Memories Of Witnesses Research Articles

German special settlers in the Udmurt Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1945–1955

The article is devoted to a group of Russian Germans stationed in Udmurtia in the status of special settlers. The purpose of the work is a general description of the main parameters of the ethno-legal and socio-cultural functioning of Germans-special settlers in Udmurtia in a foreign-language environment. The methodological basis of the study was an interdisciplinary approach at the intersection of history, sociology and ethnology, using problem-chronological and statistical methods, as well as interviewing and the method of expert assessments. The basis of the source base was made up of archival documents supplemented by the memories of participants and witnesses of the events. The study sheds light on one of the closed aspects of national history, contributes to the elimination of another "white" spot in the hushed-up history of the largest of the peoples of the USSR repressed during the Stalinist period.

Resolution to Ethnic Conflict: Anti-Chinese Riots in Garut, Indonesia, in the middle of the Twentieth Century

The Anti-Chinese riots in Indonesia are a dark side of history that must be uncovered. The riots caused by ethnicity and racism worldwide, such as the recent Anti-Chinese issue in the United States, also occurred even in Indonesia after World War II. The racial riots in Garut destroyed Chinese-owned houses, factories, and shops on two consecutive days. The research uses historical methods, namely heuristics, criticism, interpretation, and historiography, that reveal the memories of victims, perpetrators, witnesses, and rare primary personal archives. Through a social history approach, the research indicates that not only ethnicity causes violence but also social, political, and religious sentiments initiated by youth organizations, local religious leaders, and former followers of the revolutionary movement. This study provides benefits so that the public and stakeholders can manage ethnic, religious, racial, and inter-group issues to avoid ethnic conflicts that end in violence.

ПОЭТИКА ИСТОРИЧЕСКОЙ ПАМЯТИ В РОМАНАХ С.А. АЛЕКСИЕВИЧ "ПОСЛЕДНИЕ СВИДЕТЕЛИ" И "ВРЕМЯ СЕКОНД ХЭНД"

The article analyzes the functioning of memory in two novels by S.A. Alexievich, included in the cycle of books “Voices of Utopia” – “Last Witnesses” and “Secondhand Time”, which are based on the memories of witnesses of the Great Patriotic (Second World) War and the dissolution breakup of the USSR. The features of the poetics of memory in above novels are highlighted by analyzing the subjective organization of the text and the system of points of view, speech organization and figurative structure, as well as spatio-temporal organization, which allows talking about features of the poetics of historical memory in the novels by S.A. Alexievich and about features of the poetics of memory in a literary work as a whole. The influence of the novels on the remediation of the memory of the Great Patriotic War memory and the breakup of the USSR is considered

Szkoła polska z lat ofensywy ideologicznej w oświacie (1948–1956) w świetle wspomnień nauczycieli

The aim of the article is to present the assumptions and methods of the ideological impact on the environment of Polish teachers by the communist authorities in 1948–1956 as remembered by teachers. During the Stalinist period, the Polish Workers’ Party (later the Polish United Workers’ Party) tried to instil in teachers “socialist morality” by means of various courses, conferences, additional education and the order of “self-education”. The following text contains a synthetic historical outline of the above–mentioned activities and their analysis based on the memories of direct witnesses of those events.

“Miraculous Metamorphoses” and “Simple-Minded Tricks”. Performances of the “Ring” by Richard Wagner in Entertainment Culture of Russian Capitals of the Early XX Century

The article focuses on the phenomenon of Wagnerism in Russia at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries and its impact on the culture of the epoch, whose impact is widely recognized. As opposed to the established tradition which considers this impact at the level of the creative elite of the Russian Silver Age, including major intellectual and artistic jgures, this paper raises a question about the role played by the reception of mass audiences in the spread of Wagnerism. Performances of Wagner’s tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen by the troupes of the Imperial Theatres in 1900–1914, which caused a great public response, were chosen as material for the inquiry. The article reconstructs the reception of these productions by mass audiences based on reviews in the press, as well as memories of participants and witnesses of the performances. The undertaken analysis led to the conclusion that at that time the performances of Wagner’s tetralogy were, in many respects, regarded by the audience as part of mass entertainment and attraction culture that experienced heydays in early 20th-century.

Кадровые перестановки на китайском направлении внешней политики СССР в 1986 году

Introduction. The subject of the study is the personnel changes carried out by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986 in the framework of putting forward the improvement of Sino-Soviet relations. The object of the study is the activities of high-ranking Soviet sinologist-diplomats in the context of developing and implementing the USSR’s China policy. The purpose of the study is to determine the key figures in the diplomatic circles of the USSR who were in charge of China issues and accordingly reveal their influence on the process of normalizing Sino-Soviet relations in the second half of the 1980s. Methods and materials. The analysis is based on the comprehensive and comparative use of the memories of witnesses to historical events in the USSR and the PRC, as well as archival documents from Russia and former socialist countries. Analysis. Immediately after coming to power, Gorbachev began to consider the improvement of relations with China a priority of Soviet foreign policy and showed great enthusiasm for it. But Brezhnev’s foreign policy elites, including the minister of foreign affairs, two deputy foreign ministers, the first deputy head of the Department for Liaison with Communist and Workers’ Parties of Socialist Countries, and the Soviet ambassador to the PRC, did not support his efforts. For this reason, personnel changes were made. In the spirit of “new thinking”, the successors of the old Soviet sinologist-diplomats actively promoted political reconciliation with Beijing, which led to the normalization of Sino-Soviet relations in a short time.

Unternehmen „Hermann” — pacyfikacja Puszczy Nalibockiej z perspektywy SS-Sonderbataillon Dirlewanger

The participation of the SS-Sonderbataillon Dirlewanger in the pacifications of the partisan movement in occupied Belarus remains a topic that, despite some discussion in Polish, Russian, English and German sources, demands further scholarly attention. The article brings into focus the events taking place in the summer of 1943 in the German-occupied territory of the Nowogródek and Wilno Voivodeships of the prewar Republic of Poland, which were included the German-occupied General District of Belarus (Generalbezirk Weißruthenien/Генеральная акруга Беларусь) during the war. The anti-partisan operation (Unternehmen “Hermann”) carried out by the Germans with the participation of units consisting of Germans, Austrians, Belarusians, Lithuanians, Latvians and Ukrainians was directed against the Soviet and Polish partisans.
 Of course, apart from the extensive use documents of German archives, we drew attention to documents of Polish and Soviet provenance, and in particular to the memories of Polish witnesses inhabiting the area of Naliboki Forest. The aim of this article is to present the latest scope of research on the activities of the SS-Sonderbataillon Dirlewanger in comparison with other counter-insurgency (anti-partisan) units carrying out ruthless pacification measures as part of “Bandenbekämpfung”.

АКСІОЛОГІЧНО-ЕТИЧНИЙ ВИМІР ЛІТЕРАТУРНИХ РЕПОРТАЖІВ «ТИ НАЧЕ КАМІНЬ ЇЛА» ТА «Я НАМАЛЮЮ ТОБІ СМЕРТЬ» ВОЙЦЕХА ТОХМАНА

Reportage is a genre on the borderline between non-fiction and fiction. Because of their inherent hybridity, which undoubtedly has a significant impact on their form and content, they often cross these boundaries, especially in recent decades. In these times of rapid and easy access to information, the understanding of the reporter’s work has also changed, and his role is now to relate the superficial, the everyday and the present to universal and human criteria. It is he who can and should organize man’s knowledge of the world by placing it against the background of universal moral judgements or social sensibilities. Awareness of the truth, of the reality of the events described, must speak deeply to the reader. Such principles of touching upon humanity’s innate empathy, shocking and forcing after reading the texts to answer the important ontological questions posed by the reporter, are characteristic of reporter’s prose by Wojciech Tochman. This article focuses on two collections of reportages, «Jakbyś kamień jadła» (“Like eating a stone. Surviving the Past in Bosnia”) and «Dzisiaj narysujemy śmierć» («We are Going to Draw Death”), which are linked by the exposure of the face of evil through the extraction of drastic experiences from the memories of witnesses, victims and killers. Through their testimonies, the Polish reporter reveals the macabre mechanics of genocide, while at the same time attempting to find answers as to how survivors can rebuild a destroyed world by soothing their psychological wounds. Tochman is constantly aware that his primary task is to present the facts, even if this involves revealing the shocking truth. The transformation of the notion of trust and the notion of social ties are vividly revealed in the texts. A separate point of reference in the thesis is the Ukrainian reception of the two collections of reportages, as the dynamics of their reception is a clear indicator of how interdependent are the reflections on the reading of the pain and suffering of those who survived the ethnic massacres in the Balkans or the Rwandan genocide massacre, the passivity towards the presented facts versus the absence of a similar experience.

ИЗУЧЕНИЕ ИСТОРИИ ДЕПОРТАЦИИ НАРОДОВ В ПАМЯТИ ПОКОЛЕНИЙ КАК ФАКТОР РАЗВИТИЯ ПОЗНАВАТЕЛЬНОЙ МОТИВАЦИИ СТУДЕНТОВ

The study of the history of the deportation of peoples in the memory of generations is one of the factors of the development of cognitive motivation of students. The problem of increasing motivation in the educational process serves as a means of increasing the effectiveness of educational activities.The memory of generations or historical memory is the most important component of the historical consciousness of any nation. A lot of time has passed since the deportations, and today there are very few people left alive who remember those terrible events. The study of the memories of witnesses of those distant events, as well as the ideas of the descendants of the deported about these events, contributes to the development of cognitive motivation of students.

Личные записи как надежда на жизнь (Блокадная книга Алеся Адамовича и Даниила Гранина)

In recent years there has been a rise in interest in documentary works based on personal memories of participants and witnesses of different events. A book of the blockade by Ales Adamovich and Daniil Granin is based on the recollections and diaries of Leningrad residents who survived the blockade. It carries great emotional, philosophical and moral weight, and gives an understanding to what the residents of the city believed in and hoped for. Using the materials of A book of the blockade the author of the article aims to analyze how documents and the writers’ side notes affect a reader, and pinpoint the ways of presenting the notion of hope in the authentic diaries of Leningrad residents. As a result of the analysis of the mentioned text, the author reaches a conclusion that in the diaries the feeling and the emotion of hope is continuously updated in the course of creation of personal diaries by Leningrad residents. The concept of hope reflected on in A book of the blockade has a complex content, which can be associated with the triune concept of faith-hope-love. In the discourse of the authors, the concept preserves its Christian meaning – the spiritual salvation of a person. Yet its specifics is that the religious component is initially missing, and is subsequently gained through considerable changes that happen within and without those whose testimonies are collected in the book, and within and without the authors of the text, Adamovich and Granin.

What can expert witnesses reliably say about memory in the courtroom?

Psychologists are sometimes asked to provide their expert opinion in court on whether memories of victims, witnesses, or suspects are reliable or not. In this article, we will discuss what expert witnesses can reliably say about memory in the legal arena. We argue that before research on memory can be discussed in legal cases, this research should ideally meet the following three conditions: replicability, generalizability, and practical relevance. Using a fictitious false memory case, we offer a guide to how psychologists should critically examine whether a particular segment of memory research is in line with these three conditions. We show that the area of false memory broadly fits these conditions but that for areas such as eyewitness identification and false confessions, there is limited discussion on which effect sizes are of interest in legal cases. We propose several recommendations that expert witnesses can use when they evaluate the validity of statements such as working with scenarios (e.g., statements are valid or not). Being transparent about the limits and strengths of memory research will assist triers of fact in their decision-making process.

Memories and Memory in New Russian Literary Journalism (Illustrated with Reference to Reportage Books by Yulia Yuzik and Valery Panyushkin)

The article focuses on the issues of memories and memory in new Russian book reportage. The research is based on work by opposition journalists: Yulia Yuzik (born 1981) and Valery Panyushkin (born 1969). The article’s basic assumption is that in the case of literary journalism, the memory of informants and the reporter’s own memory are the main source of factual data, alongside documents and material testimonies. This memory is subject to distortion and filtration – it changes over time and is subject to social influences. The analysis is based on theoretical works by Paul Connerton, Aleida Assmann, Paul Ricœur, and others. The article also draws attention to the fact that the way in which passages of reportage – which are based on the narrative of memory – are shaped in formal terms may resemble memoir and autobiography. The main thesis of the article is the belief that the role of the journalist consists not only in juxtaposing various points of view (their own, the informants’ points of view), but also in confronting the memories of individual witnesses.

Site-Specific Author's Drama

The article discusses the role of the playwright in contemporary site-specific drama and the role of the director of site-specific performance. The study aims at three main areas: the author’s drama based on the recent history of the 20th century; the performative potential of the commonness and of oral history; and contemporary site-specific drama. As a playwright, the author focuses on the memories of witnesses and socially taboo topics. As a theatre director, she examines approaches for transforming into theatrical language the memory of place, the collection of data from oral history and burning issues. She looks at the relations between playwrights and site-specific performance. She observes the links among the topic, communication means and non-theatrical places. This qualitative longitudinal art research is based on experience from theatre practice, analysis and comparison of theoretical knowledge. The author gives examples of authorial plays and reports on their productions, specifically stating these dramas: Midnight in the Borderland (3. /4. 5. 1950, a monastery), Three Chairs (Alzheimer’s disease, a retirement home), From Majdalenka to Madla (World War II, cellar), Hotel on the Corner (1932–1989, old theatre building). The study emphasizes the need for a creative and attentive approach by the author, playwright, dramaturg and director to create a whole new world from the duality: ordinary and taboo. It turns out that the combination of a strong theme, an unusual place tied to the topic of the drama, and the participatory role (active/passive) of the audience can be an effective strategy and even “tactic” in strengthening the role of the author in drama after the year 2000.

İran-Irak Savaşı: Kimyasal Silahların Kullanımı

The use of chemical weapons as a method of warfare can be traced back to the earliest dates of human history. However, modern historians accept that chemical substances have been used as weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) since the early twentieth century. Although the first convention which banned the use of chemicals as a tool of warfare was the Strasbourg Agreement in 1675, chemical weapons (CWs) were used on a mass scale in the First World War and repeatedly thereafter. The Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s was an experiment in the use of CWs and it was during this war that CWs started to be used as conventional weapons of war. In this study, examples of chemical attacks during the Iran-Iraq War are discussed. The development of CWs such as the armaments deployed in the Middle East cannot be isolated from international politics, and should therefore not be studied without taking the major world powers into consideration. Therefore, attitudes of the US, the UK, France, Israel, Germany, Italy, and Russia, none of which were participants in this war, are also to be examined. In order to create the chronological and informational groundwork of this study, a literature review was conducted and printed works were used. US national intelligence reports and diplomatic correspondence were examined. The media during the period, statements by politicians, United Nations Security Council reports, and the memories of witnesses exposed to chemical attacks during the war are included to advance the study.

Ukrainian artistic crafts within scientific writings of local researchers

The purpose of the article is to disseminate information on the formation, development, the genesis of art crafts in Ukraine and determining the status of the study of the scientific problem of leveling their meaning. The monographs presented, books, albums, articles noted the essence of technologies for performing products in decorative and applied arts, in which the features of the figurative structure of artistic works are subject to a comprehensive analysis of art historical directions. The methodology of the study is based on the factual, bibliographic, and topological consideration of materials, on the analysis of the art historical, historical, cultural nature used by the method of accumulating and systematization of factual material. Analytical, deductive, and inductive methods were also used, providing the possibility of summing up common outcomes based on the information received from the primary sources, archival documents, materials, memories of witnesses of events. The scientific novelty is to disclose the foundations of the scientific content of Ukrainian artistic classes based on the analysis of the origin, kinship, the development of phenomena denoted by the words "crafts" and "Industry". Analyzing the works of scientists about the creation of products of patterned textile artistic weaving, embroidery, carpets, wood threads, pottery, painting. We put the question of the emergence of the most well-known industries of traditional art crafts in Ukraine. Drawing attention to the fact that in the post-war years numerous mechanized factories, equipped with the production of domestic equipment, increased production of consumer goods, production took an active part in the district, regional and interregional social resources, the union was exhibited by artistic fields at exhibitions of state and international levels At the end of the twentieth century in the area of the local industry there is a decline. Many organizations affected art crafts during the NTR (scientific and technical revolution) and engineering growth. The Ministry of Local Industry was carried out to control numerous enterprises for the manufacture of works of art. Conclusions. Based on the results of the study of the source base and the study of archival materials, we can draw conclusions that in the analyzed publications of the authors, there is not enough attention to the industrial aspect, namely the activities of the production association, factories who worked with art crafts in Ukraine. Artists are mentioned by scientists, and there is no subject consideration of the case, there is confusion in the interpretation of key concepts. In our opinion, insufficient attention of researchers and scientists, this important topic is due to the lack of practical experience in production, knowledge of the industrial artistic association and demonstrates the low theoretical level of analysis in this important industry - art and production, namely production, creating artworks.

Historical awareness and historical responsibility in German human genetics

Historians have repeatedly pointed to personal and institutional continuities between eugenics in Germany before 1945 and the developing human genetics in post-war Germany. But how was this external perception discussed among German human geneticists and did it play a role in the discipline's self-image? On the basis of printed sources and biographical interviews, the historical consciousness and the assumption of historical responsibility among German human geneticists active in the field between the 1970s and the 2010s were investigated. In the memories of the contemporary witnesses, historical awareness played a role for their discipline even before the 1980s, and since the founding of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Humangenetik in 1987, the question of the form of showing historical responsibility has been discussed repeatedly. It has been expressed, for example, in discussions with the public and renaming of prizes.

Prawo czy bezprawie? O legalności wprowadzenia Niemieckiej Listy Narodowościowej na Górnym Śląsku w świetle czwartej konwencji haskiej postrzeganej przez pryzmat wykładni prawa międzynarodowego przez prawników niemieckich i polskich

In the following article, I will attempt to present the matter of the German Nationality List in Upper Silesia from three historical and legal perspectives, as well as a brief overview of how it influenced the fate of the Upper Silesians and the Polish-German relations. After a short description of the most important results of the introduction of the German Nationality List in Upper Silesia and its impact on the relations between the Polish and German people, I will present the literal wording of the Fourth Hague Convention (with particular emphasis on the third chapter including the exercise of occupation) and show an example of its use after the First World War. In the next part, I will present the Polish legal interpretation of its provisions in the context of assessing the legality of introducing the German Nationality List in Upper Silesia. In the last part, I will present the different standpoint of German lawyers to achieve my main research goal, which was to present (in a comparative way) the importance of the legal interpretation in international law – although texts of the conventions are most often formulated clearly and initially their wording does not raise any doubts in the interpreter, they create the possibility of a broad interpretation, often openly undermining the foundations of the entire international order. Although the example itself is historical, the subject of differences in the interpretation of international law is particularly important nowadays, with the advancing globalization and international integration. The article uses both the texts of legal acts (the Fourth Hague Convention and the Briand-Kellogg Pact) and their subsequent interpretations by Polish and German lawyers. In the part concerning Polish-German relations in the light of the German Nationality List in Upper Silesia, the memories of witnesses of history were also used.

Szkoła polska z lat ofensywy ideologicznej w oświacie (1948–1956) w świetle antologii wspomnień nauczycieli

The aim of the article is to present the assumptions and methods behind the ideological pressure exerted on Polish teachers by the communist authorities in 1948–1956 as described in the teachers’ memoirs. The Polish Workers’ Party (later the Polish United Workers’ Party) during the Stalinist period tried to instil in teachers “socialist morality” by means of courses, conferences, additional education and an order to “self-educate”. The text contains a synthetic historical outline of the above-mentioned activities and their analysis based on the memories of credible witnesses to those events.

Remembering atrocities: legal archives and the discursive conditions of witnessing

ABSTRACT International criminal tribunals and courts, such as the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), are commonly understood within the legal transitional justice scholarship as the primary response to mass human rights violations. Tribunals and courts are expected to address the issue of impunity, but also uncover the truth of what happened and why. The legal scholarship often understands the ICTR as able to produce a collective legal memory of the atrocities through the memories of witnesses. Using the ICTR as a case study, the aim of this conceptually led article is to respond to these discussions by exploring the potential role ICTR archival material can have in extending our understanding of the construction of memory at international criminal courts and tribunals. The article uses insights from discourse studies, specifically based on the work of French philosopher Michel Foucault. It applies these insights to an exploratory analysis of legal documents relating to the selection of witnesses from the ICTR archive and interview transcripts with ICTR personnel from the archive of the University of Washington (UoW). This exploration suggests that the pre-trial stage shape, edit and restrict in significant ways, determining which individuals can be witnesses and what these witnesses can remember.

Jan Zahradníček (1905–60): The Tragedy of a Poet and Prisoner of the Communist Regime

The article deals with an outstanding Czech poet Jan Zahradnicek (1905–60), who was arrested in 1951 and sentenced for 13 years of prison in a show trial. He was released during the general amnesty in 1960 and died in the same year. His tragic fate is depicted in several collections of poems written in prisons (Pankrac, Brno, Mirov, Leopoldov). The collections were saved and published and his poetic diary was found in Leopoldov prison 55 years after his death. Zahradnicek’s poems in combination with the memories of contemporary witnesses and published interpretations of his work (Zdeněk Rotrekl, Rio Preisner, Radovan Zejda, Martin Putna) allow an exceptional view of the inner life of a person who was unjustly imprisoned in the times of communist purges in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s.