Foreign Archives Research Articles

MECHANIZATION OF SANITARY TRANSPORT AS A MAJOR FACTOR OF DEVELOPMENT OF THE AMBULANCE SERVICE IN THE SOVIET BELARUS (1919-1939)

Objective : to study the main stages of development of sanitary transport and the impact of its mechanization on development of the ambulance service in the territory of the Soviet Belarus before the Second World War. Material and methods. The work has studied materials on history of medicine from the funds of state Belarusian and foreign archives. The analysis has been performed with the use of scientific and specialized historical research methods in accordance with the fundamental principles of historicism and objectivity. Results. The analysis has revealed the main factors that contributed to the development of the sanitary transport of the BSSR, as well as the main stages of its formation until the outbreak of the World War II. Conclusion. The most active modernization of the sanitary transport occurred in the second half of the 1930s, which precipitated the approach of professional emergency medical care to the population of the Soviet Belarus.

THE ROLE OF POPULARISATION OF DOCUMENTARY HERITAGE OF THE GABROVO STATE ARCHIVE IN BUILDING THE PUBLIC IMAGE OF THE INSTITUTION

Archives and the documents collected in them are popularised by organising informative events and communication activities, and their target audience is individuals, public, state and municipal institutions. The research problem defines the need for more active examination of the diverse experience of foreign archives for the purpose of adopting the most efficient forms of work, introducing new initiatives, arousing public interest in the national documentary heritage, which is preserved and available in these institutions. The attempt to describe and analyse the peculiarities of activity of the Bulgarian State Archives, using a particular structural unit (the Gabrovo State Archive), whose experience can be generalised, considering the specifics of the existent legislation, determines the novelty of the research. The objective of the research is to describe the best practices of popularising the national documentary heritage at the Gabrovo State Archive, emphasizing the interdisciplinary aspects of building the public image and educating the public. The research methods: the theoretical and methodological literature review, a situative research method.The public image of an archive should always be viewed as a complex system, with one of its component parts, along with the indicators of recognisability, being its reputation. If it is possible to facilitate to its recognisability, using some publicity tools, the reputation usually develops over the course of time and it requires targeted, thought–out and systemic action. Visitor satisfaction about the received service, repeated interest, good word of mouth and written reviews, the responsiveness and activity of other institutions and persons cooperating in concrete projects, the desire to use the archive resources to fulfil their personal and public objectives, etc. can serve as the proof of a positive public image. There are various techniques how an archive can position its identity (deliberately developed external communication through the use of particular symbols) in communication: their own logotype, press releases, document forms, posters made in the particular style, representation items, publications and the homepage design, etc. A resultative form of work for popularisation of documents is personal contacts, which are maintained by the members of staff of the archive visiting particular events, providing explanatory information to journalists during press conferences, to a circle of particular specialists in discussions and reports, opening documentary exhibitions, conducting classes and interest education circles in archives, organising excursions, questionnaires, thematic evenings, etc. So we can conclude that the popularisation of archive materials or documentary heritage is one of the main forms of activity of archives. The access to documents (both direct and remote) and its diverse use provide a link between an archive and the public, broadening their views on the collected documentary heritage and the importance of the archive activity, and strengthening the reputation of archives to the public.

Участие казахов в движении сопротивления во Франции и Италии во время Второй мировой войны: постановка проблемы

The study of archival documents shedding light on the participation of Kazakhs in the fight against fascism, on the fate of people caught in fascist captivity, participating in the European Resistance Movement in France, Italy and other European countries, finding the burials of the deceased heroes, restoring the names of the heroes officially believed to be missing, is an important task for the formation and preservation of the historical memory of the Kazakh people, for the restoration of a real, true history of the Great Patriotic War. Comprehensive studies on the topic with extensive use of European archival materials have not been carried out, despite social and scientific demand. The sources of these new data should become foreign archival documents.A complex, interdisciplinary investigation of problems of Kazakhs’ participation in the World War II based on new documents extracted from the archives of France, Belgium, Italy, Russia and Norway is a priority task of the international research project «Kazakhs in the World War II: new documents from foreign archives», in which scholars – historians from Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Italy, Israel take part.

Фонд Раисы Гуревич-Кроль-Де Кирико-Кальцы (Раисы Лорк) в Гуманитарной библиотеке Сиены

The article strives to describe the fond of Raissa Calza (1897–1979) in the Library of Humanities of Siena and documents in it. For this purpose, the author has carried out the following tasks: she has studied Russian and foreign historiography on the issue; she has analyzed sources on the issue; and drawing on these, she has studied the biography of Raisa Calza; she has reviewed the archival fond and analyzed its documents. Having reviewed the historiography, the author comes to the conclusion that the fate of Raisa Calza, her creativity, and scientific work has been poorly studied, especially by Russian historians. There are few articles dedicated to the Calza collection in the Library of Humanities. Studying the sources (personal and business letters, diary, notebooks, memoirs, photographs, scientific works) associated with Raisa and her connections allows to identify their nature and main features and to supplement, clarify, and flesh out the biography of Raissa Calza. These documents are sources on more than everyday life and microhistory. They can be used in studying the history of Russian emigration, of Russian-Italian cultural relations, of archeology. The fate of Raisa Calza is interesting in itself, as a fate of a woman, an individual, amidst historical events of the 20th century. The chronological frameworks of the study coincide with the chronology of Raisa Calza’s documents preserved in the Siena’s library (1900s-1970s). The article includes an overview of the creation of the archive in the Library of Humanities of Siena and that of the Raissa Calza fond, which came into existence when she donated her documents to the Library in 1970s. The article studies the structure of the Raissa Calza fond: boxes I, VI – letters, postcards, telegrams, dairy, history of Gourevitch, Tumarkin and Frenkley families; II-IV – ‘Ostia’ containing materials on the excavations of Antic Ostia; V – various documents, boxes of photos. The author concludes that these sources should be introduces into scientific use. The collection proves that documents on Russian history are available not only in central state archives and private collections, but also in universities. It challenges historians to start researching universities libraries and archives. The article also names other foreign archives containing documents of Raissa Calza.

Geography of “Archival continents” of Russian Diaspora: history of formation

The article analyzes the process of the establishment of archival continents of the Russian diaspora and the causes of the emergence of foreign archival Rossica. The article reveals the influence of migrations on this process. Authors show the diversity of archival materials on the Russian history which are kept outside Russia and often scattered in different archival collections, private and public archives and libraries. The emergence of communities of the Russian diaspora in several countries of the world led to the formation of extensive archival heritage. The study of this heritage is one the most urgent contemporary problems. The activities related to the discovery, restitution to Russia and use of this heritage have significantly increased in the last decades which is connected with the change of the political situation, researchers’ gaining access to the archival collections of the Russian diaspora. The relevance of this fundamental research problem is enhanced by the necessity of eliminating the existing information gap at the current stage of the Russian history development - to reveal the information concerning foreign archival Rossica, the documents of the Russian diaspora and their locations in foreign archives and compile them in the unified information data base. The identification of the location of different documents of this group is aimed at the reconstruction of the integrity of the scattered archival collections by means of both restitution, exchange or copying of the documents and by means of virtual unification, for example, in the form of digital archive. These activities will also contribute to solving the problems related to the restitution of the archival heritage.

PRÓBY PRZEDZIERANIA SIĘ DROGĄ MORSKĄ PRZEZ NIEMIECKĄ BLOKADĘ POLSKIEGO WYBRZEŻA 1 IX 2 X 1939 ROKU

The article presents the attempts of Polish coast defenders’ to get through to neutral countries by sea during military operations in September and October 1939. These efforts were made in spite of the German blockade of Polish coast by Kriegsmarine ships and Luftwaffe planes. This subject hasn’t been widely featured yet using the reports of coast defenders kept in Polish and foreign archives. The goal of this article is the systematization of knowledge about these facts, presentation of characters of sailors, soldiers and civilians, who didn’t want to go into captivity. Some of them were going to continue their struggle in Polish Armed Forces in the West.

Entre la Revolución Rusa y Nuestra América. La prensa militante: 1919-1935

La prensa militante cominternista no siguió el canon leninista de “organizador”, afirmándose como medio de información y denuncia, y sobre todo, como modelador de su politicidad. Osciló entre ser abierta o cerrada, legal o clandestina, frentista o sectaria, doctrinaria o empirista. Su existencia fue accidentada: escasez de recursos y falta de infraestructura. En sus páginas se manifiestan sus fisuras internas y sus relevos editoriales, además de brindar indicios significativos acerca de su irradiación y de sus redes. Consideramos que la prensa militante es una fuente histórica de calidad de carácter complementario a la documental existente en archivos nacionales y extranjeros.

НОВЫЕ СВЕДЕНИЯ О ПОСТРАДАВШИХ В ПЕРИОД ГОНЕНИЙ НА РУССКУЮ ПРАВОСЛАВНУЮ ЦЕРКОВЬ В СССР В 1920-1930-Е ГГ. (ПО МАТЕРИАЛАМ ВЫСОКО-ПЕТРОВСКОГО МОНАСТЫРЯ Г. МОСКВЫ)

The article gives examples of obtaining new information about martyrs in the 20th century, namely the clergymen and parishioners of the Vysokopetrovsky Monastery in Moscow, including its abbot Archbishop Bartholomew (Remov). The new data are obtained by researching the newly discovered documents in private and foreign archives, a more thorough critical and comparative analysis of the already well-known sources, and interviewing individuals who personally knew those people, who were repressed and lived up to the second half of the twentieth century. The sources introduced into the scientifi c activities come from the private archive of his-torian Sergey Belyaev, as well as from the archives of the General Curia of the Assumptionist Congregation in Rome (the letters from Bishop Pie Eugene Neveu, apostolic administrator in Moscow in 1926-1936) and the Historic archives of the Secretariat of State. There are subjected to critical examination the investigative materials against Archbishop Bar-tholomew (Remov) and the members of the community, who in the investigation case were named members of the “Catholic group of the counter-revolutionary organization under the illegal “Petrovsky monastery”. The author refutes the conclusions made earlier by the researchers on the existence of a Catholic group in the Vysokopetrovsky Monastery, as well as casts doubt on the hypothesis on the adherence of the monastery abbot Archbishop Bartholomew (Remov) to Catholicism.

СТАТИСТИЧЕСКИЙ АНАЛИЗ ВРЕМЕННЫХ ХАРАКТЕРИСТИК ЛОКАЛЬНЫХ КОНФЛИКТОВ И ВОЕННЫХ РАСХОДОВ (НАПРИМЕРЕ РОССИИ И США)

The distribution of military conflicts duration, the calculation of their average and median duration and the forecast of conflicts in future have been conducted based on the statistical analysis of most military conflicts in the XX–XXI centuries (up to the end of 2016). The unpredictability of military conflicts duration and useless of their accurate forecast have been grounded. The portion of periods when military conflicts occurred in the USSR and Russia during ХХ–ХХI centuries has been determined. The dynamics of military expenditure trends and its share in the GDP of the USA and Russia have been analyzed. The tendency to the GDP slowdown associated with the participation in military conflicts has been observed. The trend to increase military expenditures has also been revealed. The forecast of absolute values, GDP growth trends and military expenditures of Russia and the USA has been made using autoregression and trend models. The conception to create a special military fund to accumulate recourses to insure a country from different risks in current and future military campaigns has been suggested. The structure of expenditures on military campaigns has been analyzed. The examples of high costs of a country participation in military conflicts and full-scale wars in the case study of the USA have been given. The influence of military expenditures on an economic growth in a country has been studied based on the criticism of the “broken windows” effect. The positive effect to increase military expenditures on the social-economic development of a country to strengthen the security and to transfer military developments to a civil sector has been observed. The necessity to manage GDP dynamics due to military expenditures increase has been grounded. The future researches will concern the size of a special military fund and the speed of its increase. Keywords military conflict, expenditures, duration, a model, autoregression, resources, forecast, economic growth, GDP, fund, the expected duration, the broken windows theory.

‘Postponing the Evil Day’: Sir Edward Grey and British Foreign Policy

ABSTRACTSir Edward Grey is remembered largely as Britain's Foreign Secretary when ‘the lights went out all over Europe’ in the summer of 1914. His record remains contested. From David Lloyd George's crafty deception in his wartime memoirs to more recent revisionist historians, writers have sought to blame Grey for the outbreak of the First World War. Drawing on substantial research in private and official, British, and foreign archives, this paper will reconstruct Grey's career as Foreign Secretary with an emphasis on his objectives and the means which he employed to obtain them. Crucially, it places Grey's stewardship of British foreign policy within the broader international context, defined by the steep decline and subsequent renaissance of Russian power in the years between 1905 and 1912/13, with the aim of establishing the limitations of British power. More especially the shift in the international balance around 1913/14 shaped towards Russia, and away from Germany, shaped Grey's calculations during Europe's last summer. The July Crisis showed both the strengths and the limitations of Grey's diplomacy, this persistent and subtle pressing for mediation, but also his misreading of Austro-Hungarian policy.

Las costas de Yucatán, escenario de batallas navales durante la guerra Méjico-Tejas 1835-37

During the interval of time of Texas Independence War, the Mexican Gulf was the place of Texan attacks against the ships of the Mexican navy as well as national trade ships. The effective assaults organized during two years on the Yucatan coasts, particularly in front of the Sisal and Campeche ports, were considered as pirates by the Mexican Authorities. This investigation offers a vision of the same event viewed from both opposite sides, as given us by a documental review in Mexican and foreign archives. With this information, we can understand different aspects of the Yucatan economic as well as maritime trade, smuggling, the disastrous situation of peninsula's inhabitants and finally the network of corruption in the higher levels of the local government that weakened the defense of the Yucatan coasts against these fulminant corsairs attacks.

Pennsylvania Migrants in the Austrian State Archives and Hungarian National Archives: Dual Repositories for Migrants from a Dual Monarchy

Pennsylvania Migrants in the Austrian State Archives and Hungarian National Archives:Dual Repositories for Migrants from a Dual Monarchy Kristina E. Poznan (bio) Hundreds of thousands of migrants from the Austro-Hungarian Empire came to Pennsylvania from the 1880s through the First World War, and east-central European archives contain untold amounts of material documenting their experiences. Immigration historians have long researched in federal, state, and local records in the United States to tell migrants' stories, but they have less often made use of overseas documents about those same communities and individuals. Both the Austrian State Archives in Vienna and the Hungarian National Archives in Budapest are troves of Pennsylvania history. Austro-Hungarian officials collected information on many facets of migrants' American lives and organizations, from churches and benefit societies to social clubs and newspapers. In addition, several different branches of the Austro-Hungarian government documented their own work in the United States to financially assist migrant institutions, investigate industrial accidents and labor conflicts, and sometimes even monitor individuals politically at odds with the home government. European sources thus not only expand our evidence for examining familiar themes in Pennsylvania's industrial history, but they also speak to less familiar topics that connect Pennsylvania migrants to broader transnational and European political questions of mobility, nationalism, and citizenship. Among the most striking insights gleaned from east-central European archives is how actively foreign governments operated on US soil. In addition to operating official embassies and consulates, the Austro-Hungarian foreign ministry supported Pennsylvania migrant churches (providing ministers' salaries and financing church mortgages) and newspapers (paying stipends for printing and distribution costs). These actions enriched the cultural life of Pennsylvania's migrants and also served an important political function for Austria-Hungary, as the government tried to use these organs to maintain migrants' loyalty to the homeland. Pennsylvania's Austro-Hungarian migrants had to contend, [End Page 417] then, with two sets of bureaucracies—American and Austro-Hungarian—both of which at times imagined them to be dangerous political actors. European archival sources portray migrants not as culturally "uprooted" or economically "transplanted," as earlier interpretations have characterized them, but instead as politically and diplomatically engaged and significant.1 Austro-Hungarians' travels back and forth across the Atlantic forced the governments of Austria-Hungary and the United States to debate their parameters of citizenship, requirements for military service, and responsibility in cases of industrial accidents, and to consider how migration encouraged the transmission of such ideologies as democracy, socialism, and nationalism. Records documenting Pennsylvania's east-central European migrants appear in a number of archival collections in Vienna and Budapest.2 The Haus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchiv of the Austrian State Archives houses the files of the pre–World War I Austro-Hungarian Foreign Ministry, the Ministerium des Äußern.3 The Hungarian National Archives (Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár) overlaps somewhat with Austrian holdings on American affairs from the period of the dual monarchy but contains dozens of boxes of original material about migrants from the Kingdom of Hungary.4 Aside from consular affairs, many of the documents in these archives address [End Page 418] the development of Slavic national projects abroad and the efforts of the Austro-Hungarian government to maintain migrant loyalty, particularly through the use of migrant religious institutions, Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, and Reformed alike. Language poses obstacles to fully utilizing foreign archives to write the history of Pennsylvania's east-central European immigrants. They spoke German, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, Romanian, Yiddish, Carpatho-Rusyn, Serbo-Croatian, Slovene, and other languages. To the researcher, one of the benefits of Austria-Hungary's dual imperial structure is that many documents were routinely translated into or between the governments' main operational languages. Thus, a reading knowledge of either German or Hungarian can be sufficient to undertake productive research in either archive. Pennsylvania's east-central European migrants lived transnational lives by becoming active citizens in Pennsylvania and the United States more broadly but also maintaining close ties to their homelands. As scholars seek to better understand migration history, international research will aid in illuminating the ways in which individual experiences often crossed national boundaries. [End Page 419] Kristina E. Poznan College of...

Genocide of Armenians: Through Swedish EyesThe Armenian Genocide: Evidence from the German Foreign Office Archives, 1915–1916

Margaret Lavinia Anderson, Review of: ••Goran Gunner, Genocide of the Armenians – Through Swedish Eyes ••Wolfgang Gust, ed., The Armenian Genocide. Evidence from the German Foreign Archives 1915-1916 in: Holocaust and Genocide Studies (Winter 2015) 29 (3): 483-488. Robert M. Ehrenreich United States Holocaust Memorial Museum* doi:10.1093/hgs/dcv050 *The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not to be viewed as official statements of the USHMM. Genocide of Armenians: Through Swedish Eyes, edited by Goran Gunner (Yerevan: Armenian Genocide Institute-Museum, 2013), 370 pp., paperback The Armenian Genocide: Evidence from the German Foreign Office Archives, 1915–1916, edited by Wolfgang Gust (New York: Berghahn, 2014), xxviii + 786 pp., hardcover $85.45. On March 11, 2010, in spite of years of resistance from its foreign minister (“it is not the duty of the Government to establish a historical course of events” [ p. 349]), and a no-vote from its own Committee on Foreign Affairs (which found it inappropriate for a representative body to decide matters of international law), Sweden’s parliament voted across party lines—131 to 130—to ask its government to recognize the Genocide of Armenians, Assyrians, Syrians, Chaldeans, and Pontic Greeks. Goran Gunner’s Genocide of Armenians: Through Swedish Eyes offers an unpretentious (many photo- graphs, no index), but fascinating survey of how Sweden got to that decision. A scholar with the Church of Sweden’s research unit, Gunner asks two ques- tions: what did faraway Swedes know of the fate of the Armenians, and what can Swedish sources tell us about it? Beginning with the massacres of the 1890s, Gunner draws his answers from three categories of material: newspapers, which published fifty articles on the Armenians from 1914 to 1920; reports from military intelligence Book Reviews Downloaded from http://hgs.oxfordjournals.org/ by guest on December 31, 2015 ability to resist is not borne out by the archaeological evidence. As Sturdy Colls notes, various personal items of sentimental and actual (economic) value were found in the small pit excavated in the location of the former gas chamber at Majdanek. She posits that the items were buried by the victims to keep them out of the hands of the perpe- trators; the items thus served as “material witnesses” to the victims’ resistance to the Holocaust up until the end ( p. 256). The only deficiency in this important and timely volume is its poor production quality. The text contains many grammatical errors and typos, the photographs are small and fuzzy, and the captions could have been more explicit. Readers should not allow these problems to detract from the overall content and message of the volume, however. Sturdy Colls’ crucial and ambitious volume has provided the foundation for a desperately needed practical and ethical protocol for archaeological investigation of Holocaust sites—one that will aid students and archaeologists considering entering the field, allow educators to keep their courses timely and relevant, inform interested laypeople, and spur debate about the future of Holocaust archaeology.

Sprawozdanie wojewody wołyńskiego o stanie bezpieczeństwa województwa w przededniu kampanii polskiej 1939 roku

Sources, related with this topic, are stored in Polish and foreign archives, mainly in Ukrainian – National Archives of Volhynia District in Luck. Volhynia voivodeship amounted to 35,7 thousand sq meters, the voivodeship formed 11 countries, 22 towns and 103 rural municipalities. According to the data in the census from 1931, population accounted to 2 085,6 thousands, of which 252,5 thousands lived in the towns, and 1 833, 1 in the rural areas. Province was inhabited mainly by Ukrainian citizens – 1 426,9 thousand (68,4%) declared Ukrainian language, 346,6 thousand (16,6%) Polish language, and 205,5 thousand (9,9%) Yiddish and Hebrew. There were complicated relationship between Voivodship’s inhabitants (mainly Ukrainians) and Polish authorities. The attitudes of Province’s society towards Polish authorities were differentiated. The record contains numerous examples of different residents attitudes towards Polish authorities in July 1939. First part contains mainly the voivodship governor’s synthetic evaluation of Volhynia voivodeship’s security as “certain [its] improving”, which extensively justifies.

A Comparative Study of Descriptive Metadata in Audio Archives of IRIB Using the PBCore Metadata Standard

Abstract. Objective: The purpose of the present research was to compare the descriptive metadata of the audio archives of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) to the content classes of the PBCore metadata standard (i.e. Intellectual Content, Intellectual Property, Instantiation, and Extension). Methods: Using comparative survey, the tags of the PBCore metadata standard were extracted and translated. A checklist was also developed of fields classified under Intellectual Content, Intellectual Property, Instantiation, and Extension. Using these tags and fields the applications of each audio archive were compared to the PBCore metadata standard. Findings: The results indicated that the descriptive metadata of IRIB’s audio archives conforms to the PBCore metadata standard by 63 percent. The results also showed that audio archives conformed to the PBCore standard in terms of intellectual content, intellectual property, and instantiation, but not in terms of extension. This could be because storage and retrieval experts at IRIB focus primarily on domestic demands and ignore international standards. The results also suggest that the PBCore metadata standard can be used to describe the archives of IRIB for storage and retrieval. Conclusion: Overall, the results indicated the conformity of the audio archives of IRIB to the PBCore metadata standard. However, extensions are needed in the web, intranet, and internet to provide a repository for metadata from external systems. This will also allow for integration and standardization in converting and creating metadata for transfer between IRIB centers and foreign archives.

Politics and Foreign Policy in the Age of George I, 1714–1727 by Jeremy Black (review)

Reviewed by: Politics and Foreign Policy in the Age of George I, 1714–1727 by Jeremy Black Troy Heffernan Black, Jeremy, Politics and Foreign Policy in the Age of George I, 1714–1727, Farnham, Ashgate, 2014; hardback; pp. 298; R.R.P. £70.00; ISBN 9781409431398. Politics and Foreign Policy in the Age of George I, 1714–1727 is a robust analysis of the challenges faced by Britain during George I’s reign. Jeremy Black’s work here adds to his considerable breadth of research in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England, providing a thorough examination of the relationship between foreign and domestic politics under the reign of George I. Audiences seeking to develop their understanding of this area, noted as being somewhat neglected in recent decades, will benefit from Black’s analysis. He prefaces the book by acknowledging the contributions from other researchers of the period, such as Graham Gibbs, Edward Gregg, and Clyve Jones. Furthermore, Black positions his work within the arena of existing research and identifies himself as a participant in ongoing commentary and discussions in the field of history and politics right up until the present, also noting parallels and issues that are reflected within foreign policy today. The links Black draws provide a major contribution to the field that will be of particular benefit and interest for readers seeking to understand the ramifications of George I’s policies during the early modern period, as well as the period in focus for the book itself. Black discusses the events in British history that influenced foreign and domestic relations under George I’s rule, including the Glorious Revolution and the Restoration, in addition to more contemporary influences, such as the Jacobite Rebellion. Discussions surrounding Whig and Tory relations of the time and their influence on the monarchy, along with the monarchy’s influence on the parties themselves, will also be of interest to readers seeking to further their knowledge of this area of politics and history. Black’s work makes a major contribution to his field in the breadth of source documents he has consulted: his extensive research has taken him to numerous foreign archives, including Hanover, Munich, Paris, and Vienna. The wide range of sources has resulted in a balanced analysis of both foreign and domestic politics and policy that provides perspectives from multiple countries and governments. This enables the reader to develop a deeper understanding of the issues raised by Black, accompanied by insights that emphasise the importance for historians of taking account of a variety, in this case, foreign, viewpoints when analysing historical events. Black’s clearly organised chapters follow the major events of George I’s politics and policy during his reign. The first two chapters are dedicated to the kingdom George inherited from Queen Anne, and more significantly, the impact of the Tory and Whig parliamentary imbalance that existed as George came to power. As the study progresses, Black adjusts his focus between [End Page 223] George I and the events that impacted upon his reign and political and foreign policy decisions, and the wider consequences of both in the historical progression of British politics and diplomacy. Black’s successful examination of George I, politics, and foreign policy between 1714 and 1727, will appeal to scholars of George I as the work focuses not on the monarch, but on his policies. Additionally, Black’s work provides a vital contribution to scholarship regarding the evolution of England and British policy during the eighteenth century. Troy Heffernan The University of Southern Queensland Copyright © 2015 Troy Heffernan

Patriotic Enthusiasm at the Beginning of the First World War

In the present paper from the constructionist perspective is examined one of the most controversial issues of the modern western historiography of the First World War - the issue of patriotic enthusiasm of 1914, its scopes and nature. On the basis of a wide range of primary sources, including Russian and foreign archives, memoirs and letters of contemporaries the author carries out a comparative analysis of the response to the beginning of the war of urban and rural population of Great Britain, France and Russia. Against the backdrop of numerous patriotic demonstrations in large cities, the rural population's response looked much more constrained and passive. At the same time the latter attests rather to the peculiarities of rural culture than to the absence of patriotic upsurge. The author points out that besides apparent distinctions there was a lot of similarities in the urban and rural population's reaction to the beginning of the war. This refers to an immensely successful mobilization of continental armies, a rush of volunteers to the British army, and a drop of the labor movement in all European countries. The author comes to the conclusion that the patriotic upsurge in Europe in 1914 was not founded on a momentary outburst of chauvinism, but reflected a broad popular consensus on the war.

Las haciendas cañeras en el sur del lago de Maracaibo-Venezuela (siglos XVI-XVII)

This analysis studies sugar cane plantations located south of Lake Maracaibo, in the jurisdiction of Merida (Venezuela), where sugar cane was cultivated and processed from the sixteenth century. It is a quantitative and qualitative study of the origin, evolution, production, infrastructure, and profitability of the plantations. The research is based on unpublished documentary sources in national and foreign archives.

Territorio y paisaje en el entorno del Monasterio de San Lorenzo de el Escorial: planos y vistas desde el dibujo de Hatfield House a Guesdon

The current research aims for two main targets: firstly, to reconstruct the surroundings of the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, as well as the changes that it suffered within its establishment to the end of the 19th century. And secondly, to reveal the matches and contradictions in the documents about the territories depending on El Escorial. Our methodology is based upon the critical comparison between the written documents and the maps, drawings, and pictures located in the main Spanish and foreign archives. Due to the wide extent of the territories, and also to the lenght of the proposed research –about three hundred and fifty years–, the results of the research will be exposed in a series of articles. The current one focuses on the neighbouring environment of the monastery, on its main features and characteristics, within the site’s election to the end of the construction. The following studies will analyze the essential changes in the 18th century, as well as broader territories and estates belonging to the Monastery.

Kah Seng Loh, Edgar Liao, Cheng Tju Lim, and Guo-Quan Seng. The University Socialist Club and the Contest for Malaya: Tangled Strands of Modernity. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012, 347p., with bibliography and index.

The University Socialist Club and the Contest for Malaya: Tangled Strands of Modernity KAH SENG LOH, EDGAR LIAO, CHENG TJU LIM, and GUO-QUAN SENG Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012, 347p., with bibliography and index.This book examines the history of the University Socialist Club (USC) at the University of Malaya (later renamed as University of Singapore) from 1953 to 1971 within the broad context of British decolonization, the global Cold War, and the making of the modern nation-states of Singapore and Malaya(sia). It is a timely product because the only substantive works on this important subject are a 1973 unpublished BA graduating thesis (Koh 1973) and the recent firsthand accounts in The Fajar Generation as edited by three former USC members (Poh et al. 2010). Moreover, it arrives at an opportune moment when the authoritarian politics of Singapore appear to be changing, with untold stories and alternative narratives being offered through a multitude of platforms to challenge the dominant state narrative of the Singapore Story as framed primarily by the elder statesman Lee Kuan Yew.It is to the credit of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS, Singapore) to have provided the four young scholars with initial financial support and moral impetus to explore new ground in Singapore history (p. 12). It would have been even better if ISEAS had seen the project to its fruition and publication through its own internal publishing unit. Similarly, the authors have registered their share of difficulty in getting access to local primary source materials, especially government records, and their fresh archival findings were mostly excavated from foreign archives instead of the National Archives of Singapore (pp. 38-39). How they overcame these obstacles is testimony to the tenacity and skill of the history writing of the authors as they have indeed succeeded in putting together a volume rich in details and analysis.The main body of discussion begins with the reluctant British approval for forming a political club within the nascent university as well as the Fajar arrests and sedition trial which elevated the USC to its iconic political status. This is followed by several chapters delineating its activities to mobilize students across campuses in Singapore as well as those in Malaya and even among the international student fraternity. It was a mixed record of collaboration and contestation due to personality issues and ideological differences. The discussion also touches on the important divide as well as connectivity between the English-educated and Chinese-educated student activists. An introspective critique is then developed on how the intelligence and security agencies (especially the Special Branch which later morphed into the Internal Security Department), under the trope of international Cold War and local fear of communism and communalism, had constructed a problematic information order which became a primary tool for the emasculation of left wing politics. The next segment deals with the USC's involvement in the battle to merge and form Malaysia, the various security crackdowns, and the fight for university autonomy. The last substantive chapter on Entwined Memories and Myths brings the story to the present day by surfacing the claims and counter-memories of various actors on both sides of the political fence in their old age. …