scholarly journals Uncanny Styria

2019 ◽  
pp. 149-162
Author(s):  
Patrycjusz Pająk
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
The West ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu ◽  
Basic Ingredient ◽  
The Uncanny ◽  
Hybrid Character

The nineteenth century in the West was a period of intellectual and artistic fascination with the East, both distant and near: Asian and Eastern European. One of the regions that attracted the interest of Western Europeans was Styria, situated on the border separating Austria from Hungary and the Balkans, that is, the West from the East. Borderland cultural phenomena stimulate the imagination as much as exotic phenomena. Both disturb with their hybrid character, which results from the mixing of elements from familiar and alien cultures. With their duality and ambiguity, borderlands are the source of the uncanny, which in the Western literature of the nineteenth century became the basic ingredient of the Western image of the Styrian lands. Uncanny Styria was discovered by Basil Hall, a Scottish traveler who reported the impressions of his stay in this region in his 1830s travelogue Schloss Hainfeld; or, a Winter in Lower Styria. In the second half of the century, two Irishmen wrote about the uncanny Styrian borderland: Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu and Bram Stoker. Both associated Styria with vampirism: the former in the 1870s novella Carmilla, the latter in the 1890s short story Dracula’s Guest. The central thread that runs through all three texts is the decline of Styrian nobility. From Hall, it prompts expression of melancholy regret, accompanied by a sense of strangeness. In his work, the erosion of the culture of the nobility results from Styria’s isolated location in the borderlands, as well as the destructive influences of modernity. Le Fanu balances the regret with horror, related to a different interpretation of decline as cultural regression. In Stoker’s story, the terror intensifies with the sense that the regression that affects the province of Styria could extend to Western Europe.

Shund and the Tabloids: Jewish Popular Reading in Inter-War Poland

2003 ◽  
pp. 188-212
Author(s):  
Nathan Cohen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
The West ◽  
Tabloid Press

This chapter describes Jewish popular reading in inter-war Poland, looking at shund and the Polish tabloid press. In the first third of the twentieth century, as the Polish press was developing rapidly, sensationalist newspapers began to proliferate. While this type of press had been widespread in the United States and western Europe since the middle of the nineteenth century, it first emerged in Poland only in 1910, with Ilustrowany Kurier Codzienny (Illustrated Daily Courier) in Kraków. In Warsaw, the first tabloid newspapers, Kurier Informacyjny i Telegraficzny (Information and Telegraphic Courier) and Ekspres Poranny (Morning Express), appeared in 1922. In 1926, Kurier Informacyjny i Telegraficzny changed its name, now printed in red, to Kurier Czerwony (Red Courier). In time, the colour red became emblematic of sensationalist newspapers in Poland, and they were nicknamed czerwoniaki (Reds), similar to the ‘yellow’ press in the West.

{ Epilogue }

2021 ◽  
pp. 211-220
Author(s):  
John Evelev
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
The West ◽  
Regional Dialects ◽  
Reconstruction Era ◽  
Entire Nation ◽  
William Cullen ◽  
Fictional Story

The discourse of the picturesque reshaped how Americans understood their landscape, but it largely ended in the mid-1870s. The decline of the picturesque can be illustrated in two emblematic works: Constance Fenimore Woolson’s 1872 short story “In Search of the Picturesque” and William Cullen Bryant’s enormous 1874 scenery book Picturesque America. Woolson’s fictional story is a satire of travel in which a young urban woman accompanies her grandfather to the countryside “in search of the picturesque” and instead only finds development. This story signals the shift in literary interest in rural subjects toward regionalism. Regionalism disavowed the earlier focus on picturesque landscapes, instead featuring distinctive regional dialects and cultural practices that reflected the newly created social sciences. Bryant’s Picturesque America was a Reconstruction-era project aimed at reconnecting the divided nation through a nonhierarchical unification under the sign of “picturesque.” Adding not only the West but also the South to the compendium of American scenery, Picturesque America imagined the entire nation as picturesque. In this formulation, the picturesque became synonymous with landscape in general. Although the picturesque lost its appeal as an authoritative discourse for shaping the American landscape in the latter third of the nineteenth century, this book demonstrates that the spaces that dominated American life in the twentieth century and beyond are owed almost entirely to the transformative project of the mid-nineteenth-century picturesque.

The Russian Bible Society and the Russian Orthodox Church

1966 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 411-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Cohen Zacek
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
The West ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
National Policies ◽  
European Diplomacy

The historian Presniakov has characterized the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the reign of Alexander I, as “Russia at the crossroads” (Rossiia na rasput'i). No longer content with slavish imitation of Western Europe, Russia now began to develop a culture which would be admired and emulated by the West. Once beyond the fringe of European diplomacy, the Empire now moved to the center of that arena. Shaped by her national traditions, but involved increasingly in continent-wide trends, the Russia of Alexander I was confronted by a varied and complex set of problems, both domestic and foreign, which demanded resolution. The destruction of the Napoleonic threat, the assimilation of subject nationalities, the establishment of efficient techniques and procedures of government, the articulation and implementation of national policies in education and in economic life were among the countless tasks which faced Alexander I and his advisors. Educated Russians of the day heatedly debated the most effective means of solving the myriad dilemmas.

scholarly journals “Oh, Vladimir, King of Dioclea, Hard Headed, Heart Full of Pride!” Isaiah Berlin and Nineteenth Century Interpretations of the Live of Saint Vladimir of Dioclea

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 723
Author(s):  
Stefan Trajković Filipović
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
Romantic Literature ◽  
Isaiah Berlin ◽  
God's Will ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Romantic Movement ◽  
Historical Dramas

Saint Vladimir of Dioclea (i.e. Zeta) (c. 990–1016) left very few traces in medieval sources, and yet, for centuries now, he is present throughout the Balkans, notably in the areas of modern Albania, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Macedonia and Serbia. Compared to other notable medieval holy kings (e.g. Saint Stefan of Dečani), Saint Vladimir is a “vague” character; he was never as popular and his representations were never fully standardized nor uniformed – he is often simultaneously addressed with few names (Vladimir/Jovan/Jovan Vladimir) and with more than one title (an emperor/Tsar, king or prince). However, this “vagueness“, and yet persistence of the story about this saint makes an interesting research topic. The first elaborated narrative about the saint, the Life of Saint Vladimir of Dioclea, was published in 1601 as part of the Annals of the Priest of Dioclea, a chronicle depicting the history of an imagined early medieval Slavic dynasty and used as an introductory chapter to the Kingdom of Slavs by Mauro Orbini. The Life represents a developed hagiographic narrative with two main lessons – the value of (Saint Vladimir’s) martyrdom (following the model of Christ’s Passion) and of divine punishment awaiting the sinners. Furthermore, as part of the Annals of the Priest of Diocela (and of the Kingdom of Slavs), the Life depicts Vladimir as a Slavic holy king. Since its first edition, the Life remains the main source of inspiration and a starting point for most of the later interpretations of the story of Saint Vladimir’s life and death. In the focus of the article is a specific transformation that occurred in the nineteenth century regarding the story, within Serbian romantic literature. The approach to the transformation is based on the interpretation of the Romantic Movement provided by Isaiah Berlin in his 1965 Mellon lectures delivered in Washington DC (The Roots of Romanticism). I observe the transformation through the analysis of three representative nineteenth century interpretations of the story of Saint Vladimir: the historical dramas Vladimir and Kosara (1829, by Lazar Lazarević) and Vladislav (1843, by Jovan Sterija Popović) and the short story Vladimir of Dioclea (1888, by Stevan Sremac). Comparison of the Life with these narratives reveals significant shifts in main motives and lessons one finds in the story. Thus, instead of focusing on the notions of a holy man who serves as a tool of God’s will and of a Slavic holy king, one finds in nineteenth century interpretations the notions of man’s will, desire and utter loyalty to his own principles and values, one of them being his (Serbian) nation, as key ideas and supreme virtues. In spite of keeping certain hagiographic traits, these romantic interpretations bring reversals of main lessons of the story of Saint Vladimir and thus contribute to Berlin’s observation about the process of conscious creation of new mythologies within Romantic Movement with long-term consequences.

A game of mirrors: Western/Eastern European crime series and the struggle for recognition

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caius Dobrescu ◽  
Roxana Eichel ◽  
Dorottya Molnár-Kovács ◽  
Sándor Kálai ◽  
Anna Keszeg
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
The West ◽  
The Social ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Struggle For Recognition ◽  
Correct Image

Our article focuses on a corpus of crime television series reflecting upon differences between western and eastern Europe – a phenomenon that we will address as the ‘West–East slope’. The series figure as instances of the struggle for recognition at the level of the social imaginary, between western and eastern Europe. Addressing the double logic of the western narrative on eastern Europe and the eastern narrative of western Europe, one of our main findings is that the recognition aesthetics of eastern Europe produced a multi-layered representation of the West varying from country to country. On the other hand in western productions, there is still a bias towards a more politically correct image of easternness, a state of affairs that is questioned by eastern European attempts to produce their original contents.

Reforms and Deficits: Ottoman Response to European Challenges

2018 ◽  
pp. 90-111
Author(s):  
Şevket Pamuk
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Power ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
The Social ◽  
Modern Turkey ◽  
The One ◽  
Independence Movements

This chapter discusses the Ottoman reforms as well as the efforts to finance them. The Ottoman government, faced with the challenges from provincial notables and independence movements that were gaining momentum in the Balkans, on the one hand, and the growing military and economic power of Western Europe, on the other, began to implement a series of reforms in the early decades of the nineteenth century. These reforms and the opening of the economy began to transform the political and economic institutions very rapidly. The chapter shows the social and economic roots of modern Turkey thus need to be sought, first and foremost, in the changes that took place during the nineteenth century.

Shifting the Iron Curtain of Kantian Peace : NATO Expansion and the Modern Magyars

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Oas
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Western World ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
The West ◽  
Member States ◽  
Mass Consumption ◽  
Military Alliance ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Military Security ◽  
Market Capitalism

As the head of Latvia’s minute military, Colonel Raimanos Graube, notes, the ascension of the Latvian state into NATO is part of a much larger process than military security alone: “This means we are moving to our goal, which is to be a firm and permanent part of the West.” Though such a viewpoint is common among the populaces of ascending member states, it helps raise numerous questions as to several inherent contradictions in the reasoning behind NATO expansion. To begin with, why are numerous states that just over ten years ago regained their sovereign independence from the Soviet empire so suddenly willing to join a new, hegemonic-backed Western empire? Furthermore, what are the true reasons that underlie NATO members’ interest in expanding their military alliance into nation-states with military forces comprised of only 5,500 members (e.g., Latvia)? There is more at play in NATO expansion than simple geopolitical security as defined by the international relations (IR) field. Indeed, it will be argued that above and beyond security for central Europe, contemporary NATO expansion is a moment in the cycle of the U.S. rise to world power. Moreover, it will be illustrated that ascension of central and Eastern European states into NATO may represent the final surrender of the socialist modernity as global competitor to the West. In this historical battlefield between Eastern and Western modernities, the socialist modernity that dominated during much of the region’s twentieth-century history is now reviled by these civil societies and viewed as the antithesis of modernity. In the meantime, the Western lifestyle of mass consumption and suburbanism, as well as other dominant core processes from Western Europe in general, raised the flag of market capitalism and democratic institutions in these states and filled the power vacuum just as quickly as the Soviet red stars came down. In this way, NATO is becoming increasingly synonymous with a “zone of peace” wherein all members ascribe to democracy, free trade, and interdependent relations. By joining NATO, new member states are making a political effort to shed the yoke of the failed Soviet modernity and join the hegemonic-led “Western” world (i.e., become “part of Europe”).

NATO After Tito

Worldview ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 11-12
Author(s):  
L. Thomas Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Wishful Thinking ◽  
Southwest Asia ◽  
The West ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Center Stage

While the eyes of the West rivet upon Soviet expansionism in Southwest Asia, another drama moves to center stage in the Balkans.There is considerable wishful thinking, particularly in Western Europe, about the Soviets' inability to engage their forces in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran, maintain their defenses against China, and still cause difficulty in Eastern Europe after the death of Yugoslavia's president, Josip Tito. This is the same kind of rationalization that for two decades lulled the West into letting its defenses erode to a scandalous level.

The Theatrical Life and Death of Wych Street

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 160-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Emeljanow
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Short Story ◽  
The West ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Eastern Periphery ◽  
Drury Lane

In London’s Lost Theatres of the Nineteenth Century (1925), Errol Sherson describes Wych Street, located on the eastern periphery of the West End and within 200 metres of Drury Lane Theatre, as ‘one of the narrowest, dingiest and most disreputable thoroughfares the West End has ever known.’ By this time Wych Street had long disappeared, although its memory lingered. In a short story entitled ‘Where was Wych Street’ ( Strand Magazine, 1921), Stacy Aumonier attempted to recall the street’s existence and its significance. In the course of the story the street is identified in relation to two theatres – the Gaiety and the Globe – only the latter of which was connected to the street. Surprisingly, no reference is made to the Olympic Theatre with which Wych Street had been identified since the early nineteenth century or to the Opera Comique immediately adjacent to the Globe, highlighting the problematic role of memory in mapping historical space. This article examines the historical, theatrical and geographical mapping of Wych Street, bringing out contrasts, contradictions and paradoxes, and considering its role as part of the theatrical and extra-theatrical milieu of London.

scholarly journals Changing Directions in Russian-American Economic Relations, 1912-1917

Slavic Review ◽  
1972 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeanette E. Tuve
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
The United States ◽  
The West ◽  
Mutual Exchange ◽  
European Economic ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
West European

In the nineteenth century Russia and the United States emerged as nations on the periphery of the West European economic and political vortex. Their relations with each other had been, for the most part, prompted by or integrated with some larger issue involving the powers of Western Europe. Economic relations were no exception. Both nations were traditionally exporters of raw materials to industrialized, urbanized nations, which in turn were prepared and eager to exchange manufactured goods for raw materials. Russian and American products were therefore competitive rather than reciprocal, and profitable mutual exchange of goods had not developed. Both nations were debtor nations and had relied on the surplus capital of the small and large investors of Western Europe to provide the beginnings of internal transportation and industrialization.

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