Isabel De Research Articles

Isabel de Villena and her family: a biographical reappraisal

This article aims to systematize the last decades’ historiographical contributions on the life of Isabel de Villena. In the first section it is shown that, far from being a helpless orphan, Enric de Villena’s daughter could rely on a significant net of uncles, aunts and cousins, which helps understand the author’s choice of Franciscanism. The second section analyzes the true reasons why Isabel de Villena, who possessed an important fortune, was brought up in queen Maria’s court when her father, who had been exiled by the Trastamara brothers, died: as the daughter of the last legitimate male descendant of one of the claimants of the throne of Aragon in the aftermath of Marti l’Huma’s death, her future had to be carefully monitored.

Isabel de Madariaga (1919–2014)

Occasionally, the scholarly world is disturbed by the publication of a book so controversial that it shoots over the historiographical landscape like a comet, leaving trails of sparks behind it in the form of heated discussion and reviews. All too frequently, however, such books soon crash to earth, leaving posterity to wonder what all the fuss was about. Rather less often, a work appears that so transforms our understanding of its subject that it leaves a permanent imprint on everything written in its wake. Isabel de Madariaga's Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great is just such a book. Universally acknowledged as a classic on its first publication in 1981, it was reissued in 1990 by Yale University Press, translated into many other languages (the Russian edition appeared in 2002), and is still in print in a variety of paperback editions. (1) Few historical monographs published in the last 50 years can claim the same longevity; fewer still have had quite such a revolutionary effect on their field. Ignored by the historical establishment on both sides of the Iron Curtain and mocked by generations of popular biographers as a libertine and a hypocrite, Catherine was portrayed instead by de Madariaga as one of Russia's most sophisticated rulers--a tolerant and engaging woman determined, despite the many obstacles in her way, to establish both Russia's place in European civilization and its status as a European great power. Indeed, it was the links that the author established between these aims that gave the book its explanatory power. For this was no ordinary and times: it was a full-scale reinterpretation of the significance of the second half of the 18th century for modern Russian history, placing culture at the heart of an integrated analysis of government, politics, society, and the economy. In the light of the astonishing levels of productivity that Isabel de Madariaga maintained in the last 30 years of her life, it is not always easy to remember that Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great marked the crown of a distinctly unconventional career. Not until 1982, a year after the book's publication, was its author promoted to a personal chair at London University's School of Slavonic and East European Studies, where she had been appointed to a Readership--her first permanent academic post--only in 1971. Academic life had not been made easy for her, and she sometimes made it hard for others by seeming aloof and intimidating. She had few research students before she retired in 1984 at the age of 65, at a time when 60 was the standard retirement age for women. The most notable of her pupils were Janet M. Hartley and Pia Pera, who found it amusing that her supervisor should compliment her on the elegance of her spoken Italian. With celebrity, however, came a degree of relaxation, and in the autumn of her life, when at last it seemed that Russia might be accepted as part of Europe, as de Madariaga had always been convinced it should be, she was feted by scholars there in a way that had seemed impossible to predict for much of the 20th century. Born in Glasgow, where her mother, the economic historian Constance Archibald (1878-1970) had graduated in 1905 and seven years later married a Spanish engineer, Salvador de Madariaga (1886-1978), Isabel had an exceptionally cosmopolitan upbringing as the family followed her father's burgeoning new career as diplomat and liberal statesman. Between 1921 and 1928, Salvador de Madariaga was attached to the League of Nations in Geneva. In 1928, he became the first King Alfonso XIII Professor of Spanish Literature at Oxford before moving briefly in 1931 to the United States of America as ambassador for the Spanish Republic. While he remained as Spain's permanent representative to the League of Nations, there followed a two-year spell as ambassador in Paris and another as a government minister in Madrid before civil war forced the family into permanent exile in England. …

Las infantas Isabel Clara Eugenia y Catalina Micaela: modelos de la perfecta princesa educada e instruida

The infants Isabel Clara Eugenia and Catalina Micaela de Habsburgo y Valois, embodied, with their culture and distinction, the model of the well educated princess. Daughters of Philip II and Isabel de Valois, they received a careful education, reflection of the power of the absolute monarch Philip II. Therefore, this article analyses the education of the infants, their knowledge, their virtues and the manners that exalted the figure of the Infanta of Spain and the institution she personified.

The Fabric of Marian Devotion in Isabel de Villena’s Vita Christi by Lesley K. Twomey (review)

The Fabric of Marian Devotion in Isabel de Villena’s Vita Christi by Lesley K. Twomey (review)

The Position of the Body in the Poetry of Isabel de Sá

Taking into consideration some of the comments made across the years concerning the poetry of Isabel de Sa, a critical review by Eduardo Pitta asks for renewed attention: “Fazendo nossas as palavras de Fernando Guimaraes, podemos incluir I. de Sa naquele nucleo de autores que propiciam o entendimento de ‘algumas das novas direccoes da nossa poesia actual’”. Eduardo Pitta’s citation of Guimaraes’ remark in his review (Pitta 1989) of Escrevo para Desistir (1988) raises the question of what new direction Isabel de Sa was leading contemporary Portuguese poetry intoto. And whether this remark now, more than two decennia later, still holds value. Although it is not the aim of this essay to evaluate the effect of Isabel de Sa’s poetry, written during the past 28 years, on Portuguese poetry as a whole, I would like to examine the possible value of the quoted remark today. In order to do so, I will concentrate on the poems of Isabel de Sa that were published in O Brilho da Lama (1999). A work that has recently been collected, together with Isabel de Sa’s former poetry since 1979, in Repetir o Poema (2005). In order to justify the relevance of the subject of this article, I will first indicate the actual position of her poetry in relation to contemporary Portuguese poetry. Secondly, I will point out which problem de Sa’s poetry confronts, in my opinion, in the context of the problem of representation. As I will argue, the visibility of the subject of her poetry forms the main challenge de Sa confronts. This will bring me to the main subject of the article: the struggle for representation. In this light I will demonstrate this struggle in Isabel de Sa’s poetry and consequently show the innovative character of the poems analyzed.

Isabel de Madariaga, FRHistS, FBA 27 August 1919–16 June 2014 Professor of Russian Studies, University of London, Corresponding Member of the Royal Spanish Academy

An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Evangelhos em feminino: interpretações de uma escritora medieval ibérica

Principalmente a partir do séc. XIII, as mulheres transformam-se em uma "questão" incômoda. Percebe-se um progressivo fechamento dos espaços a que elas tinham acesso mais livre, O mal-estar gerado por esse processo aguça o conflito entre os sexos, cuja maior expressão será a Querelle des Femmes.Isabel de Villena é uma representante ibérica desse movimento com sua obra Vita Christi.

Ramos de olivos, estrellas y espejos: la iconografía literaria de las damas de la corte de los Habsburgo en la poesía femenina de la temprana modernidad española

Seventeenth-century Spanish poets Clara de Barrionuevo y Carrion, Antonia de Nevares and Beatriz Jimenez Cerdan highlight in their sonnets addressed to the most outstanding women of the Habsburg courts the remarkable political role carried out by these exceptional ladies. In their poems, the authors seek to laud the figures of Margarita of Austria, Philip III′s wife, on the occasion of the birth of her son; Isabella of Bourbon, Philip IV′s spouse, after her death, and Isabel de Velasco, wife of the powerful Count-Duke of Olivares. These poets do not limit themselves to praising these ladies for their ability to provide their husbands with heirs. On the contrary, through the use of an imagery richer than that commonly used in the Baroque artistic works, the poets underline not just the moral qualities that adorn the ladies, and that coincide with the ideal of the good wife developed by Vives or Fray Luis de Leon, but also their diplomatic contributions to the country and to the Crown. In contrast to the limited iconography in the court portraits of these women painted by artists such as Pantoja de la Cruz and Velazquez, whose main objective was to register the royal dignity and high status of their models, the poets utilize images such as the olive branch, the diamond, the sun and the mirror in order to convey the sense of moral exemplarity and political savvy of these women whom they praise and with whom they aim to be associated.

Textual Translation/Textual Transformation of a Greek Pastoral Romance: The First Appearance of Longus’s Daphnis and Chloe in Golden-Age Spain

The Hellenistic Greek Romance Daphnis and Chloe was supposed to be unknown in sixteenth-century Spain. However, the Spanish romance of chivalry Lidamarte de Armenia (1568), by the minor Spanish humanist Damasio de Frias, contains a partial translation and adaptation of the first two books of that romance. Through a textual comparison with the Greek, French, Italian and neo-Latin texts (that last recently determined by the German Classicist Heinz Hofmann to be too late for a possible influence), I determined that Frias had used both the Greek and the French texts for his translation. Since Frias had probably studied Greek at the University of Salamanca, and was in the employ of the Admiral of Castile, one of the tutors of Prince don Carlos, at the time of Queen Isabel de Valois, wife of Philip II, the 2 texts would have been a natural choice for him.

Creative Translation in Medieval Catalan: Bernat Metge

Creativity in the translation of a literary work is as difficult to quantify as it is to define. Insofar as inuentio, dispositio, and elocutio play a part in such a process, the result is bound to ...

Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary: Women Seeing the Resurrection in Isabel de Villena’s Vita Christi and in the Vita Christi Tradition

Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary: Women Seeing the Resurrection in Isabel de Villena’s Vita Christi and in the Vita Christi Tradition Lesley K. Twomey This article sets out to explore in the context of the gaze how Sor Isabel de Villena approaches two post-Resurrection appearances of Christ in her Vita Christi. Sor Isabel was an illegitimate noblewoman, related to the royal families of Castile and Aragon, who became a Poor Clare nun and wrote her Vita Christi for the sisters in her charge in the Santa Trinitat convent in Valencia. Her lengthy narrative includes far more than a mere life of Christ, for it begins with the Conception of Mary and ends with her Coronation in heaven. Within it, Sor Isabel, like other writers in the Vita Christi tradition, shows Christ appearing first to the Virgin Mary and, then, to another Mary, the Magdalene.1 In this article, I will compare Sor Isabel’s version of Christ’s post-Resurrection appearances with how other writers in the same tradition narrate them only [End Page 321] to the extent that these cast light on how she approaches gaze.2 The earliest of the lives of Christ to which Sor Isabel had access in the convent is the Meditaciones Vite Christi (MVC) by John of Caulibus, who is thought to have written the MVC around 1300.3 She also had access to other Vitae Christi, such as that of the Carthusian Ludolph of Saxony (1300–68) and the Vida de Jesucrist by Francesc Eiximenis (1330–1409), a Franciscan.4 Eiximenis, like Sor Isabel, lived at court in Valencia. Sor Isabel knew Joan Roíç de Corella (1435–97), a Valencian nobleman, whose daughter was a nun in the Santa Trinitat convent (Ferrando Francés 169–71). He translated Ludolph the Carthusian’s Vita into Catalan and, although his fourth volume, Lo quart del Cartoxà, was published only in 1495, after Sor Isabel’s death, Albert Hauf i Valls speculates that she may have known a manuscript version.5 Sor Isabel de Villena was attuned to the sights and sounds around her in Valencia and drew upon them to frame her piety (Twomey The Fabric). Valencia was becoming an intensely visual society in the late-medieval period (Marsilla García 143) and, when she wrote, for instance of the colour [End Page 322] red, her narrative was influenced by the robes and hangings she saw in the convent church, as well as by the clothing worn by postulants, principally of noble background (Twomey, The Fabric 85–107), at the convent. When she wrote of the veil which the Virgin used to wrap the infant Christ or to cover his naked shame at the Crucifixion, she had in mind the fashionable veil or “tovallola” of the day (Twomey, The Fabric 78–81). It is hardly surprising that Isabel de Villena drank in the material she saw around her, for, in the Middle Ages, seeing was the main vehicle of salvation (Lentes 360–61) and visual piety was an essential tool for the Christian who wished to be assured of eternal life. Salvation was, for example, achieved through devotional gaze at the elevation of the Eucharist, on pious relics, or on icons.6 “Medieval objects were offered to the senses” (Pentcheva 1), as was meditative material. I have already discussed the veneration of Christ’s infant body by the Virgin Mary and its eucharistic overtones (The Fabric 68–74) and do not intend to repeat the same arguments here, however, in this article I will show how visual devotion informs the scenes in which Christ appears to his mother, Mary, and to Mary Magdalene, and I will argue that the appearances must be set within the context of visual piety.7 Medieval preachers argued that sight was to be guarded because the eye adapted to what it saw (Lentes 361). They distinguished between the eye of the body and the inner eye, which could be trained to respond to objects of visual piety to improve chances of salvation. Whilst Lentes concerns himself primarily with gazing on prayer books and religious icons, his typology of the gaze might provide a new insight into the...

The Voice of Europe Session at the 5th Annual Congress of the European Association of Societies of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (EASAPS)

On 30 September and 1 October 2011, the 4th European Association of Societies of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (EASAPS) meeting was held in the Italian city of Milano. The EASAPS meeting took place after the 60th Italian Society of Plastic, Reconstructive, and Aesthetic Surgery (SICPRE) Congress. Dr. Andrea Grisotti was President for both Congresses, and the events were developed at the Marriot Hotel. It is important to explain what the Voice of Europe is. Each country selects its best work in aesthetic plastic surgery, and these are then presented at the yearly EASAPS Congress. Such works are known as the Voice of Europe. During the Milano Congress, the Voices of Europe were presented. Each work’s quality, presentation, content, and development were assessed by all the Executive Committee members of EASAPS. Animation Deformities of the Pectoralis Muscle: The Cinderella of Submuscular Mammaplasty by M. Pelle Ceravolo, representing Italy, turned out to be the best work. This work was awarded with the first edition of the Ulrich Hinderer Prize, which was created to honour the memory of Professor Ulrich Hinderer. The EASAPS General Assembly, led by Professor Norbert Pallua (EASAPS President) and Professor Toma Mugea (EASAPS General Secretary), accepted the new-country members from Austria, Belgium, Belarus, Denmark, Greece, Georgia, and Ireland. At the same time, the Scientific Chairman (Dr. Isabel de Benito from Spain) and the Treasurer (Dr. Magnus Noah from Germany) were elected. The 5th EASAPS Congress (20 June 2012) will be held in Istanbul, and the 4th International Eurasian Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Course (16–19 June 2012) will take place there as well. Finally, it is important to note that the EASAPS still is growing regarding the number of countries, and very soon, all European countries will belong to the Association.

“Clinic laboratory accreditation with ISO 15189:2007 in the European Union”: report of the VI European symposium on clinical laboratory and in vitro diagnostic industry

In May 2011, the Catalan Association of Clinical Laboratory Sciences (ACCLC) organized in Barcelona the VI edition of the biennial European symposium ‘‘The clinical laboratory and in vitro diagnostic industry’’ dedicated to the clinical laboratories accreditation according to ISO 15189:2007 standard [1]. It was chaired by Dr. Xavier Fuentes-Arderiu and technically prepared by Dr. Francesca Canalias. Welcoming the participants, X. Fuentes-Arderiu remarked on the importance of these symposia to promote the dialogue between professionals of the clinical laboratory and those of the diagnostic in vitro industry, in view of their inseparable activities and similar challenges. Later, Isabel de la Villa-Porras, from the Spanish Entidad Nacional de Acreditacion y Certificacion (ENAC) gave an opening speech on the current state of accreditation with the standard ISO 15189:2007 in the European Union. There was a starting situation of heterogeneity between countries because of differences in standards, evaluation bodies, international recognition of them, and a degree of implementation of ISO/IEC 17025:2005, ISO 9001:2008 [2] or other standards. The ISO 15189:2007 offered a common standard, including management system requirements and technical competence requirements [1, 3], with a language relevant to clinical laboratories and that can be evaluated by accreditation bodies that are recognition based on multilateral recognition arrangements (MLA) [4]. The publication of the Regulation (EC) No 765/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council led to unifying the legislation of each state and to establishing requirements and authority of the national accreditation bodies. In Spain, the R.D. 1715/2010 designated ENAC as the accreditation body. ENAC performed a European survey that showed that most of the countries think that clinical laboratories would have to accredit all or part of their activity, in a voluntary manner or not, according to ISO 15189:2007 or ISO 17025:20005 standards. Although the number of clinical laboratories accredited according to the former standard has increased, this is difficult to quantify because of differences in the definitions of ‘‘clinical laboratory’’ (one or more centers and of very different sizes). The national accreditation bodies, assisted by national professional associations, should safeguard homogeneous interpretation of the standards, also in coordination with the international accreditation bodies. After this opening session, there were four round table discussions. The topics and results of which are reported in what follows. In each session, a moderator formulated a set of open questions; involving first the experts at the table and afterward addressing all participants present [5].

Isabel de Valois como esperanza de paz contra la herejía. Motivos del epitalamio en la oratio cristiana (1560) de Pedro del Frago

This paper offers a Latin poem written by Pedro del Frago, conceived like a Christian oratio, to celebrate Isabel de Valois’ arrival in Spain (1560). That poem is as a pretext for doing long annotations in which the author defends the Council of Trent and the Catholic struggle against the heresy. Frago has also introduced some topics of the epithalamium in the poem, perhaps under the influence of the humanist Diego de Guevara.

Florence Nightingale y Federico Rubio: reformadores de la Enfermería moderna española

The surgeon Federico Rubio-Gali is mentioned in connexion with Florence Nightingale. In different publications giving him a prominence in the development of the modern Spanish nursing profession. With this work we propose to analyze the influence that Nightingale could have had over Rubio-Gali. We want to analyse the life and works of the founder of the School of Nurses of Santa Isabel de Hungria establishing the intellectual temporary and spatial coincidences with the Lady of the Lamp. Our objective is to establish the parallelisms between both lives and examine the possible impact of Nightingale in the beginnings of the modern Spanish nursing. The analysis of primary and secondary documental sources was the technique chosen to compare the biography and works of Nightingale and Rubio-Gali. Some of the similarities founded, e.g. in the syllabuses of their respective schools and different health measures would confirm the influence of Nightingale in Rubio-Gali, nevertheless, only in Hernandez (1996), Nightingale is recognised as a key point in the contributions of Rubio-Gali.

A Companion to Spanish Women’s Studies (review)

Reviewed by: A Companion to Spanish Women’s Studies Anne M. Pasero De Ros, Xon, and Geraldine Hazbun, eds. A Companion to Spanish Women’s Studies. Woodbridge: Tamesis, 2011. xiv + 405 pp. In A Companion to Spanish Women’s Studies, editors Xon de Ros and Geraldine Hazbun, lecturers in Spanish literature at the University of Oxford, have provided the reader with an array of critical essays having in common their focus on Spanish women’s studies, but from a diversity of time periods, aspects, and perspectives. The editors affirm in their introduction that the collection presents a “a good range of models for scholarship and a sound insight into the main issues and recent critical debates in the field of women’s studies, showing its possibilities within the Spanish context and opening up avenues for further research” (4). As have many other studies following up on Beth Miller’s call to attention with her pioneering book (Women in Hispanic Literature: Icons and Fallen Idols, 1978), this one continues in the same direction but from a contemporary point of view, serving as a reference to and representation of important studies undertaken since, a “record of the present state of research” (22). The anthology consists of a collection of twenty-one essays divided into two sections, with the first ten articles focusing on Spanish women writers from the medieval and early modern period and the remaining eleven covering writers from the eighteenth century up to the present day. Chronology provides overall unity to the collection, rather than an emphasis on any one specific approach or discipline. Individual essays in themselves offer a variety of critical foci, ranging from literary criticism, to historical and sociological analysis, to an interdisciplinary cultural lens. Many of the contributors are already well known in the field of Spanish women’s studies and offer new, distinctive approaches: Lou Charnon-Deutsch on women and visual culture in nineteenth-century Spain, Margaret Greer on María de Zayas and “Carnal Knowledge,” Louise Haywood on “Choosing and Testing Spouses” in medieval literature, Susan Kirkpatrick on “Women as Cultural Agents in Spanish Modernity,” Frances Lannon on “Gender and Change” during the Second Republic, Roberta Quance on women artists and the “Theatricalized Self” from 1920 forward, Alison Sinclair on “Containment and Excess” in the nineteenth century, and Joyce Tolliver on “Politics and the Feminist Essay,” for example. The other authors included provide great promise as well in their innovative treatments: Andrew Beresford and Georgina Dopico-Black address the issues and problems of medieval and early modern female saints, the latter focusing on [End Page 378] St. Teresa and the “unstable body,” Nieves Baranda discusses male discourse in medieval women authors, and Mariana Masera also takes on the question of language and female voice in early lyric poetry. Difference is again the prominent question in the articles by Rosanna Cantavella, whose thesis is vindicating women through the unique figure and activities of Isabel de Villena, and Alexander Samson, who brings a fresh perspective to the age-old question of whether Spanish Golden Age female dramatists can be considered distinct. The editors themselves cross chronological boundaries in their essays, as Hazbun discusses female roles in medieval epic poetry and de Ros brings the reader up to the present with her piece on reading contemporary women’s autobiography. Going beyond limitations of word, space, and time, Mónica Bolufer examines eighteenth-century French and Spanish women writers working in translation and co-authors Helen Buffery and Laura Lonsdale focus on Catalan women writers and the “Contested Space of Home.” Also transcending a strict disciplinary focus, Carmen Fracchia considers women’s art and visual representation in the early period and Jessamy Harvey (“Spectacular Eroticism and the Spanish New Woman”) and Jo Evans (“Almodóvar’s ‘Others’: Spanish Women Film-Makers, Masquerade and Maternity”) evaluate contemporary representations of women in Spanish film. All essays include suggestions for further reading and bibliography. The collection concludes with a comprehensive and useful bibliography for the study of Spanish women’s studies over the past 35 years. In their introduction, the editors provide a helpful summary and synthesis of the study of Spanish women’s writing dating from the publication of Miller...

A justiça e a produção do Direito em Castela no século XV

O reinado dos Reis Católicos – Fernando de Aragão e Isabel de Castela – (1474-1504) se situa no período de transição da Idade Média para a Idade Moderna e foi considerado um período de paz e justiça em Castela. Isto nos possibilita questionar sobre as implicações, para o direito, da organização de um reino em uma era de transição. Propomos verificar o que caracteriza a passagem de um direito medieval para um direito moderno, e quais os elementos que indicam essa transição no governo dos Reis Católicos. Enfatizamos duas prerrogativas principais, uma de tradição medieval, a de juiz, e outra de caráter moderno, a legislativa, que se encerram na figuras de Fernando e Isabel.

Dashkova: A Life of Influence and Exile. Transactions, 97:3. American Philosophical Society by A. Woronzoff-Dashkoff (review)

reviews 749 It seemsverylikelysince in the poetical discussionwhichfollowed(and Nikolev,the blindauthorof the play belongedto the circleof Dashkova, Paninand thepartisans oftheGrandDuke Paul)itwas madeclearthatgood government dependedon enforcement ofthelaw,butreadingthequotation today- in Russian- it is likelythatCatherinedeliberately acceptedthe implications ofNikolev'slanguagein orderto avoid exciting publicopinion againsther. The final article inthecollection, byPatrick O 'Meara,dealswiththedeath ofa youngmanin a duel,whosefuneral turned intowhathas beenregarded as thefirst publicpolitical demonstration inRussianhistory, fanned byfuture Decembrists. The failureof a youngnoble to marrya girlof lowersocial statusto whom he was betrothed (see the problemscreatedby PeterFs law regarding betrothal in thearticleofMaria Di Salvo above)led to a fatal duel betweenthegroomand thebride'sbrother, conductedwithno holds barred,theduellists firing at threepaces. The funeral ofthebrother turned intoa massivedemonstration againsttheexisting socialconditions in Russia, attendedby manyfuture Decembrists, and commemorated in verseby the Decembrist poetRyleev. These twovolumesform a finetribute to a scholarwhodiedtoo soon. London Isabel de Madariaga Woronzoff-Dashkoff, A. Dashkova: A Life ofInfluence andExile.Transactions, 97: 3. American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, PA, 2008.xx + 331pp. Illustrations. Genealogies.Chronology.Notes. Selected bibliography. Index.$29.00 (paperback). PrincessEkaterina Dashkova can be foundon anyshort-list ofimportant eighteenth-century Russians,forherlifetoucheson keyissuesoftheera Enlightenment culture,palace revolutions, aristocratic familypolitics,a gender-bending courtculture, Russians'ambivalencetowardtheWest and more.Her biography is well wortha full-length study, whichis what the volumebyAlexander Woronzoff-Dashkoff seeksto provide. The subtitle, A Lifeof Influence and Exile,sums up the centralthesis. Dashkova was a figureof considerableinfluencein CatherinianRussia, whether as a conspirator in the 1762coup, as director of theAcademyof Sciencesand the RussianAcademy,or as a contributor to the intellectual networks oftheEnlightenment in Russia and abroad.The obverseof'influence ',however, was 'exile'- herfamily ostracized herforhelpingto overthrow their patronPeterIII, shecameintoconflict withCatherine II and her loversand courtiers, and Peter'sson,Paul I, eventually metedout a belated retribution forthecoup againsthisfather. In reviewing theupsand downsofhercareer,thebook,whichthroughout follows a chronological order,developsseveralrecurrent themes.Dashkova took seriously her 'feminine' privateobligationsas a daughter,wifeand mother, yetalsopursueda 'masculine' publiccareerat courtand in thestate service. Whether educating herchildren, managingherestates, or governing 750 SEER, 88, 4, OCTOBER 2010 the Academy of Sciences, she persistently upheld Enlightenment ideals. However,hergenderidentity conflicted withhercareerambitions, herhighmindedcommitment to Enlightenment valuesencouragedan outspokenness thatwas politically self-destructive, and keyrelationships in herlife- with her father, siblings and children, and withCatherineand her courtiers werebitter failures. Our principal sourceofinformation is hermemoirs, but as Woronzoff-Dashkoff helpfully pointsout,theseneed to be treatedwith cautionbecause theywere an oftenmisleading exercisein post-facto selfjustification . We are left, in theend,withtheimageofa talented, ambitious, decent,quixoticidealist, oftendisappointed by lifebut alwayswilling to try again. Professor Woronzoff-Dashkoff (who teachesRussian literature at Smith College)is himself descendedfrommembersofDashkova'sfamily who left Russia after1917,and theepiloguetellsmovingly ofhisviewofDashkova's legacyas a preciouslinkto his family's pre-revolutionary heritage, a world destroyed forever bytheSoviets.Thisbackground mayexplainwhythebook itself at timesseemsto emergeout of a dialoguewiththe older Russian intelligentsia morethanwitha readily identifiable modernAnglophone audience .Who,indeed,is theimpliedreader?Dashkova is nota 'popular'history, foritpresupposes a priorknowledge abouteighteenth-century Russiathatfew English-speaking generalreaderswillpossess,butneither does itmakemany concessionsto present-day academic scholarship. For example,thereare lengthy discussions ofthetheatre and ofcourtritual, yetthenamesofRichard Wortmanand EliseKimerling Wirtschafter do notevenappearin thebibliography . There is muchhereabout lifeon country estatesand Dashkova's roleas a landlord, yettheideas ofPriscilla Rooseveltand MichelleMarrese are neverdiscussed,any more than those classic authorson enlightened absolutism, Marc Raeffand Isabel de Madariaga (althoughall fourdo appearin thebibliography). IuriiLotman'sviewson theatricality and David Ransel's on factional politicsare citedoccasionally, and genderanalysisis a persistent theme,but none of theseare embeddedin a discussion of the widerhistoriography. Instead,itis Russianwriters oftheimperial era - Herzen,Dobroliubov, Sukhomlinov, Kliuchevskii- whose commentaries provide contextfor Woronzoff-DashkofTs own analysis.The book's questions, assumptions and even vocabularypay homageto thatsame Russianintelligentsia tradition, e.g.,in thestraightforward equationof'Enlightenment' withan outlookthat is 'progressive', thereflections on Dashkova'smoralcharacter, and theconfidence in the sheeraccumulation of factualdetailas the path to historical knowledge. The book is impressively researched(withdocumentation from archives infourcountries) and engagingly written, making ita goodreadand probably thedefinitive English-language accountofDashkova'slife.However, itis little touchedbypresent-day historiographical concerns, so a study that willconnect Dashkova'sstory tothewiderfield ofmoderneighteenth-century studies remains to be written. Department ofHistory University ofNotre Dame Alexander M. Martin ...

Practice and Performance in the History of the Russian Nobility

Though reluctantly prepared to admit that his history of the nobility, published in 1870, might be marred by shortcomings of execution--it was, after all, product of imperfect human nature--Aleksandr Romanovich-Slavatinskii found it hard to imagine that he could be charged with errors of conception: We permit ourselves to think that in formal sense, we have more or less correctly embraced the subject, bringing out all its essential aspects. (1) Few in postmodernist age would risk such an obvious hostage to fortune. Yet it is tribute to the longevity of Romanovich-Slavatinskii's self-confident positivism that so many of his fundamental preoccupations should have been reflected, as much amplified as amended, in the most recent synoptic survey of the subject, published in 1995. (2) Like him, its author, Isabel de Madariaga, concerned mainly to explore changes in the relationship between state and nobility and to trace their implications: for the security of noble property, for the pattern of noble service obligations, and for the social status of the noble estate. Her essentially legal inquiry, based on the fruits of more than century of research carried out in the wake of the pioneering Romanovich-Slavatinskii, served to consolidate the now familiar image of heterogeneous social group whose members varied significantly not only in the degree of their political influence but also in wealth, status, and educational attainments. (3) Seven years later, Michelle Marrese added further dimension to the complexity by revealing in unprecedented detail the social and economic role of noblewomen, in particular the unusually extensive property rights that stemmed, in part, from the nobility's attempts to assert its corporate rights vis-a-vis the monarchy. (4) What, then, held this potentially fissiparous estate together? According to Marc Raeff, the answer essentially psychological: if anything united the nobility it sense of alienation from the importunate demands of modernizing service state. As Marrese points out in her contribution to the current issue of Kritika (702 n. 2), parts of this argument had been anticipated by Romanovich-Slavatinskii. But no one had hitherto claimed quite so provocatively as Raeff that Peter the Great's servicemen were linked to the revolutionaries of the 19th century by a straight line of spiritual and psychological filiation. (5) The idea found little sustained support. Even supposing that it might be possible to psychoanalyze group rather than an individual, such an interpretation could account only for those nobles who, in Raeff's own words, participated actively in the cultural and institutional life of the country. (6) As critics objected, it did little to explain the mindset of provincial backwoodsmen, preoccupied with making ends meet. While Raeff condescended to such men for opting for a life of vegetation over one of civic commitment, others were more sensitive, if not to their patriarchal values, then at least to the struggle for economic survival in hostile climate. (7) More seductive than Raeff's psychological interpretation of noble identity the essentially cultural line of thought inspired by Iurii Mikhailovich Lotman. Historians have long been familiar with the sort of provincial patriarch who insisted that his children learn French and flogged them la russe until they learned to pronounce it accurately. The question is how to interpret such apparently conflicted behavior. As Marrese suggests here, Lotman's depiction of the noble as foreigner in his own country, adopting European manners while retaining an alien attitude towards them, was not, strictly speaking, novel insight (707), since elements of it can be traced back to Alexander Herzen and beyond. Nevertheless, no one did as much as Lotman to construct the sharply focused and widely influential notion of noble identity that depends on disjunction between theatrically Europeanized public behavior and Russian interior conviction. …

Microbiological study of bulls of indulgence of the 15th–16th centuries

During the restoration of the church of “San Esteban” in Cuéllar (Segovia, Spain) a few sepulchres were opened. Among them was that of Doña Isabel de Zuazo, from the 16th century. Together with the corpse was found a series of printed documents from the 15th–16th centuries, most of which were bulls of indulgence. A microbiological study of the documents was carried out using techniques of isolation and molecular microbiology, together with scanning electron microscopy. Most of the identified bacteria were highly suggestive of a human origin, particularly the predominance of Clostridium species consistent with the flora of the human intestinal tract . Our results demonstrate that appreciable post-mortem migration of bacteria has taken place from the corpse to the historic documents. This can be explained considering that the documents were found on pelvic region, and were contaminated by body fluids and putrefaction.