scholarly journals Sleeping with the Political Enemy: Woman’s Place in Discourses of Race and Class Struggle in 20th Century Central Europe

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 77-86
Author(s):  
Dániel Bolgár

In this paper, I shall argue that the convergence of ideologies operating through the creation of enemies like racism and Bolshevism with discourses regulating gender relations in the Central Europe of the twentieth century had the grave consequence of questioning women’s position in the political community. In short, I shall argue that in the context of racist and Bolshevik discourses, the very fact of being female was in itself a political threat to women. To demonstrate my point, I shall discuss two recent publications. First, I shall analyze the context of the convergence of racist and misogynist discourses in turn-of-the-century Vienna through discussing András Gerő’s book, Neither Woman Nor Jew. Second, I shall explore how the discourse of class struggle affected the political status of Hungarian women in the Stalinist era through discussing Eszter Zsófia Tóth’s book, Kádár’s Daughters.

2004 ◽  
Vol 65 ◽  
pp. 227-229
Author(s):  
Ruth Needleman

Richly descriptive and well documented, Steel and Steelworkers: Race and Class Struggle in Twentieth-Century Pittsburgh by John Hinshaw makes a significant contribution to the growing body of historical research on steel unionism in the twentieth century. Over the past few years, a number of new studies have broadened our understanding of unionization and work practices in the nation's steel mills, by examining in greater detail the patterns of organization in specific mills and mill towns.


Author(s):  
Fernando N. Winfield

Commenting on an exhibition of contemporary Mexican architecture in Rome in 1957, the polemic and highly influential Italian architectural critic and historian, Bruno Zevi, ridiculed Mexican modernism for combining Pre-Columbian motifs with modern architecture. He referred to it as ‘Mexican Grotesque’. Inherent in Zevi’s comments were an attitude towards modern architecture that defined it in primarily material terms; its principle role being one of “spatial and programmatic function”. Despite the weight of this Modernist tendency in the architectural circles of Post-Revolutionary Mexico, we suggest in this paper that Mexican modernism cannot be reduced to such “material” definitions. In the highly charged political context of Mexico in the first half of the 20th Century, modern architecture was perhaps above all else, a tool for propaganda. In this political atmosphere it was undesirable, indeed it was seen as impossible, to separate art, architecture and politics in a way that would be a direct reflection of Modern architecture’s European manifestations. Form was to follow function, but that function was to be communicative as well as spatial and programmatic. One consequence of this “political communicative function” in Mexico was the combination of the “mural tradition” with contemporary architectural design; what Zevi defined as “Mexican Grotesque”. In this paper, we will examine the political context of Post-Revolutionary Mexico and discuss what may be defined as its most iconic building; the Central Library at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico . In direct counterpoint to Zevi, we will suggest that it was far from grotesque, but rather was one of the most committed political statements made by the Modern Movement throughout the Twentieth Century. It was propaganda, it was political. It was utopian.


1952 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 766-776 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles R. Adrian

Out of the middle-class businessman's “Efficiency and Economy Movement” that reached full strength in the second decade of the twentieth century came a series of innovations designed to place government “on a business basis” and to weaken the power of the political parties. The movement was inspired both by the example of the success of the corporate structure in trade and industry and by revulsion against the low standards of morality to be found in many sectors of political party activity around the turn of the century. The contemporary brand of politician had recently been exposed by the “muck-rakers” and the prestige of the parties had reached a very low level.Of the numerous ideas and mechanisms adopted as a result of the reform movement, one of the most unusual was that of election without party designation. Early in the twentieth century, under the theory that judges are neutral referees, not political officers, and that political activities should therefore be discouraged in the choosing of them, many communities initiated “nonpartisan” elections (the term that is usually applied) in the balloting for judicial posts.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 127-145
Author(s):  
Radosław Zenderowski ◽  
Andrzej Rudowski

Europa Środkowa stanowi zarówno ideę wspólnoty kulturowej, przestrzeń geopo­lityczną i geokulturową, jak i pewną koncepcję polityczną. W ostatnich kilku dekadach jesteśmy świadkami przejścia czy raczej interferencji od idei literacko-kawiarnianej ku politycznym formom instytucjonalizacji Europy Środkowej. Celem niniejszego artykułu jest ukazanie owej drogi oraz klu­czowych dylematów stojących przed architektami politycznej Europy Środkowej. W artykule omó­wiono zatem dyskurs środkowoeuropejski w latach 70. i 80. XX w., a następnie poszczególne uwa­runkowania i etapy politycznej instytucjonalizacji Europy Środkowej z naciskiem na okres po 2004 r.Central Europe — from the café literary idea to political concepts Central Europe is both an idea of a cultural community, a geopolitical and geo­cultural space, as well as a concrete political concept. In the last decades, we are the witnesses of tran­sition or rather an interference from the literary-cafeteria idea towards the political forms of institutionalization of Central Europe. The aim of this article is to show this way and key dilemmas facing the political architects of Central Europe. The article discusses the Central European discourse in the 70s and 80s of the 20th century, and then the various conditions and stages of the political institu­tionalization of Central Europe with an emphasis on the period after 2004.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 28-45
Author(s):  
Ya. V. Vishnyakov

During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Eastern question and the search for ways to solve it occupied a central place in the politics of both Russia and European states. With his decision was closely linked the process of formation of the young Balkan countries. Serbia, whose formation of a new statehood typologically coincides with a change in the system of European international relations of the 19th and early 20th centuries, played an important role in the events of the Eastern question, while claiming to be the Yugoslav “Piemont”. However, it was the war by the beginning of the twentieth century. It became, both for Serbia and other countries of the region, not only a means of gaining state sovereignty, but also the main way to resolve its own interstate contradictions, which took place against the background of an external factor - the impact on the political processes of the Balkans of the Great Powers. These factors led to the natural militarization of the everyday life of Serbian society. The presence in the everyday consciousness of the people of the image of a hostile “other” became one of the main ways of internal consolidation of the country, when attitudes towards war, pushing the values of peaceful life to the background, created a special basic consensus in the state development of Serbia at the beginning of the 20th century, and the anthropological role of the military factor was essential influenced the underlying processes that took place in the country at the beginning of the twentieth century. In the conditions of a new stage of destruction of the Balkans along the ethno-political line, the factor of militarization of everyday life again becomes an important element of the historical policy of the Balkan countries and the construction of a “new past”. In this regard, the understanding of many problems and possible scenarios for the development of the current Balkan reality is linked to this phenomenon. Thus, the study of the impact on the political life of Serbia at the beginning of the twentieth century of special "extra-constitutional" institutions is important for a wide range of researchers, including for a systematic analysis of the crisis in the territory of the former SFRY.Author declares the absence of conflict of interests.


Te Kaharoa ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Moon

Although the manifestos or policies of most New Zealand political parties aspire to improve some aspect of the country, few have matched the Values Party’s 1972 Blueprint for the utopian form and extent of the changes it promised to being into effect. And unlike the policies of most other New Zealand political parties in the twentieth century, the Values Party proposed that material progress ought to be stopped at some point, echoing the notion of the stationary state which John Stuart Mill devised in 1848.   However, the Blueprint’s distinctly utopian orientation was not only necessarily subversive of the political status quo in the country, but simultaneously rejected the past and present in favour of a radically transformed future, while (seemingly paradoxically) drawing on a nostalgic interpretation of aspects of New Zealand’s colonial era as a thematic source of its utopian construct for the country. This article examines these dimensions of the Blueprint, and how the inherent flaws in practically all utopian movements similarly undermined the Values Party’s programme for a utopian New Zealand.


2009 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiara Bottici ◽  
Benoît Challand

Both the name Europe and the political entity Europe are relatively recent inventions. Although the name can be traced back as far as 700 BCE, the term in its contemporary meaning only became widespread after 1700 CE. The political entity is an even more recent construct. It was only with the first steps toward European construction in the second half of the twentieth century that the contours of a political community bearing this name emerged, even if its borders were still far from clearly defined. Yet even with the existence of today’s European Union (EU) the meaning of the term remains highly contested. Does Europe mean only the EU? Is it a geographical or a political entity? Where are its boundaries? How did these boundaries come about?


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (10_3) ◽  
pp. 211-215
Author(s):  
Petr Iskenderov

The article focuses on the two key currents of political thought in Albania in the twentieth century - “Nolism” and “Zogism”. The author traces their influence on the modern history of Albania. Special attention is paid to the problems of Albanian nationalism.


Author(s):  
Marcin Wodziński

This chapter addresses the ideological crisis among Polish Jewish integrationists at the start of the twentieth century. One of the signs of departure from the old ideological line was the rapidly changing attitude to hasidism. On the one hand, politically involved journalists such as Nachum Sokołów saw a new political threat in the hasidic movement and called for an alliance of all non-hasidic political forces against this group. On the other hand, from the mid-1890s, it became more and more common to idealize the hasidic past, to see the movement as the fascinating creation of folk mysticism, a depository of authentic Jewish folklore, and above all an excellent literary theme. These two attitudes, although they seemed contradictory, frequently coexisted. Usually, they were evident in the belief that the good and beautiful teachings of the fathers of hasidism were later distorted by the tsadikim and had led to the contemporary degenerate form of the political movement. The great interest in the origins of the movement was undoubtedly an attempt to escape contemporary reality and, at the same time, to escape the confrontational attitudes of the maskilim. This was obviously the result of changes in European writings that took place at the turn of the century in relation to the historiographic, philosophical, and literary portrayal of hasidism.


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