Fear and Violence in Late Ottoman Syria: The Ismaʿilis and the School of Agriculture

DIYÂR ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-83
Author(s):  
Amaan Merali
Keyword(s):  
Educational Policy ◽  
British Empire ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Criminal Investigations ◽  
Political Persecution ◽  
Late Ottoman ◽  
Do So

This article explores the changing relations between state officials and the Shiʿi Nizari Ismaʿilis in early 20th-century Ottoman Syria. It examines the history surrounding the founding of the School of Agriculture in the majority Ismaʿili town of Salamiyya. Ottoman authorities had only recently discovered that the Ismaʿilis were followers of an imam in Bombay, the Aga Khan III. Once the community was associated with a British Empire loyalist like the Aga Khan, officials suspected collusion. Subsequent criminal investigations sanctioned legal and political persecution against the Ismaʿilis. Arresting and imprisoning the Ismaʿilis, however, could only do so much. Officials decided on a policy to correct their beliefs through state schooling and turn the Ismaʿilis into loyal Ottomans. Provincial authorities, meanwhile, took advantage of Istanbul’s doubts over the Ismaʿilis’ loyalty to the Empire. They proceeded to arrest the Ismaʿilis and confiscate tens of thousands of gold liras in cash and jewellery from the community. The cash and valuables were buried in a fund which ultimately paid for the School of Agriculture. This article concludes that violence was mandated by all levels of government and prefigured any educational policy for the Ismaʿilis in Syria because of fears the community was a fifth column.

Writing Genocide

Matatu ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 361-395
Author(s):  
Heike Becker
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Postcolonial Literature ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Do So

Abstract In this article I read several recently published novels that attempt to write the early 20th century Namibian experience of colonial war and genocide. Mari Serebrov’s Mama Namibia, Lauri Kubuitsile’s The Scattering and Jaspar Utley’s The Lie of the Land set out to write the genocide and its aftermath. Serebrov and Kubuitsile do so expressly from the perspective of survivors; their main characters are young Herero women who live through war and genocide. This sets Mama Namibia and The Scattering apart from the earlier literature, which—despite an enormous divergence of political and aesthetic outlooks—tended to be written from the perspective of German male protagonists. The Lie of the Land, too, scores new territory in postcolonial literature. I read these recent works of fiction against an oral history-based biography, in which a Namibian author, Uazuvara Katjivena, narrates the story of his grandmother who survived the genocide.

Why do so many people with a name that is half Vietnamese, half foreign, answer questions about Vietnam? Can they represent Vietnamese?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
H.L. Cu Si
Keyword(s):  
Bayesian Networks ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Seminal Work ◽  
Networks Analysis ◽  
Do So

One of the most seminal work on Vietnamese cultural evolution (the study of changes in culture that draws a lot of parallels to Darwinian biological evolution) is Cultural evolution in Vietnam's early 20th century: A Bayesian networks analysis of Hanoi Franco-Chinese house designs , which studied the architecture of multiple buildings of Hanoi’s Old Quarter and plotted them on a graph based on the probabilities that any given building would contain Buddhist, Chinese, and/or French decorations...

Liu Kang (1911–2004)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siew Kah Yow
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Chinese Painting ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
Historical Significance ◽  
Traditional Chinese Painting ◽  
Chinese Term ◽  
Formative Years

Liu Kang is recognized as one of the founders of Singaporean modern art. However, he was born and educated in China, and moved to Singapore in 1937 at a time when the island was still part of the British Empire. His art was therefore never about Singapore in a straightforward sense. Rather, his historical significance lies in creating Chinese-inflected modern paintings in Singapore, which combined European modernism, traditional Chinese painting, and the folk cultures of Nanyang, a Chinese term referring to the area south of China reachable by sea-vessel. After Liu arrived in Singapore, he became part of a group of Chinese painters and writers who had produced creative works centered on Nanyang since at least the early 20th century. Using the modernized Chinese painting of his formative years, he expanded its iconography to include the landscapes and peoples of Nanyang, producing some of the best-known works of his oeuvre. These include Chopping Firewood (1956), Outdoor Painting (1954) and Artist and Model (1954). Creating a syncretic painting with elements from the three cultures became the artist’s modus operandi that remained largely unchanged for the rest of his career.

Literacy Training for the Lower Ranks of the Russian Army in the Second Half of the 19th – Beginning of the 20th Century (on the Materials of the Cities of Western Siberia)

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (4 (28)) ◽  
pp. 24-33
Author(s):  
Olga V. Gefner
Keyword(s):  
Educational Policy ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Educational Level ◽  
Western Siberia ◽  
The State ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Educational Activities ◽  
Russian Army ◽  
Literacy Training ◽  
Military Units

The article analyzes the educational level of the lower ranks of the Russian army in the second half of the 19th - early 20th century on the example of military units serving in the cities of Western Siberia. The educational policy of the state in relation to the lower ranks, educational activities in the troops of the region are considered.

scholarly journals Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way Through Tea

2010 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie Holmes
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
British Identity ◽  
The Government ◽  
And Behavior

The government of the Dominion of Canada hoped their western territory would be filled with immigrants eager to work the land and further strengthen the British Empire in the early 20th century. British stock were viewed as ideal settlers as they would be able to represent and maintain the customs and behavior of the British Empire. Many brought with them to the Canadian frontier a variety of traditions - one of which was the habit of drinking tea. How did tea reinforce British identity and Empire in the Canadian West in the late 19th and early 20th centuries? This paper contends that tea was a powerful tool for nation builders because it reinforced British identity and empire.

scholarly journals Perceptions. The Unbuilt Synagogue in Buda through Controversial Architectural Tenders (1912–1914)

Arts ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 149
Author(s):  
Éva Lovra
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Urban Design ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Architectural History ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
World War ◽  
Architectural Styles ◽  
Do So

The unbuilt synagogue in Buda is an almost forgotten chapter in Hungarian architectural history which drew great attention between 1911 and 1914. It was discussed extensively by the contemporary press in the early 20th century and by architects in the Hungarian capital of Austria–Hungary. Between 1912 and 1914 three tenders for the design of the synagogue of Buda were announced, with the participation of well-known (synagogue) architects of Hungary, who represented the diverse architectural styles of the period. The efforts to build the synagogue, including the three failed tenders, the 30 competition designs and the opinions of contemporaries raised, and continue to raise, many provocative questions. The present study is based on the analysis of the designs submitted and criticisms published in official architecture magazines between 1912 and 1914, but not yet studied and published elsewhere. Through these, the study showcases the controversial architectural decisions that could have changed the appearance of a neighbourhood but failed to do so. The study puts the townscape of Széll Kálmán Square in Buda in a new context, revealing another layer of architecture, urban design and architectural-sociology and perception of the capital’s synagogue on the eve of World War I and the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

scholarly journals Eugène Atget and Documentary Photography of the City

2020 ◽  
pp. 026327642094280
Author(s):  
Vladimir Rizov
Keyword(s):  
Urban Environment ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Urban History ◽  
Charles Baudelaire ◽  
The Political ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Documentary Photography ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City ◽  
Do So

This paper focuses on the documentary photography of Eugène Atget in late 19th and early 20th-century Paris. I will begin by exploring Atget’s position as a pioneering documentary photographer in the field, followed by an engagement with the urban environment of Paris, in which Atget worked almost exclusively. Finally, I will analyse a single photograph in depth while discussing it in relation to the work of Charles Baudelaire and Jacques Rancière. This text is a contribution to a literature of critical engagement with documentary photography, urban history and the politics of class visibility. I will do so by arguing for the political significance of reading Atget’s images in a critical, political manner that engages with Rancière’s concept of the ‘anonymous multiple’. Atget is considered a key documentary photographer, and, as such, he is exemplary of the history of documentary photography and its treatment of its subjects.

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