The term Polabian Slavs is a generic name applied to the westernmost branch of the Western Slavs, now almost extinct. Those people are often referred to as Wends, but mainly in older historiography. In the Middle Ages they occupied the territory more or less corresponding to the former state of East Germany, the region enclosed by the Baltic Sea in the North, the Oder-Neisse rivers in the East, the Ore mountains in the South and the Elbe-Saale rivers in the West (see map 1). In Central Europe, with the exception of the Baltic Prussians and Lithuanians, some of the Polabian Slavs resisted Christianisation and remained stubbornly pagan until the middle of the twelfth century. In the course of history the Polabian Slavs came under increasing political pressure from the Franks and later from the Empire, in the period between the eighth and the twelfth centuries. From the north they were also hard pressed by the Danes and in some periods from the east by the growing strength in Poland of the Piast dynasty. By the end of the twelfth century most of the Polabian Slavs fell under German or Danish political control. Some of them in the central region, what is now the Land of Brandenburg, and the tribes in the South were fully incorporated into the Empire. Others, like the Obodrites and some of the Veleti in Western Pomerania, became part of the Empire as autonomous duchies ruled by the local princes, while the island of Rügen and the adjacent mainland territories, although they continued to be ruled by the Slavic dynasts, had to acknowledge Danish suzerainty. The whole territory, despite some areas being under the Danish crown, became subject to strong German political and cultural influence. Assimilation and German colonization facilitated the process of the Germanization of almost the entire area between the Saale-Elbe and Oder-Neisse rivers. Over the centuries the Polabian Slavs have almost entirely disappeared as a distinct people. However, the process is not fully completed even today, for a small Sorb minority still retains its distinct cultural identity. The modern Sorbs, numbering around 100,000 people are living today in eastern Germany in the region of Lusatia (Lausitz in German or £užica in Sorbian), mainly around Bautzen and Cottbus. Approximately 60,000 of them still speak a Slavonic language. Although this work does not deal directly with the Sorbs of Lusatia, it is dedicated to those surviving Polabian Slavs. [No abstract available - text taken from Introduction]

The term Polabian Slavs is a generic name applied to the westernmost branch of the Western Slavs, now almost extinct. Those people are often referred to as Wends, but mainly in older historiography. In the Middle Ages they occupied the territory more or less corresponding to the former state of East Germany, the region enclosed by the Baltic Sea in the North, the Oder-Neisse rivers in the East, the Ore mountains in the South and the Elbe-Saale rivers in the West (see map 1). In Central Europe, with the exception of the Baltic Prussians and Lithuanians, some of the Polabian Slavs resisted Christianisation and remained stubbornly pagan until the middle of the twelfth century. In the course of history the Polabian Slavs came under increasing political pressure from the Franks and later from the Empire, in the period between the eighth and the twelfth centuries. From the north they were also hard pressed by the Danes and in some periods from the east by the growing strength in Poland of the Piast dynasty. By the end of the twelfth century most of the Polabian Slavs fell under German or Danish political control. Some of them in the central region, what is now the Land of Brandenburg, and the tribes in the South were fully incorporated into the Empire. Others, like the Obodrites and some of the Veleti in Western Pomerania, became part of the Empire as autonomous duchies ruled by the local princes, while the island of Rügen and the adjacent mainland territories, although they continued to be ruled by the Slavic dynasts, had to acknowledge Danish suzerainty. The whole territory, despite some areas being under the Danish crown, became subject to strong German political and cultural influence. Assimilation and German colonization facilitated the process of the Germanization of almost the entire area between the Saale-Elbe and Oder-Neisse rivers. Over the centuries the Polabian Slavs have almost entirely disappeared as a distinct people. However, the process is not fully completed even today, for a small Sorb minority still retains its distinct cultural identity. The modern Sorbs, numbering around 100,000 people are living today in eastern Germany in the region of Lusatia (Lausitz in German or £užica in Sorbian), mainly around Bautzen and Cottbus. Approximately 60,000 of them still speak a Slavonic language. Although this work does not deal directly with the Sorbs of Lusatia, it is dedicated to those surviving Polabian Slavs. [No abstract available - text taken from Introduction]

This research explores selected cultural traditions and histories associated with the Pomaks, a community inhabiting the Rhodope Mountains of southwestern Bulgaria. They speak Bulgarian as a mother tongue, but profess Islam as their religion unlike the country's Orthodox Christian majority. Based on this linguistic unity, the Pomaks have been subjected to recurring forced assimilation since Bulgaria's independence from Ottoman rule in 1878. Today, taking advantage of Bulgaria's democratic rule, they are beginning to assert a heritage of their own making. Still, remnants of entrenched totalitarian mentality in the official cultural domain prevent any formal undertaking to that effect. / With the Pomaks as my case study, this research links the concept of heritage to identity and the way dissenting voices negotiate a niche for themselves in public spaces already claimed by rigid master narratives. I advocate pluralistic interpretation of heritage in the public domain, where master and vernacular narratives exist and often collide. Insofar as cultural diversity serves to enrich the heritage discourse, heritage professionals ought to serve as educators in society, not as creators of exclusionary master narratives. Using fieldwork, archival research, and available literature to support a relevant theoretical framework, I strive for understanding of what constitutes (Pomak) heritage and what ways there are to promote and preserve alternative narratives. Five stories regarding Pomak identity serve as my analytical frame of reference and constitute a premeditated effort to identify, formulate, and preserve in writing fundamental aspects of a highly contested and threatened heritage. / A striking example of a Pomak tradition which merits preservation is the elaborate wedding of Ribnovo, a small village in the western Rhodope. The wedding's most visible manifestation today is the elaborate and colorful mask of the bride, a ritual long gone extinct outside of Ribnovo. Four other case studies examine prominent aspects of Pomak heritage, including forced assimilation, nationalism, and historical narratives.

<p>This dissertation analyzes the history of the press bureau of the German Foreign Office before the First World War. Methodologically, the work tries to locate European international history in a larger political, intellectual, and cultural context by examining German statesmen and their attempts to cultivate a consensus for their policies in the Reichstag and the press from 1890 to 1914. Relying upon official documents, memoirs, personal letters, and published newspaper articles, it argues that the death of the "Old Diplomacy," usually associated with the years after the Versailles Peace Treaty, actually began as early as 1890. This development caused German statesmen after Bismarck's dismissal to invent new ways of building public support for their policies through the creation of what is labeled here the "Bülow-Hammann System" of public relations. Eschewing Bismarckian methods of compulsion, this new system cultivated personal connections with journalists from trusted newspapers who would toe a government line for inside information. The system initially worked well to meet the new openness of the international milieu after 1890. But eventually these methods failed to stem criticism on the nationalist right and socialist left after 1909, when Germany's position vis-à-vis France, Britain, and Russia greatly deteriorated. As a result, more modern methods of dealing with public opinion had to be developed in Germany after 1914--the dissemination of outright propaganda and the use of modern press conferences--to cultivate support for governmental policies.</p> / Dissertation

<p>As a saint with no biblical or historical basis for her legend, St. Anne could change radically over time with cultural and doctrinal shifts even as her status as Mary's mother remained at the core of her legend and provided an appearance of consistency. "Mother, Matron, Matriarch: Sanctity and Social Change in the Cult of St. Anne, 1450-1750" takes issue with the general view that the cult of St. Anne in Northern Europe flourished in the late Middle Ages, only to wither away in the Reformation, and advances a new understanding of it. It does so by taking a longer view, beginning around 1450 and extending to 1750 in order to show how St. Anne's cult and the Holy Kinship elucidated long-term shifts in religious and cultural mores regarding the relationships between domesticity and sanctity, what constituted properly pious lay behavior, and attitudes towards women (in particular older women). Materials used include vita, devotional texts, confraternal records, sermons, treatises, and works of art across the time period under investigation. After a definite period of decline during the mid-sixteenth century (as evidenced by lower pilgrimage statistics, confraternity records, and a lack of text production), St. Anne enjoyed a revival in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Catholicism in a "purified" form, reconfigured to suit new religious and social norms which emphasized patriarchal authority within the household and obedience to the Catholic Church among the laity. In this context, St. Anne became a humble, pious widow whose own purity serves as proof of Mary's Immaculate Conception, and whose meek devotion to her holy daughter and grandson exemplified properly obedient reverence for the laity.</p> / Dissertation

<p>In the 1950s and early 1960s, Great Britain's computing industry led the world in the development and application of computers for business and administrative work. The British government and civil service, paragons of meritocracy in a country stratified by class, committed themselves to implementing computerized data processing techniques throughout the sprawling public sector, in order to modernize their economy, maintain the competitiveness of British high-technology industries, and reconsolidate the nation's strength and reputation worldwide. To succeed in this project, the British government would need to leverage the country's existing expertise, cultivate the heterogeneous field of computing manufacturers, and significantly re-train labor. </p><p>By the 1970s, Britain's early lead in the field of computing had evaporated, government computing projects had produced disappointing results, and the nation's status as a world power had declined precipitously. This dissertation seeks to explain why British computing achieved so few of its intended results by looking at the intractable labor problems within the public sector during the heyday of the Britain's proclaimed "technological revolution." The dissertation argues that the interpretation of, and solutions for, these labor problems produced disastrous effects.</p><p>Sources used include government documents, civil service records, records of the nationalized industries (the Post Office, National Health Service, Central Electricity Generating Board, Coal Industry, Railways, and others), computing industry records, press accounts, and oral interviews. By using methodologies from the history of technology, institutional history, and labor history, as well as gender analysis, this dissertation shows that despite the government's commitment to both high technology usage and labor meritocracy, competing claims of technological expertise and management tradition led the government to misjudge the role of computing within the public sector and the nation. </p><p>Beginning with a labor situation in which women did the majority of computing work, and seeking to achieve a situation in which young men and management-level technocrats tightly controlled all digital computing, the British government over-centralized its own computing endeavors, and the nation's computing industry, leading to a dangerous winnowing of skill and expertise within the already-small field. The eventual takeover of the British computing market by IBM, and purchase of the last viable British computing company by Fujitsu, marked the end of any hope for Britain's computing dominance in either their home market or the global market. </p><p>While multiple factors contributed to the failures of government computing and the British computing industry--including, but not limited to, American competition, inability to effectively create a global market for British machines, and misjudging the public sector's computing needs--this dissertation argues that labor problems, arising largely from gendered concerns about technological change and power, constituted a critical, and unrecognized, stumbling block for Britain's government-led computing revolution.</p> / Dissertation

No description available.

L’apparition et la montée du fascisme en Italie sont des faits marquants du XXe siècle et plus précisément de l’entre-deux-guerres. Ce nouveau phénomène social a rapidement attiré l’attention de la communauté internationale. Il vient frapper les mentalités européennes dans le contexte de sociétés déjà polarisées par divers courants idéologiques. La Première Guerre mondiale a fait place à de fondamentales divergences d’opinions sur ce que devait être le futur, autant social qu’économique, des sociétés industrielles. S’étant imposé en Italie, le fascisme représente un de ses mouvements. Ce travail s’intéresse à la manière dont la société française a perçu la montée du fascisme italien. Pour ce faire, il retrace l’approche de plusieurs journaux français de 1919 à 1926 à l’égard de l’expérience italienne. L’analyse des grands journaux Le Temps, L'Humanité, Le Figaro et L'Action française permet un survol de l’opinion politique en France. La problématique avancée dans ce travail nous aide à en apprendre plus, non seulement sur l’apparition d’un phénomène majeur du siècle précédent, mais aussi, plus précisément, sur le regard porté sur lui par les grands courants politiques français. On a pu déceler plusieurs thèmes de prédilection abordés par la presse française. Premièrement, celle-ci a tenté de définir le fascisme, son origine et sa composition ainsi que le phénomène de la violence qui touchait la péninsule. Puis, le fascisme ayant accédé au pouvoir, elle a réfléchi sur le coup de force et ses répercussions. Finalement, elle a analysé la politique intérieure et extérieure du nouveau régime. Il en ressort une perspective unique grâce à l'analyse de quatre organes majeurs qui représentent et façonnent l'opinion publique en France. Notre analyse montre que le fascisme est un sujet préoccupant pour les contemporains par son caractère nouveau. Tous les journaux ont suivi l'évolution de ce mouvement avec attention. Les réactions en témoignent: ce fut, entre autres, l'exemple frappant d'une répression brutale pour les uns et l'émergence d'une idéologie susceptible de mettre fin à la terreur du bolchevisme pour les autres. Ce fut aussi un terrain d'affrontement idéologique. / The emergence and rise of fascism in Italy is a striking moment of the XXth century and more specifically of the interwar period. This new social phenomenon quickly attracted the attention of the international community. It influenced European mentalities greatly in the context of societies already polarised by different ideological trends. The First World War was followed by a period of divergent opinions on what should be the social and economic future of industrial societies. Fascism represents one of those movements that managed to impose itself in Italy This thesis examines the manner in which French society perceived the rise of Italian fascism. To that end, it retraces the narrative presented by major French newspapers from 1919 to 1926 when faced with the Italian experience. The analysis of the dailies Le Temps, L'Humanité, Le Figaro and L'Action française provides an overview of political opinion in France. The inquiry conducted in this dissertation allows us to learn more not only on the emergence of a major phenomenon of the past century but also, and more precisely, about the reaction to it by the main political trends in France. Several themes were taken up by the French press. First, it tried to identify fascism, its origins and composition and the phenomenon of violence that emerged in Italy. Then, once fascism was in power, it reflected on the seizure of power, followed by an analysis of both interior and foreign policy of the new regime. A unique perspective comes out of this study thanks to the analysis of four of the major organs that represent and help create public opinion. It shows that fascism, as a typically new phenomenon, was a subject of preoccupation for contemporaries. All of the dailies followed its evolution closely. It was, for some, the example of a brutal repression, among other things, and, for others, the emergence of a new ideology capable of ending the terror of bolshevism. It was also an issue for ideological confrontation.

Friendly relations between Britain and France are, historically speaking, an innovation of the twentieth century. Even if we ignore the Hundred Years War and Joan of Arc, the modern history of Anglo-French relations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is of a struggle for power which culminated in the Napoleonic Wars, and a bitter colonial rivalry climaxed at Fashoda. The alliance of 1914 failed to reconcile deep diplomatie differences: the French felt the British betrayed them at Versailles and deeply resented Britain's negative attitude towards the French invasion of the Ruhr, and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935 which, they felt, facilitated Germany's remilitarization. Britain's appeasement policy at Munich was criticized by some Frenchmen while others blamed the British for forcing France into World War II. Thus it can be seen that Anglo-French friendship was a fragile thing indeed and ill-prepared to withstand the pressures of Arras, Dunkirk, Mers-el-Kebir and Montoire. [...]

Four topics in the cultural and intellectual history of France are presented. The first is a comparative study examining the relationship between seventeenth-century philosophy and literature. It argues that elements of scientific rationalism found their way into contemporary literature, as evidenced in the work of Moliere. The second essay examines the writings of Hippolyte Taine and of Gustave Le Bon. The paper argues that the synthesis of their ideas and the popularity of their writings helped to transform the nineteenth-century French passion for "scientificity" into an obsession with race. The third study explores early twentieth-century French perceptions of race and demonstrates how media images of colonial peoples profoundly influenced the way in which ordinary French citizens understood race and difference. The fourth and final paper examines the importance of the department store in French women's lives during the interwar period and argues that it served as the crucial link between their public and private spheres.