Debating Balkan commonalities: Is there a common Balkan culture?

<i>The Balkans in the Cold War</i>. by Svetozar Rajak et al., eds., London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. 372 pp. €106.99.

Notes on Contributors

After educating in Loznica, Sabac, Belgrade and Vienna, Jovan Cvijic (Loznica 1865, Belgrade 1927) became a full-professor on a High school which turned into University in Belgrade in 1905 (Jovan Cvijic rector in 1906-1907 and 1919-1920). As a professor and scientist he noted one epoch with important inventions and that?s the reason why even today are considered results oh his investigations in Serbia and Balkan peninsula. The biggest number of information about teaching and science Jovan Cvijic permitted in article "About Science Work and Our University", which was printed in 1907.

Reviewed by: The Unending Frontier: An Environmental History of the Early Modern World Karen Oslund (bio) The Unending Frontier: An Environmental History of the Early Modern World. By John F. Richards. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Pp. xiv+682. $75. The Unending Frontier is an ambitious contribution to the fields of early modern history, world history, and environmental history. John Richards identifies a series of environmental changes occurring as a result of developing state structures in the early modern period—among them, the settlement of frontiers, biological invasions from the Old World to the New, and the search for new energy resources. He traces these changes through an impressive number of case studies, including Tokugawa Japan, colonial Brazil, and the indigenous people of Russian Siberia, as well as the better-known examples of the Spanish in the New World and early modern Britain. As these examples demonstrate, people all over the early modern world faced similar environmental issues, such as the pressure that expanding states and rising populations placed on the land. Richards describes different strategies by which various states met these challenges. His juxtaposition of chapters on early modern Britain and Tokugawa Japan is particularly effective. While Japan dealt with the crises of late-eighteenth-century famines with severe austerity measures, forest conservation programs, and intensification of fishing and whaling, the Tudor and Stuart rulers sought to expand their resources by draining wetlands and by switching the primary energy source from wood to coal in response to the depletion of the forests. As Richards notes, the British failure to recognize limits to growth was the more usual for early modern states, and the chapters on frontier settlement in Russia, whaling and walrus hunting, and Dutch and Chinese settlement on Taiwan provide other examples of the "windfall mindset in frontier societies" (p. 619) that Richards argues characterizes the early modern world. This book could have been even more interesting for historians of technology if the comparison between different ideologies of control of nature presented in the chapters on Japan and Britain had been pursued consistently throughout the entire volume, rather than treating the various chapters as self-contained narratives about different early modern societies and their treatment of the environment. As it stands, historians of technology will probably find the final section of the book the most useful. "The World Hunt" discusses the fur hunt in North America and Siberia, whaling and walrus hunting, and cod fishing in the North Atlantic. In the previous three sections, some of the details about technologies of land reclamation or logging tend to be glossed over; here Richards gives more attention to the comparative analysis of different techniques of whaling and fishing. Although [End Page 861] the book is not directly aimed at historians of technology, and does not provide any new analytic approaches to this field, it is a useful synthesis of information about a variety of tools and technologies used in the early modern world. The major weakness of Richards's book is in fact its analytic content. The Unending Frontier, as Richards explains in the preface, grew out of his teaching of environmental history and world history and reflects his deep commitment to world history as both a pedagogic and scholarly field. The book is an invaluable resource for anyone teaching similar courses, and also useful for classes in early modern European history, Atlantic history, or colonial American history. However, its breadth does not lend itself to close and rigorous argument, even in the chapter on the Mughal Empire, which is Richards's field of expertise. At times repetitious, this lengthy volume would have benefited from more careful editing, especially in the chapter on Russia, which conflates the time line of events and is likely to confuse the general reader. This does not prevent Richards from setting forth interesting insights in individual chapters—showing, for example, that in colonial Mexico and Brazil, Spanish and Portuguese settlement initially reduced pressure on land resources rather than increasing it, although this entailed devastating effects on the native populations. Readers of The Unending Frontier cannot fail to be persuaded by the amount of evidence presented for Richards's main contention, that during the early...

Many of those who will read these pages are fully aware of Professor Marek Stachowski’s scholarly achievements up to the present. How versatile and appreciated an author he has been is illustrated quite perfectly by the table of contents of the present tome. Indeed, Professor Stachowski is commonly regarded as a Turkologist whose varied academic career has been marked by a consistent approach to linguistic analysis: utilising historical-linguistic and philological methods while at the same time paying special attention to the historical background, cultural context, chronology, and the geography of linguistic contacts. Certainly, Marek Stachowski has helped broaden our knowledge of the history of Turkic languages and improve the methodology bequeathed to us by earlier generations. Additionally, however, thanks to his broad interdisciplinary approach – combining the experience and knowledge of a Turkologist with, primarily, the expertise of Uralists, Slavicists, Arabists, Iranists, Mongolists, and specialists in Yeniseic, Carpathian and Balkan studies – Marek Stachowski has been able to address issues lying beyond his main field of expertise. In fact, during his career he has highlighted just how relevant Turkology is to these research areas and, just as importantly, how much Turkology has been enriched by them. Thus, it would perhaps not be amiss to say that the central theme of his work has been its wide-ranging, multifaceted outlook.

Many of those who will read these pages are fully aware of Professor Marek Stachowski’s scholarly achievements up to the present. How versatile and appreciated an author he has been is illustrated quite perfectly by the table of contents of the present tome. Indeed, Professor Stachowski is commonly regarded as a Turkologist whose varied academic career has been marked by a consistent approach to linguistic analysis: utilising historical-linguistic and philological methods while at the same time paying special attention to the historical background, cultural context, chronology, and the geography of linguistic contacts. Certainly, Marek Stachowski has helped broaden our knowledge of the history of Turkic languages and improve the methodology bequeathed to us by earlier generations. Additionally, however, thanks to his broad interdisciplinary approach – combining the experience and knowledge of a Turkologist with, primarily, the expertise of Uralists, Slavicists, Arabists, Iranists, Mongolists, and specialists in Yeniseic, Carpathian and Balkan studies – Marek Stachowski has been able to address issues lying beyond his main field of expertise. In fact, during his career he has highlighted just how relevant Turkology is to these research areas and, just as importantly, how much Turkology has been enriched by them. Thus, it would perhaps not be amiss to say that the central theme of his work has been its wide-ranging, multifaceted outlook.

Many of those who will read these pages are fully aware of Professor Marek Stachowski’s scholarly achievements up to the present. How versatile and appreciated an author he has been is illustrated quite perfectly by the table of contents of the present tome. Indeed, Professor Stachowski is commonly regarded as a Turkologist whose varied academic career has been marked by a consistent approach to linguistic analysis: utilising historical-linguistic and philological methods while at the same time paying special attention to the historical background, cultural context, chronology, and the geography of linguistic contacts. Certainly, Marek Stachowski has helped broaden our knowledge of the history of Turkic languages and improve the methodology bequeathed to us by earlier generations. Additionally, however, thanks to his broad interdisciplinary approach – combining the experience and knowledge of a Turkologist with, primarily, the expertise of Uralists, Slavicists, Arabists, Iranists, Mongolists, and specialists in Yeniseic, Carpathian and Balkan studies – Marek Stachowski has been able to address issues lying beyond his main field of expertise. In fact, during his career he has highlighted just how relevant Turkology is to these research areas and, just as importantly, how much Turkology has been enriched by them. Thus, it would perhaps not be amiss to say that the central theme of his work has been its wide-ranging, multifaceted outlook.

Among our scientists, Jovan Cvijic (Loznica, October 12, 1865 - Belgrade, January 16, 1927) stands out by the number, scope, types and content of scientific and professional papers, printed in several languages, in Serbia and abroad. According to a number of indicators, in the scientific and journalistic sphere, until today his work has remained difficult to surpass. He is often and gladly quoted not only in the works of contemporary geographers, but also geologists, historians, ethnologists, urban planners, economists, demographers, sociologists and ecologists. Most of his work is published during his lifetime, but due to its importance, lessons and messages, part of his scientific work, is published post-humously even today. The most important are the Collected Works of Jovan Cvijic, which were published in 14 books from 1987 to 1996 by the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the Newspaper-Publishing Working Organization ?Literary Gazette? (Knjizevne novine) and the Institute for Textbooks and Teaching Aids, all from Belgrade. On this occasion, we present the work of Jovan Cvijic published on the pages of the magazine of the Serbian Geographical Society (Glasnik, Posebna izdanja, Atlas, Zemlja i ljudi, Globus). We especially pay attention on the Bulletin (Glasnik), the oldest geographical periodical in Serbia and on the Balkan Peninsula, which was founded by Jovan Cvijic and his associates, and whose content he unreservedly devoted to the last days of his life. Cvijic presented himself to readers through scientific papers, small prologues, reviews of foreign and domestic geographical, ethnographic and geological literature, notes and obituaries.

Attending to Difference in Indigenous People's Experiences of Cyberbullying: Toward a Research Agenda

Notes on Contributors

Teaching &amp; Learning Guide for: The British Nutrition Transition and its Histories

Reviewed by: Affect, Emotion, and Subjectivity in Early Modern Muslim Empires-New Studies in Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal Art and Culture ed. by Kishwar Rizvi Cleo Cantone Affect, Emotion, and Subjectivity in Early Modern Muslim Empires-New Studies in Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal Art and Culture, Kishwar Rizvi (Editor), Leiden & Boston: Bill, Vol. 9 Arts and Archaeology of the Islamic World, 2018, pp. 222. isbn: 9789004340473 The deliberate dynastic focus of the volume is justified by virtue of the comparable availability of artists' genealogies from the imperial ateliers of the Mughals, Ottomans and Safavids. Accompanying an emerging field in art historical scholarship interested in the perception and reception of art, Affect, Emotion and Subjectivity turns our attention to "the motivations behind the great works of art and architecture, the ways in which they were funded, and the roles they played within their broader political and religious contexts" (p.1). In fact the perhaps unusual use of the word 'affect' in the context of art criticism, is intended in the psychological sense of an "emotion or desire influencing behaviour", and according to Rizvi, "a physical or mental response to artistic and cultural productions that are themselves manifestations of personal, social, and communal experiences" (pp.4-5). It would therefore appear that we can have a 'performative' response to art, or rather, that the act of art appreciation is not solely a visual one: the viewer's response to a work of art participates in creating a "visual exegesis" of the work of art (p.3). The reference to 'Early Modern' Muslim Empires in the title is not accidental: the period under consideration, 15th to 18th centuries, presents a Renaissance taking place in tandem with the European Renaissance where artists were similarly concerned with the construction and representation of identity. Although not the focus of this volume, the interactions between Europe and the Muslim world in this period1 would have been worthy of a cursory mention given the mutual influences in the material and visual arts (notably portraiture, the theme of Emine Fetvaci's third chapter in the volume). Opening with Susan Babaie's [End Page 245] chapter, the author points out that recent studies in the era of 'global histories' do not necessarily highlight anything but the centrality of Europe and that it is time, therefore, to consider the different nature of "Islamic art", its intestinal relationship with the written word, its complex relationship with representational art and the alternative notions of architectural signatures. Babaie extends this argument to include the regional nomenclature given to artists, architects, artisans, craftsmen, etc signalling that their signatures or lack of them on their work "did not allow social space for 'individuality'" and that this in turn foments a sense of 'backwardness' in relation to "European modernity and its concept of the human as master of personhood" (p.25). Rather than signifying the professional status of the individual, a signature transmitted a 'fluidity in self-definition' as artisans were trained in different media. By including the names of the architect/builder of a mosque, caravanserai or shrine, argues Babaie, alongside that of their patron, indicates not only their rise to prominence but also promoted a 'complex conceptual agenda' in the context of a Safavid Shi'a notion of kingship. Furthermore, the fact that the name of the architect appears in the epigraphic band but not that of the calligrapher, at first glance, seems perplexing given the prominent role of calligraphic art in Muslim culture. One possibility is the 'fluidity' of craftsmanship and the other is the credit given to the 'designer' of the epigraphic programme who was, in fact, also the architect. Nevertheless, by virtue of the lack of a "biographical corpus" of information on individual architects, precludes the emergence of 'architect-personalities' (with the rare exceptions of Sinan in Ottoman Turkey) yet by 'signing' next to the name of the patron/ruler on prominent parts of their creations conferred a new and 'inescapable' visibility: from Qavam al-Din Shirazi's early 15th century mosque in Mashhad, to Mirza Kamal al-Din's early 16th century shrine in Isfahan and down to the 17th century elsewhere in Iran, the architect...

Notes on Contributors

The scientific work of Jovan Cvijic (1865-1927) is big and heterogeneous. The famous scientist dealt with physical and social geography with the same success. His scientific papers about Serbia are of particular importance. Serbia and Balkan peninsula were the subject of his systematic investigations for forty years. The bibliography of Jovan Cvijic's scientific papers about Serbia and Balkan peninsula is rich and cited very frequently.

The interview with one of the leading global historians in the German-speaking world, the Berlin-based Professor Sebastian Conrad, deals with the history, analytical innovations, and also problems of writing 'global history'. More specifically, Conrad compares this perspective with other competing approaches beyond the national framework (like transnational history), and critically analyses the potential of global history to overcome the historiographically established dichotomy between the 'west and the rest'. Here, he addresses pitfalls and problems of the still unsettled 'great divergence' debate, and also critically reflects on the question how globally is global history actually written today, and to what extent is it informed through the Anglo-Saxon cultural and lingual dominance. Lastly, Sebastian Conrad points to those fields that in his opinion will attract much attention in the coming years – such as the discussion of 'early modernities' in other world regions, which are not understood as a diffusion of European norms and values. Here, according to Conrad, the main problem will be not to construct parallel paths of historical progress, which are then ultimately culminating in a (previously defined) 'modernity'. Otherwise, processes of rationalisation, individualisation, and 'disenchantment' would remain the implicit categories of analysis, thus preventing the analysis of autochthonous processes of 'modernisation' in different parts of the world.