Around the Bloc: Teams Begin ‘Nazi Gold Train’ Probe in Poland Premium
Some historians say up to three Nazi trains vanished near today’s Czech border as the Red Army advanced in 1945.9
More...We kindly inform you that, as long as the subject affiliation of our 300.000+ articles is in progress, you might get unsufficient or no results on your third level or second level search. In this case, please broaden your search criteria.
Some historians say up to three Nazi trains vanished near today’s Czech border as the Red Army advanced in 1945.9
More...
Britain wants to bar the release of papers showing a close call between the Cold War superpowers.
More...
This paper is an analytic attempt to examine mortality of prisoners in the Gulag timber camps on micro-level during Great Terror of 1937-1938. The author uses comparative methodology for his analysis. For comparison, he employs statistical data of the U.S.A. prison system, metropolitan prisons of the Third French Republic, concentration camps of Nazi Germany, as well as death-rates of comparable gender and age cohorts of the USSR’s civil population. Detailed monthly absolute and relative mortality rates for all newly created timber camps are introduced in this paper for the first time in historiography, including relative death rates of Lokchimlag, Tomasinlag, Ivdellag, Ust-Vymlag camps and several others ITLs during the global crisis of 1937- 1938
More...
In the first years of his rule, Ceausescu managed to build a social solidarity around the party through political rehabilitations, public condemnation of the invasion of Czechoslovakia and direct involvement of the party in solving the problems of the common people (welfare, houses, and stable jobs). Encouraged to write by press campaigns as well as official declarations, the ordinary citizen of the seventies and eighties felt safe under the protection of the state/leader/party. Some of them use the elogious terms spread by the propaganda apparatus and voluntarily associate themselves with support for the activities of the party and the general secretary. People identify unconditionally with the leader’s actions, supported and approved of them, and are full of gratitude for living in, or preparing to live in, a golden age. The psychology of adherence can be explained by the social changes and the effects of modernisation (urbanisation, industrialisation, electrification) which Romanian society benefited from. The deliberate hiding of daily realties and of generalised shortages are part of respecting the existing social contract between society and regime. These letters are the result of personal initiatives, they express voluntary servitude and illustrate the accommodation of the ordinary citizen with the rules imposed by the party.
More...
Ceausescu’s regime did not allow the existence of a “political opposition” in the Socialist Republic of Romania. The absence of a reforming political opposition was regarded by the Kremlin’s analysts as a key factor for keeping Nicolae Ceausescu in power. Col. (r) Filip Teodorescu; the former Chief assistant of DSS’ Third Direction; mentioned in his memories that unlike other socialist states; in Romania there wasn’t an organized dissident movement. Therefore the aim of the Ceausescu’s regime adversaries was exactly the one to create an opposing group meant to surface at the right moment with the purpose of promoting the overturning of power. The statements of Chief assistant of The III-rd Direction; Counter - intelligence of DSS rises a lot of questions with regards to so called „team of tomorrow” and to the lack of a real opposition inside R.C.P. blocked silently by DSS officers. The existing connections between some prominent members of the power groups could not sustain the idea of an organized plot; a coup d’état; be it classical or not. In December 1989; political; military and intelligence elite of the Socialist Republic of Romania not only failed to reform the system but it failed at creating even the premises for such a reformation.
More...
The present article is an analysis of how political propaganda was disseminated within the religious area from Romania during the communist period. This usually was done by inserting prasing articles to the "achievements" of the communist regime in publications of various religious denominations. Such articles were published regularly in religious journals of the time. To better understand the details of this politicization process of religious publications a depth analysis from this perspective is done on the Pentecostal Church Bulletin. Towards the end the article contains a brief analysis of political discourse in the religious met in Romania after the 1989 revolution and churches attitude towards the religious mix with politics.
More...
Born in a Hungarian jewish family from Nagyvarad/Oradea Mare; in 1913; Valter Roman was a typical professional revolutionary. He joined the banned communist movement from interwar Romania in 1928; first as a follower. In 1931; when he was studying at Brno Polytechnic University; he became also a party member. After his return to Romania; he was imprisoned in 1934 for his political activity. When the Military Court sentenced him to 8 years; Valter Roman had already left Romania; for France. He fought in Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939. He spent the Second World War in the Soviet Union; where he worked mostly for the Third International. He returned in Romania in 1945; joined the Romanian Communist Party and held some middle-level positions within Party and State hierarchy. Until his pass-away; in 1983; he stood up for the communist idea; being a so-called „truly believer“.
More...
This is a review of Mioara Anton and Laurenţiu Constantiniu''s book Guvernaţi şi guvernanţi. Scrisori cătreputere (1945-1965); Polirom; Iaşi; 2013.
More...
This is a review of Aurel Lup's book Agricultura socialistă a României, 1949-1989. Mit şi realitate, Editura Ex Ponto, Constanţa, 2014.
More...
This article is devoted to the problem of economic consequences of the pact Ribbentrop–Molotov.The discussion about the pact is going on for many years, however it is marred by scarcity ofresearch examining the impact of the pact on the war efforts of the Nazi Germany in 1939–1941, theyears of the utmost success of the Nazi war machine. The present paper relies on newly discovereddocuments revealing the economic relations between Germany and several states, including USSR.It constitutes a comparative study of the trade between Germany and Western democracies on theone hand, and between Germany and USSR on another, in order to better comprehend the role ofthe pact Ribbentrop–Molotov in the growth of the Nazi Germany’s war machine.
More...
Magyarvista, a small village near Kolozsvár (Cluj), was the property of the bishop of Transylvania. The church, now a Calvinist one, was built in the second half of the 13th century. The frescoes covering the walls of the nave were discovered during the renovations in 1912. 11 aquarelle copies were made by István Gróh in 1913. In 1920 the paintings were covered with plaster. The new renovation (summer of 2008) was made just on two scenes. The first fresco represents the Crucifixion: at the arch in a rounded decorative frame we can see Christ on the cross, sided by the Virgin Mary and Apostle John holding the book. Neither face is maintained. The composition continues in a simple red frame lower on the southern wall. We can see two more persons both with lance and shield. The first is Longinus. The second person is dressed sumptuously and modern: he has a belt with imitation of different precious stones and pearls. Is it the representation of the donor of an altar that could be identified in that place? The essential characteristics of this fresco are those of the “Italo-Byzantine“ style also found in a number of Transylvanian locations: Csíkszentimre (Sântimbru), Felvinc (Unirea), İraljaboldogfalva (Sântămăria Orlea). Magyarvista seems to be painted after 1320, when a loyal of the king Charles I of Hungary, the 27 year old Andreas Széchy was elected as bishop of Transylvania. The later fresco in the southern side of the nave is dated from the last half of the 14th century. It is an example for the influence of the Italian Trecento. Together with Bádok (Bădesti) and Magyarfenes (Vlaha) the frescoes indicate that the area of Kolozsvár was one of the Transylvanian centers of this style. The composition in Cosmatesque band incorporates standing saints (St. James the Greater, St Nicolas, a holy king of Hungary) and the Madonna Hodegetria. She is blessing supposedly the donor, dressed in clerical robe with pallium. In the middle we can see a ship with figures dressed fashionably, in the front a person with tonsure (possibly the same donor) is praying to the iconic figure of Mary. In the middle a woman is covering her eyes with her maphorion. There is a star on her front; the characteristic of Our Lady of the Seas. There are secondary elements that also occur in the Navicella of Giotto (flying wind demons, the figure covering his eye, the donor). Other features are similar with that kind of composition in which the ship-church metaphor is illustrated by the image of the Saviour crucified on the mast, in the ship with all the believers. As a conclusion we can say that the image combines iconographic elements from more sources and creates a new original composition presumably meant to ask the protection for the donor’s longer trip to Heaven. He seems to be Imre Czudar, bishop of Transylvania from 1386 to 1389. Before this, in 1374 he took part in a delegation to Charles V of France. On the way back home he passed through Avignon and Rome. This event seems to be illustrated by his repeated hypothetical depiction in the ship.
More...
This article depicts the functions and possible means of describing Macedonian historiosophic and cultural visions stemming from the political transformations of 1991. These are presented against the backdrop of changes in collective consciousness in the 20th century. Issues of research methodology and the identity of the new beginning idea (and its components) in four contexts (genetic, onthological, axiological and processual) are depicted. Within the first of these, attention is drawn to the problems of retrospective temporal orientation, assimilation of the past, “synchrony of history” and reflection of prototypes, a new conceptual network of reconstructed meanings, and selection of causalities. The second context relates to the deliberate-beneficent idea of time, the domination of “structural history”, the constructive application of previous – mainly romantic – historiosophic categories: a nation’s moral predestination (Hegel), crisis as a factor of change (Burckhardt), subordination of the category of history towards freedom in the succession of epochs (Fichte), breakthrough as a stopping of the process of decay (corso – ricorso – Vico), and the importance of periodisation and turning points. The third context includes the following items: the bond of descent towards a claim of newness and liberation, “correcting the lack of fulfilment” of the past, the “positive Apocalypse” of perpetual national revolution, the heroisation of everyday life, the politisation of culture and re-interpretation of tradition: antiquity (the sphere of archaeology), the Middle Ages, folklore, revolts and national renaissance; and the romanticism of sacrifice and lynching in the light of a postmodern neutralisation of heroism. The fourth context consists of socially-compensated elements themselves: a) national (with four indications), state-political (institutional), c) historical-cultural (identifying-imagological), and d) material-economic (pragmatic). The various scenarios for restoring their memory are also present in this part: cleansing in the past, establishment in the present and liberation in the future. Their image is made complete by a short presentation of heritage canonisation patterns and ethnocentric re-evaluation of methodologies in the Macedonian humanities after 1991.
More...
Memories of Professor Maria Veleva on Her Scientific Work with Academician Konstantin Kossev
More...
Hungarian State Award for a Bulgarian Scientist
More...
In the third period of Ukrainian prerevolutionary statehood, called Directorate, national groups took over the authority. As a result of various events, in February 1919 Symon Petlura became the leader of the republic. One of the most revolutionary decisions of the Directorate consisted in adoption of the act of autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Although the episcopate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church boycotted this act, the Directorate strived hard to execute its resolutions. One of the most important Directorate’s actions was sending to Constantinople a representative of O. Łotocki’s government, with the mission of gaining the ecumenical patriarch’s – Germanos V’s support. A fast collapse of the new authority made it impossible for the Ukrainian nationals to achieve the main objective – the autocephaly of the Church.
More...
The Japanese started coming to the United States at the end of the XIX century. The fact that they were not welcome was reflected in the US state and federal legislation. In the 1920s the Japanese society – embracing two generations – counted fewer than 300,000 people. The first generation, the Issei, were deprived of the right to naturalization. Their children, the Nisei – born in the United States and in the majority of cases Americanized – constituted the second generation. The Japanese lived mainly in Hawaii, as the biggest national minority, and in the West Coast, especially California. In the 1930s life was difficult for the Japanese living in the United States. Apart from the previous problems, they had to cope with new ones – connected with the economic crisis and Japan’s foreign policy. Their widespread and selfless support for Japan’s aggression against China was not only disapproved of by Americans; it also complicated their situation on the eve of the war. On the other hand, it was the time when the Nisei actively joined political life. Their biggest organization, the Japanese American Citizen League (JACL) was quite successful and in the Territory of Hawaii some Japanese became members of the local legislature for the first time.
More...
Harriet Low Hilliard’s memories were written in the first half of the 19th century during her four year stay in the Portuguese Macau, on the southern coast of China. She was twenty years old when her aunt Abigail Low and uncle William Henry Low invited her to travel to Macau. It was time when women were not allowed to enter Canton which she visited thanks to the position of her uncle. In her memories, Harriet Low Hilliard describes everyday life of foreigners in Macau, bringing up such subjects as accommodation, food, fashion and customs of Europeans in that small Portuguese colony, as well as customs of the local people working and living in Macau and its suburbs.
More...
The main aim of the paper is to analyze the ground-breaking imperial edict issued in the Middle Kingdom in 1906, which introduced a package of reforms aimed to establish a constitutional monarchy. The edict is an important part of the process of selective adaptation of not only certain Western institutions, but also the fundamental principles relating to the core organization of the political community. This process was neither mechanical nor one-dimensional. „Translation” of the Western object was involved in a number of dilemmas and challenges (the relationship between the tradition of the „new”; instrumentality or autotelicity of copying foreign institutions; selection of native counterparts of the copied objects). The main theoretical perspective employed in the paper is the “legal transplant” theory. It enables to point out a broader set of conclusions about the process of copying foreign laws and institutions basing on the particular example from China at the beginning of the 20th century.
More...