Modern History Research Articles

History of Construction and Modernization of Energy Facilities the City of Kursk in the Period from the 1950s to the 1980s

History of Construction and Modernization of Energy Facilities the City of Kursk in the Period from the 1950s to the 1980s

Afghanistan-Pakistan Political Relations (1963-73)

History of Afghan-Pak relations reflects ups and downs. Prior to the creation of Pakistan on 14th August 1947, Afghanistan asked the British that before their departure from India, they must return back those Pakhtoon dominant territories which had been annexed by British from Afghanistan. However, British quitted India without considering Afghan demand. Pakistan came into being in 1947; Afghanistan raised its territorial dispute with Pakistan. It was the first Muslim country which opposed Pakistan’s entry into the United Nations Organization (UNO). In 1949, Afghanistan’s Loya Jirga declared that they did not recognize the Durand Line as its international border with Pakistan. Many primary and secondary sources related to the proposed research are available. These sources are in English, Urdu, Pakhto, and Dari languages and available at different research centers, libraries and archives etc. located in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The present study was conducted through the traditional method of data description and analysis in a chronological order. The present study follows qualitative research design and the sub design is historical. It works in the paradigm of modern history. The article finds that the in last ten years of King Zahir Shah’s rule relations between the two countries were normal as compare the premiership of Daud Khan. It concludes that the issues of Durand Line and Pakhtoonistan are the two major bottle-necks in the way of cordial relations between the two countries. More research is needed to find the positive and negative aspects of King Zahir Shah’s stance of not attacking Pakistan during the Indo-Pak wars.

Hegemonizm państw Zachodu wobec chińskiej polityki w Hongkongu

Hong Kong is one of the world’s largest financial centers, a source of many multinational organizations, banks, companies, etc. Since the beginning of June 2019, mass protests have taken place in Hong Kong, during which there have been violent fights between demonstrators and the police. These protests, as well as the trade war and the growing tension between Washington and Beijing, aroused the anxiety of foreign investors and led to the collapse of Hong Kong’s economy. The article presents the hegemonism of the United States, which decided to use these protests to expand their political and economic influence and interfered without reason in the internal affairs of the PRC. Similarly, the policy of the EU countries, which are so eager to criticize Poland for the lack of the rule of law, in this case was limited to admonishing China for fear of deteriorating mutual trade relations. The main hypothesis of the article is that even if Hong Kong’s status as a financial center suffers some negative impact due to US sanctions, its negative impact on China as a whole, will be quite limited and will only hit Hong Kong’s speculative capital. On the basis of the conducted studies, it can be assumed that the new area of the conflict between the US and the PRC will strengthen Chinese totalitarianism in Hong Kong, which comes down to the total subordination of the individual and all manifestations of social life to the state power. This thesis is in line with the statement by Liu Guangyuan, China’s ambassador in Poland, stating in regard to recent events that: “Hong Kong must be ruled by patriots”. Reports from renowned research centers predict that the next decades of world politics will be marked by Washington’s competition with Beijing. The aggressive rivalry that turns into an open confrontation between the US, Western countries and China opens a dangerous new chapter in modern history.

The Niu–Li Factional Strife: The Origins of a Historiographical Fiction

Abstract The “Niu–Li Factional Strife,” named after Niu Sengru (779–847) and Li Deyu (787–850), is an enduring theme in Tang history. Based on accounts of personal animosity, a narrative evolved in which Niu and Li have become the ringleaders of two factions that drew in almost all high-profile literati of the ninth century. This article revises traditional and modern narratives of the Strife by first showing that the scattered and contradictory evidence in the earliest sources does not bear out the model of a decades-long struggle between two factions. Second, it demonstrates how “Niu and Li” first arose as an emblem of Tang weakness and a rallying cry for unity within the bureaucracy under the Northern Song two centuries later. Finally, it shows how modern historians picked up the loose ends and remoulded them into a struggle between different classes against the backdrop of factious politics in Republican China.

Between Dynastic Loyalty and the Nationalism of the “People of the Masters”: Avram Iancu and the “Invisible War” of Decorations

This study presents a very important and sensitive part of the life and activity of the Romanian national hero Avram Iancu, after the end of the Revolution of 1848–1849. Given their achievements during the revolutionary battles, he and his comrades-in-arms should have been decorated and rewarded accordingly. Despite the testimonies and recommendations of important personalities of his time, Avram Iancu did not receive the recognition and the distinctions due from the Emperor Franz Joseph I. Moreover, he and his comrades-in-arms were humiliated, falling victim to the intrigues of the Transylvanian Saxon elites in the high political spheres of Vienna. This analysis shows how the heroes of the Romanian nation from Transylvania of the first half of the 19th century, caught between dynastic loyalty, the intrigues of the Transylvanian Saxons and the nationalism of the “master people” of Austria, suffered disappointments and thus ended a difficult chapter of their modern history. It was a time of struggle for political and national rights.

Political determinants of COVID-19 restrictions and vaccine rollouts: The case of regional elections in Italy and Spain

The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the most significant public health crises in modern history, with considerable impacts on the policy frameworks of national governments. In response to the pandemic, non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) and mass vaccination campaigns have been employed to protect vulnerable groups. Through the lens of Political Budget Cycle (PBC) theory, this study explores the interplay between incumbent electoral concerns and political dynamics in influencing the implementation of NPIs and vaccination rollout within the administrative regions of Italy and Spain during the period spanning June 2020 to July 2021. The results reveal that incumbents up for the next scheduled election are 5.8 % more likely to increase the stringency of containment measures than those that face a term limit. The findings also demonstrate that the seats of the incumbent and coalition parties in parliament and the number of parties in the coalition have a negative effect on both the efficiency of the vaccination rollout and the stringency of NPIs. Additionally, the competitiveness of the election emerges as an important predictor of the strictness of NPIs. Therefore, our results suggest that incumbents may strategically manipulate COVID-19 policy measures to optimize electoral outcomes. The study underscores the substantive influence of political incentives, competitive electoral environments, and government coalitions on policy formulation during health emergencies.

Formation of the preconditions for the emergence of criminalistics as a science in Ukraine (9th–18th centuries)

The article examines the peculiarities of the emergence and formation of methods of forensic investigation, which over time, in the 19th century, took shape in the science of forensics. To solve the problems, the authors used several methods, both general scientific and special. Among them: formal-legal, comparative-legal, historical-legal, dialectical, historical, systemic, hermeneutic, etc. The authors identified the main, in their opinion, stages of the development of criminology in Ukraine, starting with the formation of the Old Russian state. The first steps of the creation and implementation of forensic methods during the investigation of crimes, which were enshrined in the most famous monuments of law – «Laws of King Hammurabi», «Laws of the XII Tables», Byzantine legal collections, «Ruska Pravda», «Lithuanian Statutes», «The rights by which the Little Russian people are judged.» The article proves that the formation of individual manifestations of forensic research in Ukrainian lands during the Middle Ages and the first centuries of modern history was based on world experience in this area, as well as on the idea of justice, the need to restore law and order. It is emphasized that the formation of ideas about the methods of forensic research that appeared in Ukraine is connected with the genesis of the Ukrainian legal system and turned, over time, into one of its institutions. The authors suggest that, in contrast to the application of punishment, which had a class character, the organization of forensic investigations established the truth and therefore did not depend on the class affiliation of the participants in legal relations. The opinion that both in ancient times and at the beginning of the Middle Ages, forensic methods were closely intertwined with the elements of the investigative process, within which they were actually applied, is substantiated. It was established that the crippling forms of punishment, which were applied by court decision, were also intended to «emphasize» the identity of the criminal, to single him out in order to facilitate the search in case of repeated offenses. The authors concluded that the legal regulation of forensic research methods became a guarantee of their development, distribution and transformation, over time, into an independent science.

CONSERVATIVES OF THE KINGDOM OF POLAND IN 1914-1916

Since the birth of independent Poland in 1918, historians and publicists have been arguing about who deserves the main credit for this most signifi cant event in the modern history of the Polish nation. In the period between the world wars, the dispute for supremacy was fought between J. Piłsudski and R. Dmowski, in socialist Poland they were supplanted by the Russian October Revolution, but already in the 1980s the debate resumed with renewed vigor. Th e compromise solution proposed by Prof. S. Kieniewicz was not widely s upported. Since the 1990s, there has been a steady return to pre-war approaches to the problem. Th us, political forces other than the pilsudniks and national democrats, led by R. Dmowski, once again remain outside the fi eld of vision of the authors writing on this topic. Among them are conservatives of the Kingdom of Poland, through whose eff orts, from September 1917 to 14 November 1918, the construction of the state institutions of the Kingdom of Poland was underway with the consent of the Central Powers. Th e Kingdom was formed by the act of Emperors Wilhelm II Hohenzollern and Franz Joseph Habsburg of 5 November 1916. Th e contribution of the conservatives is clearly underestimated; moreover, they alone are accused of pursuing a conciliatory (Ugodian) policy towards the Russian, fi rst, and then the German and Austro-Hungarian authorities, although all other political parties in the Polish lands, with the exception of the social democrats of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, also took conciliatory positions at the beginning of the 20th century. Moreover, it was these parties, which were united under the general name of “activists”, who responded to the manifesto of 5 November and sent their representatives to the Provisional State Council of the Polish Kingdom. Th e conservatives, on the other hand, took a wait-and-see attitude in November 1916 and refused political cooperation with the German and Austro-Hungarian occupation authorities until September 1917.

Behind–the–scenes: Aspects of a film reception. The case of The Independence of Romania (Aristide Demetriade, Grigore Brezeanu, 1912) and The Rest is Silence (Nae Caranfil, 2007)

The foreign reader and viewer can find nothing better -or faster, given the exigencies of modern life- than the film as an introduction to the character, history, identity of a nation. With the awards garnered by directors like Cristian Mungiu and Nae Caranfil, new interest has been focused on Romania’s film, community, and history. That is why, an investigation regarding the Romanian early cinema would be necessary in the field of improving education from abroad. The purpose of this paper is to analyze a number of aspects, such as the importance of incorporating a course on cinema in foreign language teaching, one of the major goals being the opportunity to educate the students in the field of movies and thus offering them distinct cultural perspectives. However, this article does not plea for the need of a pedagogy of media studies in higher education, given the complexity of the topic. It rather aims to focus on the history of two Romanian movies: The Independence of Romania (1912) and The Rest is Silence (2007) and highlight the reasons why an urban icon of the city of Tampere is called “Plevna”. This paper sets out to analyze the two mentioned Romanian films who proved to be interesting for Finnish students since they depict an episode of our common history, the 1877 War of Independence (The Russo-Turkish War). At the same time, the paper aims to familiarize them with the allure of the event when Romanian and Finnish soldiers fought shoulder to shoulder on the same front, at Plevna. The Romanian film, The Independence of Romania shot in 1911-1912, was the first feature film to be kept almost entirely in the Romanian National Film Archive; the other one, The Rest Is Silence directed by Nae Caranfil (and representing Romania’s first entry into the 2009 Oscars) and inspired by The Independence of Romania wanted to show the real story of our first full-length filmmaking. Therefore, this latter film contains like a palimpsest an older mute movie, discovered in Romanian Movie Archive. The current article draws upon the insights provided by the Finnish students after watching the two films and summarizes their conclusions. In other words, these lines provide a behind-the-scenes glimpse of what they learned and discovered. The films were met with positive reviews, and we tried to follow the students’ spontaneous reactions and emotions. An important part of our work was to put in perspective the two inspiring patriotic marches which are commemorating the departure of the Romanian and Finnish soldiers at Plevna in the Balkan’s theater of War: Drum bun! (farewell song composed by Ştefan Nosievich to the lyrics of Romanian patriot Vasile Alecsandri) and Kauan on Kärsitty / Long have suffered, a well-known patriotic song of the Finnish Guard (Suomen kaarti). This article tangentially discusses the role of perception in educational activity, which is presented under two correlated aspects, namely: the activity carried out in this sense by the teacher and by the students and the role of cinema in creating cultural memory from a general perspective, in a way that transforms the manner we think of film and its social importance. This article starts from a very particular point of view, as we discovered by pure chance the name of Plevna building in Tampere, and goes to a more general aspect, which is the battle of Plevna, one of the most important episodes from Romania’s modern history.

Ființele ficționale: ce sunt și la ce folosesc

My paper problematizes the (non)existence of the fictional beings, addressing a series of important theoretical questions and comparing some relevant (realist / antirealist) answers archived by the modern and contemporary conceptual history. I have examined contrastive philosophical perspectives that define the ontological condition of fictional beings, in an attempt to represent the specific difference of these imaginative constructs and their experiential roles. The argumentative stake of my concise research is to prove that, in the coordinates of the imaginative worlds, fictional beings, their behavior, language, emotions, intentions, help us „read” and interpret real life - they are cognitive tools of exceptional value.

PNPLA3 fatty liver allele was fixed in Neanderthals and segregates neutrally in humans

ObjectiveFat deposition is modulated by environmental factors and genetic predisposition. Genome-wide association studies identified PNPLA3 p.I148M (rs738409) as a common variant that increases risk of developing liver steatosis. When and...

An Encounter between Christian Medical Missions and Chinese Medicine in Modern History: The Case of Benjamin Hobson

This article discusses how and why Christian medical missionaries established their foothold in Chinese society through the medical career of Benjamin Hobson, who was active in China from the late 1830s to the 1850s. Apart from his evangelical work among the Chinese, one of his key contributions was the new medical vocabularies he created to communicate medical knowledge. In addition to literary considerations, Hobson had his strategies for sharing modern medical knowledge. Moreover, he was prepared to debate with the Chinese over the validity of the pulse theory. The debate did not happen, however. His intention to establish the case for the superior position of Western medicine was not contested. His medical texts, at best, became the necessary underpinning for introducing modern Western medicine to China. When Western medical college projects took place in China at the turn of the century, biomedicine took over as the key paradigm, with Hobson’s medical texts being of limited use.

The purported enthronement of Alexander the Great in Egypt (332 B.C.): between fragments of Greek historians, Hellenistic-Roman accounts and historiographical speculation

Commentators on the Alexander Romance (AR) have often countered the reservations of modern historians on using the text as a historical source for the life of Alexander the Great. This is particularly relevant with regard to the king’s purported enthronement at Memphis. Historical biographies of Alexander as well as recent studies on his Egyptian royal titles lend support to the use of the AR as a source for this particular event, by arguing that an Egyptian enthronement can be defended. These studies make use of a complete onomastic protocol in archaeological evidence that dates from Alexander’s time. The present article offers a systematic discussion of ancient accounts of his first stay in Memphis to emphasize that the reservations of modern historians are based on the silence on the first by historians from the time of Alexander, whose works (preserved only in fragments) were used by writers of the main corpus of Hellenistic-Roman sources. I argue that there is evidence of a Macedonian strategy that sought to align its monarchical experience with older Egyptian traditions as well as the inclination of the Memphite priestly elite to fulfill a messianic expectation disseminated since the disappearance of Nectanebo II. Both, however, for reasons including both the length of Alexander’s stay in Egypt and the special solemnity of the coronation of Egyptian kings, seem not to have resulted in his formal enthronement in Memphis. The silence of the Hellenistic-Roman sources remains imperative.

The purported enthronement of Alexander the Great in Egypt (332 B.C.): between fragments of Greek historians, Hellenistic-Roman accounts and historiographical speculation

Commentators on the Alexander Romance (AR) have often countered the reservations of modern historians on using the text as a historical source for the life of Alexander the Great. This is particularly relevant with regard to the king’s purported enthronement at Memphis. Historical biographies of Alexander as well as recent studies on his Egyptian royal titles lend support to the use of the AR as a source for this particular event, by arguing that an Egyptian enthronement can be defended. These studies make use of a complete onomastic protocol in archaeological evidence that dates from Alexander’s time. The present article offers a systematic discussion of ancient accounts of his first stay in Memphis to emphasize that the reservations of modern historians are based on the silence on the first by historians from the time of Alexander, whose works (preserved only in fragments) were used by writers of the main corpus of Hellenistic-Roman sources. I argue that there is evidence of a Macedonian strategy that sought to align its monarchical experience with older Egyptian traditions as well as the inclination of the Memphite priestly elite to fulfill a messianic expectation disseminated since the disappearance of Nectanebo II. Both, however, for reasons including both the length of Alexander’s stay in Egypt and the special solemnity of the coronation of Egyptian kings, seem not to have resulted in his formal enthronement in Memphis. The silence of the Hellenistic-Roman sources remains imperative.

Историко-правовой анализ категории «гражданственность»

This article is devoted to the formulation of the question of citizenship as a legal value of a Soviet person. The legal activity of the commission on the departure of Soviet citizens abroad, which operated under the Smolensk Regional Committee of the CPSU in the first half of the 1980s, is considered. Using the example of the Smolensk Region, the authors highlight the work of organizations that controlled the departure of Soviet citizens abroad. The study was conducted on the basis of archival sources stored in the State Archive of the Modern History of the Smolensk region (hereinafter GANISO), many of which are being introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. The shortcomings and problems of traveling abroad are revealed, and it is also possible to conclude that there have been no cases of treason or refusals to return to their homeland on the part of residents of the Smolensk region. The authors also attempt to compare the concept of citizenship and the institution of plurality of citizenship, relevant in the modern history of our state.

Рецензия на монографию: Животич А. «Балканский фронт» холодной войны: СССР и югославско-албанские отношения. 1945-1968 гг. / отв. ред. А. Б. Едемский. М. – СПб.: Институт славяноведения РАН; Нестор-История, 2022. 288 с.

The reviewed publication sheds light on the history of interstate relations between the USSR, Yugoslavia, and Albania in the postwar period. The author presents these relations in the context of the broad geopolitical changes that the world underwent after the end of World War II. This monograph will be useful for specialists in the modern history of the 20th century, Slavic studies, Balkan studies, as well as all those interested in these areas of historical research.

Ten Years After: Revisiting the Ouster Of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood

AbstractThe ouster of President Hosni Mubarak in 2011 marked a turning point in Egypt's modern history. The long‐persecuted Muslim Brotherhood immediately became a key political player, and its candidate, Mohamed Morsi, won election to lead the country. But despite those two years of popular engagement and victories at the ballot box, Morsi was ousted and the movement banished once again after a confrontation with the military in July 2013. Why did the Brotherhood choose to risk a conflict with the armed forces and not seek a compromise? This article contends that the decision was driven by the Muslim Brotherhood's long history of persecution, its broad base of support, its impressive successes after Mubarak fell, and its fear of losing the presidency. These set the Brotherhood on a course of action that suited its experiences and preferences. This path led the movement to ignore several facts suggesting it must seek to coordinate with the armed forces: The Brotherhood and the military did not enjoy cordial relations after Morsi's election in 2012; the movement's grassroots power was substantial, but there was no evidence it could prevail over the military's demand for Morsi to step down; and the military maintained its internal cohesion. Therefore, the Muslim Brotherhood's historical path guided its decision to avoid cooperation.

Reflections on the Challenges of Musical Representations of Korean Historical Texts in Cord Meijering’s <i>Marsyas for Percussion Solo Symphony</i> (2018/19)

This article explores Dutch-German Composer Cord Meijering’s (b. 1955) intercultural translation practices in his piece Marsyas for Percussion Solo Symphony, which premiered in Darmstadt in 2019. This work is based on Greek mythology and the history of the Korean Independence Movement with Eastern and Western percussion. The above-mentioned premiere occurred on the 100th anniversary of the Korean Independence Movement and received intense acclaim from the international audience. However, although Meijering interprets Korean history using a comparison with a Greek myth, he produces a cultural jetlag by replacing the relationship between the dominant and subordinate with the relationship between God and humans. He supplements his understanding of Korean history during the compositional process in cooperation with Korean percussionist Eunbi Jeong. By thoroughly discussing the text of the Declaration of Independence with her, applying traditional Korean percussion instruments, and performing techniques, I argue that Meijering has been able to produce a piece which delivers the spirit of the Korean Independence Movement to an international audience. By reviewing the audience’s reception of the piece, I present how Meijering searched for the modern history of Korea, apart from the influence of his Western cultural roots, and how he represented Korean historic-political events within a Western symphonic form by advancing Korean traditional music. In contemplating the potential of reflexive globalism, this paper raises questions regarding how he in exploring Korea, reevaluates non-Western cultures with a reflective consciousness, acknowledging and respecting the values and heritage inherent in this culture.

Rebel without a Cause? Robert de Ferrers III and the Barons’ War in the Midlands, 1263–1265

ABSTRACT Robert de Ferrers III, the sixth earl of Derby, is generally considered an outlier in the events of the civil war in England between 1264 and 1266. His involvement in the rebellion centred on Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, has been widely interpreted as driven by self-interest and aggrandisement, defined by unorthodox levels of violence and lawlessness. This paper offers a comprehensive analysis of Robert’s involvement in the rebellion across the Midlands in 1264, and places the surviving evidence within its wider contexts. In doing so, it shows that Ferrers’ activities during 1264 were much more aligned with the baronial faction’s strategic interests than is generally understood, and his behaviour was far from unorthodox. Through this analysis, the paper also illuminates how the chronicler William Rishanger’s influence among modern historians is due a correction.

Too Muchness, the Surplus of Immanence, Manatheism

This paper tries to provide some clues and red threads through the magisterial work of Eric Santner. The first part takes the point of departure in his book on Schreber (My Own Private Germany) and tries to lay down a basic narrative that subtends most of Santner’s work and can be encapsulated by “the secret history of modernity.” This narrative is briefly spelled out through the relationship of Schreber the father (the “surplus father” as the continuation of the enlightenment), Doctor Flechsig (the seminal representative of the modern university discourse), and Schreber the son, the embodiment of the symptom of the progress of modernity. The second part of the paper scrutinizes three interrelated concepts proposed by Santner, too muchness, the surplus of immanence, and manatheism, which provide conceptual tools to address the break of modernity. The three concepts are brought into relation with the historical placement of psychoanalysis in modernity, the dialectic of “what remains” and the emergence of the new, and finally with the nature of the exception pertaining to the notion of the surplus. The last part, “the punning of reason,” examines Santner’s frequent use of puns (“puncepts”) as a conceptual strategy to deal with the paradoxes of universality. Punning is taken not as an addition or embellishment but as a poignant way to propose a new status of universality, related to what Lacan named lalangue. The three different perspectives try to show the different ways by which Santner’s work addresses the core conundrums of modernity.