The Aesthetics of War

2021 ◽  
Vol 88 (3) ◽  
pp. 569-593
Author(s):  
Edhem Eldem

War has always been a catalyst for innovation in the Ottoman Empire, even in the un- likely field of iconography. World War I was such an episode, further exacerbated by the alliance with Germany, a major producer of wartime propaganda. This contribution retraces the development of state symbolism in the Ottoman Empire throughout the nineteenth century, especially with respect to medals and decorations, before focusing on the production of images and symbols during World War I. Particular attention is given to one specific case – that of the Ottoman War Medal, dubbed the “Iron Crescent” by the Germans, the creative design of which still remains unexplained and undocu- mented despite its truly iconic nature.

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuval Ben-Bassat ◽  
Fruma Zachs

The King-Crane Commission, named after its two chairs, Henry Churchill King (1858-1934) and Charles R. Crane (1858-1939), was an American investigative commission set up to explore possible political arrangements for the former Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I and the collapse of the Empire. While most research has dealt with the issue of whether the petitions submitted to the King-Crane Commission were a genuine manifestation of ‘public opinion’ or merely manipulations by interested elite parties, this article shifts the focus beyond this debate. We argue that a textual analysis of these petitions can shed light on the transformation of the traditional Ottoman form of appeal into a modern political tool used to recruit and generate ‘public opinion’ and foster modern political discourse. We first present a historical overview of petitioning in the Ottoman Empire and the key changes in petitioning practices in the last half of the nineteenth century. We then discuss the King-Crane petitions and highlight their differences from traditional petitions, as well as their contribution to the emerging national discourse in Greater Syria. We show that petitions shifted toward stances that were more ideological and political in nature, a development that coincided with the collapse of the Empire.


Author(s):  
Mark Franko

This book is an examination of neoclassical ballet initially in the French context before and after World War I (circa 1905–1944) with close attention to dancer and choreographer Serge Lifar. Since the critical discourses analyzed indulged in flights of poetic fancy a distinction is made between the Lifar-image (the dancer on stage and object of discussion by critics), the Lifar-discourse (the writings on Lifar as well as his own discourse), and the Lifar-person (the historical actor). This topic is further developed in the final chapter into a discussion of the so-called baroque dance both as a historical object and as a motif of contemporary experimentation as it emerged in the aftermath of World War II (circa 1947–1991) in France. Using Lifar as a through-line, the book explores the development of critical ideas of neoclassicism in relation to his work and his drift toward a fascist position that can be traced to the influence of Nietzsche on his critical reception. Lifar’s collaborationism during the Occupation confirms this analysis. The discussion of neoclassicism begins in the final years of the nineteenth-century and carries us through the Occupation; then track the baroque in its gradual development from the early 1950s through the end of the 1980s and early 1990s.


Author(s):  
Karen Ahlquist

This chapter charts how canonic repertories evolved in very different forms in New York City during the nineteenth century. The unstable succession of entrepreneurial touring troupes that visited the city adapted both repertory and individual pieces to the audience’s taste, from which there emerged a major theater, the Metropolitan Opera, offering a mix of German, Italian, and French works. The stable repertory in place there by 1910 resembles to a considerable extent that performed in the same theater today. Indeed, all of the twenty-five operas most often performed between 1883 and 2015 at the Metropolitan Opera were written before World War I. The repertory may seem haphazard in its diversity, but that very condition proved to be its strength in the long term. This chapter is paired with Benjamin Walton’s “Canons of real and imagined opera: Buenos Aires and Montevideo, 1810–1860.”


Author(s):  
S. S. Shchevelev

The article examines the initial period of the mandate administration of Iraq by Great Britain, the anti-British uprising of 1920. The chronological framework covers the period from May 1916 to October 1921 and includes an analysis of events in the Middle East from May 1916, when the secret agreement on the division of the territories of the Ottoman Empire after the end of World War I (the Sykes-Picot agreement) was concluded before the proclamation of Faisal as king of Iraq and from the formation of the country՚s government. This period is a key one in the Iraqi-British relations at the turn of the 10-20s of the ХХ century. The author focuses on the Anglo-French negotiations during the First World War, on the eve and during the Paris Peace Conference on the division of the territory of the Ottoman Empire and the ownership of the territories in the Arab zone. During these negotiations, it was decided to transfer the mandates for Syria (with Lebanon) to the France, and Palestine and Mesopotamia (Iraq) to Great Britain. The British in Iraq immediately faced strong opposition from both Sunnis and Shiites, resulting in an anti-English uprising in 1920. The author describes the causes, course and consequences of this uprising.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saeed Khudeda Alo

ملخص البحث:يعتبر الأرمن من احد الجماعات العرقية المميزة التي عاشت في الدولة العثمانية، قاموا بتاسيس جمعيات سياسية في القرن التاسع عشر تلك الجمعيات التي سعت الى تأسيس دولة قومية للارمن بمساعدة الغرب كان ذلك من الاساب الرئيسة الى تعرضهم الى الإبادة الجماعية من قبل الدولة العثمانية. وخلال سنوات الحرب العالمية الأولى توجه الاتراك الى اتباع سياسة قومية وذلك نتيجة لتطورات الحرب فكانت النتيجة تهجير الأرمن من مناطقهم وقيام الاتراك بمذابح منظمة ضدهم، لكن هناك مجموعات تمكنت من النجاة من تلك المذابح والتوجه الى العراق وخاصة الى سنجارحيث قام أهلها من الايزيدييين باستقبال الأرمن ومساعدتهم في محنتهم وبناء البيوت ،من الطين، لهم وإيجاد العمل لهم آنذاك لكي يستطيعوا من استمرار حياتهم. لكن موقف الايزيديين هذا مع الأرمن دفع بالاتراك الى القيام بتوجيه حملة عسكرية الى سنجار أدت الى قتل الكثير من الأهالي ونهبت ودمرت قراهم وتركت اثار سلبية على المنطقة. The Yezidis from Sinjar and the Armenians. 1914-1918A study in the Yezidi position with regards to the Armenian Genocide.The Armenians are reputed to be one of the most distinguished ethnic groups which lived during the rule of the Ottoman Empire.During the nineteenth century they established political societies whose raison d' etre was to pursue the founding of a nation-state for Armenia, backed by Western aid and support.Their political endeavours were one of the main reasons for their genocide under the Ottoman Empire. During World War one, the Turks pursued their own national policy, resulting in the displacement of the Armenians from their territories and targeted massacres against them. There were those who succeeded in escaping theTurkish massacres and fled to Iraq, most particularly the area of Sinjar. The Yezidis from Sinjar welcomed the Armenians and aided them in their process of resettlement, building of mud houses and finding employment. The aid extended by the Yezidi community of Sinjar to the Armenian displaced, caused the Turks to launch a military campaign against Sinjar, looting and destroying villages and murdering many that wreaked havoc upon the region.


2017 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Itzchak Weismann

This article argues that there are structural affinities and continuities between the late nineteenth-century modernist reformers and today’s quietist, political, and jihādī Salafī factions. Salafism refers to the basic theological-ideological formation that postulates a return to pristine Islam to overcome tradition and bring regeneration. The Salafī balance between authenticity and modernization promoted by enlightened religious intellectuals in the late Ottoman period was shattered by the events of World War I and its aftermath. This resulted in its bifurcation between conservatives, who adopted literalist and xenophobic Wahhābī positions, and modernists, primarily the Muslim Brothers, who employed innovative means in their religio-political struggle to re-Islamize society and oust colonialism. The Salafī balance was reconstructed after independence on new, unenlightened lines in the Saudi Islamic Awakening (al-Ṣaḥwa al-Islāmiyya), which combined the erstwhile rigorous Wahhābī teachings with radicalized Islamism. Global jihādī-Salafism completed the perversion of the modernist Salafī balance by reducing the authentic way of the salaf to excommunication and violence and by using the most modern means in its war against both Westerners and indigenous Muslim governments.



2020 ◽  
pp. 25-41
Author(s):  
Rebecca Ayako Bennette

This chapter gives a broad overview of developments within the main areas of psychiatry, the military, and pacifism and provides the necessary background to understand the conditions prevailing in Germany leading up to 1914. It highlights the rising fortunes and expanding purview of psychiatry in the decades before World War I and references the limits of describing the trends as medicalization. It also explores the general prestige of the military and the role of pacifism in imperial German society. The chapter looks at August Fauser and Erwin Ackerknecht's estimations of psychiatry around 1900, which inhabited opposite ends of the opinion spectrum. It analyses attitudes toward the insane that had been lumped with the larger category of the poor over the nineteenth century.


Ballet Class ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 3-24
Author(s):  
Melissa R. Klapper

Ballet developed slowly in the United States and depended on European dancers and teachers at first, but by mid-nineteenth century a few American-trained ballet dancers were beginning to make their mark. The opening of the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School in 1909 and the tours of Anna Pavlova contributed greatly to popularizing ballet and inspiring young people to begin taking ballet class before World War I. Expansion continued from the 1920s through the 1940s with the founding of the School of American Ballet and the performances of the various Ballet Russe companies in every corner of the country. The Littlefield sisters and Christensen brothers helped make ballet American by establishing important homegrown ballet companies with primarily American dancers. The regional ballet movement fostered further growth. All these developments in professional ballet encouraged ever-increasing numbers of Americans not only to enjoy performances but also to take ballet class themselves.


2013 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 955-985
Author(s):  
Anna M. Mirkova

AbstractThis article explores the migrations of Turkish Muslims after the 1878 Peace Treaty of Berlin, which severed much of the Balkans from the Ottoman Empire as fully independent nation-states or as nominally dependent polities in the borderlands of the empire. I focus on one such polity—the administratively autonomous Ottoman province of Eastern Rumelia—which, in wrestling to reconcile liberal principles of equality and political representation understood in ethno-religious terms, prompted emigration of Turkish Muslims while enabling Bulgarian Christian hegemony. Scholars have studied Muslim emigration from the Balkans as the Ottoman Empire gradually lost hold of the region, emphasizing deleterious effects of nationalism and aggressive state-building in the region. Here I look at migration at empire's end, and more specifically at the management of migration as constitutive of sovereignty. The Ottoman government asserted its suzerainty by claiming to protect the rights of Eastern Rumelia's Muslims. The Bulgarian dominated administration of Eastern Rumelia claimed not only administrative but also political autonomy by trying to contain the grievances of Turkish Muslims as a domestic issue abused by ill-meaning outsiders, all the while insisting that the province protected the rights of all subjects. Ultimately, a “corporatist” model of subjecthood obtained in Eastern Rumelia, which fused the traditional religious categorization of Ottoman subjects with an ethnic one under the umbrella of representative government. The tension between group belonging and individual politicization that began unfolding in Eastern Rumelia became a major dilemma of the post-Ottoman world and other post-imperial societies after World War I.


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