National Awakening Research Articles

Israeli Education: Changing Perspectives

C REATING A PAST TO MEET present needs and shape the future is a widespread phenomenon in the early phases of national awakening. This article will examine the influence of ideological identification on the writers of the history of education in Israel and appraise the extent of their own awareness ofideology's impact on their work. There is a difficulty, however, in determining which books actually deal with the history of education, for only recently has this field been treated according to academic standards. During the period of the Yishuv (the Jewish community in pre-state Israel) and the first decades of statehood, most of the writing on the history of education was not based on genuine research. Three categories of education history may be distinguished. The first consists of personal memoirs describing the experiences of teachers and school principals. Despite its major drawback as a narrow, subjective perspective riddled with memory lapses, it retains great value as primary source material.' The second category includes teachers' reports, which were often published in newspapers and journals.2 Although this material is more objective than individual memoirs, it too suffers from the defects of unsystematic writing that concentrates on current issues, but lacks authentic historical research and a time perspective. The third category contains books, sometimes with historical introductions, that describe Israeli education. Most of the authors gathered their data from secondary sources rather than conducting original historical research. Throughout the period of the Yishuv and during most of Israel's statehood, works in these three categories have provided the only literature in the history of education.

Old Norms in New Bottles: Constructions of Gender and Ethnicity in the Early Tamil Novel

This article concerns four Tamil novels, which upper-caste men who used the Western novel to publicize contemporary problems concerning women's education and sexuality, composed between 1879 and 1924. The author demonstrates connections among reform for women, the Dravidian ethnic and literary revival, and the overarching national awakening during colonial rule in Madras, India. The male authors drew moral and literary validation from contemporary recompilations of classical Tamil texts when they articulated their views on improving modern women's lives, but they also reaffirmed patriarchal notions of female chastity and domesticity. Bourgeois Victorian ideas on women's domesticity and sexual restraint reinforced traditional Indian views. Thus, while these male novelists successfully challenged unjust customs, such as girls' illiteracy, child marriages, and widow abuse, their paradigms on modern womanhood inhibited the full development of gender equality. Their heroines irrevocably shaped public perceptions of the female persona, and they became blueprints for modern Tamil fictional characters.

Congo. A classic example of colonialism.

This is a reprint, accompanied by a French translation, of an interview with Jef Van Bilsen (1913-1996), the former Belgian adviser to the first Congolese President, Joseph Kasavubu. The interview was conducted when Van Bilsen was a professor at the University of Ghent. Van Bilsen is questioned about his 'Thirty Years Plan' to prepare the Belgian Congo for independence. The plan, published in 1955, provoked strong criticism in the Belgian political and academic establishment because at that time decolonisation was not accepted on the political agenda, at least not within thirty years. Van Bilsen describes the narrow minded and extreme paternalistic vision of the Belgian colonial administration and the awakening of Congolese nationalism. The consequence of this cramped policy is that in 1960 Belgium grants independence to the Congo in a reaction of panic and in a completely unprepared way. Furthermore, Van Bilsen relates, as a privileged witness, the disastrous outcome of foreign interference in the struggle between President Kasavubu, Prime Minister Lumumba and the Katangese secessionist, Tshombe. He cites his statement to Tshombe that Lumumba could not be seen as a communist and reports how he advocated a compromise between the three opponents.

Megawati Sukarnoputri: From president's daughter to vice president

Megawati Sukarnoputri, like Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma and Sheikh Hasina Wajed of Bangladesh, is the daughter of a “founding father” of her country who has sought political power in order to redeem his legacy. Her ability to interpret this legacy flexibly (enabling her to adjust to changed circumstances) and to symbolize not only her father but, by her silent suffering at the hands of the authoritarian government of President Suharto, purity and decency as well, largely explains her political success. She stood for Parliament in 1987 and 1992 as a member of the Indonesian Democracy Party (PDI) and became leader of this party in 1993 despite government hostility toward her. Her failure in 1995 to repudiate a nomination for the presidency concentrated the wrath of Suharto upon her. In June and July 1996, he engineered her removal from the PDI leadership and was behind an attack on her party headquarters by government thugs in which at least five party members died. Suharto was obliged to resign from office in May 1998, and a parliamentary election was held in June 1999. Megawati's party obtained the largest proportion of the vote: 34 percent, followed by Golkar with 22 percent, and the National Awakening Party of her almost-blind friend, Abdurrahman Wahid with 12 percent. However, her silences, which had been so eloquent in the Suharto period when it was dangerous to speak out, became a distinct political liability in Indonesia's emerging talk shop of democracy. Consequently, she was unable to convert her strong parliamentary result into a successful presidential bid, and was out-maneuvered for the top office by Wahid himself showing a scant regard for his erstwhile democratic principles. Rioting by Megawati's supporters convinced him of the wisdom of having her as his deputy. Consequently, he worked hard (and successfully) to secure her victory in the vice-presidential ballot. “We make a perfect team,” he commented later. “I can't see and she can't talk.”

A Failed Manipulation: The British, the Oudh Bequest and the Sh i Ulama of Najaf and Karbala

Between 1850 and 1903, the Oudh Bequest channelled over six million rupees from India, through British mediation, to the Shi i shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala in Iraq. It has intrigued historians the way that this sophisticated British tool has exercised influence and control over the Shi i Ulama in Iran and Iraq. However, the British became directly involved in the distribution of the Bequest in 1903, on the eve of the Constitutional Revolution. In view of the ulama's growing involvement in Iranian politics, and gross corruption among the distributors, the British saw the Bequest as a means to enhance their influence over the ulama in Iran. The political usage of the Bequest was a subject of a prolonged debate within Bequest bureaucracy. Disagreements often stemmed from different priorities, determined by local considerations, of British authorities in Iraq, Iran and India. In 1912 the British took over the direct distribution of the Bequest, abandoning their expectations to use the Bequest as a ‘powerful lever’ in Iran, and shifting their focus to enhancing their prestige in Iraq itself and acquiring the goodwill of Shi is in India. These policies were renewed with greater vigour after the British occupation of Najaf and Karbala in 1917. Overall, these British attempts ended in dismal failure, showing that charity, however generous, cannot compensate for the need of religious leaders to maintain popular support by distancing themselves from foreign patronage and tutelage. Moreover, manipulation proved less powerful than broader historical processes such as the rising national and religious awakening against foreign powers.

The Revival of 1857-58: Interpreting an American Religious Awakening

This book provides a critical analysis of a revival often overshadowed by earlier great awakenings. The Revival of 1857-58 was a widespread religious awakening most famous for urban prayer meetings in major metropolitan centres across the United States. The author places this revival within the context of Protestant revival traditions and suggests that it may have been the closest thing to a truly national awakening in American history.

OTTOMAN OFFICIAL ATTITUDES TOWARDS AMERICAN MISSIONARIES

Members of various American missionary organizations, mainly affiliates of American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions ABCFM, the Board started to visit the Levant region in the second decade of the nineteenth century. Moving out from Beirut, the missionaries established protestant churches, schools, hospitals and other social facilities mostly in non-Muslim populated areas of the Empire. While during early years of Ottoman-American encounters the Sublime Porte was indifferent towards missionary activities among its subjects, the official attitude gradually changed and became negative in the follovving years, paralleling the increase in the number of complaints from non-Muslim clergy, the Muslims and the government officials. While the missionary activities gave impetus to the awakening of nationalism among some of the non-Muslim subjects of the Empire, such as Armenians and Bulgarians, Ottoman negative approach to American missionaries reached its climax during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Accordingly, this article evaluates the causes and process of the change in the Ottoman official attitude tovvards the American missionaries.

National Awakening and National Consciousness in Belarus

A frequent assertion about the recent events and pervasive mood in Belarus—the apparent efforts to reunite with Russia, the virtual denial of a Belarusian identity by a Russophone president, official nostalgia for the time of the former Soviet Union— is that national consciousness is somehow retarded or delayed, and national development is lagging considerably behind that of its neighboring states, Lithuania and Ukraine. This article seeks to address the question of national self-awareness in Belarus from three angles: those of demography, culture, and language. Was development of the republic in the Soviet period different from that of the other republics, and is that development responsible for what has been described as the “national nihilism” of today? Is that mood likely to change with a new generation of Belarusians? How far is President Alyaksander Lukashenka, the first president of Belarus, who was elected in July 1994, responsible for the present situation and how far is he a symptom of the notable lack of self-assertion of Belarusians?

The image of the Baltic German elites in twentieth-century Estonian historiography: The 1930s vs. the 1970s

professional historians, has a relatively short history. In this strict sense it extends no further back than the first period of Estonian independence during the two inter-war decades. To be sure, writing about Estonian history in Estonian - and produced by individuals who identified themselves as Estonians - began to appear by the national awakening of the 1 860s, but it remained the work of amateur historians who lacked professional training. quality of these writings certainly improved from the time of Jakob Hurt in the 1 860s and 1 870s to that of Villem Reiman in the early twentieth century, but they are most appropriately seen as the prologue to the more substantial historiography of the post-World War I era. Tartu (Dorpat) University, already established in 1632 during the period of Swedish rule in Estonia, was a distinguished institution of higher learning, but the study of Estonian language and culture had virtually no place there before 1919. In the nineteenth century, instruction was in German until the 1890s and then in Russian until the end of the tsarist regime. study of Estonian was only supported by a low-level lectureship, and all attempts to establish one or more professorships in Estonian studies were turned back by the university or tsarist authorities (Raun, The Role 140-41). During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the professional investigation of the past in Estonia was dominated by Baltic German historians, much of whose work was at a high level when judged by the standards of the time, but whose output focused rather narrowly on the historical role of the Baltic German elites (Liiv, Eesti ajaloouurimise 300). As the end of the twentieth century approaches, it seems appropriate to assess the evolution of Estonian historiography during the past seven or eight decades, especially since it is a topic that has not been studied in sufficient depth to date.1 It is certainly not coincidental that the writing of history in Estonia during this century has mirrored the shifting political tides that the country has been subject to, i.e., two initial decades of independence, followed by war and occupation, full-blown Stalinism, a post-Stalin thaw with strong ideological controls still in place, and finally the restoration of independence in the 1990s. Thus, one finds a considerable amount of discontinuity and fragmentation in JBS, Vol XXX, No 4 (Winter 1999) 338

Israeli-Soviet relations, 1953-1967: from confrontation to disruption

Part 1 From severance of diplomatic relations in February 1953 to their renewal in July 1953: idealogical and psychological aspects of the USSR's decision to sever its relations with Israel changes in Soviet internal and foreign policy after Stalin's death and the resumption of Israeli-Soviet diplomatic relations. Part 2 Bilateral relations - from their resumption to their severance: Israel between East and West phases in the USSR's attitude towards Israel, 1953-1967 trade relations cultural and scientific relations Aliyah, emigration from the USSR and eastern Europe to Israel. Part 3 The Jewish problem in the USSR: continuity and change in Soviet policy regarding the National Question and its attitude towards the Jewish nationality in the USSR the national awakening of the Jews in the USSR and Israel's dissemination of information among them the struggle on behalf of Jews in the USSR. Part 4 The impact of the East-West superpowers' confrontation on the Arab-Israeli conflict and on Israeli-Soviet relations: the Middle East in the Soviet strategy the USSR's policy during and after the Sinai Campaigh Soviet proposals for the prevention of world war and improvement of relations between states intensification of Soviet activity in the Arab states and intensification of tension the Six Day War and the breach of Soviet-Israeli diplomatic relations.

Theorizing Latvian Lives: The Quest for Identity

This article examines the nature of contemporary Latvian life stories. These accounts of the Soviet invasion and its long aftermath constitute a hybrid genre which unites personal and collective experience. They are intended by their authors to provide a literal representation ofthe past but in the process ofacquiring coherence they come to act as potent carriers of literary and cultural meanings, which confirm personal identity and national loyalties. The authors are engaged in a quest for meaning in often disrupted and chaotic lives. The common structure of the stories which result from this quest reflects large-scale historical events such as the post-war deportations ofthe Balts, as well as the incorporation of literary and folkloric paradigms. Life stories form the core of this article. Their central position was dictated by the insistence of my informants who transformed a modest research project on neurasthenia into one which addressed fundamental problems of violence and destiny.1 My research was carried out between 1992 and 1993 when the euphoria of independence united Latvians in a common cause. It seemed as though floodgates to the past had burst open. Wherever I turned I encountered stories of the past so powerful and compelling that it was difficult to know whether they were pursuing me or I them. Each spoke of an individual life and yet rested on a common structure. My argument in this article is that the similarities between these life histories derive both from Latvian history and from membership of a symbolic and textual community. The collective nature of these narratives derives from several sources. Undeniably, narratives reflect similar experiences. However, in so far as they claim testimonial status, these stories assume a responsibility for representing Latvian destiny generally Thus individuals frame their accounts as typical of other Latvian lives. Since 1990 extensive publication of the lives of deportees and prisoners has unwittingly provided literary models of story-telling. Finally, but not least, stories and histories familiar from childhood listenings and readings are borrowed to create coherence. Such borrowings have historical precedents. The National Awakening of the 1860s had as one of its goals the rehabilitation of Latvian peasant identity and Latvian literature was central to this project. Whereas literature had earlier been a distinguishing feature of the Baltic Germans, the pastoral literature of the second half of the nineteenth century rehabilitated and ennobled the Latvian peasant. The collection and publication of folk songs or dainas begun in the 1870s by Krisjans Barons consolidated national identity.2 Their classification according to the life

Myth in the desert, or not the Great Arab Revolt

(1997). Myth in the desert, or not the Great Arab Revolt. Middle Eastern Studies: Vol. 33, No. 2, pp. 267-312.

Orthodox Christians in the Kadı Courts: The Practice of the Sofia Sheriat Court, Seventeenth Century

AbstractThe attitude of Balkan Christians to Ottoman rule has been subject to various, often contradictory, assessments. In this essay I examine one aspect of this subject, namely, the Christian attitude toward the sheriat court as a judicial institution, as reflected in kadı sicils from Sofia and other Balkan cities and in documents issued by Orthodox Christian ecclesiastical authorities from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Examination of these sources reveals that Christians frequently chose the sheriat judge over that of the church courts. In most cases this behaviour can be explained by the desire of the Christian litigants to seek out the court that would provide the most favourable solution to the dispute. The participation of Christians in sheriat court proceedings strengthens the impression that they did not avoid the sheriat court in practice, despite the hostility manifested by Christian religious authorities toward such behaviour. Indeed, the sources point to relatively smooth relations between the two communities in the Ottoman Balkan provinces in the period immediately preceding the national awakening of Balkan peoples.

Stjepan Radić, Yugoslavism, and the Habsburg Monarchy

The idea that the South Slavs constituted a single ethnic whole has long received considerable support in Croat intellectual circles. Ljudevit Gaj's Illyrian movement of the 1830s and 1840s, which represented the initial stage of the Croat national awakening, recognized this idea and attempted to construct a common culture for all South Slavs under the neutral Illyrian name. Given the increased pressure of Magyarization in the first half of the nineteenth century, the linguistic and regional particularisms of the Croats resulting from the breakup of Croat lands in the medieval and early modern periods, and the presence of a considerable Serb minority in the Croat lands, the Illyrian idea became a necessity. It enabled the “awakeners” to overcome the particularisms that complicated the creation of a national consciousness among the Croats and deeply implanted in this consciousness the commonality of the South Slavs. Illyrianism eventually became a political force that found expression in the revolutions of 1848–49, but it was largely rejected by the Slovene intelligentsia and the Serbs of the Serbian principality and the Vojvodina. It remained a force and retained its significance only in the Croat lands.

Slavko Osterc med neoklasicizmom in ekspresionizmom

Slavko Osterc med neoklasicizmom in ekspresionizmom

Vissarion Belinskii and the Ukrainian National Question

The literary critic Vissarion Belinskii (1811-48) is generally regarded as the father of the Russian liberal intelligentsia. Belinskii was an eloquent critic and prolific proponent of radical socioeconomic reform in nineteenth-century Russia, using his literary reviews as a forum for thinly veiled attacks on the political institutions of his day: autocracy, serfdom, and the Orthodox Church. But there was one exceptiona single issue on which Belinskii found himself in agreement with the tsarist establishment. That issue was the Ukrainian national question. Belinskii's opposition to the nascent Ukrainian national awakening and his acerbic attacks on Ukrainian literature are a puzzle to scholars. Why did this great opponent of tsarist oppression sympathize with Russian nationalism in this way? And why did this brilliant literary critic disparage the Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko? Given his fascination with the political role of literature, why did Belinskii neglect to review the first modern Ukrainian-language books, published at the turn of the nineteenth century? The answer to this puzzle lies in Belinskii's views on nationality in general. Of course, Belinskii never explicitly studied nationalism as a sociopolitical phenomenon. But, by piecing together his ideas on history, politics and literature, I will show that Belinskii formulated a single coherent theory of nationality. Central to this theory was the argument that nations exist, not for their own sake, but in order to prepare people for a higher historical purpose-specifically, participation in the modern cultural community of all humankind. The logic of this argument, I will show, implies that backward peoples like the Ukrainians, who are unable to achieve this purpose, must drop out of the national endeavor, and instead become assimilated into other nations.

Kiev et Moscou : Mythe ou héritage à partager ?

Georges Nivat, Kiev and Moscow: a myth or a legacy to be shared. The article depicts the national awakening of Ukraine, connected to the dissident figures of the 1970's, such as Dziuba, Osadchyi or Pliushch. It shows how difficult it is to share a common heritage, tilted towards Russia by Gogol' or Repin, and towards Ukraine by Shevchcnko or Dragomanov.

Peter Brock, Folk Cultures and Little Peoples: Aspects of National Awakening in East Central Europe. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1992. vi, 210 pp. $35.00. Distributed by Columbia University Press.

Peter Brock, Folk Cultures and Little Peoples: Aspects of National Awakening in East Central Europe. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1992. vi, 210 pp. $35.00. Distributed by Columbia University Press.

Vasilii Titov and the ‘Moscow’ Baroque

The Baroque, which manifested itself in Muscovy during the course of the seventeenth century, has been recognized as one of the most dynamic and influential eras of Russian musical and artistic creativity. When looking at the history of Russian music one has a tendency to equate the new stylistic trends of the second half of the seventeenth century with those of the highly westernized eighteenth, and to dismiss both merely as periods of Western imitation. In reality music manuscripts reveal otherwise, and now that compositions are finally becoming available in transcription we realize that an entire era remains to be recognized and re-evaluated. In art and architecture, that era, known as the ‘Moscow’ or the ‘Naryshkin’ Baroque, is distinguished by a blend of Italian, Dutch, Russian, Ukrainian and Bielorussian features in a style that, although influenced by foreign elements, was none the less distinct from any in existence at the time. The Moscow Baroque embraced many aspects of the arts, from iconography, architecture and the applied arts to literature and music. Endorsed by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich (1645–76), foreign influence began to penetrate Muscovy, ushering in a cognizance of Western concepts that began to clash with the rich and long-established spiritual and cultural traditions. In fact Muscovy was just emerging from an aesthetic explosion known as the Golden Age of national artistic expression. Familiar are the magnificent onion-dome churches that were created during the sixteenth century and the flourishing musical centres in Novgorod and Moscow, where composers and singers developed an intrinsically Russian musical style. This was also the age of indigenous Russian polyphony (e.g. strochnoe moskovskoe, strochnoe novgorodskoe, znamennoe and demestvennoe mnogogolosie) which preceded the wave of Western infiltration that inadvertently led to an untimely halt of the evolutionary process of national awakening. Prior to that halt, the Moscow Baroque stands as a brief but unique chapter in the development of the Russian choral tradition.

Book reviews

Recapturing Anthropology: Working in the Present, edited by Richard G. Fox. Seattle: University of Washington Press (School of American Research Advanced Seminar Series), 1992. 264 pp. Bush Base—Forest Farm: Culture, Environment and Development, edited by Elisabeth Croll & David Parkin. London: Routledge, 1992. 263 pp. Hunters and Herders of Southern Africa. A Comparative Ethnography of the Khoisan Peoples. Alan Barnard. Cambridge University Press, 1992. xxv+349 pp. The Bushman Myth. The Making of a Namibian Underclass. Robert J. Gordon. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1992. xvi+ 304 pp. The Interpretation of Dialogue, edited by Tullio Maranhåo. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1990. vii+ 376 pp. Wedding Cakes and Cultural History. Simon R. Charsley. London: Routledge, 1992. × + 162 pp. The Eternal Food: Gastronomic Ideas and Experiences of Hindus and Buddhists, edited by R.S. Khare. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992. xv + 273 pp. Folk Cultures and Little Peoples: Aspects of National Awakening in East Central Europe. Peter Brock. East European Monographs, No. CCCXLVI. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. vi + 210 pp.