scholarly journals An African Episode in the Life of Pushkinʼs Granddaughter (E. A. Rosen-Meyer)

2022 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 169-177
Author(s):  
Boris Gorelik ◽  

The circumstances and reasons for the departure of A. Pushkinʼs granddaughter, Elena Alexandrovna Rosen-Meyer, from Turkey to South Africa in 1923, after failed negotiations over the sale of Pushkinʼs personal items to A. Onegin and M. Gofman, remain unclear. Documents at the National Archives of South Africa, as well as materials, testimonies and literature related to persons involved in this move indicate that the Rosen-Meyer family went to Africa on the recommendation of Pushkinʼs descendants in England. Thanks to the connections of Sir Harold Wernher and his wife, Anastasia Mikhailovna (Lady Zia), a job was found for Rosen-Meyerʼs husband with a business associate of the Wernher family. A prominent South African businessman and member of parliament, Sir Abe Bailey, off ered a position to N. Rosen-Meyer at his estate “Rust-en-Vrede” in the town of Muizenberg; Bailey would hold informal meetings with leading South African politicians and public fi gures at Rust-enVrede. The Pushkin items seen by Gofman at Rosen-Meyerʼs home before her departure from Turkey remained in her possession on her return from South Africa in the late 1920s.

2019 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nkholedzeni Sidney Netshakhuma

Purpose This paper aims to assess the appraisal, disposal and transfer of records of the Kruger National Park (KNP) rangers’ diaries processes from 1926 to 1930 with a view to recommend best practices. Design/methodology/approach The paper applied a qualitative methodology through document analysis, interviews and observations as data collection instruments to analyse contents of rangers’ diaries. The population of the study comprised rangers, a records manager and a representative from the National Archives of South Africa (NARSSA), a member of South Africa National Parks’ management and a scientist from South African National Biodiversity Institute. Findings The key findings revealed that rangers’ diaries contain historical, scientific and cultural information. However, such information is not disseminated to society. Lack of systematic appraisal, arrangement of records led to a loss of institutional memories. The role of National Archives and Records Service of South Africa is not visible to provide guidelines on the preservation of rangers’ records. Research limitations/implications This research is limited to KNP ranger’s diaries created from 1926 to 1930 because it is the period of establishment of the national park and introduction of rangers’ programme. Practical implications The findings are expected to be instrumental towards the preservation of rangers’ diaries within the park. Rangers’ diaries are also potentially of great biogeographical value in constituting a historical record of the plants and animals in a given area, their distribution and population changes, and the effects of human interventions such as game fences and artificially created waterholes, game culling and tourism, not to forget climate change. Social implications Preservation of ranger diaries may lead to documentation of records with historical, scientific and social value. Rangers’ diaries also form part of the national archival heritage of South Africa, as they bridge the gap of undocumented history of the rangers and national parks in South Africa. Originality/value This paper appears to be the first to research the assessment of the appraisal, disposal and transfer of rangers’ diaries created from 1926 to 1930.


2019 ◽  
Vol 68 (8/9) ◽  
pp. 635-651 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nkholedzeni Sidney Netshakhuma

Purpose The purpose of this study to investigate the relationships between South Africa (SA) universities and universities surrounding communities (USC) for preserving community histories and serve the universities’ mandate to support their local communities and support universities’ teaching and scholarship. Design/methodology/approach The study used a multiple case study approach through interviews. The population of the study comprised representatives from selected universities and their USC. Findings The findings revealed a lack of effective relationships between universities and USC to preserve communities’ histories. Hence, the communities’ archives are tools for teaching and scholarship. Relations between universities and USC are to be built on trust. Accountability and transparency are to be considered by both parties. Research limitations/implications The research is limited to selected SA universities, namely, University of Venda, Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Pretoria and SA and USC. The findings are applicable to all SA universities and USC. Practical implications The relationship between universities and USC has a practical impact on the National archives of South Africa (NARSSA) to collect communities archives because it is in conflict with the mandate of NARSSA. The National Archives’ Act 43 of 1996 obliged NARSSA to collect and preserve communities’ archives on behalf of societies. Social implications Lack of universities and USC can lead to the loss of communities histories or archives. Originality/value This paper appears to be the first to research the relationship between SA universities and USC.


1995 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-192
Author(s):  
P.S. Reddy

Local authorities are established to give the citizens of the town or city the opportunity to provide those services which are fundamental to community living. They provide essential services and it is therefore imperative that members of the legislative, governing and administrative components be effectively trained. The councilors are members of the political institution, namely the council.1 The councilors have to undertake legislative and governmental functions in addition to their supervision of the appointed officials who constitute the executive and administrative component. The council is the corporate body and is therefore the employer and the appointed officials are its employees. The Local Government Training Act is the first overall human resources strategy in South Africa that lays down the policy for the creation, development and maintenance of administrative structures and institutions to enable suitably trained people to undertake all the diverse functions of local government. In this paper the administrative structures and institutions for the implementation of the Act is described. This is followed by discussion of the problems' experienced in the implementation of the Act and finally an evaluation of the Act as an overall policy document for local government training in a democratic South Africa.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 39-58
Author(s):  
Nolukhanyo T. Metula ◽  
Oluyinka O. Osunkunle

This paper evaluates how local newspapers frame food security to ensure participation, empowerment, and community mobilization for food securing purposes. The focus is on the web versions of local newspapers in Eastern Cape, South Africa. A qualitative content analysis was used to evaluate the selected local web-based newspapers' content on food security-related stories within July-December 2016. The sample was drawn from two selected local web newspapers: Herald Live and The Talk of the Town. The findings revealed that local newspapers‘ framing of increased agricultural production, local farming, land redistribution, and government‘s financial support help to empower and mobilize individuals and communities to participate in food security initiatives. This paper concludes that local newspapers can be veritable tools to enhance food security channels in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 433-444
Author(s):  
Amanuel Isak Tewolde

Many scholars and South African politicians characterize the widespread anti-foreigner sentiment and violence in South Africa as dislike against migrants and refugees of African origin which they named ‘Afro-phobia’. Drawing on online newspaper reports and academic sources, this paper rejects the Afro-phobia thesis and argues that other non-African migrants such as Asians (Pakistanis, Indians, Bangladeshis and Chinese) are also on the receiving end of xenophobia in post-apartheid South Africa. I contend that any ‘outsider’ (White, Asian or Black African) who lives and trades in South African townships and informal settlements is scapegoated and attacked. I term this phenomenon ‘colour-blind xenophobia’. By proposing this analytical framework and integrating two theoretical perspectives — proximity-based ‘Realistic Conflict Theory (RCT)’ and Neocosmos’ exclusivist citizenship model — I contend that xenophobia in South Africa targets those who are in close proximity to disadvantaged Black South Africans and who are deemed outsiders (e.g., Asian, African even White residents and traders) and reject arguments that describe xenophobia in South Africa as targeting Black African refugees and migrants.


2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiffany L Green ◽  
Amos C Peters

Much of the existing evidence for the healthy immigrant advantage comes from developed countries. We investigate whether an immigrant health advantage exists in South Africa, an important emerging economy.  Using the 2001 South African Census, this study examines differences in child mortality between native-born South African and immigrant blacks.  We find that accounting for region of origin is critical: immigrants from southern Africa are more likely to experience higher lifetime child mortality compared to the native-born population.  Further, immigrants from outside of southern Africa are less likely than both groups to experience child deaths.  Finally, in contrast to patterns observed in developed countries, we detect a strong relationship between schooling and child mortality among black immigrants.


2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Hill ◽  
Sylvia Poss

The paper addresses the question of reparation in post-apartheid South Africa. The central hypothesis of the paper is that in South Africa current traumas or losses, such as the 2008 xenophobic attacks, may activate a ‘shared unconscious phantasy’ of irreparable damage inflicted by apartheid on the collective psyche of the South African nation which could block constructive engagement and healing. A brief couple therapy intervention by a white therapist with a black couple is used as a ‘microcosm’ to explore this question. The impact of an extreme current loss, when earlier losses have been sustained, is explored. Additionally, the impact of racial difference on the transference and countertransference between the therapist and the couple is explored to illustrate factors complicating the productive grieving and working through of the depressive position towards reparation.


Derrida Today ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-36
Author(s):  
Grant Farred

‘The Final “Thank You”’ uses the work of Jacques Derrida and Friedrich Nietzsche to think the occasion of the 1995 rugby World Cup, hosted by the newly democratic South Africa. This paper deploys Nietzsche's Zarathustra to critique how a figure such as Nelson Mandela is understood as a ‘Superman’ or an ‘Overhuman’ in the moment of political transition. The philosophical focus of the paper, however, turns on the ‘thank yous’ exchanged by the white South African rugby captain, François Pienaar, and the black president at the event of the Springbok victory. It is the value, and the proximity and negation, of the ‘thank yous’ – the relation of one to the other – that constitutes the core of the article. 1


2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-69
Author(s):  
Stephanus Muller

Stephanus Le Roux Marais (1896−1979) lived in Graaff-Reinet, South Africa, for nearly a quarter of a century. He taught music at the local secondary school, composed most of his extended output of Afrikaans art songs, and painted a number of small landscapes in the garden of his small house, nestled in the bend of the Sunday’s River. Marais’s music earned him a position of cultural significance in the decades of Afrikaner dominance of South Africa. His best-known songs (“Heimwee,” “Kom dans, Klaradyn,” and “Oktobermaand”) earned him the local appellation of “the Afrikaans Schubert” and were famously sung all over the world by the soprano Mimi Coertse. The role his ouevre played in the construction of a so-called European culture in Africa is uncontested. Yet surprisingly little attention has been paid to the rich evocations of landscape encountered in Marais’s work. Contextualized by a selection of Marais’s paintings, this article glosses the index of landscape in this body of cultural production. The prevalence of landscape in Marais’s work and the range of its expression contribute novel perspectives to understanding colonial constructions of the twentieth-century South African landscape. Like the vast, empty, and ancient landscape of the Karoo, where Marais lived during the last decades of his life, his music assumes specificity not through efforts to prioritize individual expression, but through the distinct absence of such efforts. Listening for landscape in Marais’s songs, one encounters the embrace of generic musical conventions as a condition for the construction of a particular national identity. Colonial white landscape, Marais’s work seems to suggest, is deprived of a compelling musical aesthetic by its very embrace and desired possession of that landscape.


Mousaion ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tinashe Mugwisi

Information and communications technologies (ICTs) and the Internet have to a large extent influenced the way information is made available, published and accessed. More information is being produced too frequently and information users now require certain skills to sift through this multitude in order to identify what is appropriate for their purposes. Computer and information skills have become a necessity for all academic programmes. As libraries subscribe to databases and other peer-reviewed content (print and electronic), it is important that users are also made aware of such sources and their importance. The purpose of this study was to examine the teaching of information literacy (IL) in universities in Zimbabwe and South Africa, and the role played by librarians in creating information literate graduates. This was done by examining whether such IL programmes were prioritised, their content and how frequently they were reviewed. An electronic questionnaire was distributed to 12 university libraries in Zimbabwe and 21 in South Africa. A total of 25 questionnaires were returned. The findings revealed that IL was being taught in universities library and non-library staff, was compulsory and contributed to the term mark in some institutions. The study also revealed that 44 per cent of the total respondents indicated that the libraries were collaborating with departments and faculty in implementing IL programmes in universities. The study recommends that IL should be an integral part of the university programmes in order to promote the use of databases and to guide students on ethical issues of information use.


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