention. Initially they supported only the illusion of the re-establishment of Lithuanian statehood in the lands of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In this policy there was also some space for the rudiments of the political activity of Lithuanian and Belorussian intellectuals. Since the beginning of the ‘Los von Russland’ Campaign of 1916 it is possible to trace certain open efforts to obtain Lithuanian and Belorussian statehood. In the Lithuanian political struggle formulas of historical and ethnic statehood were applied taking into consideration the practical political manoeuvres of the warring countries. After the declaration of Polish statehood on 5 November 1916 the ethnic model became more important. In the east an ethnic Lithuanian state was to coincide with the historic ‘Lithuania Proper’. That was a basis for more or less constructive relations with the Belorussians, who also preferred to adhere to the historical formula. After the February Revolution, when the Belorussians started requiring the historical statehood of the whole of the GDL, contacts were broken, and they were renewed in the autumn of 1917 after the election of the Lithuanian Council (Taryba).


Author(s):  
Elena Dubrovskaya

This study has shown how the Russian official press of the early 20 century influenced readership’ ideas in Finland and Karelia about the economic and socio-cultural condition of the Russian-Finnish border. The paper is based on Orthodox literature of the early twentieth century that was published both sides of the Russian-Finnish border.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 54-71
Author(s):  
L. M. Samarskaia

The article is dedicated to the emergence of the Arab national movement at the beginning of the 20th century. This topic is still relevant in our days since revealing the origins of political and social processes in the Middle East of the 21st century is necessary for their understanding. The main issues which are considered by the author are the following: which factors had crucial influence on the emergence of Arab nationalism (panarabism as well as regionalism), when exactly it was formed and what were the specifics of its emergence in Palestine.The author defines three main periods in the genesis and formation of the Arab national movement at the beginning of the 20th century. The first is the Nahda, the Arab cultural revival of the second half of the 19th century, which became a foundation for the later development of nationalist ideas. However, the author tries to show that the cultural revival itself was not nationalistic. The second key period is the political expression of the Arab national movement in the first decades of the 20th century, with the ottomanist and later pan-Turkist policy of the Ottoman government having the decisive influence. This policy was nationalist in essence. Zionism, as noted in the text, was not such an important issue for the nascent pan-Arab movement before the First World War, although it caused concern among the locals in Palestine. The third key stage, that was decisive in the Arab national development, is the Great Arab Revolt, which, despite the fact that it was not massive and universal, forced the pan-Arab movement enter the international arena for it attracted the attention of the great powers – mainly with the help of McMahon–Hussein correspondence. In result, during the postwar settlement, pan-Arabism became more popular and internationally recognised phenomenon, although eventually it happened to be divided into a multitude of regional movements, in particular – Palestinian nationalism fostered by the Anglo-French division of influence zones in the Middle East.In general, the formation of the Arab national movement was a multidimensional and gradual phenomenon influenced by a variety of factors. At the same time, the emergence of the regional groups had its own specifics; originally belonging to the Pan-Arab movement, although with their own features, after the First World War these groups became largely independent.


2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-155
Author(s):  
ANGELINA D. KARTUNOVA ◽  
◽  
OLGA E. PUCHNINA ◽  

V. V. Rozanov (1856-1919) and N. A. Berdyaev (1874-1948) were original Russian philosophers and publicists, despite the age difference, they were familiar both personally and with each other's works. Comments on each other's ideas are scattered through various works of philosophers, but there was also a brief period of active mutual polemics in journalism. Despite the contradictory assessment of mutual creativity and the specifics of each person's religious worldview, they addressed common themes. Russian thinkers pointed out the specific features of the Russian national character-the priority of the spiritual principle over the material, the compliance and sacrifice of the Russian person, a special attitude to social and political activity, but each of them interpreted this specificity in their own way. Rozanov and Berdyaev expressed similar opinions about the role and functions of state power in society, in their opinion, it should first of all protect people from arbitrariness and reduce the amount of evil in the world. Their political ideals were also close - as conservative philosophers, they preferred the monarchy. However, Rozanov and Berdyaev had different views on the tasks and goals facing the Russian people, and also had different opinions on the causes and consequences of the First World War for Russia.


1974 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 459-471 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gail Minault

The Khilafat movement, which took place among Indian Muslims immediately following the First World War, was so called because it was a political agitation designed to pressure the British government to preserve the defeated Ottoman Empire and its ruler, the Caliph of Islam. The Khilafat movement was also, more fundamentally, a campaign to unite Indian Muslims politically by means of religious and cultural symbols meaningful to all strata of the community. The movement gained added significance because it took place simultaneously, and cooperated fully, with Gandhi's first non-violent non-cooperation movement against British rule. Muslim and Hindu were thus engaged in parallel political activity: the broadening of national political participation from the élite to the mass through new techniques of organization and communication.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document