Historical Society Research Articles

Национальный форум историков: состояние, актуальные проблемы и перспективы исторического образования и науки в России

This article dwells on the Second National Forum of History Teachers which took place in Tobolsk in October 2023. The paper covers the forum’s main results as well as the work of its sections and plenary session and characterizes the key reports and speeches by scholars and university teachers, leaders of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, State Duma, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Academy of Education, Russian Historical Society and other organizations. In addition, the article analyses the forum’s significance for the development of historical science and higher education in Russia, as well as the agenda of the next forum scheduled to be held in 2024.

Gender conflict resolution in Nigerian and African American standup performances

Stand-up comedy, a prominent facet of live theatrical entertainment, occupies a unique position in the entertainment industry, embodying a key element of popular culture. This comedic form reflects the sociological dynamics of both historical and contemporary societies, influencing and engaging both local and international audiences. Beyond providing psycho-physical therapy for performers, stand-up comedy plays a pivotal role in shaping societal perceptions. This article focuses on a gender-focused analysis of stand-up comedy, exploring its implications for domestic growth, marriage unity, and love. Utilizing three digital recordings featuring stand-up comedians, namely Bright Okpocha (Basket Mouth), Ayo Makun (AY), and Eddie Murphy, the study examines their unique approaches to addressing gender-based violence and resolving conflicts. The selection criteria were based on the comedians' distinct counseling methods and perspectives on gender-related issues. Drawing on Richard Schechner's performance theory, the analysis employs both performance and content analyses to elucidate the spectrum of gender conflicts and resolutions presented by the comedians. The findings underscore the importance of mutual understanding and communication in resolving gender conflicts. The article also delves into the influence of parental roles in household management and the pursuit of material wealth. Emphasizing the significant role of counseling modes, the study concludes that stand-up comedy, with its oratory counseling mode and therapeutic elements, serves as an effective means of addressing gender conflicts, contributing to mutual understanding and successful resolutions within society.

Montana Historical Society Members

Montana Historical Society Members

Multivariate statistical analysis on Japanese traditional papers, washi, for evaluation of DNA presence and quality

Traditional papermaking was a significant innovation that intrigued the information-sharing society in a wide range of the globe. The importance of finding the historical background hidden behind the historical traditional paper is critical to understanding societies in history. Advanced molecular biological research is applied to many forensic studies to identify the origin and criminal events. Yet, biological research refrained from the heritage science of traditional papers due to its damage to the samples. The current study explores the Pearson correlation between DNA in traditional paper and non-destructive measurement of characteristics of traditional paper. DNA concentration and purity were found to have a proportional relationship based on the CIEL*a*b* color system. The color of the traditional paper was assessed assessment shows green and yellow rather than red and blue. The DNA concentration demonstrated a positive linear correlation with the peaks of 992 cm−1, 1599 cm−1, and 1628 to 1638 cm−1 region, which were lignin-specific functional groups. The presence of lignin in traditional paper defines the colors green and yellow, which is related to the presence of a cell wall. The quantity of cell walls present is linked to DNA survival during the traditional papermaking process. Furthermore, the partial least square (PLS) regression model is established. The prediction model based on DNA, paper properties, and smoothing + the second derivative preprocessed attenuated total reflection-Fourier-transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectral data demonstrated valid purity predictions. The evaluation parameter of the cross-validated prediction model contains a low Root Mean Square Error of Cross-Validation (RMSECV) of 0.091 for DNA purity. The determination coefficient was close to 1. However, the further establishment of a validated DNA extraction methodology is required for the consistency of the prediction model for DNA concentration. The hierarchical clustering analysis demonstrated the agglomerative dendrogram on traditional paper samples. For the dendrogram, the Nasu paper mulberry (originating in northern Japan) was distinguished from another paper mulberry (originating in southwestern Japan) by clustering. By multivariate statistical analysis, the DNA presence and quality were predictable from the Japanese traditional papers. In addition, the clustering analysis provided the possible origin of paper mulberry materials for traditional papers. Based on the preliminary information, the need for DNA analysis on historical traditional paper can be determined.

Charlotte Berry. The Margins of Late Medieval London, 1430–1540. New Historical Perspectives. London: Royal Historical Society, Institute of Historical Research, University of London Press, 2022. Pp. 350. $55.00 (cloth).

Charlotte Berry. The Margins of Late Medieval London, 1430–1540. New Historical Perspectives. London: Royal Historical Society, Institute of Historical Research, University of London Press, 2022. Pp. 350. $55.00 (cloth).

Keeping the archives above water: preserving regional heritage in times of accelerated climate change

The critical question of how sustainability and resilience can inform archival practice in regional communities is motivated by the experience of flooding in Lismore, Australia, which exposed the vulnerability of local archives to the effects of climate change and the limitations of local infrastructure. Regional historical societies and community organisations serve as a repository for the history of particular communities, preserving records, artefacts and other materials that document the unique stories and experiences of that place. Collections are independently curated and generally run by volunteers but poorly resourced with insufficient space. They are more likely to be subject to extreme weather events that disproportionately impact regional Australia compared to its cities. Regional collections fall outside national strategies for sustainability, digitisation or investment. Without urgent attention to the fate of regional archives, local heritage is under threat, and with it, an understanding of how that history contributes to the national past and the connection to place and community. This paper explores regional archives from the perspective of the local historical records of Lismore, Northern New South Wales, where flooding is a familiar experience that has reached a new intensity in recent years.

Refusing Confederation: Indigenous Feminist Performance as a Tool for Colonial Reckoning and Community (Re)Building

Abstract: In 2017, the Kika'ige Historical Society, an Indigenous women's performance troupe based in Guelph, Canada, created Tabling 150 in response to celebrations of Canada's sesquicentennial. Tabling 150 presented an opportunity for Indigenous women to engage in truth-telling amid celebrations of settler-colonial nationalism. By taking on personas of the "Grannies of Confederation," a play on the title of the well-known painting The Fathers of Confederation , the performers participated in Native feminist spatial practice, creating new orders through felt theory, presencing, and enacting refusals within their time and place in the academy. Drawing on interviews with the performers, we examine questions of the felt experience of doing Indigenous artivist resistance. Data from the participant performers was inductively coded, revealing four prominent themes: connecting with ancestors, taking space as resistance, community solidarity and empowerment, and Indigenous women's work in spatial practice while Indigenizing the academy. The analysis revealed that performance is an effective tool for calling out Canada's mistreatment of Indigenous Peoples at Confederation and the social inequities encoded into Canadian law during a period of settler-colonial celebration. The collective act of truth-telling by Indigenous performers strengthened a community through which it became safe to reflect upon and challenge colonial norms.

Scrapbook Historiography: The American Catholic Historical Society's Early History, 1884–1904

Abstract: This essay presents a kind of lens or technique for obtaining information on the founding years of the American Catholic Historical Society. Most historians of the Society have relied on its printed literature, especially this journal, but much can be gleaned from contemporary scrapbooks assembled by early members. Through their pages, a more accurate picture of the Society's first decade emerges, and with it, a new method for documentation of its history. The author explores the utility of scrapbooks as such but posits that the ACHS scrapbooks relate important aspects of late nineteenth century collecting habits, the role of lay people in the local church, and the impact of ethnic Catholicism in what counts as vital markers for one generation's heritage and the legacy they wish to bequeath.

Take Layout Design as an Example: Analysis of the Influence of Dadaism on Visual Communication Design

In the development process of historical society, the relationship between art and design has been mutual influence and common development. Contemporary art, with its avant-garde artistic status, plays a very important role in the development of visual communication design, among which Dada, Cubism and surfactionism provide nourishment and reference for visual communication design in form. On the whole, it plays an important role in promoting visual communication. This influence makes the visual communication design carry the charm of many contemporary arts, and also makes the visual communication design develop in a more diversified direction. This article mainly discusses the influence of design layout in Dada in contemporary art trend of thought on visual communication design.

Montana Historical Society Members

Montana Historical Society Members

Reinterpretation of ‘Sacred Space’ at The Newark Earthworks and Serpent Mound

Mound-building was a preoccupation for the original, Indigenous occupants of the eastern portion of North America for at least six centuries. The efforts, from small to monumental, reflect a precision, often reflecting astronomical phenomena and are proliferated across the region. Today many remnants of these extraordinary efforts remain despite the systems of erasure that are characteristic of settler colonialism. Two such sites are the focus of this paper: the Newark Earthworks and Serpent Mound. Both sites are short-listed for UNESCO World Heritage status. Newark, Hopewell, and Serpent are all names given by dominant culture with no relation to the Indigenous architects and builders. They endure and resist, despite a long and complicated history of dominance. This paper offers a brief historical contextualization to demonstrate the ramifications of settler colonialism, which ruptured connections between Indigenous people and this land while simultaneously reinterpreting the sites as distinctly American. This lays a foundation for the web of narratives refashioned and recirculated in today’s contest over World Heritage status. Central to these narratives is ascribing the label of “sacred” to the sites and the vast number of constituents who claim “ownership” of them, including both local and global governmental agencies, historical societies, Native peoples, academics, and golfers. Furthermore, we can include those with religious and/or spiritual claims to the mounds such as the Mormons, new-agers, fundamentalist Christians, and contemporary Native tribes. Many of these stakeholders have come together to work toward the coveted World Heritage Status. But, if and when that happens, whose story will dominate? Who will make decisions? Whose voice will be heard?

Treating Delinquent and Feebleminded Juveniles at the Beloit Industrial School for Girls in Early Twentieth-Century Kansas.

This study explores the troubling and unintended consequences of public health efforts to address the problem of juvenile delinquency and feeblemindedness. Health care professionals, superintendents, and other authority figures equated undesirable juvenile behaviors such as keeping "bad company" or "falling in with the wrong crowd," truancy, and petty theft with poor breeding, low intelligence, and inheritable criminal tendencies. This article interrogates historical documentation culled from the Kansas State Historical Society (KSHS) and focuses on a few specific cases to reveal the ways a patriarchal political and medical state system both protected and alienated young woman accused of a myriad of behavior issues including delinquency, incorrigibility, and feeblemindedness. I highlight the lives of juvenile women sentenced to the Beloit Industrial School for Girls not simply to better understand an isolated period in United States history but also reproduction. The broader implications of the narratives of girls housed at the Beloit Industrial School for Girls throughout the first half of the twentieth century in Kansas reveal troubling and unintended consequences of public health efforts to fix the problems of delinquency, contagion, and the generational inheritance of undesirable characteristics.

Podillia Church Historical and Archaeological Society in the Study of Archaeological Heritage

The purpose of the research paper is to analyze the role of Podillia Church Historical and Archaeological Society (1865-1920) in the study of archaeological heritage and to determine its significance in the overall heritage of its scientific achievements.
 Scientific novelty. After studying the documentary sources it has been found out that during its activities Podillia Church Historical and Archaeological Society evolved from an amateur group into a true center of historical research in Podillia, and archeology became one of the main components that secured the Society recognition and authority in scientific circles at the end of the 19th century – early 20th century.
 Conclusions. In order to write the history of Podillia with pro-Russian ideological content, a group of priests and local intellectuals at Podillia Theological Seminary was organized and got the name of the Committee for Historical and Statistical Description of Podillia Eparchy. Over the years, the Committee had grown into a full-fledged center for studying the history of Podillia, called Podillia Church Historical and Archaeological Society, whose work had acquired scientific features, and the areas of research and their content had gone far beyond the tasks set by the ruling elite.
 The high level of organization and results of research in the field of archeology ensured the Society to be recognized in the academic world at the end of the 19th – early 20th century. And such achievements as the collecting and well-argued systematization of the collection of archaeological objects, as well as the system of the compiled Archaeological Map of Podillia, are patterns that retain their relevance and meaning to this day. Such a high assessment of the results of the Society’s activities was given by authoritative Ukrainian historians of that time, such as V. Antonovych, D. Doroshenko, I. Krypiakevych, and O. Ohloblyn.
 From the experience of the Society, it follows that the main condition and reason for its progressive evolution was the very content of Ukrainian history, the objective study of which naturally formed individual national self-awareness and fostered patriotism.

The Role of Intangible Heritage in Critical Citizenship Education: An Action Research Case Study with Student Primary Education Teachers

Heritage plays a significant role in understanding historical societies, particularly intangible heritage, as a legacy kept “alive” solely by the action of communities. Therefore, it holds great education potential in the context of critical citizenship education. This action research aims to investigate the perceptions of primary education teachers about intangible heritage and its didactic potential in critical citizenship education. In addition, this paper analyses the changes and continuities that occur in student teachers’ perceptions after carrying out a didactic project focused on relevant social problems linked to the Way of Saint James. This case study is proposed for primary teachers in initial training at the University of A Coruña (Galicia, Spain). The study was conducted during three academic years (2020–2023), with the participation of 160 student teachers. The questionnaire, the interview, and the focus group were used as research instruments. Students learned to give more importance to understanding intangible heritage and reconsidered it as an educational resource for critical citizenship education. However, many aspects of a traditional heritage education remain, where what matters is to respect and care for what is inherited without questioning its current value or its suitability for transmission to future generations.

Lukács’s Theory of Metabolism as a Foundation of Ecosocialist Realism

The Anthropocene is characterized by the definitive failure of the Promethean dream of capitalism about the absolute domination over nature. As a response to the deepening of global ecological crisis, new philosophical discussions have emerged that pivot around the ontological relationship between humans and nature in the Anthropocene. In this context, Marxian ecology that draws upon Marx’s concept of “metabolic rift” is often accused of its outdated “Cartesian dualism” of Society and Nature. Against “hybridism” and “monism,” which have become increasingly dominant in critical theory of nature thanks to Bruno Latour and Noel Castree, this article examines the legacy of Lukács’s theory of “metabolism” in order to defend the contemporary validity of Marxian ecology. Although Lukács is also often criticized for his exclusion of nature from his dialectical analysis of society in History and Class Consciousness, this article shows that there is nothing wrong with categorically separating society and nature. A careful analysis of Lukács’s little-known manuscript Tailism and the Dialectic demonstrates that “ontological monism” and “methodological dualism” are unique to his historical materialism. Based on this distinction, Lukács convincingly argues that the one-sided monist understanding of the social and the natural falls into fetishism, and this is exactly why his “methodological dualism” is essential to any ecosocialist critique of capitalism.

Scottish Women’s and Gender History and Women Historians in Scotland: Past, Present and Future Directions

The Royal Historical Society’s G ender Equality report in 2018, as well as a number of smaller surveys, suggests that while women now make up a significant proportion of those studying advanced degrees in history, they remain under-represented both in academic institutions (especially at higher levels) and in journals and similar high-esteem publications. Women’s and gender history has been one subfield where this is not the case; if both men and women have written on this topic, women have largely dominated the field and women’s and gender history remains a significant site where women’s authoritative knowledge has been prized and their leadership recognised. This special issue celebrates Scottish women’s and gender history as a domain of history where questions of power and authority, inclusion and exclusion, work, labour and knowledge production have already been considered through a gendered lens. Our authors bring case studies from a diverse range of time periods and historical contexts, but they share a commitment to central questions of how women—throughout history and as historians—have produced space for their authoritative knowledges and practices, how these might be nurtured or constrained, and the ongoing implications for gender equality.

Library of the General and Main Staff and its Employees (1811—1917)

Due to the lack of a comprehensive study of the employees of the Library of the General and Main Staff, this article is the first to provide the most comprehensive list of its leaders and library personnel and to describe them by such criteria as education, military or civilian rank, military experience, scientific publications, historical research, membership in the Imperial Russian Military Historical Society. The primary objectives of this study were: to identify the names of librarians and their assistants, to chronicle their occupation of these positions and to determine the time frame of each of them in their post. The article uses chronological, source and comparative analysis methods. For the solution of the problem we assembled a large representative source base including 68 address calendars, 22 monthly calendars, 10 yearbooks, 7 lists of books received by the Library of the General and Main Staff between 1911 and 1917, as well as pre-revolutionary publications on the history of the General Staff and its book collection.For the first time the author divides into periods the history of the Library of the General and Main Staff in pre-revolutionary period of its existence — from 1811 to 1917. The most important result of the research, new for historiography, is the full reconstruction of the list of librarians and library personnel and chronicle of their posts, which are set out in accordance with the worked out periodization. Within each of the periods, the most important events in the history of the library are indicated, which enables the contribution of librarians and librarians in its functioning and development to be evaluated.

The Docket Books of the Manor of Wakefield, 1559–1800, and the Docket Books Digitisation Project, 2013–2023

In its four sections, this article briefly places the manor of Wakefield and its records in their local context, describes the work of the Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society in promoting access to the records of the manor, explains the purpose and format of the recently-completed docket books digitisation project, and acknowledges the work of the society volunteers who worked for a decade to carry this project to its completion. Two appendices describe the format and content of the digitised entries, and explain the history of the compilation of the docket books.

CONTRIBUTION BY THE BELARUSIAN DIOCESEES TO THE IMPLEMENTATION OF GRAND DUKE N. M. ROMANOV’S PROJECT “RUSSIAN PROVINCIAL NECROPOLIS"

The article presents the history of the project led by the Chairman of the Imperial Historical Society Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich Romanov to collect materials for the publication of four volumes of the "Russian Provincial Necropolis". It analyses the contribution of Vilna, Minsk, Mogilev, Grodno, Polotsk consistories as well as priests of the Belarusian dioceses in collection of epitaphs from the tombstones of clerics, nobles and the most prominent public figures of the Russian Empire (partially the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) for the publication of the 4th volume of the "Russian Provincial Necropolis". An analysis of the biographies of the deceased was carried out, and their activities are correlated with the events of the history of Belarus of the XV - early XX century.

MET Inhibitors for Papillary Renal Cell Carcinoma

BACKGROUND: Papillary renal cell carcinoma (PRCC) has a relatively poor prognosis in the metastatic setting. In contrast to clear cell kidney cancer, there are limited treatment options specifically tested in PRCC. Alterations in the MET pathway are common in PRCC and may play a pivotal role in promoting tumor growth and the development of resistance to systemic therapy. OBJECTIVE: Current data on the efficacy of MET inhibitors over standard of care in PRCC is immature and evolving. The purpose of this systematic review is to assess and summarize the results and limitations of landmark trials of MET inhibitors for PRCC as well as to discuss barriers faced by trials of these drugs. METHODS: Manuscripts and abstracts were collected from PubMed, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) historical abstracts and European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) historical abstracts. Included studies must have been either a clinical trial, systematic review or narrative review and included PRCC patients. Patients must have been treated with a selective or non-selective MET inhibitor. After the final application of criteria, 30 studies were included. RESULTS/CONCLUSIONS: Cabozantinib has the best evidence for use showing improved outcomes in PRCC. Other MET inhibitors, including savolitinib, crizotinib, and foretinib have shown possible benefit in patients with MET-positive disease, but the inconsistent definition of MET status and a low patient accrual rate prevented further extrapolation of the individual trial results. Future trials of single agent savolitinib, as well as combination MET inhibitor/ immuno-oncology (IO) therapies, have the potential to change the therapeutic landscape of using MET inhibitors for PRCC.