Galley Slave Research Articles

Osmanlı Bahriyesinde Bir İşgücü Kaynağı Olarak Kürek Mahkûmlarının İstihdamına Dair Bazı Tespitler

Osmanlı işgücü piyasası, devletin belirlemiş olduğu temel prensipler ve kurallar etrafında şekillenmiştir. Bu prensip ve kurallara göre devletin ihtiyaçları içerisinde askerî ihtiyaçlar birinci öncelik sıralamasına sahip olmuş, bunlar içerisinde ise donanmanın işgücü ihtiyacı başlarda yer almıştır. Osmanlı Devleti’nde genel işgücü politikasında gönüllü çalışma arzu edilmiş, ancak işgücü arz yetersizliğinden kaynaklanan nedenlerle bu durum gönüllüler tarafından sağlanamayınca bir zorunluluk olarak alternatif işgücü kaynakları arasında mahkûmlara başvurulmuştur. Osmanlı Devleti’nde toprakların genişlemesi ve donanmanın büyümesine paralel olarak işgücü açığının ciddi boyutlara ulaşmasıyla mahkûmlar, ilk defa XVI. yüzyıldan itibaren donanmada kürekçi olarak görevlendirilmişlerdir. Daha sonra donanma teknolojisindeki değişimler sonucu gemilerde kürekçi ihtiyacında önemli bir azalma meydana gelmiş olsa da kürek mahkûmlarından vazgeçilmemiştir. Bunun sonucunda mahkûmlar, gemilerde olmasa da tersanelerde istihdam edilmeye başlamışlardır. Diğer taraftan mahkûm emeğinde beklenen faydanın görülmesi üzerine daha sonra, Tanzimat dönemi ceza kanunlarında yapılan düzenlemelerle birlikte kürek mahkûmiyetleri kalıcı hale gelmiştir. Bu araştırmada, Osmanlı klasik döneminden başlayıp Tanzimat sonrasına kadar devam eden tarihsel süreçte kürek mahkûmlarının işgücü piyasasına katkıları, Osmanlı bahriyesi özelinde tahlil edilmeye çalışılmaktadır.

The image of the opponent of technological innovation in Galley Slave by A.Asimov: modern interpretation

The image of Simon Ninheimer — the opponent of scientific and technological progress — is described by A. Azimov in the story «Galley Slave». It is used to develop the idea of resistance to mechanization, which is now finding increasingly supporters due to the increased influence of information and communication technologies in general and artificial intelligence and robotics in particular. The historical and conceptual foundations of neo-luddism are linked with modern trends calling for a gradual, controlled innovation. It is noticed that the ideas of the luddites have been preserved in romantic literature and transformed into neo-luddism in the 20th century. The theorists of this movement use philosophical concepts of different epochs (e.g. Socrates, J.-J. Rousseau and M. Heidegger) to confirm the legitimacy of their own status. As a result, in the 21st century more moderate areas of struggle against scientific and technological progress are actively developing under the influence of postmodernism. For example, the slow movement is growing strength, and its supporters are trying to slow down the pace of life and are calling for a thoughtful, responsible attitude towards emerging technologies. The positions underlying the slow movement are in tune with the dromology of P. Virilio and the slow philosophy of G. Fleistad. However, neo-luddism has social status of counterculture, but the situation can be changed due to the rapid and sometimes uncontrollable development of technology.

Bigger Than “Ben-Hur”: The Book, Its Adaptations, and Their Audiences

Bigger Than “Ben-Hur”: The Book, Its Adaptations, and Their Audiences

Law and History in Cervantes’ Don Quixote by Susan Byrne (review)

Reviewed by: Law and History in Cervantes’ Don Quixote by Susan Byrne Shannon Polchow Byrne, Susan. Law and History in Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2012. Pp. 240. ISBN 978-1-442-64527-1. Susan Byrne pens a well-researched examination of Don Quixote by using the developing relationship between history and jurisprudence during the sixteenth century, in order to provide insight into Miguel de Cervantes’s narrative techniques. It is through the works of Italian historian Paolo Giovio and Spanish jurist Gaspar de Baeza, along with Spanish legal code, that Byrne is able to deliver a unique reading of Cervantes’ text. In the initial chapters of Law and History in Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Byrne lays the foundation for the textual analysis in the latter half of her study, moving from more global discussions of history and jurisprudence in Spain in the sixteenth century to more detailed connections between Cervantes and the aforementioned authors: Giovio, a historian with mendacious tendencies according to many, and Baeza, a jurist who translates Giovio’s Histories into Spanish while inserting his own commentary into the translation. In the first chapter, “History, Jurisprudence, and the Creation of the Novel,” Byrne demonstrates the relationship that exists among history, law, and literature. As she notes, “law developed out of usage and custom, that is, the history of similar acts and decisions rendered on them” (7). However, it is in literary texts where one reads of how society behaved before those laws. For example, as legal debates over the Fuero Juzgo and the Siete Partidas become prevalent, there emerges a tension between the law and the actions commonly practiced, and that tension plays out in Don Quixote. The other thematic thread that runs throughout is Cervantes’s insistence on calling his work a history, as opposed to fiction, and how this view connects the author to the ideals of Giovio and Baeza, thereby further creating a convergence of history and jurisprudence in the text. Historian Giovio insists that his elogia are not untruthful and that writing history requires prudence, while jurist Baeza emphasizes that one gains prudence through reading history. Cervantes combines these two ideas and offers several versions of a tale, which allows the prudence of the reader to reach his own conclusions. In chapter 2, “Giovio, Baeza, History, and Law in Cervantes’ Works,” Byrne further explores Cervantes’s connections with Giovio and Baeza, validating her reading of Don Quixote. [End Page 510] In the third chapter, “Jurisprudence in Spain, Seventh to Sixteenth Centuries,” Byrne discusses the rise of legal code and its development in Spain, beginning with the seventh-century Visigoth Judge’s Book to Alfonso X’s Siete Partidas, the 1505 Leyes de Toro, and numerous glosses of legal code that appeared in the sixteenth century. However, the increased number of glosses brought chaos to the legal forum, with no real consistency on how to interpret the law. Byrne’s observations highlight the chaotic nature of the legal system in Spain, noting that “this confusion would continue throughout the sixteenth century, by the end of which the Spanish legal system is in such a chaotic state that, much like Don Quixote, no one even bothers to abide by the laws” (48). This confusion manifests itself in Don Quixote through numerous episodes in the text. Byrne moves from theory to analysis in the fourth chapter, “Laws Broken, Glossed, and Made: Don Quixote.” The chapter is divided into four major sections, which highlight legal glosses involving the protagonist. The first includes a study of the etymology of quebrantar and how Don Quixote breaks the law when he tilts at windmills. The second examines the knighting ceremony and its relationship with the Siete Partidas. Next there is a detailed reading of the galley slave episode, highlighting the struggles between Spain’s civil and ecclesiastical courts. Finally, Byrne explains why Don Quixote must legally renounce his days as a knight errant. Chapter 5 “Laws Broken, Glossed, and Made: Sancho Panza et al.” continues in the same vein as the previous chapter, but with the focus on Sancho. The highlight is a reading of Sancho’s time on Barataria through a legal lens, as Cervantes parodies various...

Galleys as a Total Institution

Galleys as the closed/total institution/, is regarding the whereabouts of the certain number of people isolated for a long stretch from the rest of society, remaining in the similar situation, of which the behaviour is under almost the total control of the staff of this institution. In the period of the antiquity slaves were the basic driving force of galleys but their fate resulted from the social status. In the period of the Middle Ages, galley slaves, called in Italian galeotti, they were free people, and their profession enjoyed the respect. Above all in France they have more and more often started with the 15th century to use galleys as the place of serving a penalty of imprisonment. This situation lasted to the mass scale till the XVIII century second-half, leaving in the social awareness stereotype of the galley slave.

Book Review: Galley Slave: The Autobiography of a Protestant Condemned to the French Galleys

Book Review: Galley Slave: The Autobiography of a Protestant Condemned to the French Galleys

From a far country: Camisards and Huguenots in the Atlantic world

This book features a new perspective on a French religious diaspora. In From a Far Country, Catharine Randall examines Huguenots and their less-known cousins the Camisards, offering a fresh perspective on the important role these French Protestants played in settling the New World. The Camisard religion was marked by more ecstatic expression than that of the Huguenots, not unlike differences between Pentecostals and Protestants. Both groups were persecuted and emigrated in large numbers, becoming participants in the broad circulation of ideas that characterized the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Atlantic world. Randall vividly portrays this French Protestant diaspora through the lives of three figures: Gabriel Bernon, who led a Huguenot exodus to Massachusetts and moved among the commercial elite; Ezechiel Carre, a Camisard who influenced Cotton Mather's theology; and Elie Neau, a Camisard-influenced writer and escaped galley slave who established North America's first school for blacks. Like other French Protestants, these men were adaptable in their religious views, a quality Randall points out as quintessentially American. In anthropological terms they acted as code shifters who manipulated multiple cultures. While this malleability ensured that French Protestant culture would not survive in externally recognizable terms in the Americas, Randall shows that the culture's impact was nonetheless considerable.

Turning to Gold: The Role of the Witness in French Protestant Galley Slave Narratives

The interaction between power and dissidence in representational culture is the focus of this article, which weaves together some of Pascal's reflections on power and imagination, the notion of the King's two bodies, and its representation in contemporary film, with the symbolism of the wounded body in French Protestant galley slave narratives. The galleys were a baroque theatre of power, which were intended to represent the King's glory. But Protestant galley slaves positioned themselves, by means of their narratives, as witnesses, whose wounded bodies spoke not of glory but of abuse of power, and in this way they subverted the representational function of the galleys. However, the role of the witness, which they ascribe to themselves, is problematic, because developments in the experimental sciences meant that the witness was perceived at the time as a dispassionate observer. Yet bearing witness to limit experiences requires affect. The article studies the way this problem is addressed in the interplay between the narrative construct of the first- and the second-degree witnesses in one Protestant galley slave narrative, which tells the story of Louis de Marolles. The body, whether the symbolic body of the King, the mystical body of Christ, or the wounded body of the galley slave, is a shifting sign, which gives insight into the competing political and religious discourses of the day.

The Idol Body: Stars, Statuary and the Classical Epic

The Idol Body:Stars, Statuary and the Classical Epic Michael Williams This article explores the relationship between the male star body and the ancient world constructed through production design and star iconography. My primary case study is provided by M-G-M's 1925 production Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (Fred Niblo; henceforth Ben-Hur). The film influentially exploited the slippage between the star, Ramon Novarro, as a contemporary idol, and the diegetic hero he plays, who rises to become "the Idol of Rome." This historical interplay was achieved through extra-textual publicity that constructed Novarro as a rising "Apollo," and his on-screen performance of a contrapposto pose that referenced canonical sculptures of Hellenistic art. Equally important was Cedric Gibbons' production design (in particular his Circus Maximus set), replete with monumental sculptures that frame the action of the chariot race. Zack Snyder's 300 (2007) is the second film discussed in this essay, which I examine to interrogate the themes of the star body, 'frieze-framing' and monumentality in a contemporary context. In both cases I will draw upon archival research undertaken in both the United States and the United Kingdom, including studio production files, promotion and reception materials, and textual analyses of the films themselves. Contrapposto and the Historical Style Ben-Hur tells the story of the eponymous Jewish prince who is wrongly accused of attempting to assassinate a Roman Prefect by his old childhood friend, Messala, who has turned against him and his religion. After escaping life as a galley slave Ben-Hur reclaims his position and defeats Messala in a chariot race, his restoration with his family told in parallel to the story of Christ's crucifixion. The 1925 Ben-Hur production is infamous for its troubled production history, with most of the cast replaced (including George Walsh, who was exchanged for Novarro) after an already expensive shoot in Italy. Original scenario writer June Mathis and director Charles Brabin were also dismissed from the project.2 What an examination of some of the ensuing script and design changes reveals is a careful iconographic balancing act between M-G-M's upcoming star Novarro and the themes of sexuality and "pagan" / Christian idolatry and religion. One pivotal scene carefully constructs Ben-Hur's transformation from galley-slave to contrapposto "idol of Rome." Essential to this iconography, is the use of a contrapposto pose that consolidates many of the mythic and iconographic tensions within the film's narrative. Contrapposto is the technique developed in Hellenistic sculpture, in the Belvedere Apollo, for example, and rediscovered in the Renaissance, where the arms and shoulders of the body are turned out of direct alignment with the hips, usually with one leg slightly before the other; an implied movement of the body that dramatizes psychological aspects of the subject as well as the tension between animation and stasis. Such poses differentiate the individual from the crowd as Garry Wills discussion of the contrapposto pose of John Wayne indicates. Wills suggests that Wayne referenced the pose of both Michelangelo and Donatello's Davids in his films, adding an unusual [End Page 39] grace to his imposing figure, making: "each motion a statement of individualism, a balletic Declaration of Independence." Wills links Wayne's persona to his post-WWII and Cold War context, and "the sense of imperial burden" that came to America during this period, posing his counterpoised stance with and against the prevailing political mores of this period.3 To strike such poses is to stand at once in the past and present, as I hope to demonstrate below. In the scene in question, after rowing in the galley for two years, Ben-Hur is spotted by the Roman Quintus Arrius, who appears fascinated with him. After the ship is attacked and sunk by pirates, Ben-Hur saves Arrius from the water, finding himself officially adopted as his son when the men are rescued by a passing Roman ship. At the start of the sequence, in an addition to the original scenario by June Mathis, a nude male slave is prominent to the right of the frame, bound in the fashion of the crucifixion, as the camera takes in the...

Avtorja Veleumnega plemiča Don Kihota iz Manče

Avtorja Veleumnega plemiča Don Kihota iz Manče

REVIEWS OF BOOKS

Books reviewed:Hans W. Blom and Laurens C. Winkel (eds), Grotius and the Stoa.Domenico Zanrè, Cultural Non‐Conformity in Early Modern Florence.Jessica Munns and Penny Richards, eds. Gender, Power, and Privilege in Early Modern Europe.Aurelio Scetti, The Journal of Aurelio Scetti: A Florentine Galley Slave at Lepanto (1565–1577). Trans. and ed. by Luigi Monga.William Shakespeare, Shakespeare in Production: Macbeth. (ed.) John Wilders.Robert von Friedeburg, Self‐defence and Religious Strife in Early Modern Europe: England and Germany 1530–1680.Charles McKean, The Scottish Château.Maria Bogucka, Baltic Commerce and Urban Society, 1500–1700.

The Roman galley slave: Ben-Hur and the birth of a factoid

Of the repertoire of stereotypical images representing the Roman world in Western popular historical discourse, that of the chained galley slave stands out, since it is demonstrably false: the Roman empire knew no such practice. Since the notion must therefore have a post-classical origin, it may be possible to trace its roots and the means of its establishment in contemporary culture. It is argued that the motif was constructed by projecting onto classical times knowledge of the historical galley slavery of the early modern Mediterranean. Further, both the principal point of origin for the idea, and the means of its dissemination and implantation in popular historical discourse, lay not in academic scholarship but in popular fiction: they may be traced primarily to the tale of Judah Ben-Hur. A spectacularly successful Victorian novel and an equally popular stage show before the famous film versions, Ben-Hur had an unequalled impact on the entertainment, religious instruction and even formal education of several generations across the United States, the Anglophone world and beyond. Through this enthusiastic public reception, it is suggested, motifs such as galley slavery and chariot racing passed permanently into popular understandings of Rome. It is a vivid illustration of the role of fiction in the creation of popular views of history.

Indigestion and Edification in the Guzman de Alfarache

The tendency of Guzman criticism in recent decades has been to focus on the conclusion of Part II, the account of the narrator's alleged repentence and religious conversion while serving life sentence as a galley slave.' By reading the nearly one-thousand page fictive autobiography solely in terms of its closing chapters, as an example ofor response to -Counterreformation apologetics, modern readers cast Spain's first so-called picaresque novel as a startling anomaly within the genre which it created. The outcome of the convict-turned-author's story must of course also be considered in light of his statement of intent in the opening pages of the novel. While Guzman is not made to preface

MEMOIRES D'UN PROTESTANT

A French galley slave's description of an engagement in the Thames estuary between a fleet of French galleys under the command of Captain M. de Langeron of the French Navy and a British convoy under the protection of H.M.S. Nightingale (frigate 36 guns) on 5 September 1708. De Bergerac was a galley slave in the ship commanded by de Langeron. Translated from the original documents by LADY FAWCETT.