“Never Trust a Survivor”: Historical Trauma, Postmemory and the Armenian Genocide in Kurt Vonnegut’s Bluebeard

The article focuses on Kurt Vonnegut’s lesser-known and underappreciated 1987 novel Bluebeard, which is analyzed and interpreted in the light of Marianne Hirsch’s seminal theory of postmemory. Even though it was published prior to Hirsch’s formulation of the concept, Vonnegut’s novel intuitively anticipates it, problematizing the implications of inherited, second-hand memory. To further complicate matters, Rabo Karabekian, the protagonist-narrator of Bluebeard, a World War II veteran, amalgamates his direct, painful memories with those of his parents, survivors of the Armenian Genocide. Both the novel and the theory applied to it centre on the problematics of historical and personal trauma, engendered by two genocides which are often the object of comparative analyses: the Armenian Genocide, also referred to as the Armenian Holocaust, and the Jewish Holocaust. The latter is central to Hirsch’s interdisciplinary work in the field of memory studies, encompassing literature, the visual arts and gender studies. In Bluebeard, Vonnegut holds to account a humanity responsible for the atrocities of twentieth-century history: two world wars and two genocides for which they respectively established the context. The article examines the American writer’s reflection on death and violence, man’s destructive impulse and annihilation. In a world overshadowed by memories of mass extermination, Vonnegut interrogates the possibility of a new beginning, pointing to women as agents of renewal and sociopolitical change. He also identifies the role that art plays in the process of potential reconstruction, the story of Karabekian, a failed artist and highly successful art collector, being a Künstlerroman with a feminist edge.

Barring the Gates

When long-term Chicago resident and World War II veteran Rodolfo Lozoya traveled to Mexico in 1957 to visit his ailing mother, he probably did not think that he would face the threat of permanent separation from his US citizen wife and children. But when he tried to reenter the United States, authorities excluded him from the country because of his alleged past membership in the Communist Party. The saga of Lozoya’s exclusion and his family’s separation offer insights into the hypocritical nature of democracy in Cold War America. The case also sheds light on the intertwined lives of citizens and noncitizens, and how immigrant rights groups such as the Midwest Committee for Protection of Foreign Born mobilized to defend people from exclusion and deportation under the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952. Federal censors’ decision to withhold materials on Lozoya more than fifty-five years later, and thirty years after his death, points to the enduring legacy of the Cold War and to the pervasive fear of radical politics in the twenty-first century.

Genetic and Environmental Influences on Blood Pressure and Body Mass Index in the National Academy of Sciences–National Research Council World War II Veteran Twin Registry

Blood pressure (BP) and obesity phenotypes may covary due to shared genetic or environmental factors or both. Furthermore, it is possible that the heritability of BP differs according to obesity status—a form of G×E interaction. This hypothesis has never been tested in White twins. The present study included 15 924 White male twin pairs aged between 15 and 33 years from the National Academy of Sciences–National Research Council World War II Veteran Twin Registry. Systolic and diastolic BPs, as well as height and weight, were measured at the induction physical examination. Body mass index (BMI) was used as the index of general obesity. Quantitative genetic modeling was performed using Mx software. Univariate analysis showed that narrow sense heritabilities (95% CI) for systolic BP, diastolic BP, height, and BMI were 0.401 (0.381–0.420), 0.297 (0.280–0.320), 0.866 (0.836–0.897), and 0.639 (0.614–0.664), respectively. Positive phenotypic correlations of BMI with systolic BP (r=0.13) and diastolic BP (r=0.08) were largely due to genetic factors (70% and 86%, respectively). The gene-BMI interaction analysis did not show any support for a modifying effect of BMI on genetic and environmental influences of systolic BP and diastolic BP. Our results suggest that correlations between BP and BMI are mainly explained by common genes influencing both. Higher BMI levels have no influence on the penetrance of genetic vulnerability to elevated BP. These conclusions may prove valuable for gene-finding studies.

A Big Platform

Smith appeared an unlikely American Bar Association president; he was not the corporate type and was described in the press as chunky and effervescent, with a thick southern accent. He had several goals for his presidential term, but they were swept away by the Watergate scandal. Smith responded to Richard Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre by boldly condemning Nixon’s actions, a statement that catapulted him into the spotlight and ensured he would have many high-profile speeches. His comments made it into Nixon’s daily press briefings several times. Never one to back down, Smith, a decorated World War II veteran assisted by Bill McBride, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, closed out his presidency by advocating amnesty for draft dodgers.

And up she went – The moral vertical in Wings

This article is dedicated to the film Wings (1966) directed by the Soviet director Larisa Shepitko. With its story of a World War II veteran, Nadezhda Stepanovna Petrukhina, Wings makes for an interesting case when looking at women’s and veteran’s status in the Soviet society of the 1960’s, and morality and memory culture more generally speaking. But as Nadezhda Stepanovna is a former fighter pilot who continuously return to the sky in her daydreams, Wings is also an excellent case for a critical discussion of the meaning of the airspace. Aviation and the airspace hold certain connotations is Russian culture (not necessarily excluding other cultures) that open up for a different kind of reading of this film, in particular because of the intersections between gender, space and memory. Hierarchies are often presented trough a metaphor of verticality in Russian culture. By examining the different notions of verticality, both physical and metaphorical, in Wings, I not only argue that this film can be read in a new way, but also bring new perspectives on the established theory of women’s position in Russian culture as morally superior to men. This again can be linked back to the spatial understanding of Russia, as the term Motherland in Russia particularly strongly makes a connection between femininity, the mother, and space, the land.

To the 120th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding soviet pathomorphologist - associate professor N.F. poryvayev

2015 marks the 120th anniversary of the birth of Nikolay Fedorovich Poryvaev - the outstanding Russian physician-pathologist and scientist. After graduation from the Penza boys gymnasium Nikolay Fedorovich entered the Medical Faculty of Kharkov University, graduating in 1923. He first worked as a therapist in the Mokshan village of Penza region. Then he moved to Penza, where he continued to work as a therapist in the provincial hospital (currently SBIH «Penza Regional Clinical Hospital named after N.N. Burdenko»). From 1929 to 1936 he was in charge of the provincial hospital prosectorium. He became interested in scientific and pedagogical activity, which he began to be engaged in further by moving to the Department of Pathological Anatomy of Kazan State Medical Institute. In 1950 N.F. Poryvaev defended his PhD thesis on «Pathology». For a time, from 1955 to 1959 and from 1966 to 1968 he headed the department. The article presents a brief biography of the associate professor N.F. Poryvaev, his activities in Penza and Kazan are described. Nikolay Fedorovich was World War II veteran, he was awarded the Order of the Red Star and three medals for his services to the country. In the literature devoted to the history of medicine of Penza and Kazan, there are only fragmentary information about associate professor N.F. Poryvayev. This work is presented to fill this gap.