On Gavriil Popov’s Symphony No. 1 (To the First Publication of the Score)

В статье рассматриваются вопросы, связанные с историей создания, исполнения, запрета и дискуссий вокруг Первой симфонии выдающегося отечественного композитора, выпускника Ленинградской консерватории Гавриила Николаевича Попова (1904–1972). Судьба сочинения оказалась трагической: исполненная лишь однажды, симфония была запрещена. Так произошла одна из первых «публичных казней» музыкального произведения — еще до печально известных публикаций об опере «Леди Макбет» и балете «Светлый ручей» Д. Шостаковича, положивших начало борьбе с «антинародным формалистическим направлением» в музыке. Долгие годы замалчивания привели к тому, что яркое достижение отечественной симфонической школы «выпало» из истории советского искусства. Усилиями музыковедов И. Барсовой, И. Ромащук, Е. Власовой, И. Воробьёва, дирижеров Г. Проваторова и А. Титова Первая симфония Попова была возрождена к жизни. Сейчас готовится к печати первое издание этого незаслуженно забытого произведения. The article discusses issues related to the history of creation, performance, prohibition and discussions which surrounded the First Symphony of the remarkable Russian composer Gavriil Popov. The fate of the composition turned out to be tragic: once performed, the symphony was banned. It was one of the first public “executions” of a musical work — even before the infamous articles of the newspaper Pravda about the opera Lady Macbeth and the ballet Light Stream by Dmitry Shostakovich, which marked the beginning of the struggle against the “anti-national, formalistic trend” in music. Long years of oblivion led to the fact that the Symphony “fell out” of the history of Soviet music. Through the efforts of such musicologists as Inna Barsova, Inna Romashchuk, Yekaterina Vlasova, Igor Vorobyov, conductors Gennady Provatorov and Alexander Titov, Popov’s First Symphony was revitalized. And now the question arises regarding the first publication of this undeservedly forgotten outstanding work of the Soviet music.

Bread and circuses (c. AD 70–80)

Roman London was enlarged and enhanced in the years immediately following Vespasian’s accession in ways that corresponded with the known ideological goals of the new Flavian regime. As a consequence the city came to be characterized by an imperial architecture of ‘bread and circuses’. This involved the construction of a new amphitheatre for the conduct of games associated with the imperial cult and as the likely site of public executions. Watermills drawing on the latest engineering technology were installed to allow the large-scale preparation of flour to supply local bakeries. Early Flavian investment also involved the creation of new administrative facilities, perhaps including a mansio in Southwark, and new urban districts allowing military and veteran settlement. Cycles of subsequent investment hint at a correlation between building programmes in London and preparations for new campaigns of advance launched on the arrival of new provincial governors.

EXECUTION OF PEASANT REBELS AND RURAL HOSTAGES IN TAMBOV PROVINCE 1918-1921

The article examines the practice of using the supreme punishment - execution, used by the repressive bodies of the Soviet government in the fight against peasant protests in the Tambov province during the civil war. The research was carried out on the basis of archival sources introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. The work uses historical-comparative and systemic methods. An analysis of the facts of the execution of peasants carried out by punitive agencies during the suppression of rural "riots" of 1918-1919 and the period of the struggle against the uprising of 1920-1921 in the Tambov province is given. The facts of extrajudicial killings in the form of public executions of peasant rebels and hostages from among the civilian population, which were resorted to by the military-party administration in the occupied regions, were established. The role of the institution of hostages as a repressive measure in the actions of government troops to suppress the peasant uprising has been clarified. It is concluded that if during the period of rural "riots" in 1918-1919 execution was applied only to their organizers, then during the peasant uprising of 1920-1921 this form of the death penalty for "active" insurgents was given a systemic character, and the shooting of hostages from among local residents became widespread.

Reflections on Legal Process and Crime Scene Executions in Nineteenth-Century Scotland

Recent analysis of public executions on judicial warrant for the crime of murder in Scotland includes an assertion that the practice of carrying into effect the sentence at the place of the crime ended in 1841. That date may be open to some doubt given the locations of later public executions. Moreover, the legal aspects of these public executions suggest underlying legal requirements, practices and political tensions yet unaccounted for.

Book Review: Flanders, J., The Invention of Murder: How The Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime.

Always judge a book by the cover. The details are simply in the subtitle. Judith Flanders, a world-renowned author, social historian and journalist, reveals her intentions on the cover and leaves no mystery as to the focus of this work. The author’s immediate utilization of the subtitle gives an outline of the book’s contents. The subtitle provides a window into historical events inscribed within its pages. Flanders gives details and provides essentials to the development of each of the three categories, revel in murder, detection, and modern crime creation, within the pages of this historically significant work. Via the subtitle, the author provides enough information to build interest. Mixed in with details of each crime are analyses of the pursuit of the suspects while vivid pictorials of trial and subsequent public executions lead up to the accomplishment of sentences issued by magistrates.

The Radical Campaigns of John Baxter Langley

Once notorious but now largely forgotten, the political idealist and radical John Baxter Langley was typical of the well-educated and ethical Victorians who struggled to create a fairer, more equal society. Through a long and wide-ranging career of political agitation he was a journalist, editor and owner of several newspapers, was prominent in the call for franchise reform, and opposed religious legislation that prevented Sunday entertainment and education for working men and women. Langley was also integral to the founding of a trade union, campaigned for an end to public executions and built affordable housing in Battersea. Internationally, he condemned the Second Opium War, exposed British brutality in India and worked covertly for Lincoln’s administration. He was a fellow-traveller for many other key radicals of the day, while his founding of the ‘Church of the Future’ garnered the support of Charles Darwin, James Martineau and John Stuart Mill. Through a chronological narrative of Langley's activities, this book provides an overview of many of the most significant political causes of the mid- to late nineteenth century. These include electoral reform, feminism, slavery, racism, trade unionism, workers' rights, the free press, leisure, prostitution, foreign relations and espionage. A neglected but important figure in the history of nineteenth-century radicalism, this work gives John Baxter Langley the attention he deserves and reveals the breadth of his legacy.

Conservative Representations of Executions

Executionary publicity was not universally contested. Many people were still attached to the show of political force embodied by public executions, as well as the opportunity to morally “test” oneself. Faced with the advocates of this form of “brutalization,” the chapter examines the arguments that backed the preservation of public rituals of execution. It includes discussions about the demand for exemplarity and attempts to delegitimize the regime in its attempts to reform the Criminal Code; the plan to restore the use of corporal punishment and the whip as a deterrent to crime; the people's thirst for the guillotine in the wake of the Soleilland affair paradoxically led to a major victory for the pro-death-penalty camp; compartmentalization of the civilizing process and insensitivity to suffering of the general populace; the executions, brutalization and glorification of the violence of war; the diffusion of military values in service of executions being conditioned by “trivialization”; a martial relationship to executions, executions that attracted spectators; lastly the transforming of an execution into a good death “by self-punishment” and a “good death” by convincing the public that punishment was administered by an autonomous individual to himself rather than by the law.