Military Outpost Research Articles

Śląsk w X wieku: źle postawione zagadnienie

Researchers of the Polish past often discuss Silesia in the tenth century but the entity later referred to by this name did not exist at that time while its individual parts had different runs of history. The first evidence of establishing contacts between the middle Oder basin and the Mediterranean world after the Migration Period are three Arabic coins from 770-776, bereft of notches, graffiti or other traces of circulation, found on Trzebnica Ridge (Figures 1-3). Unlike the wave of Arabic silver coinage a quarter of a century later, these coins arrived not via the ‘Northern Arch’ but from the south, via Venice. They probably mark the attempts of slavers to penetrate the Oder basin. After 950, the route from Bohemia to the mouth of the Oder river was established, leading alongside the Neisse and the Oder but it was soon disrupted by the expansion of the Milceni to the east. Behind the Milceni, however, was the power of the East Frankish Kingdom, so the Přemyslids expanded to the north-east to bypass the Neisse. The Přemyslid expansion consisted in collecting tributes from the tribes occupying the left bank of the Oder River: Zlasane, Trebouane, Pobarane and Dedosize – and in establishing permanent military outposts in Niemcza and Wrocław. The result of including the local dwellers in the trade and tributary network was the concentration of power in the tribes and the spread of silver hoarding. After the alliance between the Boleslavs of Prague and Mieszko I of Gniezno was established in c. 964, both states met on the middle Oder line and co-operated within the great trade corridor connecting Central Asia, Scandinavia and Western Europe. Political destabilization in Germany after 983 enabled Mieszko to break off the alliance, cross the Oder to the west and spread his influence along the Kaczawa to Milceni and Meissen lands, and then in 990 to drive the Czechs out of the area between Wrocław and the Sudetes. In this way, a route from Mayence to Kyïv was created, bypassing Prague, cut off the city from contacts with the mouth of the Oder River, which led to the crisis of the Czech state.

Southwestern Georgia of the 19th Centuries in the Opinion of Foreigners: Analysis of Archival Materials

The historical fate of one of the most critical regions, Southwestern Georgia, is indeed remarkable. This powerful centre of Georgian civilisation, with its historical plight, was forcibly torn off a mother’s bosom and became a part of another state. However, its inhabitants managed to preserve the love and respect for their native language. As a result of the war between Russia and Turkey (1877–1878), the region was reunited with its native land. Still, this time the Caucasian administration of the Russian Empire began to impede its development and tried to set this side against the rest of Georgia. According to Russian officials, it was to become an essential military outpost of Russian expansion in the Middle East and a springboard for the far-reaching plans of the empire.
 Foreigners were also interested in this region of Georgia. They repeatedly visited this area and left us remarkable materials about the political, social, economic, cultural and educational life of South-West Georgia of that time (i.e., 19th centuries).

Fairylands: Bermuda’s ‘Idyllic’ (and Exclusive) Enclave

19th century Victorian-era romanticism fuelled popular fascination with fairytales and a trend of fairy-themed place naming in Britain and its colonies and territories. The idealising of small islands that served colonial interests as plantations, prisons, military outposts, and maritime trade posts as idyllic, picturesque, fairytale places evoked attributes of empire while maintaining the status quo of dominant colonial culture. The development of tourism, offshore financing and real estate industries perpetuated the idealism of fairy-themed imaginative place naming of islands and island locations into the next century. This article examines the case of Bermuda as a promoted ‘fairy land’ and its exclusive enclave, Fairylands, through a synthesis of archival analysis and auto-ethnography and contributes to the development of toponymic studies in island research and culture.

ЕС vs ЕАЭС: молодежь российского эксклава о перспективах и барьерах международного сотрудничества

The dynamics of relations between the Kaliningrad region and its neighboring countries demonstrates various strategic approaches for positioning the region: a military outpost, a “development corridor” and a region of international cooperation. The latter option is considered the most promising scenario. However, the effectiveness of the implementation of the program largely depends on the degree of acceptance of the new geopolitical role of the region by the population of the region. First of all, those who represent the cultural and professional future - the youth. Therefore, the aim of this article is to determine the ideas of young people in the Kaliningrad region about the prospects and barriers of international cooperation with the Russian exclave, as well as to record their assessment of the socio-economic, cultural and infrastructural network of interactions with the Eurasian Economic Union and the European Union. The main research method is a sociological survey of young people aged 18-35 in Kaliningrad and border municipalities of the Kaliningrad region. The survey was conducted in May 2021. The research sample consisted of 463 respondents. Depending on the attitude to the EAEU and the EU a typology of Kaliningrad youth is proposed: Eurasians and anti-Eurasians, pro-Europeans and Euro-pessimists. A positive attitude to each integration project (EU and EAEU) significantly prevails among the youth of the Kaliningrad region. The European Union is seen as the region's preferred partner in such areas as culture, science, education, transport and infrastructure, and environmental protection. The Eurasian Economic Union seems to be a more reliable partner for cooperation in the military sphere. The socio-economic and healthcare spheres turn out to be outside of integration agenda. The absolute majority of the respondents supported the development of cooperation with Poland and Lithuania in various fields, especially in the tourism industry. Despite the support for the idea of cross-border cooperation, the majority of the young people demonstrated extremely poor awareness of the main international programs with the Kaliningrad region. They also could not give specific examples of cross-border cooperation. According to the youth, there are such main barriers to cross-border cooperation as the COVID-19 pandemic, the visa regime, the two-sided sanctions of the European Union and Russia, and stereotypes in the perception of Russians by residents of the neighboring countries.

South to Freedom: Runaway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to the Civil War by Alice L. Baumgartner

Reviewed by: South to Freedom: Runaway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to the Civil War by Alice L. Baumgartner Mark Smith (bio) South to Freedom: Runaway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to the Civil War. Alice L. Baumgartner. New York: Basic Books, 2020. ISBN 978-1541617780. 384 pp., cloth, $32.00. Fugitive slaves from the United States who ran to Mexico during the antebellum period “reorient our understanding of the Civil War, showing that one of the most distinctively ‘American’ events in US history was in part ignited” by these freedom seekers (4). Such is the central thesis of Alice L. Baumgartner’s brilliantly written but sometimes interpretively frustrating book. The stories of the fugitives are utterly compelling, but the extent to which runaways to Mexico “contributed to the outbreak of a major sectional controversy over the future of human bondage in the United States” remains murky (7). Those who made it to Mexico did so without the help of anything resembling an underground railroad. Their escapes were assisted by the occasional ally, not facilitated by a system or formal network. These fugitives escaped and made it to Mexico by their own wits, and it is these stories, the tales of courageous men and women, that Baumgartner captures brilliantly. Runaways were greeted with one of two options. Some joined the military outposts that the Mexican government had established to defend their nation’s northeastern frontier. Others traded their enslaved status for indentured servitude and worked as servants or on haciendas. In this respect, fugitives in Mexico were not unlike those who made it to the US North. After all, courtesy of the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850, runaways who managed to get above the Mason-Dixon line found themselves in a condition of what Frederick Douglass called “doubtful liberty.” Still, differences abounded, and Baumgartner sagely reminds us of the powerful antislavery inflections at work in the Mexican national government. After the Texas Revolution, for example, the Mexican Congress abolished slavery; in 1849, it passed legislation making free any enslaved person from another country who stepped foot in Mexico. Nor did Mexico agree to any extradition treaties. Plainly, these antislavery currents perturbed Southern slaveholders not least because these policies threatened their expansion and held the real potential to disrupt slavery in the US borderlands. The backbone—interpretively and stylistically—of Baumgartner’s study is in the poignant, endearing, and inspiring stories of enslaved men and women who escaped to Mexico. Baumgartner has a superb eye for the revealing detail and evinces a deep tenacity when it comes to ferreting out stories long buried in far-flung archives. She is also extremely adept at unpacking the complicated legal [End Page 428] histories of slavery in the US and Mexico and does a superb job toggling between the two without losing sight of why slavery was and was not permitted in different places at different times. But historians interested in evidence beyond beautifully crafted stories will be disappointed. For example, Baumgartner cannot tell us how many enslaved people from the United States made it to Mexico. “My estimate,” she ventures, “based on scattered and incomplete Mexican sources, puts the number somewhere between three and five thousand” (4). While she is right to suggest this is far less than the tens of thousands who escaped to the US North, it is nonetheless frustrating that she offers nothing to document this guess. Yet for Baumgartner, the numbers do not matter, because while the “number of slaves who reached Mexico was undeniably small,” she believes that “each escape was important in its own right” (4). Critically, “their collective story had strategic and political significance out of all proportion to the numbers involved” (4). This may well be true. But while it is surely the case that fugitive slaves to Mexico “contributed” to the sectional tensions that led to the US Civil War, many things “contributed” to the coming of that war and to varying extents. Historians of the sectional conflict are under some obligation to stake their case about causality with more precision than Baumgartner’s interpretive framework can muster. Mark Smith University of South Carolina, Columbia Mark Smith MARK SMITH is...

Reflections on early lunar base design – From sketch to the first moon landing

This paper traces the early ideas of lunar architecture developed by the US and Soviet space programs. Starting with a historical overview of those achievements, highlighting specific engineering, architectural, and design elements; illustrated with images and drawings. Some of them will be described in more detail, showing the design and decision-making process from the first sketch to its implementation.One example of the great engineering and management capabilities is the development and inclusion of the deployable lunar roving vehicle (LRV). Other examples include the project DLB Zvezda by Barmin's Design Bureau of General Engineering that was under development between 1962 and 1974, and a US project Horizon – a study to set up a Lunar Military outpost conducted in 1959. The paper includes personal statements from astronauts and cosmonauts, as well as people involved along design and implementation processes.Based on a historical overview of achievements, this paper highlights particular architectural and design unique approaches that defined design strategies for creating space systems, spacecraft and habitats for decades to follow.

Особенности функционирования уммы приграничного Зайсана до 1920 г.

The article examines the history of the Muslim community in the town of Zaisan (now in the territory of Kazakhstan) until 1920. The community was established in a Russian military out-post on the border with China and in the first decade of its existence consisted of two parts – immi-grants from the Russians provinces and nomads from the newly annexed territories. The difference in confessional practices and the absence of Kazakh imams oriented towards “steppe Islam” with remnants of archaic beliefs and ancient monotheistic Tengriism led to the adoption of the practices of conducting services by the nomads. For example, Jadidism calling for enlightenment and equality for Muslim women was introduced. The missionary activities of the Orthodox church were hindered by locally trained ulema. A tacit competition in piety grew up in the multi-confessional urban com-munity. Events of the early twentieth century led to severities for believers, when families and the ummah were split by political views. In fact, 1920 became the starting year for Muslims to go un-derground and the confrontation of some of them with the Soviet authorities led to human trage-dies. The revival of the community in modern conditions is fraught with difficulties.

The Making of the American Calorie and the Metabolic Metrics of Empire

In “The Making of the American Calorie and the Metabolic Metrics of Empire,” Athia Choudhury develops a far-reaching critical genealogy of caloric biocitizenship that reframes her personal experiences with calorie counting and fat-phobic discourses that stigmatize the bodies and pleasures of racialized, working-class people, especially female bodied and fem-identifying people. Tracing practices of energy management and bodily discipline from colonial military outposts, nineteenth-century domestic manuals, dietetic discourses in the Philippines, and Native American Boarding Schools to a range of reform projects that framed calories as a tool for inculcating responsible eating through the domestic practices of white, bourgeois women, Choudhury highlights continuities between colonial subjection and modern biocitizenship, as well as the ways in which the putatively objective metric of the calorie positioned the New American Woman as a powerful catalyst for policing race in the intimate domain of the home.

Multidisciplinary lines of evidence reveal East/Northeast Asian origins of agriculturalist/pastoralist residents at a Han dynasty military outpost in ancient Xinjiang

Han/non-Han interactions were engrained among the border regions of ancient Imperial China. Yet, little is known about either the genetic origins or the lifeways of these border peoples. Our study applies tools from ancient deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and stable isotope analysis to the study of a Han dynasty population at the Shichengzi site in modern-day Xinjiang. Isotopic analysis (δ13C and δ15N) of human (n = 8), animal (n = 26), and crop remains (n = 23) from Shichengzi indicated that dietary patterns among site inhabitants could be split among agro-pastoral and agricultural groups based on differences in the collagen 15N ratios. DNA analysis divided the four Shichengzi samples into two groups, with one group primarily harboring the ancient Northeast Asian (ANA) related ancestry, while the other showed a dominant Late Neolithic Yellow River (YR_LN) related ancestry. Both ancient DNA and stable isotope evidence point to the Northeast Asian origins of pastoralists and East Asian origins of Han agriculturalists, who, nonetheless, shared a single burial space at Shichengzi. This study thus provides clear evidence for the multiple origins and identities of populations across the porous border represented by the Han Empire and surrounding regions and proposes a new model for the interpretation of border culture in early Imperial China.

Controlling Healthy Populations: Medicine, Biopolitics, and Racial Politics in Spanish New Orleans, 1763–1803

Controlling Healthy Populations:Medicine, Biopolitics, and Racial Politics in Spanish New Orleans, 1763–1803 Liana DeMarco (bio) Sometime in early August 1794, a free woman of African descent named Margarita Goton faced off against her former enslaver and current employer in a courtroom in Pensacola, Florida. Goton alleged that Dr. Juan Rubí, first surgeon of the Spanish Royal Hospital of Pensacola, was refusing to pay her the remaining balance of her wages from ten years' work at the hospital. Rubí had already captured the vast majority of Goton's earnings per her contract to become coartada, or legally no longer a slave. Rubí had purchased Goton in New Orleans in 1781, but in 1784 the two agreed that Rubí would emancipate Goton after she paid him the equivalent of her market value. Ten years later the price was paid and she had her freedom, but by her calculations Rubí had taken 1,235 pesos on top of the coartación sum he had agreed to. At one point, Goton threatened to withhold her labor until she received her money, stating that she "would not spend any more time in service of the hospital and would retire that very night." She would accept being paid in installments, but, according to the court record, she wanted Rubí "to certify her total payment in writing so that if there were any more delays in her payments, she would have the official record she needed to get the money she was owed." Goton's confidence in the courtroom stemmed from her understanding that people like her were essential to Spanish colonial medicine and public health. She worked in a colonial hospital similar to those in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Havana where, more often than not, enslaved and free people of African descent did the vast majority of everyday work, from sweeping the floors to treating patients. Nonetheless, Juan Rubí refused flat out to pay her, arguing that he had a right to all of Goton's wages after being, in his words, "so liberal and generous in giving [End Page 447] her freedom at price and without interest." He declared Goton's threats meaningless, saying that the hospital did not need her labor. Goton, who clearly believed the exact opposite, was caught off guard.1 This legal case illuminates key themes in the history of medicine and public health in the late-eighteenth-century Spanish Atlantic world. Spanish medicine was moving away from its traditional basis in Iberian scholasticism, as its practitioners became more interested in using reason to reveal rational explanations for the human body, illness, and disease.2 Yet historians of Spanish colonial medicine in Mexico, Peru, and Guatemala have shown that people of African descent and Indigenous people were heavily involved in the Spanish state's efforts to heal the sick, fight infectious disease, and extract local medical knowledge. For example, colonial officials often worked with Indigenous medical practitioners during smallpox inoculation campaigns in Guatemala and Peru, not just because the Spanish needed the labor, but also because they recognized the skills of Indigenous practitioners and the efficacy of their medical knowledge.3 Similar social dynamics existed along the Spanish Gulf Coast of North America, and especially in New Orleans, where people of African descent were the backbone of colonial medicine and public health. Between 1763 and 1803, New Orleans was not only a military outpost for the Spanish empire but also a pivotal site of state-led biopolitical projects and transformations in medical authority. The Spanish believed that the management of healthy, racialized populations—what I call [End Page 448] here biopolitics—was essential for the economic development of New Orleans and Louisiana as a whole.4 Upon claiming the city from the French after the Seven Years' War, Spanish officials set out to order the urban landscape and to expand the medical and public health infrastructure to support growing populations of enslaved laborers and white settlers. To do so, they relied heavily on the labor of free and enslaved people of African descent, but not out of pragmatism alone. For centuries, people of all backgrounds in the Spanish Atlantic had trusted medical practitioners of African...

Fortification of the period of the Russo-Turkish war of 1735–1739 near the Vorona river in the Dnipro Nadporizhzhya

During the Russo-Turkish War of 1735–1739, dozens of temporary ground fortifications were built on the territory of the lower Prydniprovya region to provide communication with the Ukrainian line of Russian troops operating in the lower reaches of the Dnipro and the Crimea. The same is true for the left bank of the cataracted part of the Dnipro river flow, along which the Dnipro army passed to the Crimea during the campaign of 1736, which resulted in the formation of Russian military outposts on this territory. These fortifications are still poorly explored both in terms of historiography and archaeology. Many of them are still not localized on the modern geographical map. Furthermore, the conditions of their topographic placement and features of the engineering configuration are not clarified. The current situation concerning this issue makes a comprehensive study on the events of the Russo-Turkish War of 1735–1739, and especially its initial stage impossible. In particular, it is impossible to reconstruct the path used by the Dnipro Army during the Crimean campaign of 1736 without localization of field fortifications, as well as to study such important aspects as the organization of its supply and the establishment of courier communication with the Ukrainian line. The purpose of the article is to analyze the published written sources concerning the processes related to the construction and operation of the fortification of the Russo-Turkish War of 1735–1739, located on the territory of the Dnipro Nadporozhzhya, near the Vorona river, as well as to determine the location of this fortification using the cartographic material and historiographical descriptions and to clarify the peculiarities of its engineering configuration. Research methods: systemic structural, chronological, geographical, comparative, descriptive. Core results: the article shows the reasons for the construction and functioning of the sconce built on the right bank of the Vorona River, the left tributary of the Dnipro river. The chronological framework for the existence of this fortification is specified; its role in the events of the Crimean campaign of 1736 is determined, and the composition and number of the garrison located in it are clarified. Through the use of cartographic material of the first half of the 18th century and the end of the 19th – first half of the 20th century, the location is determined and the conditions of topographic placement of the remains of the studied fortification before the construction of the Dnipro Hydroelectric Station Dam in the early 1930s are clarified. The features of fortification of this temporary field entrenchment are defined. The practical significance of the materials obtained in this research lies in the possibility of their further use in writing scientific articles and generalizing works on the history of Ukraine and Eastern Europe in the first half of the 18th century. Scientific novelty: issues related to the emergence and functioning of the fortification near the Vorona river at the initial stage of the Russo-Turkish War of 1735–1739 are considered for the first time in historiography. The location is determined and the features of the engineering configuration of this defensive structure are clarified. Furthermore, three manuscript plans of the late 19th – first half of the 20th century, revealed in the funds of Dmytro Yavornytsky National Historical Museum of Dnipro, are introduced into scientific circulation. Type of article: research.

동북아 원사시대의 물질문화변동

The new technologies of ceramic production, such as wheel-turning, paddling and firing in reducing-atmosphere, were widely diffused into the Northeastern periphery of East Asia during the Proto-historic period. As the Yan(燕) State established political and military outposts in the Liaoning area in the late Warring States period, new technologies accepted in the expanded territory also affected the ceramic production in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. The previous researches on the transformation of ceramic production technology and organization in the Proto-historic period Northeast Asia have focused on the question of when and from where the technology was accepted, but this study attempted to explain it as a time-space process of the technological innovation. When the potters with new techniques and their production organizations migrated into a certain region, the contact with the potters from indigenous communities that produced ceramic wares in traditional methods took place. As potters based on different technological systems came into contact, the technology that had been introduced with the migration of potter was transmitted to the indigenous potters through the fabrication learning, and they acquired the new bodily techniques to produce traditional and new ceramic vessels. With these technological transformations, indigenous groups develop into a complex society and develop a new organization for the ceramic production. Along with these technological changes, a new specialized organization of ceramic production developed between indigenous communities. This paper attempted a comparative explanation of the processes of technological innovations in two different regions, the southeastern part of the Korean Peninsula and the upper Han-River valley, based on the agency theory.

From Garrisoned District to Chinese Town: Land and Boundaries at the Kowloon Walled City, 1898-1912

The Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong became a named entity around 1810 and was demolished in 1994, but its architecture had long been unclassified. Not until the years just prior to its demolition did this dense slum of informal multi-story buildings receive sustained attention from architects and architectural historians. However, the architectural nature of the six-acre area predated its late-20th-century state. After its founding as a Qing military outpost, it underwent various structural additions and renovations, including an imperial Chinese administrative complex known as a yamen [衙門] and an outer wall, after which the Walled City was named. Against the grain of scholarship that has focused on the Walled City’s postwar, informal architecture, this article considers the site’s early years, arguing that the Walled City’s yamen and outer wall played a crucial role in the region’s land management practices. These two architectural structures make legible the Walled City’s evolution from a Qing administrative zone to a crowded slum. The Convention of 1898 ushered in a British-led land surveying effort throughout the New Territories region of Hong Kong, followed by the creation of an intricate bureaucracy for managing land lots. This clash of empires saw the use of two forms of land knowledge, Qing land deeds and British cadastral land surveys. In between these systems existed the Walled City, its inhabitation falling outside the British conception of land division but its historical contours very much shaped by the architectural boundaries that gave it its name.

SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF FORTRESSES OF THE BELGOROD LINE AS OF 1678

The article is devoted to the analysis of the social composition of the population of the fortresses of the Belgorod line in 1678. The main source of the work was the inventory of cities in 1678, which recorded various categories of the service and townspeople of Russia. The author analyzed the information on all the fortresses of the Belgorod line and made general conclusions. The heterogeneity of the various counties of the vast southern region is recorded: in some there is a wide variety of service categories of the population, developed crafts and trade, and a large number of landowners. In other regions, the social composition was very poor. There were a lot of these regions. Such fortresses were only military outposts on the border. They were of strategic importance, but their economic potential was low. Obviously, the emergence of many small fortresses was dictated by military necessity and their full development was impossible. These small fortresses did not have the opportunity to develop. Subsequently, already in the 18th century, most of them would become rural settlements. However, the significance of these fortresses was very great for their time. These small fortresses helped to ensure the stable development of major military and economic centers. Fortified cities such as Kursk, Voronezh, Yelets, Kozlov were able to take the path of urbanization precisely because they were protected by many small military settlements. This was their historical role.

The Longshan culture site at Ximengzhuang, Tengzhou, Shandong

Abstract A small, walled settlement spanning the early through mid-Longshan culture was discovered at Ximengzhuang site, Tengzhou City, Shandong Province. The development of the settlement encompasses two periods: a square enclosure in the early period and a circular enclosure in the late period. Houses inside the enclosure might have been laid out in rows from south to north during the early period; late period houses can be divided into three phases. All houses were laid out along the circular enclosure, which could be used as a special space for storage. Cultural remains after the abandonment of the walled settlement date to the mid-Longshan culture. The Ximengzhuang site is the first small Longshan culture settlement to have been revealed in its entirety in China, with a clear trajectory of development and distinguishing characteristics as regards periodization. The Ximengzhuang site may have been a military outpost.

Making the most of expert knowledge to analyse archaeological data: a case study on Parthian and Sasanian glazed pottery

Chemical compositional data sets of archaeological artefacts are often analysed using standard statistical procedures. Adopting a different approach, we examine the major element oxides found in Parthian and Sasanian glazed pottery by identifying statistically important ratios of oxides in conjunction with the expert knowledge of the archaeological scientist during, rather than after, the identification process. This results in meaningful ratios, both statistically and archaeologically, which help identify the recipes and production practices used by Mesopotamian glass and glaze producers. The application of logratio analysis to interrogate the chronological groups suggests that the silica sources used for glazes were significantly purer in later periods and exhibited less variation. Comparing the expert-assisted selection of ratios derived from a legacy data set to the ratios from compositional data of Parthian glazed pottery recovered at the early 3rd century CE Roman military outpost of Ain Sinu in northern Iraq supports the hypothesis that there was a shift to more standardised recipes in the production of glass used for glazes. If this translates to a centralised glass-making industry, it would suggest that there are, as yet, undiscovered glass production centres, potentially in areas associated with increased urbanisation in southern Mesopotamia around the time of the Parthian–Sasanian transition.

Full-scale bioremediation of diesel-polluted soil in an Arctic landfarm.

A full-scale, experimental landfarm was tested for the capacity to biodegrade oil-polluted soil under high-Arctic tundra conditions in northeast Greenland at the military outpost 9117 Station Mestersvig. Soil contaminated with Arctic diesel was transferred to the landfarm in August 2012 followed by yearly addition of fertilizer and plowing and irrigation to optimize microbial diesel biodegradation. Biodegradation was determined from changes in total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH), enumeration of specific subpopulations of oil-degrading microorganisms (MPN), and changes in selected classes of alkylated isomers and isomer ratios. Sixty-four percent of the diesel was removed in the landfarm within the first year, but a recalcitrant fraction (18%) remained after five years. n-alkanes and naphthalenes were biodegraded as demonstrated by changing isomer ratios. Dibenzothiophenes and phenanthrenes showed almost constant isomer ratios indicating that their removal was mostly abiotic. Oil-degrading microorganisms were present for the major components of diesel (n-alkanes, alkylbenzenes and alkylnaphthalenes). The degraders showed very large population increases in the landfarm with a peak population of 1.2×109cells g-1 of total diesel degraders. Some diesel compounds such as cycloalkanes, hydroxy-PAHs and sulfur-heterocycles had very few or no specific degraders, these compounds may consequently be degraded only by slow co-metabolic processes or not at all.

Медиаобразы Калининградской области в структуре миграционных установок миллениалов и реформенного поколения

The article explores the role of the image of a region created in mass media in the formation of migration attitudes. Attention is drawn to the Kaliningrad region — a Russian exclave, whose population growth is solely due to migration. The purpose of the article is to determine the significance of the key media images of the Kaliningrad region in the decision-making process on the immigration of millennials and the reform generation (Radaev's concept of generations). Publications about the Kaliningrad Region in Russian media (2014—2018) (N =1,913) and semi-structured interviews (N =44) formed the empirical basis of the study. The main research methods are the analysis of publications and in-depth interviews with their subsequent processing using the Atlas.ti software. Five images of the Kaliningrad region constantly present in the Russian information space were identified: a region of international cooperation, a military outpost, an economically and touristically attractive region, and a region with a developing infrastructure. The most significant intergenerational differences were identified in relation to the Kaliningrad region as a military outpost and an economically attractive region. Compared with millennials, the reform generation is more inclined to perceive a military threat from other countries, therefore the security issue was a significant factor when deciding to relocate. Millennials showed greater awareness of what constitutes the image of an economically attractive region. It is concluded that the differences between millennials and the reform generation in assessing the significance of the media images of the Kaliningrad region are largely due to the specifics of migration motives. For millennials, the priority is employment opportunities and career growth whilst for the reform generation, it is finding a comfortable place to live in old age.

Jewish Autonomy in a Slave Society: Suriname in the Atlantic World, 1651–1825 by Aviva Ben-Ur

Reviewed by: Jewish Autonomy in a Slave Society: Suriname in the Atlantic World, 1651–1825 by Aviva Ben-Ur Sarah Phillips Casteel (bio) Jewish Autonomy in a Slave Society: Suriname in the Atlantic World, 1651–1825. By Aviva Ben-Ur, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020. 358 pp. Aviva Ben-Ur's brilliant new history of Suriname's Portuguese Jews not only illuminates the colonial formation of a major Atlantic Jewish community but also maps important new methodological and conceptual directions for the nascent field of Caribbean Jewish studies. Within the Jewish Caribbean, the Surinamese community is a particularly rich subject for the historian because of the unique legal status it enjoyed—one that is reflected in its abundant records. While the exceptionality of Surinamese Jewry has long been recognized, Ben-Ur recasts the terms of that uniqueness, pointing not only to the community's territorial and legal autonomy but also its inclusion of Eurafricans. Only in Suriname did Eurafrican Jews "emerg[e] as a distinct and separate class" with cultural and institutional independence (261). Moreover, Ben-Ur reframes the exceptionality of the famed Jewish agricultural village of Jodensavanne ("the Jews' Savannah"), which she presents less as a haven of religious freedom than a frontier settlement that contained Jewish difference while advancing the interests of empire. Historical scholarship on Caribbean Jewry has grown steadily over the past two decades, often positioning itself against Jewish historiographies that relegate the Caribbean to the margins. In a sign of the field's maturation, Ben-Ur instead largely presents her study as a corrective to previous Caribbean Jewish scholarship. She argues that such scholarship's focus on Jewish identity and perspectives has tended to marginalize enslaved peoples or construct them as passive observers of Jewish life. By contrast, Ben-Ur adopts an Atlantic history model in which the story of Surinamese Jewry becomes inseparable from that of enslaved peoples. With its emphasis on contact and exchange, the Atlantic history lens enables Ben-Ur to attend to the voices of the silenced and to explore the implications of Surinamese Jewish history for the study of Africans in the Americas. This paradigm shift is reflected in the book's structure, which devotes two chapters to Eurafrican Jews and a third to enslaved people. Ben-Ur reminds us that Suriname's status as one of the largest slave societies in the Americas was the fundamental condition of the Jews' presence there. The opening chapter debunks the idealized image of Jodensavanne as a [End Page 431] "new Jerusalem" that can be traced back to Surinamese Jewish historian David Nassy's Essai historique sur la colonie de Surinam (1788). While Nassy described Jodensavanne as a peaceful haven, Ben-Ur emphasizes that the majority of Jodensavanne's inhabitants were enslaved Africans whose labor sustained the village. Situated on the frontier, Jodensavanne "serve[d] as a human bulwark against Indian and Maroon attacks" and later as a military outpost (77). Its synagogue square was the designated site for the violent punishment of enslaved people. The central paradox, captured in the book's title, is that Jewish autonomy in Suriname was bound up with the unfreedom of enslaved Africans. The second chapter further nuances previous accounts of Surinamese Jewish autonomy by examining internal and external challenges to Jewish communal authority, while the third chapter addresses Portuguese Jewish rootedness in Suriname. Ben-Ur shows how Jewishness became "nearly synonymous with settler society" through the community's longevity, demographic presence, and deepening interaction with the African-descended population (136). The subsequent two chapters are devoted to the Eurafrican Jewish population that resulted from sexual exploitation of enslaved women and slave concubinage. Eurafrican children were routinely converted to Judaism and sometimes manumitted and inherited by their Jewish owners, practices that enabled Judaism to survive in Suriname. As Eurafrican Jews grew in number and status, they became increasingly activist, forming their own society, Darhe Jesarim. While Darhe Jesarim's quest for ritual equality has previously been documented, Ben-Ur resituates this episode as part of a larger struggle of free people of color to obtain rights. She further makes the case that Judaism needs to be recognized as a significant religious presence in the lives of...

Auditory and spatial regimes of United States colonial rule in Baguio, Philippines

ABSTRACT Control over geographic and sonic space was integral to the United States’ imperial project in the Philippines. This article explores how the creation of the hill station of Baguio was achieved both spatially and sonically through the work of US urban designers such as Daniel H. Burnham. In the early twentieth century, Burnham’s plans for Baguio (and Manila) inspired a model of auditory and spatial planning that colonial administrators hoped to replicate across the archipelago. In this context, I explore how the design and control of Baguio’s auditory environment was part of a wider process to transforming the rural military outpost into a comfortable resort city for U.S. expatriates, members of the Filipino elite, and others to escape the noise, heat, disease and insurgency of Manila and the lowland areas. Furthermore, the article explores Baguio as an “auditory contact zone” where sound configured and framed the interactive dimensions of the imperial encounter between Filipinos and US expatriates. As I argue, the reengineering of urban spaces, such as Baguio, under the US colonial administration was integral in establishing sound as a material symbol of imperial power.