是历史进步还是社会倒退--论维克多·雨果对法兰西第二帝国的批判

雨果站在民主主义的立场上反对拿破仑三世的专制,同时用民主共和的理念谴责他恢复帝制,这本无可非议。但是从史学的角度看,雨果在评价路易·波拿巴政变和第二帝国建立等问题时,忽视了这些历史事件对于资本主义发展所起的积极作用,显示出其明显的历史局限性。     

古代中国人民权益损害的国家救济途径及其精神

在古代中国,国家通过法制和惯例为人民提供了"鸣冤叫屈"、"哭诉"、"陈情"、"请愿"的一系列途径或方式,以满足人民在受到损害时的救济需求,保护人民的各种正当权益,防止官吏豪强过分危害人民。这些法制和惯例,虽然不具有现代"民权救济"的理念和内涵,但有着"为民做主"的基本追求。本着这样的追求,古代中国政治中长期形成的人民权益救济渠道主要有按照国家行政层级逐级申控的救济途径、通过巡回监察机构接受申控的救济途径、告御状与君王直接干预的救济途径、特许"越诉"的非常救济途径等四类情形。这些途径归根结底是一种以"哭诉"寻求"青天"庇护为灵魂的垂直、单轨、纵向的救济途径,而不是横向平行分权制衡的救济途径。     

帝国研究视角下的苏联解体研究

苏联的建立与演进,似乎都与"帝国"有复杂的关联性。其前身——俄罗斯帝国是典型的陆上帝国。苏联成立后坚持反帝立场,但之后逐渐演变成为一个"社会帝国主义"国家。其标志就是形成了核心—边缘的帝国结构体系,以苏联统治中枢莫斯科及俄罗斯为核心,向外形成了三层边缘地带,其中第一层是苏联的加盟共和国,第二层是中东欧华约成员国,第三层是在亚洲和美洲的经互会成员国。苏联解体实际上是"帝国终结"历史的一个组成部分,是一次迟来的非殖民化,也是人类历史发展的自然进程。这方面的具体原因至少有以下三个:其一,苏联领导人对当时局势的认识及判断和采取的对策及政策;其二,边缘地区民族主义产生了重要的动员和发动作用;最后,"帝国的负担"成为难以承受的现实负担。     

浅析怛逻斯战役及其影响

751年在中亚地区发生的大食与唐帝国的怛罗斯战役，历来为各国史学家所关注。本文有意对该战役爆发的背景、经过、结果及其唐文化在西亚的传播，对西亚各国的影响略作陈述，以便加深对这场战争在中亚和西亚地区所发生深刻影响的认识。     

《大元通制》渊源考辨

由于人们对《元史·刑法志》一段简要而含混记述的误读,造成了法律史上的一桩“悬案”,即《大元通制》渊源之谜。本文从追溯元代前期艰难的修律立法历程入手,结合当时社会政治生态环境,对《大元通制》的本原作了详尽的探索。《大元通制》是世祖以降数十年修订律书的摸索与奋斗的产物,而仁宗“延祜律书草案”则是《大元通制》凭据的直接蓝本。本文对《大元通制》“难产”的缘由进行了剖析,认为延(?)、至治年间,仗恃兴圣太后权势的“后党”保守派与皇帝为首的“帝党”改革派之间激烈政争,是《大元通制》难产的主要原因。     

Britain and the Bonins: discovery,recovery and reclamation

In this article, I explore a little known aspect of British and Japanese history that began not long after Japan open its ports to the west in the middle of the nineteenth century. It is about negotiations between Japan and foreign powers over sovereign control of an island archipelago 1,000 kilometers southeast of Edo (Tokyo). The Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands were first visited by Japanese in the seventeenth century, declared British territory in 1827 and then reclaimed by Japan in 1876. The diplomatic discussions involved the British and US Consuls acting under instructions from their respective governments and negotiating with the highest levels of Japanese authority during both the Tokugawa and Meiji Periods. I argue that the islands were of little importance to either the governments of Britain or America and that the British authorities were more than willing to hand over sovereign control of the Bonin Islands to the Japanese as early as 1862. Indeed, by the mid-1870s, the British authorities in England were more concerned that the Japanese would not claim the islands and that Britain would be burdened with their responsibility. In arguing this, I provide a novel perspective of Japan's struggles with becoming a modern nation in an increasingly international setting.     

Ethnic boxes: the unintended consequences of Habsburg bureaucratic classification

The classificatory efforts that accompanied the modernization of the Habsburg state inadvertently helped establish, promote, and perpetuate national categories of identification, often contrary to the intentions of the Habsburg bureaucracy. The state did not create nations, but its classification of languages made available some ethnolinguistic identity categories that nationalists used to make political claims. The institutionalization of these categories also made them more relevant, especially as nationalist movements simultaneously worked toward the same goal. Yet identification with a nation did not follow an algorithmic logic, in the beginning of the twentieth century, sometimes earlier, various nationalisms could undoubtedly mobilize large numbers of people in Austria–Hungary, but people still had agency and nation-ness remained contingent and situational.     

Repertoires of industrial conflict in a modern city. Łódź, Central Poland 1861-1921

ABSTRACT

This article examines the changing patterns of industrial conflict in a rapidly modernizing Eastern European city, focusing on a multi-ethnic industrial hub. I follow repertoires of contention in four crucial moments characterized by shifting scales of the geopolitical embeddedness of the city: (1) an early Luddite riot of 1861 in the Polish autonomous sub-state within the Russian Empire, (2) the first massive labor protest and the following pogrom of 1892 in the city already fully subsumed under the imperial governance, (3) a failed revolution of 1905 with a sophisticated feedback loop between party politics and street emotions, (4) mobilization practices during the German military occupation during the IWW culminating in the tram workers strike of 1917, (5) developing forms of industrial bargaining in the early Polish state after 1918. This broad picture spanning over 60 years (1861–1921) is grounded in the existing secondary literature, extensive queries of primary sources such as administration reports, court proceedings and petitions, and the analysis of political leaflets and biographical testimonies of the working class militants. Such a cross temporal comparison brings a broader outlook on the labor unrest in Russian Poland and beyond, which before was researched only in a fragmented manner.     

Transnational networks and kin states: the Turkish minority in Bulgaria, 1878–1940

This paper focuses on the development of national identity and the formation of political organizations in the Turkish minority in the early years of the formation of the Bulgarian state from 1878 to the 1940s. It studies transnational aspects of nationalism, which is usually considered territorially bounded, by studying the impact of connections between the Turkish minority and the Ottoman Empire and later with Turkey. In addition to studying inter-state relations and their reflection in the legal and political sphere, this paper studies the flow of ideas across borders, transnational networks among political activists, and the resulting cleavage formation. Findings show that transnational connections and actors played dual roles. The circulation of political activists, contributed to the formation of national organizations which played a crucial role in (re)formulating national identity. Transnational connections increased political activity in the name of the Turkish minority. Through these organizations the community was able to make collective demands from the Bulgarian state. However, transnational connections carried debates and divisions in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey to the Turkish minority in Bulgaria. By dividing the community, they decreased the capacity for collective action.     

Daily life and family in an Ottoman urban context: Historiographical stakes and new research perspectives

The Ottoman history of the family and of everyday life is presently experiencing deep theoretical and methodological renewals. Following the discovery of new archival resources, and the application of new questionings to previously known resources, the field is the object of an intense research investment. The horizon of expectation has enlarged, as renewed interpretations on tradition, Islam and their influence on everyday life, family, communal, urban and gender relations are the object of intense speculations in the contemporary intellectual panorama. The object of this article, conceived as an introduction to a thematic issue of the journal guest-edited by the authors, is first to draw a panorama of the existing literature on everyday life in an Ottoman context, with an attention to the successive methodological approaches and theoretical elaborations of which the field has been the support of, and then to identify the main stakes for today's research. The authors also argue that, in the present international panorama of research on those themes, not only is the Ottoman Empire an interesting application field for innovative methods, but might also be at the heart of a deep renewal, with at stake the discussion of the heritage of culturalist visions of history and of paradigms such as center/periphery relations and modernization.