scholarly journals Obraz Kresów Wschodnich w tekstach historii mówionej

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 85-103
Author(s):  
Damian Gocół

The Image of Kresy Wschodnie in Texts of Oral HistoryThe author assumes that KRESY (former Polish Eastern Borderlands) is a characteristic culturem of Polish culture. He considers culturems as concepts which are important for self-identification, and assumes that identity has a shape of a narrative. Consequently, he recognises that the culturem KRESY may have a significant impact on shaping the identity of people associated with the former lands of the Second Polish Republic, so-called Kresy Wschodnie. This article analyses three oral history texts from the author’s files. They reveal a strong connection between the image of KRESY and the Polish home (especially the manor house) and the roots of Kresowiak identity in national liberation traditions (especially the January Uprising). This image is characterised by a certain degree of idealisation: KRESY are viewed as a place of peaceful coexistence of numerous nations and cultures. The image of KRESY has changed over time. After the Polish-Bolshevik war, it was a place of lawlessness; after the creation of the Border Protection Corps (Korpus Ochrony Pogranicza, KOP) it was a place of peace. The Second World War was a turning point marking the end of Polish Kresy. Obraz Kresów Wschodnich w tekstach historii mówionejAutor wychodzi z założenia, że KRESY są kulturemem charakterystycznym dla kultury polskiej, przy czym kulturemy uznaje za pojęcia istotne dla samoidentyfikacji. Zakładając, że tożsamość ma postać narracyjną, uważa, że kulturem KRESY może mieć istotny wpływ na kształtowanie tożsamości ludzi związanych z ziemiami leżącymi na wschodzie II Rzeczpospolitej, czyli Kresami Wschodnimi. Analizie poddaje trzy teksty historii mówionej ze zbiorów własnych. Ujawnia się w nich silny związek obrazu KRESÓW z polskim domem (szczególnie dworem) i zakorzenienie tożsamości Kresowiaków w tradycjach narodowowyzwoleńczych (szczególnie powstania styczniowego). Obraz KRESÓW cechuje pewna idealizacja, przedstawiane są jako miejsce pokojowej koegzystencji licznych narodów i kultur. Obraz KRESÓW ulega zmianie w czasie. Po wojnie polsko-bolszewickiej to miejsce bezprawia, po powstaniu Korpusu Ochrony Pogranicza – pokoju. II wojna światowa stanowi cezurę, od której datuje się koniec polskich Kresów.

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Vincent K.L. Chang

Abstract The recent surge in public remembrance of the Second World War in China has been substantially undergirded by a centrally planned and systematically implemented discursive shift which has remained overlooked in the literature. This study examines the revised official narrative by drawing on three cases from China's school curriculum, museums and formal diplomacy. It finds that the once dominant trope of “national victimization” no longer represents the main thrust in the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) rhetoric on the Second World War. Under Xi Jinping, this has been replaced by a self-assertive and aspirational narrative of “national victory” and “national greatness,” designed to enhance Beijing's legitimacy and advance its domestic and foreign policy objectives. By emphasizing national unity and CCP–KMT cooperation, the new narrative offers an inclusive and unifying interpretation of China's war effort in which the victory in 1945 has come to rival the 1949 revolution as the critical turning point towards “national rejuvenation.” The increasingly Sino-centric and centrally controlled narrative holds implicit warnings to those challenging Beijing's claim to greatness.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torsten Kahlert

AbstractThis article investigates interwar internationalism from the perspective of the highest personnel of the first large-scale international administration, the League of Nations Secretariat. It applies a prosopographical approach in order to map out the development of the composition of the group of the section directors of the Secretariat over time in terms of its social and cultural characteristics and career trajectories. The analysis of gender, age, nationality, as well as educational and professional backgrounds and careers after their service for the League’s Secretariat gives insight on how this group changed over time and what it tells us about interwar internationalism. I have three key findings to offer in this article: First, the Secretariat was far from being a static organization. On the contrary, the Secretariat’s directors developed in three generations each with distinct characteristics. Second, my analysis demonstrates a clear trend towards professionalization and growing maturity of the administration over time. Third, the careers of the directors show a clear pattern of continuity across the Second World War and beyond. Even though the careers continued in different organizational contexts, the majority of the directors remained closely connected to the world of internationalism of the League, the UN world and its surrounding organizations. On a methodological level, the article offers an example of how prosopographical analysis can be used to study international organizations.


Author(s):  
G. H. Bennett

Since 1945, the U-boat campaign has dominated the attention of scholars of the Battle of the Atlantic, and in the popular imagination 1943 remains the year in which the U-boat campaign turned decisively against Germany. That interpretation has been increasingly challenged by historians. However, many historians have completely overlooked a set of convoy battles in late 1943 that did mark a decisive turning point in the war at sea. Those battles were not fought in the Atlantic, but along the English coast from September to December. They marked the eclipse of the German Schnellboot as a serious threat to British coastal shipping, just at the point where the build-up to D-Day meant that the coastal convoys had an added strategic value in terms of the outcome of the Second World War. This chapter by G.H. Bennett examines why the German campaign against Britain's coastal convoys collapsed in 1943, and challenges an existing historiography which has failed to identify the coastal campaign as an integral part of the Battle of the Atlantic.


2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 284-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Niebuhr

When Yugoslav strongman Josip Broz Tito secured power at the end of the Second World War, he had envisioned for himself a new Yugoslavia that would serve as the center of power for the Balkan Peninsula. First, he worked to ensure a Yugoslav presence in the Trieste region of Italy and southern Austria as a way to gain territory inhabited by Slovenes and Croats; meanwhile, his other foreign policy escapades sought to make Yugoslavia into a major European power. To that end, Yugoslav agents quickly worked to synchronize the Albanian socio-economic and political systems through their support of Albanian Partisans and only grew emboldened over time. As allies who proved themselves in the fight against fascism, Yugoslav policymakers felt able to act with impunity throughout the early post-Cold War period. The goal of this article is to highlight this early foreign policy by focusing on three case studies – Trieste, Carinthia, and Albania – as part of an effort to reinforce the established argument over Tito's quest for power in the early Cold War period.


2007 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 251-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Borrie

Cluster munitions are a class of weapon originating from the Second World War, and concerns about the hazards they pose to civilians, both at time of use and post-conflict, have been raised since the 1960s. However, attempts to specifically address the humanitarian impacts of cluster munitions through international legal means gained little traction until a turning-point period from late 2006 to the end of 2007. Remarkably, by the end of this period not one – but two – multilateral negotiating processes were underway to develop international legally binding arrangements on cluster munitions.


1988 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel C. Patterson ◽  
Gregory A. Caldeira

By the standard of most European parliaments, levels of party voting in the United States Congress are relatively low. Nevertheless, party voting does occur in the House of Representatives and the Senate. In the American context, a party vote occurs when majorities of the two congressional parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, oppose one another. The authors construct measurements of levels of party voting in Congress in the years after the Second World War. They then develop a model to test the effects of a number of independent variables that influence fluctuations in party voting levels over time. The study models the time series for party voting and demonstrates striking differences between the House and Senate in the correlates of partisan cleavage.


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