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Nationalistic interpretations of history were prevalent in Finland until the Second World War. A unifying past for Finns was sought in antiquity, often influenced by interpretations of the Kalevala, regarded as the Finnish national epic. The Kalevala also inspired writers in the Theosophical Society, who promoted various alternative views of humanity’s past. In this article, I analyse the late 1930s writings of Wilho “Willie” Angervo (1875–1938), a medical colonel and author who had a central role in the Finnish Order of the Star in the East and the Theosophical Society in his time. Inspired by the Kalevala, Angervo traced the origins of the Finns to the lost continent of Atlantis and aimed to revitalize the pre-Christian “faith of the forefathers”. Dialogical narrative analysis is employed to explore how Angervo portrayed the Finns’ past, combining Theosophical and nationalistic ideas to construct an ideal Finnishness. I argue that Angervo utilized the Theosophical timeline and concepts to construct a spiritually oriented national narrative for the Finns that would surpass any polit-ical quarrels and challenge both the Church and more military-oriented nationalism.

ABSTRACTThe era of closed stranger adoption is a significant part of Aotearoa New Zealand’s social and colonial history; some 80,000 children were legally adopted between the years 1955–1985. Māori children constituted a considerable proportion of these legal adoptions, although little attention has been given to their experiences. The relative silence surrounding this phenomenon exists alongside narratives of colonisation and a professed abhorrence by Māori to closed adoption practice, producing a narrative discrepancy. This article aims to understand and account for some of the discrepancies in public narratives by providing an accurate historical account of engagement with the 1955 Adoption Act and its 1962 amendments from a Māori perspective, and unpacking the legal, political, social and cultural aspects from a historical experience. The complexities and nuances of settler colonialism are highlighted, as well as the effects for Māori adoptees of not being publicly and historically narrated – forgotten subjects.Glossary of Māori words: Aotearoa: the Māori name for New Zealand; hapū: kinship group, clan, sub-tribe; iwi: kinship grouping, tribe; korero: to tell, say, speak, talk (verb); speech, narrative, story, discussion (noun); Māori: normal, usual, natural, common or ordinary, used to refer to indigenous New Zealanders; mokopuna: grandchild/grandchildren, descendant; Ngāpuhi: the people or tribal grouping of the Northland region; Pākehā: New Zealanders of European origin; tamariki: child/children; Te Tiriti o Waitangi: the Māori text of the Treaty of Waitangi, the founding document which enabled British settlement of Aotearoa; tikanga: culture, customs, traditions; whakapapa: genealogy, lineage, descent (noun); to place in layers (verb); whanau: family; whanaungatanga: relationship, kinship; whāngai: customary child placement, literal meaning to feed, nourish or nurture

The proposed article reveals how the very deportation of Jews from Macedonia in March 1943 is intertwined and strongly depends on the ideas and memory in the two neighboring countries - the Republic of Bulgaria and the Republic of North Macedonia - for the period of 1941-1944, the Holocaust itself, the subsequent time of communist rule, and the transition period after late 1980s and the beginning of 1990s. It shows how a peculiar beginning of the entry of the problem of the deportation of the Jews into the diplomatic quarrel along the Sofia-Skopje axis appeared in 1998. The following first decade of the new 21st century was distinguished by the strong and tangible presence of various Jewish worlds and narratives about the Jews of Macedonia and the old borders of Bulgaria during the Second World War. As a result the narratives about the deportation of Macedonian Jews and the salvation of Bulgarian ones fight each other. In recent years the international Jewish community, more often indirectly than directly, has played an important role in rounding, smoothing and refining both positions - the Bulgarian and the Macedonian one – with necessary corrections in both narratives. Author(s): Stefan Detchev Title (English): Deportations from Macedonia and their Place in Bulgarian-Macedonian Relationships Journal Reference: Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture, Vol. 20, No. 1-2 (2023). Publisher: Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities - Skopje Page Range: 92-103 Page Count: 12 Citation (English): Stefan Detchev, "Deportations from Macedonia and their Place in Bulgarian-Macedonian Relationships,” Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture, Vol. 20, No. 1-2 (2023): 92-103.

The proposed article reveals how the very deportation of Jews from Macedonia in March 1943 is intertwined and strongly depends on the ideas and memory in the two neighboring countries - the Republic of Bulgaria and the Republic of North Macedonia - for the period of 1941-1944, the Holocaust itself, the subsequent time of communist rule, and the transition period after late 1980s and the beginning of 1990s. It shows how a peculiar beginning of the entry of the problem of the deportation of the Jews into the diplomatic quarrel along the Sofia-Skopje axis appeared in 1998. The following first decade of the new 21st century was distinguished by the strong and tangible presence of various Jewish worlds and narratives about the Jews of Macedonia and the old borders of Bulgaria during the Second World War. As a result the narratives about the deportation of Macedonian Jews and the salvation of Bulgarian ones fight each other. In recent years the international Jewish community, more often indirectly than directly, has played an important role in rounding, smoothing and refining both positions - the Bulgarian and the Macedonian one – with necessary corrections in both narratives. Author(s): Stefan Detchev Title (English): Deportations from Macedonia and their Place in Bulgarian-Macedonian Relationships Journal Reference: Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture, Vol. 20, No. 1-2 (2023). Publisher: Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities - Skopje Page Range: 92-103 Page Count: 12 Citation (English): Stefan Detchev, "Deportations from Macedonia and their Place in Bulgarian-Macedonian Relationships,” Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture, Vol. 20, No. 1-2 (2023): 92-103.

The paper examines literary aspects of the old Czech chronicle in verses by the so-called Dalimil. It inquires into various approaches to the chronicle by both medieval and (early) modern readers. The paper argues that medieval authors read and interpreted the chronicle from diverse perspectives and emphasized different dimensions of the narrative. The second redaction of the chronicle from the second third of the fifteenth century, known for stressing the chauvinistic nationalism of the text, was one possible way of reading the chronicle. Postmedieval editors and interpreters of the chronicle saw it, on the contrary, almost exclusively as a product of medieval anti-Germanism in Bohemia. While contemporary research considers the chronicle primarily as a political manifest, the paper develops the inquiry, approaching the chronicle and medieval historiography in general as multi-layered literature combining religious, identity-centred, political, and imaginative aspects of history writing.

This article examines contemporary historical research exploring the links between tourism and the transmission of historical information. Recent studies of historical methodology have begun to draw attention to the effects of adapting historical knowledge and identity formation in the course of tourism activities. With the popularisation of mass tourism, this channel has also become an effective tool for the governments and academia to promote historical concepts, historical data and build public knowledge about their own past. In this article the author summarises how scientific research on tourism has developed up to the present days.

В данной статье с точки зрения литературных взаимосвязей и с учетом социального, исторического и геополитического контекстов рассматриваются произведения трех ярких представителей польского романтизма – Г. Сенкевича, Й. Крашевского и З. Красиньского, объединенные общей темой истории Древнего Рима. Актуальность данной темы обусловлена не только отсутствием подобных трудов в русскоязычном литературоведении, но и, прежде всего, особой связью польского культурного кода с римской темой в культуре в целом и литературе в частности. В действительности вся польская литература 19 века была тесно связана с размышлениями на тему судьбы Польши, польского народа, а также провозглашала патриотические настроения, часто обращаясь при этом к древнеримским сюжетам и образам. Цель статьи – выявить особенности интерпретации древнеримских исторических сюжетов в польской литературе 19 века и доказать, что все вышеперечисленные авторы усматривают исторические и идеологические параллели между Древним Римом и Польшей, обращаясь, в том числе к идеям польского мессианизма. Практическая значимость статьи заключается в выявлении материала и в возможности использования данного материала при дальнейших исследованиях в данной области.

Using a brief summary of the development of postcolonial studies and anticolonial thought as its main backdrop, the essay explores how postcolonial imagination finds its representations in various public history projects in contemporary Kyrgyzstan. By linking public history and postcolonial thought, the essay demonstrates that the production of historical narratives from below, by non-professional historians, is rarely motivated by strictly historical goals. Indeed, publicity here is a tool for subjecting historical materials to a process of deep recycling. The past is mined for forms, plots, events, and connections, which, then, enable ‘public historians’ to create and circulate stories about the present. As a result, various historical projects not only (re)establish links with previously inaccessible historical periods, but also they effectively change the public context in which non-professional historians situate themselves. Historical knowledge here is public in its form and postcolonial in its content. Relying on Kyrgyz cinema and scholarly publications, the essay identifies two separate but interrelated postcolonial discourses – the ‘poetics of orphanhood’ and the ‘politics of belonging’. It argues that these two public languages of self-description are structured around the same themes of origin and relatedness. Each discourse problematizes these topics in its own way, but both discourses are intertwined in an intriguing symbolic dialogue.

The Norwegian Arbeidernes leksikon, “Workers’ Encyclopedia,” was published in six volumes from 1931–1936. It was inspired by The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, explicitly aimed at working-class readers, and establishing an alternative to the hegemonic bourgeoise discourse. The editors and many of the contributors belonged to the Communist Party of Norway (NKP) and the independent communist intellectual organization Mot Dag (“Towards Dawn”). This article investigates the reception and representation of the ancient world in Arbeidernes leksikon based on selected articles through the lens of narrative theory. Classical education was traditionally the domain of the upper classes. It is argued that the Workers’ Encyclopedia demonstrates that reorienting the reception of ancient history was considered essential both to rewrite history according to Marxist doctrine and to establish workers’ culture as a full-fledged alternative to its bourgeoise counterpart. In the Workers’ Encyclopedia, the classical past is celebrated not for its empires and rulers but for the effort of the masses and their struggle for freedom.

This article provides an in-depth analysis and discussion of the global-historical theory of the so-called Rise of the West during the Early Modern Age and the commonly named Age of Discovery. This theory is covered from the point of view of history education in order to question and provide a criticial examination of the framework. On the one hand, the controversial state of research of the topic is outlined, focusing on the main theoretical debates and some of the most noteworthy ideas under discussion. On the other hand, a discussion is also provided regarding some of the special requirements and essential conditions for an implementation of the idea of the Rise of the West in the curriculum. These notions are linked to both the traditional and current narratives that can be found in the German and Spanish national contexts. From this point of view, the politics of history of both nations are outlined, and, in addition, in order to provide some exemplifications, a selection of history textbooks from previous decades have been also examined in order to analyze the way some of the narratives and these themes are presented. A series of categories, including historical myths, and the Rise of the West as a special category, as well as its institutional dimensions are also discussed in order to showcase the potential of the theory and some of the shortcomings that were detected from the perspective of history education.

In this paper I discuss the deep impact of Immanuel Wallerstein’s work on the vibrant field of world and global history. I focus on the questions of scale, ambition, and convergence and divergence. I conclude with some epistemological reflections on the challenges and limits of a world-historical perspective.

This paper begins by elaborating arguments about the aims that history education should serve and by discussing practical arrangements necessary to support those aims. A case is made for history education informed by strong epistemic and disciplinary understandings and by developed understandings of historical narrative and the uses of the past. This optic is then applied to the evaluation of Centro Internazionale di Didattica della Storia e del Patrimonio (DiPaSt)’s Manifesto per la Didattica della Storia.

This article provides an historical analysis of soybean farming in the most productive region of the world: Latin America’s Southern Cone, with particular attention for Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil. Drawing from the premise that current narratives on soybean cultivation and commercialization have mostly focused on quantitative data of a global scope, this article discusses the potential of scholarly narratives informed by the critical tools of environmental history. Moreover, it proposes the adoption of a new term sublimating the multilayered history of soybeans in the Southern Cone: the Soyacene. This term attempts to shape an original narrative of soybean production in the age of the Great Acceleration, deconstructing misleading historical assumptions. Moreover, by critically discussing the impacts of soybean production, the Soyacene strives to produce a non-essentialist historical narrative in which the diverging interests of different social layers (e.g. governmental actors, private corporations, small farmers and indigenous populations) are addressed with contextualized critical tools.

The Caminho dos Diamantes (Estrada Real, MG) that links Ouro Preto and Diamantina has been constructed due to the discovery and exploitation of diamonds and gold in the region. In accordance with reports and descriptions done by natural scientists who traveled in this region, especially during the 20th century, and associating them with current means, it was possible to understand the places of interest geological and mining beyond the touristic perspective. It was also possible to see these geosites through the natural scientist travelers´ point of view. During field trips, by combining the tools of navigation provided by Instituto Estrada Real to the reports of these natural scientist travelers, it can be realized that the motivation and interest in trips motivated by geodiversity precedes the appeal and use current of the Estrada Real touristic product. Therefore, based on the historical importance to understand and describe the geological and mining heritages, geotourism is an alternative to the upgrading regional tourism, besides it can also be a conservation and education tools

National identity is underpinned by historical representations. Recent research shows that narratives presenting an in-group’s history as discontinuous rather than continuous raise collective angst, suggesting that historical discontinuity threatens social identity. This previous research has focused on positive aspects of an in-group’s past. The present research aims to extend the findings to go beyond positive histories. We suggest that when the in-group’s actions in the past are presented as negative, historical continuity instead of discontinuity will increase perceived identity threat because a negative, continuous history threatens group members’ need for a positive social identity in the present. In an experiment with a sample size of N = 316, we manipulated the narrated valence of in-group actions during the historical event of the approval of the German constitutional law by framing the group’s actions in either positive or negative terms. In addition, we presented the in-group’s history as connected or disconnected to the in-group’s present. Results demonstrate that historical continuity only decreased identity threat compared to historical discontinuity when the in-group’s past behavior was presented as positive. When the in-group’s past was presented as negative, continuity even increased identity threat compared to historical discontinuity. These results were particularly pronounced for people who strongly identified with their national in-group. We discuss implications of the findings for political communication and managing a nation’s perception of social identity threat.

On 30 September 2016, the University of Leeds hosted a one-day conference entitled “Consuming Heritage: Identity, Culture and Heritage”, organised by Michael Samuel, a television studies PhD candidate in the University’s School of Languages, Cultures and Societies. The conference received financial support from the White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities. The keynote speaker was Professor Andrew Higson (York). Speakers were invited to consider issues of identity and heritage, arising from artistic reinterpretations of the past. In the call for papers, the organiser drew upon the work of Jerome de Groot.

Abstract The purpose of the research is less about producing little historians and more about taking into account students' cultures or identities in the teaching and learning of historical narratives. In my work, I have examined the national historical narratives that children and adolescents in the United States have constructed in order to assess the effects of young people's racial/ethnic identities on their understandings of the past. I have found that young people's racial identities had a significant impact on their interpretations of the U. S. history and that their teachers' instruction had some but not much impact on their views. Researchers within and beyond the U. S. have found similar results, attesting to the significance of "identity" (a person's sense of self and the communities s/he affiliates with, including nationality, gender, ethnicity, religious orientation, etc.) in the construction and/or critique of historical narratives. In the following pages, I review and synthesize the studies that I and others have conducted on the effects of identity on history teaching and learning, and conclude with a discussion of the implications for teaching and learning history in diverse democratic societies.

The paper focuses on the effect of cultural memory on the perception of migration and migrants in modern Russia. Based on the ideas of A. Assmann, J. Olika and survey data, the authors examine the prospects for integration of migrants into the receiving society. It also proves the impossibility of direct transfer of the “multiculturalism” strategy in modern conditions in Russia. The main problem from the authors’ viewpoint is connected with the updating the Imperial discourse and conservative ideology. The most promising strategy is the use of the experience of the multi-ethnic regions of Russia and public initiatives’ development aimed at the integration of migrants.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the role that teachers assigned to curricular require-ments, establishing the relationship between these documents and everyday practice. From the interpretation of interviews with a group of teachers, is to study the ways in which teachers used, discarded and/or reworked curriculum requirements, based on assume that they have an active role in the redefinition of such documents. The research results indicate that the new meanings and adaptations that teachers do in the written standard change according to different courtly and contextual realities.

This paper will apply Jörn Rüsen's "intercultural comparison of historical thinking" to modern Iranian historiography on the Mongol period (C13th-14th). In order to appreciate the differences in the historical narratives under examination, Jan Assman's "history of meaning" with its "fictions of coherence" shall be referred to. As the analysis of modern Iranian historiography on the Mongol era demonstrates, it is only under the assumption that these historical narratives are to be understood in the context of a relativistic history of meaning that it is at all possible to accept large parts of their content as plausible.

Author examines the historical concepts that assume the unity of modern European history basing on the recognition of the unity of its historical experience. The whole variety of systematic approaches towards European history, starting from the transposition of the main motives of narrative history of the XIX century to the modern theories of civil society, is being scrutinized. Focusing on the historical experience of multi-ethnic states of the XIX century, such as the Austro-Hungarian, Russian, Ottoman and British empires, with with regard to the European history of the mono-ethnic state, the author concludes that European history has always been somewhere between its domestic and external solutions issues. There are six statements, the author insists, that respond to the basic question: how should the history of modern Europe be written nowadays in order to overcome previous stereotypes? The general assertion of the issue is that the modern historiography of Europe should become rather supranational and even somewhat transcultural.

The issue puts the global question: what makes a work of professional historiographic writing and a narrator’s «telling a history» different? It is, first of all, a definitive indication of concerns of the study, suggestions of its theoretical grounds, identification of the topic’ explorations level and, finally, the definition of the research methodology. Without compliance with the above conditions a historical work might not claim the status of scientific research. The issue examines various works of historians who tried to respond to these questions and to offer innovative approaches towards historical description, focusing at the same time on the very peculiarity of the historical narrative. The author tries to respond to the challenge of his own study on Stalin as a criminal, a prisoner of State. The author comes to the conclusion that theories rather label the historian’s narratives than give a structure for them, as depending on a variety of subjective factors. In other words, the theories and narrations, the author insists, turn out to be totally different and separated fields. Everyone, after all, reads one’s own book and draws upon one’s own historical experience.

Abstract During the first quarter of the 20th Century a small group of black intellectuals, artists, and musicians abandoned the United States for Paris. The rumor was that the French did not believe in racist theories – that France offered blacks social and economic opportunities not available in the States. This paper critically examines that narrative as well as North America’s melting pot legend – an expression of the promise of America made popular in 1909 by playwright Israel Zangwill. The stories that we tell about ourselves as a nation are important because our moral sentiments are frequently a product of these narratives. They influence our vision of populations and their circumstances. They serve as starting points for philosophical investigation and critical self-reflection. My intent is not to prove these stories or narratives false but rather, to illustrate how their widespread acceptance has affected people’s abilities to recognize, understand, and responsibly address compelling and complex racial problems. What I recommend is the need for an on-going, comprehensive, and critical examination of socially dominant historical narratives.

The language, history and ceremonies in the area of Meikštai in Lithuania This publication is a report of the field studies carried out in July 2000 in the Smalvos area in Lithuania. This area is characterized by historically shaped multilingualism, where Lithuanian, Polish and Russian Old Believers’ villages are adjacent. Also frequent are contacts between local residents with family or friends who live in Belarus. As a result, the inhabitants of these villages are familiar with four languages: Polish, Lithuanian, Russian, and Belarusian dialect. The Polish villages preserved the basic Polish language which is used by all three generations as a home language, while in the external contacts other language varieties can be used. The ongoing research was not only aimed at examination of the language of these areas but also at documentation of very diverse cultural layers, therefore rites, customs and folk songs were recorded. Many different questionnaires were used in the study – linguistic, ethno-linguistic and social-linguistic. The source text in the book consists of stories kept in historical and ethnographic character, basic features of the informer, who represents a Smalvos variety of the Polish language in Lithuania, have been preserved in the phonetic record. O języku, dawnych czasach i obrzędach w okolicach Mejkszt na Litwie W publikacji przedstawione są teksty nagrane w lipcu 2000 r. podczas badań terenowych na obszarze smołwieńskim polszczyzny północnokresowej. Pochodzą one od informatorki ze wsi Mejkszty (lit. Meikštai). Wieś jest położona w rejonie ignalińskim (lit. Ignalinos rajonas), na samej granicy z Białorusią. Teren ten charakteryzuje się historycznie ukształtowaną wielojęzycznością, gdzie sąsiadują ze sobą wsie litewskie, polskie i staroobrzędowców. Częste są też kontakty miejscowych mieszkańców z rodziną lub znajomymi, mieszkającymi na Białorusi. Mieszkańcy tych miejscowości znają cztery języki: polski, litewski, rosyjski i gwarę białoruską. W zachowanych wsiach polskich kodem podstawowym pozostaje dotychczas polszczyzna, której używa się we wszystkich trzech pokoleniach jako języka domowego, natomiast w kontaktach zewnętrznych mogą być używane pozostałe odmiany językowe. Badania miały na celu nie tylko odnotowanie języka używanego w tych miejscowości, lecz też udokumentowanie bardzo zróżnicowanej warstwy kulturowej, dlatego też nagrywano opowieści o obrzędach, zwyczajach, a także pieśni ludowe. W trakcie badań stosowano różnorodne kwestionariusze – językowe, socjolingwistyczne i etnolingwistyczne. Przedstawiony tekst składa się z opowiadań o charakterze historycznym i etnograficznym. W zapisie półfonetycznym zachowano podstawowe cechy języka informatorki, który reprezentuje odmianę smołwieńską polszczyzny na Litwie.

En este articulo se lleva a cabo una discusion conceptual, historica y didactica de dos conceptos centrales de la quimica: sustancia y reaccion quimica, en sus aspectos macroscopico y nanoscopico. Se analiza como estos dos conceptos participan en la definicion de Quimica. Tambien se discuten los resultados obtenidos en una revisión de las definiciones presentadas por profesores y por libros de texto. Los autores se abocaron a la busqueda de aportes historicos y conceptuales que resultaran de utilidad para profesores de nivel medio, y que los indujeran a reflexionar sobre ambos conceptos y a llevar adelante modelos adecuados de razonamiento y accion pedagogica.

Yugoslavia collapsed and descended into war for a number of reasons. The paper is dealing with the role of historical narratives, namely, the failure to develop a common historical narrative, which had the result that the diverse peoples of Yugoslavia had diff erent understandings of some important aspects of their history, both in the remote and the more proximate past. The author discusses the Serbian and Croatian historical narratives, noting especially those areas in which they diff er. Many Serbian politicians looked on the Yugoslav state as a framework within which they could realize the Serbian national idea, which is to say, the idea that all Serbs and Serb-inhabited areas should be united in one state. Many Croats had a rival notion, always resenting the fact that the Serbs constituted the largest national group in the country and dreaming of an independent Croatian state. The author concludes that historical narratives provide frameworks within which a society may fi nd answers to current questions. The problem of legitimacy was fi ltered through the lenses of the historical narrative, so that the system bequeathed by Tito was not just ‘the communist system’, but (for Serbs) ‘the anti-Serb federal system, created by the Croat, Tito’ or (for Croats) ‘the anti-Croat communist system, dominated by Serbs at the expense of Croats’ or (for Albanians) ‘the land of the South Slavs, in which non-Slavs are second class citizens and in which the legitimate rights of the Albanians are quashed’.

Book review

With the rise of China's status on international stage as a result of its economic development there is an increasingly audible voice of Chinese cultural nationalism. More and more educators and intellectuals are calling for the revival of Chinese traditional culture values. However, the very issues of who are the Chinese and what are traditional Chinese cultural values present a huge dilemma. The debates on a recent a TV program "General Shi Lang" consist a good case to illustrate this dilemma. Shi Lang was a general of the last days of the Ming Dynasty, but had surrendered to the Manchu Qing dynasty invaders and fought for the Machus take over Taiwan from a Chinese ruler. The debates show that the dilemma has its cause in at least three issues. First, it is not at all obvious who should be categorized as Chinese. Secondly, it is not at all obvious what Chinese cultural values are. And finally it is the issue of evaluation of traditional values against the universal claim of the values of liberal democracy.