Marika Daniilidou, MD. The First Female Orthopaedic Surgeon in Greece

Dr Marika Daniilidou was born in 1902 in Asia Minor. Her family was forced to immigrate to Greece, in 1922. Despite the horrendous difficulties of the era, she pursued undergraduate and postgraduate studies in the University of Berlin, Germany, and she specialized in orthopaedic surgery. In 1937, she became the first female certified orthopaedic surgeon in Greece. In 1947, she was the only female orthopaedic surgeon among the 22 founders of the Hellenic Association of Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology (HAOST). She became a true role model for the next generations of Greek women surgeons.

By an anniversary of the birth of Johann Peter Müller — 220 years

July 14, 2021 marks the 220th anniversary of an outstanding scientist and physician — Johann Peter Müller. It is thanks to his works that we know what the «endocrine gland» is, understand the taxonomy of the animal world and the essence of ontogenesis. Professor, researcher, wonderful teacher, director of the anatomical and physiological museum of the University of Berlin — he succeeded in any role in life. Mueller’s discoveries were recognized during his lifetime, textbooks were published under his leadership, and scientific articles were published. The value of the professor’s work is high to this day, which once again proves the colossal contribution of Johann Müller in the formation of world science.

Joseph Ber Soloveitchik

Joseph Ber Soloveitchik (b. 1904–d. 1993) was a major 20th-century American Orthodox rabbi, Talmudist, and modern Jewish ‎philosopher. Scion of a distinguished Lithuanian rabbinical family, Soloveitchik was born in Belarus before relocating with his family to Warsaw. Under his father’s tutelage, the adolescent Soloveitchik devoted himself almost exclusively to traditional Talmudic study, mastering his grandfather Hayyim Soloveitchik’s “Brisker Derekh,” a modern methodology emphasizing scientific clarity and abstract jurisprudential conceptualism. He entered the Free Polish University in 1924, studying political science. In 1926, Soloveitchik commenced his studies at the University of Berlin, where he majored in philosophy and was attracted to Neo-Kantian thought, particularly philosophy of science. During this time, he also attended classes at the Orthodox Rabbiner-Seminar zu Berlin. In 1932, he received his doctorate under Heinrich Maier and Paul Natorp. His dissertation, “Das reine Denken und die Seinskonstituierung bei Hermann Cohen” (Berlin, 1933), dealt with the epistemological idealism of Hermann Cohen. He immigrated to the United States in 1932, and in 1941 he succeeded his father as the head of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary of Yeshiva University in New York. In this role, Soloveitchik trained several generations of Orthodox rabbis. From 1953, Soloveitchik also exerted a decisive influence on the Orthodox Jewish world in his capacity as chairman of the Halakhah Commission of the Rabbinical Council of America. His rulings included his unequivocal opposition to mixed seating in synagogues. He also served as honorary president of the Religious Zionists of America (Mizrachi). Soloveitchik was a remarkable orator in his native Yiddish and in English and Hebrew. The annual halakhic and aggadic discourse, which he delivered on the anniversary of his father’s death, attracted thousands of listeners and lasted from four to five consecutive hours. The tension between modernity and traditionalism manifested itself in every area of Soloveitchik’s public life. He staunchly defended the authority of the rabbinate, fought against unwarranted halakhic change, stood against the religious changes of the Reform and Conservative movements, and opposed theological dialogue with the Christian churches. Yet he pioneered Talmudic education for girls, broke with his family tradition in supporting Zionism, and advocated cooperation with the non-Orthodox—and even with Christians—in the pursuit of social justice and security for the Jewish people. His writings, marshalling a distinctively ambitious blend of Talmudic analysis with neo-Kantian, phenomenological, and existentialist motifs toward often-poetic explorations of themes in modern Jewish life and the modern religious predicament generally, have achieved currency well beyond the Orthodox Jewish world that constituted his primary audience.

“CRAZY ZOOM MAKES EVERYONE TO FIND HIMSELF IN A DOUBLE ROLE OF A SPECTATOR AND AN ACTOR”

Oksana Bulgakowa is a researcher of visual culture, a film critic, a screenwriter, a director, and a professor at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. She has taught at the Humboldt University of Berlin, the Leipzig Graduate School of Music and Theater, the Free University of Berlin, Stanford University and the University of California Berkeley. Author of the books “FEKS: Die Fabrik des exzentrischen Schauspielers” (1996), “Sergei Eisenstein – drei Utopien. Architekturentwürfe zur Filmtheorie” (1996), “Sergej Eisenstein. Eine Biographie” (1998), “The Gesture Factory” (2005, a renewed edition to be published by NLO publishing house in 2021), “The Soviet hearing eye: cinema and its sensory organs” (2010), “The Voice as a cultural phenomenon”(2015), “SINNFABRIK/FABRIK DER SINNE” (2015), “The Fate of the Battleship: The Biography of Sergei Eisenstein” (2017). Author of the network projects “The Visual Universe of Sergei Eisenstein” (2005), “Sergei Eisenstein: My Art in Life. Google Arts and Culture” (in collaboration with Dietmar Hochmuth, 2017–2018), and the films “Stalin – eine Mosfilmproduktion” (in collaboration with Enno Patalas, 1993), “Different Faces of Sergei Eisenstein” (in collaboration with Dietmar Hochmuth, 1997). In this issue of P&I, Oksana Bulgakowa talks about medial giants and midgets, obscene gestures of Elvis Presley, “voice-over discourse” of TV presenters, and the birth of Eisenstein’s “Method” from psychosis and neurosis. Interview by Ekaterina Maksimova. Photo by Dietmar Hochmuth.

Virtues of History: Exercises, Seminars, and the Emergence of the German Historical Discipline, 1830–1900

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, historians across the world often started the history of the modern historical discipline with Leopold Ranke’s teaching at the University of Berlin during the 1830s. Ranke, they argued, here introduced a new style of training exercises, which afterwards defined the discipline. Some connected this history to a story of increasing standardization and institutionalization of education and research, culminating with the methodological textbooks, uniform training exercises, and large research institutes of the period. Many historians also associated Ranke’s exercises with certain epistemic virtues, such as carefulness, accurateness, and love of truth. These epistemic virtues, some argued, were products of the close relationship between teachers and students. The virtues, this chapter argues, also helped nineteenth-century historians assess the scribes, chroniclers, and historians of the past. The chapter illustrates this emphasis upon epistemic virtues through the example of Georg Waitz, who participated in Ranke’s famous exercises during the 1830s and whom nineteenth-century historians often described as his most prominent and loyal student. It especially focuses upon how Waitz conveyed the virtues of the Ranke school to his doctoral students in Göttingen and how this training influenced the students’ practices of interpretation and source criticism. Finally, the chapter discusses the tension between the educational ideas of the Ranke school and the standardization and institutionalization of education and research during the second half of the nineteenth century. The tension, it argues, illustrates that the emergence of the modern historical discipline cannot be explained solely with reference to the process of institutionalization.

Book Reviews

Zerrin Özlem Biner, States of Dispossession: Violence and Precarious Coexistence in Southeast Turkey, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020, 264 pp., (ISBN 9780812251753). Salih Can Açıksöz, Sacrificial Limbs: Masculinity, Disability, and Political Violence in Turkey, Oakland: University of California Press, 2020, 272 pp., (ISBN: 9780520305304). Reviewed by Marlene Schäfers, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom Andrew Bush, Between Muslims: Religious Difference in Iraqi Kurdistan, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2020, 240 pp., (ISBN: 9781503611436). Reviewed by Metin Atmaca, Social Sciences University of Ankara, Turkey Mneesha Gellman, Democratization and Memories of Violence: Ethnic minority rights movements in Mexico, Turkey, and El Salvador, London and New York: Routledge, 2018, 226 pp., (ISBN: 9781138597686). Reviewed by Vera Eccarius-Kelly, Siena College, United States Seevan Saeed, Kurdish Politics in Turkey: From the PKK to the KCK, London and New York: Routledge, 2017, 150 pp., (ISBN: 978-1-138-19529-5 (hbk); 978-1-315-63848-5 (ebk)). Reviewed by Michael M. Gunter, Tennessee Technological University Mohammedali Yaseen Taha, Media and Politics in Kurdistan. How Politics and Media are Locked in an Embrace, London: Lexington, 2020, 145 pp., (ISBN: 9781793611031). Reviewed by Kerem Schamberger, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Germany. Philip G. Kreyenbroek and Yiannis Kanakis, "God First and Last": Religious Traditions and Music of the Yaresan of Guran. Volume I: Religious Traditions, by Philip G. Kreyenbroek, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2020. XIV+188 pp., (ISBN 9783447114240). Reviewed by Martin van Bruinessen, Utrecht University, Netherlands Seyedeh Behnaz Hosseini, The Yārsān of Iran, Socio-Political changes and Migration, Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020, 229 pp., (ISBN 978-981-15-2634-3). Reviewed by Hamidreza Nikravesh, Free University of Berlin, Germany Mohammed Ihsan, Nation building in Kurdistan: Memory, Genocide and Human Rights, New York: Routledge, 2017, 194 pp., (ISBN: 9781472466792). Reviewed by Ugur Ümit Üngör, NIOD Institute, University of Amsterdam

In memory of Professor Lutz Schimansky-Geier

On November 23, 2020, a well-known theoretical physicist, a specialist in statistical physics, Professor of the Humboldt University of Berlin, Lutz Schimansky-Geier, passed away. He studied at the University of Rostock and received his diploma from the University of Yerevan. He was a student of Professor Werner Ebeling, with whom he worked almost all his life at the Humboldt University.

Bohdan Osadczuk jako rzecznik europejskiego dialogu cywilizacyjnego

The life and activity of the publicist, journalist and researcher Bohdan Osadchuk is a meaningful example of activities for the inter-civilisation dialogue. He was born in Galicia, which belonged to the Second Polish Republic, and he always treated Polish and Ukrainian cultures as his own. Osadchuk’s efforts to strengthen Polish-Ukrainian relations and understanding, as well as his cooperation with Jerzy Giedroyc, editor-in-chief of the Paris-based journal Kultura [Culture], which was unique in terms of content and influence, were of particular importance. The author of this article has collected and analysed little-known and so far undiscovered facts and previously unavailable archival documents. Bohdan Osadchuk grew up in a multicultural environment. Professing liberal values, he condemned all chauvinism. He managed to combine the identity of a Ukrainian emigrant with that of a European democrat. For seventy years, he lived in Berlin (1941–2011), where he graduated from the university and became recognised as a journalist Alexander Korab. He was known under this pseudonym to readers of German newspapers and the oldest Swiss daily newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung for decades. For over half a century, he wrote for this authoritative newspaper about the events in the Soviet Union, Poland, Ukraine and the countries of the socialist bloc. Moreover, when actively cooperating with German radio and television, he introduced Polish and Ukrainian issues to the media discourse. The communist special services of the People’s Republic of Poland and the Soviet Union hunted Bohdan Osadchuk, watched him and tried to recruit him. But he was playing his own game and was not fooled. This article also describes Osadchuk’s scientific achievements that he gained as a professor at the Free University of Berlin (Freie Universität Berlin) and the Ukrainian Free University in Munich, as well as the author of fundamental publications. Moreover, the circumstances of the last years of Osadchuk’s life, which ended in Poland, are presented for the first time.

Striking Similarities: The Origins of the European Economic Community

A Plan for a European Economic Community was developed at the University of Berlin in 1942. There are striking similarities with the European Economic Community that was introduced in 1957—and which became the foundation stone of the European Union. Particularly striking is the innate hostility both to liberal economic values and to democracy—a hostility that permeates the EU to this very day.