O objetivo dessa tese é investigar de que maneira Little Caesar (Mervyn Leroy, 1931) e Force of Evil (Abraham Polonsky, 1947) registram, dentro do gênero gângster, questões como a Depressão na década de 1930, e o macarthismo na década de 1940, ao mesmo tempo em que estabelecem homologias estruturais entre o crime organizado e o mundo dos negócios. Tais questões surgem nesses dois filmes por força da matéria histórica envolvida nas condições de produção. Nossa tese é de que os filmes configuram, em diferentes medidas, estratégias de representação da matéria histórica apesar das tentativas de seu apagamento, como a censura e o macarthismo. / The aim of this thesis is to analyze how Little Caesar (Mervyn Leroy, 1931) and Force of Evil (Abraham Polonsky, 1947) portray, in the gangster genre, historically relevant questions such as the Great Depression in the 1930s and McCarthyism in the 1940s, while establishing structural homologies between organized crime and the business world. These themes arise in both films due to the strength of the historical substance implicated in the conditions of production. Our thesis is that these films depict, in different proportions, strategies of representation of the historical substance in spite of attempts to suppress it, such as censorship and McCarthyism.

Karl-Birger Blomdahl (1916-1968) and Ingvar Lidholm (1921- ) were two leading figures in modern Swedish music. While studying in Stockholm they created a study circle known as the Monday Group. Regarded as anti-romanticists, Blomdahl and Lidholm revitalized musical creation by prioritizing compositional technique (as in hantverk, i.e. craft), melodic line and Gestalt concepts such as organicism. Following a study of this shared historical, aesthetic and theoretical framework, this thesis proposes a detailed analysis of thirty works by Blomdahl and Lidholm, dating from the 1940s. Based on the initial aesthetic and theoretical context and also on the theories of Schenker and Meyer, the analytical method used enables a graphical and textual representation of the compositional coherence and dynamic of the respective works. This thesis establishes the essential melodic, tonal and organic divergences in the musical languages of Blomdahl and Lidholm. Additionally, this thesis shows that the notions of linearity, dissonance and counterpoint have a deeper significance in Blomdahl’s and Lidholm’s respective musical languages than is to be found in many texts dating from this period. Finally, this thesis highlights aesthetic and compositional components that significantly invigorate modern music in Sweden.

While there are plenty of published materials concerning survival in Ukraine during World War II, most of those bypass the Kherson region and focus primarily on the German occupation. This thesis is an attempt to study the complex history of people's survival in Ukraine during a large portion of the twentieth century, through a micro-history of the city of Kherson and the neighboring villages, and towns of the region. The study analyzes the actions and the consequences for the various social, political and ethnic groups of changes in the ruling regimes, emphasizing the period of the return of the Red Army to the region in 1943-1944. This work attempts to provide an answer to the question of why the population of a provincial city, which endured no major combat, was reduced from about 100,000 residents in 1941 to less than a hundred on the day of return of the Soviets in 1944? / text

Uppsatsen syftar till att förklara de drivkrafter som fanns bakom den intensiva utveck-lingen av svenska flottans ubåtsjaktförmåga under den senare halvan av 1940-talet. Detta sker genom att utvecklingen studeras ur två olika perspektiv med avsikten att finna vilket av dem som har den starkaste förklaringskraften. Perspektivstudien bygger på två statsvetenskapliga modeller vilka har utvecklats av Graham Allison i boken ”Essence of Decision”. Denna studieväg har tidigare använts av andra forskare i liknande syfte med gott resultat. I detta arbete benämns de bägge perspektiven för det ”rationella aktörs-perspektivet” respektive för det ”interna maktkampsperspektivet”. För de respektive perspektiven finns av Allison rekommenderade frågeställningar, dessa är översatta och omformulerade för att passa uppsatsens ämne. Frågeställningarna får också bilda analytiska nät, vilka används för att undersöka empirin och skapa ett underlag där svar på uppsatsens frågeställning återfinns.    Resultatet av arbetet är att det rationella aktörsperspektivet har den starkaste förklarings-kraften och kan i huvudsak stå ensamt för förklaringen bakom drivkrafterna. Det interna maktkampsperspektivet kan inte ensamt stå bakom några drivkrafter, men däremot finns här den igångsättande kraften som leder till att ubåtsjaktförmågeutvecklingen igångsätts. Den bästa förklaringskraften erhålls om de bägge perspektiven tillåts att gemensamt förklara drivkrafterna. Medvetna val och en vilja till att ge Marinen en god förmåga att i såväl fred som i neutralitet och krig, kunna hävda Sveriges territorium är drivkraften bakom ubåtsjaktförmågeutvecklingen. / The aim of this study is to explain the driving forces behind the development of Swedish Anti-Submarine Warfare skills during the late 1940s. The study of the development is conducted using two different perspectives and comparing them to determine which one of them that has the best explanatory power. The approach has been made with two separate scientific explanations from Graham Allison’s book “Essence of Decision”, they are called the “rational actor” and “governmental politics”. Allison has stated a number of questions for each of the two different perspectives. These questions have been translated and adapted to the purpose of this study. The questions have been used to develop two different analytical nets, one for each perspective and these nets have been used to analyse the empirical data and answer the question of the study.   The result of the study is that the perspective of the rational actor has a strong possibility to explain the course of events which led to the development of Swedish ASW-capability. In the perspective of governmental politics the starting factor of the development can be found but it is not enough to explain the development on its own. The two perspectives together give an even stronger explanation of the driving forces behind the development. There are some deliberate choices made by people in charge and a strong will to create a capable Navy which will be able to claim the right of Swedish territorial waters during peace, neutrality and war, which creates the starting factors leading towards the build-up of the modern Swedish ASW-capability.

Disertation ``The work of poets from the group around Kamil Bednář{\crqq} deals with a group of writers, which formed between 1930s and 1940s around the mentioned poet, who was considered to be the spokesman of his generation, which was labelled as ``protectoral{\crqq}. The author will try to explain the historical background of this group`s work in the context of Czech literature of the 1940s. The author will also study the crisis of this group during World War II, its gradual decline in the post-war period and its definite end after the takeover in February in 1948. The author will be concerned only with those poets, and their poetic and theoretical work, who became involved in the discussion about the young generation and its poetry. The author will try to clarify the idea and the conception of {\clqq}naked human``, which implied, that it may be considered to be the program of young arrtists, or, at least, to be their mutual base. The author will mainly focus on three most interesting poets {--} Kamil Bednář, Hanuš Bonn and first of all, Jiří Orten. The author will take notice of the similarities, differences and also the existential phenomena, which are usually connected with the group around Kamil Bednář. Jiří Orten will appear to be the most tallented , the most inspirative and probably also the closest to philospophical existentialism. There are special chapters devoted to Jarní almanach básnický (Spring poetic almanac), which is a generational performance of young poets; Kritický měsíčník (Critical monthly) {--} a magazine, edited by Václav Černý, which provided space for the poets around Kamil Bednář and Ohnice (White Charlock) , which was the last act of the fading group. The author will also mention briefly the penetration of existentialism to Bohemia.

This thesis is a complete bibliography of texts written by Růžena Vacková published in between years 1929 and 1948, supplemented by contemporary contextualisation of the time and characteristics of individual periodicals in which these texts appear. A substantial part of this study deals with magazines Vacková has contributed to consistently for a long period of time. This study presents a brief biographical summary, serving to facilitate the classification of individual texts and their relation to the author's persecuted life. The study also includes a brief outline of her views as an author and as an critic. Keywords: Růžena Vacková, bibliography, criticism, magazines of the 1930s and 1940s

It is a difficult task to interpret historical silences, to investigate subjects that are largely missing in the archives. However, the writing of history must not stop because of that, but with the help of the small amount of material that exists, research must move forward and create more knowledge. One purpose of the essay is precisely this, to contribute with inspiration and knowledge about working with limited materials from marginalized groups. This particular essay is about lesbian living conditions during the 1940s in Stockholm and this is examined using documents from a police investigation during the time, that convicted five women by the swedish law against homosexuality, "fornication that is against nature". This court case is unique as it is the first case in swedish legal history where women have been convicted of homosexual acts. The source material is examined using text analysis, queer theory, queer phenomenology and gender theory. Through this method and theory formation, lesbian living conditions are studied based on factors such as identity, community, norms and attitudes. The main results show that the prevailing heteronormativity and gender order were both limiting and liberating for gay women in different situations and that there were different attitudes towards female homosexuality. The various investigated categories are also woven together in the final discussion and their connections and influence on each other are made visible. With this essay, the goal is to contribute to the research of historical lesbian living conditions as well as to contribute with historical role models for lesbians today.

This thesis explores the history of nursing education in the 1940s under the Bolton Act, its effect on the students, and the contribution made by students to lessen the nursing shortage in the Deep South. During World War II, the recruitment of nurses by the military furthered the nursing shortage in the South, which was also plagued by low nursing standards. The Bolton Act helped create a supply of students to serve the southern population and improve educational standards. During training the cadets provided valuable service and after the completion of their training, many entered the nursing profession. By the 1950s and 1960s, the Bolton Act’s legacy had aided in the improvement of nursing education standards, the racial integration in health care, and fought against the post-war nursing shortage.

For historians of twentieth-century British affairs, the decade of the 1930s is very significant. It was marked not only by a devastating economic crisis at the outset, but also by the rise of fascism in Europe and the onset of the Second World War at its close. These issues were problematic in themselves, but Britain’s response to them was complicated still further by the deep divisions between the Left and the Right over socialism and over the Soviet Union. The presence of the USSR in the East and its influence in Britain loomed over the internal debates that took place, affecting British responses to difficult situations in drastic and far-reaching ways. People of both anti-Soviet and pro-Soviet persuasions were forced to account for events that did not tally with their most strongly held beliefs, hopes or fears. This dissertation explores the ways in which British people of a variety of political leanings publicly processed and coped with the role of the Soviet Union in these debates. Using a range of sources including contemporary newspapers, books and pamphlets, I will trace the evolution of attitudes to the Soviet Union from 1929, the first year of the economic crisis, up until 1943, the high point of the Anglo-Soviet wartime alliance. My analysis will show how people with fundamentally different belief systems mirrored each other in their responses to intellectual challenges, and how interactions between different groups sustained or exaggerated each group’s response to the Soviet Union. I will also critique the analyses of some historians who have limited the parameters of their studies to take in only single groups or single events, and in so doing have become unfairly critical of individuals who struggled to process a large number of difficult and confusing events.

This thesis examines the role of democracy in British, French and American visions of global order in the 1940s. It argues that 'democracy' in a global context did not reflect 'Wilsonian' or 'Cosmopolitan' dreams, nor did it refer to the questions of state representation and institutional accountability that dominate contemporary debates. Instead, it shows that building a 'democratic' global order in the 1940s meant, above all, an attempt to address the challenge of democratic modernity, summarised by Karl Polanyi in 1944 as the search for 'freedom in a complex society', in the new global environment of the mid-century. This challenge was composed of five core concerns, ranging from the protection of the individual from the modern state and the transformation of democratic participation, to the use of expert planning and modern technology to secure economic justice. Achieving a balance between these competing and at times contradictory imperatives was seen as the key to securing a new democratic order that could resist the temptations of nationalism and totalitarianism and secure peace. Crucially, it was only through the structures of a new global order that, internationalists argued, there could be any chance of success. The task was not an easy one, and the historical investigation shows how the choices and trade-offs internationalists made in relation to these imperatives entailed costs in terms of inclusivity, participation and even rights within visions of democratic global order. The thesis has both historical and conceptual goals. First, it recovers important ideas about global order that have been largely written out of the history of this period by taking the language of democracy in world order debates seriously and understanding these visions in context. Conceptually, its aim is to contest and transform how we think about global order and democracy in the history of international thought and in the present day. Instead of Cosmopolitan, Wilsonian, liberal or other normative blueprints for a democratic world order, the conclusion argues that we should, following the example of the 1940s, reconceptualise the relationship between global order and democracy today in relation to the persistent dilemmas of democratic modernity. In a global context, these continue to have interlocking domestic and international dimensions and, more importantly, continue to require choices that entail normatively contestable costs in the construction of a democratic global order. Only then, it argues, will it be possible to think about how these shortcomings can be mitigated and whether and what kind of democratic order we want to pursue at all.