World War Research Articles

MANUMISSION OF HOUSE SERFS: LEGISLATIVE NORMS AND EVERYDAY PRACTICES IN THE 18th CENTURY RUSSIA URBAN ENVIRONMENT

From the late 15th century until Peter the Great’s tax reform, there were kabala bondmen (kholopy), who had lost their freedom by debt and service bondages (kabalas), along with the “full” bondmen that existed from ancient times. The latter were inherited, while the former had to be set free aft er the death of their owner, having formalized a manumission record in the Kholopiy prikaz. The 1649 Sobornoe Ulozhenie clearly distinguished between these two categories of bondmen. From the beginning of the Great Northern War, Peter I ordered to enroll in the army house serfs (dvorovye) fit for military service and set free aft er the death of their owners. Lord’s men could also enroll in military service at will. After the extension of the per capita tax to the “boyar men” it was forbidden to enroll them in service, and the manumission of house serfs with manumission letters was resumed. Unlike legislative norms, the practical side of this widespread social phenomenon has not been adequately studied. The manumission records of house serfs in 1717–1780, preserved in the fonds of the Office of Justice in the Russian State Archive of Ancient Documents, as well as their petitions and the minutes of the Office of Justice allow us to elucidate the circumstances and procedure of manumission of house serfs, collisions that arose in this process, as well as the prospects of their further life. Manumission letters written at home were signed and sealed with the owner’s personal seal and certified by witnesses. In this case, they had to be registered in the serfdom institutions and then submitted to a Hofgericht (nadvorny court) or provincial chancellery to decide on the fate of the manumitted serf. Peter the Great’s tax reform contributed to the erasure of the distinction between old and kabala bondmen. The term kholop (bondman) was soon replaced by the term dvorovyi (house serf), and any house serf could be manumitted. Most of those manumitted again voluntarily signed up “forever” to the old or new master. The Manifesto of 17 March 1775 oriented the manumitted serfs to enter the petty bourgeoisie or merchant state and reflected the actual need to get rid of archaic forms of personal dependence.

MUTUAL PERCEPTION OF THE GREAT POWERS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE GENESIS OF THE WORLD WAR II (THE CASE OF SOVIET-FRENCH RELATIONS)

Perception in international relations has long been studied in political science, but historians have not paid suffi cient attention to it so far. Meanwhile, looking at known events through its prism allows us to draw new conclusions about their origins. The prehistory of World War II and its key episode — the failure of attempts to deter Hitler’s aggression in Europe through the joint eff orts of France and the Soviet Union — can serve as a fruitful field for testing this approach. For the military and political elites of France, the USSR was dangerous due to its unpredictability, but an internally fragile. This presumption leveled all the successes of the Soviet leadership in modernizing the country and the armed forces in the eyes of the French. The increased military danger in Europe after 1933 prompted Paris merely to offer Moscow the role of an ordinary participant in the system of collective security, which was based on the experience of World War I and designed as a new model for the development of international relations and minimization of conflicts between countries. The Soviet government viewed France as a leading imperialist power that prioritized anti-Soviet goals, but had a situational interest in limiting German expansion. At the same time, Moscow believed that Soviet-French cooperation could be effective only as an equal strategic alliance aimed at deterring a potential aggressor. This approach was rejected by French diplomacy, which followed the policy of appeasement. It was a source of a deep crisis in bilateral relations at the time of the 1938 Munich agreements. The collapse of appeasement in early 1939 led to a sharp turn by the French government to strategic planning for a possible war and created a window of opportunity for an agreement with the USSR. However, the inertia of old prejudices deprived the tripartite Anglo-French-Soviet negotiations in the spring and summer of 1939 of their practical content and opened the way for a Soviet-German agreement

“URBAN REHABILITATION IN RUSSIA BROOKS NO DELAY”: STATE AND SOCIETY IN THE FIGHT AGAINST RIVERS POLLUTION AT THE END OF THE 19th — EARLY 20th CENTURIES

At the turn of the 19th and20th centuries, the growth of urban population and development of urban infrastructure were accompanied by the emergence of environmental problems, including the increase of river pollution, which might cause water supply diffi culties. The central and local authorities, as well as representatives of various public, scientific, professional organizations and business circles, were involved in solving these problems. The order of their interaction could be diff erent, but these joint projects made it possible to achieve the best results in combating river pollution caused by industrial and domestic waste, to determine priorities in the system of water protection and to improve the supply of potable water to the population. Thanks to the activities of such organizations as the Society for Assistance to the Improvement and Development of Manufacturing Industry, Russian Water Supply Congresses, sanitary stations, and the Provisional Committee for the Development of Measures to Protect the Water Bodies of the Moscow Industrial District from Pollution, a rather extensive set of measures was carried out to study the properties, nature, and degree of water pollution in the rivers that served as sources of water supply for city dwellers, and the most eff ective methods of water purifi cation were determined in experiments. Practical recommendations were developed on the use of the most eff ective and cost-efficient methods and facilities for industrial wastewater treatment. The best domestic specialists were involved in solving the identified problems, who utilized international and Russian experience. The lack of sufficient funding for water protection activities resulted in some initiatives not being or being only partially implemented. In addition, a number of practical measures which had been planned in this area had to be postponed because of the outbreak of World War I in 1914

German ‘enemy aliens’ in internment camps in South Africa in the Second World War

ABSTRACT After the Union of South Africa declared war on Germany in September 1939 approximately 5000 German men were interned as ‘enemy aliens'. Fears of a destabilisation of South Africa by German ‘fifth columnists’ were nurtured by the fractured social and political environment of the Union. The attempts made by Afrikaner nationalists to undermine the war effort of the Union reverberated with anti-Semitic and anti-British Nazi propaganda. Apprehensions about the disruptive effects of Nazi activities among Afrikaners and German residents also blended with the perpetual fears of the white minority about losing control of the black population. These challenges to domestic security convinced the Smuts government that the internment of German men suspected of subversion was urgent and justified. The internment of German civilian internees in South Africa has been briefly mentioned in some studies, but this article seeks to provide a more detailed analysis of their internment against the background of wartime South Africa. Based on South African and German archival and secondary sources, this article also constitutes a first attempt at exploring important aspects of the conditions inside the internment camps.

How we (used to) remember the Partisans. Culture of memory and art form during and after Yugoslavia

ABSTRACT This paper contends that, under certain socio-political circumstances and in given historical periods, some art forms become particularly powerful means of expressing collective ideas about a shared past. Might artistic forms themselves tell us something about the social function of collective memory, as well as about the society that “addresses” its past through them? In an attempt to answer this question, the paper will look at the distinctive artistic expressions for remembering the Yugoslav anti-fascist Partisan movement and World War II at three moments in time, during which the memory of World War II was respectively (1) institutionalized as a narrative of the Partisan struggle and victory (through monumental memorials), (2) then called into question and remolded into “dissident” literary narratives, to eventually become (3) a form of activist socio-cultural critique of both nationalist memorialization in post-Yugoslav states and contemporary capitalist realities (through choir singing).

How we (used to) remember the Partisans. Culture of memory and art form during and after Yugoslavia

ABSTRACT This paper contends that, under certain socio-political circumstances and in given historical periods, some art forms become particularly powerful means of expressing collective ideas about a shared past. Might artistic forms themselves tell us something about the social function of collective memory, as well as about the society that “addresses” its past through them? In an attempt to answer this question, the paper will look at the distinctive artistic expressions for remembering the Yugoslav anti-fascist Partisan movement and World War II at three moments in time, during which the memory of World War II was respectively (1) institutionalized as a narrative of the Partisan struggle and victory (through monumental memorials), (2) then called into question and remolded into “dissident” literary narratives, to eventually become (3) a form of activist socio-cultural critique of both nationalist memorialization in post-Yugoslav states and contemporary capitalist realities (through choir singing).

Rubble and Ruin: the CMS Hospital of Gaza in World War I … and Today?

ABSTRACT While the Ahli Arab Hospital of Gaza – formerly the CMS Mission hospital – has been the focus of public attention due to the 17 October 2023 explosion on its premises and the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, less attention has been given to its history. Very little information is publicly available. This article addresses that gap, aiming to bring texture, nuance and depth to contemporary discussions. Taking a narrative approach, this article poses two questions: first, how did the social, political and religious contexts of the hospital’s founding period shape its identity and role in the community? Second, how did it fare in World War I and the political transition that followed it? This article argues that Anglican Missionaries from the Church Mission Society (CMS) established the hospital in 1881 with the motivation and inspiration of their evangelical faith. After facing resistance from the local population, the missionaries won people’s trust through medical service. Their work was boosted after local leaders gave their endorsements and British imperial agents offered support. The situation changed rapidly, however, during World War I and the Ottoman entry into the war on the German side. The missionaries were expelled and the hospital was closed and eventually destroyed. Yet, after British victory, the missionaries were granted permission to resume services and rebuild the hospital.

A new phase of activism: women’s occupational organisations and married women’s paid work after the Second World War in Britain

ABSTRACT Focusing on the National Union of Women Teachers (NUWT) and the National Association of Women Civil Servants (NAWCS), this article looks at activism and campaigning for married women workers after the abolition of the marriage bar in both teaching (1944) and the Civil Service (1946). The article outlines the types of campaigning undertaken as well as the philosophical and ideological underpinnings in envisioning the married woman worker. Finally, the article places the campaigning both in the context of these two organisations’ longer histories and the distinctiveness of the late 1940s and 1950s in the history of (married) women’s employment in Britain.

British glass consumption during World war one in the Ypres Salient (Belgium): an archaeological contribution

ABSTRACT Glass finds are a common feature of archaeological excavations in the context of World War One (WWI). In spite of this, only little attention is paid to this material category. The main aim of this article is therefore to explore the type of information that can be gained from the study of glass and to emphasise the importance and added value of well-developed research into material finds at WWI sites. The study itself is based on a traditional material culture study of the British Army’s use of glass in the Ypres Salient, Belgium, during WWI. As a foundation for the study, 5 different archaeological glass finds were examined and statistically analysed. Combined with data from commercial archaeological research, this provided insights into the glass containers used and their contents, the spatial distribution of these objects and the chronological trends in their use.

Sending Couriers to Czechoslovakia as Part of Anticommunist Resistance in the First Half of the 1950s

The anticommunist resistance in Czechoslovakia, organized from abroad, was led primarily by groups of experienced Czechoslovak intelligence officers who fled to the West after the coup d'état in February 1948. Financed and organized by the intelligence services of France, Great Britain, and the United States, and in isolated cases by the Czechoslovak exile organizations, these groups sent hundreds of couriers to Czechoslovakia to carry out various intelligence tasks. Recruited mainly from young individuals placed in refugee camps, these people faced a perilous mission. The State Security Service apprehended many of them. Those deemed unsuitable for intelligence use by the communist security apparatus faced years of imprisonment or even execution. A few years after the communist coup d'etat in Czechoslovakia, when it became clear that World War III would not break out, activities of the Western intelligence services that previously sent couriers dramatically changed. Risks when crossing the national border and working in Czechoslovakia became enormous. The state borders with Western countries were heavily guarded. Czechoslovak society was overcome by fear, and it was difficult to find people willing to cooperate with patriots in exile. In the middle of the 1950s, Western intelligence services stopped sending couriers to Czechoslovakia. They began to focus more on the use of legal channels and tried to recruit collaborators from among Czechoslovak citizens who regularly visited Western countries for business or cultural purposes.

A Local Historical Overview of the Cadastral Municipality of Bodrež in the 19th and Early 20th centuries

Drawing on newspaper, printed, and archival sources as well as literature, the paper discusses several historical aspects of the cadastral municipality of Bodrež. It constitutes a local historical overview of a small area on the western edge of the Banjšice Plateau, with settlement concentrated on the village of Bodrež and the nearby hamlet of Loga. In the first part, the paper focuses on providing the geographical description of the area, followed by chapters on the demographic features, the development of settlements, and the economy, with the focus on the nineteenth and early twentieth century. The final section centres on the First World War, the villagers’ refugee experience as well as the destruction and devastation of the village itself.

Understanding the Intergenerational Impact of Migration: An Adult Mortality Advantage for the Children of Forced Migrants?

Children of immigrants often have excess mortality rates, in contrast to the low mortality typically exhibited by their parents' generation. However, prior research has studied children of immigrants who were selected for migration, thereby rendering it difficult to isolate the intergenerational impact of migration on adult mortality. We use semiparametric survival analysis to carry out a total population cohort study estimating all-cause and cause-specific mortality among all adult men and women from age of 17 years among all men and women born in 1953-1972 and resident in Finland in 1970-2020. We compare children of forced migrants from ceded Karelia, an area of Finland that was ceded to Russia during the Second World War, with the children of parents born in present-day Finland. Children with two parents who were forced migrants have higher mortality than children with two parents born in Northern, Southern, and Western Finland, but similar or lower mortality than the subpopulation of children whose parents were born in the more comparable areas of Eastern Finland. For women and men, a mortality advantage is largest for external causes and persists after controlling for socioeconomic factors. Our findings suggest that forced migration can have a beneficial impact on the mortality of later generations, at least in the case where forced migrants are able to move to contextually similar locations that offer opportunities for rapid integration and social mobility. The findings also highlight the importance of making appropriate comparisons when evaluating the impact of forced migration.

The Myth of Heterosexuality: Queer Australian Artists, Art Historians and Gallerists in London, 1930–1961

ABSTRACT The 1961 Recent Australian Painting exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in London is an important and much-discussed moment in Australian art history. It is when the idea of Australian art as “isolated” and “exotic” first became popularised in both British and Australian cultures. The prominent Australian art historian Bernard Smith criticised the idea, but in many ways his book Australian Painting, published the year after, repeated the assumption. What is overlooked in accounts of the show is that many of its artists were not “isolated”, frequently having spent extended periods in Britain living and studying. But, more than this, what is rarely, if ever, discussed is how many of the artists in the show were queer, as was its curator, the director of the Whitechapel Gallery, Bryan Robertson. In many ways, the social and professional connections between Australian and British artists were forged through their shared homosexuality. It is this that puts Australian artists in connection with the British art scene and, on occasion, explains their influence upon it. Queerness has often connected Australian artists to those around the world—it is also the case for the Australian women artists in Paris before and after World War I.

Španska gripa v Goriških brdih

During the First World War, the area of Goriška Brda was to a lesser extent a battleground and primarily served as the rear of the Isonzo Front. A large part of the population was evacuated, their homes and land left abandoned and devastated. Although the Spanish flu also wreaked havoc in the area discussed, it has never completely settled in the collective memory, as it is rarely mentioned. The data on deaths related to the disease are obtained from the parish registry sources of that period. The deadly second wave, which started in Goriška Brda in October, claimed the highest toll in November and December 1918. Young women and elderly men accounted for the majority of deaths. As the records show, the names of those who died as refugees were ordinarily not entered in the local parish registers.

Exploring Dehumanization In The Maus Comics By Art Spiegelman

This study limits the problem its problem to the issue of social dehumanization depicted in the comic Maus, which as a reflection of the Jewish community’s condition in Germany during the Nazi regime. This research is qualitative research that uses Ian Watt's sociology of literature as a basis for theorizing. By regarding literature as a reflection of society, this research aims to elucidate how the comic Maus reflects the issue of dehumanization, based on the social realities of the World War II era. The data used in this study are quotations from the comic Maus, supplemented by supporting literature such as books and scholarly articles. The data collection techniques employed in this research include: 1) identifying social issues within the comic, 2) analyzing and interpreting these social issues, 3) examining the data as a reflection of society depicting the social problem of dehumanization among the Jewish community in Germany during the Nazi regime, and 4) formulating conclusions based on the analysis conducted. The conclusion drawn from this research is that the comic Maus serves as a reflection of the dehumanization in Germany according to the author's perspective or ideology, influenced by the author's social background. As a reflection of social realities, Maus cannot fully represent the entirety of society. Through the author, who represents a segment of society that experienced the Holocaust, Spiegelman presents his social viewpoint on the dehumanization that occurred in Germany, drawing from his family's experiences as survivors of the horrific events perpetrated by the Nazis.

The Origins of the Idea of “Civilizational” Multipolarity in Russian Religious Thought (from 19<sup>th</sup> to First Half of 20<sup>th</sup> Century)

The article explores the development of the concept of «civilizational» multipolarity in Russian religious thought from the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century. This notion of «civilizational» multipolarity suggests that power centers, beyond forming a geopolitical balance, also represent distinct civilizations. During the first half of the 19th century, Russian conservatism was predominantly Eurocentric and semi-colonial. However, in the latter half of the century, Russian religious thinkers began to recognize the plurality of civilizations and their potential to emerge as independent power centers, thereby reevaluating Russia's role in the world. Thinkers like Nikolay Danilevsky, Vladimir Lamansky, and Konstantin Leontyev progressively moved away from a colonial mindset, leading to the crystallization of the idea of «civilizational» multipolarity.At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, thinkers such as Vladimir Gringmut, Lev Tikhomirov, Prince Esper Ukhtomsky, and Sergey Syromyatnikov further advanced these ideas. They identified an «awakening of the East» and advocated for Russia to align with Eastern civilizational powers in anticipation of an imminent world war. Post-1917 revolution, the concept of «civilizational» multipolarity persisted in the Eurasianist thought of the 1920s and 1930s, which is a focal point of this article. Leaders of the Eurasianist movement, such as Prince Nikolay Trubetskoy and Petr Savitsky, developed the doctrine of autarkic «worlds»-civilizations, envisioned as large economic blocs unified by common culture, ideology, and centralized authority. Religious ideas and rhetoric, including the trope of «Babylonian confusion», played a significant role in the Eurasianists' justification of their preferred international order.

The Kočevje Region Between the Hammer And the Anvil: a History of Political Experimentation

The article presents the historical development of the Kočevje region in light of political experimentation from the Second World War to present day. The core of the empirical study is the period between 1991 and 2021, when the Kočevje region confronted economic decline and social turmoil, which were a consequence of past political decisions. We studied the available literature and statistical data and conducted ten interviews with key local stakeholders, based on which we then identified three periods of the contemporary development of the Kočevje region. The post-independence transition (1991–2010) marked the destruction of industrial companies, the non-responsiveness of the local environment, and the overall stagnation in development. The establishment of new local government (after 2010) brought about a developmental shift, the economic revival, and a change in mentality. The current period (after 2016), on the other hand, represents the arrival of an established international company and an improvement in the external image of the Kočevje region.

Live chickens on the balcony and fish in the bathtub: private upkeep of Jewish traditions in the post-war Soviet Union

ABSTRACT This article sheds light on the clandestine maintenance of Jewish traditions in the Soviet Union after World War II, focusing on Ashkenazi Jews in the European part of the country. It draws on post-secular theory to shed a new light on traditional Jewish practices in the atheist Soviet Union. The central argument is that Jewish traditions persisted in the post-war period (despite surging antisemitic campaigns) but were confined to private and domestic spaces. Three central characteristics of this tradition were: its relegation to the private sphere of Jewish households; its main expression through cooking Jewish dishes in kitchens dominated by women; and the ambivalent character of the clandestine Jewish practices in the ‘“double life’” of Soviet Jews.

Best practice in audiology: context matters

Historically, modern audiology evolved from the United States of America (USA) after the Second World War, where hearing rehabilitation programs were established across the country. Since then, audiology practice and the profession as a whole has expanded from the west to the far east and global south with considerable contextual variations. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to increase conversation and engagement on definitions and the drawbacks of a single lens approach to the use of best practice guidelines in Audiology. It is important to develop a more expansive lens as influenced by different contexts such as Africa, Asia, and South America that will in turn help facilitate a multidimensional approach to audiology practice and what is considered “best practice.”

Best practice in audiology: context matters

Historically, modern audiology evolved from the United States of America (USA) after the Second World War, where hearing rehabilitation programs were established across the country. Since then, audiology practice and the profession as a whole has expanded from the west to the far east and global south with considerable contextual variations. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to increase conversation and engagement on definitions and the drawbacks of a single lens approach to the use of best practice guidelines in Audiology. It is important to develop a more expansive lens as influenced by different contexts such as Africa, Asia, and South America that will in turn help facilitate a multidimensional approach to audiology practice and what is considered “best practice.”