Carving Cameras on Thorvaldsen and Rodin: Mid-Twentieth-Century Documentaries on Sculpture

2017 ◽  
pp. 65-83
Author(s):  
Steven Jacobs

The earliest examples of “art films,” which date from the first two decades of the twentieth century, had monuments and public sculptures as their subject. While often being actualities showing inaugurations of public statues, many of these films focus on the social event of the ceremony rather than the sculptures themselves, but some films did give attention to the plastic qualities of the sculptures in natural light.3 While a cinematic reproduction of a painting seemed useless or redundant, the medium of film was considered perfect for visualizing threedimensional artworks, which necessitate a moving approach to grasp their different angles and spatial dimension. Likewise, German art film pioneer Hans Cürlis, who founded the Institut für Kulturforschung in 1919 in order to develop and propagate film as a mediator for art, considered paintings highly “unfilmic.”4 Throughout the 1920s, Cürlis made several films that consist of static shots of sculptures rotating on their axis, grouped under titles such as “Heads,” “Negro Sculpture,” “Old-German Madonnas,” “German Saints,” “Kleinplastik,” “Indian Crafts,” or “East-Asian Crafts.” Other landmark art documentaries produced before the Second World War also focused on sculpture.

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 566-585
Author(s):  
Gábor Győrffy ◽  
Zoltán Tibori-Szabó ◽  
Júlia-Réka Vallasek

Sabbatarians were the only proselyte religious community that had an official institutional form in nineteenth-century Europe. This study aims to present the history and gradual disintegration of the Sabbatarian community and their acceptance of a common fate with Transylvanian Jewry during the Second World War. This is realized by, first, outlining the historical context of the formation of Sabbatarianism; second, by describing the social and political circumstances of Transylvanian Jews in the first half of the twentieth century; and third, by giving a detailed presentation of the 1944 deportations and other related events.


2008 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 318-328
Author(s):  
Mark Smith

Historical analyses of twentieth-century evangelicalism have rarely focused on the experience of the parish. In many respects this is unsurprising. The renaissance in the historiography of evangelicalism since the 1970s has concentrated primarily on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, leaving the twentieth – and especially the period after the Second World War – relatively unexplored. Where work has been done, it has tended to focus on ecclesiastical politics, activity in universities, and biographies of major leaders. Nor are more general histories particularly illuminating in this respect. Roger Lloyd, for example, concentrates on Anglo-Catholics and modernists rather than evangelicals and Paul Welsby, whose work devotes considerable space to pastoral ministry, is more concerned with its organization than with its practice. The consequence of this historiographical gap has not been so much to create a vacuum in relation to mid-twentieth century Anglican evangelicalism as to leave an impression of a rather elitist movement, dominated by the products of Public Schools and the Inter-Varsity Fellowship (IVF) and therefore almost irremediably middle class. Ironically, this impression has been reinforced by the one substantial study of mid-twentieth century parish evangelicalism so far in print – Alister Chapman’s study of the ministry of John Stott at All Souls, Langham Place: ‘Evangelical Anglicans,’ he notes, just as much if not more than other Anglicans, continued to be associated with the middle classes, and they had significant difficulties reaching people lower down the social scale.’


2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-23
Author(s):  
Nela Štorková

While today the Ethnographic Museum of the Pilsen Region represents just one of the departments of the Museum of West Bohemia in Pilsen, at the beginning of the twentieth century, in 1915, it emerged as an independent institution devoted to a study of life in the Pilsen region. Ladislav Lábek, the founder and long-time director, bears the greatest credit for this museum. This study presents PhDr. Marie Ulčová, who joined the museum shortly after the Second World War and in 1963 replaced Mr. Lábek on his imaginary throne. The main objective of this article is to introduce the personality of Marie Ulčová and to evaluate the activity of this Pilsen ethnographer and the museum employee with an emphasis on her work in the Ethnographic Museum of the Pilsen Region. The basic aspects of the ethnographic activities, not only of Marie Ulčová but also of the Ethnographic Museum of the Pilsen Region in the years 1963–1988, are described through her professional and popularising articles, archival sources and contemporary periodicals.


Author(s):  
Igor Lyubchyk

The research issue peculiarities of wide Russian propaganda among the most Western ethnographic group – Lemkies is revealed in the article. The character and orientation of Russian and Soviet agitation through the social, religious and social movements aimed at supporting Russian identity in the region are traced. Tragic pages during the First World War were Thalrogian prisons for Lemkas, which actually swept Lemkivshchyna through Muscovophilian influences. Agitation for Russian Orthodoxy has provoked frequent cases of sharp conflicts between Lemkas. In general, attempts by moskvophile agitators to impose russian identity on the Orthodox rite were failed. Taking advantage of the complex socio-economic situation of Lemkos, Russian campaigners began to promote moving to the USSR. Another stage of Russian propaganda among Lemkos began with the onset of the Second World War. Throughout the territory of the Galician Lemkivshchyna, Soviet propaganda for resettlement to the USSR began rather quickly. During the dramatic events of the Second World War and the post-war period, despite the outbreaks of the liberation movement, among the Lemkoswere manifestations of political sympathies oriented toward the USSR. Keywords: borderlands, Lemkivshchyna, Lemky, Lemkivsky schism, Moskvophile, Orthodoxy, agitation, ethnopolitics


2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-61
Author(s):  
Jill Felicity Durey

This article illuminates two short stories by John Galsworthy through examining them with the help of his diaries and letters, a handful of unpublished letters by his nephew from an internment camp and secondary historical sources. It argues that the stories, when read in conjunction with these sources, are highly revealing about human nature during Second World War and also about Galsworthy’s prescient fears concerning a second twentieth-century world war, which he did not live to see.


Sociology ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 52 (5) ◽  
pp. 898-914 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristian Frisk

The article challenges the thesis that western societies have moved towards a post-heroic mood in which military casualties are interpreted as nothing but a waste of life. Using content analysis and qualitative textual analysis of obituaries produced by the Royal Danish Army in memory of soldiers killed during the Second World War (1940–1945) and the military campaign in Afghanistan (2002–2014), the article shows that a ‘good’ military death is no longer conceived of as a patriotic sacrifice, but is instead legitimised by an appeal to the unique moral worth, humanitarian goals and high professionalism of the fallen. The article concludes that fatalities in international military engagement have invoked a sense of post-patriotic heroism instead of a post-heroic crisis, and argues that the social order of modern society has underpinned, rather than undermined, ideals of military self-sacrifice and heroism, contrary to the predominant assumption of the literature on post-heroic warfare.


Author(s):  
Andrew I. Port

The ‘long 1950s’ was a decade of conspicuous contrasts: a time of dismantling and reconstruction, economic and political, as well as cultural and moral; a time of Americanization and Sovietization; a time of upheaval amid a desperate search for stability. But above all, it was a time for both forgetting and coming to terms with the recent past. This article focuses on the two forms of government that controlled Germany, democracy, and dictatorship. The Cold War was without doubt the main reason for the rapid rehabilitation and integration of the two German states, which more or less took place within a decade following the end of the Second World War. This article further elaborates upon the political conditions under dictatorship and its effect on the social life. East Germany, under the Soviet control underwent as much political upheaval. It was not until the second half of the twentieth century that Germany became a democracy.


Author(s):  
Dirk van Keulen

Abstract Arnold Albert van Ruler (1908-1970) was one of the leading theologians in the Dutch Reformed Church in the second half of the twentieth century. After having worked as a minister in Kubaard (1933-1940) and Hilversum (1940-1947) he was professor at the University of Utrecht (1947-1970). Van Ruler had a special place in the Dutch theological landscape. The development of his views took the opposite direction of the mainstream of Dutch protestant theology, which can be illustrated with his reception of the theology of Karl Barth. Before the Second World War Van Ruler was a Barthian theologian; after the War he distanced himself from Barth. As a result of this, some of Van Ruler’s theological views were controversial. Van Ruler himself felt somewhat lonely and complained that he was neglected by his colleagues. On the morning of December 15, 1970, Van Ruler had his third heart attack and dead sitting at his writing desk. In this contribution the reactions on Van Ruler’s death are documented. In many daily newspapers his death is mentioned and in several the significance of his work is described. During the months after his death in many ecclesiastical weekly’s and in theological journals in Memoriams were published. We find personal memories and praise for his style of theologising, which was experienced as sparkling and bright. Van Ruler’s colleagues recognised his originality. His views on theocracy, however, remained as controversial as they were during his lifetime.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirella D’Ascenzo

This contribution explores the historical and educational context in Italy after the Second World War, focusing on the pedagogical and educational innovation of the Movimento di Cooperazione Educativa (Educational Cooperation Movement, MCE), founded to promote the techniques of Freinet, and in particular Bruno Ciari, teacher, politician and driving force behind national school renewal in Italy. Using printed sources and archives from the period, the paper looks at the social and pedagogical experiment developed by Bruno Ciari between 1966 and 1970 and promoted in the city of Bologna through «Pedagogic Februaries»; these involved a series of events, conferences and training initiatives, organised with the cooperation of key universities, targeting teachers and families in order to develop an innovative, shared school culture. From the egodocuments of a preschool teacher who worked with Bruno Ciari in the city of Bologna, we enter the heart of the renewal of teaching practices, highlighting the tormented process of change in the teaching profession, in favour of a school that would be a true alternative to the traditional model and open to the democratic demands of all society. 


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 37-53
Author(s):  
Pawel Sendyka

Abstract The Górale of the Polish highlands are seen as a people apart from the rest of Poles. They are afforded this special status through the romanticisation as Poland’s very own “noble savages” by the writers and travellers of the 19th century. This was the time of Poland’s search for nationhood (when its territory was occupied by Russia, Prussia and Austria). The Górale have always been described, even in those early accounts, as pastoralists. During the season, when the sheep went up to the alpine pastures, the villages were almost deserted. In the 20th century the pastoral system dissolution took place starting with the establishment of national parks after the Second World War. Further unfavourable developments decimated what was left of it since the late 1980s. As a result of the dissolution of the pastoral system the Górale chose to amplify their internal unity by strengthening the ethnic identity. The revival of pastoralism as it currently presents itself today, may be seen as yet another rallying call around Górale identity. It is a come back to the pastoralist “core” of the highland culture, while changing and re-inventing the tradition to suit new economic, social and political circumstances. In the Polish pastoralist tradition there have always been two seminal community events which bracketed the winter season. There was the autumn event of “Redyk Jesienny” when the sheep brought back from the summer alpine pastures were given back to their owners and there was also a spring event of “Mieszanie Owiec” which literally means the Mixing of Sheep. Historically, they were very important events of the pastoral calendar, while the pastoral system itself has been crucial fixture and backbone of the social system of the Górale people. The paper examines how these traditions changed from old ethnographic descriptions and how they are being re-invented in the context of reaffirming the Górale identity today.


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