Mythologisation of Law by Historical Consciousness

The main objective of this article is to substantiate the fact that historical consciousness as a form of social consciousness is full of the mythologisation of law. The main hypothesis is that only such forms of law as customary law and international law may be considered historical phenomena. Standalone in law, mainly subjective law is not actually a historical phenomenon; therefore, any historical interpretation of it leads to mythologisation. The subject of this study is the mythologisation of law, found in the content of several legal concepts and being present in correlations with basic historical concepts. The complexity of the problem posed is that the very phenomenon of history outside historical consciousness, especially in our time, is constantly subjected to serious mythologisation. The result of the study is the statement that historical legal understanding is not connected with the understanding of the nature of law and does not reveal its essence. The methodological consequence of this for legal theory is the need for concentration on the understanding of the development of law not as a historical, but only as a social process, and for the law itself – as something that exists and makes sense only in the present.

Reimagining the Family of King Charles I in Nineteenth-Century British Painting

The nineteenth century represents a formative period for the development of historical consciousness in Britain, with texts and, increasingly, images shaping perceptions of the past. This article examines how Stuart history was interpreted and experienced, through a series of historical genre paintings of King Charles I and his family. It explores how Anthony van Dyck's depiction of politicized domesticity in royal portraiture was revised and reworked in these later images. Reimagining Stuart family life, they extended processes of remembering, enlisting audiences in an active, participatory engagement with the past. Probing temporal, visual, and verbal alignments and connections, the article contributes further dimensions to the understanding of historical representation. It argues that these paintings stirred the viewer's intellectual, emotional, and associative responses to encourage a sense of proximity. Establishing an episodic narrative, they initiated processes of recollection and recognition, they reflected sympathetic historiographies, and they encouraged a shared community with their pictorial protagonists. By so doing, nineteenth-century artists diminished historical distance and fashioned a familiarized past.

(Re)discovering the Familial Past and Its Impact on Historical Consciousness

Family history has become a significant contributor to public and social histories exploring and (re)discovering the micro narratives of the past. Due to the growing democratisation of digital access to documents and the proliferation of family history media platforms, family history is now challenging traditional custodianship of the past. Family history research has moved beyond the realms of archives, libraries and community-based history societies to occupy an important space in the public domain. This paper reports on some of the findings of a recent study into the historical thinking and research practices of Australian family historians. Using a case study methodology, it examines the proposition that researching family history has major impacts on historical understanding and consciousness using the analytic frameworks of Jorn Rüsen’s Disciplinary Matrix and his Typology of Historical Consciousness. This research not only proposes these major impacts but argues that some family historians are shifting the historical landscape through the dissemination of their research for public consumption beyond traditional family history audiences.

On the History of the Russian Lithuanistic: the Case of S. M. Solov’ev

Немногочисленные сочинения, в которых предпринимались попытки изобразить российскую литуанистику, т.е. историографию Великого княжества Литовского, в её историческом развитии, игнорировали С.М. Соловьева, сыгравшего громадную роль в становлении исторической науки в России. При этом упор делали на «москво-центричность» исторического сознания историка. Проникновение в это сознание путем скрупулезного анализа научных трудов позволяет, с одной стороны, увидеть в нём следы борьбы разных подходов к истории ВКЛ, с другой стороны, с полным основанием поставить С.М. Соловьёва в ряды ведущих российских литуанистов. The authors of far from numerous works, which attempted to trace the development of the Russian Lithuanistic (i.e. the historiography of a history of Great Duchy of Lithuania (GDL) before the Union of Lublin (1569) usually disregarded such famous historian as S.M. Solov’ev, who had played a prominent role in Russian historical studies. In his case the scholars usually referred to the “Moscow-centricity” of his historical consciousness. But the painstaking study of this consciousness gives opportunity, from one side, to notice some struggle of different approaches to historical knowledge and, from another side, to see Solov’ev among the leading Russian lithuanists.

Exogenous factors of memory formation about the great soviet era in contemporary Russia

This article is devoted to the analysis of exogenous factors in the formation of the historical memory of Russian society about the Soviet era. The author refers to those components of the Russian information and cultural space that are created and broadcast into the consciousness of Russian society with direct influence and interest of foreign entities external to Russia. On the basis of facts and texts, conclusions are made about the systematic and consistent nature of attempts to influence the historical memory of Russian society in order to radically transform Russian national-historical consciousness and a sense of historical identity. The diversity of such effects is also noted. Despite the long and cumulative nature of attempts at external influence on the Russian memorial culture and social memory, a high degree of stability of the collective memory of Russian society should be stated. Not least, this is achieved thanks to the thoughtful historical policy of the Russian state over the past 15-20 years.

Journeys of Ethno-Cultural Continuity: Comparing the Long-Term Acculturation of Jews with Maori and Chinese

<p>This thesis sought to establish a new field of research in cross-cultural psychology: Long-term acculturation. In Chapter one, ethno-cultural continuity was introduced as a group-oriented acculturation goal for diaspora and indigenous peoples, and the impact of the ethno-cultural group and the larger society on ethno-cultural continuity was recognised. In Chapter two, cultural transmission was considered as the central mechanism for ethno-cultural continuity, with endogamy playing a key role in ensuring coherent enculturation. As such, individual behaviour in terms of marital choice can also shape the future of the ethno-cultural group. Thus far, research on factors such as perceived similarity, attraction and social network approval that predict ethnic endogamy and its prelude, selective dating, has been interpreted as a manifestation of ethnocentrism. In contrast, a predictive model was posited wherein a greater ideological impetus underlies both endogamy and selective dating - that of individual concerns for collective continuity. Furthermore, it was suggested that such concerns were shaped by individual awareness of social representations of ethnic history. In Chapter three, the continuity of diaspora Jewry was compared to indigenous Maori and diaspora Chinese in order to understand how shared and unique collective experiences in the past and present shape the current acculturation of individuals. Hypotheses on the intensity of endogamy intentions, incidence of selective dating behaviour, and the importance and function of individual concerns for ethno-cultural continuity and awareness of ethnic history were drawn from ethnographic material on the long-term acculturation of these three ethno-cultural groups. The constructs of Motivation for Ethno-cultural Continuity (MEC) and measures of individual awareness of social representations of ethnic history were conceptualised in Chapter four based on qualitative analysis of three focus group discussions with Jewish (n=8), Maori (n=5) and Chinese (n=5) New Zealanders. In Chapter five, quantitative measures of MEC, subjects of remembrance (WHO), ethno-historical consciousness (WHAT), and vicarious experience of ethnic history (HOW) were developed and validated against measures of Collective Self-Esteem, Perceived Collective Continuity, Perceived Group Entitativity and Assimilation in a pilot study with 152 Jews from Sydney, Australia. Two quantitative studies were subsequently conducted to test the predictive model of endogamy: A cross-cultural study in Chapter six compared New Zealand Jews (n=106), Maori (n=103), and Chinese (n=102); a cross-national study in Chapter seven compared Jewish continuity in New Zealand (n=106), Australia (n=108), Canada (n=160) and the United States (n=107). The conclusions drawn in Chapter eight highlight that vitality affects continuity across ethno-cultural groups such that MEC is more important and functionally predictive of endogamy intentions only for 'small peoples'; and within ethno-cultural groups endogamy intentions and selective dating is thwarted in small communities. For the Jewish and Maori samples, MEC fully mediated the relation between ethno-cultural identity and intentions for endogamy and was a consistent and stronger predictor than similarity, attraction, and social network approval. For the Chinese sample, attraction and approval were the only significant predictors. Furthermore, individual awareness of social representations of ethnic history mediated the relation between ethno-cultural identity and MEC such that identity predicted ethno-historical consciousness (WHAT), that predicted a vicarious experience of ethnic history (HOW), that in turn predicted MEC. Overall the results demonstrate that in the field of long-term acculturation it is important to examine psychological variables such as MEC and individual awareness of social representations of ethnic history that provide internal momentum for the continuity of ethno-cultural groups.</p>

Journeys of Ethno-Cultural Continuity: Comparing the Long-Term Acculturation of Jews with Maori and Chinese

<p>This thesis sought to establish a new field of research in cross-cultural psychology: Long-term acculturation. In Chapter one, ethno-cultural continuity was introduced as a group-oriented acculturation goal for diaspora and indigenous peoples, and the impact of the ethno-cultural group and the larger society on ethno-cultural continuity was recognised. In Chapter two, cultural transmission was considered as the central mechanism for ethno-cultural continuity, with endogamy playing a key role in ensuring coherent enculturation. As such, individual behaviour in terms of marital choice can also shape the future of the ethno-cultural group. Thus far, research on factors such as perceived similarity, attraction and social network approval that predict ethnic endogamy and its prelude, selective dating, has been interpreted as a manifestation of ethnocentrism. In contrast, a predictive model was posited wherein a greater ideological impetus underlies both endogamy and selective dating - that of individual concerns for collective continuity. Furthermore, it was suggested that such concerns were shaped by individual awareness of social representations of ethnic history. In Chapter three, the continuity of diaspora Jewry was compared to indigenous Maori and diaspora Chinese in order to understand how shared and unique collective experiences in the past and present shape the current acculturation of individuals. Hypotheses on the intensity of endogamy intentions, incidence of selective dating behaviour, and the importance and function of individual concerns for ethno-cultural continuity and awareness of ethnic history were drawn from ethnographic material on the long-term acculturation of these three ethno-cultural groups. The constructs of Motivation for Ethno-cultural Continuity (MEC) and measures of individual awareness of social representations of ethnic history were conceptualised in Chapter four based on qualitative analysis of three focus group discussions with Jewish (n=8), Maori (n=5) and Chinese (n=5) New Zealanders. In Chapter five, quantitative measures of MEC, subjects of remembrance (WHO), ethno-historical consciousness (WHAT), and vicarious experience of ethnic history (HOW) were developed and validated against measures of Collective Self-Esteem, Perceived Collective Continuity, Perceived Group Entitativity and Assimilation in a pilot study with 152 Jews from Sydney, Australia. Two quantitative studies were subsequently conducted to test the predictive model of endogamy: A cross-cultural study in Chapter six compared New Zealand Jews (n=106), Maori (n=103), and Chinese (n=102); a cross-national study in Chapter seven compared Jewish continuity in New Zealand (n=106), Australia (n=108), Canada (n=160) and the United States (n=107). The conclusions drawn in Chapter eight highlight that vitality affects continuity across ethno-cultural groups such that MEC is more important and functionally predictive of endogamy intentions only for 'small peoples'; and within ethno-cultural groups endogamy intentions and selective dating is thwarted in small communities. For the Jewish and Maori samples, MEC fully mediated the relation between ethno-cultural identity and intentions for endogamy and was a consistent and stronger predictor than similarity, attraction, and social network approval. For the Chinese sample, attraction and approval were the only significant predictors. Furthermore, individual awareness of social representations of ethnic history mediated the relation between ethno-cultural identity and MEC such that identity predicted ethno-historical consciousness (WHAT), that predicted a vicarious experience of ethnic history (HOW), that in turn predicted MEC. Overall the results demonstrate that in the field of long-term acculturation it is important to examine psychological variables such as MEC and individual awareness of social representations of ethnic history that provide internal momentum for the continuity of ethno-cultural groups.</p>