“With the Tatar Barbarism of Batu:” References to History in Russian Works Concerning Napoleon’s Campaign, 1812–1814

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 125-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kati Parppei

The invasion of Napoleon’s troops all the way to Moscow in 1812 has been seen as a turning point that accelerated the development of nationalistic thinking in Russia, already burgeoning at the turn of the century. Depictions of the invasion, produced from 1812–1814 indicate that perceptions of the collective past were in a state of both fermentation and formation, together with questions of Russia’s geopolitical position. The authors were leaning simultaneously on the eighteenth-century image of enlightened, imperial and European Russia, and the medieval ideas of religion as the dividing line between “us” and “them.”

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 25-44
Author(s):  
Bonnie Clementsson

To Ask for the King’s Permission to Marriage: Applications for Marriage between Relatives in Eighteenth Century Sweden. In early modern Western society regulations against incestuous relationships were primarily justified by religion, and kinship by blood and kinship by marriage were treated equally. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Swedish law was among the strictest in these matters, and violations were often punished by execution. Simultaneously, it was possible to ask the king’s permission for a dispensation for marriage between more distant relatives. During the second half of the eighteenth century the number of dispensation applications rose significantly, implying a turning point in attitudes. This article investigates arguments in dispensation applications and subsequent responses from decision holders. The aim is to illustrate how parallel values in society, apart from those of religion, affected the way different relationships were perceived. The study shows that applicants used a range of arguments in persuading authorities that their relationships should be allowed. However, even though authorities took an interest in whether or not applicants were good Christians, and whether or not relationships were honourable (not carnal), there was one decisive factor for granting or denying the applications. If the applicants’ family positions crossed different generations (e.g. man/uncle’s widow) it was considered that the “natural parental respect” would be jeopardised and, irrespective of the applicants’ ages, the application was denied.


Author(s):  
Peter Garside

This essay considers the way in which various types of fiction were projected at their original readers, primarily through the title pages, but also through reviews and circulating-library catalogues. Increasing use was made of ‘Novel’, ‘Romance’, and ‘Tale’ as main descriptors, with Novel gradually gaining prominence in the later eighteenth century, Romance enjoying a moment of popularity round the turn of the century, and Tale or Tales achieving ascendancy by the 1820s. Additional components in titles, such as the Sentimental, Gothic, and Historical, helped communicate different subgeneric types of fiction. Eventually, a three-tiered system stretched from ‘common’ circulating fiction to novels of reputation, the latter signalled by the use of the larger octavo format and through the development of distinct author identities (even when published anonymously). The Magnum Opus collected edition of Scott’s novels made him a classic in his time, finally establishing the novel as a fully established genre.


2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 328-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. J. Berry

Ray's most widely read book was his Wisdom of God manifested in the works of creation (1691), probably based on addresses given in the chapel of Trinity College Cambridge 20 years previously. In it he forswore the use of allegory in biblical interpretation, just as he had done in his (and Francis Willughby's) Ornithology (1678). His discipline seeped into theology, complementing the influence of the Reformers and weakening Enlightenment assumptions about teleology, thus softening the hammer-blows of Darwinism on Deism. The physico-theology of the eighteenth century and the popularity of Gilbert White and the like survived the squeezing of natural theology by Paley and the Bridgewater Treatises a century after Wisdom … , and contributed to a peculiarly British understanding of natural theology. This undergirded the subsequent impact of the results of the voyagers and geologists and prepared the way for a modern reading of God's “Book of Works” (“Darwinism … under the disguise of a foe, did the work of a friend”). Natural theology is often assumed to have been completely discredited by Darwin (as well as condemned by Barth and ridiculed by Dawkins). Notwithstanding, and despite the vapours of vitalism (ironically urged – among others – by Ray's biographer, Charles Raven) and the current fashion for “intelligent design”, the attitudes encouraged by Wisdom … still seem to be robust, albeit needing constant re-tuning (as in all understandings influenced by science).


2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-135
Author(s):  
Patrick J. Connolly

In a recent article Fred Ablondi compares the different approaches to occasionalism put forward by two eighteenth-century Newtonians, Colin Maclaurin and Andrew Baxter. The goal of this short essay is to respond to Ablondi by clarifying some key features of Maclaurin's views on occasionalism and the cause of gravitational attraction. In particular, I explore Maclaurin's matter theory, his views on the explanatory limits of mechanism, and his appeals to the authority of Newton. This leads to a clearer picture of the way in which Maclaurin understood gravitational attraction and the workings of nature.


2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Lenman

This article begins with the idea that there was a vigorous political life in Scotland in the first half of the eighteenth century which could focus on issues other than Jacobitism or government patronage. The article focuses on the non-dynastic issues in Scottish politics that predated the Union and which carried on into the Westminster parliament to the accompaniment of considerable activism in Scotland, and a distinctive contribution from Scottish members of both houses of the legislature. The example here examined is the burning issue of securing commercial access to the forbidden lands of Spanish America. Studying it reveals very clearly that ‘The theme of Scotland's partial integration into the British state’ and the way in which it ‘was never wholly successful’, goes back to the very start of the eighteenth century.


2010 ◽  
Vol 51 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 141-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Grant

In recent years, music theorists and analysts have devoted a great deal of attention to the phenomenon of hypermeter, drawing some of their most representative examples from the late works of Haydn. Although this recent trend in analysis has shed much light on Haydn’s music, it has left questions of history distinct from the mode of listening it engages. This article argues that the way we understand conceptualizations of listening and aesthetic experience can greatly inform the way that we understand hypermeter and the question of style in history. Drawing on eighteenth-century theories of music and literature, it recontextualizes Haydn’s hypermetric style with respect to a larger world of aesthetic experience.


2020 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 26-43
Author(s):  
Marcin Pliszka

The article analyses descriptions, memories, and notes on Dresden found in eighteenth-century accounts of Polish travellers. The overarching research objective is to capture the specificity of the way of presenting the city. The ways that Dresden is described are determined by genological diversity of texts, different ways of narration, the use of rhetorical repertoire, and the time of their creation. There are two dominant ways of presenting the city: the first one foregrounds the architectural and historical values, the second one revolves around social life and various kinds of games (redoubts, performances).


Author(s):  
Anik Waldow

From within the philosophy of history and history of science alike, attention has been paid to Herder’s naturalist commitment and especially to the way in which his interest in medicine, anatomy, and biology facilitates philosophically significant notions of force, organism, and life. As such, Herder’s contribution is taken to be part of a wider eighteenth-century effort to move beyond Newtonian mechanism and the scientific models to which it gives rise. In this scholarship, Herder’s hermeneutic philosophy—as it grows out of his engagement with poetry, drama, and both literary translation and literary documentation projects—has received less attention. Taking as its point of departure Herder’s early work, this chapter proposes that, in his work on literature, Herder formulates an anthropologically sensitive approach to the human sciences that has still not received the attention it deserves.


Author(s):  
Nicholas Wolterstorff

Often there are, among those who participate in some liturgical enactment by saying the prescribed words and performing the prescribed bodily actions, some who are lacking in faith: they do not have faith that the doctrines presupposed by the prescribed acts of worship are true. Why do they nonetheless participate in the way described? And what are they doing when they participate? Are they just going through the motions? Is that possible? Or are they, for example, thanking God even though they lack faith that God exists and is worthy of being thanked? Is that possible? These are the main questions addressed in this chapter. The chapter closes with a discussion and appraisal of the sincerity movement in eighteenth-century England, whose members insisted that worshippers should only say what they feel at the moment; to act otherwise would be insincere. And insincerity is a vice.


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