scholarly journals The Breton Language Autobiography of Julien Godest (1905–13): Current Events and Cultural Archaism on the Eve of the 20th Century

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Nelly Blanchard ◽  

Julien Godest (1849–33) was a farmer from Chapelle-Neuve and Callac in the Côtes-d’Armor (north-western Brittany). Unlike most of his fellow agricultural labourers, he was literate and, at some point between 1905–13, he wrote a 300-page autobiography in Breton. He had been solicited to undertake this task by François Jaffrennou (1879–1956), one of the key leaders of the Emsao movement. Godest began this long literary work to testify and to reflect upon his experiences and those of his brother during a crucial period of social, political, geographical, cultural and linguistic change at the end of the 19th century, a period that ushered in what historians define as the “modern age”.Rather than assume the existence of clearly defined cultural entities — for example, Breton or Celtic on the one hand and French on the other — the question of cultural and linguistic contacts raised by the theme of this colloquium induced me to read the text and analyse it in a way that is similar to the manner in which the author himself seems to have perceived his own identity, that is, via cultural change and other recurring events that punctuate his autobiography. In order to provide elements of a response, I shall concentrate on his experiences in the face of social and cultural change, in order to understand what he seems to perceive as fundamentally significant in his own culture. I shall then attempt to shed some light on the nature of this literary text. Finally, and perhaps paradoxically, I shall examine its value as a tool of cultural archaeology.

2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masashi Haneda

AbstractThis article attempts to demonstrate that the notion of “Islamic world” was a creation of the modern age, emanating from north-western Europe in the nineteenth century. The term incorporates two opposing ideological meanings: on the one hand, Europe representing modern, positive values is set against the Islamic world, representing pre-modern, minus values, while on the other hand, the Islamic world was the common bond among all Muslims for their solidarity and unification against European colonialism. The article goes on to investigate why, how and when precisely the two concepts of “Islamic world” were created under the influence of modern European thought. It is stressed that in much of today's discourse too we can still perceive the two different meanings of the term, and this has often led to confusion and misunderstanding in discussion. Modern historians have played a role in substantiating the ideology of the “Islamic world”, because modern historiography has often described political objectives as actual reality.


Author(s):  
Manisha Sharma

Existentialism, a quite contemporary dogma apparent in the philosophical and literary work of Sartre, was much in vogue in the European literature dating back from mid-twentieth century. Existentialism dealing greatly with the alienated trepidation, preposterousness, prejudice, escapism, over attraction for liberation, started becoming the subject matter of almost all the writers of the modern age. As an avant-garde novelist, Anita Desai in “Fire on the Mountain” exhibits a strong inclination towards the existentialist interpretation of the human predicament.” Desai’s characters of Nanda Kaul, Raka and Ila Das are studies of women in the utter maze of isolation and ennui. The novel espouses the universal human struggle for survival, especially in the face of a never ending spiral of human failures and misfortunes.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frédérique MARTY

Through two works taken from Balzac's Comédie humaine (César Birotteau and Modeste Mignon) our study seeks to demonstrate the power of ostracization of social representations against deviant bodies in the 19th century in Western societies. We question the tolerance scale for mild disability, the club-foot, in two parts, and then in the face of a deformity considered to be monstrous, that of a hunchbacked dwarf. If the first person with a disability manages to marry his sweetheart, he owes it to its intact validity, to a share of luck afforded by the novelist, but above all to the force of money! We will find this character in the Human comedy. The second only exists for the duration of the novel. Faced with the one he loves and the reader, he shines with the intelligence and sensitivity bestowed by the narrator. For happiness, he will have to be content to be the true craftsman of the one whom the one he loves aims for, without sharing it, because a monster, even bright and full of humor, remains a monster.


Author(s):  
B. Z. Nanzatov ◽  
◽  
M. M. Sodnompilova ◽  

This article continues the series of the works devoted to the study of the ethnic composition of the Buryat and Khamnigan departments of the 19th century. One of the self-government bodies of indigenous of the Transbaikal in the 19th century was the Urulginskaya Steppe Duma, the main population of which was the Tungus of the Manchu tribe, as they were characterized by the Russian administration. One of the boards of this Duma was the Olovskaya indigenous Council. The department is of particular interest in terms of the ethnic composition of its population and its origin. The ethnic composition of the Urulga Steppe Duma revealed the extensive contacts of the Upper Amur – Shilka population with the vast area of the Transbaikal-Amur subregion, including the territories of Inner Asia, North Asia and Amur region. Different groups of horse and deer Tungus, on the one hand, and various groups of the Mongolian population, including the Khingan Mongols, Daurians and Buryats, on the other hand, took part in its formation. Also more ancient contacts of the Tungus with the Yukagirs were found. The composition of the Urulga Steppe Duma initially included five indigenous authorities. One of them was the Olovskaya indigenous Authority (Uprava). The Khitan, and subsequently Daurian population, which came into close contact with both the Tungus-Manchu tribes and the Bargy-Buryat groups of the population, created a special layer of the population – Khamnigan people. However, in Russian documents the entire population of the Urulga Steppe Duma, a part of which also was the Olovskaya indigenous Authority (Uprava) recorded as Tungus. The ethnic composition of the Olov Khamnigans shows that the population of the upper Amur – Shilka, has incorporated various ethnic elements not only from the Middle Ages, but also from antiquity. The article suggested the authors’ vision of origin of ethnonyms of the population of authority and their development. A number of ethnonyms such as Duligar, Bayagir, Kylteger discovers the presence of the Tungusic and Mongolic strata in the face of Khamnigan-Mongols, Daurs, Buryats. The Mongolic stratum is also represented by the bearers of the ethnonym Üzön, which has analogies in eastern and central Mongolia, among the Selenga Buryats and among the Kipchak tribe, which is part of the Kazakhs of Middle Juz. A detailed map of the settlement of the Olov Khamnigans was compiled, based on the census tables.


2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 265-291
Author(s):  
Manuel A. Vasquez ◽  
Anna L. Peterson

In this article, we explore the debates surrounding the proposed canonization of Archbishop Oscar Romero, an outspoken defender of human rights and the poor during the civil war in El Salvador, who was assassinated in March 1980 by paramilitary death squads while saying Mass. More specifically, we examine the tension between, on the one hand, local and popular understandings of Romero’s life and legacy and, on the other hand, transnational and institutional interpretations. We argue that the reluctance of the Vatican to advance Romero’s canonization process has to do with the need to domesticate and “privatize” his image. This depoliticization of Romero’s work and teachings is a part of a larger agenda of neo-Romanization, an attempt by the Holy See to redeploy a post-colonial and transnational Catholic regime in the face of the crisis of modernity and the advent of postmodern relativism. This redeployment is based on the control of local religious expressions, particularly those that advocate for a more participatory church, which have proliferated with contemporary globalization


Author(s):  
Lidiya Derbenyova

The article explores the role of antropoetonyms in the reader’s “horizon of expectation” formation. As a kind of “text in the text”, antropoetonyms are concentrating a large amount of information on a minor part of the text, reflecting the main theme of the work. As a “text” this class of poetonyms performs a number of functions: transmission and storage of information, generation of new meanings, the function of “cultural memory”, which explains the readers’ “horizon of expectations”. In analyzing the context of the literary work we should consider the function of antropoetonyms in vertical context (the link between artistic and other texts, and the groundwork system of culture), as well as in the context of the horizontal one (times’ connection realized in the communication chain from the word to the text; the author’s intention). In this aspect, the role of antropoetonyms in the structure of the literary text is extremely significant because antropoetonyms convey an associative nature, generating a complex mechanism of allusions. It’s an open fact that they always transmit information about the preceding text and suggest a double decoding. On the one hand, the recipient decodes this information, on the other – accepts this as a sort of hidden, “secret” sense.


Trictrac ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petru Adrian Danciu

Starting from the cry of the seraphim in Isaiahʹ s prophecy, this article aims to follow the rhythm of the sacred harmony, transcending the symbols of the angelic world and of the divine names, to get to the face to face meeting between man and God, just as the seraphim, reflecting their existence, stand face to face. The finality of the sacred harmony is that, during the search for God inside the human being, He reveals Himself, which is the reason for the affirmation of “I Am that I Am.” Through its hypnotic cyclicality, the profane temporality has its own musicality. Its purpose is to incubate the unsuspected potencies of the beings “caught” in the material world. Due to the fact that it belongs to the aeonic time, the divine music will exceed in harmony the mechanical musicality of profane time, dilating and temporarily cancelling it. Isaiah is witness to such revelation offering access to the heavenly concert. He is witness to divine harmonies produced by two divine singers, whose musical history is presented in our article. The seraphim accompanied the chosen people after their exodus from Egypt. The cultic use of the trumpet is related to the characteristics and behaviour of the seraphim. The seraphic music does not belong to the Creator, but its lyrics speak about the presence of the Creator in two realities, a spiritual and a material one. Only the transcendence of the divine names that are sung/cried affirms a unique reality: God. The chant-cry is a divine invocation with a double aim. On the one hand, the angels and the people affirm God’s presence and call His name and, on the other, the Creator affirms His presence through the angels or in man, the one who is His image and His likeness. The divine music does not only create, it is also a means of communion, implementing the relation of man to God and, thus, God’s connection with man. It is a relation in which both filiation and paternity disappear inside the harmony of the mutual recognition produced by music, a reality much older than Adam’s language.


Imbizo ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi Epongse Nkealah ◽  
Olutoba Gboyega Oluwasuji

Ideas of nationalisms as masculine projects dominate literary texts by African male writers. The texts mirror the ways in which gender differentiation sanctions nationalist discourses and in turn how nationalist discourses reinforce gender hierarchies. This article draws on theoretical insights from the work of Anne McClintock and Elleke Boehmer to analyse two plays: Zintgraff and the Battle of Mankon by Bole Butake and Gilbert Doho and Hard Choice by Sunnie Ododo. The article argues that women are represented in these two plays as having an ambiguous relationship to nationalism. On the one hand, women are seen actively changing the face of politics in their societies, but on the other hand, the means by which they do so reduces them to stereotypes of their gender.


Author(s):  
D.R. Zhantiev

Аннотация В статье рассматривается роль и место Сирии (включая Ливан и Палестину) в системе османских владений на протяжении нескольких веков от османского завоевания до периода правления султана Абдул-Хамида II. В течение четырех столетий османского владычества территория исторической Сирии (Билад аш-Шам) была одним из важнейших компонентов османской системы и играла роль связующего звена между Анатолией, Египтом, Ираком и Хиджазом. Необходимость ежегодной организации хаджа с символами султанской власти и покровительства над святынями Мекки и Медины определяла особую стратегическую важность сирийских провинций Османской империи. Несмотря на ряд серьезных угроз во время общего кризиса османской государственности (конец XVI начало XIX вв.), имперскому центру удалось сохранить контроль над Сирией путем создания сдержек и противовесов между местными элитами. В XIX в. и особенно в период правления Абдул- Хамида II (18761909 гг.), сохранение Сирии под османским контролем стало вопросом существования Османской империи, которая перед лицом растущего европейского давления и интервенции потеряла большую часть своих владений на Балканах и в Северной Африке. Задача укрепления связей между имперским центром и периферией в сирийских вилайетах в последней четверти XIX в. была в целом успешно решена. К началу XX в. Сирия была одним из наиболее политически спокойных и прочно связанных со Стамбулом регионов Османской империи. Этому в значительной степени способствовали довольно высокий уровень общественной безопасности, развитие внешней торговли, рост образования и постепенная интеграция местных элит (как мусульман, так и христиан) в османские государственные и социальные механизмы. Положение Сирии в системе османских владений показало, что процесс ослабления и территориальной дезинтеграции Османской империи в эпоху реформ не был линейным и наряду с потерей владений и влияния на Балканах, в азиатской части империи в течение XIX и начала XX вв. происходил параллельный процесс имперской консолидации.Abstract The article examines the role and place of Greater Syria (including Lebanon and Palestine) in the system of Ottoman possessions over several centuries from the Ottoman conquest to the period of the reign of Abdul Hamid II. For four centuries of Ottoman domination, the territory of historical Syria (Bilad al-Sham) was one of the most important components in the Ottoman system and played the role of a link between Anatolia, Egypt, Iraq and Hijaz. The need to ensure the Hajj with symbols of Sultan power and patronage over the shrines of Mecca and Medina each year determined the special strategic importance of the Syrian provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Despite a number of serious threats during the general crisis of the Ottoman state system (late 16th early 19th centuries), the imperial center managed to maintain control over Syria by creating checks and balances between local elites. In the 19th century. And especially during the reign of Abdul Hamid II (18761909), keeping Syria under Ottoman control became a matter of existence for the Ottoman Empire, which, in the face of increasing European pressure and intervention, lost most of its possessions in the Balkans and North Africa. The task of strengthening ties between the imperial center and the periphery in Syrian vilayets in the last quarter of the 19th century was generally successfully resolved. By the beginning of the 20th century, Syria was one of the most politically calm and firmly connected with Istanbul regions of the Ottoman Empire. This was greatly facilitated by a fairly high level of public safety, the development of foreign trade, the growth of education and the gradual integration of local elites (both Muslims and Christians) into Ottoman state and social mechanisms. Syrias position in the system of Ottoman possessions clearly showed that the process of weakening and territorial disintegration of the Ottoman Empire during the era of reform was not linear, and along with the loss of possessions and influence in the Balkans, in the Asian part of the empire during the 19th and early 20th centuries there was a parallel process of imperial consolidation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric R. Scerri

<span>The very nature of chemistry presents us with a tension. A tension between the exhilaration of diversity of substances and forms on the one hand and the safety of fundamental unity on the other. Even just the recent history of chemistry has been al1 about this tension, from the debates about Prout's hypothesis as to whether there is a primary matter in the 19th century to the more recent speculations as to whether computers will enable us to virtually dispense with experimental chemistry.</span>


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