Semini and his progeny: the construction of Antwerp’s antique past1

2018 ◽  
pp. 209-236
Author(s):  
Edward Wouk
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Political Identity ◽  
Early History ◽  
The Political ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Counter Reformation ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City

Semini is one of several names for a small Gallo-Roman sculpture that was installed above the gate of Antwerp’s Vieux-Bourg sometime in the fourteenth century.  Little is known of the early history of Semini, although it was rumoured to be the object of a fertility cult.  Yet, in 1549, at a crucial moment in the political identity of the city and its relationship to the Hapsburg empire, the statue came to be identified as Priapus, the Greco-Roman god of the fields and of procreation.  This essay examines the reappropriation of Semini in the context of counter-reformation Antwerp.  It considers the importance of this small antiquity to emerging practices of local antiquarianism, historiography and philology, while also examining some of the everyday street activities which both reinforced and challenged concepts of antiquity in the early modern city.

SMOLENSK IN JAN KUNOWSKI’S POETRY AND LIFE

2019 ◽  
pp. 324-336
Author(s):  
Ludmila Ivonina
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Individual Person ◽  
History Of ◽  
Early Modern Times ◽  
The City ◽  
Xviith Century

The article analyzes a career and a number of poetic works written by a Polish poet Jan Kunowski. The books are associated with Smolensk and the wars between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Moscow State in the first half of the XVIIth century. The example of Kunowski’s poems and life demonstrates the place of Smolensk both in the political thinking of the Polish nobility of the Early Modern Times and, in particular, of an individual person. In addition, the article demonstrates some methods used by the propaganda of the Early Modern Times; they are dedicated to the event under the study. The author agrees that the writings by Jan Kunowski about Smolensk are an expression of the mentality of the Polish nobleman lived the XVIIth century, who was confident in Providence protecting the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and convinced of the special mission of the Polish-Lithuanian State. In a certain way, the canticle to Smolensk was propaganda. In reality, Kunowski renewed the state and ethnic myth of Polish and partly Lithuanian political thought; he added a new element – Smolensk – to the thousand-year history of the state. Moreover, the article emphasizes that comprehension of Kunowski’s poems content from the only perspective of gentry’s mentality, propaganda and love for the city can be incomplete. The poet’s reflection of the reality was largely stimulated by material reasons, career aspirations, and religious confession.

Sinop: A Frontier City in Seljuq and Mongol Anatolia

2010 ◽  
Vol 16 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 103-537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew C. S. Peacock
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Political History ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
History Of ◽  
Epigraphic Evidence ◽  
The City ◽  
Previous Scholarship

Abstract This article considers the history of Sinop in the first century of Muslim rule, from 1214 to the early fourteenth century, when the city was ruled successively by the Seljuq, Pervaneid and Candarid dynasties. During this period, the Seljuqs constantly vied with Christian Trebizond for control of the city despite both sides being nominally Mongol vassals from the mid-thirteenth century. In the first part of this article, the political history of the city is examined and some significant errors in the chronology are corrected. This is followed by an examination of three formative elements in Sinop’s history in the period: its defences, its trade and Muslim-Christian relations there. The article uses epigraphic evidence from Sinop that has not been considered by previous scholarship in addition to Arabic and Persian chronicles.

The long ‘lost’ history of bottom trawling in England, c.1350–1650

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Jones
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Early History ◽  
The South ◽  
Bottom Trawling ◽  
Thames Estuary ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
History Of

This article considers the early history of bottom trawling in England. It demonstrates that trawling – and, in particular, beam trawling – has a very long history stretching back to at least the fourteenth century. Over the following two centuries it spread from the Thames Estuary along the south and south-east coasts, and by 1600 its use was widespread and it was being pursued some distance from shore. The article also shows that bottom trawling has always been a controversial practice, and that by the early modern period it was highly unpopular, not only among non-trawling fishermen (who viewed it as a threat to their livelihood), but with many in positions of power who sought to limit and even prohibit its use. Finally, the article considers the contemporary significance of this newly exposed history, given that historical complaints about bottom trawling were framed in remarkably similar terms to those used by its modern opponents.

FORMATION OF CULTURE OF THE CITY OF JIZAK

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 62-65
Author(s):  
Dilbar Abdurasulova ◽  
◽  
Akbar Màjidov
Keyword(s):  
Ancient History ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City ◽  
Chinese Travelers

This article provide that Uzbekistan is one of the oldest centers of culture, in particular, the works of Greco-Roman historians, Arab and Chinese travelers and geographers serve invaluable source for studying the ancient history of Jizzak

A Renaissance Marriage

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn James
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Conflict ◽  
Spousal Relationship ◽  
Prescriptive Literature ◽  
Religious Perspectives ◽  
History Of ◽  
Princely State

Drawing extensively on unpublished archival sources, this book analyses the marriage of Isabella d’Este, one of the most famous figures of the Italian Renaissance, and her less well-known husband, Francesco Gonzaga, ruler of the small northern Italian principality of Mantua (r. 1484–1519). It offers fresh insights into the nature of political marriages during the early modern period by investigating the forces which shaped the lives of an aristocratic couple who, within several years of their wedding, had to deal with the political challenges posed by the first conflicts of the Italian Wars (1494–1559) and, later, the scourge of the Great Pox. The study humanizes a relationship that was organized for entirely strategic reasons, but had to be inhabited emotionally if it was to produce the political and dynastic advantages that had inspired the match. The letter exchanges of Isabella and Francesco over twenty-nine years, as well as their correspondence with relatives and courtiers, show how their personal rapport evolved and how they cooperated in the governance of a princely state. Hitherto examined mainly from literary and religious perspectives and on the basis of legal evidence and prescriptive literature, early modern marriage emerges here in vivid detail, offering the reader access to aspects of the lived experience of an elite Renaissance spousal relationship. The book also contributes to our understanding of the history of emotions, of politics and military conflict, of childbirth, childhood, and family life, and of the history of disease and medicine.

Atomized urbanism: secrecy and security from the Gulag to the Soviet closed cities

Urban History ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Asif Siddiqi
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Urban Geography ◽  
General Public ◽  
Early History ◽  
Physical Isolation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Camp System ◽  
Spatial Terms ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The City

Abstract This article recovers the early history of the Soviet ‘closed city’, towns that during the Cold War were absent from maps and unknown to the general public due to their involvement in weapons research. I argue that the closed cities echoed and appropriated features of the Stalinist Gulag camp system, principally their adoption of physical isolation and the language of obfuscation. In doing so, I highlight a process called ‘atomized urbanism’ that embodies the tension between the obdurate reality of the city and the goal of the state to obliterate that reality through secrecy. In spatial terms, ‘atomized’ also describes the urban geography of these cities which lacked any kind of organic suburban expansion.

Jus Tempus in the Magna Carta: The Sovereignty of Time in Modern Politics and Citizenship

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (03) ◽  
pp. 463-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth F. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
The Political ◽  
Place Of Birth ◽  
Political Status ◽  
Modern Politics ◽  
American Tradition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Right ◽  
Constitutional Tradition

In the English constitutional tradition, subjecthood has been primarily derived from two circumstances: place of birth and time of birth. People not born in the right place and at the right time are not considered subjects. What political status they hold varies and depends largely on the political history of the territory in which they reside at the exact time of their birth. A genealogy of early modern British subjecthood reveals that law based on dates and temporal durations—what I will call collectivelyjus tempus—creates sovereign boundaries as powerful as territorial borders or bloodlines. This concept has myriad implications for how citizenship comes to be institutionalized in modern politics. In this article, I briefly outline one route through whichjus tempusbecame a constitutive principle within the Anglo-American tradition of citizenship and how this concept works with other principles of membership to create subtle gradations of semi-citizenship beyond the binary of subject and alien. I illustrate two main points aboutjus tempus: first, how specific dates create sovereign boundaries among people and second, how durational time takes on an abstract value in politics that allows certain kinds of attributes, actions, and relationships to be translated into rights-bearing political statuses. I conclude with some remarks about how, once established, the principle ofjus tempusis applied in a diverse array of political contexts.

Mafalda: Middle Class, Everyday Life, and Politics in Argentina, 1964-1973

2014 ◽  
Vol 94 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabella Cosse
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Comic Strip ◽  
State Terrorism ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Modernization ◽  
Methodological Approaches

Abstract In this article I reconstruct the history of Mafalda, the famous comic strip by the Argentine cartoonist Quino that was read, discussed, and viewed as an emblematic representation of Argentina’s middle class. With the aim of contributing to discussions on the interpretation of the middle class in Argentina and Latin America, I examine the emergence, circulation, and sociopolitical significance of the comic from its first strips in 1964 until Quino stopped producing new installments in 1973, making use of two conceptual and methodological approaches: a perspective situated at the intersection of the everyday and the political, as well as a consideration of humor as a way of exploring social identities. I argue first that Mafalda’s ironic and conceptual humor worked with the contradictions of the middle class as it faced social modernization, cultural and political radicalization, and a weakening democracy. Second, I suggest that the strip contributed to a representation of a heterogeneous middle class marked by ideological differences but nonetheless conceived as one. Third, I claim that such a representation lost its relevance with the political polarization and violence of the 1970s, as portraying a middle class—or a society—united despite differences was no longer feasible in that context. To illustrate this, the article closes by noting that, shortly after Mafalda was discontinued, state terrorism would brutally demonstrate just how little space there was in Argentina for the young, antiestablishment generation depicted in the strip.

Goods and States: The Political Logic of State-Socialist Material Culture

2009 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 426-459 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krisztina Fehérváry
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Socialism ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Widespread Phenomenon ◽  
The City ◽  
State Socialist

In the two decades since the fall of state socialism, the widespread phenomenon ofnostalgiein the former Soviet satellites has made clear that the everyday life of state socialism, contrary to stereotype, was experienced and is remembered in color. Nonetheless, popular accounts continue to depict the Soviet bloc as gray and colorless. As Paul Manning (2007) has argued, color becomes a powerful tool for legitimating not only capitalism, but democratic governance as well. An American journalist, for example, recently reflected on her own experience in the region over a number of decades:It's hard to communicate how colorless and shockingly gray it was behind the Iron Curtain … the only color was the red of Communist banners. Stores had nothing to sell. There wasn't enough food… . Lines formed whenever something, anything, was for sale. The fatigue of daily life was all over their faces. Now… fur-clad women confidently stride across the winter ice in stiletto heels. Stores have sales… upscale cafés cater to cosmopolitan clients, and magazine stands, once so strictly controlled, rival those in the West. … Life before was so drab. Now the city seems loaded with possibilities (Freeman 2008).

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document