Robespierre and the Festival of the Supreme Being

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Smyth
Keyword(s):  
Great Depth ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Major Event ◽  
History Of ◽  
Moral System ◽  
Political Duty ◽  
Supreme Being ◽  
The Revolution

In Year 2 of the Revolution (1794) Robespierre, seeking to establish a new deist national morality created the Festival of the Supreme Being celebrated on 20 Prairial Year 2 (8 June 1794). This book begins by tracing the progress in the development of Robespierre’s thinking on the importance of the problem which the lack of any acceptable national moral system through the early years of the Revolution had created, his vision of a new attitude towards religion and morality, and why he chose a Revolutionary Festival to launch his idea. It focusses on the importance of the Festival by showing that it was not only a major event in Paris, with a huge man-made mountain on the Champ de Mars; it was also celebrated in great depth in almost every city, town and village throughout France. It seeks to redefine the importance of the Festival in the history of the Revolution, not, as historians have traditionally dismissed it, merely as the performance of a sterile and compulsory political duty, but on the contrary, as a massively popular national event. The author uses source material from national and local archives describing the celebrations as well as the reaction to the event and its importance by contemporary commentators. This is the first book since the 1980s and the only work in English to focus on this Festival and to redefine its importance in the development of the Revolution.

The Anglican Pulpit, the Social Order, and the Resurgence of Toryism during the American Revolution

1989 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 361-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E. Bradley
Keyword(s):  
American Revolution ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Early Years ◽  
National Unity ◽  
History Of ◽  
George Iii ◽  
New System ◽  
Religious Aspect ◽  
The Revolution

“And now the new system of government came into being. For the first time since the accession of the House of Hanover, the Tory party was in the ascendant.” So wrote Lord Macaulay concerning the early years of George III's reign. In Macaulay's essay on the earl of Chatham one can find all the elements of the Whig myth of the reign of George III. Most of these ideas have been safely laid to rest by Sir Lewis Namier and modern research; we now know that there was neither a new system of government at the accession of the king nor anything resembling a Tory party. George III was not the tyrant depicted in the Declaration of Independence, there was no plot in the imagined cabinet of “king's friends” to overthrow the constitution, and when, with respect to the colonies, the king declared that he would abide by the decision of his Parliament, he was taking a stand on the side of Whig principles and the Revolution Settlement.One element in the putative resurgence of Toryism that Macaulay and other Whig historians emphasized was High-Anglican political theology. G. H. Guttridge, for example, in his English Whiggism and the American Revolution (1942) well understood the differences between the Toryism of the period of the American Revolution and that of the earlier century. Tories had come to accept the Revolution Settlement, the Hanoverian succession, and even “a modicum of religious toleration.” But if they had lost the bloom of monarchical sentiment, they retained the concept of a state unified above sectional and party interests. Guttridge's formulas were admittedly too simplistic and they justly invited criticism, but one of the overlooked merits of his work was that he located the continuity of conservative thought in its religious aspect. He observed that, “Standing for the two great Tory principles, national unity and a religious sanction for the established order, the Church of England was the central institution of Toryism—the state in its religious aspect, and the divine principle in monarchical government.” The demolition of the Whig interpretation, however, has resulted in a thorough-going neglect of political discourse, and several notable examples of this deconstruction bear directly upon Anglican political thought. In his introduction to the History of Parliament John Brooke wrote that during the American Revolution the Anglican clergy in England had no specific attitude toward the war or any other aspect of government policy. When the reprint of G. H. Guttridge's essay appeared in 1963, Ian Christie wrote a vigorous rebuttal to the idea of a revival of Toryism in the early part of George III's reign without a single reference to the Anglican Church.

Conclusion

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Smyth
Keyword(s):  
Public Support ◽  
Final Analysis ◽  
Final Evaluation ◽  
Moral System ◽  
Entire Nation ◽  
National Solidarity ◽  
Supreme Being ◽  
The Revolution

Why did the whole idea and ethos of the Supreme Being disappear so quickly and completely? Was the reason that Robespierre took no steps to establish firmly his new moral system because he fatally mis-evaluated the level of public support? What should the final evaluation of the effect of the Festival be both on the problem of and acceptable republican national morality and on the progress of the Revolution? The final analysis of the Festival must be that it was a great day of national solidarity during which the entire nation celebrated joyfully.

II. A Stage in the Development of the French Intendants: the Reign of Henri IV

1966 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-38
Author(s):  
D. Buisseret
Keyword(s):  
Source Material ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Ancien Regime ◽  
Louis Xiv ◽  
Present Context ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ancien Régime ◽  
Louis Xv

The history of the intendants, so important to the understanding of France during the latter two centuries of the ancien régime, remains unwritten. There are of course particular studies of various great intendants of Louis XIV and of Louis XV, but the institution as a whole remains astonishingly ill-known, and this is especially true of its early years. Gabriel Hanotaux did make a brave attempt in 1884 to work out the Origines de l'institution des intendants des provinces, but his arguments have been severely criticized by subsequent writers, whose strictures have most recently been summarized by Roger Doucet in Les institutions de la France au XVIe siècle. As Doucet points out, the source-material used by Hanotaux was limited to a few Parisian manuscripts and, for the reign of Henri IV, essentially to the Lettres Missives of that king. For the reign of Henri III, Doucet adds, his work is weak in that he ignores the increase in the traditional chevauchées (tours of inspection) of the maîtres des requêtes, surely one of the most suggestive of early institutions in our present context. This in turn springs from a more basic weakness, that of using only a titular and not a functional definition for his subject; in refusing to consider any officers other than those who actually held the title intendant (usually de justice). Doucet himself does not carry the investigation any further for, as he remarks, the only way to do this would be by undertaking a series of studies in local archives.

scholarly journals Robyn C. Spencer, The Revolution Has Come: Black Power, Gender, and the Black Panther Party in Oakland: (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016), 280pp, £20.00 / $24.95.

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas J Grant
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Development ◽  
Black Power ◽  
Black Panther Party ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Original Source ◽  
Freedom Struggle ◽  
History Of ◽  
Duke University ◽  
Black Panther ◽  
The Revolution

Robyn C. Spencer’s politically timely and eminently engaging history of the Black Panther Party (BPP) is a must read for anyone interested in Black Power and the history of the African American freedom struggle more broadly. Published on the fiftieth anniversary of the BPP’s founding, The Revolution Has Come breaks new ground by presenting a wealth of original source material that sheds new light on the organizational development and the ideological outlook of the Panthers in Oakland.

Vanguard of the Revolution

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. James McAdams
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Revolution

This book is a sweeping history of one of the most significant political institutions of the modern world. The communist party was a revolutionary idea long before its supporters came to power. The book argues that the rise and fall of communism can be understood only by taking into account the origins and evolution of this compelling idea. It shows how the leaders of parties in countries as diverse as the Soviet Union, China, Germany, Yugoslavia, Cuba, and North Korea adapted the original ideas of revolutionaries like Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin to profoundly different social and cultural settings. The book is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand world communism and the captivating idea that gave it life.

AN APPRAISAL OF SOURCE MATERIAL FOR THE STUDY OF TARGUM MINOR PROPHETS

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 451-469
Author(s):  
Gudrun Lier ◽  
Anna Fransina Van Zyl
Keyword(s):  
Source Material ◽  
Bible Translations ◽  
Integrated Research ◽  
Translation Techniques ◽  
Former Prophets ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
History Of Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Work Done ◽  
Minor Prophets

The study of Aramaic Bible translations (Targumim) continues to be a valuable source of information, not only for uncovering the history of biblical interpretation but also for providing insights for the study of linguistics and translation techniques. In comparison with work done on the Pentateuchal Targumim and Targum Former Prophets, research on the individual books of Targum Minor Prophets has been scant. By providing an overview of selected source material this review seeks (i) to provide incentives for more focussed studies in the field of Targum Minor Prophets and (ii) to motivate new integrated research approaches which are now made possible with the assistance of highly developed software programmes.

Oral Testimony as Historical Source Material for the Reconstruction of the Judicial History of Shipping in India (1600-1800)

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mir Kamruzzman Chowdhary
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Maritime History ◽  
Historical Source ◽  
Alternative Source ◽  
Oral Testimony ◽  
History Of ◽  
Judicial History ◽  
Source Materials

This study was an attempt to understand how the available alternative source materials, such as oral testimonies can serve as valuable assets to unveiling certain aspects of maritime history in India. A number of themes in maritime history in India failed to get the attention of the generation of historians, because of the paucity of written documents. Unlike in Europe, the penning down of shipping activities was not a concern for the authorities at the port in India. The pamphlets and newsletters declared the scheduled departure of the ship in Europe but, in India, this was done verbally. Therefore, maritime history in India remained marginalised. Hence, in this article, I make an endeavour to perceive how the oral testimonies can help shed some new light on certain aspects of maritime history in India, such as life on the ship, maritime practices, and perceptions among the littoral people in coastal societies. This article also outlines an approach on how the broader question on the transformation of scattered maritime practices among coastal societies can be adapted and transferred into an organised institution of law by the nineteenth century, and how these can be pursued in future. I also suggest in this article that the role of Europeans, especially the British, in the process of transformation, can be investigated further through oral testimonies in corroboration with the colonial archival records.

ABCs of the Revolution

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 278-291
Author(s):  
Egor A. Yesyunin
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Special Significance ◽  
Development History ◽  
The People ◽  
Red Army ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World ◽  
The Revolution

The article is devoted to the satirical agitation ABCs that appeared during the Civil War, which have never previously been identified by researchers as a separate type of agitation art. The ABCs, which used to have the narrow purpose of teaching children to read and write before, became a form of agitation art in the hands of artists and writers. This was facilitated by the fact that ABCs, in contrast to primers, are less loaded with educational material and, accordingly, they have more space for illustrations. The article presents the development history of the agitation ABCs, focusing in detail on four of them: V.V. Mayakovsky’s “Soviet ABC”, D.S. Moor’s “Red Army Soldier’s ABC”, A.I. Strakhov’s “ABC of the Revolution”, and M.M. Cheremnykh’s “Anti-Religious ABC”. There is also briefly considered “Our ABC”: the “TASS Posters” created by various artists during the Second World War. The article highlights the special significance of V.V. Mayakovsky’s first agitation ABC, which later became a reference point for many artists. The authors of the first satirical ABCs of the Civil War period consciously used the traditional form of popular prints, as well as ditties and sayings, in order to create images close to the people. The article focuses on the iconographic connections between the ABCs and posters in the works of D.S. Moor and M.M. Cheremnykh, who transferred their solutions from the posters to the ABCs.

The theory and history of ekphrasis. A summary and prospects of research, or, forty-five articles on ekphrasis

2019 ◽  
pp. 188-215
Author(s):  
N. M. Perlina
Keyword(s):  
Development Process ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Characteristics ◽  
Literary Evolution ◽  
History Of ◽  
Written Word ◽  
Similar Development

The article is devoted to ekphrasis, its historical and literary evolution, as well as aspects of its stylistic, cultural, and ideological origins. The research is based on the versatile collection of The Theory and History of Ekphrasis [Teoriya i istoriya ekfrasisa], which contains a number of previously little known texts and theories on ekphrasis, developed in regions with different ethnic and cultural characteristics. The author spares no effort in the examination of this monograph and, using the observations made by various scholars, discerns a similar development process of cross-cultural and cross-aesthetic transformations and transpositions, which, however, adopts divergent paths. Transpositions, the author suggests, occur in the model of a text awaiting a pictorial interpretation. The article concentrates on the ways to present an image anticipated in a written word, and to generate a new text, whose subject and content draw not only on poeticized observations of the source material, but also on metapoetic tales about its creators.

‘The greatest irregular’

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Scurr
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Thomas Carlyle ◽  
History Of ◽  
Dramatic Narrative ◽  
The French Revolution ◽  
The Revolution

Thomas Carlyle claimed that his history of the French Revolution was ‘a wild savage book, itself a kind of French Revolution …’. This chapter considers his stylistic approaches to creating the illusion of immediacy: his presentation of seemingly unmediated fact through the transformation of memoir and other kinds of historical record into a compelling dramatic narrative. Closely examining the ways in which he worked biographical anecdote into the fabric of his text raises questions about Carlyle’s wider historical purposes. Pressing the question of what it means to think through style, or to distinguish expressive emotive writing from abstract understanding, is an opportunity to reconsider Carlyle’s relation to his predecessors and contemporaries writing on the Revolution in English.

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