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Eastern Europe in the Eighteenth Century. Issues of Historiography

Eastern Europe in the Eighteenth Century. Issues of Historiography

Author(s): Larry Wolff / Language(s): English / Issue: 04/2011

Keywords: Eastern Europe; eighteenth century; Poland; historiography;

This article reviews recent historiography of Eastern Europe in the eighteenth century, and considers the possibility of a decline in this field since the end of the Cold War.

FROM THE BALKAN CITY TO THE CITY IN THE BALKANS: TRANSFORMATIONS AT THE END OF THE 19th AND THE BEGINNING OF THE 20th CENTURY

FROM THE BALKAN CITY TO THE CITY IN THE BALKANS: TRANSFORMATIONS AT THE END OF THE 19th AND THE BEGINNING OF THE 20th CENTURY

Author(s): Roumiana Preshlenova / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2020

MODERN CITY IN THE BALKANS: DIRECTIONS AND PERSPECTIVES OF RESEARCH

MODERN CITY IN THE BALKANS: DIRECTIONS AND PERSPECTIVES OF RESEARCH

Author(s): Dobrinka Parusheva / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2020

Keywords: Modern City; The Balkans; Urban Studies; Historiography.

This text seeks to present an overview of the main directions in the research on modern city in the Balkans, from mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, which has been carried out during the last three to four decades. The aim is to offer a possible typology of this research and, in addition, to suggest a few conceivable perspectives of future investigations in some areas of urban life, which have not been substantially covered by now.

THE SOUNDS OF MODERNITY: EXPLORING THE BALKAN CAPITALS’ SOUNDSCAPE (LATE 19th – EARLY 20th C.)

THE SOUNDS OF MODERNITY: EXPLORING THE BALKAN CAPITALS’ SOUNDSCAPE (LATE 19th – EARLY 20th C.)

Author(s): Andreas Lyberatos / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2020

Keywords: Soundscape; Balkan City; Sensory History; Urban Modernity; Street Vendors.

Despite the fact that urban modernity and modernization in the Balkans has been a celebrated topic among social and cultural historians and historians of architecture and urban planning, the dimension of sound has been almost entirely absent from these discussions. The present paper is based on fresh research aiming to fill this gap. It initiates a comparative inquiry about the sonic environment of three Balkan capital cities (Belgrade, Sofia and Athens) during their transition to the industrial era. It offers a panorama of testimonies on the various dimensions, factors and actors creating and transforming the fin-de-siècle Balkan capitals’ soundscape (the role of climate and built environment, the natural and biological keynote sounds, the sounds of street vendors and musicians and the mechanical sounds of trams and motorcars). It finally demonstrates, through the example of the noisiest of the three cities, i.e. Athens, the importance of the “soundscape” as a field of signification and socio-cultural conflict in a transitional period for the Balkan city.

DEVELOPMENT OF SERICULTURE IN BYZANTINE CITIES 11th – 13th CENTURY

DEVELOPMENT OF SERICULTURE IN BYZANTINE CITIES 11th – 13th CENTURY

Author(s): Violeta Manolova / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2020

Keywords: Silk; Sericulture; Mediterranean; Italian Merchants; Byzantium; Constantinople; Thebes; Corinth.

As an everlasting craft and phenomenally symbolic material, sericulture and silk have always attracted rulers, peoples and empires for its unchanged value and beauty. Since ancient times the lively manufacture became a strategic aim for traders and states. Owning, producing, selling and control over all of its activities and components were often premises for economic struggles. Byzantium makes no difference and since the fall of the Roman Empire, Constantinople, Asia Minor, Thebes and Corinth had taken the leading role as silk producers and trade centres in the Mediterranean. An important and vital element of the prestige of the Byzantine Empire, Western societies, aristocracy and rulers were longing for byzantine silk. Gaining considerable influence, many Italian traders were persistently striving to assure the circulation of these goods from the East to West during the 11th to 13th centuries, attaining full domination after the fall of Byzantium.

DREAMING CONSTANTINOPLE: AN ALTERNATIVE VERSION OF PETKO TODOROV AND NIKOLAY RAYNOV

DREAMING CONSTANTINOPLE: AN ALTERNATIVE VERSION OF PETKO TODOROV AND NIKOLAY RAYNOV

Author(s): Nikolay Aretov / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2020

Keywords: Constantinople; Petko Todorov; Nikolay Raynov; Alternative Version.

Constantinople has a key place in Bulgarian national mythology. In many texts (folklore, chronicles, literature), it is presented as a great city that had to be seized or that was conquered by alien infidels. Petko Todorov and Nikolay Raynov, two important writers from the early 20th century, introduced an alternative version of the attitude towards the capital of the Byzantine Empire. In it, the Bulgarian ruler King Simeon refuses to subdue the city because they do not want history to recollect them as barbarians and destroyers. Such an attitude could not be interpreted as dominant or representative for its time. Nevertheless, it suggests the existence of some overtones in the overall image of the city and directs towards an ambivalent interpretation of Constantinople in the imagination of the Bulgarians.

LIGHTING IN OTTOMAN CONSTANTINOPLE UNTIL THE FIRST WORLD WAR

LIGHTING IN OTTOMAN CONSTANTINOPLE UNTIL THE FIRST WORLD WAR

Author(s): Alexandre Kostov / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2020

Keywords: Constantinople; Gas Lighting; Pera-Galata; Gas Industry; Ottoman Modernisation.

In Constantinople, the first gas lamp was lit in 1856. Until 1914, the Ottoman capital underwent a complex, but gradual process of introducing and distributing gas for public lighting, as part of the „European“ modernisation of the city. It provided lighting mainly in the central parts of Pera-Galata, Stamboul, for the Asian Scutari and Kadiköy, and in some of its suburbs. In addition to street lighting, gas was also used in palaces, administrative and business buildings and in private homes. A comparison shows that on the eve of the First World War, Constantinople gave way to other capitals in the region such as Bucharest and Athens with respect to the distribution of public lighting. Unlike the capitals of Greece and Romania, in reality also until 1914, due to its late introduction, electricity was still not a real competition for gas. However, it can be noted that, in Constantinople, as in other cities in Southeast Europe, gas lighting contributed to urban modernisation and social life, as well as to increasing the security of its inhabitants in the dark part of the day.

A STRATEGY OF A BEAUTIFICATION, OR HOW ‘THE DECADENT ISTANBUL’ TURNED INTO THE ‘PEARL OF TURKEY’

A STRATEGY OF A BEAUTIFICATION, OR HOW ‘THE DECADENT ISTANBUL’ TURNED INTO THE ‘PEARL OF TURKEY’

Author(s): Kalina Peeva / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2020

Keywords: Istanbul; Modernization; Nationalism; Religious Minorities Urban Planning.

The present study examines Istanbul’s transformation in the period between the proclamation of the Turkish republic in 1923 and the end of the Democratic Party’s rule in 1960. The reasons for the exclusion of the old imperial capital from early initiatives for constructing the modern Turkish nation-state are laid out, as well as the process of gradual integration of the Seljuk, Ottoman, and Byzantine architectural heritage into the paradigm of the ‘national’. The urban planning changes carried out under the direction of the French urbanist H. Prost are also examined, along with the radical spatial and architectural transformation undertaken during A. Menderes’ time which definitively destroyed the historical appearance of the city. The study further traces the attitude towards the minority clusters in Istanbul and imperial elites that proved to be a crucial element influencing government policy in one direction or another during the entire period of examination in line with the changes in state ideology.

ISTANBUL AND CULTURAL MEMORY

ISTANBUL AND CULTURAL MEMORY

Author(s): Margarita Serafimova / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2020

Keywords: Istanbul; Comparative Literature; Leo Spitzer; Erich Auerbach; 1933.

Paradoxes of history helped Istanbul become a focal point of the European humanitarian elite in the 1930s and in particular one of the topoi of literary theory. A key location in a number of individual destinies, it played an essential role in the establishment of distance as a critical method and served as an excellent observatory – due to its borderline status – for tracing literary processes diachronically and synchronically. As a result, Istanbul became not only the homeland of significant literary studies, but also an important stage in conceptualizing literature as a global phenomenon: a place where banishment goes beyond personal fate and becomes part of the biography and philosophy of comparative literature.

MASTERING OF THE SPACE IN THE HINTERLAND OF THE TOWN OF EDIRNE: CONTINUITY AND CHANGES (14th-16th C.)

MASTERING OF THE SPACE IN THE HINTERLAND OF THE TOWN OF EDIRNE: CONTINUITY AND CHANGES (14th-16th C.)

Author(s): Stefan Dimitrov / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2020

Keywords: Edirne; Hinterland; Changes; Ottoman Tax Registers; 14th – 16th Century.

This article examines and analyses the degree of succession among the settlements which existed in the pre-Ottoman and the Ottoman period in the northern hinterland of the city of Adrianople /Edirne/ in the period of 14th – 16th century; the changes in their status which occurred after the establishment of the new Ottoman authority and the demographic development changes of the Muslim and non-Muslim population in the settlements. The present survey highlights three settlements – Skutarion, Bukelon and Provaton which in the Middle Ages were part of a group of castles protecting Adrianople from the North. After the conquest of the Balkans and their inclusion into the Ottoman military – administrative system their status changed and the three castles were transformed into centers of administrative units. Our conclusions draw on the achievements of contemporary historiography and on information, found in unpublished Ottoman tax registers from the collections of the Ottoman archives in Istanbul (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi).

BULGARIANS IN THE URBAN POLITICAL LIFE OF EUROPEAN TURKEY IN THE IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH OF THE YOUNG TURK COUP

BULGARIANS IN THE URBAN POLITICAL LIFE OF EUROPEAN TURKEY IN THE IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH OF THE YOUNG TURK COUP

Author(s): Zorka Parvanova / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2020

Keywords: Young Turk Coup; Bulgarians; Urban Political Life.

The Young Turk Coup of July 1908 unleashed an unsuspected social energy and a previously unseen livening of urban social and political life in European Turkey. The negative trends in relations between the Bulgarian Revolutionary Organisation and the Young Turk Committees mobilised wider public circles and new political figures to seek adequate forms of political expression. The Union of Bulgarian Constitutional Clubs developed as the most popular national party, formed in accordance with the European model in the spirit of modern political liberalism. Leftist international ideas of consolidating all democratic forces in the Empire based on a unified radical platform made a second line, albeit fainter, in Bulgarian political activity. With their numerous programme documents and journalistic materials in a colorful ideological and political palette, Bulgarians left a specific trace in the new political life, which despite the efforts of the Young Turks to channel and unify it, in reality replicated the national fragmentation of the urban public space existing up to 1908.

THE BULGARIANS IN THE WESTERN THRACIAN CITIES DURING 1913-1919

THE BULGARIANS IN THE WESTERN THRACIAN CITIES DURING 1913-1919

Author(s): Maria Markova / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2020

Keywords: Bulgarians; Western Thrace; Cities; Every-Day Life; Market; Residences; Families; Kin; Identity.

The object of commentary in the text is the Bulgarians who come from Western Thrace and who live in these cities throughout the period 1913-1919. I will try to shed light upon a scarcely developed matter, or at the very least, upon some parts of it. I have headed towards a modern rendition of well-known Bulgarian authors and I have put together their pieces with archived and scientifically non-interpreted until this moment materials. I will describe a part of the image of the Bulgarians from the cities of the said community. In these cities they consist of old and new migrants. They are placed in certain spaces of life and commerce. The official institutions influence their lives to a certain degree but these people remain heavily connected to their familial-kin structures, as a whole. Elitist fractions have been formed in their communities. Furthermore, specific elements could be found in their identities.

“THE BULGARIAN SALONICA”

“THE BULGARIAN SALONICA”

Author(s): Yura Konstantinova / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2020

Keywords: Bulgarians; Salonica; Collective Memory; Macedonian Question.

The Balkan Wars put an end to the Bulgarian presence in Salonica, but not to the Bulgarian imagination relative to the city. Almost until the second decade of the 20th c. Ottoman Salonica used to be a bigger, richer and more modern city than the Bulgarian capital. It evoked much feeling and interest among Bulgarians, who saw in it many economic, political and cultural opportunities. For Bulgarians, however, Salonica was primarily linked with their freedom fighting, so its image is dominated by themes of death and self-sacrifice, of fear and courage, of prisons and concentration camps. To them it is simultaneously a city of prisons and a city of light, a city of youth and nostalgia, of education and pogrom, of economic opportunity and wasted effort.

ON THE PAST, MEMORY, RECOLLECTIONS AND HISTORY OF THE BULGARIANS IN “SIMVASILEVUSA”

ON THE PAST, MEMORY, RECOLLECTIONS AND HISTORY OF THE BULGARIANS IN “SIMVASILEVUSA”

Author(s): Malamir Spasov / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2020

Keywords: Bulgarians; History; Memory; Recollections; Salonica.

In the past one feels at home. One comes from that home, where the ones before him are, to go back one day and become one of them, a home for those that are to come. Think of it, that home is in one and one is that home. That’s why the past is cozy. Our awareness of the past is rooted in memory. Memory permeates all aspects of our life. Even our present is largely dedicated to memory, insofar as we spend a great part of it in fortifying our ties with the past. Our memory of the past is an indispensable condition for our sense of identity. We need the collective memory, i.e. the recollections of others, in order to affirm our own recollections, and in this way give them value. The opposite is also fully true, for life is fundamentally dialogical and the discovery of self is unthinkable without the others. If memory and history are processes penetrating the past, the vestiges of the past would put one on the track of processes that have produced that past. Often such traces are sparse, which makes them all the more valuable. Sometimes a few old photographs are the only remnants that have remained in place of one’s roots. In other cases only recollections replace places left long ago. Well, such places don’t have to be outstanding in order to be unforgettable. For many Bulgarians Salonica is just that kind of place. But Salonica is not some ordinary, unremarkable and insignificant city.

URBAN SPACE IN THE GREEK POETRY OF THE 1920S (BASED ON EXAMPLES FROM CAESAR EMMANOUIL’S WORKS)

URBAN SPACE IN THE GREEK POETRY OF THE 1920S (BASED ON EXAMPLES FROM CAESAR EMMANOUIL’S WORKS)

Author(s): Fotiny Christakoudy-Konstantinidou / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2020

Keywords: Greek Symbolism; 1920s Poetic Generation; Urban Space; Caesar Emmanuel (1902-1970).

Kostas Ouranis (1890-1953), Angelos Dhoxas (1900-1985), Orestis Laskos (1907-1992), Caesar Emanouil (1902-1970), Alexandros Baras (1906-1990), Nikos Kavvadias (1910-1975) are among the artists who in the turbulence of the interwar years discover the fascination of the urban space and the magic of the voyage. French literature had been familiar with the image of the modern city from the time of Baudelaire’s poems (The Swan, Spleen), but Greek poetry first discovered it only via the generation of the symbolists of the 1920s. The theme of the city was entirely absent from the lyric poetry of the poetic generation of the 1890s. “The Disharmonic Flute” (1929) by the poet Caesar Emmanuel is among the lyrical collections that have become the quintessence of this new Athenian urban life. In its verses vibrate the unending noise of the cabaret and of the performance together with a strong sense of hedonistic delight.

THE THEATRE AND THE CITY ON THE WAY OF EUROPEANIZATION AND MODERNIZATION OF BULGARIAN CULTURE

THE THEATRE AND THE CITY ON THE WAY OF EUROPEANIZATION AND MODERNIZATION OF BULGARIAN CULTURE

Author(s): Joanna Spassova-Dikova / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2020

Keywords: City; National Theatre; Modernization; Europeanisation; National Identity.

The paper discusses some issues which pertain to the relationship between theatre and urban culture. The survey is part of a larger research, which aims to trace the role of the theatre for building urban culture and memory in the process of asserting the national identity at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century in the context of the modernization and Europeanization of the Bulgarian society after the Liberation until the Second World War. Problems about the significance of the established National theatres in Central and Eastern Europe during the investigated period are outlined. In focus is the professionalization and institutionalization of the Bulgarian theatre activities with the foundation of the National Theatre. Important questions about the repertoire, the professional acting staff, the native and the foreign are put into reconsideration.

OPERA AND MODERNIZATION: THE CASE OF BULGARIA

OPERA AND MODERNIZATION: THE CASE OF BULGARIA

Author(s): Alexandra Milanova / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2020

Keywords: Opera Houses; Bulgaria; Modernization; Cities; Music.

Opera music may be much more central to our understanding of urban modernity than is habitually thought. Since its beginnings in Bulgaria around 1890, opera has had a strong relationship with urban space and the public sphere. Most opera houses were built in urban centers and came to be seen both as secular temples and sites of entertainment, in which the appreciation of high art coexisted with conviviality. This paper aims at demonstrating that development of opera art is inextricably linked to the process of modernization of Bulgarian cities. By addressing the impact of this classical art on urbanity, the paper will also attempt to show how opera houses have been among important in towns‘ transformations and alteration from the late 19th to the second half of the 20th c. By studying the inception and development of opera theaters in particular Bulgarian cities and through its focus on the liaison between music and localities, this paper should add to the vast body of scholarship in social and cultural history to do with the city, and the meaning of urbanity in Bulgaria.

BACKSTAGE THEATER

BACKSTAGE THEATER

Author(s): Valeria Fol / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2020

Keywords: Theater; Varna People’s Theater; WWII; Nikolai Fol.

This is a comment on some documents of historic interest from the personal archive of Nikolai Fol, Director of the Varna National Theater in 1943 – 1944. It tells of the evacuation of the theatre, its modus operandi, the way such a cultural institution was administered during WWII, the atmosphere in the theatre and the city of Varna at that time, the transformation of the theatre into a symbol of modernization and Europeanization of the city and village, as well as of the spirit of intellectuals and artists in that situation of crisis.

RECEPTION OF THE FOREIGNNESS – MIGRANT LITERATURE AS CULTURAL TRANSFER

REZEPTION DES FREMDEN –MIGRANTENLITERATUR ALS KULTURTRANSFER

Author(s): Antoaneta Mihailova,Kalina Minkova / Language(s): German / Issue: 2/2020

Keywords: migrant literature; cultural transfer; Bulgarian literary criticism

The article reviews the distinction between emigrant, immigrant and migrant literature from the perspective of the contemporary Bulgarian literary criticism. The body of emigrant literature is regarded as comprising the works of nineteenthcentury Bulgarian authors (Rakovski, Karavelov, Vazov) who wrote in Bulgarian and intended their works for the Bulgarian readership. The works from the first half of the twentieth century, written in Bulgarian by Bulgarian authors living mostly in Germany and France, are perceived as part of the Bulgarian literature from this period on the grounds of their engaging with themes recognized as characteristically Bulgarian (Elisaveta Bagryana, Pencho Slaveykov, Kiril Hristov, Svetoslav Minkov etc.). The Bulgarian intellectuals who moved to Western Europe in three immigrant waves after 1944, however, wrote in the language of the country in which they settled. This is the reason why Bulgarian literary criticism did not acknowledge their works as part of Bulgarian literature. The authors this article deals with – Ilija Trojanov, Dimitre Dinev and Tzveta Sofronieva – do not deny their Bulgarian origins. They have chosen to write in German in order to be understood by readers in their new country. The German-speaking readership regards them as mediators between Bulgarian history, traditions and culture and the German, respectively Austrian, society precisely because they have rendered Bulgarians and the Bulgarian past in a language that is easy to understand. The interest in Bulgarian authors writing in languages other than Bulgarian in Western Europe peaked in the years immediately preceding and following Bulgaria’s accession to the European Union as the Western European citizens wanted to find out more about the new country in the Union. With their established reputation as eminent artists, these authors continue to cast a bridge between the two cultures. Their works keep being translated into many different languages and have won prestigious international awards

ROMANIANS OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT, READERS OF THE LITERATURE OF THEIR TIME, AS SEEN THROUGHOUT THE 20TH CENTURY

LES ROUMAINS DES LUMIERES, LECTEURS DE LA LITTERATURE DE LEUR EPOQUE, VUS AU LONG DU XXe SIECLE

Author(s): Ileana Mihaila / Language(s): French / Issue: 4/2020

Keywords: Romanian 18th-Century Studies; 20th-Century Reception; History of Translations; University Research; Communist Period.

Although they were at the borders of the Europe of the Enlightenment, Romanians proved to be active and avid readers of the texts that marked their era. Following their quick conversion to Francophonie, they did not limit themselves to simply reading, but instead followed it up by translating these works more or less liberally. Thus, Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Condillac, Fénelon (among others) started their long journey towards Carpatho-Danubian celebrity. In fact, their efforts to harmonize Romanian culture with the European culture of their time would not be updated before the blossoming of 18th-century studies in 20th-century Romania. The Romanian reading of the Enlightenment remains an unexhausted theme for research today, which is made all the more interesting by underlining the influence of 20th-century political vicissitudes on Romanian 18th-century studies.