Pub Date : 2023-01-16DOI: 10.1177/00472441221141956
Elif TOPRAK SAKIZ
This article explores the features of narrative space in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth by drawing on the notion of diaspora space, which is based upon Avtar Brah’s theory in Cartographies of Diaspora, with a view to defining diaspora subjectivity. The analysis asks how such spaces are imbued with the multiplicity of border crossings, such as metaleptic intrusions of the heterodiegetic narrator, pluralization of perspectivism, the intermingling of the narrator’s and characters’ own spaces with the use of free indirect speech and the problematization of internal and external spaces. The narrator’s engagement with issues of diaspora, subjectivity, ethnicity, multiculturalism and roots/routes as well as their narrative manifestations are traced throughout the novel with recourse to ideas of ‘post-postcolonialism’, a concept that corresponds to the everydayness and ordinariness of migrant experience. Consequently, space proves to be a constitutive element of both the novel’s narrative and the characters’ subjectivities.
{"title":"Narrative and the mapping of Diaspora Space: Liminalities and subjectivities in the ‘Happy Multicultural Land’ of Zadie Smith’s White Teeth","authors":"Elif TOPRAK SAKIZ","doi":"10.1177/00472441221141956","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00472441221141956","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the features of narrative space in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth by drawing on the notion of diaspora space, which is based upon Avtar Brah’s theory in Cartographies of Diaspora, with a view to defining diaspora subjectivity. The analysis asks how such spaces are imbued with the multiplicity of border crossings, such as metaleptic intrusions of the heterodiegetic narrator, pluralization of perspectivism, the intermingling of the narrator’s and characters’ own spaces with the use of free indirect speech and the problematization of internal and external spaces. The narrator’s engagement with issues of diaspora, subjectivity, ethnicity, multiculturalism and roots/routes as well as their narrative manifestations are traced throughout the novel with recourse to ideas of ‘post-postcolonialism’, a concept that corresponds to the everydayness and ordinariness of migrant experience. Consequently, space proves to be a constitutive element of both the novel’s narrative and the characters’ subjectivities.","PeriodicalId":43875,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42071319","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-16DOI: 10.1177/00472441221141976
M. Modiano
Starting with the early twentieth century, the shifts in what languages mainland Europeans have as additional languages are described and analysed. Historical events, such as World War II, the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, as well as the ramifications of globalization, are taken into consideration, as are the implications of Brexit for the role English maintains as Europe’s primary universal language. Declines in French, German and Russian as the first additional language are observed. Comparisons are made of the resources required for a language to challenge English as Europe’s primary lingua franca. It is found that the patterns which emerge over time, with few exceptions, result in the increased importance of English in all of the Member States of the European Union. Moreover, the rise of L2 English in the European Union has caused mainland Europeans to be more likely to become bilingual rather than plurilingual, something contrary to European Union policy.
{"title":"The vicissitudes of bilingualism and plurilingualism in the European Union","authors":"M. Modiano","doi":"10.1177/00472441221141976","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00472441221141976","url":null,"abstract":"Starting with the early twentieth century, the shifts in what languages mainland Europeans have as additional languages are described and analysed. Historical events, such as World War II, the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, as well as the ramifications of globalization, are taken into consideration, as are the implications of Brexit for the role English maintains as Europe’s primary universal language. Declines in French, German and Russian as the first additional language are observed. Comparisons are made of the resources required for a language to challenge English as Europe’s primary lingua franca. It is found that the patterns which emerge over time, with few exceptions, result in the increased importance of English in all of the Member States of the European Union. Moreover, the rise of L2 English in the European Union has caused mainland Europeans to be more likely to become bilingual rather than plurilingual, something contrary to European Union policy.","PeriodicalId":43875,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43755144","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-01DOI: 10.1177/00472441221136736c
P. Bishop
Paul Brian Heise's The Wound That Will Never Heal is an original allegorical reading of Richard Wagner's epic music drama The Ring of the Nibelung. Heise challenges the standard view that Wagner merely dramatizes the conflict between love and power and demonstrates instead that his greatest work is an allegory exploring humanity's longing for transcendent value and that quest's paradoxical establishment of a science-based secular society. By employing a more extensive analysis of primary evidence than any prior interpretation, The Wound That Will Never Heal is the first interpretation to propose and sustain a global and conceptually coherent account of the entire Ring.... Download ebook, read file pdf An Allegorical Interpretation of Richard Wagner's the Ring of the Nibelung
{"title":"Book Review: Paul Brian Heise: The Wound That Will Never Heal: An Allegorical Interpretation of Richard Wagner’s ‘The Ring of the Nibelung’","authors":"P. Bishop","doi":"10.1177/00472441221136736c","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00472441221136736c","url":null,"abstract":"Paul Brian Heise's The Wound That Will Never Heal is an original allegorical reading of Richard Wagner's epic music drama The Ring of the Nibelung. Heise challenges the standard view that Wagner merely dramatizes the conflict between love and power and demonstrates instead that his greatest work is an allegory exploring humanity's longing for transcendent value and that quest's paradoxical establishment of a science-based secular society. By employing a more extensive analysis of primary evidence than any prior interpretation, The Wound That Will Never Heal is the first interpretation to propose and sustain a global and conceptually coherent account of the entire Ring.... Download ebook, read file pdf An Allegorical Interpretation of Richard Wagner's the Ring of the Nibelung","PeriodicalId":43875,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48413046","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-01DOI: 10.1177/00472441221115859
M. van der Waal, Astrid Van Weyenberg, Sabine Volk
The notion of ‘European heritage’ plays an increasingly important role in the discursive constructions of a collective sense of European belonging. This Special Issue critically reviews some of the contemporary instrumentalizations of European heritage as processes of borderwork by which various political and non-political actors demarcate the boundaries of Europe and European identity. Specifically, the nine contributions shed light on some of the top-down and bottom-up uses of European heritage and explore whether the borderwork of European heritage delineates and separates Europeanness as an exclusive and singular identity, or whether it constitutes a space of exchange, flow and entanglement where Europeanness is defined as inclusive and pluralistic. Characterized by interdisciplinarity, methodological variety and a conception of Europe broader than the European Union, this Special Issue aims to broaden the scope of scholarship in European studies and (critical) heritage studies.
{"title":"Introduction: Heritage and the making of ‘Europe’","authors":"M. van der Waal, Astrid Van Weyenberg, Sabine Volk","doi":"10.1177/00472441221115859","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00472441221115859","url":null,"abstract":"The notion of ‘European heritage’ plays an increasingly important role in the discursive constructions of a collective sense of European belonging. This Special Issue critically reviews some of the contemporary instrumentalizations of European heritage as processes of borderwork by which various political and non-political actors demarcate the boundaries of Europe and European identity. Specifically, the nine contributions shed light on some of the top-down and bottom-up uses of European heritage and explore whether the borderwork of European heritage delineates and separates Europeanness as an exclusive and singular identity, or whether it constitutes a space of exchange, flow and entanglement where Europeanness is defined as inclusive and pluralistic. Characterized by interdisciplinarity, methodological variety and a conception of Europe broader than the European Union, this Special Issue aims to broaden the scope of scholarship in European studies and (critical) heritage studies.","PeriodicalId":43875,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46628254","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-01DOI: 10.1177/00472441221136736a
Elaine Callinan
{"title":"Book Review: Niamh Gallagher: Ireland and the Great War: A Social and Political History","authors":"Elaine Callinan","doi":"10.1177/00472441221136736a","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00472441221136736a","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43875,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44038719","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-01DOI: 10.1177/00472441221136736d
G. Bond
{"title":"Book Review: Patrick Wright: The Sea View Has Me Again: Uwe Johnson in Sheerness","authors":"G. Bond","doi":"10.1177/00472441221136736d","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00472441221136736d","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43875,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41983353","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-01DOI: 10.1177/00472441221136736g
Fiona Noble
{"title":"Book Review: Paul Julian Smith: Reimagining History in Contemporary Spanish Media: Theater, Cinema, Television, Streaming","authors":"Fiona Noble","doi":"10.1177/00472441221136736g","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00472441221136736g","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43875,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43570472","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-01DOI: 10.1177/00472441221136736b
P. Bishop
nationalists in Ireland. In Canada and Australia, Catholic clerics exerted a strong influence resulting in strong allegiances to Ireland alongside a loyalty to their dominion of residence. There is a wealth of numerical evidence on diaspora recruitment and an analysis of how Ireland featured in propaganda to entice potential recruits. The emphasis then shifts to combine the national with the international through a case study of the IrishCanadian Rangers founded by Fr McShane of Montreal. The only comment here is that I am not sure this chapter is situated correctly in the book as Chapter 6 returns to the domestic front. Chapter 6 explores popular reactions to departing troops, familial and fraternal support, and educational support for Catholic servicemen, at least until the large death tolls from the Gallipoli campaign. An examination of reaction at home and abroad to the passage of the third Home Rule bill, particularly among the clergy, opens the question of similar support for the IPP’s position on the war effort. The author points out that ‘public opinion towards recruitment was highly complex’ (p. 142) and some interesting analysis on attendance at recruitment meetings is provided. The book culminates in an exploration of what happened after the Armistice of 1918 to look at the notion of ‘amnesia’. It also offers some evaluation of the ‘place of the Great War’ in the later twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This book covers many topics, and the research certainly brings some new opinions and evidence about Ireland’s war effort. Voice is given to ‘ordinary’ people rather than military and political elites, and this adds value to the history of the period. The research throws light on the conflicting atmosphere among Irish people of all denominations and highlights the nuances within Irish society to the war effort both before and after the Easter Rising. By situating Ireland’s response within the transnational and international this study of the Irish Catholic war experience builds on the work of other scholars of the Great War. A wide range of secondary and primary source evidence was used, such as newspapers, educational publications, private papers, personal diaries, war journals and letters, reports and maps, memoirs and autobiographical accounts and nationalist witness statements from the Bureau of Military History Archives. This book will be of particular interest to scholars, students and history enthusiasts of the Great War in Ireland, Europe and especially among the wider global diaspora communities.
{"title":"Book Review: Alberto Bertozzi: Plotinus on Love: An Introduction to his Metaphysics through the Concept of Eros","authors":"P. Bishop","doi":"10.1177/00472441221136736b","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00472441221136736b","url":null,"abstract":"nationalists in Ireland. In Canada and Australia, Catholic clerics exerted a strong influence resulting in strong allegiances to Ireland alongside a loyalty to their dominion of residence. There is a wealth of numerical evidence on diaspora recruitment and an analysis of how Ireland featured in propaganda to entice potential recruits. The emphasis then shifts to combine the national with the international through a case study of the IrishCanadian Rangers founded by Fr McShane of Montreal. The only comment here is that I am not sure this chapter is situated correctly in the book as Chapter 6 returns to the domestic front. Chapter 6 explores popular reactions to departing troops, familial and fraternal support, and educational support for Catholic servicemen, at least until the large death tolls from the Gallipoli campaign. An examination of reaction at home and abroad to the passage of the third Home Rule bill, particularly among the clergy, opens the question of similar support for the IPP’s position on the war effort. The author points out that ‘public opinion towards recruitment was highly complex’ (p. 142) and some interesting analysis on attendance at recruitment meetings is provided. The book culminates in an exploration of what happened after the Armistice of 1918 to look at the notion of ‘amnesia’. It also offers some evaluation of the ‘place of the Great War’ in the later twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This book covers many topics, and the research certainly brings some new opinions and evidence about Ireland’s war effort. Voice is given to ‘ordinary’ people rather than military and political elites, and this adds value to the history of the period. The research throws light on the conflicting atmosphere among Irish people of all denominations and highlights the nuances within Irish society to the war effort both before and after the Easter Rising. By situating Ireland’s response within the transnational and international this study of the Irish Catholic war experience builds on the work of other scholars of the Great War. A wide range of secondary and primary source evidence was used, such as newspapers, educational publications, private papers, personal diaries, war journals and letters, reports and maps, memoirs and autobiographical accounts and nationalist witness statements from the Bureau of Military History Archives. This book will be of particular interest to scholars, students and history enthusiasts of the Great War in Ireland, Europe and especially among the wider global diaspora communities.","PeriodicalId":43875,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46761904","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-01DOI: 10.1177/00472441221136736f
Jeremy Black
nation-wide network of patriotic exhibitions and theme parks collectively called ‘Russia. My History’. A travesty of Russia’s genuine past, these lavish installations seek – with jaw-dropping popular success – to inculcate a cult of the glories of the country’s magnificent evolution – military, territorial, political, cultural, and religious – perniciously marginalizing or ignoring any negative features and instilling a frenzy of popular patriotic fervour in unquestioning exaltation of the collaborative achievements of the Russian people, the Russian Church, and the Russian state. One original supporter, now critic, of this grotesque enterprise, Pavel Kuzenkov, described it as ‘a striking example of history used in lieu of political propaganda’ (p. 66). Or, as the author succinctly puts it, under the regime of Vladimir Putin: ‘History is politics in Russia’ (p. 255). In his book, based on his 2018 doctoral thesis, James Pearce demonstrates how this situation is utilized as the basis of the teaching of history throughout the Russian education system from kindergarten to high school. It is worth remembering that everyone in Russia under the age of 22 has grown up in the Putin era, and therefore have no knowledge of the history of their own country other than that taught to them by the peddlers of the ‘Authorized Version’. This version may not exactly be written down in stone, but it is certainly etched indelibly into their own consciousness. There is simply no textbook or forum from which it is possible to mount a critical challenge to the official orthodoxy – which would in any case be likely to be illegal. Unfortunately, or unavoidably, there is – given the books’ respective titles – a good deal of subject matter and evidential overlap. The same emphases, arguments and examples are present in both volumes, and both come to inevitably similar conclusions. They are: that under Putin, reasserting control over Russia’s past is seen as an essential weapon in the struggle to create a patriotic-minded, right-thinking, quintessentially Russophile, nationalistic and culturally homogeneous society. One of the distinguishing features of Pearce’s book is his analysis – based on personal interviews and questionnaires – of the way in which both qualified, experienced teachers and young trainee teachers of history view their role, their tasks, and their objectives in tutoring a new generation of Russian citizens who will, after all, shape their country’s future. These people will, in the very nature of things, outlive Putin and Putinism, and who can foresee what new contours may then emerge on the landscape of Russian historiography or ‘historymaking’? As the Leningrad (now St Petersburg!) writer, Tatyana Tolstaya, has put it: ‘Russia is a country whose past is impossible to predict’.
{"title":"Book Review: Franziska Exeler: Ghosts of War: Nazi Occupation and its Aftermath in Soviet Belarus","authors":"Jeremy Black","doi":"10.1177/00472441221136736f","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00472441221136736f","url":null,"abstract":"nation-wide network of patriotic exhibitions and theme parks collectively called ‘Russia. My History’. A travesty of Russia’s genuine past, these lavish installations seek – with jaw-dropping popular success – to inculcate a cult of the glories of the country’s magnificent evolution – military, territorial, political, cultural, and religious – perniciously marginalizing or ignoring any negative features and instilling a frenzy of popular patriotic fervour in unquestioning exaltation of the collaborative achievements of the Russian people, the Russian Church, and the Russian state. One original supporter, now critic, of this grotesque enterprise, Pavel Kuzenkov, described it as ‘a striking example of history used in lieu of political propaganda’ (p. 66). Or, as the author succinctly puts it, under the regime of Vladimir Putin: ‘History is politics in Russia’ (p. 255). In his book, based on his 2018 doctoral thesis, James Pearce demonstrates how this situation is utilized as the basis of the teaching of history throughout the Russian education system from kindergarten to high school. It is worth remembering that everyone in Russia under the age of 22 has grown up in the Putin era, and therefore have no knowledge of the history of their own country other than that taught to them by the peddlers of the ‘Authorized Version’. This version may not exactly be written down in stone, but it is certainly etched indelibly into their own consciousness. There is simply no textbook or forum from which it is possible to mount a critical challenge to the official orthodoxy – which would in any case be likely to be illegal. Unfortunately, or unavoidably, there is – given the books’ respective titles – a good deal of subject matter and evidential overlap. The same emphases, arguments and examples are present in both volumes, and both come to inevitably similar conclusions. They are: that under Putin, reasserting control over Russia’s past is seen as an essential weapon in the struggle to create a patriotic-minded, right-thinking, quintessentially Russophile, nationalistic and culturally homogeneous society. One of the distinguishing features of Pearce’s book is his analysis – based on personal interviews and questionnaires – of the way in which both qualified, experienced teachers and young trainee teachers of history view their role, their tasks, and their objectives in tutoring a new generation of Russian citizens who will, after all, shape their country’s future. These people will, in the very nature of things, outlive Putin and Putinism, and who can foresee what new contours may then emerge on the landscape of Russian historiography or ‘historymaking’? As the Leningrad (now St Petersburg!) writer, Tatyana Tolstaya, has put it: ‘Russia is a country whose past is impossible to predict’.","PeriodicalId":43875,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46259124","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-01DOI: 10.1177/00472441221136736e
Alan B. Wood
major novel Jahrestage. Aus dem Leben von Gesine Cresspahl in 1983 (newly translated by Damien Searls as Anniversaries. From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl, 2018). Three volumes had already been published and the fourth was well in progress when Johnson left Berlin, but Wright does not reflect on Johnson’s nearly 10-year struggle to complete it, nor particularly on its significance as a major work of twentieth-century European literature. Otherwise, Johnson’s two most important works during his Sheerness years were his 1979 Frankfurt poetics lectures, published as Begleitumstände (Attendant Circumstances) in 1980, and the novella Skizze eines Verunglückten (Sketch of An Accident Victim) of 1981. Wright does not discuss the former in any depth, even though it is as close as Johnson got to an autobiography and offers plenty of material that might help understand his move to England. Wright uses the latter only as a comment on the break-up of Johnson’s marriage that took place during his Sheerness years, which it certainly can be seen to be, but to which it should not be reduced. It may be the case that there simply is not enough to say about Johnson himself in Sheerness that makes the tale worth telling as a story in its own right, whereas there would be value in a study of his years in Sheerness that addresses and assesses his literary production there and that also weaves in the author’s own origins and life before Sheerness, while taking a far more selective approach to Sheerness local history. A volume of Inselgeschichten (Island Stories, 1985) was published from Johnson’s literary estate, containing largely unfinished texts, mostly from Johnson’s letters, and only three short texts that Johnson published in his own lifetime. His essay ‘Ein unergründliches Schiff’ (published in English as ‘An Unfathomable Ship’ in 1983, translated by Lawrence Wilson) on the Richard Montgomery, a US ammunitions ship that was wrecked in 1944 and lies in view of Sheerness, stands out as the only text of substance based on the town of Sheerness that he wrote. Johnson’s research on the wreck evokes a sense of place in the present while salvaging the history that lies submerged, spinning a tale from contemporary Sheerness to the Second World War and its consequences. It condenses the ‘sea view’ that he himself ‘had’ in Sheerness down to a bigger story worth telling. Here we see Johnson not as ‘Charlie’ in Sheerness, but as the major European intellectual that he undoubtedly was.
{"title":"Book Review: James C. Pearce: The Use of History in Putin’s Russia and Anton Weiss-Wendt: Putin’s Russia and the Falsification of History: Reasserting Control of the Past","authors":"Alan B. Wood","doi":"10.1177/00472441221136736e","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00472441221136736e","url":null,"abstract":"major novel Jahrestage. Aus dem Leben von Gesine Cresspahl in 1983 (newly translated by Damien Searls as Anniversaries. From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl, 2018). Three volumes had already been published and the fourth was well in progress when Johnson left Berlin, but Wright does not reflect on Johnson’s nearly 10-year struggle to complete it, nor particularly on its significance as a major work of twentieth-century European literature. Otherwise, Johnson’s two most important works during his Sheerness years were his 1979 Frankfurt poetics lectures, published as Begleitumstände (Attendant Circumstances) in 1980, and the novella Skizze eines Verunglückten (Sketch of An Accident Victim) of 1981. Wright does not discuss the former in any depth, even though it is as close as Johnson got to an autobiography and offers plenty of material that might help understand his move to England. Wright uses the latter only as a comment on the break-up of Johnson’s marriage that took place during his Sheerness years, which it certainly can be seen to be, but to which it should not be reduced. It may be the case that there simply is not enough to say about Johnson himself in Sheerness that makes the tale worth telling as a story in its own right, whereas there would be value in a study of his years in Sheerness that addresses and assesses his literary production there and that also weaves in the author’s own origins and life before Sheerness, while taking a far more selective approach to Sheerness local history. A volume of Inselgeschichten (Island Stories, 1985) was published from Johnson’s literary estate, containing largely unfinished texts, mostly from Johnson’s letters, and only three short texts that Johnson published in his own lifetime. His essay ‘Ein unergründliches Schiff’ (published in English as ‘An Unfathomable Ship’ in 1983, translated by Lawrence Wilson) on the Richard Montgomery, a US ammunitions ship that was wrecked in 1944 and lies in view of Sheerness, stands out as the only text of substance based on the town of Sheerness that he wrote. Johnson’s research on the wreck evokes a sense of place in the present while salvaging the history that lies submerged, spinning a tale from contemporary Sheerness to the Second World War and its consequences. It condenses the ‘sea view’ that he himself ‘had’ in Sheerness down to a bigger story worth telling. Here we see Johnson not as ‘Charlie’ in Sheerness, but as the major European intellectual that he undoubtedly was.","PeriodicalId":43875,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48960430","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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