Historical Era Research Articles

Shifting narratives: A critical discourse analysis of racial bias in the tale of Wu Feng’s indigenous representation

Heroic tales can support a nation’s mainstream ideology, but for minority groups, such as indigenous peoples, they can also be a detrimental oppositional force. This study explores the evolving discourse surrounding the tale of Wu Feng, arguably the most widespread and prominent narrative responsible for traumatizing indigenous peoples in Taiwan. Employing a critical discourse analysis of three texts from significant historical eras (Taiwan under Japanese rule, the martial-law era under the Nationalist Kuomintang’s rule, and the beginning of Taiwan’s indigenous rights movements), the study reveals the shifting portrayal of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples over time. Additionally, by incorporating data obtained by interviewing key stakeholders, it discusses the enduring ramifications of the tale for Taiwan’s indigenous communities. In conclusion, this paper urges that increased attention be directed toward recognizing the voices and experiences of minorities as represented in historical tales, to ensure greater inclusivity and balance.

Pitirim Sorokin's personality at the turn of historical eras

Introduction. The article explores the personality of the famous Russian-American scientist Pitirim Sorokin. His life was eventful and passed in Tsarist and Soviet Russia, Europe and the United States. He took an active part not only in the two historical eras of Russia, but also in changing events at the turn of the eras. His passionate personality manifested itself most clearly during the revolution of 1917. Thereafter he became a professor of the largest university in the world, Harvard University, president of many international conferences, author of dozens of scientific papers, including those about the factors of the revolution.Purpose setting. On the structural model of P. Sorokin's personality there is investigated his interaction with the socio-political structure of society. Watching events, passing them through his feelings, thinking, and behavior, he turned them into history. Thanks to the work and communication with talented Russian researchers such as V. M. Bekhterev, I. P. Pavlov, N. D. Kondratiev, the scientist worked out a unique concept of personality. He proposed the model of personality that had four layers and differed from many models of other researchers described in the scientific literature.Methodology and methods of the study. We can analyze this model in layers from the bottom to top. It can be described like that: Subconscious is biologically unconscious; Biological consciousness; Socio-cultural consciousness; Superconscious mind. Interpretation of historical events in line with this model of personality gives us the opportunity to retrospectively deeper understanding the behavior of the real person Pitirim Sorokin.Results. The analysis was carried out in the coordinates which are not studied enough at the moment. This is the interaction of the scientist with the society in the busy life path. He always found himself at the right time and in the right place in the bifurcation points of development of the society. The peculiarities of his behavior can be traced in the exclusive state of the socio-political environment. That means that it is in a stable state of order and unstable state of chaos. In the history of mankind such opposite sides of society periodically replace each other.Conclusion. The functioning of the structural model of personality is transferred to the interpretation of the real personality of Pitirim Sorokin. In particular, historical phenomena are interpreted through the prism of psychological approach in its system of revolutionary factors. This study was carried out in line with the reevaluation of the revolutionary events of 1917.

Dimensions of the constitution

The article is devoted to the conceptualization of the dimensions of the constitution as an important direction of modern political and legal research. It was noted that the category “dimension” combines the objective determination of the influence of the constitution on the course of social relations with its utilitarian value.
 Given the complexity and multidimensionality of society, it can be argued that there can be many dimensions of the constitution. However, it is known that the constitution to one degree or another regulates (consolidates) all four subsystems of the social system: political, economic, social, and spiritual and cultural. Therefore, the most general, system-creating dimensions of the constitution can be only four - according to the number of subsystems of the social system. All of them can be covered by the term “general or general social dimensions”.
 The author claims that from a legal point of view, we should be primarily interested in those “internal” dimensions of the constitution that characterize the significance of the constitution for the state mechanism and the national legal system. They, again conditionally, can be called “special” or “legal”. The relevant criteria should be sufficiently universal and significant, capable of being applied to states of different levels of development and different historical eras. At the same time, it should be understood that the constitution is only a legal instrument, so it can neither be blamed for a bad political choice nor praised for a good one.
 In the broadest plan, five main legal criteria for the success of the constitution are proposed – these are its endurance (permanence), legitimacy, the ability to resolve political conflicts in a legal way, the ability to limit agency costs, as well as to promote the production of public goods.
 The opinion that according to the vast majority of the dimensions listed above, the current Constitution of Ukraine of 1996 demonstrates quite high results, being an example of a modern and effective Basic Law, is justified. The main problem facing the national Constitution in this regard is the problem of limiting the so-called “agency costs”, especially in the area of corruption prevention.

Association of intensifying supportive care with improved survival in patients with gastric cancer with malignant ascites.

294 Background: Gastric cancer patients with malignant ascites often have poor functional status and malnutrition that precludes receipt of systemic therapies. Thus, these patients have a very poor prognosis. Beginning in 2019, our multidisciplinary gastric cancer disease-oriented team implemented a more aggressive supportive care plan for gastric cancer patients with malignant ascites. The initiative included measures such as supplemental enteral nutrition, ascites drainage, and initiation of chemotherapy on an inpatient basis. We compared outcomes for gastric cancer patients who presented with synchronous malignant ascites treated before and after the implementation of the care plan. Methods: We performed a retrospective review of our institutional database to identify patients diagnosed with gastric adenocarcinoma and synchronous malignant ascites between 2010-2022. We compared survival between patients diagnosed from 2010-2018, which will be referred to as the historical control era and patients diagnosed from 2019-2022, which will be called the aggressive supportive care era. Results: 54 patients were included in our analysis; 31 patients were treated in the historical control time frame and 23 patients treated during the aggressive supportive care era. Demographic, clinical, and pathologic characteristics were similar between groups. 3% of historical controls received supplemental tube feeds at diagnosis as compared to 30% of the aggressive supportive care cohort (p=0.008). 3% of historical controls received their first cycle of chemotherapy in the inpatient setting versus 39% of patients treated during the aggressive supportive care era (p=0.001). The median number of chemotherapy cycles received was 5 among historical controls and 9.5 among aggressive supportive care era patients (p = 0.02). There was no difference in the number of days spent as an inpatient between the two groups. The median overall survival for historical control patients was 5.4 months as compared to 10.4 months for patients treated during aggressive supportive care era (p=0.035). Conclusions: Gastric cancer patients with synchronous malignant ascites treated during a timeframe when our multidisciplinary team implemented more aggressive supportive care measures had improved OS as compared to historic controls.Our results suggest that aggressive supportive measures for these patients with highly challenging clinical issues and poor prognosis can prolong survival. Specifically, initiation of chemotherapy in the inpatient setting and supplemental nutrition should be considered for patients at high risk for treatment intolerance.

The phenomenon of the human natural habitat through the prism of history and culture: Monograph “Terra Nipponica: Habitat and Imagination Environment” by Alexander Meshcheryakov

The monograph by A.N. Meshcheryakov “Terra Nipponica: Habitat and Environment of Imagination” focuses on the description of the Japanese people’s perception of their natural habitat. Analyzing a large number of sources from different historical eras, the author, for the first time in world Japanese studies, tried to consider the evolution of the Japanese views on nature throughout the history of the country. The focus of the work is the analysis of the environment, its size and quality, as well as an attempt to trace the influence of various natural disasters on the formation of a picture of the world. In addition, the monograph examines various models of nature, which are reflected in poetry, gardens, philosophical treatises, and journalism. Considerable attention is paid to the consideration of nature as a means of self-identification of the Japanese.

Erratum: Simulations of ocean deoxygenation in the historical era: insights from forced and coupled models

Erratum: Simulations of ocean deoxygenation in the historical era: insights from forced and coupled models

Chinese embedded globalization: social-economic formations in dispute in world reordering

ABSTRACT This contribution focuses on a reconceptualization of the term globalization, drawing on world system theories and the dialectical concept of countermovement. The focus is the Social-Economic Formation (SEF) concept elaborated by the Marxist tradition to understand and analyse the contemporary ascendance of China and its power projection. Based on dialectic methodology, we argue that globalization is a contradictory process of interconnectivity between SEFs in different historical eras with substantive changes in the space–time relationship. Thus, the embryonic Embedded Chinese Globalization is emerging as a historical negation of Neoliberal globalization (NG)

Gaussian process model based restoration of damaged Buddha statue head

Buddha statues are distributed worldwide, and each piece reflects the aesthetic fashion of a particular region and historical era. Therefore, these sculptures have important cultural, aesthetic, and historical value. Owing to natural or artificial destruction, several Buddha statues have been damaged, with head or facial damage being the most prominent damage type. Because Buddha statue heads exhibit intricate variations in facial expressions and proportions, restoring head or facial damage is the most challenging aspect of damaged sculpture restoration projects. This study provides a new method for the restoration of damaged statues based on a Gaussian process model. The Gaussian process model entails a type of statistical shape modeling that allows it to learn shape distribution properties from a training dataset. During the restoration process, we used the residual parts of the damaged shape for the observations and added them to a Bayesian inference system to obtain the possible restoration result in the form of a posterior distribution. Therefore, the proposed method can be regarded as a quantitative mathematical representation of the subjective deduction process. Compared to those of the traditional manual restoration method, our results were more repeatable and stable, and the restoration process was automatic and rigorous, which reduced the requirements for professional knowledge and experience. Based on the learned model information, the proposed method exhibits strong robustness and anti-noise properties. In contrast to the optimization method, our final restoration result is a probability distribution, applicable to the repair of cultural relics. As our method make the missing shape inference using residual shape information and the regularity learned from training dataset, it is suitable for the restoration of damaged parts with no direct shape evidence. Finally, our model is generative; in other words, we can generate shapes on the posterior distribution and provide the corresponding probability. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our method, a series of experiments were conducted to restore damaged parts under different parameters and damage type settings. Subsequently, a quantitative analysis was performed. Finally, we applied this method to the virtual restoration of a damaged Buddha statue head in Xi 'an Museum.

Time Is Out of Joint: Spanish Art and the Cold War in the Long 1960s

This essay considers the ways Spanish artists during the long 1960s, especially those who have come to be associated with international Pop art, navigated the contentious political terrain of Franco’s Spain, a dictatorship with ties to Hitler and Mussolini that was also an American Cold War ally. With artworks collapsing their 1960s present and the past—whether the historical eras of El Greco, Velázquez, and Goya or the more recent past of the pre-Franco 1930s—artists such as Josep Renau and Equipo Crónica express Spain’s specific political and cultural position relative to the Cold War and international artistic developments.

ТЕКСТЫ ПОПУЛЯРНЫХ НЕМЕЦКИХ ПЕСЕН КАК ОТРАЖЕНИЕ СОЦИОКУЛЬТУРНЫХ ТЕНДЕНЦИЙ ГЕРМАНИИ ПЕРИОДА 1945–1989 ГГ.: МЕТОДИЧЕСКИЙ АСПЕКТ

The article is devoted to a diachronic review of popular German songs, which are an inexhaustible source of socio-political, historical and cultural heritage of Germany. A detailed study and deep understanding of the song heritage of any country contributes to a more effective mastery of a number of disciplines, among which a foreign language occupies one of the leading places. The author of the article pays special attention to the study of lexical, stylistic (artistic), thematic and functional features which reveal the cultural and historical wealth that the special language of a song in general and a German song in particular has. Using comprehensive, historical-cultural and didactic approaches to the song analysis, the author attempts to trace the relationship between a song in a foreign language and the sociocultural context of a certain historical era. At the same time, the author proves that the study of such a relationship is a cognitive process aimed at understanding the history and culture of the country of the language being studied. And the text of the song, being a type of a poetic text, is a complex phenomenon that includes historical, cultural and linguistic aspects. The diachronic review used in the article allows us to consider the qualitative changes that a popular piece of music – including a sung narration – undergoes over a certain period of time.

РАЗВИТИЕ РОССИЙСКОЙ СОЦИОЛОГИИ ФИЗИЧЕСКОЙ КУЛЬТУРЫ И СПОРТА КАК НАУЧНОГО НАПРАВЛЕНИЯ И УЧЕБНОЙ ДИСЦИПЛИНЫ

For over a century, Russian sociologists have been engaged in the study of physical culture and sport, with a particular focus on the mass and professional spheres. Physical education and sport are integral parts of social, cultural as well as socio-political life. Motivation, socialization through sport, education and health improvement, attitudes to physical education, the problems of Olympic and mass sports movement, etc., have come to the fore in different historical periods. All this can be found in the scientific publications of Russian sociologists and other social and humanitarian scientists. In the meantime, the analysis of sociological publications on this topic and their systematization, with the exception of the work of Russian sociologist O. A. Milstein, have not been carried out in a practical manner. In this paper, a scientific analysis of a variety of sources was carried out using two distinct approaches: comparative-historical and problem-chronological. The sources included brochures, articles and monographs, dissertations, and periodicals. Consequently, the principal thematic orientations of sociological inquiry into physical culture and sport in Russia, as well as the distinctive characteristics of sociological research across different historical eras, are elucidated. The institutionalization of the sociology of sport is considered in close connection with the institutionalization of Russian sociology. Moreover, experts examine the teaching of courses on the sociology of physical culture and sport in Russian universities. The process began in the 1920s and was subsequently interrupted. It can be stated that there has been an increase in the number of scientific publications on the sociology of physical culture and sport during the 2000-2020s. Furthermore, a number of textbooks on this subject have emerged during the same period.

“THE ROLE OF THE ENDOWMENT IN THE DEVELOPMENT AND PROSPERITY OF THE RIBAT IN JERUSALEM DURING THE OTTOMAN ERA

The city of Jerusalem is one of the great cities in the hearts of all Muslims. God honoured the city by making it the first of the two Qiblahs and placed in it the third of the two holy mosques for Muslims. The city has the most famous and highest scientific centres. This distinction that the city had is one of the reasons that prompted many researchers to consider it in their studies to highlight the milestones Civilization in it from various aspects and in all historical eras. Scholars in Jerusalem took Ribat as places for reading and writing, and they were helped by the presence of libraries full of it. Ribat’s role was not limited to the cultural aspect, but extended to the political aspect. Ribat also played a role in the process of communication, monitoring, and early warning when the country was exposed to danger. The endowment (waqf) played an important role in the political, social and economic life in Palestine in general and Jerusalem in particular. The endowment included lands, real estate, and endowment properties that were allocated to a specific party. The educational endowment was the main source for the revival and development of Jerusalem educational institutions and the fulfillment of the purpose for which it was found. As well as continuing preserving lands from loss and leakage. This called for an independent administration of endowments within the state administration

In Chase of Vanishing Poles: Gaps in Conceptualization of International Politics

The paper offers an overview of the academic and practical discussion on ‘polarity’ as a fundamental element of the system of international relations and IR theory. The history of the question shows that the abstract, speculative, and essentially reductionist concept of the ‘pole’ hit the taste of political leaders as an indicator of a country’s power potential and international status, and a pillar of the world order. An academic concept has eventually turned into an instrument of international politics. As a result, the current ‘polar’ discussion has got stuck, unable to expand the analytical framework beyond the concepts that emerged in a completely different historical era. Today, the discussion about ‘poles’ constantly leads the academic community away from studying the reality of world politics, shifting the focus to a plot that has little to do with the changes that form the fabric of international life. Hence it seems it is the time to close it.

ОБ ИСПОЛЬЗОВАНИИ "НАСТОЯЩЕГО ИСТОРИЧЕСКОГО" (PRAESENS HISTORICUM) ВРЕМЕНИ В ИСЛАНДСКИХ САГАХ

The article examines the phenomenon of alternation of tenses in the Icelandic sagas, or more precisely, the inclusion into a narrative of past events, as the sagas are, along with the normal forms of the past tense, forms of the so-called “present historical”. This practice is not an exclusive feature of the Old Icelandic language but is found in Indo-European languages of different historical eras and geographical locations. Saga scholars, whose works are discussed here, have paid much attention to this phenomenon and put forward numerous interpretations of this narrative mode, both grammatical and stylistic. The author of the article adheres to the view that the alternation of tenses was so extensively used by the saga authors because it enabled them, within the framework of the stylistic objectivity inherent in the saga genre, to make the narrative more lively and emotional, as if the events described were happening before the eyes of their listeners/readers.

Historical gold mining increased metal(loid) concentrations in lake sediments from Nova Scotia, Canada

Historical gold mining operations between the 1860s and 1940s have left substantial quantities of arsenic- and mercury-rich tailings near abandoned mines in remote and urban areas of Nova Scotia, Canada. Large amounts of materials from the tailings have entered the surface waters of downstream aquatic ecosystems at concentrations that present a risk to benthos. We used paleolimnological approaches to examine long-term trends in sedimentary metal(loid) concentrations, assess potential sediment toxicity, and determine if geochemical recovery has occurred at four lakes located downstream of three productive gold-mining districts. During the historical mining era, sedimentary total arsenic and mercury concentrations and enrichment factors increased substantially at all downstream lakes that received inputs from tailings. Similarly, chromium, lead, and zinc concentrations increased in the sediments after mining activities began and the urbanization that followed. The calculated probable effects of concentration quotients (PEC-Qs) for sediments exceeded the probable biological effects threshold (PEC-Q > 2) during the mining era. Although sedimentary metal(loid) concentrations have decreased for most elements in recent sediments, relatively higher PEC-Q and continued exceedance of Canadian Interim Sediment Quality Guidelines suggest that complete geochemical recovery has not occurred. It is likely that surface runoff from tailing fields, urbanization, and climate-mediated changes are impacting geochemical recovery trajectories.

ГЛОБАЛЬНЫЕ ТРАНСФОРМАЦИИ: ДИАЛЕКТИКА ПРЕЕМСТВЕННОСТИ ДАЛЕКОГО ПРОШЛОГО И ОТРИЦАНИЯ НЕДАВНЕГО

Current global transformations are characterized not just by a complex change in the balance of power in world politics and economics, but also by at least a partial change in the architecture and organizational framework of political and economic relations at the global and regional levels. This is partly due to the fact that, due to objective and subjective reasons, it was not possible to launch the mechanism of “contractual” and evolutionary dismantling of geo-economic American-centricity, as a result of which these processes began to have not just a political, but a military-force character. The main question, however, is to what extent, within the current cycle of transformations at the global level, it will be possible to preserve those supra-spatial systems that, being fundamentally American-centric, ensured the American-centricity of the latest version of globalization as a whole. A curious dialectic of the development of current global transformations arises, saying that one of their most important features, if not the dominant ones, is a “rollback” to development paradigms characteristic of earlier historical (socio-historical and cultural-historical) eras, which actually means from a conceptual point of view, a break in the connection of not only cultural and political, but also economic modernity with postmodernity, which is now dominant in the world of the collective West. This predetermines the revolutionary nature of changes in the organization of political and economic relations, in particular the possibility of breaking existing relations of economic interdependence, as well as the fundamental impossibility of returning to the situation of the early 2020s, even if unfavorable for countries with anti-Western positions, especially Russia and China, the development of military-political processes.

Actor in History: A Hasidic Tsadik's Journey from Uman to Brownsville

Abstract: Rabbi Yehoshua Heschel Rabinowitz (1860–1938) was one of the first Hasidic rebbes of stature to come to America. An Orthodox Jewish leader and author with uncommon historical consciousness, he strove to revitalize religion as an existentially vital facet of being. Keenly attuned to the complexities of moments of transition, he reflected on his own experience of migration. His response to modernity differs from that of most traditionalist communal leaders of his day—both those who stayed in Europe and those who came to America. In the New World, now in his sixties, his understanding of Jewish history and the ongoing transformation of modern Jewish society and self continued to evolve as contemporary challenges demanded new responses. His life and works—written in Hebrew in a strikingly modern idiom—add important dimensions to the story of Hasidic migration, resettlement, and spiritual revival during a volatile historical era. Retracing his long path from Ukraine to New York, from the "valley of slaughter" to the goldene medina , through close readings of ego-documents and other resources that have received little attention to date, this paper considers his importance as a Hasidic figure worthy of note.

How culture builds nations: the power of symbolism over nation-building

Nationalism studies differ in terms of approaches to the subject. Various opinions on a given topic focuses on different aspects of nationalism, its core elements, and causal links between ends, ways, and means. This paper focuses on culture, arguably one of the most influential dimensions among other layers constituting and shaping nationalism among different nations. In doing so, it considers Anthony Smith’s explanation of national identity, which, according to the latter, is shaped by a fundamental consensus among the population on things like culture, religion, history, language, ethnicity, political values, and norms of behaviour and aims and other related notions. The causal link between nation and culture is revealed by making a holistic account of different sub-elements of culture like memories and narratives; language, poetry, and art; national folklore and symbols; social norms, traditions, etc, in different historical eras and seeing their role in a nation-building process. The paper also focuses on a modern-day example, an ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine that has exceeded the boundaries of a mere military domain and is also visible from a cultural perspective. The paper’s main finding is identifying elements affecting nation-building and making it work. While all these different elements of culture were, are, and will be used in the future in a nation- building process, perception remains a vital factor. Culture and its elements can certainly significantly impact nation-building. However, in the end, it will always depend on how individuals, communities, and populations perceive national symbols, the historic heroic deeds of their ancestors, poems and literature, and norms of social behaviour and traditions. Without socially constructing these perceptions, the “us vs them” narrative might not materialize.

Evolving Trends in Modern History Writing: A Comprehensive Overview

History is the study of human civilization across various cultures, geographical locations, and historical eras. It covers various occurrences, movements, conflicts, discoveries, and relationships that have contributed to the development of the modern world. The practice of writing history has undergone significant transformations over the years, shaped by evolving methodologies, technological advancements, and changing perspectives. Modern history writing is a dynamic field that encompasses a wide range of approaches, from traditional narrative histories to the incorporation of interdisciplinary methods. This article explores the key trends in modern history writing, highlighting the diverse methodologies employed by historians and the impact of technological innovations on the field focusing on the need for accurate documentation and transmission of history. The paper uses qualitative methods, including in-depth interviews, conversations with historians, academicians, university professors, and library research.

Historie alternatywne i steampunk a emancypacja i prawa kobiet. Rozważania wstępne

The article deals with the presence of reflections on emancipation and women’s rights in alternative and steampunk stories. The author points out that in both of the above‑mentioned genres of fantasy literature, these issues are not an overarching theme, despite the fact that criticism and subversive rewriting of past eras from the point of view of the present is inherent in these genres. The analysis shows that anachronically conceived emancipation of women takes place mainly in novels set in historical eras far removed from the present (deep antiquity and, far less frequently, the Middle Ages). Novels closer to contemporaneity, set in the 18th and 19th centuries, generally do not subject emancipation and women’s rights to alternative reflection. This is all the more astonishing if one bears in mind the fact that the 19th century was time of the birth of the feminist and suffragette movements. This reluctance to rework the nineteenth century from the point of view of women’s emancipation is due to the still active cultural memory of the period. The author’s thesis is that the unwillingness to rework the issues of emancipation and women’s rights in an alternative way is related to the still active cultural paradigm, founded, among others, on the Judeo‑Christian tradition. Another reason is the domination of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ in alternative and steampunk, which is a literary, phantasmatic reaction to the dynamic processes of women’s emancipation taking place in the actual world.