The autobiographical you: letters in the gendered politics of the labour movement

In this article, I consider the importance of epistolary narratives in the interface of autobiography and politics. In doing this, I read the letters of Fannia Mary Cohn, a Jewish immigrant worker, trade union activist and ardent labour organizer in the garment industry in the USA in the first half of the twentieth century. Cohn was a prolific writer and political activist and left a rich body of labour literature, but never wrote an autobiography or a diary or journal. It is in her letters to her comrades and friends in the labour movement that short autobiographical stories erupt and it is on such stories across her correspondence that this article focuses. The analysis is informed by Hannah Arendt's theorization of narratives in their interrelation with politics and history. Drawing on a rich body of feminist literature around the relational self, what I argue is that an Arendtian reading of epistolary narratives is a useful analytical tool in understanding gendered politics in the diverse histories of the labour movement.     

An unlikely bulwark of Sovietness: cross-border travel and Soviet patriotism in Western Ukraine, 1956–1985

Focusing on the development of travel between the borderlands of Ukraine and Soviet satellite states in Eastern Europe, this article explores what it meant to be Soviet outside the Russian core of the USSR between the mid-1950s and the mid-1980s. The cautious opening of the Soviet border was part of a larger attempt to find fresh sources of popular support and enthusiasm for the regime's “communist” project. Before the Prague Spring of 1968 in particular, official policies and narratives of travel thus praised local inhabitants who crossed the Soviet border for supposedly overcoming age-old hatreds to build a brighter future in Eastern Europe. By the 1970s, however, smuggling and cultural consumption discredited the idea of “internationalist friendship.” This encouraged residents of Ukraine to speak and write about the continuing importance of the Soviet border. The very idea of Sovietness was defined in national terms, as narratives of travel emphasized that Soviet citizens were inherently different from ethno-national groups in the people's democracies. Eastern Europe thus emerged as an “other” that highlighted the Soviet character of territories incorporated into the USSR after 1939, helping to obscure western Ukraine's troubled past and leading to the emergence of new social hierarchies in the region.     

“Why not love our language and our culture?” National rights and citizenship in Khrushchev's Soviet Union

This paper highlights campaigns for national rights among two non-titular communities in the Soviet Union and places them in local historical contexts. Drawing on archival sources and oral history interviews, the author not only delves into the campaigns themselves, but also explores broader debates about the nature of Khrushchev's Thaw and Soviet citizenship, which was far from an empty concept in the Khrushchev era. Petitioners invoked discourses that indicate both an awareness of national rights and an expectation of the state's obligation to protect them. Oral history interviews with surviving petitioners and community members support the notion that petition language can serve as a reflection of how petitioners viewed their place in Soviet society and interpreted the Soviet citizen contract.     

广西大明山人文历史朔源

广西的大明山历史上其名称曾经有过多次的变迁:壮语名字叫"Byacwx",为祖山、灵山的意思。汉文文献记载的大明山,古称A天之山、博邪山、镆钅耶山、五峰山、大鸣山、大名山、大冥山等。历史归属和称呼的多次变迁并无损于大明山文明的发展,反而给予了大明山本身蕴含有某种历史魅力,无疑也增加了这座大山对世人的诱惑。     

法律史解释:一种理解法律哲学历史发展的方式——读罗斯科·庞德《法律史解释》

对法律哲学发展所做出的历史解释是罗斯科·庞德在其著作中提出法律的社会工程学解释和建构其庞大社会法学理论的前提性预设.而庞德本人也在这一过程中实现了其在宏大叙事下的点滴努力.然而遗憾的是,这一方法却在过去的几十年里始终由于种种的原因而被研究者们所忽视.文中,作者采取一种思辩性的研究方法和一种批判性的研究进路来研究和审视一下庞德的这种历史解释方法以及其由此所考察的法律哲学的发展历程.写作目的不仅仅在于寻找和发现庞德法律哲学历史观的内在规律性和其理论脉络的转出以及其本身所固有的缺陷,更在乎寻找出对其理论进行知识增量意义上发展的可能性路径并揭示出其理论内涵对于当下中国法治建设所具有的问题意义.     

元好问在金代灭亡以后的活动历程

元好问是金代杰出的诗词曲大家。本分析金亡以后,元好问在蒙古王朝统治下,诗词曲创作和理论探讨方面取得的伟大成就;在编撰金代史料方面取得的重大成果;还肯定元好问在宣传儒学,保护儒士名贤,促进中华各民族之间的友谊团结等方面的重要贡献。     

Entangled history and politics: Negotiating the past between Namibia and Germany

The relationship between Namibia and Germany is marked by intense exchanges about the meaning and the consequences of the colonial wars of the early twentieth century in the erstwhile German colony. This engages various state and civil society actors including groups from across the political spectrum in Germany, whereas in Namibia the debate concerns the descendants of the victims on the one hand and German-speaking Namibians on the other.

The article explores this discursive situation and brings out a range of relationships and interactions to be understood as expressions of an entangled history that eschews attempts of appropriation on one side. The problems emerge most poignantly in terms of the still ongoing exchanges around the denial of genocide in 1904–8 which, given that the framework of the debate is predicated to considerable measure on German history, inevitably points to the Holocaust. A further strand of acting out and negotiating historical responsibility concerns the mode of apology and redress which remains a contended question. Not least, this involves an incoherent set of state and non-state actors on both sides. Here, the call for dialogue made particularly by Namibians raises the sensitive issues of intercultural communication.     

东北亚的历史变局与中国的战略调整——以中日力量转移为线索

近一个半世纪以来,东北亚经历了"数千年未有之变局"。造成这一局面的原因纷繁复杂,但有一个因素十分关键,那就是发生在中日间的力量转移。历史和东北亚地缘结构均证明:作为地区主体板块,中国的强大是东北亚地区稳定的核心要素,东北亚力量中心向中国转移有助于促进东北亚安全机制的形成。但是,随着中日力量转移进入持平期,中日安全关系也将更加敏感、更加复杂,变数加大。中国必须充分把握这一趋势,塑造强国心态,构建新的身份认同,更加主动地推动地区安全与共同发展。     

德法和解历史对中日建立战略互惠关系的借鉴与思考

中国和日本是东亚地区两个重要国家,处理好中日关系符合两国人民的共同利益,对于东亚地区的和平与繁荣具有十分重要的意义。在中日建立战略互惠关系初显曙光的时候,通过比较研究汲取德法和解的经验,将使我们获得有益的启迪。人们期待中日关系能借鉴法德在欧洲和解的智慧、创造出东亚地区中日和平与合作的奇迹。在战后以来六十多年的时间里,中日和平友好与法德和解在亚欧不同地缘政治环境中也出现了明显的发展差异。法德关系经历并超越了相互憎恨的历史,走向了真正和解。法德和解奠定了欧洲合作的基石,两者伙伴关系的进一步深化则开创了从欧共体到欧盟的欧洲合作新局面。与德法和解带动欧洲国家整合的硕果相比,中日和平友好表现出了明显的滞后性和局限性。中日关系超越"战争历史"问题、国家地位身份认同问题、共同战略利益基础和政治互信问题等方面也都落后于法德和解的发展,法德和解取得了创建欧盟的硕果,中日则刚刚取得建立战略互惠关系的共识。中日矛盾的深层症结就在于没有战略合作的共识和目标,从而导致双方缺乏政治互信和在战略上相互猜疑。法德和解的经验告诉我们,推动中日战略互惠关系的发展必须构建中日战略合作的共识,在中日关系中制定并推行"和平、合作与共赢"的外交政策新理念。中日走出历史问题争论和民间对立情绪困境的出路在于中日政治家们是否有智慧搭建两国战略合作和战略互惠的目标与框架。中日需要开展面向未来的共同事业,推动地区共同体形成的过程中实现并深化两国关系的和解与合作。