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[REPERCUSSÃO DE NOTÍCIA] Germany's main Jewish organization approves publication of annotated 'Mein Kampf'
A Jewish group in Germany has given its approval to the publication of a version of Hitler's manifesto with scholarly annotations. The book is scheduled to be reprinted in its new edition in January.
The Central Council of Jews in Germany said it approves of a specially annotated version of Adolf Hitler's notorious autobiographical manifesto, a month before the book is set to become part of the public domain.
The two-volume "Mein Kampf" outlined Hitler's political philosophy and contained numerous anti-Semitic remarks about Jews that some historians argue foreshadow the Nazi leader's plans to eradicate the ethnic group.
Originally published in 1925 and 1926 respectively, the two volumes have not been published in Germany since the end of World War II. However, the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich said it plans to publish a critical, annotated version of "Mein Kampf" in January.
Monitoring 'necessary'
In an interview with the German daily newspaper "Handelsblatt," Josef Schuster, head of the Jewish organization, said the publication of "Mein Kampf" could prove valuable, but also that it needed to be monitored."Knowledge of 'Mein Kampf' is still important to explain National Socialism and the Holocaust," Schuster said, referring to the political ideology of the Nazi Party and the genocide that led to the deaths of some six million Jews.
He went on to say it was important that authorities prevented the spread of unannotated copies of the book.
People in Germany who publish unedited reprints of the book face charges of inciting racial hatred - a crime in the country that can carry up to five years in jail.
Fonte: Deutsche Welle.
[REPERCUSSÃO DE NOTÍCIA] 'Immunizing pupils against extremism' with Hitler's 'Mein Kampf'
Ahead of the release of an annotated version of Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf," the president of the German Teachers' Association has suggested that schools should study the text. In an interview with DW, he explains why.
Hitler's two-volume manifesto "Mein Kampf" outlined the soon-to-be Nazi dictator's political philosophy and contained numerous anti-Semitic remarks that some historians argue foreshadowed his plans to eradicate the Jews.
Originally appearing in 1925 and 1926 , the two volumes have not been published in Germany since the end of World War II. The Institute of Contemporary History in Munich now plans, however, to publish a critical, annotated version of "Mein Kampf" in January 2016.
DW: What do you think can be achieved by school pupils studying Hitler's "Mein Kampf"?
Josef Kraus: I don't think that all of "Mein Kampf" should be read in schools. Instead, what I've proposed is that excerpts should be read in sixth forms in the hope that young people can become immunized and resistant to extremist notions. It would show them how an ideal or ideology can lead to a catastrophe such as the 12 years of mass murder seen in 12 years of German history.
At 16 to 18 years old, sixth-form pupils can still be very impressionable. Do you have any concerns that reading "Mein Kampf" could have the wrong effect?
That is a question of having professional and educated teachers. I trust our teachers, in particular those teaching history, politics, ethics and religion. Of course, the issue must be approached sensitively. National Socialism is a core topic of our history classes, and I would hope, for example, that every German pupil leaving school, after appropriate preparation and discussion, has visited a concentration camp.
One shouldn't overcomplicate the proposal to discuss extracts from "Mein Kampf." Just two or three passages could be studied over the period of a couple of hours when pupils are already learning about National Socialism.
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| President of the German Teachers' Association, Josef Kraus |
Which extracts of "Mein Kampf" would you deem as "teachable"?
From what we've heard, about 4,000 copies of the book will initially be published at the price of 60 euros (about $65) each. I recommend that Germany's 16 culture ministers commission a smaller version of 50, 60, 80 pages that one can read alongside the comments and information sources. This would be extremely helpful for the school pupils. In particular, I'd like to see extracts that make the hate against Jews very clear and reveal that Hitler obviously had a huge war in mind.
With right-wing populism on the increase, and groups such as HoGeSa and PEGIDA marching the streets of Germany, is now the best time to be studying "Mein Kampf"?
What's much more dangerous is remaining silent or completely banning the book. Nowadays, with the power of the Internet, everyone has access to everything. So it's more important to me that something like this can be discussed in a differentiated and critical manner. One thing we know from the Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons is that when young people are prohibited from accessing something like a banned text, their curiosity increases, and then we have no chance of influencing them at all.
Around 100,000 Jews live in Germany today. Would studying "Mein Kampf" be problematic for or disrespectful to the Jewish population?
I know many Jewish people, including the president of the Central Jewish Council, who could also imagine the approach to the texts I have described. The former president of the Central Jewish Council, Charlotte Knoblauch, has spoken out against it, but others agree with me. One can discuss the topic in many different ways. The question is how to implement it.
I think it's in the interest of our Jewish fellow citizens to deal with this part of German history authentically. It has nothing to do with propaganda, nothing to do with nostalgia or a return to the National Socialist period. Instead it's to do with our young people being immunized against extremist views. And, of course, I would hope that Jewish citizens would play a role in how this is approached in schools, and participate in these lessons.
Josef Kraus has been the president of the German Teachers' Association since 1987. Between 1993 and 1996 he was a member of Germany's Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons (BPjM), a government agency responsible for indexing media works alleged to have a deleterious effect on young people.
Fonte: Deutsche Welle.
[REPERCUSSÃO DE NOTÍCIAS] New edition of 'Mein Kampf' will shed light on Hitler, Nazis
Hitler's "Mein Kampf" is set to return to stores in January, published by the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich. Andreas Wirsching, the institute's director, told DW why the new edition is necessary.
DW: Coming in at about 2,000 pages, this annotated edition is quite lengthy - longer than Hitler's original manuscript. Who is the intended audience?
Andreas Wirsching: Our edition is particularly aimed at historical researchers. It can't be denied that Hitler's "Mein Kampf" is certainly an important historical document. The book is a source for information on his life, his thinking and most importantly, the history of National Socialism as a whole, and therefore it's meant for research purposes.
But I'm certain that with this edition's styling, we will reach an even wider audience due to the great interest in this topic. The commentaries are in part brief academic annotations, and we have added a detailed index to easily access the content. Public interest in this topic is so vast, and so we hope that maybe a few non-experts will also take a look at our edition.
What is the purpose of these commentaries?
Just as in every other historical edition, the commentaries will mainly serve to include more historical context. The commentaries present facts about people who are only briefly mentioned, but who played an important background role. The fundamental purpose of the commentaries, and perhaps their most important function, is to cut off Hitler's demagogic discourse, fully exposing his half-truths, his provocative remarks and his downright lies. Another purpose of the commentaries is to point out what happened after 1933. It would be unusual for a normal edition to take a look into future events, but we do so in our version since much of what Hitler wrote in "Mein Kampf" became a brutal reality after 1933.
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| "Important" to present "Mein Kampf" with historical and academic context: Wirsching |
Does this edition include the original text, word-for-word?
Since our edition provides an academic service, it includes and cites the complete first editions published in 1925 and 1927, printed with the original page numbering. The book includes the whole first edition, along with some variations from later editions. The later editions are only briefly examined, as they do not add much more context.
Ideally, what do you want to accomplish with this book?
The situation is especially controversial now, because the book's copyright will expire in January. It would not be a good idea - irresponsible, to say the least - to allow this text to freely circulate. Therefore, it's important that our version portrays contextual and academic references in an informative political and historical manner. That's actually the main goal, and I'm relatively optimistic that this will be possible. Looking at this edition, the reader will find a lot of new information that will help to better understand the text, section by section. Ideally, this will also help readers better understand the history of the Nazis.
Yes - history is a science that goes hand-in-hand with enlightenment. For example, in respect to Hitler's idea of a war in the so-called "Lebensraum" in Eastern Europe, the main ideas here are Poland in 1939 and then the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. With topics such as forced sterilization and anti-Semitism, there's a clear link to the Nuremberg Laws of 1935.So the new edition is about historical enlightenment?
The state of Bavaria initially agreed to financially support this project, but decided against it after a visit to Israel by State Premier Horst Seehofer, who was made to understand that many people there were not particularly enthusiastic about the idea. How did you react?
I'm not aware of exactly what happened during that trip. In any case, after the 2013 elections, which resulted in a shakeup at the Culture Ministry, they told us that the state didn't want to support the project any longer, out of respect for Holocaust victims. I can understand that argument. Respecting the dignity of the victims and empathizing with them is a must and we do that as well, without question. In this respect, we understood the decision of the Bavarian government, but we weren't happy about it. After a reallocation of funds, however, we were able to finish the project.
Beginning on January 1, anyone will be allowed to print this book, even without commentary. Are there publishers interested in doing so?
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| The cover of the new edition will be simple. Unlike previous versions, it won't feature Hitler or Nazi symbols |
I don't know of any German publisher that's interested in producing any new edition of "Mein Kampf," and I don't believe that it will happen any time soon. Of course, the question is if our project had anything to do with that, since it has been widely covered by the media and the public has known about our edition for some time now. If our project has dissuaded other companies from making their own version, then it's safe to say that part of the project's political purpose has been accomplished.
There will be a Kindle version of "Mein Kampf" available through Amazon starting next month, and if I'm not mistaken it will more or less consist of the 1943 version, the original text and nothing else. That's problematic - I think it's important to include a critical and academic reference for the reader to rely on.
Do you fear that interest in this book, with or without commentary, will spike due to the current political situation and radical groups such as the anti-Islam PEGIDA?
We've considered this possibility, but I would say that our edition is not useful for radical or neo-Nazi purposes. Our rule was that every passage that Hitler wrote in "Mein Kampf" would be accompanied by a commentary. That way, when people read the book, they'll be obliged to notice the commentaries and take them into account. Any Hitler sympathizers who might be interested in the book are better off looking elsewhere.
"Hitler, Mein Kampf. A Critical Edition" will be available in German on January 8.
Fonte: Deutsche Welle.
[REPERCUSSÃO DE ARTIGO] Britain’s first female doctor
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson passed her medical exams on September 28th 1865.
Medical pioneer: Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, c.1888.
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was described in her time as a woman of indomitable will who did not suffer fools gladly. Her father was a prosperous businessman in Aldeburgh in Suffolk, who believed that girls should have as good an education as boys and she was educated at home with some teenage years at a boarding school for girls.
When Elizabeth decided she wanted to be a doctor, her father was supportive but her mother was horrified. Most doctors and surgeons did not want a woman joining their ranks. Nor did medical colleges and her applications to teaching hospitals and universities were turned down. Sneaking in as a nurse at the Middlesex Hospital in London failed to work and she hit on becoming a licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries, which though less prestigious than an MD, or doctorate of medicine, would entitle her to be a practising physician. The Society shrank back in alarm, but her father threatened to sue it and she passed the exams in 1865. It then revised its rules to keep women out.
In 1866 Elizabeth opened the St Mary’s Dispensary for Women and Children in the Marylebone area of London, a hospital solely for women, staffed solely by women, which drew crowds of poor patients. In 1870 she obtained the University of Paris’s first ever MD degree for a woman and in 1872 her Marylebone dispensary became the New Hospital for Women. In 1871, aged 34, Elizabeth married James George Skelton Anderson, head of a large shipping firm, who supported her belief in independence for married women. The barriers were giving way and in 1874 she helped to found the London School of Medicine for Women, where she taught for years.
Elizabeth also supported the suffragettes. In 1902 she and her husband retired to Aldeburgh, where she became mayor in 1908, the first woman mayor in Britain. When she died there in 1917 aged 81 her London hospital was renamed after her in her honour.
Fonte: History Today
[REPERCUSSÃO DE ARTIGO] Germania: Hitler's Dream Capital
In 1937 Hitler’s architect Albert Speer was given the task of transforming Berlin from the sprawling metropolis that it was into Germania, the gleaming new capital of a Greater German ‘World Empire’, the centrepiece of the civilised world.
It was a vast undertaking. Plans, swiftly drawn up by Speer’s office, were presented to the public on January 28th, 1938. The reaction within Germany was predictably enthusiastic, with newspapers carrying detailed explanations and commentaries. Der Angriff stated that the designs were ‘truly monumental … far exceeding all expectations’, while the Völkischer Beobachter proclaimed grandly that ‘from this desert of stone, shall emerge the capital of a thousand-year Reich’. The foreign press, though less effusive, nonetheless concurred. TheNew York Times, for instance, described the project as ‘perhaps the most ambitious planning scheme’ of the modern era.
The plans certainly did not want for ambition. In accordance with Hitler’s original sketches they centred on a grand boulevard, which was to run from north to south for around seven kilometres through the heart of the city, linking two proposed new rail termini. Given carte blanche in redesigning this vast swathe of the city centre, Speer and his minions had had a field day and their plans read like a catalogue of comparatives and superlatives. The vast Grand Hall, for instance, close to the Reichstag, would have been the largest enclosed space in the world, with a dome 16 times larger than that of St Peter’s in Rome. Designed to host 180,000 people, there were concerns among the planners that the exhaled breath of the audience might even produce ‘weather’ beneath the cavernous coffered ceiling.
The 117-metre tall Arch of Triumph, meanwhile, was designed – on Hitler’s express instruction – to carry the names of Germany’s 1.8 million fallen of the First World War engraved upon its walls. Similarly massive, it would have comfortably accommodated its Parisian namesake beneath its arch. Linking these monuments along the new axis would be a plethora of new buildings, civic and commercial, flanking broad avenues, ornamental obelisks, an artificial lake and a vast ‘circus’ peppered with Nazi statuary.
Albert Speer presents Hitler with a model of the German Pavilion designed for the World's Fair in Paris, 1937
The image that will be familiar to many is of Hitler inspecting the white scale-model of this main axis, which was presented to him on his 50th birthday in April 1939 and was erected in a side-room of the Reich Chancellery. Though Hitler’s interest in the project was restricted almost exclusively to the north-south axis – and he would often return to muse over the model – the plans were not limited to that one area. Speer had succeeded in incorporating those headline designs into a much more thoroughgoing reorganisation of the city’s infrastructure.
First of all, Berlin’s rail network was to be overhauled, with the two new stations replacing three old termini and with many miles of sidings being replaced by a new line that would circle the city centre. Roads, too, were to be redrawn. The two new boulevards – the proposed north-south axis and the east-west axis, completed in 1939 – were only the centrepiece of a radical redevelopment. In addition Speer foresaw the city’s formerly organic urban growth being rationalised by the addition of radial thoroughfares and four concentric ring roads, the outermost of which would provide a direct connection to the German autobahn network.
Entire suburbs were to be constructed to provide modern housing stock, administrative buildings and new commercial developments, which, it was planned would accommodate over 200,000 Berliners, moved out of the slums of the city centre. New airports were foreseen, including one for seaplanes on the lake at Rangsdorf. Even the city’s parks would be revamped, with horticultural studies being commissioned to report on the species that were required to restore the 18th-century flora of the region. Such was the scale of the Germania plans that, when Speer’s father – himself an architect – saw them, he summed up the thoughts of many of his contemporaries, saying: ‘You’ve all gone completely crazy.’
The plan for four concentric ring roads dissected by the axes of Germania, 1938.
Of course only a tiny fraction of these grandiose designs would ever be realised. The visitor to Berlin today will struggle to see much evidence of Speer’s Germania unless he or she knows where to look. Most obvious is the boulevard west of the Brandenburg Gate, which is the old east-west axis and which is still illuminated by some of Speer’s original – and rather elegant – street lamps. Meanwhile the Victory Column (inaugurated in 1873 following Prussia’s victories over Denmark, Austria and France in the 1860s and 1870s) was moved to its present location to make way for the projected north-south Axis. Most bizarrely, the southern suburb of Tempelhof still contains a huge circular concrete block weighing over 12,000 tonnes – the Schwerbelastungskörper, or ‘heavy load-bearing body’ – which was supposed to help Speer’s engineers gauge the ability of Berlin’s sandy soil to take the vast weight of the proposed Arch of Triumph. Too large and too solid to demolish, the block stands to this day as a silent monument to Nazi megalomania.
More than a pipedream
Given that so little of Germania was ever completed and that only a fraction of it remains, it is easy to underestimate its significance. Speer’s planned rebuilding of Berlin is too readily dismissed as a Nazi pipedream; a still-born manifestation of Hitler’s architectural fantasies thankfully confined to the drawing board. Yet, in spite of the fact that Germania never came into being it would be a mistake if we were to allow ourselves to view it merely as an abstract: a folly, or an architectural curiosity somehow divorced from the odious regime that spawned it. For, as we shall see, Germania was in many ways a rather perfect representation of Nazism.
First, the issue of its feasibility must be assessed. Despite its soaring ambition the plan to re-model Berlin was part of a veritable orgy of building that had gripped the later, peacetime years of the Third Reich. Much of that, certainly, was relatively small-scale – barracks, settlements, schools and so on – but a number of projects showed similarly monumental tendencies and were themselves considerable feats of planning and construction. Most famously, perhaps, there is the example of Hitler’s vast new Reich Chancellery, which stretched the entire 400-metre length of the Voss Strasse in Berlin and was completed in 1939 at a cost of over 90 million Reichsmarks.
The Mosaic Hall of the new Reich Chancellery, 1939. AKG Images.
Other Berlin landmarks were similarly grandiose: the Olympic Stadium, opened in 1936, seated 100,000 spectators and was part of a much larger complex that was intended as much for political as for sporting ends. Göring’s Air Ministry, meanwhile, also completed in 1936, was once the largest office building in the world, offering 2,800 rooms across seven floors with 4,000 windows and nearly seven kilometres of corridors. Today it is home to the German finance ministry.
Elsewhere construction was no more modest. In Nuremberg Speer’s famed tribune on the Zeppelin Field was dwarfed by the nearby Congress Hall, modelled on the Colosseum in Rome, which was built to accommodate 50,000 of the Nazi faithful. Though it only reached a height of 39 metres – as opposed to the 70 metres that was planned – it is still the largest surviving building of the Nazi period; while at Prora, on the Baltic coast, a huge holiday resort was constructed, which, though unfinished at the outbreak of war in 1939, stretched for 4.5km along the seafront and would have housed over 20,000 holidaymakers. Even Hitler’s folly above Berchtesgaden – the Kehlsteinhaus, or ‘Eagle’s Nest’ – was an ambitious project. Completed in 1938, after little over a year in construction, it was sited atop an Alpine ridge at an altitude of over 6,000 feet and was accessed via a purpose-built seven-kilometre mountain road, which had to be blasted into the mountainside.
When considering Hitler’s plans for Berlin, therefore, one must bear in mind the wider context of Nazi construction and the astonishing track record that Hitler’s architects already had in successfully realising his visions. Germania was not mere Nazi ‘pie in the sky’. It was a part of a concerted programme to provide Germany with a portfolio of grand-scale, monumental architecture, which, Hitler believed, would be seen as the defining buildings of the age, rivals to Egypt, Babylon and Rome, inspiring future generations of Germans. It was certainly not merely a dictator’s architectural wish-list.
Quarries and camps
Given its central importance to the Nazi vision, the building frenzy – of which Germania was part – was thoroughly integrated into the Third Reich’s economy and terror networks. Indeed it is not widely understood just how close the relationship was between the building programme and the concentration camps. The vast expansion of the camp system from 1936 onwards had, in fact, been fuelled primarily by the demand for labour and materials from the burgeoning construction sector, with Albert Speer – and Germania – in the vanguard.
Prisoners at Mauthausen concentration camp are forced to carry granite blocks up the stone 'stairs of death', c. 1943
Consequently, many of the most infamous concentration camps of the Nazi era – Mauthausen, Gross Rosen and Buchenwald among them – were established close to quarries. The camp at Mauthausen, for instance, was set up in 1938 alongside the granite quarry that had supplied much of the stone used to pave the streets of Vienna, while the camp at Sachsenhausen, outside Berlin, was close to what was intended to be one of the largest brickworks in the world.
The camp-quarry at Flossenbürg in northern Bavaria, meanwhile, was the source of much of the white-flecked granite that was going to be used in Berlin, some of which is still stacked inside the Congress Hall in Nuremberg. Thus Germania was not only central to the Nazi aesthetic, it also played a vital role in the establishment and maintenance of the concentration camp network. Nazi architectural planning, it seems, had synchronised perfectly with the interests of the SS.
Germania’s financing was also not as utopian as one might imagine. Speer estimated the total cost of the project, perhaps optimistically, at six billion Reichsmarks, five per cent of Germany’s GDP in 1939. Yet such was the Byzantine nature of economic relationships in the Third Reich that only a fraction of that figure would have to be paid directly by the Reich government. For one thing, the vast majority of the building materials that were prepared for the project came from the concentration camps dotted across Nazi Germany, while the quarries and brickworks themselves were owned or leased by an SS-owned company, DEST (Deutsche Erd-und Steinwerke). So Germania effectively got its materials for free, with the added bonus – in Nazi eyes – that their political opponents were being ‘re-educated by labour’ in the process.
Göring's Air Ministry building, now the headquarters of the German federal finance ministry.
In addition the construction and demolition costs were to be spread across the annual budgets of numerous ministries, organisations and Nazi fiefdoms. And there was no shortage of willing donors, with some, such as the Nazi Labour Front, being deliberately kept at arm’s length for fear that they might wield too great an influence. The city of Berlin was required to shoulder much of the financing, with various appeals for donations and contributions to make up any shortfall. It also would not have escaped Speer’s attention that his projected costs equated exactly with the total estimated value of Jewish property in Nazi Germany. By these measures, Speer recalled, the costs of the project could be divided (and effectively concealed), leaving central government directly liable only for the Great Hall and the Arch of Victory. Hitler, meanwhile, tended to wave away any complaints from his ministers by stressing the large numbers of wealthy tourists that – one day – would visit the new capital of the Greater German Reich.
So, although little of it was actually constructed, Germania was not merely theoretical, it was very real. And it would have felt all the more real to those concentration camp inmates at Mauthausen or Flossenbürg, who had to quarry the granite slabs for Berlin’s new Reich Chancellery or the Soldier’s Hall. Even sites that never saw the light of day were prepared for; stone was cut, bricks were fired and men died. It is reasonable to assume that, of the 100,000 or so concentration camp inmates who perished at Sachsenhausen, Flossenbürg and Mauthausen, a large proportion of them died preparing the stone for the rebuilding of Berlin.
Germania was also very real for ordinary Berliners. From 1939 to 1942 the areas of the city earmarked for the project were being cleared and existing properties demolished. Even the nocturnal visits of the RAF in 1940 were welcomed by Speer’s staff as providing ‘valuable preparatory work’ for the demolition programme. Preparations elsewhere were similarly thorough. The district of the Spree-bend to the west of the Brandenburg Gate, for instance, was criss-crossed with test trenches and foundations, while to the south, by the end of 1939 the project’s first building, the Foreign Travel Office, was already completed in its essentials. Beneath it all, meanwhile, the complex of underpasses that would take through-traffic away from the new centrepiece of the Reich, had already taken shape.
The human cost
In all this demolition and construction countless thousands of people were directly affected in the German capital. Foremost among them were prisoners of war and forced labourers, who were housed in often substandard conditions and made to work around the clock and in all weathers. Despite his later protestations of innocence, Speer was never shy of exploiting PoWs as labour. Indeed in November 1941, after the opening successes of the war against the Soviet Union, he petitioned Hitler with a request for some 30,000 Soviet PoWs specifically for use in the construction of the ‘new Berlin’. Hitler acceded to the request, thereby bringing the total workforce overseen by Speer’s staff and working directly on Germania to around 130,000.
The building of Germania begins in the Tiergarten area of Berlin soon after the ceremonial laying of the foundation stone, Summer 1938. AKG Images
Civilians, too, faced considerable disruption. Those ‘Aryans’ who found themselves living in the way of Speer’s plans were rehoused, either in modern, purpose-built accommodation in the suburbs or else, as was more usual, in properties from which Jewish owners had been evicted. Already in 1938 Speer had suggested that the capital’s Jewish community should be moved into smaller properties, thereby freeing up larger buildings for the use of those Aryan Berliners displaced by the ongoing demolition works. By 1940 this process was well under way and many thousands of Jewish properties were being vacated.
Those displaced Jews, however, often found themselves – perversely – being moved into the path of Speer’s bulldozers. As the housing crisis in the capital worsened, many of them were unable to rent property and were forced into so-called ‘Jew-houses’, which were often those substandard blocks, already slated for demolition, that stood along the route of the construction works. There, amid chronic overcrowding and poor sanitary conditions, with as many as 200 families inhabiting a single block, they were effectively stripped of their few remaining legal rights as tenants. They could have had little inkling that worse was to come, but in October 1941 many of them would be aboard the first transports that would leave Berlin, destined for the ghetto at Łódz.
In this way the Germania project, despite being largely stillborn, had profound consequences, becoming a catalyst not only for the evolution of the concentration camp system but also for the development of Nazi policy against the capital’s Jews.
Speer’s plans for Berlin are fascinating. In an architectural sense, they are – if nothing else – a potent display of the astonishing extremes that can be reached by sycophantic architects. Yet any assessment of the Germania plans must reach beyond the narrow sphere of architecture, even if only a fraction of those designs ever graduated from the drawing board. Speer’s plans cannot simply be viewed from the architectural perspective alone: in examining them one is morally bound to consider not only the designs themselves but also the brutal methods by which they were brought into being.
Germania, though largely unrealised, nonetheless projected its malign influence into many other spheres of life – and death – in the Third Reich. Its contempt for mankind was demonstrated not only in the treatment meted out to those doomed to cut its stone in the concentration camps or those who found themselves living in its path; it also extended to those who might one day have walked those granite-clad boulevards. It is notable, for example, that in all the plans a human dimension is almost completely lacking. Hitler, it appears, had absolutely no interest in the social aspects of the planning that he oversaw; his passion was for the buildings themselves rather than for the human beings who might one day inhabit them. Indeed it has been plausibly suggested by Frederic Spotts that the plans for Berlin’s reconstruction were themselves simply a manifestation of Hitler’s desire to reduce cities and even individuals to the status of mere playthings. When one recalls the images of the Führer stooped like some malevolent deity over his architectural models in the Reich Chancellery this is an interpretation that becomes instantly and chillingly persuasive.
Just as Albert Speer was never just an architect, therefore, Germania was never merely an architectural programme. It was, in fact, a perfect reflection of the dark, misanthropic heart of Nazism.
Roger Moorhouse is the author of Berlin at War: Life and Death in Hitler’s Capital 1939-45(Bodley Head, 2010).
Fonte: History Today
[REPERCUSSÃO DE NOTÍCIA] Arco de Palmira que sobreviveu ao EI será replicado em Londres e NY
Réplicas de um monumento antigo em Palmira que aparentemente sobreviveu às tentativas de destruição do Estado Islâmico serão erigidas em Londres e Nova York.
O arco de 15 metros de altura é uma das poucas partes que restam do templo de Bel, de 2.000 anos de idade, na cidade síria. Ele foi quase completamente destroçado pelos combatentes do EI quando destruíram Palmira sistematicamente, este ano.
A construção de uma réplica será a peça central de uma série de eventos relacionados à Semana do Patrimônio Mundial, prevista para abril, que tem como tema réplica e reconstrução. Também vem sendo descrita como um gesto de desafio contra tentativas de extremistas religiosos de apagar a história pré-islâmica do Oriente Médio.
Fundado em 32 d.C., o templo de Bel era consagrado ao antigo deus mesopotâmico Bel e formava o centro da vida religiosa em Palmira. Assim como aconteceu com muitos templos antigos, o local foi convertido em igreja cristã durante a era bizantina e depois em mesquita, quando os árabes levaram o Islã à região.
Conhecida como a Pérola do Deserto, Palmira —que significa cidade das palmas— encontra-se 210 km a nordeste de Damasco. Antes de o conflito sírio começar em 2011, mais de 150 mil turistas visitavam a cidade anualmente.
O templo de Bel era considerado uma das ruínas mais bem preservadas de Palmira, até a confirmação da sua destruição em agosto. No início do mesmo mês, o grupo decapitou Khaled al-Assad, um arqueólogo sírio de 82 anos que cuidava das ruínas de Palmira havia quatro décadas, e pendurou seu corpo em público.
DIGITALIZAÇÃO
Construir uma cópia do arco da entrada do templo foi uma proposta do Instituto de Arqueologia Digital (IDA, na sigla em inglês), uma iniciativa conjunta da Universidade Harvard, da Universidade de Oxford e do Museu do Futuro de Dubai, que promove o uso da imagem digital e da impressão 3D em arqueologia e conservação.
Em colaboração com a Unesco, o instituto no início deste ano começou a distribuir câmeras 3D para que fotógrafos voluntários fizessem imagens de objetos ameaçados em zonas de conflito em todo o Oriente Médio e norte da África.
As imagens devem ser armazenadas em um "banco de dados de milhões de imagens" que, espera-se, poderá ser usado para pesquisa, avaliação de patrimônio, programas educacionais e eventualmente, de réplicas em 3D —incluindo a reconstrução em escala natural.
A destruição do Templo de Bel aconteceu cedo demais para que o local fosse incluído no banco de dados do IDA, mas pesquisadores puderam criar aproximações 3D do local danificado através de milhares de fotografias bidimensionais.
Alexy Karenowska, diretora de tecnologia do IDA, disse que as representações seriam usadas para recriar o arco através de uma combinação de técnicas de impressão 3D controladas por computador. As peças serão feitas separadamente e depois montadas no lugar em que ficarão, em Trafalgar Square e Times Square.
Karenowska disse que o que se espera é que o projeto ajude a destacar a importância internacional do patrimônio cultural.
INFLUÊNCIA
O Templo de Bel é um tesouro arquitetônico do Oriente Médio, e sua influência na arquitetura teve um grande impacto em estilos clássicos espalhados por toda a Europa pelo Império Romano, que se estendeu para as margens do Eufrates, disse ela.
"Tendemos a pensar sobre herança cultural de forma um pouco provinciana", disse Karenowska.
"Pensamos também sobre o patrimônio cultural de outras pessoas como algo que é particularmente delas. Vemos muito isso com o Oriente Médio. As pessoas no Ocidente acham que é muito fácil dizer que o Oriente Médio tem esse grande patrimônio cultural e que esse problema [da sua destruição] é algo que está acontecendo com eles. A ideia é reforçar que o patrimônio cultural é algo compartilhado entre as pessoas. Trata-se das raízes das pessoas, e é importante reconhecer também que isso é algo que, como seres humanos, todos entendemos de forma profunda."
Roger Michel, diretor-executivo do IDA, disse ao Times: "É realmente uma declaração política, uma convocação a agir, para chamar a atenção para o que está acontecendo na Síria e no Iraque, e agora na Líbia. Estamos dizendo a eles que, se você destruir algo, podemos reconstruí-lo novamente. O valor simbólico desses lugares é enorme, estamos restaurando a dignidade para as pessoas."
Uma vez que já foram alvo de fanáticos em sua terra natal, Karenowska está de acordo com que a construção dos arcos pode representar um risco de segurança, embora ela tenha minimizado esse impacto. "Um edifício como a National Gallery ou Trafalgar Square, esses são os principais alvos em virtude do que eles são", disse ela.
"O nível de risco que se acrescenta é muito limitado, simplesmente pelo fato de colocar uma obra de arte instigante em um desses espaços. Isso é algo em que estamos pensando com muito cuidado e em que as pessoas envolvidas pensam diariamente."
Fonte: Folha de São Paulo
[REPERCUSSÃO DE NOTÍCIA] Quem são os turcomenos, minoria étnica entre Turquia e Rússia?
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| Turcomenos armados na Síria. Crédito Reuters |
A crise entre Turquia e Rússia envolve, porém, um terceiro ator político nem sempre mencionado: os turcomenos. Etnicamente turca, essa população vive na região de Síria, Iraque e Irã desde o século 11. São entre 1,5 e 2,5 milhões de pessoas –frequentemente citadas pelo governo turco em sua retórica externa.
Ao justificar o abate do avião russo, por exemplo, o presidente turco Recep Tayyip Erdogan afirmou que o país tem o direito de defender “nossos irmãos e irmãs –turcomenos”. O gesto, sugere o jornal americano “Washington Post”,é um gesto para esse grupo minoritário na região.
Os turcomenos são uma entre diversas etnias no Oriente Médio. No Iraque, se dividem entre sunitas e xiitas. Na Síria, são de maioria sunita.
O governo turco repetidamente demonstrou preocupação em relação aos ataques russos à Síria, que têm incluído rebeldes turcomenos entre seus alvos.Centenas de turcomenos fugiram da região rumo à Turquia devido aos bombardeios russos, informa a rede de TV Al Arabiya.
Após a queda do avião russo, ficou clara a posição central da população turcomena na crise entre Ancara e Moscou. Um comandante rebelde turcomeno afirmou à agência de notícias Reuters que seus militantes mataram soldados russos que haviam sido ejetados da aeronave.
Desde o início da crise na Síria, em 2011, grupos armados turcomenos têm combatido –com apoio turco, segundo especialistas– as forças do regime sírio de Bashar al-Assad. Há diversas brigadas, parte delas aliadas às forças curdas, o que complica ainda mais o cenário regional.
Fonte: Folha de São Paulo (25.11.2015)
REPORTAGEM: Quanto tempo durava a viagem entre Londres e Rio em 1914?
Hoje, bastam 11h30 de voo para ir do Rio até Londres. Mas, em 1914, quanto tempo durava essa mesma viagem? Segundo um mapa desenhado por um geógrafo britânico àquela época, seriam entre 10 e 20 dias de trajeto. A ilustração foi reproduzida pela revista “Intelligent Life” e comentada pelo jornal “Telegraph”.
O mapa, publicado no Reino Unido, estima a duração das viagens partindo de Londres. A elaboração foi feita a partir da técnica de “isocrono”, que estabelece linhas de mesma duração em um mapa. A viagem a toda a costa do Brasil levava, segundo a ilustração, entre 10 e 20 dias. Mas Montevidéu, um pouco ao sul, entrava na categoria de 20 a 30 dias.
A viagem dentro da Europa, incluindo o norte da África, podia ser feita em até 5 dias. Com o mesmo tempo de uma viagem ao Rio, era possível viajar até a Coreia. Os trechos mais longos incluíam o interior da América do Sul, da África e da Austrália, devido à falta de estrutura.
Esse mapa foi desenhado por John Bartholomew e publicado em um atlas, em 1914, compilando diversas outras informações úteis a um empreendedor –ou a um imperialista: diagramas de chuva, temperatura, topografia, e também onde encontrar borracha, algodão e arroz. Segundo a “Intelligent Life”, o livro incluía ainda mapas sobre as línguas comerciais, para quem quisesse fazer negócios na Indonésia, e sobre a distribuição de doenças climáticas, para quem precisasse incluir remédios na mala.
As linhas de distância mostram que a duração das viagens não dependia somente do quão longe estavam as cidades. O fator decisivo no mapa é a presença de ferrovias, que encurtavam os trajetos em algumas regiões, e não em outras. Por isso a enorme diferença entre esse e um outro importante mapa, criado em 1881 por Francis Galton. Àquela época, a viagem ao Rio durava entre 20 e 30 dias.
Péssima notícia para quem viaja com alguém que pergunta “falta muito?”
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Mapa de Francis Galton, em 1881. |
Fonte: Folha de São Paulo (02.12.2015)
REPORTAGEM: The Military Response to ISIS: a historical perspective
In the light of Parliament’s decision to approve military action in Syria, Rory Cox looks back to the classical and medieval world to ask: ‘What makes a just war?’
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Thomas Hobbes' book on the Peloponnesian War
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Thucydides, the ancient Greek historian of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC), described how, at one point in the generation-long conflict, Athens was divided about how to deal with the rebellious city of Mytilene. Many Athenians supported a harsh military response, while others, led by Diodotus, urged restraint:
Haste and anger are … the two greatest obstacles to wise counsel … the question is not so much whether they are guilty as whether we are making the right decision for ourselves … For those who make wise decisions are more formidable to their enemies than those who rush madly into strong action.
The fundamental point made by Diodotus is that violence, whatever its justification, is often an obstacle to long-term stability. As today’s political leaders weigh the case for war against Islamic State, they must also ask themselves what they seek: vengeance, justice, stability, or peace?
An understandable desire for vengeance and justice impels the case for an enhanced military response to ISIS. However, when considered in an historical context, the strategic wisdom and even the ‘justice’ of a military response are far from obvious. Airstrikes are extremely unlikely to lead to stability in the region or security at home and the claim to be acting in self-defence may be weaker than it appears at first sight.
The recent attacks on civilians in Paris were abhorrent and cowardly. Since November 13th, France has stepped-up airstrikes against ISIS, declared a three-month-long state of emergency at home and was pivotal in drafting UN Resolution 2249, which exhorts other nations to take ‘all necessary measures’ to combat ISIS, claiming that the group represents a ‘global and unprecedented threat to international peace and security’. As a direct result, David Cameron has persuaded Parliament to expand UK military operations against ISIS targets into Syria, which he claims is politically, legally, and ethically justifiable.
The justification of such a military response may appear straightforward. As outlined in Article 51 of the UN Charter – cited by the Prime Minister to defend the legality of British airstrikes – France and Britain possess the rights of self-defence and collective self-defence of allies. A violent act of terrorism, perpetrated on French soil against unarmed civilians, constitutes a clear casus belli, necessitating a military response to punish a gross injury and limit future threats.
This kind of reasoning is broadly consistent with the just war tradition that has dominated Western ethical and legal thought for at least 2,500 years. Philosophers, theologians and jurists have stressed that wars should only be waged if certain conditions are present. There must be a just cause and a legitimate public authority to declare war. Armed conflict must always be a last resort, motivated by a desire for justice and peace rather than vengeance or profit. Presently, attacks like those in Paris are viewed by Western countries as offensive acts of aggression, unprovoked and unjust. Consequently, military responses are justified as acts of self-defence.
Based on a short-term view of events, this reasoning is persuasive. However, from a broader chronological perspective, the ethics, as well as the wisdom, of military responses to terrorism are far less clear-cut. Only when considered in a historical context – say a decade or more – can we begin to comprehend how those gunmen in Paris could be convinced that they were acting in self-defence and in the cause of justice. We might look back to the events surrounding the invasion of Iraq in 2003 as a starting point.
Islamic extremism feeds off the conviction held by many in the Middle East and elsewhere that the West bears a burden of responsibility for the region’s ills. This has been particularly apparent in the aftermath of the Second Gulf War. While the US-led operations against Saddam Hussein’s regime were militarily successful, the lack of a coherent post bellum strategy for political and economic reconstruction proved catastrophic. Needless to say, extremist groups distort and manipulate the reality of this history, but there is no escaping the fact that Western governments have played their part in pursuing a range of ill-conceived policies that have done little to enhance the stability of the region. Direct and indirect military intervention has proven particularly destabilising and has been a major factor in creating the conditions in which ISIS has flourished. This realisation forces us to ponder whether a military response to the Paris attacks can so confidently be justified as self-defence. Seen in this light, airstrikes in Syria are not a self-defensive reaction to an unprovoked injury, but rather another escalation of a long-running conflict – a conflict in which military force was initiated by Western governments.
The blame for killing hundreds of innocent people lies squarely on the shoulders of the individuals who commit and organise such attacks. I deplore ISIS and their brutality. I grieve for the lives they have destroyed; I mourn for the shattered ruins of Palmyra. Nevertheless, while many people fighting for ISIS are undoubtedly ignorant and cruel, some will be intelligent and convinced of the justice of their cause. This is the heart of the matter. Justice is a matter of perspective. It was for this reason that, from the late Middle Ages onwards, the Western just war tradition increasingly recognised the absolute right of sovereign states to identify and defend their own interests. This process really began with the Italian jurist Raphaël Fulgosius at the turn of the 15th century, but it gained significant momentum with the writings on war produced by the theologians and canon lawyers of the School of Salamanca during the 16th century. The legal right of independent states to wage war was most fully expressed by the Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius in his highly influential treatise De Jure Belli et Pacis (On the Law of War and Peace, 1625). This voluminous work is now widely regarded as the foundational text of modern international law. The basic realisation was that in wars between independent political communities, with each side claiming just cause, self-defence and sufficient authority, it was almost impossible to identify on which side (if any) justice truly resided. Who cast the first stone? Who was the aggressor and who the victim? Instead, Grotius argued that a common law existed among nations that should govern war and peace: the ius gentium, or ‘law of nations’. A ‘just war’, therefore, was a public war waged by two legitimate authorities in accord with the rules of war (ius in bello) established by the law of nations. In the West’s conflict against Islamic extremism, both sides claim to be acting in the cause of ‘justice’ and ‘self-defence’ – essentially a matter of perspective – but Western governments go further in claiming that only they, as sovereign states, have the legal right to use force. Terrorists are categorised as “non-state actors”, and are consequently denied the legal rights of prisoners-of-war as stipulated by the Hague and Geneva Conventions.
Long-term conflicts are typically resolved by two means: outright military victory or political reconciliation. The first is historically rare and may be unattainable in the fight against Islamic extremism. The second is slow and frustrating and fails to meet neither our desire for revenge nor our expectations of justice. The strategic value of military intervention is doubtful. We know from experience in Afghanistan and Iraq that killing jihadists does not diminish the allure of jihad: quite the opposite. Airstrikes and the inevitable civilian deaths that follow will certainly further alienate and potentially radicalise those who were not hostile previously. The sterile term ‘collateral damage’ will be used to disguise these civilian casualties, but they will be no less tragic than the lives lost in Paris. There is no doubt that an enhanced military response in Syria will provide further fuel for ISIS propaganda and make a long-term diplomatic solution harder to achieve. At some point, one side must have the courage to end the cycle of violence. It is clear that this must ultimately come from Western governments; it will not come from ISIS.
To step outside of a long-term historical process is difficult. But attempting to view recent events within a broader historical context may provide a valuable strategic perspective and prevent myopic policy decisions. It is impossible to predict how long this particular conflict will endure. Unfortunately, with all parties currently inclined to act in ‘haste and anger’, it will probably be several decades yet. Haste, anger and strong action may satisfy our human desire for vengeance; they may even fulfil our concept of justice. But as Thucydides witnessed 2,500 years ago, such a course rarely fosters stability, let alone peace.
Rory Cox is Lecturer in Late Mediæval History and Associate Director of the Institute of Intellectual History at the University of St Andrews. @DrRoryCox
Fonte: History Today (07.12.2015)
REPORTAGEM: The Crystal Palace Resurrected
Roger Hudson details the rebuilding of the world’s first theme park in south London in 1853.
The Crystal Palace rises again on Sydenham Hill, south of London, in 1853-4, one of a series of photographs taken by Philip Henry Delamotte. After housing the Great Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park the structure has been sold for £70,000 to the new Crystal Palace Company, which is employing 7,000 men to re-erect its identical, standardised cast-iron sections and create the surrounding gardens. They will then cover the sections once more in glass, using, as before, ‘glazing wagons’ whose wheels run along the gutters, carrying the glaziers, their tools and materials. The area in which the two stovepipe-hatted men stand is called the open colonnade, since it has a roof but no glass in the iron side-frames.
The Palace cost £150,000 in 1851 but by the time work at Sydenham was complete, £1.3 million had been spent, some £800,000 over budget. It now had five rather than three floors and curved-roof transepts north and south to accompany the original central one, which itself had been added to avoid having to cut down three large Hyde Park elms, in response to a public outcry. Much of the extra expense was down to the elaborate gardens with their terracing and fountains (12,000 jets of water in all), statuary, maze and (inaccurate) life-size models of dinosaurs. There were also two 284-ft-high brick water towers designed by Brunel. Inside there was a concert hall, complete with vast organ, and Pugin’s original 1851 fine art Medieval Court was now joined by Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Pompeian, Moorish, Byzantine, Renaissance, Indian and Chinese ones, full of plaster casts of sculpture collected round the world by Owen Jones.
The expensive grounds were the brainchild of the great gardener Sir Joseph Paxton, who had first come up with the idea for the Palace, based on the ‘Giant Stove’, the huge greenhouse that he had built for his employer, the 6th Duke of Devonshire, at Chatsworth in the 1840s. The ridge-and-furrow roofing system, which can be seen clearly at the top of the photograph and in the background forming the curved transept roof, was a particular invention of his but it never really caught on; it was not until the 20th century that the Palace came to be seen as a model of what could be done in the way of a functional, modular glass-and-metal structure. Predictably the architectural establishment at the time was jealous of him for his originality and his success. Once the thousands of workmen were finished at Sydenham, Paxton arranged for them to go out to the Crimea and build roads for the army besieging Sevastopol. Later he was very much the driving force behind the building of the Thames Embankment and the West-East sewer alongside it, when not designing country houses for the Rothschilds in England and France.
The Company never really recovered from the overspending at Sydenham, although Londoners flocked for entertainment and relaxation via a specially built railway line to this, the first theme park. On Sundays, the one day when the working man might have come with his family, it was closed. It still had two million visitors a year, with concerts, rallies, mass meetings, and Brocks’ firework displays every Thursday. The Company finally went bankrupt in 1909 and the Palace was then bought for the nation, only to burn down in 1936.
REPORTAGEM: Video: The Crystal Palace is destroyed
A marvel of the Victorian era, the Crystal Palace was destroyed in a fire on November 30th, 1936.
Opened by Queen Victoria for the Great Exhibition of 1851, the Crystal Palace, a vast steel-and-glass structure designed by Joseph Paxton, was originally sited in Hyde Park. When the Exhibition ended, the Palace was bought up by a private company, dismantled and moved to Sydenham, south-east London, where it was re-built as the centerpiece of an expansive new garden, complete with (inaccurate) models of dinosaurs. Despite these attractions the 'Acropolis of Empire' was not a financial success, despite a dedicated railway line from central London ferrying visitors to it, and was eventually purchased by the government in 1909.
On November 30th 1936, a fire began in the cloakroom. The flames spread quickly, aided by strong winds and the timber flooring used throughout, and the entire building was soon destroyed.
REPORTAGEM: An Idealised Portrait of the British Empire
Tate Britain’s new exhibition highlights artistic collusion with colonial ideas, but avoids facing up to the worst of imperialism.
Elizabeth Butler, 'The Remnants of an Army, Jellabad, January 13th, 1842', 1879.Today, the prospect of an artist acting as a willing agent of pro-colonial ideas is highly unlikely. When contemporary artists engage with empire, their remit is to subvert, as with Scottish artist Andrew Gilbert whose installation British Infantry Advance on Jerusalem, 4th of July, 1879 is presented incongruously in the third room of Tate Britain’s new exhibition Artist and Empire: Facing Britain’s Imperial Past. Gilbert’s work is an inverted version of those ethnographic displays found in museums across Europe in which models of colonial subjects are represented as exotic curios, the infamous Leopard Man at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Brussels being one example. In Gilbert’s installation it’s British soldiers who are on display with their cultural (and anachronistic) trappings exaggerated to ridiculous effect; cigarette holders, teabags, Union Jack and leather boots presumably purchased from an Adult store.
The placement of Gilbert’s installation in a room of paintings that, in comparison, are decidedly unmodern and very unfashionable is deliberate. ‘Is it time to face Britain’s Imperial past?’, asks the promotional material for Artist and Empire. It’s a bold question, but what aspect of empire is Tate Britain setting out to confront? Last year, public reaction forced the Barbican Art Centre to cancel an exhibition bySouth African artist Brett Bailey which critiqued human zoos and slavery by placing black actors in chains, suggesting that we might not have the stomach for a face-to-face with the worst of Empire. Tate’s Artist and Empire won’t require any trigger warnings regarding upsetting content – there are no signs of concentration camps or mutilation. The impact of post-colonial indigenous Australian artist Judy Watson’s abstract series Our Bones/Hair/Skin in Your Collections resides mostly in the work’s title. Where violence against indigenous people does appear it takes metaphorical form, as in Edward Armitage’s 1858 response to the Indian Mutiny,Retribution, where Britannia – personified as a sword-wielding woman – justly slays an insurgent tiger over the corpse a child. What Artist and Empire confronts is artistic collusion with colonialism. For many, it was an aesthetic opportunity.
The exhibition succeeds in showing that artists were a necessary tool of empire, rather than the critical thorn in its side we might expect when viewing colonialism from a retrospective standpoint. Taken as whole, it makes a case for the art of empire to be considered a genre in its own right. Artists mapped empire, and did so with extended artistic licence. They celebrated imperial heroics with large paintings of stoic men carrying the white man’s burden that visitors will expect. One such is John Everett Millais’ 1874 painting The North-West Passage, subtitled: ‘It might be done, and England should do it’. Artists capture empire’s rich stories; George Stubbs’ painting A Cheetah and a Stag with Two Indian Attendants depicts a Cheetah that was presented to George III in 1764 which took part in a stag hunt in Windsor Great Park, fled, and had to be recaptured by its handlers. Artists had an ethnographic role in documenting empire; paintings of Europeans proudly painted in indigenous attire from 1594 and 1842 show that such portraits were a genre which endured, little changed, for much of empire’s lifespan. And, ultimately, artists were to prove important in chronicling demise. As is often the case, the first signs of historical change appear in art and literature; curator Alison Smith points out how towards the turn of the 20th century paintings begin to turn towards the defeat.
George Stubbs, A Cheetah and a Stag with Two Indian Attendants, c.1794
It has been remarked that the British Empire has become ‘invisible’. More accurately, it hides in plain sight, something addressed by the contemporary artist Hew Locke, whose Restoration series features photographs of statues in Bristol. Locke has embellished the images loudly and crudely with gold coins, chains, shells and trade beads so as to render them violently unmissable. His subjects are carefully chosen: one of the statues is of Edward Colston, slave trader and Deputy of the Royal African Company whose trading monopoly made Bristol a thriving slave port. When considering empire as an invisible presence in Europe’s cities, it should be remembered that the Tate galleries were founded with money made by their 19th century sugar merchant patron. Artist and Empire considers what artists did for empire, and what empire did for art, and very the rooms that house it are not insignificant examples of the latter.
Artist and Empire: Facing Britain’s Imperial Past is at Tate Britain, London until April 10th 2016.
Rhys Griffiths is editorial assistant at History Today
REPORTAGEM: The Mary Celeste: 'A curiosity that has never been satisfied'
The true story behind the much-mythologised ship and its vanished crew.
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| Mary Celeste in 1861, when she was known as Amazon |
In 1884, the ‘phenomenally successful’ literary journal Cornhill Magazine published, anonymously, J. Habakuk Jephson’s Statement. Purporting to ‘subjoin a few extracts’ from an article that appeared in the Gibraltar Gazette, it began:
In the month of December in the year 1873, the British ship Dei Gratia steered into Gibraltar, having in tow the derelict brigantine Marie Celeste, which had been picked up in latitude 38 degrees 40', longitude 17 degrees 15' W. There were several circumstances in connection with the condition and appearance of this abandoned vessel which excited considerable comment at the time, and aroused a curiosity which has never been satisfied.
The Gibraltar Gazette is fictional, Marie a variation on Mary, and the discovery takes place a year late, but otherwise, the above represents a fairly accurate summary of fact: on December 4th, 1872 a small cargo ship carrying 1700 barrels of alcohol bound for Genoa from New York was found by the Dei Gratia adrift in the Atlantic ocean. As is now well known, the Mary Celeste was completely abandoned. Speculation as to what happened to its crew has been a renewable source of debate ever since.
From hereon in, however Jephson’s statement on the fate of the ship and its crew enters the realm of fiction and, arguably, has stayed there ever since. It was the first work to be published in a major publication by Arthur Conan Doyle, most famous as creator of Sherlock Holmes and victim of the Cottingley Fairies hoax. Most writers could only dream of creating such an legacy with their first notable work. Conan Doyle’s sensational solution to the mystery (the culprit is a mutilated stowaway on a cutthroat jihad against all white men) captured public attention to such an extent that the British and American governments were prompted to respond with formal denials and official investigations. In something approaching a self-fullfilling prophecy, the Statement created an interest in the Mary Celeste that has endured, unsatisfied, for well over 100 years becoming a genre in its own right. Valerie Martin, author of the Mary Celeste’s most recent fictional outing included Conan Doyle as a character in The Ghost of the Mary Celeste (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2014), but lukewarm reviews of the book suggest that while the reading public is drawn to the mystery, they also like a satisfying conclusion. Jermoe de Groot, reviewing the book in History Today, described the book as ‘circling around the mystery without seeming to contribute anything purposeful’. ‘I was hoping for a titillating historical-fiction mystery about the real-life vessel Mary Celeste […] What I got was a fragmented and vapid tale about ... well ... I'm not sure’, complained one reader reviewing the book online.
There are some great pieces of mystery fiction set aboard ships. The ‘framing’ device used by Conan Doyle might put readers in mind of later works like Stefan Zweig’s novellas Chess and Amok, or Bram Stoker’s Dracula where the count arrives at Whitby aboard a ghost ship in a case of reverse colonisation that would send titillating shudders through Victorian England. All the above titles were read voraciously by the reading public, arguably satisfying a hunger fanned by Conan Doyle with his popularisation of the Celeste story years before. Worth noting, however, is that the impact of Conan Doyle’s story belies the fact that he lived in an age where the day’s biggest authors – HG Wells, Zweig, Robert Louis Stevenson – enjoyed the sort of mass readership that enabled them to shape public belief. The Celeste myth was a product of a time when literary fiction was at its most powerful: it’s a matter of debate as to whether Conan Doyle’s modern day contemporaries could exert the same influence.
Rhys Griffiths is editorial assistant at History Today.
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