Pub Date : 2023-06-15DOI: 10.1177/16118944231180432
Eva Balz
This article introduces the decisions of the Oberstes Rückerstattungsgericht für Berlin (Supreme Restitution Court for Berlin) as historical sources that contribute to a better understanding of how early interpretations of the Holocaust developed. The Oberstes Rückerstattungsgericht für Berlin was established in 1953 as the final court of appeals for restitution matters in West Berlin. Some of its decisions were published in a collection that would later be used by judges, lawyers and claimants. Legal experts and practitioners who dealt with restitution would also discuss these decisions extensively. As no other means of gathering insight into the Oberstes Rückerstattungsgericht für Berlin's work were available, its publications became the most important communicative channel for actors within the Court's jurisdiction. The decisions contained distinct narratives concerning the Third Reich that stressed the importance of authoritative political structures while also focussing on state agencies and the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei as main actors. The accounts given in the decisions were partly based on analyses of historical records that were performed either by the judges themselves or by historians at the Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich (Institute for Contemporary History). This article suggests that on a broader societal level, the decisions contributed to the dissemination of state-centred ideas about the Holocaust. At the same time, the text draws attention to their complicated genesis. Situating the emergence of the decisions alongside the concrete implementation of restitution laws, the Cold War in Berlin and Vergangenheitspolitik (politics of the past), I demonstrate that the perpetuation of state-focussed historical concepts, to a large extent, resulted from the judges’ desire to lessen their significant workloads and to work without the interference of political actors.
本文介绍柏林最高赔偿法院(Oberstes rckerstattungsgericht f r Berlin)的判决，作为有助于更好地理解早期对大屠杀的解释如何发展的历史来源。Oberstes rckerstattungsgericht fr Berlin成立于1953年，是西柏林赔偿事务的最终上诉法院。它的一些裁决被发表在一个文集中，后来被法官、律师和索赔人使用。处理赔偿问题的法律专家和从业人员也将广泛讨论这些决定。由于没有其他方法可以深入了解Oberstes r ckerstattungsgericht fbr Berlin的工作，因此其出版物成为法院管辖范围内行为者最重要的交流渠道。这些决定包含了关于第三帝国的独特叙述，强调了权威政治结构的重要性，同时也侧重于国家机构和国家民族主义党作为主要行动者。判决书中的叙述部分是基于对历史记录的分析，这些分析要么是由法官自己完成的，要么是由慕尼黑当代历史研究所(Institute for Contemporary History)的历史学家完成的。本文表明，在更广泛的社会层面上，这些决定促进了以国家为中心的大屠杀思想的传播。同时，本文还关注了它们复杂的起源。我将判决的出现与赔偿法律的具体实施、柏林冷战和Vergangenheitspolitik(过去的政治)放在一起，证明了以国家为中心的历史概念的延续，在很大程度上是由于法官希望减轻他们的重大工作量，并在没有政治行为者干预的情况下工作。
{"title":"Understanding the Third Reich by Means of the Law: The Decisions of the Supreme Restitution Court for Berlin as Sources on the Holocaust and the Development of Holocaust Interpretations","authors":"Eva Balz","doi":"10.1177/16118944231180432","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/16118944231180432","url":null,"abstract":"This article introduces the decisions of the Oberstes Rückerstattungsgericht für Berlin (Supreme Restitution Court for Berlin) as historical sources that contribute to a better understanding of how early interpretations of the Holocaust developed. The Oberstes Rückerstattungsgericht für Berlin was established in 1953 as the final court of appeals for restitution matters in West Berlin. Some of its decisions were published in a collection that would later be used by judges, lawyers and claimants. Legal experts and practitioners who dealt with restitution would also discuss these decisions extensively. As no other means of gathering insight into the Oberstes Rückerstattungsgericht für Berlin's work were available, its publications became the most important communicative channel for actors within the Court's jurisdiction. The decisions contained distinct narratives concerning the Third Reich that stressed the importance of authoritative political structures while also focussing on state agencies and the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei as main actors. The accounts given in the decisions were partly based on analyses of historical records that were performed either by the judges themselves or by historians at the Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich (Institute for Contemporary History). This article suggests that on a broader societal level, the decisions contributed to the dissemination of state-centred ideas about the Holocaust. At the same time, the text draws attention to their complicated genesis. Situating the emergence of the decisions alongside the concrete implementation of restitution laws, the Cold War in Berlin and Vergangenheitspolitik (politics of the past), I demonstrate that the perpetuation of state-focussed historical concepts, to a large extent, resulted from the judges’ desire to lessen their significant workloads and to work without the interference of political actors.","PeriodicalId":44275,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern European History","volume":"21 1","pages":"311 - 325"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43310000","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-15DOI: 10.1177/16118944231180426
Bianca Gaudenzi
This article illustrates the role played by restitution in bringing about the first substantial changes in the political and public awareness of Italy's anti-Jewish persecutions after the end of the Cold War. More specifically, it analyses how political discourses changed between the years 1989 and 2003 vis-à-vis restitution campaigns on one side and historiographical advances on the other. This proves particularly relevant in the case of post-war Italy, which was exceptional in turning the restitution of national collections into a moment of cathartic rebirth while whitewashing - or all together forgetting - fascism's persecution of its Jewish and colonial subjects. As the article demonstrates, the conflation of international and domestic factors played a crucial role in pushing Italy (as well as several other countries) to start confronting – albeit partially – its antisemitic past. Restitution constituted only a piece of this puzzle, but a crucial one. It afforded the opportunity to document the involvement of many Italians in the persecution of their fellow citizens and to highlight the state's responsibility for the deportations. Furthermore, it provided an international platform for voicing some of the most explicit admissions of accountability, which had until that point found little if any space in the domestic realm. Restitution thereby represented one of the most visible ways for Jewish communities to exercise their newly found political weight to foster the long-awaited recognition of Italy's persecutory behaviour.
{"title":"Cultural Restitution and the ‘Rediscovery’ of the Holocaust in Italy, 1989–2003","authors":"Bianca Gaudenzi","doi":"10.1177/16118944231180426","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/16118944231180426","url":null,"abstract":"This article illustrates the role played by restitution in bringing about the first substantial changes in the political and public awareness of Italy's anti-Jewish persecutions after the end of the Cold War. More specifically, it analyses how political discourses changed between the years 1989 and 2003 vis-à-vis restitution campaigns on one side and historiographical advances on the other. This proves particularly relevant in the case of post-war Italy, which was exceptional in turning the restitution of national collections into a moment of cathartic rebirth while whitewashing - or all together forgetting - fascism's persecution of its Jewish and colonial subjects. As the article demonstrates, the conflation of international and domestic factors played a crucial role in pushing Italy (as well as several other countries) to start confronting – albeit partially – its antisemitic past. Restitution constituted only a piece of this puzzle, but a crucial one. It afforded the opportunity to document the involvement of many Italians in the persecution of their fellow citizens and to highlight the state's responsibility for the deportations. Furthermore, it provided an international platform for voicing some of the most explicit admissions of accountability, which had until that point found little if any space in the domestic realm. Restitution thereby represented one of the most visible ways for Jewish communities to exercise their newly found political weight to foster the long-awaited recognition of Italy's persecutory behaviour.","PeriodicalId":44275,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern European History","volume":"21 1","pages":"377 - 394"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43525158","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-15DOI: 10.1177/16118944231180425
Ondřej Šmigol
Discussions of the Thatcherite foreign policy often centre exclusively on the Cold War and especially on the relationship with the USSR. Therefore, the British relationship with smaller communist states is often unexplored, even though it is where British influence was most prominent. The brand of political and economic thinking espoused by British Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher found avid disciples in the newly democratic Czechoslovakia in the 1990s. A group of influential Czechoslovak politicians and officials led by Finance Minister, and later Czech Prime Minister, Václav Klaus sought to transform the Czechoslovak communist economy into a free market one that roughly followed Thatcherite lines. This was not only because they felt an ideological closeness to Thatcher but also because Britain was one of the few countries at the time that had experienced a large-scale privatisation of industries. Therefore, the reformers saw it as a model. The Prime Minister reciprocated these warm feelings. She authorised the sending of a team of British experts to Czechoslovakia, with the goal of aiding its economic reform programme. British advisers greatly contributed to privatisation and other schemes, especially on the practical side.
{"title":"‘An Atmosphere of Waffle and Woolliness’: British Developmental Aid and Economic Transformation in Czechoslovakia","authors":"Ondřej Šmigol","doi":"10.1177/16118944231180425","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/16118944231180425","url":null,"abstract":"Discussions of the Thatcherite foreign policy often centre exclusively on the Cold War and especially on the relationship with the USSR. Therefore, the British relationship with smaller communist states is often unexplored, even though it is where British influence was most prominent. The brand of political and economic thinking espoused by British Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher found avid disciples in the newly democratic Czechoslovakia in the 1990s. A group of influential Czechoslovak politicians and officials led by Finance Minister, and later Czech Prime Minister, Václav Klaus sought to transform the Czechoslovak communist economy into a free market one that roughly followed Thatcherite lines. This was not only because they felt an ideological closeness to Thatcher but also because Britain was one of the few countries at the time that had experienced a large-scale privatisation of industries. Therefore, the reformers saw it as a model. The Prime Minister reciprocated these warm feelings. She authorised the sending of a team of British experts to Czechoslovakia, with the goal of aiding its economic reform programme. British advisers greatly contributed to privatisation and other schemes, especially on the practical side.","PeriodicalId":44275,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern European History","volume":"21 1","pages":"395 - 416"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44100467","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-15DOI: 10.1177/16118944231180433
Iris Nachum
Only recently have historians studying the Holocaust recognised the unique value of German compensation files as historical source material. The Federal Republic of Germany created these files after World War II in the context of Wiedergutmachung, that is, compensation for damages inflicted by the Nazis on racial, religious and political grounds. This article draws attention to a different body of compensation records, one that has so far been ignored by historians of Nazi persecution: case files created under the Lastenausgleichsgesetz (Equalisation of Burdens Law [LAG]). This West German law was meant to compensate ethnic Germans for property they lost when they were expelled from Central and Eastern Europe after the war. The article demonstrates that LAG files can be especially illuminating of the interaction between Nazi profiteers and their Jewish victims in Central and Eastern Europe.
{"title":"‘Aryanisation’ in Central and Eastern Europe and the Equalisation of Burdens Files: The Case of the Sudetenland","authors":"Iris Nachum","doi":"10.1177/16118944231180433","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/16118944231180433","url":null,"abstract":"Only recently have historians studying the Holocaust recognised the unique value of German compensation files as historical source material. The Federal Republic of Germany created these files after World War II in the context of Wiedergutmachung, that is, compensation for damages inflicted by the Nazis on racial, religious and political grounds. This article draws attention to a different body of compensation records, one that has so far been ignored by historians of Nazi persecution: case files created under the Lastenausgleichsgesetz (Equalisation of Burdens Law [LAG]). This West German law was meant to compensate ethnic Germans for property they lost when they were expelled from Central and Eastern Europe after the war. The article demonstrates that LAG files can be especially illuminating of the interaction between Nazi profiteers and their Jewish victims in Central and Eastern Europe.","PeriodicalId":44275,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern European History","volume":"21 1","pages":"294 - 310"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41566269","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-22DOI: 10.1177/16118944231163225
John C. Eckel
Even though the crucial importance of World War II has never been called into doubt by historians, it has not featured as a focal point for the interpretation of the 20th century in recent narratives. In most cases, historians have located the war's historical meaning within the dualistic framework of ‘catastrophe’ and ‘reconstruction’. For all its obvious plausibility, however, this approach tends to isolate the war from the wider historical context. This article develops and discusses three perspectives that may serve to embed World War II within broader historical trends. It highlights the global dimensions of the war, examines contemporaneous interpretations that proved influential for decades after the war's conclusion – most notably, the notion of an ‘international civil war’ – and explores the causal and perceptual cohesiveness of the ‘age of world wars’ between 1911/14 and 1945/53. By pursuing these avenues, the essay makes several claims. It argues that World War II must be understood as part of longer-term developments originating in the late 19th century and reaching far into the second half of the 20th century; that the era of the world wars gave rise to a coherent space of experience forming the core of this extended trajectory; that there was no monolithic ‘interwar’ period, while the intellectual history of these decades reveals a smooth transition from world war to ‘Cold War’; and, finally, that World War II acted as a catalyst for far-reaching changes on a global scale.
{"title":"Pivot Years. World War II in 20th-Century History","authors":"John C. Eckel","doi":"10.1177/16118944231163225","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/16118944231163225","url":null,"abstract":"Even though the crucial importance of World War II has never been called into doubt by historians, it has not featured as a focal point for the interpretation of the 20th century in recent narratives. In most cases, historians have located the war's historical meaning within the dualistic framework of ‘catastrophe’ and ‘reconstruction’. For all its obvious plausibility, however, this approach tends to isolate the war from the wider historical context. This article develops and discusses three perspectives that may serve to embed World War II within broader historical trends. It highlights the global dimensions of the war, examines contemporaneous interpretations that proved influential for decades after the war's conclusion – most notably, the notion of an ‘international civil war’ – and explores the causal and perceptual cohesiveness of the ‘age of world wars’ between 1911/14 and 1945/53. By pursuing these avenues, the essay makes several claims. It argues that World War II must be understood as part of longer-term developments originating in the late 19th century and reaching far into the second half of the 20th century; that the era of the world wars gave rise to a coherent space of experience forming the core of this extended trajectory; that there was no monolithic ‘interwar’ period, while the intellectual history of these decades reveals a smooth transition from world war to ‘Cold War’; and, finally, that World War II acted as a catalyst for far-reaching changes on a global scale.","PeriodicalId":44275,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern European History","volume":"21 1","pages":"154 - 174"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47059770","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-21DOI: 10.1177/16118944231161257
Aggelis Zarokostas
The British Protectorate of the Ionian Islands, and particularly Corfu, was a nodal point in maritime communications. Since its very creation under the Treaty of Paris (November 1815), it gave the British a significant advantage in terms of information gathering. When a general uprising broke out in the Greek mainland, the British authorities put the islands in a state of emergency. Strict Ionian neutrality was declared and harsh measures were justified, which aimed to maintain ‘public tranquility’ and to secure the islanders from any revolutionary ideas coming from the mainland. The implications of this neutrality are little studied, perhaps because of the perceived peripheral role of the Ionian Islands in the Greek struggle. Yet, as this paper shows, the islands were deeply affected by developments taking place in the mainland, such as the rebellion of Ali Pasha of Ioannina between 1819 and 1822, when the British increased military presence in the region. Instead of discouraging the ties between the islanders and the Greek Revolution as intended, British reactions produced the opposite result. They further alienated the Anglo-Ionian state from the Ionian society. The present article analyses how British officials utilized disproportionate fears over the spread of revolutionary ideas in the islands, as well as military escalation in the region, to impose harsh measures on the islands and to ‘normalize’ emergency strategies. It builds upon relevant literature not only on the movement of information in the Mediterranean, but also on British policy over the so-called ‘Greek Question’.
{"title":"Islands in a ‘State of Emergency’. Ionian Neutrality and Martial Law During the Greek Revolution","authors":"Aggelis Zarokostas","doi":"10.1177/16118944231161257","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/16118944231161257","url":null,"abstract":"The British Protectorate of the Ionian Islands, and particularly Corfu, was a nodal point in maritime communications. Since its very creation under the Treaty of Paris (November 1815), it gave the British a significant advantage in terms of information gathering. When a general uprising broke out in the Greek mainland, the British authorities put the islands in a state of emergency. Strict Ionian neutrality was declared and harsh measures were justified, which aimed to maintain ‘public tranquility’ and to secure the islanders from any revolutionary ideas coming from the mainland. The implications of this neutrality are little studied, perhaps because of the perceived peripheral role of the Ionian Islands in the Greek struggle. Yet, as this paper shows, the islands were deeply affected by developments taking place in the mainland, such as the rebellion of Ali Pasha of Ioannina between 1819 and 1822, when the British increased military presence in the region. Instead of discouraging the ties between the islanders and the Greek Revolution as intended, British reactions produced the opposite result. They further alienated the Anglo-Ionian state from the Ionian society. The present article analyses how British officials utilized disproportionate fears over the spread of revolutionary ideas in the islands, as well as military escalation in the region, to impose harsh measures on the islands and to ‘normalize’ emergency strategies. It builds upon relevant literature not only on the movement of information in the Mediterranean, but also on British policy over the so-called ‘Greek Question’.","PeriodicalId":44275,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern European History","volume":"21 1","pages":"238 - 250"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44079354","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-20DOI: 10.1177/16118944231161250
Christopher Mapes
Slavery remained a problem for Central Europeans after the defeat of Napoleon. Concerns over White, Christian enslavement animated German-speaking European responses to the Greek Independence movement. As most antislavery advocates turned their attention to the increasing volume of the slaves traded between Africa and the New World, as well as the persistence and entrenchment of New World slavery, Central Europeans turned their attention to the Christian, Greek subjects of the Ottoman Empire. The so-called ‘Barbary Problem’ (Barbareskenfrage) became enmeshed with the Eastern Question as Greeks revolted in Ottoman lands. Central Europeans had long viewed the domination of Christians in Islamic North Africa as the central problem of slavery until increased German migration and involvement in the New World brought new tensions to the ideas surrounding slavery. Greek insurrectionists against the Ottoman Empire breathed new life into older ideas about Christians enslaved in Islamic portions of Europe and Africa. Greek Independence gave Germans a bête noir closer to Europe than that of slavery in the Americas. Much of this interest owes to an enduring German philhellenic tradition which has been seldom analysed. Indeed, as Sue Marchand has written ‘the obsession of the Schillerian German literary and scholarly elite with the ancient Greeks has become an accepted-if severely underanlaysed-cliché’. This paper uses archival documents to shed more light on how Central Europeans’ interest and participation in the Greek War of Independence helped to revive old ideas about Christian enslavement at a time when New World slavery became the central concern of a broader European humanitarian protest against servitude.
{"title":"Under the Yoke of Ottoman Domination: Slavery and Central European Philhellenism During the Greek War of Independence","authors":"Christopher Mapes","doi":"10.1177/16118944231161250","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/16118944231161250","url":null,"abstract":"Slavery remained a problem for Central Europeans after the defeat of Napoleon. Concerns over White, Christian enslavement animated German-speaking European responses to the Greek Independence movement. As most antislavery advocates turned their attention to the increasing volume of the slaves traded between Africa and the New World, as well as the persistence and entrenchment of New World slavery, Central Europeans turned their attention to the Christian, Greek subjects of the Ottoman Empire. The so-called ‘Barbary Problem’ (Barbareskenfrage) became enmeshed with the Eastern Question as Greeks revolted in Ottoman lands. Central Europeans had long viewed the domination of Christians in Islamic North Africa as the central problem of slavery until increased German migration and involvement in the New World brought new tensions to the ideas surrounding slavery. Greek insurrectionists against the Ottoman Empire breathed new life into older ideas about Christians enslaved in Islamic portions of Europe and Africa. Greek Independence gave Germans a bête noir closer to Europe than that of slavery in the Americas. Much of this interest owes to an enduring German philhellenic tradition which has been seldom analysed. Indeed, as Sue Marchand has written ‘the obsession of the Schillerian German literary and scholarly elite with the ancient Greeks has become an accepted-if severely underanlaysed-cliché’. This paper uses archival documents to shed more light on how Central Europeans’ interest and participation in the Greek War of Independence helped to revive old ideas about Christian enslavement at a time when New World slavery became the central concern of a broader European humanitarian protest against servitude.","PeriodicalId":44275,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern European History","volume":"21 1","pages":"199 - 221"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48645899","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-20DOI: 10.1177/16118944231161255
O. Ozavci
This article traces what hindsight shows to be the failure paths of the Ottoman ruling elites in dealing with the Greek revolution of 1821–1832. It considers why Sultan Mahmud II and the Ottoman ministers were unable to quell the ‘insurgence’ definitively and fend off Great Power intervention diplomatically. To this end, it looks into the reaction of the Ottoman rulers to the adversity as well as rivalries among the pashas of the sultan, which strained the imperial front, heightened violence against the insurgents, and then tore apart the military campaign. At the same time, it seeks to re-instate in the historiography of the Eastern Question the much-neglected Ottoman positionality with a contrapuntal approach. It places the agency of European and Ottoman actors within the same analytical frame in its discussion of the Great Power intervention in 1827, disclosing why the Ottoman ministers rejected the European Powers’ proposals to mediate between the imperial authorities and the Greek revolutionaries. Consulting fresh archival and secondary sources in the Arabic, English, French, Russian, Ottoman, and modern Turkish languages, the article draws attention to several overlooked yet vital moments of the revolution's storyline.
{"title":"The Ottoman Imperial Gaze: The Greek Revolution of 1821–1832 and a New History of the Eastern Question","authors":"O. Ozavci","doi":"10.1177/16118944231161255","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/16118944231161255","url":null,"abstract":"This article traces what hindsight shows to be the failure paths of the Ottoman ruling elites in dealing with the Greek revolution of 1821–1832. It considers why Sultan Mahmud II and the Ottoman ministers were unable to quell the ‘insurgence’ definitively and fend off Great Power intervention diplomatically. To this end, it looks into the reaction of the Ottoman rulers to the adversity as well as rivalries among the pashas of the sultan, which strained the imperial front, heightened violence against the insurgents, and then tore apart the military campaign. At the same time, it seeks to re-instate in the historiography of the Eastern Question the much-neglected Ottoman positionality with a contrapuntal approach. It places the agency of European and Ottoman actors within the same analytical frame in its discussion of the Great Power intervention in 1827, disclosing why the Ottoman ministers rejected the European Powers’ proposals to mediate between the imperial authorities and the Greek revolutionaries. Consulting fresh archival and secondary sources in the Arabic, English, French, Russian, Ottoman, and modern Turkish languages, the article draws attention to several overlooked yet vital moments of the revolution's storyline.","PeriodicalId":44275,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern European History","volume":"21 1","pages":"222 - 237"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43696341","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-20DOI: 10.1177/16118944231163226
Beatrice de Graaf, E. de Lange
From their beginnings, the revolutionary events that shook the Greek lands of the Ottoman Empire in the 1820s were neither contained nor constrained by national or imperial borders. What Ottoman contemporaries termed the ‘Greek mischief’ ( fesad) and later historiography would call the Greek war of independence, became a protracted inter-imperial crisis as soon as it commenced. The present bicentennial of the Greek Revolution makes it all the more relevant to reassess and rethink this history from more than just a national perspective. Of course, a sizeable literature on the border-crossing dynamics of these events already exists. Historians have long debated the transnational appeal of the Greek cause. They have thoroughly unpacked the international involvement in the war of independence, whether it be with an emphasis on diplomatic or military events. The Greek revolutionaries, for their part, drew on crucial support networks that spanned the world and
{"title":"Introduction: Under the Flag of Insurgency: The Greek Revolution in International and Imperial History","authors":"Beatrice de Graaf, E. de Lange","doi":"10.1177/16118944231163226","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/16118944231163226","url":null,"abstract":"From their beginnings, the revolutionary events that shook the Greek lands of the Ottoman Empire in the 1820s were neither contained nor constrained by national or imperial borders. What Ottoman contemporaries termed the ‘Greek mischief’ ( fesad) and later historiography would call the Greek war of independence, became a protracted inter-imperial crisis as soon as it commenced. The present bicentennial of the Greek Revolution makes it all the more relevant to reassess and rethink this history from more than just a national perspective. Of course, a sizeable literature on the border-crossing dynamics of these events already exists. Historians have long debated the transnational appeal of the Greek cause. They have thoroughly unpacked the international involvement in the war of independence, whether it be with an emphasis on diplomatic or military events. The Greek revolutionaries, for their part, drew on crucial support networks that spanned the world and","PeriodicalId":44275,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Modern European History","volume":"21 1","pages":"175 - 180"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41669426","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-17DOI: 10.1177/16118944231161221
E. de Lange
Virtually every publication on the Greek Revolution signals the Battle of Navarino (20 October 1827) as a turning point in international involvement with events in Greece. What the historiography tends to ignore, however, is the significant degree of military intervention that preceded 1827, particularly at sea. Yet, the Greek Revolution was six years underway and had already taken to the sea by the time of Navarino. Several naval actors at Navarino had been involved in the maritime handling of the revolution since its very beginning, including the Royal Navy captain Gawen Hamilton, the French Vice-Admiral Henri de Rigny and the Algerine commander Mustapha Bachalî Raïs. What had they been doing before then in the seas around Greece? By looking at the first phases of the Greek Revolution, from 1821 to 1827, this article clarifies how different imperial powers tried to manage the uncertainties and threats that the rebellion brought to the waters of the Mediterranean. It draws from source material on the navies of Great Britain, France, Austria and the Ottoman Empire. The piece provides three insights that highlight the significance and contingencies of imperial involvement in the first phase of the revolution. These insights relate to: (a) belligerency at sea; (b) the security threats of piracy and privateering; and (3) naval interventionism.
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