scholarly journals Aristocratic libraries in Slovakia – status, research, history

Author(s):  
Michaela Sibylová

The author has divided her article into two parts. The first part describes the status and research of aristocratic libraries in Slovakia. For a certain period of time, these libraries occupied an underappreciated place in the history of book culture in Slovakia. The socialist ideology of the ruling regime allowed their collections (with a few exceptions) to be merged with those of public libraries and archives. The author describes the events that affected these libraries during and particularly after the end of World War II and which had an adverse impact on the current disarrayed state and level of research. Over the past decades, there has been increased interest in the history of aristocratic libraries, as evidenced by multiple scientific conferences, exhibitions and publications. The second part of the article is devoted to a brief history of the best-known aristocratic libraries that were founded and operated in the territory of today’s Slovakia. From the times of humanism, there are the book collections of the Thurzó family and the Zay family, leading Austro-Hungarian noble families and the library of the bishop of Nitra, Zakariás Mossóczy. An example of a Baroque library is the Pálffy Library at Červený Kameň Castle. The Enlightenment period is represented by the Andrássy family libraries in the Betliar manor and the Apponyi family in Oponice. 

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-85
Author(s):  
Andrzej Wrobel ◽  
Malgorzata Korzeniowska ◽  
Agnieszka Polak ◽  
Marcin Szczygiel ◽  
Rafal Wrobel

AbstractThis is one of a series of articles about pharmacists in Lublin district, in the 19th and 20th c. The first recorded owner of the pharmacy in Adamów was Aleksander Biernacki (1851-1897), who passed it onto his son-in-law, Aleksander Rogoziński (1873-1941), and who, in turn, passed it onto his son, Stanisław Rogoziński (1913-1998), married to Tatiana (1918-1998). This family's history is an example of the history of Polish intelligentsia in the second half of 19th c., in the times of the Russian partition, World War I, 1918-1939, World War II and until contemporary times.


2020 ◽  
pp. 206-214
Author(s):  
Michael Geheran

The book closes with a short glimpse into the history of Jewish veterans after 1945, as the survivors of the camps returned to Germany, outlining ruptures and continuities in comparison with the pre-Nazi period. Jewish veterans imposed different narratives on their experiences under National Socialism. As the past receded into the distance, it became a concern for the survivors to engage with the past, which they variously looked back on with nostalgia, disillusionment, or bitter anger. Although National Socialism threatened to erase everything that Jewish veterans of World War I had achieved and sacrificed, sought to destroy the identity they had constructed as soldiers in the service of the nation, as well as bonds with gentile Germans that had been forged under fire during the war, threatened to sever their connections to the status they had earned as soldiers of the Great War and defenders of the fatherland, their minds, their values and their character remained intact. Jewish veterans preserved their sense of German identity.


Urban History ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Simon Briercliffe

Abstract The recreation of urban historical space in museums is inevitably a complex, large-scale endeavour bridging the worlds of academic and public history. BCLM: Forging Ahead at the Black Country Living Museum is a £23m project recreating a typical Black Country town post-World War II. This article uses case-studies of three buildings – a Civic Restaurant, a record shop and a pub – to argue that urban-historical research methodology and community engagement can both create a vivid sense of the past, and challenge pervasive prejudices. It also argues that such a collaborative and public project reveals much about the urban and regional nature of industrial areas like the Black Country in this pivotal historical moment.


2003 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Hogenraad

McClelland has shown how passionate reformist zeal for social justice is often the link between an “imperial motivation pattern” (i.e., high need for power and low need for affiliation) and subsequent wars. If we could predict the outbreak of past conflicts from observing the gap between affiliation and power in stories and documents of the past, we could also analyze documents of the present and point at the gap as a signal of alert of future conflicts. With the help of the new computer-readable MOTIVE DICTIONARY, I content analyzed literary stories and real-life documents concerned with war and conflict. The dictionary rests on three axes, which are: the need for achievement, the need for affiliation, and the need for power. Examples of such narratives and documents are William Golding's Lord of the Flies, Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, Tolstoy's War and Peace, a 373-page document produced in Washington in 1944 under the title of Events Leading Up to World War II. Chronological History Of Certain Major International Events Leading Up To and During World War II with the Ostensible Reasons Advanced For Their Occurrence. 1931-1944, and Robert F. Kennedy's Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis. With close to impeccable precision, the gap between affiliation and power widens as the conflicts develop, with power higher than affiliation, and narrows if and when serenity resumes.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marko A. Janković

The period between the two world wars is extremely important for the history of Serbian and Yugoslav archaeology, because this is the time when the discipline was rapidly institutionalized – new museums are established, new professionals are trained, and large fieldwork projects are initiated. At that moment, as well as immediately after – during the World War II, European archaeology is to the great extent oriented towards the German professionals and institutions.  In Germany and Austria institutionalization started earlier, by the beginning of the 20th century, so a great number of the Serbian and Yugoslav archaeologists was educated in the German centres – Marburg, Berlin, Munich, Vienna and other universities. Adam Oršić started working in archaeology in 1930s, self-taught and leaning primarily on the experience of older colleagues, rather than on formal education, which he did not possess at the time. However, he started fieldwork on the sites in Niš and the surrounding area, collecting a huge set of data, that remained in his private possession. It was this data collection and his vast fieldwork experience in southern Serbia that for Oršić opened the door of Ahnenerbe and heritage protection institutions during the occupation. As the result of the status he achieved at the time, he was sent to Oswald Menghin in Vienna, where he completed his dissertation in 1944. During the war, his insistence on fieldwork as the essential part of archaeological research became even more pronounced, leading to his suggestion to Ahnenerbe to organize an expedition in Serbia and Macedonia. The status acquired by his doctorate under the mentorship of Menghin, the leading praehistorian of Europe at the time, enabled Oršić to continue his archaeological work after the war, first as a refugee in Austria, and then as an immigrant to Brazil. Oršić considered fieldwork as the means through which archaeologists acquire exclusive knowledge. He himself used this knowledge throughout his career to strengthen his authority and to achieve esteem in the academic community.  His vast experience and knowledge of the sites in Serbia contributed to the respect he enjoyed by the authorities during the war, set his educational path, and ultimately secured him the status he enjoyed in the settings he worked till the end of his life.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 519
Author(s):  
Branko Banović

If we conceptualize reality as a large narrative we “build ourselves into” as social beings, and consider social activities and identities as narratively mediated, the full extent of the capacity of narratives in the creation, shaping, transmission and reconstruction of contemporary social identities, as well as the reproduction of the concept of nation in everyday life becomes apparent. The imagined Euro- Atlantic future of Montenegro demands certain narrative interpretations of the past, which, in latter stages tend to become meta-narratives susceptible to consensus. The linkage of significant historical events to the process of Euro-Atlantic integrations of Montenegro is preformed through different meta-discursive practices, most often through ceremonial evocations of memories of significant events from the recent as well as further history of Montenegro. In this context, celebrations of Statehood Day and Independence Day are especially important, as they serve as reminders of the decisions of the Congress of Berlin, the Podgorica Assembly, the antifascist struggle of World War II and the independence of Montenegro attained through the referendum held in 2006. The clearly defined key points, along with the logical coherence the narrative is based on, provide the narrative with a certain “flexibility” which enables it to take in new elements. Narrative interpretations of the past have a significant role in the reproduction of the nation, as well as the shaping and consolidation of a desirable national identity, while the established narrative continuity between the past, present and imagined Euro-Atlantic future of Montenegro emerges as the “official” mediator in the reproduction of contemporary Montenegrin identity in the process of Euro-Atlantic integrations. In order to fully comprehend this narrative, it is advisable to conceptualize it both in a synchronic as well as a diachronic perspective, as can be shown in two charts which, depending on the context, I have tentatively named “the sovereignty graph” (wherein the “end” of the narrative is a prerequisite for the beginning of Euro-Atlantic integrations) and “the identity graph” (wherein Euro-Atlantic integrations are conceptualized as a dialectic equilibrium of independence and non-independence).


2018 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 171-196
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Nowak

From 1999 Polish and Romanian humanists face each other on conferences in Suceava (Romanian Bucovina) which are part of “Polish Days” in Romania organized by the Association of Poles in Romania. Polish and Romanian historians, ethnographers, sociologists, politologists and linguists deliver lectures and discuss Polish-Romanian contacts and relations in the past and present. from the Polish part many historical lectures concern the interwar period and the problem of Polish refugees in Romania during the World War II. In the period between1918–1945 the relations between Poles and Romanians were rather friendly and now these topics are discussed most frequently. Among the Romanian historians there are more specialists on the relations between Moldova and the Polish Kingdom till the end of 18th century. Many historians focus on the Polish-Romanian relations in the years 1945–1989. Most of the lectures concerning the political present were delivered by the Poles. Cultural sections of the conference concentrate on mutual language influences, Polish–Romanian literature contacts, translations of Polish literature into Romania and Romanian literature into Poland, the analyses of literary works, Polish studies in Romania and Romanian studies in Poland, the perception of Romanian culture among the Poles and vice versa, the problems of religions, education, libraries, music and tourism. Polish etnographers concentrate on the problems of Polish Bucovinians but the most discussed subject is not the history of Polish Bucovinians but their local dialect. Most of the conference lectures were printed. “Polish Days” in Suceava are the most important event organized by the very active Association of Poles in Romania and they help breaking the stereotypes and enhance the integration between the Poles and Romanians.. In general the conferences in Suceava do not have their equivalent in the contacts between humanists of other countries.


1984 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 380-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfred S. McLaren

This paper examines the evolution of the arctic submarine and the ever-increasing scientific and commercial potential which have accompanied this evolution over the past 340 years. It is a sporadic history of arctic submarine ideas, concepts and actual experiences with vessels at sea. It happens to be a history that is largely American, with important additions as a result of the experiences of the Germans, Soviets and the British, particularly during World War II. Finally, it is a history in which five early visionaries in particular stand out: Bishop John Wilkins of England; Jules Verne of France; Professor Anschutz-Kampfe of Germany; the submarine designer Simon Lake, of the United States — whose influence extended over four decades until well into the twentieth century; and Sir Hubert Wilkins of Australia.


1978 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 351-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Vansina

One wonders what Fernand Braudel and the school of the Annales have done to become a kind of Trojan Horse for the wholesale condemnation of the historical value of oral tradition. Yet they are the banner raised by W.G. Clarence-Smith in a recent article in his journal to preach jihad against its historical value. Clarence-Smith claims that the historiographical revolution effected by Annales has resulted in the definitive exclusion of oral traditions from the halls of Clio. Oral traditions are at best ambiguous “signs” about the past and are very much of the present. They lack absolute chronology and they are selective, so away with them. If they be worthy of attention at all, let anthropologists and sociologists be concerned, save in a few rare instances where a historian wants to check on some European printed source. And even then, caveat emptor. Significantly, the article is not just the expression of the views of one person; rather it is symptomatic of much of the criticism which has been leveled at oral tradition, mostly by fasionable anthropologists. And it brings this criticism to its logical conclusion.But first a word about Braudel, the Annales, and oral tradition in general. The Annales School was founded by Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch before World War II. Fernand Braudel is its most distinguished exponent. His major theoretical pronouncements can be found in his Ecrits sur l'histoire, a collection of articles reprinted and published in 1969. This and his two major historical works should be read by those who want to know more about his views and ways of dealing with history. The basic tenets that members of the Annales School hold is that the history of events is but the spray of past developments; other time depths tell us more about the waves of the past. There is the time of the conjoncture, the trend, and the even longer time periods -- sometimes many centuries long -- the longue durée or long term. Successful history writing does not liminate the study of events, but analyzes them against the movement of these longer and deeper-running trends.


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