Japan’s national clothing during the Second World War: Material shortages, war mentality and the kokuminfuku

The national decorative and applied art of the Kyrgyz people, the traditional national clothing of the Kyrgyz, its design, technology and decoration. The subject of the study is the introduction of the creativity of folk craftsmen and the technology of traditional national costumes into the light industry. Research objectives: To develop simple methods of understandable and accessible training for students and creative youth in the production of design, technology, ornaments of national costumes, in general, the work of folk craftsmen. Creation of favorable conditions for the production and distribution of traditional national clothes among the population through the introduction of the creativity of folk craftsmen into production. The transfer of Kyrgyz national costumes as a legacy to future generations. The research was carried out in stages. Information has been collected about the national traditional clothes of the Kyrgyz people and about patterns and ornaments in costumes from literary sources; photographs of exhibits of national costumes in museums, as well as photographs of Kyrgyz costumes preserved in families as relics and inherited by mothers to daughters. The collected information was systematized, then its analysis was carried out in the areas of research. The results of the study of the collected photos are also analyzed. In compliance with the laws of logic, the analyses are summarized, and the study is completed with conclusions. Scientific novelty: Teaching students and creative production staff the secrets of the work of folk craftsmen, using the meaning of ornamental hieroglyphics of Kyrgyz patterns and ornaments. The results obtained: The versatility of clothing created by folk craftsmen, the rationality of its construction, the compliance of national clothing with hygienic and ergonomic requirements, the aesthetics of its decoration proved the high level and versatility of the creativity of Kyrgyz folk craftsmen. The study showed the conformity of national clothes to folk traditions, living conditions, the depth of meaning and color of the ornaments and patterns, and therefore the need to research, use and develop the creative experience of Kyrgyz folk craftsmen, spread it among the population and pass it on to subsequent generations in order not to lose and preserve this experience.

The Mutability of Uniform

During the Great War public transport in London was put under extreme pressure. Services suffered from staff and material shortages, fuel rationing, and requisitioning. Despite this, over 300 million more passengers travelled in 1918 than in 1913. The Metropolitan Police was forced to relax rules governing passenger safety on trams and buses, ‘straphanging’ became endemic, and trains were crowded ‘almost to danger point’. This article examines how the impact of the First World War on London's public transport represented both an ‘interlude’ and a permanent discontinuity. While the female transport worker was the personification of wartime exceptionalism, the rise of the female commuter and the entrenching of the ‘rush hour’ as part of the commute remain even today as a more permanent legacy of the Great War.

In 1944, Soviet Russia annexed Lithuania, and it became one of the republics forming the Soviet Union. Lithuanian fashion establishments that existed from before the war were nationalized, and the new economic system of centralized production and distribution of clothes was introduced. Following the Soviet model, the Lithuanian central fashion house was established in Vilnius in 1954, in order to control the design and production of clothes. However, Lithuania, as well as Estonia and Latvia, had enjoyed fashion and its rituals during the interwar period, in contrast to the disappearance of fashion as an everyday practice in the Soviet Union following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Drawing on their pre–World War II sophisticated dress cultures, designers within the three Baltic central fashion houses were not only creative but also better informed than the rest of the Soviet Union about world fashion trends. Fashion magazines published by those fashion houses—Banga (Wave; published in Vilnius), Siluet (Silhouette; published in Tallinn), and Rigas Modes (Riga fashions; published in Riga)— printed images of stylish and fashionable dresses and provided regular information on Western fashion. Since Western fashion publications were not available, these fashion magazines were popular and sought out in other parts of the Soviet Union as well.

Following World War II, Australia was confronted by a severe shortage of dwellings. One relief valve for some cities was a stock of un-serviced building lots situated on the suburban fringe. In Sydney, Australia’s largest city, thousands of aspiring home-owners purchased such land but, affected by shortages of money and materials, were only able to construct a temporary dwelling. These homes ranged from shacks and garages to tram-cars, Nissen-huts and tents. The post-war phenomenon of such housing in Australia has been neglected both empirically and theoretically. This paper draws upon Sorensen’s suggestion of Historical Institutionalism in an attempt to pursue the theoretical challenge. The proposition explored is that the existence of temporary dwellings in Sydney was evidence of a critical juncture in the institutionalised regulation of housing, creating opportunities for policy change. Firstly, local authorities were forced to permit the occupation of dwellings which did not comply with existing ordinances, and secondly, they adapted their regulations to give permanent approval to sub-standard accommodation. The paper concludes by suggesting that policy changes reverted to the institutionalised model for two reasons: path dependency and positive feedback mechanisms privileged those committed to an unchanged institution, while the permanent housing converged with adapted regulations.

The export of Japanese television programs overseas started in the 1970s and the rapid
\ngrowth of Japanese television programs globally especially in Asia started in the early 1980s.
\nHowever, in the 21st century, the glory of Japanese dramas seems to have faded and replaced by the
\n“Korean wave”. Perhaps the younger generation nowadays has not heard of “J-Pop” and here is an
\nexamination of the past consumption of the Japanese television culture outside of Japan, especially
\nAsia.

Purpose of the work. The article deals with the presentation of own systematization of sociocultural functions of musical societies in Europe of the XIX – the beginning of the XX centuries. Musical societies of different types as – single field or multi-field, integrated with other directions of cultural and educational activity during the ХІХ century and up to the First World War, sometimes even longer, to the Second World War (what actually happened in Lviv) stayed one of the main centers of spiritual life of the city, and even the country. It seems to be important to summarize and to systematize all reasons, why modest musical amateur societies kept so solid public position during very long term. Methodology. To analyze and to prove the conception of the article the following methods are used: source criticism, that allows to attract the archived material and recreate the functions of musical and music- educational societies; historical and cultural, that allows to trace basic historical pre-conditions of becoming of musical societies and forming of their functions; analytical, that allows to present basic descriptions of the given functions as a component of activity of the musical societies. The scientific novelty. The reason of the whole system of sociocultural functions of musical and musically-educational societies, as one of the main centers of the development of the music culture, becoming of musical professionalism and motivation of national and cultural processes are offered for the first time. Conclusions. The marked functions, certainly, are highlighted conditionally. For good reason a part of them got metaphorical definitions, showing same way the certain lability, indissoluble connection with other partialness. However, it seemed to be important with their help to show many sides of different spiritual, intellectual, public, ontological aspirations, that were powerful reason for such mass distribution of musical societies in that period, that contained a substantial number of participants. Musical societies of the ХІХ century – the beginning of the ХХ of century, to the First World War, appeared as a unique public and cultural associations, that were naturally integrated into national and public infrastructure as a component that directly influenced other spheres of life.

Во время Первой мировой войны Россия стала одной из важнейших стран, которая держала военнопленных: по количеству пленных она занимала второе место после Германии и опережала Австро-Венгрию. Т. к. эти империи воевали с обеих сторон европейского Восточного фронта, возникло множество проблем, связанных с большим количеством военнопленных на фоне организационных недочетов и материального недостатка. В статье рассматриваются новые явления военного плена и исследуются некоторые аспекты международного права, а именно правовая защита военнопленных и благотворительная деятельность по отношению к ним. В целях сравнения в статье приводятся данные о военнопленных в ряде основных государств и рассматривается отношение к военнопленным в этих странах. В центре исследования находится Россия и ее роль как родины русских военнопленных, с одной стороны, и как страны, державшей военных в плену – с другой.

The series of international conferences on Telemann’s music organized and sponsored periodically by the Telemann-Zentrum in Magdeburg, Germany, has long provided a forum for the presentation of recent research on the music of Telemann and his contemporaries. Each conference has focused on a specific theme. The volume at hand, representing the revised essays presented at the conference in March 2004, is unusual in encompassing two themes: Telemann, the Musical Painter; and the Telemann Compositions in the Music Archive of the Berlin Singakademie, the large collection best known for containing numerous works of the Bach family. The collection was presumed lost after the Second World War, but resurfaced in Kiev in 1999 after the end of the Cold War, and was subsequently returned to the Berlin Staatsbibliothek. The twenty-two essays in the collection, all in German, are not divided evenly, but reflect preference at the conference for the first topic; seventeen essays treat some aspect of tone painting, other types of text expression, or musical symbolism, and five discuss the Singakademie collections. Telemann was known in his time as a composer especially adept at vivid depiction of imagery in the texts he set (some of which he even wrote himself), and there is no shortage of material.

Songket is a woven cloth decorated with motifs interwoven using supplementary gold thread. Palembang songket is characterised by a red background on which various motifs, such as flowers, stars and rhomboids, are interwoven with gold thread. The figures are categorised into three groups, i. e. flora, fauna and others, and these are combined to create certain patterns and designs. According to one artisan, all figures and patterns are traditional ones which have been woven for a long time.It is likely that songket was already woven in Palembang by noblewomen in 1670. Since the gold thread was previously made of real gold of 14 carats, this cloth was very expensive and restricted to noblewomen before the Palembang sultanate period was abolished by the Dutch in 1824. The regulation of wearing songket seems to have been strict; the design and colour which a noblewoman could wear was regulated according to her social status; songket was an important status marker of noblewomen. During the Dutch colonial period (1824-1942), the use of songket expanded to noblemen and the wealthy Chinese and Arabs. In the 1930s, songket weaving started to decline due to the Great World Depression and shortage of materials, and it was driven to the verge of extinction in the 1950s.In the mid-1960s, however, songket weaving was successfully revived, recruiting young people as new weavers and introducing new materials and technologies. Cheap versions of songket woven with artificial gold thread started to be sold in the market. The cheap versions of songket, the eclipse of the concept of ‘nobility’ after the Second World War and adat (customary law) protocols which stipulated that people should use songket in rites of passage encouraged the ordinary, less wealthy people of Palembang to wear and use songket in ceremonies. Songket has indeed been democratised and popularised, and its use has become a ‘new’ tradition for ordinary people. Nevertheless, it is also true that differences in the quality of songket still tend to differentiate the wearers in terms of wealth and status. Nowadays the regulations of wearing songket are no longer strict. People can wear whatever colours and designs they like. People try to follow adat as closely as they can when they use and wear songket, and songket has become an identity marker of people of Palembang.New styles of songket fashion are produced to attract younger female customers. These activities to expand the market are necessary for the development of the songket industry of Palembang. New designs and colour combinations are important factors which would attract new customers inside and outside Palembang. On the other hand, old people of Palembang tend to prefer traditional colours and designs; Palembang songket culture seems to maintain an appropriate balance between commercial-based culture and the local, relatively conservative one so far. No matter whether the design is a traditional or modified one, people of Palembang realise their identity when they wear Palembang songket.

Between 1939 and 1945 Britain's public libraries often struggled to balance wartime shortages in materials and staff with an increased readership, while also being expected to contribute actively services and skills to the war effort. Government documents, committee minutes, reports, news stories and interviews have been employed in an attempt to build a picture of one particular library's experiences during this period.

Europe was damaged badly during the Second World War. Despite the sheer size of the task ahead, the significant destruction, and shortage of manpower and building materials, the Netherlands took up reconstruction expeditiously. With unprecedented resilience battered cities and villages re-emerged from the rubble. The reconstruction was a large-scale operation in which industrially manufactured mass housing and a new cityscape were pursued. During the reconstruction Van den Broek and Bakema Architects were one of the largest offices with influential designs such as the Lijnbaan Shopping Center, the new heart of the bombed city of Rotterdam. Both architects showed great social commitment. Because of the grand scale of construction output in the first decades after the war, J.H. van den Broek and J.B. Bakema asked themselves what the architect’s role and responsibility were in an increasingly technology-dominated society. As both architects were professors at the Technical College of the Dutch university town Delft, it is not surprising that this question was the main theme in their teaching. That goes for their inaugural speeches as well. Addressed in 1948 and 1964 – marking the start and the completion of post-war reconstruction – they show that the architect’s focus had shifted profoundly.

Excluding Agency

For political elites in any nation, war museums serve as powerful storytellers. They may reflect and even help shape collective identity. But the effect is especially strong in the case of authoritarian regimes that are able to tell a consistent, coherent narrative about a past conflict. In this analysis, drawing on insights from commemoration studies, comparative politics, and international relations, I look at three museums in Japan, which is politically divided over how to remember World War II, and three museums in China, which has achieved a revised, but still top‐down consensus over that war. The comparison suggests that all of these museums use “affect,” more or less successfully, to tell their stories. But it also reveals that the shared history recalled in Chinese war museums is more effective and thus “useful” for Chinese elites than competing histories recalled in Japanese museums are for Japanese elites.

In our own day, managers often cite the gains in productivity as the primary reason to automate laboratory operations. This is hardly new. During the second World War, shortages of skilled labor and materials were felt in the chemistry laboratory. Doing more with less was not a matter of corporate policy; it was a matter of national survival. An amazing variety of automated devices were created between 1941 and 1945. Some were designed to save labor such as the automated distillation units seen in the petroleum industry or other organic chemistry laboratories. Certain automatic titrators, polarographs, recording instruments, and water stills also fall into this category. Other equipment was intended to conserve strategic materials, such as an all-glass constant-rate reagent addition device. Still others improved assay performance by automating steps that were prone to human error. Although the technology has changed, the reasons to automate have not. These devices were largely constructed by end users who were working alone. This fact illustrates something else that has not changed; while the driving force in automation is not the hardware, it is the imagination. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Lab Robotics and Automation 9: 105–112, 1997.