scholarly journals Between THe aacient and the modern world: war and community in Max Weber’s city typology

Author(s):  
Guilherme Moerbeck

Economy and Society, one of the most influential oeuvres of the early twentieth century, with impact in several branches of the Human Sciences, has in one of its parts a text of particular interest to researchers of Ancient History, the Typology of Cities. Although Max Weber’s significant aims in composing his text were, blatantly, to evaluate the contemporary world, the density of the Weberian text, the fruit of a unique erudition, revealed an in-depth and singular analysis of the ancient Greek city. The purpose of this article is to analyze Weber’s interpretive choices, in the light of historiographical criticism and a careful analysis of the Typology, in articular as regards the ideal types which he made to understand the city of the ancient Greeks.

Classics ◽  
2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey M. Hurwit ◽  
Ioannis Mitsios

The ancient city-state (or polis) of Athens was contiguous with the region known as Attica, a large, triangular peninsula extending southeastward from the Greek mainland into the Aegean Sea. In the western angle of Attica, on a coastal plain surrounded by four mountains (Hymettos, Pentelikon, Parnes, and Aigaleos), lay the city itself. Although the modern city has thickly spread up the slopes of the mountains as well as to the sea, the study of Athenian topography concentrates on the monuments, buildings, and spaces of the ancient urban core, an area roughly 3 square kilometers surrounding the Acropolis and defended in the Classical period by a wall some 6.5 kilometers in length. Athens is the ancient Greek city that we know best, and it is unquestionably the Greek city whose art, architecture, literature, philosophy, and political history have had the greatest impact on the Western tradition and imagination. As a result, “Athenian” is sometimes considered synonymous with “Greek.” It is not. In many respects, Athens was exceptional among Greek city-states, not typical: it was a very different place from, say, Thebes or Sparta. Still, the study of Athens, its monuments, and its culture needs no defense, and the charge of “Athenocentrism” is a hollow indictment when one stands before the Parthenon or holds a copy of Sophocles’ Antigone. This article will refer to the following periods in the history of Athens and Greece (the dates are conventional): late Bronze, or Mycenaean, Age (1550–1100 bce); Dark Age (1100–760 bce); Archaic (760–480 bce); Classical (480–323 bce); Hellenistic (323 –31 bce); and Roman (31 BCE–c. 475 ce).


Author(s):  
Sara Forsdyke

This article looks at the parallel evolution of civic institutions, all of which culminated in the polis, the ‘city-state’, as the backdrop to the rich cultural legacy of the fifth and fourth centuries. Historians have demonstrated that the formal institutions of the Greek city-state are best understood as emerging from, but still very much embedded within, a much broader range of collective practices and discourses. Nevertheless, it is the dynamic interplay between the institutional structures of the state and these broader practices and discourses that has been the focus of much of the most fruitful scholarship on the ancient Greek city-state over the past thirty years. The discussion then turns to some of the most interesting areas of investigation in current scholarship on the interaction between formal institutions and broader cultural activities and norms in the Greek city-state.


2021 ◽  
Vol 60 ◽  
pp. 82-94
Author(s):  
Łukasz Piaskowski

Pejzaż myśli. Warszawa Chopina i początek polskiej nowoczesności [A landscape of thoughts: Chopin’s Warsaw and the beginning of Polish modernity] by Michał Kuziak is a book combining the values of a scholarly work and a work whose main task is to popularise knowledge both about Frédéric Chopin himself and about the world that surrounded him and that shaped him. The dissertation is not only the context for the composer’s life; it is also part of a broader stream of research on the beginnings of Polish modernity. The book is therefore about Warsaw understood not only as the place where young Frédéric grew up, but also as the area where the foundations of Polish modernity were laid. Chopin functioned in a kind of intellectual melting pot within which there was a conflict between tradition and modernity, between progress and conservatism. The author precisely delineates the chronological framework within which he moves. These are the years 1810–1830, that is, the first 20 years of the composer’s life. However, the book does not only focus on the person of Chopin, so it is not “Chopin-centric.” The work consists of three parts, each of them marked with a significant title: 1. “City and people”; 2. “Institutions and people”; 3. “Thoughts and people.” This arrangement is a good example of the author’s main idea: to show Chopin among people, and also people within the city, municipal institutions and the thoughts that developed there. For the author of the book, Warsaw was a crucible and a cosmos of thoughts: on the one hand, there is a constant offensive of scientifi c and technical thought related to the Enlightenment tradition, and on the other, the birth of the world of spirit and religion. Polish modernity is an eclectic mixture in which there are still remnants of the noble world, but the foundations of the bourgeois world are also being laid. Kuziak, drawing an image of Warsaw at that time, emphasises the importance of key cultural institutions, such as literary salons and cafés. For Chopin, cafés, where he met with representatives of the contemporary world of literature and poetry, were of particular importance. Warsaw’s intellectual climate, inspired by the French Enlightenment, was giving way more and more to the influences of German culture associated with Romanticism. Kuziak writes that the modernity of the Romantic type was shaped by German culture. He regards the considerations of Kazimierz Brodziński and Maurycy Mochnacki as the two largest projects of modern Polish identity. Importantly, both of these authors were closely associated with the Polish musical culture which the young Chopin absorbed. The author of the book makes a reservation that it is difficult to conclusively confi rm what influence the institutional and intellectual shape of Warsaw at that time had on Chopin. He states with certainty that Chopin’s trips outside the city, and thus getting to know Masovian folklore, had a decisive impact on his imagination. The book does not, however, determine how the then Warsaw shaped the composer’s later life. The author brilliantly reconstructed the background on which Chopin’s shadow moved, but he chose not to answer the most important question: did the city, people, institutions and intellectual climate ultimately form the composer’s modern world view? This question remains open.


Author(s):  
Brian Elliott

This paper offers an interpretation of the dramatic setting of Plato’s Phaedrus as an allegory of the situation of the philosopher within Plato’s Athens. Following Jean-Pierre Vernant’s work on the place of class struggle and warfare within the ancient Greek city-state in his Myth and Society in Ancient Greece I decipher key passages on the Phaedrus as implicit responses to Plato’s experience of the city. The key themes that emerge are: the relation between the country and the city; the connection between leisure, luxury, and territorial expansion; the prospects for philosophical rule in the city; and the assessment of writing as a product of urban and commercial development. In my concluding paragraphs I suggest that Plato’s dialogues should more generally be regarded as a confrontation with the social conditions of the city-state as Plato experienced them. I also suggest that Platonic writings such as the Phaedrus are best interpreted allegorically as well as literally to ensure that multiple levels of meaning are drawn out through close analysis.


1945 ◽  
Vol 14 (40) ◽  
pp. 12-16
Author(s):  
R. E. Wycherley

The present war will leave architects unexpected and wonderful opportunities for replanning our cities and making them more worthy of the name ‘city’. The impressive schemes already laid before the public show that they intend to be ready when the moment comes. They will produce something better than a formless huddle of shops and slums or a wide but still formless expanse of suburbs. A more organic structure will be their object, built round a vital centre. In achieving this the creators of the new towns will be guided first and last by the needs and ways of life of those who will have to live in them. These will not be sacrificed to tradition or to artistic fancy. There will be no meaningless imitation and no appeal to precedent unless it is based on similar ways of life and similar ideas. For these reasons one hesitates to turn to classical precedents; but perhaps there is something in the ancient Greek city, the polis, which is not altogether foreign to the modern spirit, and arising out of this, elements in its architectural form which are applicable to modern needs.The city in the best sense of the word was a Greek creation. The polis was a compact community in which life was so organized that each citizen could get the greatest benefit from his membership. It was not so large that he was completely swallowed up, but it was sufficiently large for him to enjoy a rich and full political and economic, social and intellectual life.


2021 ◽  

From the Trojan War to the sack of Rome, from the fall of Constantinople to the bombings of World War II and the recent devastation of Syrian towns, the destruction of cities and the slaughter of civilian populations are among the most dramatic events in world history. But how reliable are literary sources for these events? Did ancient authors exaggerate the scale of destruction to create sensational narratives? This volume reassesses the impact of physical destruction on ancient Greek cities and its demographic and economic implications. Addressing methodological issues of interpreting the archaeological evidence for destructions, the volume examines the evidence for the destruction, survival, and recovery of Greek cities. The studies, written by an international group of specialists in archaeology, ancient history, and numismatic, range from Sicily to Asia Minor and Aegean Thrace, and include Athens, Corinth, and Eretria. They highlight the resilience of ancient populations and the recovery of cities in the long term.


Author(s):  
Oleksii Chepov ◽  

The qualitative and clear definition of the legal regime of the capital of Ukraine, the hero city of Kyiv, is influenced by its legislative enshrinement, however, it should be noted that discussions are ongoing and one of the reasons for the unclear legal status of the capital is the ambiguity of current legislation in this area. Separation of the functions of the city of Kyiv, which are carried out to ensure the rights of citizens of Ukraine and the functions that guarantee the rights of the territorial community of the city of Kyiv. In the modern world, in legal doctrine and practice, the capital is understood as the capital of the country, which at the legislative level received this status and, accordingly, is the administrative and political center of the state, which houses the main state bodies and diplomatic missions of other states. It is the identification of the boundaries of the relationship between the competencies of state administrations and local self-government, in practice, often raises questions about their delimitation and ways of regulatory solution. Peculiarities of local self-government in Kyiv city districts are defined in the provisions of the Law on the Capital, which reveal the norms of the Constitution in these legal relations, according to which the issue of organizing district management in cities belongs to city councils. Likewise, it is unregulated by law to lose the particularity of the legal status of the territory of the city. It should be emphasized that the subject of administrative-legal relations is not a certain administrative-territorial entity, but the social group is designated - the territorial community of the city of Kiev, kiyani. Thus, the provisions on the city of Kyiv partially ignore the potential of the territorial community.


2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 62-65
Author(s):  
Dilbar Abdurasulova ◽  
◽  
Akbar Màjidov

This article provide that Uzbekistan is one of the oldest centers of culture, in particular, the works of Greco-Roman historians, Arab and Chinese travelers and geographers serve invaluable source for studying the ancient history of Jizzak


2012 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 299-328
Author(s):  
Armand Van Nimmen

Deze bijdrage handelt over de perikelen in de jaren dertig rond het plan om het lichamelijk overschot van de Vlaamse dichter Paul Van Ostaijen over te brengen uit het klein Waals dorp waar hij in vergetelheid begraven lag onder een houten kruis naar zijn geboortestad Antwerpen. Daar zou hij herbegraven worden op de stedelijke begraafplaats Schoonselhof onder een gepaste denksteen. Zoals meermaals het geval is bij het oprichten van publieke monumenten, verliepen – wegens onderling gekibbel en gebrek aan financiële middelen – meer dan zes jaren vooraleer de oorspronkelijke idee kon verwezenlijkt worden.Aandacht in dit artikel gaat naar Jozef Duysan, bewonderaar van de dichter en uitgesproken flamingant, die een cruciale rol speelde in de conceptie en uitvoering van het initiatief. Ten slotte beschrijft het artikel hoe deze nu bijna totaal vergeten man tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog in het vaarwater geraakte van de collaboratie, fungeerde als directeur van het Arbeidsamt in Antwerpen, na de oorlog veroordeeld werd en jaren lang ondergedoken leefde in die stad.________Jozef Duysan’s battle with the angel: Skirmishes around the tomb of Paul Van OstaijenThis contribution reports the vicissitudes concerning the plan dating from the nineteen thirties to transfer the mortal remains of the Flemish poet Paul Van Ostaijen from the small Walloon village where he was buried in oblivion under a wooden cross to Antwerp, the city of his birth. He was to be reburied there on the municipal cemetery Schoonselhof under a fitting memorial headstone. As frequently happens on the occasion of creating public monuments, more than six years passed before the original idea could be carried out – because of internal bickering and lack of financial means. This article focuses on Jozef Duysan, an admirer of the poet and an explicit Flemish militant, who played a crucial role in the concept and realisation of the initiative. In conclusion the article recounts how this man who has been practically completely forgotten now,  ventured into the deep waters of the collaboration during the Second World War, how he acted as director of the Arbeidsamt in Antwerp and how he was convicted after the war and lived for many years in hiding in that city.


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