Early Biographies Research Articles

Yakov Denisovich Petrov: Smolensk Teacher at the Head of the Regional Pedagogical University during the Great Patriotic War

In this publication, the authors continued their work on the study of the personality of the director of the Sverdlovsk State Pedagogical Institute, Yakov Denisovich Petrov, who held this post more than anyone else who headed this university, and his role in the development of the system of higher pedagogical education in the Sverdlovsk region. Based on the materials identified by the authors and previously unknown materials deposited in archival institutions of the Sverdlovsk and Smolensk regions, the authors analyzed in detail the features of the early biography of the director of the institute. This allowed us to fully answer questions related to Petrov's social background, which in the 1920s and 1930s was one of the main criteria for evaluating the political and business qualities of a communist and an employee for party and Soviet officials. And his gradual advancement up the career ladder: from a rural teacher to an experienced manager. At the same time, the authors abandoned the historical-party approach in consecrating the work of the Sverdlovsk Pedagogical Institute in the early years of Ya.D. Petrov's official activity, which is characteristic of Soviet historians. The personal participation of the director in solving the personnel and material problems of the university is specially investigated. The authors draw readers' attention to the fact that Petrov's solution of state tasks for the development of higher pedagogical education in the Sverdlovsk region and improving its quality in the most difficult conditions of the war years were quite successful. In many ways, this was the result of the rich work experience that Yakov Denisovich had accumulated during his years working in the public education system of the Smolensk region and in the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR.

The Revolutionary Youth of Georgii Fedotov

This article delves into George Fedotov’s involvement in the revolutionary struggle; his reasons, motives, and perception of it; as well as the conditions and factors that led to the decision to discontinue his revolutionary activities. The study relies on documents of the local gendarme administration from the State Archives of Saratov Region and private correspondence between G. P. Fedotov and T. Iu. Dmitrieva. Their examination allows for a fresh perspective on his involvement in the revolutionary activities of the Social Democrats in Saratov, shedding light on its existential underpinnings. This research employs the hermeneutics of understanding (Verstehen) as a methodological paradigm to explore George Fedotov’s youth. This approach involves identifying internal motives behind the external events in the life of the subject in question. It considers individual psychological aspects that contributed to the formation of G. P. Fedotov’s personality. The author defines the emerging changes in the personality of G. P. Fedotov as a reorientation of his own fate caused not only by the decline of the revolutionary movement but also by the crisis of his identity. Consequently, crucial moments in his early biography are demonstrated as manifestations of the revision of his identity shaped by the interplay between his personal aspirations and the influences of the social environment, where his closest associates played a significant role.

ELIOT’S PARSONS AND THEIR ROOTS IN SCOTT’S ABBOT OF UNREASON

Critical studies have analyzed George Eliot’s unconventional religious stance, Feuerbach’s influence and her atheism/religion of humanity. An early biography reveals, however, an interesting fact: “On the same grounds it is likely that the presentation of social virtues, apart from evangelical motives, would impress her; and I have authority for stating that to the inquiry of a friend in after-years, as to what influence she attributed the first unsettlement of her orthodox views, she quickly made answer: ‘Oh, Walter Scott’s…’” (Cross 1878: 395). Taking into account the quote above regarding probably the first source of her “unorthodox views”, the question naturally arises: are her fictional pastors and religious men fashioned according to her religious views and under the influence of Feuerbach’s doctrine? Can we assume a subtler influence at work coming from Walter Scott? It is my claim that we can identify important elements in Eliot’s fictional parsons which point in the direction of Scott’s model of a hero: the ability to promote an ironic discourse; the ability to promote the flow of sympathetic exchange in dialogue with other people. Eliot’s parsons may have been outlined according to a literary, rather than religious pattern. How to account for Farebrother’s unconventional way of earning money or parson Jack’s turning the other cheek by throwing nuts at the audience that had bombarded him with rotten eggs? Unawares, Eliot’s clever moral system may have been influenced by her early readings. Small scale carnivalesque skills, unconventional behaviour and the ability to preserve dialogue with marginal characters point rather in the direction of Scott’s fictional hero. While the research so far has focused on the model of historical novels in George Eliot’s work, little attention has been given to Scott’s influence on Eliot’s moral and psychological insights and the way in which she constructed important characters such as Rev. Farebrother, Rev. Rufus Lyon, parson Jack and other clergymen and religious non-conformists in her novels.

Miltiades the Elder and the Younger: Two Early Biographies

Claims that Herodotus reveals himself as a proto-biographer are not yet widely accepted. To advance this claim, I have selected two men, Miltiades the Elder and his nephew, Miltiades the Younger whose activities are recounted in the Histories. It is the latter, one of only a few Athenians with any battle experience, who taking refuge back in Athens, finds himself in a leadership role during the first Persian invasion of Greece. It is to a near contemporary to whom we attribute the maxim—character is human destiny. It is the truth of this maxim—which implies effective human agency—that makes Herodotus’ creation of historical narrative possible. He is often read for his off-topic vignettes, which color-in the character of the individuals depicted without necessarily advancing his narrative. But by leap frogging through two of the nine books of the Histories, we can assemble a largely continuous narrative for these two remarkable individuals. This narrative permits us to attribute both credit and moral responsibility for their actions. Arguably, this implied causation demonstrates that Herodotus’ writings include much that amounts to proto-biography.

The duel between Marius and the Celtiberian: a new reading

The duel of Gaius Marius with a Celtiber is one of the heroic episodes of the early biography of the future seven-time consul and commander. Plutarch’s information about this duel is fragmentary and does not allow us to fully clarify the circumstances under which it took place. In part, they are clarified by the archaeological data obtained by A. Schulten during excavations in the area of ancient Numantia. After analyzing the sources and literature, the author came to the conclusion that the episode with the duel became for Marius the starting point in his military career, from which his rise began. According to the author, in fact, the notorious duel could have been an ordinary skirmish, but later Marian propaganda turned it into a heroic deed of Marius, a brilliant military leader and an experienced «father commander». The author does not exclude the possibility that Plutarch himself became the culprit of the confusion, who did not distinguish between an individual duel and participation in a collective hand-to-hand combat.

William Shakeshafte, Player

ABSTRACT On 3 August 1581, the Lancashire gentleman Alexander Hoghton made a will which mentions a servant named ‘William Shakeshafte’. Many biographies of Shakespeare, including Stephen Greenblatt’s Will in the World, believe that this record refers to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon Avon in Warwickshire, then aged 17, while other biographies flatly disagree. Defining questions of Shakespeare’s religious, geographical, and dramatic affiliations, it is perhaps the most important crux of Shakespeare’s early biography. This essay reconsiders a rival candidate to be Shakeshafte, the William Shakeshaft of Preston and Cadley (fl.1562–1609) who is recorded in Preston at the date of the will. First reviewing the current state of the debate around the Shakeshafte theory, it then offers biographical sketches of the ten annuitants other than Shakeshafte, putting them into the context of the list of servants given by the will. It describes the William Shakeshaft, or rather William Shakeshafts, recorded in Preston in 1582, and their multiple possible links to the will. Building on work by Glyn Parry, it argues that the Shakeshafts have multiple links to the Hoghtons; and to some of the other annuitants; and also have themselves a possible involvement in drama.

Ранние биографии Канта и их значениедля понимания его философии

For a long time, there have been disputes about the importance of philosophers’ biographies for understanding their philosophical ideas. Some scholars have defended radical positions, from a complete denial of the necessity of taking into account the life circumstances of a thinker to the attempts to absolutize these circumstances and perceive philosophical ideas exclusively through the optics of the life path of their creator. This paper will focus on the example of the first Russian edition of Kant’s early biographies (which includes biographies of Borowski, Wasianski, Jachmann, Rink and a fragment from Reike’s “Kantiana”). Using this example, we will demonstrate the connection between the philosopher’s life and his philosophical views, the importance of biographical essays for a better understanding of philosophical ideas, and the necessity to take them into account as an auxiliary source for our understanding of the philosophical system of a particular thinker.

Francis of Assisi and goiter. Considerations from some paintings that represent the saint

Francis of Assisi (c. 1181–1226) is one of the most venerated religious figures in Roman Catholicism and one of the most depicted saints in art. The aim of this research is to highlight the presence of goiter in some depictions of the saint and to argue for the possible presence of this condition in Francis himself. Four paintings that represent Francis of Assisi belonging to the period between the fifteenth and the seventeenth century were analyzed. Early biographies of the saint were examined. In the analyzed paintings, the saint was represented with a throat swelling. Actually, early biographies do not support the hypothesis that Francis of Assisi suffered from goiter. The choice to represent Francis of Assisi with a goiter could be a desire to emphasize the inadequacy of his diet and thus to highlight his pauperism. Even though thyroid-related symptoms were often described, the presence of thyroid goiter in Francis is not confirmed by biographies. However, it should be considered that the directives of the Franciscan Order pushed authors to show a figure of the idealized saint for purposes of religious education and have increasingly detached from his physical characteristics.

Harold Cousins’s Plaiton Sculpture

In 1971, Harold Cousins published an essay explaining the sculptures that he had begun creating in the mid-1950s, following his relocation in October 1949 from New York to Paris. Cousins described his series named Plaiton, his own neologism combining the English word plate with the French word laiton (brass). This linguistic combination paralleled Cousins’s description of himself as a “sculptor-welder,” a practice that grew from experiments in oxyacetylene welding while studying in Paris with funding from the GI Bill. Providing the first scholarly analysis of sculptor Cousins’s rich career, this article recovers the artist’s early biography through family archives, including correspondence and period criticism. It then examines Cousins’s early artwork and his own description of his artistic practice culminating in Plaiton. Finally, it considers Cousins’s 1950s sculptures, particularly Plaiton Suspendu, and speculates on its relation to his later work. In considering Cousins’s sculpture in relation to racial constructions of the immediate postwar period, I draw on prior scholarship focused on postwar African American artists in Paris. I also look to studies of the ways Black artists employed abstraction—histories that often begin in the mid-1960s or 1970s. In examining the mid-1950s Plaiton works, I hope to both bring Cousins and his work back to visibility and suggest that this history actually began substantially earlier.

Erwin Deutsch, the Eppinger Clinic and the legacy of the Second Vienna School of Medicine-Continuities of acareer.

Erwin Deutsch (1917-1992) was an outstanding representative of Austrian internal medicine after World WarII. Little is known about his early biography. Considered a"Jewish half-breed" under Nazi racial laws, he was subjected to harassment during his training. Nevertheless, he can be regarded as scientific heir of Hans Eppinger (1879-1946), who enjoyed aworldwide reputation as internist despite his controversial involvement in medical experiments in the Dachau concentration camp.Already declining after World WarI, the Viennese Medical Faculty largely lost its international scientific importance with the expulsion of over half its faculty members from 1938, the end of the Second Vienna School of Medicine. Erwin Deutsch significantly contributed to continuity by vehemently calling for the unity of internal medicine after 1945, as it had been practiced in Vienna since the nineteenthcentury. Discrimination as a"Jewish half-breed" played aparadoxical role in this context-it delayed the start of his independent academic activity and increased his personal dependence on Eppinger; at the same time it spared him military service and enabled him to start his career after 1945 unaffected by denazification measures.Based on unpublished archival material, interviews with contemporary witnesses, and Deutsch's medical publications, this article is the first to offer an account of his early career, from his graduation in 1940, his time at the Eppinger Clinic, compulsory service in Germany during the war and the beginning of his scientific work to his appointment as Ernst Lauda's successor as director of the 1stMedical Clinic in Vienna.

Gabriel’s plot of 1800: the story of the failed uprising

This article analyzes one of the most significant, yet understudied events in African-American history. The Virginia Conspiracy or the Gabriel Conspiracy of 1800 is considered the most famous case of organizing a mass armed uprising of slaves in the United States. Inspired by the ideas and examples of the American, Great French and Haitian revolutions, black slaves tried not just to raise an uprising and achieve liberation, but actually challenged the slave-owning orders of the entire white South. The scale and geography of the conspiracy leave no doubt that it originally implied a mass armed demonstration, which was to begin simultaneously in several cities of Virginia and spread to neighboring states. The purpose of this study is to analyze and restore the chronicle of the main events related to the Virginia Conspiracy of 1800. The materials of the trial and some periodicals act as a source base, while the author also relies on the research of leading American experts on this topic. The main objectives of the study include: to consider the background of the conspiracy and some issues of Gabriel’s early biography and to study the process of preparing a speech and the immediate implementation of the plan. The article also analyzes the consequences of the events of 1800 for the legislation of Virginia and the entire white South. The main methods are historical-descriptive and comparative-historical, allowing to draw the necessary parallels with similar historical phenomena, such as the Virginia Uprising led by Nat Turner in 1831. The conclusion shows that the slave conspiracy of 1800 was planned in the most careful way, while the reason for its failure was a combination of purely subjective factors. Simultaneously, Gabriel’s failed rebellion demonstrated the vulnerability of the White South in the face of slave uprisings, as well as the high degree of self-organization of the Black community and the beginning of the formation of an African-American identity.

Mussolini between Hero Worship and Demystification: Exemplary Anecdotes,Petite Histoire, and the Problem of Humanization

AbstractMussolini is considered in this article as a figure around whom narratives have been developed for a century or more. Several biographies were published shortly after he came to power and many others have appeared in the decades since his death in 1945. This article explores the place of anecdotes in the construction of a legendary Mussolini in the 1920s and in the demystification that marked the period after World War Two. It is shown that early biographies were marked not only by hero worship but also by a commercially driven need to humanize and to amuse. After the war, humanization persisted as former Fascists and associates of Mussolini spread stories and anecdotes that made the dictator appear not as an evil tyrant but as a flawed and fallible human being. The agenda here was to make support for Fascism and its leader forgivable. A comparison of the anecdotes shows that both adulatory and demystificatory ones reserved a place for minor stories orpetite histoire.The resulting image, which placed some emphasis on his sex life, proved influential. It presented a challenge to historians and found its way into the biographical films that were made for cinema and television between the 1970 and the 2000s. It is suggested that, via anecdotes, Mussolini occupied an ambiguous and continuous place in the moral universe of Italians, functioning variously as a political and a gender exemplar.

К литературной биографии Ольги Чюминой

The article presents little-known documents and evidences, concerning the early biography of Olga Nikolaevna Chyumina (1858 –1909) — a poet, a writer, a translator — including ego-documents. The author of the article observes the peculiarities of her relations with modernist writers and her literary position, expressed largely in opposition to modernists. Despite the fact that nowadays Chyumina is almost forgotten, at the turn of the 20th century she was a famous writer who achieved both the attention of critics and high fees. The article examines the beginning of her creative career, the relationship with the critic V.P. Burenin, the first publications dedicated to the memory of General M.D. Skobelev. The author quotes from letters stored in archives, in which Chyumina writes about herself and subjects the role and place of women in literature to reflection. Chyumina wrote from a male person before women writers of the modern era began to resort to this technique. Critics have noted this feature, at the same time in the reviews she was advised not to raise serious topics, which corresponds to the traditional attitude towards women writers. In the second book of poems, Chyumina seems to have found exactly her voice, but the rapid development of new trends pushed this figure into the background.

The Dawn of Scientific Biography

Abstract This article endeavors to contribute to a better understanding of the literary contexts of early biographies of scientists written during the Scientific Revolution. To what extent are these biographies influenced by stereotypes that are an inadequate fit for modern history of science? Its claim is that there was, indeed, a literary model for biographies of scientists, and that this model had deep roots in Biblical and classical literature. While the model was similar to that used in Renaissance biographies of artists, it did not fully emerge until as late as the seventeenth century.

Alexander of Macedon: An Early Biography

Claims that Herodotus reveals himself as a proto-biographer are not yet widely accepted. To advance this claim, I have selected one man, Alexander I, who finds himself and his kingdom caught in the middle of the Greco-Persian Wars and whose activities are recounted in the Histories. It is to a near contemporary, Heraclitus, to whom we attribute the maxim—character is human destiny. It is the truth of this maxim—which implies effective human agency—that makes Herodotus’ creation of historical narrative possible. He is often read for his off-topic vignettes, which colour-in the character of the individuals depicted without necessarily advancing his narrative. But by hop scotching through five of the nine books of the Histories, we can assemble a largely continuous narrative for this remarkable individual. This narrative permits us to attribute both credit and moral responsibility for his actions. Arguably, this implied causation demonstrates that Herodotus’ writings include much that amounts to proto-biography.

The Anscombe-Lewis Debate: New Archival Sources Considered

Meeting from 26 January 1942 through 26 May 1972, the Oxford University Socratic Club was a fixture of Oxford intellectual life for three decades. Founded by Miss Stella Aldwinckle, chaplain to undergraduate women students for the Oxford Pastorate, the club was an immediate success and quickly became a favoured venue for students and faculty alike, with C.S. Lewis serving as club president and senior member (advisor) from its inception to December 1954. One of the club's most famous papers was delivered 2 February 1948, when twenty-eight-year-old Somerville philosopher G.E.M. Anscombe presented a critique of a key argument in Lewis's recently published Miracles (1947). Most of the critical literature on the event has come from Lewis biographers. Less has been written about Anscombe's perspective, one reason being a lack of primary evidence. Following a framing discussion of the Socratic Club's early years, Lewis's persona and role in the club, and Anscombe's early biography, this article presents three unpublished pieces of primary evidence – a letter by Anscombe, a remark about Lewis by Ludwig Wittgenstein, and a full transcription of the meeting minutes – before briefly considering the light they shed on the exchange between Anscombe and Lewis.

Max Clara and Innsbruck — The origin of a German Nationalist and National Socialist career

This investigation aims to summarize hitherto scattered pieces of evidence of the early biography of Max Clara, especially considering his connections with the Histological Institute of the University of Innsbruck.Max Clara was born in 1899 in South Tyrol, at that time part of the Habsburg Empire. After high school in Bozen and his participation in World War I, Clara studied medicine in Innsbruck, Austria and Leipzig, Germany, graduating from Innsbruck University in 1923.He joined the Corps Gothia, a German Student Corps, at the start of his studies and became socialized as a German nationalist. When the Tyrolean Parliament conducted an illegal referendum in 1921, in which a majority voted for the merger of Tyrol with Germany, the active members of the Gothia spontaneously removed the border barriers between Austria and Bavaria in the municipality of Scharnitz. They brought them to Innsbruck to be deposited in the statehouse. Clara’s participation in this activity is not documented but is very likely. Seventy-four per cent of the members of this corps joined the Nazi party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, NSDAP), even before the annexation of Austria by National Socialist (NS) Germany in 1938. Clara likely met Maximinian de Crinis, an SS officer and high-ranking member of the NS health administration, through contacts within their respective corps. De Crinis supported Clara decisively in the anatomist’s appointments as chair of anatomy at the University of Leipzig and later at the University of Munich.Initially, Clara began his academic career at the Institute of Histology and Embryology in Innsbruck as (student) demonstrator, and in 1923 as an assistant. In December 1923 Clara had to leave Innsbruck for Blumau, South Tyrol to take over the medical surgery of his father, who had passed away unexpectedly. Back in Italy, he continued his histological research in his spare time and published a large number of scientific papers. His connections with Innsbruck and especially with histologist Jürg Mathis never ceased.

Fred Donner and Tilman Nagel on Muslims and Believers

ABSTRACT Fred Donner contends that Muḥammad (c. 570–632) led an ecumenical movement of “believers,” a term used frequently in the Qur’ān which Donner defines as a generic term that included Jews and Christians as well as former polytheists who followed Muḥammad’s newly-proclaimed koranic prescriptions. In Donner’s view, only several generations after Muḥammad’s death did this movement come to call itself “Islam” and its members “Muslims” in the sense of a confessional identity over and against Judaism and Christianity. Tilman Nagel argues, to the contrary, that Muḥammad’s movement was neither ecumenical nor inclusive and that it had a distinct confessional identity from the outset with which it self-consciously set itself apart from Judaism and Christianity. For Nagel, “believers” are a subset of Muslims, which was distinguished by their willingness to wage religious war under Muḥammad’s command against polytheists, Jews, and Christians. Nagel’s understanding of the Muslim/believer distinction better accords with the relevant koranic verses than does Donner’s. It also accords far better with the earliest biographies of Muḥammad. Moreover, Nagel’s thesis accounts for all of the data that Donner’s thesis seeks to explain without raising the further problems that plague Donner’s revisionism.

Converted Jews

The aim of the scientific paper to reconstruct the life strategies of the father of the famous figure of the Great Reform era M. Posen, as well as to attempt to study the little-known early stage of his biography. Research methods: biographical, reconstruction, hermeneutics, intertextual analysis, comparative studies, systemic-structural, conceptual method of M. Epstein, etc. Main results. Thanks to the use of a number of approaches, it was possible to reach broader issues, such as the reconstruction of the identity of two generations of the Posens, identification strategies for their entry into the imperial society and determination of the position and opportunities of converted Jews in the era of Alexander I. Thus, the principle of new historicism made it possible to analyze texts in their primary context, which in turn made it possible to investigate Posen’s attitude to texts, which was reflected in his project for changes in censorship. The systematic principle made it possible to reflect on the whole the process of development of the institution of censorship in the Russian Empire and the role of converted Jews in it on the M. Posen’s example. The study of legislative acts was carried out using the historical-juridical analysis and A. Etkind’s philosophy of reconstruction, which made it possible to inscribe the Posens’ history to the historical and cultural context of the era. Thanks to scientific tools and the involvement of previously unknown sources, it became possible to clarify the main milestones of M. Posen’s early biography, while he working in various departments, as well as possible reasons for career growth in the context of the Alexander era. Practical significance: the accomplished developments can be used in the future to create generalizing works on historical biography, Jewish study, interethnic history, social history, etc. Scientific novelty: for the first time, attempts were made to reconstruct the biography of M. Posen’s father based on the initial materials and the activities of the first generations of the Posens in Russia Empire. Type of article: analytical.

Jews in Early Biographies of Muḥammad: A Case Study in Shifting Muslim Understandings of Judaism

AbstractAlmost from its beginning, adherents of Islam were in competition with those of Judaism, yet the extent and intensity of that competition is portrayed differently in the earliest extant sources. Although in biblical studies there is by now a broad consensus that the synoptic gospels reflect different interpretations of the life of Jesus among the early Jesus movements, analogous realizations have still to fully take root in studies about the Life of Muḥammad. Minor differences in the portrayal of Jews in biographies of Muḥammad indicate a shifting understanding of Muslim-Jewish relations: whereas initially Jewish voices were needed to legitimize the new Arabian prophet, accusations from Christian apologists that Islam was a “new Judaism” led Muslims to take their distance from that religion. Muslim historians adapted Christian anti-Jewish canards of treachery and “propheticide” (analogous to deicide) to emphasize such distance. Early Muslim biographies of Muḥammad are thus witnesses to a complicated history of relationships between adherents of Islam and those of Judaism in late antiquity.