Historiographical Discourse Research Articles

Church and religious situation in the Ukraine: Trends 2019 - request for extension of questionnaires for sociological surveys

Recently the Razumkov Center published new sociological data “State and Church in Ukraine - 2019: results of the year and prospects of relations development” and organized a round table on “Religion and power in Ukraine: problems of relations”. This sociological data is an extremely important fixation of the empirical indicators of the religious situation in contemporary Ukraine. Analyzing them, we can see a clear correlation between faith, religious and church affiliation, and the experience and position of those interviewed. However, for further in-depth understanding of how religious and denominational identity and church affiliation correlate with event experience, prevailing historiographical discourse, life position, and civic consciousness, it would be worthwhile to expand the questionnaires. Undoubtedly, religion is a significant factor in shaping Ukraine's future. Especially the influence of church affiliation on social reality is noticeable in the situation of armed aggression against Ukraine of the Russian Federation, which does not neglect to use as a weapon in the information war a religious sermon in the temples of the subordinate Moscow center of the church. That is why it is so important to systematically monitor the correlation of religious and ecclesiastical affiliations with world-view parameters and real events in the context of which transformations of the religious situation and socio-state-church relations take place.Current trends in religious change clearly include factors that are reflected in sociological research (such as a decline in the Church's recognition of moral authority is an indication of the spread and affirmation of secular tendencies and the activation of secular ideology in conjunction with cultural and world-view circumstances of the Church. and confessions turned out to be unsolicited, irrelevant, ineffective, incompetent, etc.) and factors that went unaddressed due to the fact that previous questionnaires did not contain questions that Anish not issued to date. Therefore, it is time to complete the questionnaires to explain the jumps unexpected in terms of previous sociological data.
 The information age updates additional parameters: here it is necessary to find out the relation of religious, civil, state systems with the information environment, to understand how specific information flows influence the spread of confessional, religious, civilizational and other discourses. Another block of issues that need to be covered in future polls is to find out the level, form and type of religiosity not only in relation to religious, denominational and ecclesiastical affiliations, but also in the value-meaning parameters of the consciousness of believers / non-believers in Ukraine.
 After all, religion is not only a religious activity, which is evidenced in the attendance at worship and financial support of the church, but also a vital position in accordance with the values and guidelines of the basic religion / denomination / church. Under these circumstances, a partial decrease in trust in the church as a moral authority will also be understandable. What will be manifested is the type of consciousness of the "Soviet human" brought up during the totalitarian-Soviet era. We assume that the transformation of the ideology of militant secularism into a quasi-religion of vulgar utilitarianism can partly explain the current world outlook in Ukraine.

The “Feigned Conversion of Constantine” in Early Islamic Literature

This article focuses on the literary motif of Constantine’s artful conversion to Christianity in the context of Early Islamic literature. While it is reasonable to expect that this particular way of presenting Constantine’s approach to religion would have proven useful in the context of polemical literature against Christianity, this article aims to show that his conversion also appeared in literary settings different from a strictly theological one. Alongside the polemical work of ʿAbd al-Ǧabbār, the article presents the terms in which the figure of Constantine and his conversion were appropriated within the works of al-Masʿūdī and Miskawayh. In these two particular authors the story of Constantine’s conversion is relevant to problems peculiar not to the apologetic but rather to historiographical and ethical discourses. Constantine therefore stands as a representative case in point for the diversified reception and adaptation of Late Antiquity’s legacy within the emerging Islamicate world.

Self-organization of public life of the Ukrainian people in the second half of the XIXth – the beginning of the XXth century: historiographical map

The article analyzes the state of the study in the contemporary historiographical discourse of the problem of self-organization of Ukrainian public life in the second half of the ХІХth – the beginning of the XXth century. It has been found that democratization of the political system and renewal of the methodological tools provided an opportunity for historians to view the social life of the given historical period on the basis of a synergistic methodology of self-organization of social systems. It has been discovered that the historiographical position on the dynamics of social self-organization of the Ukrainians ranging from cultural life to the institution of political parties is considered legitimate among scholars. It has been proved that in contemporary historiography the processes of the contemporary self-organization of the Ukrainian society are considered in three specific historical areas, namely socio-civic, national-political and spiritual-cultural, the relationship between which was sometimes both consistent and synchronous. The development of them demonstrated the emergence of new organizational forms of social self-organization and institutionalization of civil society and political system in Ukraine in the XIXth century. Studying both theoretical and methodological, as well as definite historical dimensions of the Ukrainian national movement, the researchers agree that the cultural and educational content of national revival under the influence of objective circumstances has evolved into political one. Much attention is given to the analysis of the historians’ vision of the content of socio-civic self-organization, which was represented by the development of public organizations and movements grounded on the ideas of civil society but lacked political requirements. Among them scientists single out such factors as hlopomanstvo, social movement, organization "Prosvita", the establishment of Shevchenko scientific society, the publication of socially significant newspapers and journals ("Gromada", "Kievskaia Starina", "Delo", "Zoria"), the establishment of a cooperative movement ("Dnister", "The farmer"). The dynamics of the social organization have determined the politicization of the national movement, which allows scientists to speak about national and political self-organization. Establishment of political parties, active participation of the Ukrainians in the activities of the imperial representative bodies of the government, the spread of social and democratic political ideology, the emergence of political leadership and others are considered its institutional representatives. Researchers emphasize that in the late ХІХth and early XXth centuries, national revival entered the political stage, which became a prerequisite for the beginning of the Ukrainian National Democratic Revolution of 1917–1921. It has been found out that the concept "self-organization" reveals the essence of the socio-political and socio-cultural processes of the time, since the Ukrainians established cultural and educational societies, public organizations and political parties contrary to the imperial and anti-Ukrainian policy of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires. It was outlined that the spiritual and cultural aspects of self-organization were illustrated by the activities of Ukrainian cultural and educational societies, the development of Ukrainian periodicals, the commemoration of the anniversaries of Ukrainian writers and artists, the activities of Ukrainian theater, etc.

Figuras autoficcionales de la “memoria herida” en la dramaturgia argentina posdictatorial

En las diferentes cartografías de la dramaturgia argentina posdictatorial es factible observar, entre múltiples lineamientos poéticos, un eje morfotemático constante: la indagación en la “memoria herida” (Ricoeur) según las representaciones genealógicas de los vínculos madre/hija o abuela/nieta. Estas relaciones intersubjetivas se proyectan, por ejemplo, en prácticas teatrales autoficcionales, cristalizadas en identidades femeninas que operan como puentes estéticos hacia lo ominoso del tiempo pasado. Por consiguiente, este artículo se propone analizar y comparar –desde una perspectiva descentralizada– los procedimientos dramatúrgicos y figuras autoficcionales representativas de dos regiones marginales en los discursos historiográficos dominantes: 1) en el Noreste Argentino, la obra Jamuychis… el grito (2002) de Patricia García y Flavia Molina; 2) en la Patagonia Argentina, el texto de Pewma-Sueño (2007) de Miriam Álvarez. Este estudio permitirá reconocer los posicionamientos identitarios y poéticos de mujeres artistas que optan por estrategias escénicas de autoficción, con el fin de comprender –según palabras de Ricoeur– aquel pasado que se confunde con el presente.

“Accidental Nations,” “Nations in the Making”: James Bryce’s Colonialist Interpretation of Latin American Nations

The political and historiographical discourses of the British intellectual and traveler James Bryce (1838–1922) have been characterized as representative of the late-Victorian liberal thought. Following this interpretative framework, scholarship has focused on the analysis of the key principles of Bryce’s liberal ideology, such as “self-government”, “democracy” and “international law.” This article examines a scarcely discussed aspect of the Brycean discourses: their colonialist imprint, which is particularly evident in Bryce’s historical-political interpretations of Latin American nations. This article contends that in his work South America: Observations and Impressions (1912), Bryce built a scientific discourse, a knowledge that, framed in late-Victorian British liberal nationalism and imperial liberalism, inferiorized and discredited Latin American nations and justified the economic and cultural dominance that the European civilization, and in particular, the British Empire, exercised over them.

Apostles of Empire: The Jesuits and New France by Bronwen Mcshea

Reviewed by: Apostles of Empire: The Jesuits and New France by Bronwen Mcshea Christopher M. Parsons Apostles of Empire: The Jesuits and New France. By Bronwen McShea. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2019. 360 pp. ISBN 978-1-4962-0890-3. $60.00 (hardcover). In Apostles of Empire: The Jesuits and New France, Bronwen McShea has written a must read for scholars of early America and the early modern Atlantic world. Bringing wide reading in early modern French political and social history to the history of the Society of Jesus' missions to colonial French North America, McShea provides a necessary Atlantic perspective to what are often framed as American histories. When McShea explains in her introduction that "The Jesuits of New France, in short, were men planted knee-deep in an untidy world of politics, social pressures, and war" (p. xxvii), she succinctly announces the major thematic interests of Apostles of Empire. Indeed, as the book proceeds through chronological narrative of the Society of Jesus' mission to French North America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, individual chapters highlight moments in the mission's history where the Jesuits' attention to the social and political contexts of metropolitan France directly shaped their missionary practice in the New World. In an early chapter "Rescuing the 'Poor Miserable Savage'," for example, McShea skillfully traces out the particularly French valences of the Jesuits' conception of poverty. Only [End Page 809] by understanding how Jesuits identified "a lack of infrastructure compared to urban France" can we make sense of their deep interest in native foods and housing (p. 37). Similarly, a later chapter "Crusading for Iroquois Country" reveals how scholarly focus on Jesuit celebration of suffering has overlooked "the missionaries' primarily positive—sometimes theologically validated—posture towards offensive, not only defensive, war again those seen as enemies of French expansion and Catholicism in America." (p. 130) The focus of the book weighs towards the seventeenth century, but by including a wide range of other printed and archival materials produced by the missionaries in the eighteenth century, McShea's work is able to provide a broader temporal overview than is often the case in histories of the Jesuit missions to North America. McShea writes commandingly and beautifully and it is this focus on a readable and engaging chronological narrative that makes Apostles of Empire such a success. As somebody who spent many of their Sundays as a child at a church named Canadian Martyrs staring at stained-glass depictions of Brébeuf and Jogues, I knew precisely what she meant when she states in her introduction that "the Jesuits of New France remain trapped in iconic tableaux." (p. xx) Since those days, I have read a lot of histories of New France and these missionaries in particular, and they have never come to life for me in the way that they do here. Paul Le Jeune, in particular, jumps from the page with personality and a social history that makes so much of what he accomplished as a missionary understandable. Apostles of Empire, and particularly its earliest chapters, would make a supremely teachable book and has real crossover appeal for a broader body of readers among an interested public. Nonetheless, this commitment to a readable narrative will limit its contributions to scholars of this period. Aside from a historiographical introduction and occasionally vague gestures to a academic debate throughout the text, readers will struggle to understand Apostles of Empire's historiographical context. Some of this likely results from McShea's summaries of existing literature that simplify complex fields and do little to highlight the unique contributions of her work. The claim that discussions of French Jesuits in North America manifest a "perduring Americentrism" (p. xxii) is not entirely wrong, but overlooks and undervalues the work of scholars such as Allan Greer and Dominique Deslandres—among others—who have made good faith efforts to write Atlantic histories of Jesuit thought and practice. If the author has legitimate critiques, she should state them clearly, but to simply deny their existence does her work and its readers a disservice. Now, not every book needs to have historiographical discussions in the [End Page 810] body of its text, but McShea...

Supreme Injustice: Slavery in the Nation’s Highest Court by Paul Finkelman

Reviewed by: Supreme Injustice: Slavery in the Nation’s Highest Court by Paul Finkelman Dinah Mayo Supreme Injustice: Slavery in the Nation’s Highest Court. By Paul Finkelman. The Nathan I. Huggins Lectures. (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press, 2018. Pp. [xii], 287. $35.00, ISBN 978-0-674-05121-8.) In addition to editing, coediting, and cowriting volumes on topics in U.S. cultural, political, and legal history, Paul Finkelman is the author of several books on the politics of slavery. In Supreme Injustice: Slavery in the Nation’s Highest Court, he turns to the proslavery decisions of Chief Justice John Marshall, Associate Justice Joseph Story, and Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, the U.S. Supreme Court’s most famous antebellum jurists. Although historians have looked closely at Taney’s superfluously racist defense of slavery in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), Finkelman maintains that that case was the culmination of proslavery judgments that began in 1801. Together the justices facilitated the deterioration of sectional harmony and, by extension, the deaths of more than 600,000 Americans. Any of them could have, Finkelman argues, taken advantage of language in the Constitution that could have been used to combat slavery, protect the rights of free African Americans, and effectuate a peaceful, political resolution of slavery. Finkelman provides concise yet informative examinations of the justices’ proslavery jurisprudence through case law, statutes, speeches, letters, archival and historical society collections, newspapers, and scholarly literature. Each chapter contains a short biography and a historiographical discussion that explain how historians have insulated Marshall, Story, and to an extent, Taney from slavery. This trend is especially odd in Marshall’s case, since he was a Virginia slaveholder who crafted jurisprudence that protected criminal slave traders, wrote court opinions to reverse successful lower court freedom suits, sending freed persons back to slavery, and belonged to the American Colonization Society. Story was more complex. He was a New Englander, did not own slaves, and publicly opposed slavery. His time on the Court began during Marshall’s tenure and ended nearly a decade after Taney’s appointment in 1836. Even Story’s early opinions while he was on the Court opposed slavery, including a vote to free the Amistad Africans. However, Story’s ruling in Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842) nationalized slavery and left free African Americans open to kidnapping. He was labeled the “slave-catcher-in-chief” by abolitionists (p. 170). Taney, like Marshall, was a southern slaveholder who was castigated for the Dred Scott decision. But Taney even experienced a brush with scholarly expiation in the early twentieth century, when historians tried to revise his image. Finkelman debunks these revisions by presenting the proslavery decisions and racist statements that Taney made throughout his career. A welcomed addition is Finkelman’s exposure of Taney’s flawed historical thinking in his Dred Scott opinion. Regrettably, history is still often viewed through a lens that ignores the diverse history of the founding, which included [End Page 155] African Americans’ right to vote in several states and the antislavery position of many of the Framers. Supreme Injustice accomplishes its primary goal by exposing how each justice furthered the interests of slavery. It also introduces readers to freed persons, slaveholders, governors, kidnappers, and abolitionists to exemplify the human cost of Supreme Court rulings. General readers, college students, and professional historians will gain a deeper understanding of the Court and the crisis over slavery. Yet the book is not without shortcomings. Finkelman never fully explains how the justices, especially the slave owners, could have drawn antislavery conclusions from a proslavery Constitution. Additionally, conclusions about Story’s views of Virginians and his transformation from an antislavery to a proslavery position are less than satisfying. In the chapter dedicated to Story, Finkelman determines that Story’s nationalism and fears over disunion instigated the justice’s proslavery rulings after the Nullification Crisis of 1832–1833. However, in the book’s coda, Finkelman questions the validity of a similar interpretation offered by a leading biographer of Story. These flaws do not diminish the book’s contributions. Supreme Injustice is readable, well-documented, and amply researched scholarship that offers a fresh look at the nineteenth-century Supreme Court, with...

HISTORY OF LITERATURE OR PHILOLOGICAL STUDIES: TEXTBOOKS OF UKRAINIAN LITERATURE IN THE 19TH CENTURY IN THE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM

The article explores the theoretical and practical principles of Ukrainian literature histories in the context of pan-European historiographical traditions. The study's subject is histories of literature, which are an integral part of Western scientific thought and hold an important place in the history of national and European university literary studies of the nineteenth century are outlined, the histories of education. The stages of the development of the literary history of the world Ukrainian literature are analyzed and systematized in typological comparisons characteristics, criteria for selecting texts, author's interpretations, with European concepts. The difference between the historiographical studies of literature and the textbooks, which is primarily reflected in formal conceptual approaches, and methodological base, is revealed. The basis of and interdependence. The genealogical and genre features of Ukrainian literary historiographical studies is the identification of the intrinsic connection between literary history, philosophy, and history, the study of their interdependence studies are considered. The author pays attention to the methodological planes realities. The advantages and disadvantages of literary histories, reviews, and and vectors of the study of historiographical discourse. The article describes the main achievements of historians of the literature of the 19th century, comprehensively defines the methodology of creating an integrated and scientific evidence corpus of Ukrainian literature history in contemporary of university literary education and the creation of a pan-European cultural holistic syntheses of Ya. Holovatskyi, P. Kulish, M. Petrov, M. Dashkevych, I. Franko are analyzed not only in the paradigm of Ukrainian literary historiography but also in the process of integration of Ukraine into the worldeducational space. The historiography has great importance in the development discourse. Keywords: history of literature, historiography, history of ideas, textbooks, methodology of literary studies, university education.

Evocações históricas do liberalismo em Raul Brandão

The purpose of this article, in the context of the celebration of centenarians, is to reflect, crossing historical and literary studies on the singularity they bring to the contemporary historiographic discourse of Portuguese liberalism, the works of historical matrix and modernity of the writer Raul Brandão, intellectual of transition and rupture between two centuries, which continue to challenge us today. It focuses, in an interdisciplinary perspectve, on the Brandonian corpus of historical component and documentary rigor. El -rei Junot, 1817-Gomes Freire de Andrade, and Preface and Notes to O Siege of Porto, published works between 1912 and 1915, a stage of literary and civic maturity of the author, which involve political-military events of social relevance in the construction of our liberalism, a troubled historical of affirmation of freedoms. The analyzed corpus proves in a rigorous and detailed way, the innovative idea of writing and historical worldview of the writer from Porto, constituting a good contribution to the study of Raul Brandão's work and liberalism itself

Этническая история восточных славян в зеркале современной историографии (Ивангородской К. В. Этническая история восточных славян в современной историографии (украинский, белорусский и российский дискурсы). – Черкассы: Изд. Ю. Чабаненко, 2018. – 422 с.)

The article reviews Konstantin Ivangorodsky's monograph on the analysis of the ethnic history of the East Slavs in contemporary Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian historiographical discourses. The article analyses the structure of the book, content, its theoretical and methodological foundations. The innovative moments of the book were highlighted as well. The article notes discussed issues and the points that the author could have mentioned. It has been concluded that K. Ivangorodsky's monograph is a prominent phenomenon of modern historical science: it is diverse and it impresses with an extensive historiographic material that was collected and elaborated. The monograph's conclusions provide a qualitatively new understanding of the specifics of the interdisciplinary perception of the East Slavs ethnic history problems in Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian historiographies.

The religious aspect of political repression against the population of Western Ukraine (1939–1989) in contemporary domestic historiographical discourse

The religious aspect of political repression against the population of Western Ukraine (1939–1989) in contemporary domestic historiographical discourse

«Expelled from Livonia»: Towards the issue of the arrangement of landowners of «Old» and «New German towns» after the Plyussa Treaty 1583

History of Muscovite estate shaping in “German towns” in 1550s–1580s is closely connected with Novgorod, Pskov, Rzheva Pustaya as servicemen communities. These servicemen were the source for new landowners in the lands taken by Muscovites to the West from Narova river. Only Rzheva Pustaya was more or less studied already. The paper is an attempt to generalize the data on number and personal content of “German towns” landowners (mostly on sources of 1582) and to study the issue of the significance of the experience of making estates in Livonian lands for the day-to-day culture of Muscovite servicemen. Geography of Russian landownership in Livonia is under consideration. Also the historiographical discussions of the reasons of Russian Livonia project fail is studied in the article. Special attention is paid to the issue of Muscovite landowners evacuation from Livonia after military defeats of 1580–1582. Record books of Rzheva Pustaya and Novgorod Vodskaya pyatina included notes of the towns and districts in Livonia that have been left by the landowners. Other record books of North-Western Muscovy only mention the new strata of servicemen “new landowners of German towns”. Special groups of “Rugodiv and Juryev newly baptized [tartars]” and “Cossacks from Govye” were also separately mentioned in the record books. In the last period of Livonian War not only Livonia itself but also some border districts of former Novgorod land were left by Muscovites. In 1582–1583 the Moscow Government also took responsibility for the landowners from that lost districts. V. A. Arakcheev noted the order on the land security of those servicemen issued between January 23 and March 4, 1583. In early 1580s the landowners of “German towns” received estates in “abandoned lands”. Later Court lands were spread between them.

A escrita da história e a ação como “obra aberta” ante as “perspectivas cruzadas”

O presente artigo discute sobre o caráter aberto que Ricœur, em sua obra A memória, a história, o esquecimento (2001), mantém para a questão da validade da historiografia enquanto saber científico. O fato de Ricoeur não objetivar um consenso que valide a historiografia, no sentido epistemológico, pode desanimar um leitor historiador. No entanto, o dissensus que se reflete na falta de um método paradigmático, de um significado unívoco e de uma categoria fundamental da investigação historiográfica, em Ricoeur, não condena a historiografia à impossibilidade. Ao invés disso, o presente texto tem o objetivo de justificar o caráter “aberto” da historiografía, exposto por Ricoeur na obra aqui citada, apresentando a necessidade das “perspectivas cruzadas” para a relação da historiografia com o debate público. Essa discussão desemboca nas implicações éticas e políticas do discurso historiográfico.

Tocqueville, religión y orden constitucional en América

This article addresses Tocqueville’s position on the role of religion in the democratic society of the 19th century through the lens of two connected debates: (i) historiographical discussions concerning the functionality of religion in Tocqueville’s thought, and (ii) discussions on Tocqueville’s position on the need of a civil religion. More specifically, this article brings up a paradox underlying Tocqueville’s work: while defending a strict separation between the State and the Church –religion and politics–, on the one hand, he affirms that religion is the first political institution in democratic societies, on the other. Through the analysis of Democracy in America in its final and draft versions, plus the analysis of Tocqueville’s private correspondence, a wider issue is tackled: i. e., the role that religion as the basis of customs plays in Tocqueville in the formation of laws and the preservation of freedom in a democratic constitutional order.

From history to strategy: Jacob Viner’s “Power versus Plenty” (1948) in international context

ABSTRACT The standard interpretation of Jacob Viner’s seminal essay on mercantilism, ‘Power versus Plenty’ (1948), locates it within a prolonged discussion over economic theory, historiography, and policy that originated from the late nineteenth century. Challenging this temporal context conventionally assumed, this article argues that Viner’s historical study is best understood in close relation with his preoccupations in the 1940s: U.S. grand strategy. Specifically, it examines the interplay of historiographical and foreign policy discourses in the 1940s by tracing the trajectory of Viner’s intellectual enterprise from history to strategy of economic statecraft. By surveying the forgotten origins of ‘Power versus Plenty’ in the years between 1944 and 1946, it shows that Viner’s rationale in writing the essay went beyond his scholarly interest in the past. His ultimate aim was to support the new interventionist argument that power politics was indispensable to realise the liberal internationalist vision of world order. In fact, Viner made active use of history not only to shape the strategic vision of U.S. foreign policy, but also police the boundaries of realistic foreign policy. This allowed him to discredit the socialist internationalist critique against the Truman Doctrine and to put financial power at the crux of U.S. grand strategy.

The Headman, the Regent and the ‘Long Walk to Freedom’

This posthumously published article was completed by Philip Bonner (d.2017) in 2010 as a longer paper commissioned by the Nelson Mandela Foundation. To our knowledge, it has not been published, and we have edited it, with permission, into a suitable form for a journal article. This has involved shortening, reducing some of the extended historiographical discussion and cutting some of the informal writing. Bonner was initially asked to investigate possible discrepancies between passages in the early sections of Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, A Long Walk to Freedom, and the archival records that have survived. He found valuable information about Mandela’s father, Gadla Henry Mandela, and Mandela’s guardian, Jongintaba or David Dalindyebo. These flesh out considerably the material in existing published sources, including Long Walk, about the political context of Mandela’s childhood and youth. Bonner tries to resolve some chronological problems in family memory, as reported in Long Walk, and to explain certain stories in this text. He explores in detail the context of Gadla Henry Mandela’s dismissal as headman and the decline of family fortunes, and Jongintaba’s appointment as regent of the Thembu. In the process, Bonner makes important general arguments about the significance of land and succession disputes in Transkeian politics at this time (c.1920–1940), as well as the frequency and character of regencies in southern African kingdoms. He also touches on the language of witchcraft in local politics. The article adds to knowledge about Thembu politics during Mandela’s youth, analyses the oral memory reported in Long Walk and contributes to the historiography both of Mandela and of Transkeian society.

Question about the Ethics of Yalta Agreements in 1945. Archaeology of Power in Historiographical Discourses

The Crimea (Yalta) Conference is by all means an extremely complex historical event. Any attempt to estimate its role and significance without analyzing its ethical components would unavoidably result in unduly simplifying the historical reality of the time, as well as in forming erroneous assumptions that would necessarily be used in the analysis of the causes of Cold War. A thorough examination will show that as far as the ‘ethical’ issues are concerned, there are significant developments with regard to general methodology, as well as its application to the sources. Generations of historians who have addressed the issue of Yalta Conference, although they have not been able to form a scientific, distinct ‘ethical’ tradition so far, have developed all the necessary prerequisites for its establishment. This is evident in the possibility of segmenting the issue in two parts on the one hand, and on the other in the availability of sufficient sources, structured databases, and selected outstanding works. Still, there are no studies about the Yalta Conference so far that address exclusively ethical issues concerning ‘good’ and ‘evil,’ ‘morality,’ ‘duty,’ and ‘honor.’ Although historiographical approaches are to a large extent dependent upon ethical viewpoints, in the case of Yalta agreements so far there have been no techniques available, so as to connect historical accounts with ideology, and historical facts with their philosophical background. In a sense, the situation is quite the same as it is with the study of prehistory: although there is an abundance of data and facts that can be primarily processed, there are no methodological guidelines, nor any devices to classify and explain them. This is also typical for any question raised about the ethics of the Yalta agreements in February 1945.

Early Islamic Cosmopolitanism? Constructing the ?<i>Umma</i> of India in Pre-Mongol Muslim Scholarship

This article analyzes possible avenues for the study of a pre-Mongol Islamic cosmopolitanism. The ways in which the archetypically idolatrous land of India is treated by Islamicate thinkers of the ?Abbasid empire and after illuminates an Islamic cosmopolitanism that managed to incorporate the other into its view of human history and religious history. Two major fields for the generation of cosmopolitan ideas are analyzed: narratives drawn from historiography, and taxonomies erected by theological-heresiographical works. Both frameworks rely on a Muslim model of history and society in which divine truth and guidance are mediated to the communities (?umma, ?umam) of the world firstly by a prophet, but also by sages and philosopher-kings: figures who play important roles in Muslim accounts of India. Through applying these “universal” categories to Indian subject-matter, Muslim thinkers were able to depict Indians as partners in the human struggle to attain and preserve truth, albeit falling short of the Muslim community in various ways. In both the historiographical and the heresiographical fields, cosmopolitan and anti-cosmopolitan trends are observable. By incorporating Indian narratives into a universalizing historical vision, Mas??d? can best be seen to approach a cosmopolitan sensibility among thinkers within historiographic discourse. B?r?n? goes furthest among the thinkers working within a theological-heresiographical framework in analogizing Indian philosophy with Muslim thought. It is argued that both thinkers achieve a kind of cosmopolitanism only through an elitist denigration of the commoners of their communities. In addition, their cosmopolitanism was predicated on imperial expansionism into India.

La esclavitud, la abolición y los afrodescendientes: memoria histórica y construcción de identidades en la prensa mexicana, 1840-1860

Por medio del análisis de la prensa mexicana entre las décadas de 1840 y 1860, este estudio demuestra que los afrodescendientes, la esclavitud y la abolición siguieron siendo temas de interés público después de la independencia. La discusión de estos temas en los periódicos de la época tuvo usos políticos al contribuir en la formación de identidades relacionadas con la ciudadanía y también, a nivel macro, de la creación de una memoria histórica regional y transnacional. Al usar la prensa como fuente principal, este trabajo revela las formas en que México fue partícipe de los debates sobre la esclavitud y la abolición en el mundo atlántico de la época, a la vez que resalta la contribución de los periódicos mexicanos en la formulación de las ideas de Hispanoamérica y Latinoamérica. Por medio de estos planos analíticos, el artículo contribuye a la discusión historiográfica que ha dado visibilidad a la presencia de la esclavitud y los afrodescendientes en México, expandiendo el periodo de estudio de la ampliamente estudiada época virreinal a la republicana.

El gen histórico de la rebeldía. Sangre, historia y memorias en la persistencia omaguaca (Jujuy, Argentina)

En este artículo se analizan los modos en que un pueblo indígena de las tierras altas de Jujuy (Argentina) recurre al pasado prehispánico y colonial como locus que legitima sus prácticas y proyectos políticos. Para ello establece una filiación histórico-genética con sus ancestros prehispánicos, apelando a la posesión de un común acervo heredado por sangre, y a la autoridad historiográfica que reprodujo por al menos un siglo los discursos sobre su bravura presentes en las crónicas españolas del siglo xvi. Para el análisis se abordan dos registros: 1) las crónicas y fuentes históricas que entre fines del siglo xvi y principios del xvii describieron a los indígenas de la región, junto a los discursos arqueológicos e historiográficos que tres siglos después reprodujeron o cuestionaron estas caracterizaciones bravías; 2) la actualización de tales descripciones en el presente a través del análisis de las narrativas y materialidadades que ofician de soportes de las memorias y del linaje omaguaqueño.