scholarly journals After the War and Repressions: Mediating of Traumatic Experiences in Estonian Life Stories

2021 ◽  
Vol 83 ◽  
pp. 105-122
Author(s):  
Tiiu Jaago ◽  

This article looks at how contemporary life stories reflect the historical-political events that took place in the 1940s, and their impact on the development of family relationships. The focus is on the expression of traumatic experiences caused by these events. Observable events, such as the Second World War, living under a foreign power, political repressions, escape to the West, etc., and their impact on Estonian society have been analysed by Estonian sociologists using the concept of cultural trauma. Literary researchers have studied this subject from the perspective of literary trauma theory. This article provides an analysis of Estonian life stories, which is based on the tools of folkloristic narrative research and the trauma conception. Although the narrators do not use the word ‘trauma’, it can be assumed that they express their traumatic experiences in some special way. It appears, for instance, that these first-person narratives provide a laconic description of the situation, relatively free of the emotion that possessed the narrator in the situation being described. The narrative style is determined by the distance between the narrator and the event that traumatizes them. This distance can be created by the narrator through using urban legends and rumours to characterize the general attitudes of the period being described. When the events of the twentieth century were discussed in the stories told in the 1990s, the dynamics of family relationships between two or three generations came to the fore in the stories told in the present time. The changing focus of the stories, shifting from events to the subject of intimacy, directs researchers to observe the transmission and transformation of trauma in a new context.

2006 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-152
Author(s):  
Luc Vandeweyer

Hendrik Draye, opponent of the carrying out of the death penaltyIn this annotated and extensively contextualised source edition, Luc Vandeweyer deals with the period of repression after the Second World War. In June 1948, after the execution of two hundred collaboration-suspects in Belgium, the relatively young linguistics professor at the Catholic University of Leuven, Hendrik Draye, proposed, on humanitarian grounds, a Manifesto against the carrying out of the death penalty. Some colleagues, as well as some influential personalities outside the university, reacted positively; some colleagues were rather hesitant; most of them rejected the text. In the end, the initiative foundered because of the emphatic dissuasion by the head of university, who wanted to protect his university and, arguably, the young professor Draeye. The general public’s demand for revenge had not yet abated by then; moreover, the unstable government at that time planned a reorientation of the penal policy, which made a polarization undesirable. Nevertheless, Luc Vandeweyer concludes, "the opportunity for an important debate on the subject had been missed".


2019 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-31
Author(s):  
Fabio Massaccesi

Abstract This contribution intends to draw attention to one of the most significant monuments of medieval Ravenna: the church of Santa Maria in Porto Fuori, which was destroyed during the Second World War. Until now, scholars have focused on the pictorial cycle known through photographs and attributed to the painter Pietro da Rimini. However, the architecture of the building has not been the subject of systematic studies. For the first time, this essay reconstructs the fourteenth-century architectural structure of the church, the apse of which was rebuilt by 1314. The data that led to the virtual restitution of the choir and the related rood screen are the basis for new reflections on the accesses to the apse area, on the pilgrimage flows, and on the view of the frescoes.


Africa ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 82 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Cinnamon

ABSTRACTThrough narratives of an anti-‘fetish’ movement that swept through north-eastern Gabon in the mid-1950s, the present article traces the contours of converging political and religious imaginations in that country in the years preceding independence. Fang speakers in the region make explicit connections between the arrival of post-Second World War electoral politics, the anti-fetish movements, and perceptions of political weakening and marginalization of their region on the eve of independence. Rival politicians and the colonial administration played key roles in the movement, which brought in a Congolese ritual expert, Emane Boncoeur, and his two powerful spirits, Mademoiselle and Mimbare. These spirits, later recuperated in a wide range of healing practices, continue to operate today throughout northern Gabon and Rio Muni. In local imaginaries, these spirits played central roles in the birth of both regional and national politics, paradoxically strengthening the colonial administration and Gabonese auxiliaries in an era of pre-independence liberalization. Thus, regional political events in the 1950s rehearsed later configurations of power, including presidential politics, on the national stage.


2007 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 273-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Skinner

As the pioneering generation of postwar British academics retired, some produced autobiographical texts which revealed the personal circumstances and intellectual influences that brought them to the study of Africa. Edited volumes have also provided broader reflections on the academic disciplines, methodologies, and institutions through which these scholars engaged with the continent. In one such text, Christopher Clapham and Richard Hodder-Williams noted the special relationship between extramural studies (also known as university adult education) and the academic study of Africa's mass nationalist movements:The impetus for this study came to a remarkable degree from a tiny group of men and women who pioneered university extra-mural studies in the Gold Coast immediately after the [Second World War], and to a significant extent established the parameters for subsequent study of the subject [African politics]. Gathered together under the aegis of Thomas Hodgkin […], they were led by David Kimble […], and included among the tutors Dennis Austin, Lalage Bown and Bill Tordoff, all of whom were to play a major role in African studies in the United Kingdom over the next forty years.


2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Esmeria Pasaribu

This research’s subject is 36 person of students at class of Social Science-3 grade XII, as the research’s object is the method of Contextual Teaching Learning.  The instrument of collecting data are the questionaire and the students score list . Based on pre test result to the 36 students, shows that 28 who obtained low score predicated ‘not passed’ as had not yet achieved Minimal Passing Score of 70, while the rest of 8 passed by obtaining the passing score. In the first cycle, there were 16 of student passed by obtaining the passing score of 70, whereas the rest of 20 were not passed by did not obtaining the passing score. In the second cycle there were 34 of students passed the test while the rest of 2 students were not passed the test. By based on several results of pre test, post test of the first cycle, and post test of the second cycle, indicated increasing the result of teaching-learning significantly. Therefore, could be concluded that using the method of Contextual Teaching Learning can be increase achievement of student learning at the subject of history on the subject matter of Analising Development of World History and Position of Indonesia in the middle of International Politic and Eco-nomic Changing post Second World War.


2021 ◽  
pp. 096834452110434
Author(s):  
Fabio De Ninno

During the interwar era, German naval history and naval doctrine exercised a profound influence on the development of the Italian Navy. The subject is relevant to understand how continental sea powers naval doctrines developed after the First World War, attempting to integrate new weapon systems to overcome the previous limits of the Fleet in being strategy. Italian naval thinkers incorporated the lessons offered by their German counterparts, preparing to repeat many of their mistakes, which explained in part the failures of Italian sea power in the early years of the Second World War.


Author(s):  
Valeriy P. Ljubin ◽  

In German and Russian historiography, the tragic fate of the Soviet prisoners of war in Germany during the Second World War has not been suffi- ciently explored. Very few researchers have addressed this topic in recent times. In the contemporary German society, the subject remains obscured. There are attempts to reflect this tragedy in documentary films. The author analyses the destiny of the documentary film “Keine Kameraden”, which was shot in 2011 and has not yet been shown on the German television. It tells the story of the Soviet prisoners of war, most of whom died in the Nazi concentration camps in 1941– 1945. The personal history of some of the Soviet soldiers who died in the German captivity is reflected, their lives before the war are described, and the relatives of the deceased and the surviving prisoners of war are interviewed. The film features the German historians who have written books about the Soviet prisoners. All the attempts taken by the civil society organizations and the historians to influence the German public opinion so that the film could be shown on German television to a wider audience were unsuccessful. The film was seen by the viewers in Italy on the state channel RAI 3. Even earlier, in 2013, the film was shown in Russia on the channel “Kultura” and received the Pushkin Prize.


Author(s):  
Ian Vellins

This chapter discusses the Jewish community during the difficult wartime years, when many families suffered the tensions of absent fathers in the armed services and children removed through evacuation. The latter was in the event relatively short-lived and children returned to their schools which were soon reopened. The remarkable story of the Kindertransport is reviewed and life stories given of successful relocation to Leeds. The reception given to those fleeing from Nazi persecution was not always wholly welcoming. The impact of rationing is discussed and the difficulties both housewives and servicemen had in keeping to their kosher dietary rules.


Author(s):  
Józef Lewandowski

This chapter assesses Henry Rollet's La Pologne au XX siècle (1985). This recently published history of contemporary Poland by the outstanding French historian Henry Rollet deserves careful attention both for its grasp of the subject and its discussion concerning nationalism in general and Jewish nationalism in particular. The book consists of four chronological sections: ‘Towards Independence’ (Poland to 1918); ‘The Second Republic’ (the inter-war period); ‘Poland during the Second World War’; and ‘The “People's Democracy”.’ In the presentation of the events down to 1918, the most noticeable observation is Rollet's view that until 1876, the Poles were best off under Prussian occupation. Another statement which also provides much food for thought is that during the liberal period, voluntary, spontaneous Germanization made consistent progress.


Author(s):  
Jane Manning

This chapter addresses British composer Joe Cutler’s Bands (2008). This touching, insightful piece, deceptively simple, demands immense concentration and empathy. The text, by the composer’s father Richard Cutler, is a moving encapsulation of the traumatic experiences faced by child evacuees during the Second World War, as they left home and parents and boarded trains for unfamiliar places. With immense skill and daring, the composer strips his material to the bone with a pared-down, static harmonic base and stark, repetitive vocal lines to convey graphically the desolation and numbed emotions of the departing children. Rhythmic fluidity is provided by the interplay between irregular patterns in the piano’s left hand punctuated by percussive right-hand acciaccaturas, while the singer maintains a steady quarter-note pulse through syncopations and tied notes. In view of the plethora of high Gs, some prolonged, a tenor would perhaps be most comfortable, although a very light baritone with a secure high range could sound suitably disembodied.


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