Events Of October Research Articles

LEGISLATIVE ACTS ON WOMEN’S HEALTH PROTECTION THE FIRST DECADES OF THE SOVIET POWER

The article highlights the legislation on women’s health protection that was in force in post-revolutionary Soviet Russia. The socio-economic problems that resulted from the revolutionary events of October 1917, the First World War of 1914–1918, famine and pestilence in the Volga region, and other upheavals of the early twentieth century, gave rise to a huge number of problems that the Soviet authorities immediately addressed. However, not all the actions of the Soviet government achieved their goals; there were unresolved issues in the field of healthcare, in particular, in protecting and preserving the health of female workers and peasants. The interruption of childbearing not in medical organizations due to infection, illiteracy of abortionists in matters of abortion resulted in a high mortality rate of the female population of the country, which could not but cause concern to the authorities and the general public, who understood the social reasons for such actions. The legislative act «On Protection of Women’s Health», adopted on November 18, 1920, was the basis for the diverse work carried out with women, which established not only the conditions for legal abortion, but also established penalties for both a doctor who decided to perform such an operation and for a woman who consented to a miscarriage. The analysis of adopted legal provisions makes it possible to see the general picture of the state policy of the young Soviet state in the field of marriage and family, in particular, in issues of health protection of working women, and gives the opportunity to conclude that it was well thought out within the historical framework under consideration.

The Bolshevik myth of October 1917

Bolshevik mythology presented the events of October 1917 as an effect of the operating laws of history, i.e. a necessary phenomenon through which the sense of history manifested, and, at the same time, as an effect of the activity of the masses led by the Bolshevik Party, an act in the power struggle. The Bolshevik myth of October 1917 was a founding myth; it created an impression that there had come a “new era in the history of humankind”, ending “all forms of exploitation”. It legitimised the government established at the time as one rooted in the revolution opening this new era and representing the most profound interests of a class that was to abolish the most tragic division in the history of humankind — class division. The myth of October had to have its collective and individual heroes. From this point of view its content was described in the most succinct manner by the following formula: the Great October Socialist Revolution was carried out by the working class allied with the poor peasantry led by the Bolshevik Party headed by Lenin. The cult of Lenin was primarily a cult of a victorious revolution and party leader that had led the masses to a triumph. Almost identical formulas were used by Stalin, Khrushchev and Gorbachev. However, the real heroes of the revolution were the Bolshevik themselves, their party and their leaders. In Stalinist times the main protagonist of the October myth was the “Bolshevik Party of Lenin-Stalin”. The leading role in the party became a crucial element of Bolshevik mythology, independent of political transformations and turns in the USSR.

CLUB NIGHT PARTY AS A MODERN CULTURE AND RECREATIONAL PROGRAM: HISTORICAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL ASPECT

Historical pre­-conditions for appearance of the first themed nights that are considered in modern theory as a form of group leisure activities took shape even in the Ancient World. By the end of the 18th century, club nights became a popular form of guest communication. Events of the revolutionary October of 1917 entailed root political, economic, ideological and cultural changes that reflected among others in approaches to organization of mass and group leisure practices of the new Soviet state's citizens. The author discloses her view on a themed night which she suppose was one of the most popular mass form of artistic propaganda till the end of the 1980s. The article outlines the author's version of “themed night” concept definition, describes typical structure of a themed night; also, the article think of today's trends in managing population's leisure activity that a director of cultural and recreational programs should take into account in the context of implementation of technologies of preparation of modern club themed nights.

Dragkamp og balansegang. Frigjøringsmarkeringene i Kirkenes 1954–1994: Et minnepolitisk perspektiv

Abstract: Commemorating the Red Army Liberation in Kirkenes, Norway, 1954–1994This study traces the development over fifty years of the joint Norwegian–Soviet/Russian commemorations of the Red Army liberation of the eastern part of Finnmark County, Norway, in October 1944. The first commemorative events were held in October 1954 in the town of Kirkenes close to the Norwegian–Soviet border. Throughout the Cold War and into the post-Soviet period, such events have been arranged in Kirkenes every five years, with representatives of the Norwegian state authorities acting as hosts to a Soviet/Russian delegation. The focal point of these events has been a ceremony held by the Liberation Monument, unveiled in 1952 to honour the Red Army soldiers who liberated Norwegian territory by driving back the Nazi occupation forces. This article documents how the tradition of joint commemorations developed across the Iron Curtain divide as part of a predominantly diplomatic struggle over the events of October 1944, between Norway, a small state and NATO-member, and the superpower that was the Soviet Union. Our study concludes that, despite the struggle, which stemmed from Cold War tensions and competing security perceptions and interests, these joint commemorations have served as a stabilizing element in bilateral relations, producing a narrative not only about the Red Army liberation of eastern Finnmark, but also of friendship and mutual respect between the peoples of Norway and Russia, and of a long tradition of peaceful relations between the two states.

ПОРТРЕТНЫЙ ОЧЕРК ВС.Н. ИВАНОВА 1920-х – НАЧАЛА 1930-х гг. В КОНТЕКСТЕ СОБЫТИЙ ЭПОХИ

The aim of this article is to determine the features of the genre and the moral-philosophical perspective of Vsevolod Ivanov’s portrait essays of the 1920s – early 1930s published in Vladivostok non-Bolshevik newspapers (Russkiy krai, Russkaya armiya, Vechernyaya gazeta), in Harbin émigré periodicals (newspapers Svet, Gun-Bao, the magazine Rubezh). To achieve this aim, using a semantic-cognitive approach, the author of the article studied archival materials of periodicals of the Russian Far East and Far Eastern emigration and introduced into academic discourse new unexplored factual material contributing to filling gaps in the history of Russian literature and journalism of the 20th century. Ivanov’s portrait essays are analyzed in the context of the sociopolitical and cultural life of the Far Eastern Republic (FER) that existed in the Russian Far East and the large-scale emigration of Russians to China. The author considers the dynamics of Ivanov’s portrait essay genre development. It acquires elements of the memorial and obituary essay, the genre of the literary portrait as a reflection of the progress of the national historical-literary process in the mother country and in the diaspora caused by the spiritual-moral confrontation of the political forces of Russia, the ideological split in the national culture of Russia due to the events of October 1917. The author of the article relies on historically significant material: the memorial essay with the conceptual title “Justified Avvakum” actualizes the problem of a reasonable and balanced attitude to changes, the correlation of evolutionary and revolutionary principles in the development of society. Ivanov raises the question of personal, moral, and civil responsibility for the fate of his country in the essay “The Blood of the Tsar”, which recreates the tragic events of the execution of the family of the Russian Tsar Nicholas II by Bolsheviks. In the analysis of obituary portrait essays about the tragic losses of Russian literature of the Silver Age (“Conversant with Secret (In Memory of A. Blok)”, “In Petrograd the Bolsheviks shot the poet Nikolay Gumilev”), the author of the article concludes about the originality of the creative potential of Ivanov, who, using elements of the genre of the literary portrait, demonstrates the synthesis of scientific, literary, and journalistic writing. The portrait essays of Ivanov’s prominent contemporaries, figures of politics and culture (“Admiral Kolchak”, “Semenovshchina “, “Prof. D.V. Boldyrev”, “Vasiliy Fedorovich Ivanov”) complement the complex picture of the sociocultural context of the era with relevant axiological aspects identified in the essays. The author of the article considers Ivanov’s reference to the iconic figures of the turning epochs in the fate of Russia as a peculiarity of his journalistic position in relation to history as a criterion of truth and moral value of a person.

Kisvízgyűjtőkön lejátszódó extrém csapadékesemények térinformatikai vizsgálata

Az árvízi védekezések során fontos szempont, hogy a védelmi feladatot ellátók teljeskörű információval rendelkezzenek, a fő védvonalak mellett, azokról az árvízben érintett területekről is, amelyeken vízkár okozta időszakos akadályok (pl.: vízátfolyások) jelenhetnek meg. Ezek a jelenségek érinthetnek utánpótlási útvonalakat vagy kihathatnak a lakosság közhangulatára és figyelmet vonhatnak el a védekezés során. Így fontos, hogy a szakemberek tisztában legyenek a jelenség körülményeivel és várható hatásaival. Jelen tanulmány a 2020 október hónap folyamán lezajló árhullám egyik jelenségét elemzi és a térinformatika eszközével próbálja bemutatni, valamint megmagyarázni annak kialakulási körülményeit. A cikkben bemutatott módszertant szeretném a doktori értekezésemben alkalmazni és fejleszteni, hogy megbízható hátteret tudjak nyújtani a környezeti modellezésekhez.

ПРОТИВОСТОЯНИЕ И КОМПРОМИСС: ДЕЯТЕЛЬНОСТЬ ДАЛЬНЕВОСТОЧНЫХ ЭСЕРОВСКИХ ОРГАНИЗАЦИЙ В ОКТЯБРЕ 1917 – АПРЕЛЕ 1918 ГОДА

This article examines the activities of the Far Eastern Socialist-Revolutionary organizations in the period from October 1917 to April 1918. The authors highlight the split in the Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries, aggravated after the events of October 1917, the attitude of the Right Social Revolutionaries to the October events and the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly and their tactics in new conditions. The tactics of the Far Eastern Socialist-Revolutionaries, their alliance with the Mensheviks and their readiness to cooperate with eligible elements to oppose the Bolsheviks in the region, as well as their first actions against Soviet power, are studied in more detail.

Революционные события в России в прессе канадских провинций Прерий

This paper discusses the perception of revolutionary events in Russia, the February and the October revolutions in particular, in newspapers of three Prairie provinces of Canada (Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan). These events were perceived by the press of West Canada (as well as the press of other Canadian regions) rather ambiguously - perception of the February and October events was diametrically opposite. The February revolution was greeted by the press of the Canadian West with enthusiasm. Newspapers welcomed the overthrow of Russian autocracy, and hoped that new Russian democratic regime would be able more effectively fight against Germany. The Tsarist regime was sharply criticized by the Western Canadian press. Tsar’s government was blamed for ignoring democratic freedoms, the bureaucratization of the state apparatus and, in particular, the collapse of the army. For the Prairie’s provincial press, the most important was precisely the question of whether Russia could continue to participate in the war - the success of the Canadian forces in the Western Front directly depended on the effectiveness of Russians troops in the Eastern Front. Both the establishment of democracy in Russia and hopes for a turnaround on the Eastern Front were associated by the West Canadian press with the name of the Chairman of the Provisional Government - A. F. Kerensky. However, he could not live up to expectation of Canadians - his popularity fell sharply after the failure of the July offensive by the Russian army. Nevertheless, after the events of October 1917, the press of Western Canada completely sided with the ousted Provisional Government, sharply criticizing the actions of the Bolsheviks. This was due, in many respects, to their negative reputation. Since before the October Revolution press of the Prairie’s provinces portrayed them as dangerous radicals. After October 1917 in Western Canadian newspapers a large-scale anti-Bolshevik campaign started. The Bolsheviks was accused of establishing a dictatorship in Russia, suppressing dissent and, in particular, close cooperation with Germany. Thus, the newspapers of three Western Canadian provinces perceived the two Russian revolutions in completely different ways: the February Revolution was enthusiastically accepted by them, while the October Revolution was rejected.

Действо «Взятие Зимнего дворца» на празднование годовщины Октябрьской революции в истории становления перформативного искусства

The article is devoted to the issue of formation of performative art in the context of development of spectacular forms of Soviet state holidays. While examining the time and space of official festivities, the author traces the process of design of texts of symbolic pictures narrating on the advent of “the happy life” of the new socialist era in the history of humankind. The theatrical pageantry replicating the chief events of Soviet history, being a significant component of mass holidays, is researched by the author within the dynamics of the process of formation of new forms of culture occurring during the course of the entire specified stage of research. In the variety of the mass shows of 1920 the most large-scale is the grandiose stage work “The Conquest of the Winter Palace” replicating the events of October 1917 in real time and space, accompanied by the performance of the proletarian anthem, revolutionary songs, marches and gunshots. This constructed quasi-military atmosphere unified the sound space of the festivity, singling it out from the everyday routine spatial/temporal domain. The application of performative means created the conditions for the perception of the developed action as a real-time historical event. These were the means by which the sacred chronotope of the Soviet holiday was created: the traditional spatial/temporal dimension of the holiday received an innovational interpretation through the implementation of new symbols which are significant for the formation of the Soviet state. Keywords: Soviet theater, mass shows, performative art.

Enslavement of the Church in Poland in 1953

The accord entered into by and between representatives of state and Church authorities on April 14th 1950 did not protect the Catholic Church from further repression. On February 9th 1953, the State Council decreed with regard to the filling of ecclesiastical posts in the Church. Through such normative, the state authorities awarded themselves the right to interfere with the human resources aspect of religious creed. A categorical objection (Non possumus!) to this policy determined the imprisonment of the Primate Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński. The primate’s detention offered proper political conditions to engage in this and other campaigns targeting the authority, independence, and identity of the Catholic Church. The clergy’s influence on public life was restrained, and the Church was deprived of independence. It might well be assumed that were it not for events of October 1956, the Church in Poland would have been permanently subjugated to the State.

The Work of the Central Statistical Committee in 1917-1918

The activity of state statistics throughout the revolutionary period of 1917 is uncharted territory in the history of Russian statistics. Using documents from the State Archive of the Russian Federation, the authors examined for the first time the last year of the Central Statistical Committee. Unlike other state structures of the previous government, it was not dissolved after the events of October 1917 and continued to operate after the Soviet government moved to Moscow. The article contains information on the first «Soviet» Head of the Central Statistical Committee of the Commissariat of Internal Affairs V.A. Algasov and outlines the work of Professor M.A. Sirinov, who was offered a position of the Head of the Central Statistical Committee by the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs G.I. Petrovsky. Archive records helped establish the fact that both the authorities of the Central Statistical Committee and some statisticians came up with an idea of founding a new statistical service based on the Central Statistical Committee and gubernia (provincial) statistics. The authors revealed the role of V.V. Stepanov in relocating the Library of the Central Statistical Committee to Moscow. The article describes the clash of opinions that preceded the establishment of the Soviet state statistics, to be specific the inauguration of the RSFSR Central Statistical Board, which was envisaged to be an independent body, not subordinate to any agency, to ensure the independence of the country’s statistical service.

Peristiwa 17 Oktober 1952: Tentara Pretorian Moderator dengan Gerakan Anti-Parlemen Pada Masa Kabinet Wilopo

This article aimed to analyze the relationship between civil government and military leader during the Wilopo Cabinet. The main issue was how did the soldiers’ attitude in the events of October 17, 1952, with the stance of the Anty-Parliament during the Wilopo Cabinet? The research method that used was the historical method which according to Helius Sjamsuddin, covering the collecting of the sources (heuristics), source criticism, and historiography. As for the results’ findings in this study is the intervention over the military internal’s matters and civil government which resulted in a worse relationship. Besides, the events of October 17, 1952, can be seen from different points of view, both the party pros and cons point of view by understanding the background of the occurrence of such events. Besides, reactions and responses after the events of October 17, caused friction in the internal military and civil government that could erode the country’sintegration. The soldiers’ attitude in the events put pressure on the civil government to give political policies that took a side but has no intention to take control of the civilian Government directly (The Pretorian of Moderators’ type).

Lithuania and Russia in 1918—1924 in the Eyes of a By-Stander: the Reflections of Mykolas Römeris

In this article, the author seeks to explain how the events of the revolution of 1917 in Russian changed the views of some Lithuanian public figures and politicians on the possibility of restoration and development of the Lithuanian statehood. As the main historical source for studding this problem the author uses the Diary of the well-known Lithuanian and Polish lawyer, politician, one of the theorist of the Polish and Lithuanian statehood before the WW1 Michal Römer (1880—1945). The scientific value of this source is that its content reflects of the social position and ideas of national states of Römer as a person who found himself at the crossroads of historical tradition and modernism and tried to comprehend the "great world events" taking place around him. The analisys of the Diary’ content allows us to conclude that Römer’s attitude to the events of the Russian revolution were changing during the years 1917—1919 from very positive till negative. According to the records of 1917, Römer he sympathized with the revolutionary events and first of all with the events of October, 1917 and the first decrees of bolshevik government. His sympathies could be understood as he had shared the ideas of social justice and democracy already in his youth. The most positivly he accepted the Declaration of the rights of peoples Russia and the Decree on Land. Still as the revolution developed, Römer became increasingly aware of the threat both to self-determination of the Polish and the Lithuanian peoples and to the restoration of their statehoods. So, his hopes to create conditions for self-determination of peoples “in a revolutionary way” decreased. In his Diary, Römer emphasized “the connections of bolsheviks’ aspirations to the world-wide proletarian revolution with the imperialist nature of Bisantian Russia” and in this context he analyzed the possibility to develop attitudes between Lithuania an Soviet Russia/USSR. At the same time, found out also positive moments in those connections and he appreciated highly the peace treaty of July 12, 1920 between Soviet Russia and Lithuania.

Aconcagüinos en la historia de Chile: carta de Pedro Antonio Ramírez a Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna sobre el motín popular de San Felipe del 14 de octubre de 1851

La presente transcripción documental pone en valor histórico una carta privada enviada por un participante de las insurrecciones y alzamientos populares registrados en la ciudad de San Felipe durante la denominada Revolución o Guerra Civil chilena de 1851. La misiva presentada y transcrita se constituye como un ejercicio de memoria histórica escriturada, la cual fue solicitada por el político, escritor e historiador chileno Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna a Pedro Antonio Ramírez con el objeto de nutrir la investigación histórica que dio origen a la obra Historia de la jornada del 20 de abril de 1851. El documento transcrito contrapone una versión alterna al discurso oficial historiográfico en cuanto a la narración de los acontecimientos armados ocurridos el 14 de octubre de 1851 en la provincia de Aconcagua. El texto permite identificar, especialmente, la participación del pueblo sanfelipeño —vecinos, artesanos milicias y el pueblo en general— en las acciones revolucionarias organizadas y lideradas por la oposición liberal aprovechando el descontento local que se había gestado en la provincia frente al autoritario centralismo capitalino.

The activities Imperial military medical academy during First World War

Some aspects of the state of the Imperial Military Medical Academy before the beginning of the First World War, the activities of the Academy to train military doctors for the army during the war before the events of October 1917 are presented. The imperialist development path introduced Russia at the beginning of the 20th century in a complex knot both external and internal political and economic contradictions, that influenced the activities of the academy. The sad experience of the Russian-Japanese war of 1904-1905 demanded an introduction to the educational process of military and military-medical disciplines. Since 1907, the Main Military Medical Directorate has proposed the introduction of compulsory study by students of the Academy of military regulations, military administration, military field surgery with radiology and field surgery, military hygiene, the theory of searchable diseases and epidemics, «military medical service» according to the programs approved by the military minister. Despite the fact that such «militarization» during the period of ongoing military reforms was acutely perceived by both students and the Conference, referring to the overload of curricula, the requirements of the time created prerequisites for further development in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries scientific schools. Outstanding global discoveries in the field of medicine by the beginning of the First World War allowed the Academy to preserve the status of the main scientific center of medicine, and not only the military, Russian Empire. On the eve of the First World War, Russian military medicine accumulated a wealth of experience both in organizing medical care at the front and in evacuating the wounded and sick and in matters relating to the theoretical justification and practice of treating wounds and diseases. The frontline experience of introducing the latest methods and advanced technologies for treating the wounded, contributing to the further development of military medicine, was noted.

THE GREAT RUSSIAN REVOLUTION OF 1917: PROBLEM OF GEOPOLITICAL AND CIVILIZATIONAL IDENTITY [1

Nihilistic assessments of the Great Russian Revolution, especially the events of October, are widespread in the civil society of modern Russia. In our view, this term should not be abandoned, since the term “Great” means, first of all, not approval, but a statement of its special historical significance for the whole world. In historical political science, the Russian revolution of 1917 has long been regarded as a continuous contradictory process of emergence and development of fundamentally new political institutions and parties, legal norms and social relations. The February revolution in Petrograd and the formation of the Provisional government were only the beginning, followed by the April, June and July crises, the cornelian rebellion in August, the Bolshevization of the Petrograd garrison, Navy and Soviets, the arrest of the Provisional government and the "technological" transition of power to the second Congress of Soviets led by the Bolsheviks in October. One of a number of arguments in favor of this concept is, in our opinion, the position of the don Cossacks in this period given in the article. In addition to the objective socio-economic and military components of the revolution, there were powerful geopolitical and civilizational factors. The Eurasian trend in the emigration of the 1920s, seen in the Russian revolution, not just anti-february Thermidor, and the denial of the St. Petersburg European period of Russian history. In this interpretation, Bolshevism was presented as a movement of the “conservative Eurasian revolution” that did not realize the meaning of its historical mission. This civilizational-geopolitical understanding of the essence of the Russian revolution contained a significant rational grain. The Russian revolution directly and immediately woke Asia and, above all, a multimillion-dollar semi- colonial China of the 1920s-1930s came during periods of national democratic and the socialist revolutions and two civil wars, and in 1949 by the Soviet Union installed a new Communist regime. It was not easy social, but civilizational-geopolitical revolution. The revolution of 1917 gave impetus to the development of Soviet subcivilization, the Asian vector of the “World revolution” led to the great success of the PRC. The task of revival on the basis of Russia with its traditional "quasi-Imperial" spirit of geopolitical and civilizational unity in the form of the Eurasian Union became continuation of comprehension of this process.

The Storming of the Winter Palace as a Mythmaking of National Screen Culture

The article analyzes the problems of cinematic authenticity of one of the key events of Russian history of the 20th century - that is the storming of the Winter Palace in Petrograd in autumn 1917. The interpretation of this event of the Great Russian revolution in the author's opinion is a good example to demonstrate the formation of the mythology of the Story, which was one of the meanings of types of screen culture of the Soviet period. The author examines classics of Russian cinema dedicated to the events of 1917 in Petrograd. The study focuses upon three films - October by Sergei Eisenstein (1927), Lenin in October by Michael Romm (1937) and I saw the birth of a new world (2nd part of the novels Red bells, 1982) by Sergei Bondarchuk. Each of the three films is considered as a stage of formation of the image of the fake key events of October 1917. The author reveals the mechanism of formation of the onscreen Canon, which, since the film of Eisenstein, has been perceived as the only possible feature version of the event. Following the task, the author compares subsequent versions of Romm and Bondarchuk's October and concludes that they somehow had at its core thematic and visual concept of an image of the events specified by Eisenstein. The article demonstrates how a combination of different factors, which in the final versions of the films by Eisenstein, Romm, and Bondarchuk has led to the fact that the display concept of the episode "Winter Storm" when in each of them though differed in the details and the circumstances from the origin, coincide in the main idea of the assault on the rebels of the revolutionary masses. Discussing the impact of the three classic films on the related and subsequent films devoted to the events of 1917, the author comes to the conclusion that in the current cinema the visual Canon of interpretation has a strong mythological style, which is at odds with the facts of documentary evidence and confirmation, which are in opposition to the established due to the cinema version. This allows to identify the on-screen episodes analyzed as a complex historical fake, which has obtained a pseudo-real life on screen.

Maurice and the Mozarabic charter: a cross-cultural transaction in early thirteenth-century Toledo

ABSTRACTBishop Maurice of Burgos (1213–1238) was one of the most powerful and important prelates to serve under Fernando III. Very little, however, is known about his early life and career as archdeacon of Toledo cathedral, where he served from 1208 until his election to the episcopate of Burgos in the summer of 1213. This article analyses an Arabic charter from Toledo cathedral, drawn up in October 1209, in which we see Maurice as representative of Archbishop Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, conducting negotiations with an important local Jewish man, the vizier Abi Harún Musa bin al-Shahath al-Israeli. The nature of the transaction, the language(s) in which it was carried out and the figures involved all raise important questions about Maurice and the cathedral chapter of which he was a member. This article first analyses the charter in question, assessing Maurice’s role within the linguistically and culturally complex society of early thirteenth-century Toledo. I then situate the events of October 1208 within the context of Maurice’s broader career as archdeacon, including his commission of two translations from Arabic into Latin, and his interaction with the community of local Mozarabs within the cathedral chapter, shedding new light on Maurice’s origins and cultural identity. A full English translation of the charter is supplied in the appendix.

Monument as semiotic landscape

Abstract As semiotic spaces, monuments convey messages through multiple information design modes, including language, materiality and emplacement. As research on semiotic landscape has pointed out (e.g., Shohamy and Waksman 2009, Abousnnouga and Machin 2010, Train 2016), these messages are often contested in nature and convey competing discourses inherent in the spaces they occupy. This paper explores those competing discourses manifested in a monument dedicated to the 1976 student protest and violent suppression of it by the Thai military and right-wing paramilitary groups. Working within a production of space framework (Lefebvre 1991) and drawing on insights from the grammar of visual design (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006) and nexus analysis (Scollon and Scollon 2004), the paper attempts to show how these contested discourses are reflected in the monument’s historiography as conceived, in its physical appearance and emplacement, and as it is experienced today. The analysis is based on photographic data of the monument and its immediate physical context, published accounts of the events of October 6, and interviews with survivors, commemoration planners, and the monument’s designer.

Extreme Value Analysis of Induced Geoelectric Field in South Africa

AbstractExtreme geomagnetic disturbances occur rarely but can have great impact on technological systems such as power supply networks. Long‐term planning for extreme events requires the estimation of event impact for occurrence periods greater than the length of observed data. With this in mind an analysis of extreme geomagnetic events observed in South Africa (middle geomagnetic latitude) is performed over four solar cycles (1974–2015). An algorithm to identify active periods with minimum SYM‐H ≤−100 nT is demonstrated. The sum of induced electric field over the course of each event is used to characterize the severity of each active period. It is found that the severity index (accumulated electric field magnitude ΣE) shares a highly linear relationship with accumulated SYM‐H over each event. The index ΣE is lognormal distributed, with tail deviating greater than lognormal, confirming heavy‐tailed occurrence. A general Pareto distribution is fitted to the tail of the distribution and extrapolated to calculate the return levels of extreme events. Return levels of once in 100 and once in 200 year events are estimated to be 9.4 × 104 mV/km min and 1.09 × 105 mV/km min, respectively. The top three events, in ascending order of severity, are the March 1989 storm, the events of late October 2003, and the April 1994 event—a long interval of coronal‐hole driven disturbances, bookended by two intense geomagnetic storms.