INSIDE...
Urban Revival in the High Middle Ages Colonialism and Corruption in Nigeria Debate: Popular Consensus for Italian Fascism? How Chernobyl Destroyed Glasnost EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW with Professor Vera Tolz ISSUE 33 | JUNE 2019
POLITICS, CORRUPTION & GREED
ISSUE 33 | JUNE 2019
Contents ARTICLES
The Team
Towards Law and Order - The Decline of Cowboys.................... 4
Editors
Laura Ali Will Kerrs
Civil Rights and Wounded Knee.............................................. 5
Heads of Design
Sean Jones Leyla Ozcan
‘419’ and ‘Big Men’: Colonialism and Corruption in Nigeria..................................................................................... 7
Head of Copy-Editing
Daniel Johnson
Head of Online
Mollie Ramos
Idi Amin’s Persecutions............................................................ 8
Heads of Marketing
Tessa Bawden Holly Gaffney
Socialist Realism - Reviewing Modern Historiographical Trends..................................................................................... 10
Design Team
The Kennedys and the Mafia.................................................... 5 American Protest Art................................................................. 6
Economic Injustice and Pan-African Nationalism in Southern Rhodesia.................................................................................. 7 The Ogaden War and Soviet Foreign Policy.............................. 9
Chernobyl and Glasnost......................................................... 11
EXCLUSIVE FEATURE
Interview with Professor Vera Tolz.....................................12-13
ARTICLES The Zinoviev Letter - The Original ‘Fake News’........................ 14
The Nazi Quest for Atlantis - The Danger of Focusing on Mythology.............................................................................. 15 Anticlericalism in Spain:1931-1939...................................... 16 The Debate over Italian Fascism............................................. 17 The Duality of Italian Nationalism.......................................... 17
Ningjing Liu Jessica Kelly Urussa Malik
Copy-Editing Team
Kate Jackson Tara Kathleen Morony Annabelle Sharp Reuben Williamson
Online Team
Rebecca Bowers Wilf Kenning Hannah Largue
Marketing Team Phil Manktelow SPECIAL THANKS
Riches and Revolution: The Politics of the Palace of Versailles................................................................................ 18
The University of Manchester’s Graphic Support Workshop for technical assistance, Dr. Vernon for oversight and NB Colour Print Ltd Chorley for printing services.
Urban Revival in the High Middle Ages................................. 20
ADDITIONAL IMAGE CREDITS
Talleyrand and Napoleon....................................................... 19 VOC: Costs, Risks and Profits.................................................. 21 How the East India Company Built the British Raj................. 21 Capture of Jugurtha: Seeds of Civil War................................ 22 Coinage and the Social War................................................... 23 Alexander and the Banquet at Opis....................................... 23
Tune in to our Podcast!
Map of World, NAHEC website (front and back cover) Nigerian corruption, LA Times website (page 7) Russia and Ogaden art, Web.snackv website (page 9) The Jester & Other Peasants, ArtRabbit website (pages 12-13) Mussolini, New Statesman website (page 17) VoC Icon, Wikimedia Commons (page 21)
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The Manchester Historian
@TheMcrHistorian
@The Manchester Historian
www.manchesterhistorian.com
ISSUE 33 | JUNE 2019
A Note from the Editors
We end the year with issue 33 ‘Politics, Corruption, and Greed’ Politics, corruption, and greed are as old as civilisation itself - particularly pertinent themes all year round, but especially in and were particularly prevalent in late Republican Rome. The capture of a rogue Numidian king by L. Cornelius Sulla light of recent EU elections, and Trump’s visit to the UK. and subsequent fallout between Marius and Sulla led to some When one thinks of corruption, one immediately thinks of the deadliest and impactful civil wars the Republic ever about modern US politics. The Kennedy family’s links to the witnessed (page 22). It was Sulla who helped put down the Mafia continues to be a popular subject (although shrouded in Social War (91-88 BC), and Italian coinage may shed light on mystery), but did you know that the Kennedy administration why Rome’s Italian allies decided to revolt en masse, in contra hired Mafia goons to assassinate Castro (page 5)? American to what Imperial Roman authors thought (page 23). political history should not, however, be confined to high politics. The Wounded Knee Incident of 1973 (page 5) is Soviet history has been a clear favourite of our readers and a textbook example of an extreme grassroots response to writers alike, so for this issue, we interviewed Prof. Vera Tolz, a former Soviet citizen with heavy links to the dissident unchecked corruption stemming back hundreds of years. movement, about her expulsion from the USSR on the orders Corruption is certainly not the sole preserve of the western of the KGB in 1981 (pages 12-13). Prof. Tolz tells us that world. In one of our more theoretical articles of the year, through her work for Radio Free Europe, one could see how corruption in post-colonial Nigeria is argued not just to be the Gorbachev’s Glasnost policy changed Soviet headlines, and result of socio-political networks drawing individuals towards the impact of the Chernobyl disaster on Glasnost is discussed corruption, but also systemic failures resulting from British in an article on page 11. colonial rule (page 7). The development of Zimbabwean nationalism, likewise did not just derive from socio-political To close, we would like to thank all of our contributors and networks (such as trade unions), but the dichotomisation of team members for their excellent work this year. We have truly colonial Rhodesian society into ‘black Africans’ and ‘white enjoyed editing the magazine and look forward to passing the settlers’ through the racist and economically injust (to say the mantle over to next year’s team - the membership of which will be announced on social media soon! least) policies of the colonial regime (page 7).
Will Kerrs and Laura Ali @TheMcrHistorian
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ISSUE 33 | JUNE 2019
Towards Law and Order The Decline of Cowboys
The historic American cowboy, now a largely sensationalised character and metaphor for America’s frontier past, was most prominent in the late nineteenth century. Westward expansion saw an increasing need for the transportation of livestock over long distances, creating very isolating working conditions that were taken up by young men, now known as cowboys. Although most closely associated with American culture, the cowboy draws its roots from Spanish tradition. At first, Mexican vaqueros were hired by American ranchers to transport cattle between Mexico and what are now the states of New Mexico and Texas. As the number of English-speaking settlers increased and expanded westward over the 1800s, white American culture was heavily influenced by the already-present Mexican vaqueros, creating the American ‘cowboy’. Although no longer a prominent figure in contemporary US society, the cowboy remains a much-romanticised figure, representative of the American frontier and expansionism. However, the heroic cowboy presented in US popular culture does not align with the figure’s history – in film, they represent an idealised chivalry, and are associated with fighting Indians more so than the actual agricultural work of real cowboys. In reality, the cowboy came into prominence following the end of the Civil War, a period of uncertainty regarding the recreation of the American national identity. This uncertainty, along with the growing demand for beef across the United States, saw the growth of cowboy subculture; a largely immoral, isolating and often violent lifestyle that did not align with the desired social hierarchy in the United States following the Civil War. The demand for beef provided cowboys with work herding cattle to the nearest railroad, which was often hundreds of
miles away. Their work played a major part in Westward expansion; the creation of railroads going further west in order to reach white settlements, in formerly Native American territories, created a wider-reaching need for food and thus transportation of livestock. Also, most being young, single men, cowboys helped Westward expansion by spending money in cattle towns during their time off; getting heavily involved in drinking, prostitution and gambling. This spending was increased by the fact they were paid in a lump sum at the end of their journeys. Because of these activities, many townspeople viewed the cowboy as a symbol of lawlessness, immorality and violence, very different to the heroic cowboy figure we think of today. The isolating nature of their work resulted in a conglomerate of bad behaviour once reaching their destination in a town full of other cowboys, which contributed to the very distinct cowboy culture that formed. As frontier towns became centres of buying and selling livestock, many merchants, saloon owners, gamblers and prostitutes moved in, hoping to profit off the cowboy after his extensive, isolating journey and months-worth of pay. However, townspeople still saw cowboys as menacing and undesirable, their immoral nature at odds with the religious beliefs of the United States, rendering cowboys outsiders to American culture, and existing largely outside the law. In the most expansive years of the range cattle industry, many cowboys were war veterans, either from the Civil War or Mexican-American War, and most carried firearms. Cowboys were the most-heavily armed citizens of post-Civil War USA, apart from hunters. This, combined with problematic drinking habits, caused much violence and disorder amongst American frontier towns. The performative masculinity that the cowboy exulted, and their desire to carry a firearm as a symbol of this masculinity, resulted in many cases of accidental violence or homicide that came
Wild West Saloon Town of Sheridan, Wyoming, Wyomingtalesandtrails.com
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The Quintessential American Cowboy, c. 1887, Wikipedia
out of even minor disagreements whilst drinking or gambling. Because American Orthodox Christianity was very much at odds with the hyper-masculine cowboy lifestyle that was displayed in frontier towns, cowboys did not fit into the social order of the post-Civil War USA. However, cowboys were comparably well-behaved whilst working, which is possibly the basis for the mythologised heroic cowboy depicted in American popular culture today. Individualism and self-reliance were major parts of cowboy culture, and they did play a very important role in enabling the post-war economy through their work and leisure activities. Cowboys were initially able to find work on ranches across the US, with much available land following the forced removal of Native Americans. However, the creation of barbed wire in the 1870s changed the workings of Midwest land ownership, allowing livestock to be contained without the need for herding by cowboys. This began the cowboy’s decline. By the 1890s, what was before the ‘open range’ had been largely privatised, with the increase in private landholdings, limiting work for cowboys even further, as well as causing issues between cowboys and landowners. On a smaller scale, cattle drives existed until the mid-1900s between Arizona and New Mexico, but many cowboys began work on private ranches across the Western US. Their work became less essential with the creation of better-connected railroads and privatised land ownership, and going into the 20th century there was not as much use for the cowboy and his work. These rapidly changing methods of food production and transportation saw the near-complete disappearance of the cowboy, leaving behind only the romanticised and largelyfictionalised vision that we see today.
Mollie Ramos www.manchesterhistorian.com
The Kennedys and the Mafia The relationship between the mafia and the Kennedys has, unsurprisingly, given the implications of such an alliance, been shrouded in mystery. In the years since John’s death, the numerous governmental investigations into his assassination have revealed just how desperate the Federal Government was to eliminate Fidel Castro and how easily they turned to America’s most prolific criminals in order to achieve that goal. In 1960 Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli, leading figures in the Mafia’s Chicago Syndicate, were approached by Robert Maheu who, on behalf of the CIA, offered the duo $150,000 to assassinate Fidel Castro. Both gangsters had lost out when Castro had closed casinos in Cuba so they needed no monetary incentive to accept the CIA’s proposal, and they agreed to murder Castro without accepting the CIA’s money. Their agreement to kill Castro for free was not just for the patriotic reasons they gave to the CIA but was, secretly, built on a belief that the crimes they had already committed in Chicago would be forgiven. The arrangement continued until early
ISSUE 33 | JUNE 2019 1963, by which point, numerous attempts John’s presidency, was actively pursuing by the duo on Castro’s life had failed. organised crime. Robert was at the head of a probe against the Chicago syndicate So where do the Kennedys feature when he was approached by the CIA in in all of this? The plan to assassinate 1962 and told of the arrangement between Castro was underway while Eisenhower Giancana, Roselli, and the CIA. While was in office and, upon taking office begrudgingly agreeing to back off from the Chicago syndicate, he asked that next time he be made aware ‘if [the CIA] ever try to do business with organised crime again’.
John and Robert Kennedy pictured outside the Oval office in 1963, Flickr.com
in 1961, John F. Kennedy allowed the arrangement to continue. How much he knew of the minute details of the plan is unclear. The arrangement between the federal government and the Mafia was complicated by the fact that John’s brother, Robert Kennedy, Attorney General during
Civil Rights and Wounded Knee The Wounded Knee incident of 1973 should not only be considered a shortterm escalation of the animosities between Native Americans and the US Government but also a consequence of the deepseated hostilities dating back to the early colonial times. Policies of relocation and termination of Indian American land and culture were influential in creating a PanAmerican Indian culture that led to tribes addressing their oppression as one. The year of 1972 saw unsuccessful protests in Washington D.C., where issues of sovereignty, discrimination, and treaty rights were deflected by the Nixon administration. Dissatisfied protestors had to return to Pine Ridge, the sight of the infamous Wounded Knee massacre, and the oppressive local regime of Richard Wilson’s Oglala Lakota tribal government. Even in their own reservations, Native Americans had to face omnipresent discrimination. The Wounded Knee incident arose on February 27th 1973, in reaction to a white man walking free after killing a local Native American, due to an all-white jury,
@TheMcrHistorian
During the Cold War, the goal of tackling communism was so important that any fears about the unsavoury means of achieving this goal were ignored. The federal government prioritised foreign policy goals over the task of catching criminals in their own country; instead, the government used these criminals to try and commit the first (confirmed) statesponsored assassination in the country’s history. The complicity of the CIA is undeniable. In 2007 they admitted that their director during the inception of the plan, Allen Dulles, had ordered the hit on Castro. This revelation suggests that the Kennedys were only co-conspirators in this scheme and not the masterminds of it. Importantly, however, this scheme demonstrates the moral dubiousness of the federal government’s attempts to contain and destroy Communism.
Kate Jackson educate both their own people and the rest of the country via the mass media attention given to the event. American citizens, including significant celebrities, were able to identify with the Native American struggle, giving the protestors a moral victory in both their own minds and the minds of others.
Bobby Onco, Wounded Knee Warrior, Ar15.com
People often see the 1960s and 70s as a time of changing political rhetoric with various laws being passed providing a step towards equality, but in the case of Native Americans, the Wounded Knee incident had a fairly limited political impact. The fact that Pine Ridge saw a spike in violence in the following years, alongside Wilson remaining in power, shows that the government had no intentions of changing their situation. The American political culture had not deviated away from its tendency to ignore minority struggles and defer progressive legislation unless completely necessary.
while members of Lakota were indicted for inciting riot. Three-hundred traditionals and American Indian Movement (AIM) members took over Wounded Knee but it was the government’s reaction that caused the situation to intensify ten-fold. $500,000 of the military budget was used to contain the protest, a reaction of violence seen at key points throughout the Civil Rights Movement, especially in Birmingham in 1965. The incident lasted a total of 71 days, with 2 Native American lives being claimed in the process. The movement’s political impacts were double sided. On the one hand, the movement allowed Native Americans to Today, Native Americans still face poverty, housing, health and work-related problems. Furthermore, the government is still hesitant to apologise to its Native American citizens about past atrocities that have been committed, proving that, although it is far subtler, the prejudice displayed at Wounded Knee in 1973 is still present today. Native Americans Protesting Against Discrimination, Indianz.com
Harry Deacon 5
ISSUE 33 | JUNE 2019
American Protest Art The second half of the twentieth century was a period of hardship for many ethnic minority groups throughout the United States. Simultaneously however, it was an era of resistance. From the Civil Rights movement of African-Americans, to the Chicano movement of those with Mexican descent, resistance gave strength and hope to the millions who experienced adversity and racism in America. This resistance was expressed through various means, but at the centre of these movements lay the arts.
to achieve new and credible human values in a sometimes unwelcoming environment. To the Chicano people themselves, the empowering art aimed to strengthen their will and point to a sense of direction in life and emotional healing. For others, the Chicano art movement demonstrated the collective pride of the Mexican-American community. Over the following years, the Chicano art movement became difficult to ignore. In cities with particularly large Chicano settlements such as Los Angeles, one could enjoy immense murals on the side of buildings and walls plastered with colourful resistance posters. Though the innovative styles of Chicano art varied from creator to creator, consistent themes emerged. Works often acted as reclamations of a lost indigenous past, featuring depictions of ancestors’ traditional practices. Too came an overarching aesthetic aim; existing in the pieces, (whether virtual or physical) was an organic unity of the social living as a person of Mexican descendent and of captivating art. In a rather unfortunate metaphor for the Chicano struggle for acceptance in the United States, Chicano paintings were not initially considered a skilful form of art by the American art world. What later came to be known as mesmerising, astonishing pieces were not yet deemed fit to be hung in galleries.
In the 1960s, adversity was felt by Mexican communities across the United States. Identified as Chicano peoples, MexicanAmericans found themselves fighting for equal rights, and were subjected to the lowest-skilled jobs. Their pay was comparatively lower than that of their white counterparts, and their social conditions in society were not to be desired. But from within the depths of these struggles came a movement; of art, of music, of poetry, and of dance. Ultimately, it was a movement of culture. Amidst this cultural showcase was the encompassing of new ideas about politics and morality, and encouragements of self-determination. Forty years prior to the movement, North America had hosted the Mexican Muralists, a communist movement whose political engagement was similarly expressed through art, in particular great paintings such as the work by Diego Rivera. Leninist ideals were founded in established illustration styles, Of course, in the same era, the AfricanAmerican strive for equality gathered depicting the plight of the proletariat. momentum. The black arts movement in Whilst the Chicano art movement similarly the twentieth century saw the joining of sought to capture the Mexican-American artists and intellectuals. From the 1960s, working-class identity, it also captured an its inspiration was drawn from the rise of American modernity. Those who belonged black power in the United States, which to this group combined their experiences involved radical music, visual art, drama, of having Latino heritage and settling and poetry, addressing issues of both black in America, uniquely standing upon a oppression and a dream of black liberation. contemporary and forward-thinking Inevitably with such a huge movement, no platform. It was a movement of resistance, one style united the era’s art, but popular in which art was used as part of the struggle means included photo-screen printing,
Chicano street protests, 1960, Medium website
collage, and appropriation. Metal sculptor Melvin Edwards was one of the pioneers of the movement, who opted for the latter. Welding industrial and everyday objects, in the 1960s he drew inspiration from brutalities of the African American experience, racial violence, and ongoing riots. Later, his work contributed to the widespread American art world backlash to the Vietnam War. In the same decade, Barbara Jones-Hogu, co-founder of Chicago collective African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists, used Afrocentric aesthetic concepts to represent black attitudes in the United States. Bold, bright colours were the backdrop to seas of black power fists in her work. She scribed the word ‘unite’ across her works, in an effort to conjure African Americans’ joining as a powerful, commanding group. Accompanying traditional art forms in the movement came the rise of photojournalism and filmmaking. In the early 1970s, the film genre ‘blaxploitation’ emerged, which incited a rethinking of contemporary race relations. Where African-American characters been Hollywood’s losers, within Blaxploitation they were the heroes. These heroes were seen overcoming ‘The Man’ and forces of white-led oppression in shock-provoking antics. The black music scene was aided in being brought to wider audiences, with funk and soul soundtracking the silver screen tales. Later to go down as one of America’s most important visual artists, African-American painter Jacob Lawrence gained recognition for his 60-piece collection, The Migration Series. Though just 25 years old, Lawrence managed to produce a vast range of insightful works on the turmoil that followed AfricanAmericans upon their Great Migration move into the United States’ North Eastern cities. The 1940s pieces, transferred onto cardboard or simple wooden boards, described moments of violence and oppression both in the North and South in the context of America’s social history. During the twentieth century, both the Chicano and the black art movement provided hope and promise to the communities which they represented. Whilst at the time not accepted by the majority, today the movements’ works are celebrated as echoing the heart of their social movements that was felt nationwide when they were created.
‘Unite’ - screen print by Barbara Jones-Hogu. 1969, Culture Type
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Rona McCann www.manchesterhistorian.com
‘419’ and ‘Big Men’: Colonialism and Corruption in Nigeria In Africa, there is a popular conception of a link between ‘big men’ and corruption through socio-political networks – but can this really be considered only a Nigerian or African phenomenon? It is necessary to avoid falling into the trap of attempting to explain only why an individual might be drawn into corruption. This obscures systemic failings necessary for any corruption at a structural level; whether political, economic or cultural. The individual is less important beyond their role in instigating or encouraging networks of corrupt connections; instead, it is a series of structural failings that makes institutions or states fall into corruption.
ISSUE 33 | JUNE 2019 unavoidably a problem of transhistorical political discourse, one found in nearly every ancient or modern society, it escapes categorisation or adequate continual definition. This process was exacerbated in Nigeria by the context of British colonial rule. The “419” emails, which became infamous in the 21st century as an example of corruption, illustrate the confusion which arises in defining political or economic systemic abuse or the wider definition of morally questionable and abusive behaviour. “419” comes from the term in the penal code of Nigeria under British colonialism and originally concerned the practice of impersonating officials connected to the colonial regime. It has since morphed into a wider understanding of the abuse of political office, the oppression associated with political power and morally abusive behaviours; the word itself is vague, given the linguistic diversity of Nigeria. This understanding contributed to nationalist tensions that grew from perceptions of regional favour that intensified in ideas of marginalisation by the state between northern Hausa or south-western Yoruba and south-eastern Igbo.
An issue that depends on close, private social networks to develop and thrive will be influenced by dominance and oppression, as well as social custom and Drawing a connection from the state-level, traditional values. While corruption is nationwide scale of corruption to cultural
Economic Injustice and Pan-African Nationalism in Southern Rhodesia
However, worse was yet to come. A 1944 government committee investigating economic conditions of Africans concluded that the minimum wage should be kept low to ‘lead to a more efficient use of labour’, essentially meaning that Africans were intended to be exploited for maximum profit. This was despite their insufficient purchasing power for necessities such as rent, blankets, or food. Due to this racial segregation, and the severity of the wealth gap, narratives of ‘otherness’ were created African Nationalism in Southern Rhodesia which dichotomised Rhodesian society partly developed out of worsening socio- into ‘White European’ and ‘Black African’. economic conditions and was configured as a pan-African movement owing to the white settler government’s racial segregation of ‘White Europeans’ and ‘Black Africans’. Racialized legislation codified this ethnic divide and gave it an economic dynamic. For example, the Land Apportionment Act (1931) parcelled out the best agricultural land to white settlers and the worst for Africans, which led to forced resettlements of indigenous peoples. Further property rights legislation meant that Africans could not own any land or property in urban areas (considered ‘white’ areas), but instead had to lease it. Another clause meant that Africans could not convene any meetings in their segregated neighbourhoods, but had to keep their homes open to visits from white officials with no entry warrants.
@TheMcrHistorian
White tax collector in Bulawayo, c. 1938, Repository.com
Trade unionists could point to white settlers as the exploitative colonial ruler, implicitly creating the identity of ‘Black African’ which typically transcended indigenous religions, ethnicities, and even class distinctions because of the racial focus. Crucially, due to the racist policies of the settler regime, the African ‘middle class’ had an exceptionally limited
Sign decrying scam artists, Naija Legal Talk NG website
corruption on a local level indicates that the problem is more systematic than individual. Approaching corruption on the basis of individual cases often fails to tackle the root cause and could even worsen the problem as they typically target the less powerful or oppressive. In Chinua Achebe’s ‘No Longer at Ease’ the young, British-educated Igbo central character Obi Okonkwo is put on trial for corruption. Okonkwo is held by the British colonial court as a negative example of African men and by his own community as a betrayal of the support and commitment they have given him. Achebe embodies a tension in understanding corruption in Nigeria: the oppressiveness of a system based on patronage and favours among the political elite with the unequal economic development as a lasting effect of colonial rule.
Nathan Williams share of power (especially vis-à-vis other colonial regimes), mostly through local Advisory Boards which had no authority to affect genuine change. As such, the ‘middle classes’ were united with their black proletariat compatriots (as well as Africans in other states struggling against colonialism) because they had no stake in maintaining the colonial status quo. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Black Rhodesians united against the colonial regime on anti-racist issues often through the lens of economic injustice, ultimately creating what can be viewed as ‘pan-African nationalism’. However, referring to this as ‘Zimbabwean nationalism’ is problematic because it implies that ethnic identities were unimportant, which is not the case. Rather like trade unions, organisations for the promotion of local ethnicities were co-opted by nationalist agitators, and the cosmopolitanism of urban areas made the dominance of a single ethnic group or the development of an all-encompassing ethno-nationalism unlikely. It was the factionalism which developed out of the pan-African movement, chiefly in the 1960s from men such as Robert Mugabe vying for the envisaged spoils of the post-colonial state (which would become Zimbabwe), which led to a greater focus on local ethnic identities, and with devastating consequences.
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ISSUE 33 | JUNE 2019
Idi Amin’s Persecutions
Idi Amin, ruler of Uganda from 1971 to 1979, is perhaps best known in Britain for his expulsion of the Ugandan Asians in 1972, during which he gave the country’s Asian population 90 days to leave... British press referred to Amin as ‘the black Hitler’, a title he took with pride, marking a key turning point in British attitudes towards the expellees. Although there was undeniable hostility to the arrival of Ugandan Asians into the UK, there was an acknowledgement that Britain held responsibility to them and should provide a safe place of settlement.
The expulsion of Asians from Uganda (Uganda Argus, August 5th, 1972), Pinterest
Although Amin persecuted various people in Uganda, including lawyers, journalists, homosexuals, students and political enemies, his famous edict of 4th August 1972 forced over 50,000 Ugandan Asians to disperse around the globe to places like Sweden, Canada, India and America, with over half of those expelled settling in Britain. Idi Amin was not alone in his actions, as similar events had occurred in Kenya in the late 1960s. ‘Africanisation’ policies were introduced there by Prime Minister Jomo Kenyatta, starting with the 1967 Kenyan Immigration Act which required Kenyan Asians to acquire work permits. Another act limited the areas of the country where Asians could trade. By 1968 many Kenyan Asians utilised their British passports and decided to immigrate to Britain. Here, they settled in cities like London and Leicester creating vibrant, multicultural, communities attractive to the expelled Ugandan Asians because of their pre-existing Asians populations. The Asian population in Uganda can be traced back to the thirteenth century, however, most of them were transported by the British to work on the East African Railway during colonial rule. Under British control, the Asians in East Africa profited at the expense of native Africans. The British treated the Ugandan Asians as middle-men between themselves and the Ugandan Africans, making the Asians a key part of the colonial bureaucracy. This helped Ugandan Asians to rise of positions of economic and social prominence, indeed by World War Two they controlled 90% of Ugandan trade and in the eyes of the African population were the cause of their poverty. Furthermore, most Asian families had African servants to do their cooking, cleaning and housework, all of which culminated in a feeling of resentment and tension between the two groups. Whilst the British imposed
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their imperial rule, the Ugandan Asians were protected from this animosity, but following independence in 1962 a series of ‘Africanisation’ policies were enacted. Milton Obote was elected President of Uganda in 1966, and the appointment of an African leader of Uganda brought fear in the Asian population, with many transferring their wealth out the country. Their concerns were not unfounded, as in 1969 the Immigration and Trade Licensing Act favoured African businesses over Asian ones, ostensibly to address the country’s wealth imbalance. However, is it important to note that this was brought in two years before Amin rose to power and his actions were part of a wider postcolonial context. Amin took control in January 1971, following a military coup d’etat which overthrew Obote, and upon his accession to President he continued to ‘Africanise’ Uganda. The citizenship status awarded to Asians in Uganda was put under review and a census was carried out in October 1971 to assess the population. Throughout this period, anti-Asian rhetoric was employed by Amin, accusing them of disloyalty, failing to integrate into society and of economic malpractice. Finally, on the 4th August 1972 Amin announced that all persons of Asian heritage with UK, Pakistani, Indian or Bangladeshi citizenship must leave within the next 90 days. Even though there had been preparation for the worst, Ugandan Asians expellees have stated the great surprise many of them felt upon hearing Amin’s order. Some thought it was a joke and whilst many most expressed a genuine reluctance to leave. However, as violence broke out, the Ugandan Asians realised they had little choice. In one interview, Amin was asked what he would do with the Asians who had not left by the deadline in which he vehemently exclaimed that they would be interred in camps. After this statement the
As a result of their role within the colonial regime, the Asians had been given British passports and citizenship before independence and this was the reason so many came to the UK. Despite being in possession of British passports, these refugees were not allowed to enter the country easily, much to their annoyance. Testimonies of the Ugandan Asians repeatedly express frustration at the British government for not allowing them to freely enter in the way they were entitled to. The expulsion had come just a year after the 1971 Immigration Act which restricted the right to enter Britain to only those whose father was born in the country, rather than all Commonwealth citizens with the appropriate documentation. Therefore, the Ugandan Asians had to visit the British High Commission in Kampala to obtain the necessary papers to come to Britain, a long and frustrating process for those who feared for their safety. Nevertheless, many Ugandan Asians successfully escaped the persecutions of Amin, resettling themselves around the globe, most notably in Britain. However, many other Ugandans were not so lucky, with an estimated 300,000 dying as victims of his regime. Although the expulsion of the Ugandan Asians was only one strand of Uganda’s tumultuous post-independence history, it has one of the most far-reaching and global impacts to date.
Rebecca Bowers
Caricature of Idi Amin by Edmund Valtman, 1989, Wikimedia
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The Ogaden War and Soviet Foreign Policy Like most post-colonial conflicts, the story of the Ogaden war begins with the colonial era. The Somalis continue to be a dispersed people due to decades of war and famine; the emancipation of the Somalis and their unification in 1960 was hardly complete. With the notable exclusions of French Djibouti (to a dubious failed referendum on unification), parts of British Kenya (which were promised to the new state), and Ethiopia’s Ogaden and Haud regions. This new nation was formed by the combination of British administered Somaliland in the north, and the Italian administered Somalia to the south. Whilst the British neglected the infrastructure of the largely nomadic north, the Italians developed a comprehensive plan for the largely agricultural south, consequently fostering the grounds for an economic disparity that would persist throughout this period.
Another important contextual aspect is the tribalism of the Somali ‘territory’. British Somaliland was dominated by the Isaaq clan, whilst Italian Somalia was dominated by the Darod. In the absence of a centralised government and national consciousness, tribes formed the backbone of Somali society and governance, with no one tribe forming the majority. This aspect was completely ignored by the European powers, who left out a great many Darod in Ethiopia and created a minority out of the once prestigious Isaaq clan. Despite this, for the first nine years of its existence, the Somali Republic had democratically elected its president, peacefully transferred power (the first of any African nation), granted women
suffrage and had mixed clan-parties. It thus posed as a model post-colonial state. Yet this democratic experiment did not exist in a vacuum, and it would soon find itself engulfed in the ideological proxies of the two great superpowers of the time. The assassination of Somalia’s second president, Abdirashid Sharmarke, and subsequent military coup by General Siad Barre in 1969 brought an abrupt end to this fledgling democracy. Barre proclaimed Somalia a socialist state, despite the fact that the country has experienced little classconflict, and thrusted Somali into a complete national unification. Barre also oversaw the dissolving of the constitution and erecting the Supreme Revolutionary Council to be Somalia’s main executive body. Many point out the lack of genuine deep-rooted Marxist sympathies in Somalia as evidence of Barre simply exploiting Soviet foreign policy to finance his regime with economic and military aid. This can also be seen in his attempts to stamp out clan politics being overshadowed by the fact that the SRC was dominated by members of Barre’s Darod clan. It was commonly believed that the Soviet Union held ‘third world’ countries like Somalia as key to defeating the “imperialist West”. However, the declassifying of the Eastern European archives has revealed that Moscow’s initial approach was not to proselytise the region, but rather to stabilise it via aid so as not to make it a point of contention between the great powers, which Washington fundamentally misunderstood. This soon led to a scramble for influence in the horn of Africa, which took the shape of Soviet
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support for Barre’s Somalia and Washington’s support of Somalia’s arch-nemesis, Ethiopia, led by Emperor Haile Selassie. Both the Soviets and the Americans overestimated these nations commitments to ideology over their local ethnic and tribal grievances. This cold war confrontation was completely reshuffled by a popular uprising in 1974 which ousted Emperor Selassie for a military council called the “Derg”, led by Major Mengistu. This new council established a communist Ethiopia and was publicly embraced by the Soviet Union. Fearing this new alliance’s impact on his own, Barre appealed to the US, to no avail. For the Soviets, this was a major victory for peace in the region and secured a grouping of Marxist states at the strategic Red Sea waterway, enough so that they proposed a four state Marxist federation out of Ethiopia, Somalia, the soon to be independent Djibouti and communist South Yemen. However, the Soviets gravely underestimated the stubbornness of nationalism and utterly failed to see through the local leaders’ Marxist rhetoric. To their surprise, the Somali state launched an offensive in July 1977 into Ethiopia’s Ogaden region, starting the Ogaden War. The Somalis appeared to be on the brink of victory after gaining control of 90% of the area, when the Soviets attempted to stop the war through diplomacy. However, following the failure of this, and anti-Soviet demonstrations in Somalia, Barre’s government had decided to expel their Soviet advisors and annul their treaty with the USSR. Infuriated by this, the full force of Soviet support fell on the Ethiopians, who were able to push back the Somali advance with Soviet weaponry and 15,000 Cuban combat troops. As well as the entire international Marxist community, bar two nations. The aftermath of this war saw hundreds of thousands of ethnic-Somalis of the Darod tribe flee the Ogaden region for northern Somalia, and Barre would later group these people into paramilitary groups to quell dissent amongst the northern tribes, resulting in a genocide of the Isaaq and flight of 500,000 from northern Somalia in 1988, as well as cause the starvation of clansmen in Derg sponsored separatist regions. Running almost entirely off US support, Barre’s regime disintegrated in 1991 with the end of the Cold War. Despite international interventions in the country, Barre’s war and the aftermath had made full fruit of the seeds of clan-based resentment. In this chaos, Islamist groups have since added an entirely new dynamic to this conflict, swallowing much of the ethnically diverse south.
Pallav Roy
Peoples of the Horn of Africa: Somali, Afar and Saho, I.M. Lewis, Gcocs
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Socialist Realism Reviewing Modern Historiographical Trends
Moscow Regional Union of Soviet Artists (MOSSKh), and City Committee of Artists (Gorkom). Furthermore, she questioned the unity imposed by new monolithic artistic unions, citing the continuation Artistic and literary critical theorists of artistic factionalism and professional struggle to define Socialist Realism as rivalries stemming back into the 1920s (the either a method or a style, and to establish a continuum between artistic methods. These issues have led to esoteric polemics from authors such as Boris Groys and Petre M. Petrov. But these theoretical debates are of some value to historians because the phenomenon should be defined in artistic terms before it can be evaluated in historical ones. Such debates Sergei Gerasimov, have tentatively concluded that Socialist Collective Farm Festival, 1937, Aesthetic of Triumph website Realism was not a homogeneous or even new artistic phenomenon, but instead it was a chiefly political project shaped by its ‘AKhRR camp’, for example, led by Evgeny political message and ideological content, Katsman and Aleksandr Gerasimov was opposed by the ‘OST camp’ led by David rather than its artistic form or style. Shterenberg, in a battle for supremacy in Considering Socialist Realism as a MOSSKh) that could be seen in attempts political project, Groys argued against to dominate the exhibition and the the Manichean view of the ‘helpless artistic resources earmarked for it. Thus, cultural figure’, the idea that artists were Reid concluded that while the content of forced by the Stalinist regime to engage Socialist Realism was contingent on the in the Socialist Realism project by means political and ideological direction of the of mass terror – an argument which CPSU (especially the Central Committee was radical at its time of publication in 1988. As C. Vaughan James lamented in 1973, previous scholarship had been constrained by excessive politicisation, largely due to polemics from competing Marxist factions, and Marxists debating proponents of western liberalism in the Cold War context. The latter has proven to be a long-lasting and damaging facet of scholarship, as the ‘state versus cultural figures’ dichotomy still persists in generalist works such as Peter Kenez’s A History of the Soviet Union From the Beginning to its Legacy. However, recent specialist scholars have moved beyond this view because the collapse of the USSR allowed them unprecedented access to otherwise inaccessible archival sources. Using these sources, scholars have detected a multiplicity of historical actors and factions in the Socialist Realism project, from which they have been able to construct a more nuanced picture of the Stalinist regime. In 2001, following Groys’ lead, Susan E. Reid discussed the impact of The Industry of Socialism art exhibition (1935-1941) on the stylistic canon of Socialist Realism, and used it to demonstrate the complexities of relations between Soviet bureaucracy, party officials, and cultural figures. Reid noted the existence of multiple overlapping and often competing state and party organs including the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry (NKPT),
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Stalin Prize Medal, Collect Russia website
and Stalin), its artistic form was contingent on the relative power of competing artistic factions. Such a view has been widely accepted by scholars such as Jeffrey Brooks, who focused on the impact of Pravda’s polemics against politically and artistically dissenting artists, and Petrov, who controversially argued that the perception of achieving Socialism was created by Socialist Realism, rather than vice versa.
Similarly, in 2011 Oliver Johnson used the case study of the awarding process of the Stalin Prize to argue that not only should traditional monolithic views of ‘party’ and ‘state’ be broken down into competing organs (in this case, the Stalin Prize selection committee, Arts Committee (KPDI), Department of Propaganda and Agitation (UPA), and the Politburo), but emphasis must also be placed on the role of individual agents such as Andrei Zhdanov, Stalin, and Voroshilov. Like Reid, Johnson highlights in the Stalin Prize award process multiple competing artistic factions which existed even in the post-war era, long after the creation of MOSSKh. These factions vied for cultural, economic, and political power by drawing on Stalinist ideology to both promote their work and denounce their professional rivals. Whilst Stalin was undeniably the highest arbiter, Johnson noted the existence of both a carrot and stick approach in the award process. The former was the awarding of substantial cash sums, along with ‘a less quantifiable degree of symbolic capital, which in many cases’ led to ‘a rapid improvement in living and working conditions’. The latter was the tirade against artists stylistically deviating from Stalin Prize winning works in Pravda – an argument originally proposed by Brooks. Neither Johnson nor Reid deny the view that Socialist Realism was chiefly a political project with mass terror used as a tool of its imposition, or that Stalin was the highest arbiter in the process. What is denied is the totality of the CPSU’s totalitarianism, its use of terror as its sole instrument, and the simplistic dichotomy of governor (Stalin) and governed (cultural figures). Such views build on the pioneering works of Allen Kassof from 1964 and later poststructuralist historians who critiqued the ‘totalitarianism’ thesis and stressed the need to move beyond ‘top-down’ analyses of authoritarian regimes. Reid and Johnson, broadly representative of the ‘bottom-up’ approach to studies of Stalinist culture, instead emphasise the agency of Soviet cultural figures to manipulate the political context to their own ends, for example using mechanisms such as the Great Terror or Zhadanovschina to put down professional rivals, and the Stalin Prize to improve their access to financial and cultural capital. As Reid notes, ‘artists were far from either the unified body wishfully imagined by Soviet mythology or the browbeaten bunch implied by received Western narratives of the “imposition” of Socialist Realism.’
Will Kerrs www.manchesterhistorian.com
Chernobyl and Glasnost How Chernobyl Destroyed Glasnost
At 1:23 am on the 26th of April 1986, the worst civilian nuclear disaster in history occurred in Soviet Ukraine at the Chernobyl Power Plant. An explosion at the plant led to a massive release of radiation; 37 deaths can be directly attributed to the disaster, due to the explosion itself or acute radiation poisoning. There are no known numbers for indirect deaths but there are estimates ranging from around 4,000 to over 100,000.
Abandoned Pripyat, Geographical website
Also in 1986, Gorbachev began introducing Glasnost. Glasnost was to be the beginnings of openness and transparency in the Soviet Union. The policy was supposedly intended to shatter years of secrecy and fear in the Soviet Union. Glasnost was supported by the Soviet intelligentsia due to the free speech it allowed them. Another crucial facet of glasnost was the introduction of a free media. This is especially relevant to the Chernobyl incident because the media were not permitted to report on the incident freely. Despite claims of openness, the Chernobyl disaster would prove to be the most damning evidence that glasnost was lacking the transparency Gorbachev promised. The Soviet Union’s reluctance to adhere to Glasnost is most evident in the lack of evacuation procedures and the delayed, and reluctant, report of the accident. Nearby Pripyat was not told about the levels of radiation and the town was not evacuated until 36 hours after the explosion. By this time many residents were already suffering from acute radiation poisoning. Even when the evacuation occurred Mayday parades went ahead in Kiev whilst radiation was still being produced just over 100 kilometres away. This was an attempt by the Soviet government to avoid panic among citizens but, in reality, it just exposed them to radiation for longer periods and added to the long-lasting effects of Chernobyl.
A safety test, kept secret from plant overseers and the central Soviet government, was due to occur on the 25th of April. The test was delayed, meaning the scientists who had researched and prepared for the test had left Chernobyl by the time the test began. Achieving stability in the reactor before the test could begin proved difficult for engineers: reactor four’s power was unintentionally dropped from full power to shutdown mode in minutes. Despite this instability, the test began and within a minute the reactor had exploded. A massive build up of steam created too much pressure for the reactor’s 1,000-ton lid, which was blown off in the explosion. Radiation began pouring out into the air, and air into the reactor, Chernobyl’s Destroyed Reactor 4, Washington Post website which ignited a fire in the core that would burn for approximately two weeks. At this Internationally there was no sign of point, even workers inside Chernobyl were trouble until the 28th of April when unaware or reluctant to believe the severity workers at Swedish Power Plant Forsmark of the situation. detected radiation that was inexplicably high. Without any entry into controlled First responders soon arrived at Chernobyl, areas of Forsmark, their workers were too with no warning about the dangers of radioactive to pass through safety scanners. radiation and no protective clothing. Some It became evident that the workers were were even unaware that it was the reactor affected by external factors. Forsmark on fire, thinking it was a typical electrical reported their findings to the Swedish incident. Many touched the radioactive Government who asked the Soviet Union debris. Firefighters stopped the fire if there had been a nuclear accident, which spreading to the other reactors, mainly was denied. It was not until threatened reactor three where burning debris was with an official international alert that landing on the roof, which saved countless the Soviet Union declared that Chernobyl lives. Within days of the incident 29 of had experienced an explosion. The same the first responders died due to radiation night, Soviet citizens heard of the accident exposure. for the first time on national news. The announcement was short and underplayed the severity of the accident, claiming a
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reactor had been damaged and the effects were being remedied. It would be another 16 days before Gorbachev would make his statement. When Gorbachev did address Chernobyl he focused on the Western media portrayal of the incident, calling it a “vast accumulation of lies”.
Abandoned Building in the Exclusion Zone, Geographical website
Gorbachev himself, in retrospect, has suggested Chernobyl was a cause for the destruction of the Soviet Union. It is clear that the disaster exposed glasnost as simply a veil for secrecy to remain in the regime. The cover-up of Chernobyl was typical of the Soviets. The main newspaper Izvestiya was denied permission to publish a detailed account of the incident, demonstrating how the media was not free under glasnost. When statements were made to Soviet citizens they were vague and focused on rhetoric. Typically, the announcements moved to Western criticism extremely quickly, discussing similar incidents in other countries. This discussion facilitated a more traditionally Soviet spin on disasters, presenting the idea of Chernobyl as the first nuclear incident in the Soviet Union, in comparison to Western states who had had several incidents already. In the years following the incident the Soviet
‘‘The myth that the Soviet Union was in complete control was destroyed by Chernobyl.” Union classified health records, and began to push other explanations for illnesses that were clearly linked to radiation exposure. The long-lasting effects of Chernobyl are still being felt, estimates for future deaths related to radiation exposure are as high as 500,000. The myth that the Soviet Union was in complete control was destroyed by Chernobyl. For the first time, the USSR was evidently helpless to the international community.
Hannah Largue
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Interview with Professor Vera Tolz Professor Vera Tolz, former Soviet citizen, and lecturer in the Russian Studies department speaks to Will Kerrs about her personal experience with the Soviet dissident movement and her expulsion from the USSR in the 1970s and 1980s.
to be anti-Soviet, and it was known to the authorities that my grandfather passed on this information to Solzhenitsyn, there was a lot of pressure on them. Neither of them could Prof. Vera Tolz: When we think of the travel abroad, for example. Soviet Union, one of the ideas behind the whole project was to create an egalitarian society. However, the Soviet Union of my time in the 1960s to 1980s was a highly hierarchical state with huge social differentiation and very considerable differences in terms of how people lived. In that sense, it was similar to societies like Britain, with class and social inequalities. The life of somebody from an affluent background in London would be very different from life of someone in working class northern small towns - in a way, the same was true of the USSR. The Manchester Historian: What was it like growing up in the postStalin USSR?
My own life is very unrepresentative because, first of all, Moscow and Leningrad were very different from the rest of the country because the state allocated all sorts of provisions centrally, so Moscow and Leningrad were at the top from food supplies to quality of education and medical services. Then, within those very privileged cities there were privileged groups. The most privileged groups were Communist party officials and the top cultural elite, to which top academics belonged. My family was from this top academic milieu. In a way, across the Soviet Union, there was a housing problem, and even though I say my family was very privileged, until the age of fourteen, I shared a room with my parents, and then we got our own apartment. However, as top academics, my grandfather and father had a car from the Academy of Sciences driven by a chauffeur taking them to work. At the same time, despite my family being very privileged by the Soviet standards, it was extremely anti-Soviet. So, before I went to school at the age of seven, my father took me aside and said I’d be lied to a lot, but that I should believe what I hear in the family. I met very prominent people opposing the regime such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn. He came to our house, and the first chapter of Gulag Archipelago is based almost entirely on the recollections of my grandfather’s experience in the camps. There were top intellectuals from all over the USSR in our apartment discussing humanities related research or the latest publications of books with my grandfather, with me being around in the same room, having lunch after school and listening to their conversations. So, it was a very good life for me as a child. At the same time, it was a very repressive regime and Leningrad was worse than Moscow in that regard. Because both my grandfather and father were known
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The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, HCBooks
TMH: How did the authorities know your family were anti-Soviet and affiliated with dissidents? P.VT: My grandfather’s apartment was bugged. There were not that many cultural figures whose apartments were listened to 24/7, but after the collapse of Communism, they published lists of those who were in that category, and my grandfather was one of those. In 1979, my father was arrested. There was a wave of weird arrests in the late 70s and early 80s, and I’m now involved in organising the translation into English of the first scholarly study on those arrests. In Leningrad, a group of academics who were not dissidents were targeted - yes, they were anti-Soviet and they talked, but didn’t do anything like passing on information to western correspondents about human rights abuses - and four people were arrested on trumped up criminal charges. One of them was my father. TMH: How did you become involved with the dissident movement? P.VT: I got involved with the dissidents in the context of the arrest of my father. They were extremely helpful to me, and I ended up marrying my husband, a dissident, in that context. He was a historian from Moscow. He was close friend of Sakharov. He collected
information about human rights abuses and passed it onto western correspondents. Being a dissident was being part of a very close-knit circle, and I wasn’t a dissident myself. I didn’t see any point in the activities. They regularly sent letters to the Politburo with various political demands. I remember the first time I actually met a group of dissidents through my then fiancée – whom I met through academic circles rather than dissident circles – they were writing a letter in 1979 demanding that the Soviet leadership acknowledge the existence of the secret protocols to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. I was totally astonished. It was absolutely obvious that this would not be acknowledged. But exactly ten years later, Gorbachev did acknowledge it. These dissidents were fine with me because they knew my then-husband, but they were not particularly welcoming. They had this sense of superiority which I didn’t like. Most, once they chose this path, could not sustain a prestigious job. In the USSR, working was a duty, so if you didn’t work, you were a ‘parasite’. This was a criminal offense, punishable by imprisonment. So, they had some arrangements whereby they would be listed as working in jobs such as street cleaning, but not actually working. I grew up in a family who were fanatical workaholics. My father is eighty-three, he’s still working full-time. When my grandfather died at the age of ninety-three, he was still head of his department. They just worked all the time, so I grew up with this idea that you have to work and have to be productive. Work defined you as a person – I couldn’t understand what these dissidents were doing. These dissidents I met all ended up being expelled or in prison. TMH: What was the sequence of events that led up to your expulsion from the USSR? P.VT: There were rumours that the head of the KGB, Yuri Andropov, decided to eliminate the dissident issue by taking radical measures such as expulsion. He rightly surmised that once they’re expelled, the west would no longer be interested in them. That started around 1979, and eventually, my ex-husband’s turn came. His case was complicated by that he was very close to Sakharov, and Sakharov was involved in the production of the atomic bomb, so he had access to state secrets and couldn’t be expelled himself. He was exiled within Russia in the city of Gorky and could
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ISSUE 33 | JUNE 2019 not leave. By 1981, the government wanted to we were emigrating to Israel, with a one-yearisolate him completely and get rid of people old baby, two suitcases, and nothing else. from Moscow who went to visit him, one of TMH: What were your plans upon whom was my then-husband. arrival in the west? When the KGB knocked on our door, my husband was out at work. I called a plumber P.VT: We thought of going to the US, like the around the same time, and I thought the majority, but we had no plans. We were met in KGB man was a plumber, so I took him to Vienna by another dissident who was kicked the bathroom. He stopped me and said that out earlier, and he ended up in Germany, and he needed to see my husband, and I said he he said we should go to Germany because was not there. He said that he would wait. it’s much better, so we went to Munich for My husband eventually came home, and 11 years. I worked for Radio Free Europe in the KGB man took him away. I was very the research department. Originally, I had nervous. Thankfully, my husband did come an admin job there, but eventually in 1985, back and said that we had this choice - to I got a post in research. That was fascinating leave the USSR or he would go to prison. It because it was the start of Perestroika and was strange because I was very young then, Glasnost. We read Soviet newspapers and so young people are adventurous and don’t wrote overviews in English what Soviet papers sense danger, and even though I grew up in a said. They began to change in front of my eyes family where they talked about how repressive on a daily basis following the Glasnost policy. I system was, and my father had been arrested became known in academic circles by writing by that point, I did not see this coming. I was these pieces and they’re still cited to this day. born after Stalin’s death, and my generation I always knew I didn’t want to do it for the was far less fearful of the system than that of rest of my life, so in 1988, I started a PhD as my parents or grandparents. I did not expect part-time in Birmingham whilst working at that what my husband was doing would lead Radio Free Europe. They allowed me to live to such serious consequences. in Munich and attend supervisory sessions rarely. TMH: What was the process for TMH: Did you experience any leaving the USSR? culture shocks? Was the west what you expected? P.VT: This KGB man said the only way out was to follow the route of the Jewish emigration. Actually, my ex-husband was P.VT: We spent a week in Vienna and then Jewish, but that didn’t even matter. We were went to Munich. I thought I was in a film. told that the same advice was given to every Colours were completely different. Everything dissident irrespective of their ethnicity, to was so bright, whereas the USSR was grey. apply for emigration to Israel. My ex-husband You could even have demonstrations in said that by 1980 the Jewish emigration the city centre. I didn’t understand signs of stopped, and invitations which came from poverty as such - you had street performers, Israel were intercepted by the post office and and you didn’t have anything like that in the not delivered, so my husband asked how he USSR. I must say, shops were incredible. My would get the information and documents. father came to visit me in Munich in 1988, The KGB man said they know that Sakharov’s his first ever visit to the west. We went for a wife had the Israeli form which you could fill weekly shop in an average supermarket, and in yourself, and my husband replied: ‘You are he said he felt sick with so much choice, and wrongly informed - Sakharov’s wife ran out of he didn’t enjoy it because he thought it was too these forms!’ To this, the KGB man replied: ‘I much. The difference was unbelievable, even know you have a lot of contacts abroad; you though I came from this privileged family. will sort it out!’
Gloomy Communist Neighbourhood, Pinterest
TMH: Did you miss anything about the USSR except for your family?
P.VT: You miss even the place. I had this dream, a very common one among emigres, apparently, that I was flying back to the USSR and I would wake up just before I arrive, so I missed it awfully. You miss the place where you lived for twenty years. The first time I went back to my old neighbourhood was in 1991, just before the coup. I was shocked by the neighbourhood where my family lived. It was so run down. The city centre was run down but still had grand buildings, but we moved to where we lived in 1966 when it was a new neighbourhood, although it was like social housing of the lowest quality. What I noticed was that so much changed for me, but for people in my old circles, even despite Perestroika, on the daily basis, nothing changed. They still worked in the same places, there were the same conversations, and there were the same conflicts going on. Life hadn’t moved on all that much. In the mid-90s, there were greater changes, both physically, and people had to change jobs to survive. But in 1991, it was as if time had stopped for them, but for me it had accelerated.
Interview conducted by Will Kerrs
So, some bogus invitation was sent from Israel, but it was intercepted by the post office and it wasn’t delivered. Two months on, the KGB man comes back and says: ‘I want to go on holiday, and I’m not allowed to go until you get out of the country.’ My husband said that he knew the invitation was sent but clearly the post intercepted it, and ‘you’re all-powerful, so find it in the post office.’ The KGB man replied that it was impossible to find it. In order to get out of the USSR you needed to get an exit visa with a foreign passport, which the authorities could issue. Then within three days, we were issued with them. You had to pay 200 Rubles, which was quite a lot of money to be deprived of Soviet citizenship, but nothing to get the foreign passport and visas. We were put on a plane to Vienna, as if
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Professor Vera Tolz (left) and Will Kerrs (right), TMH
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The Zinoviev Letter The Original ‘Fake News’
At a time when Twitter timelines and news outlets are dominated by outcries of ‘fake news’, the Zinoviev Letter (ZL) of 1924 is, arguably, more relevant today than it has been in the ninety-five years since the controversy occurred. In terms of popular perception, this is one of, if not the most, obscure British political controversies of the twentieth century, lost inside the vortex of the interwar period. 1924 was a turbulent year for British politics, ending much the same way 1923 had with a vote of no confidence; this time with the Labour and Liberal minority government collapsing. The ZL capped off ten months of political controversy surrounding the government’s relationship with the newly formed Soviet Union. Scandals followed one after the other for Ramsay MacDonald, the first Labour prime minister, after he formally recognised the Soviet government in February 1924. Outrage intensified further after the announcement of the AngloSoviet trade agreement in the August of that year. The ‘Campbell Case’, occurring five days after the publication of this agreement, saw MacDonald announce that the prosecution’s case against J.R. Campbell was dropped. The incident surrounding Campbell, who had been charged with attempts to incite mutiny, was the last in a string of political events that resulted in the Conservative and Liberal parties condemning MacDonald as a communist sympathiser. The no confidence motion tabled on 8 October resulted in the largest parliamentary defeat of a government in history (defeat of 166), a record which stood until the recent Brexit negotiations. A general election was called for 29 October, the third election in as many years. A letter was published by the Daily Mail on 25 October 1924 four days prior to the election, purported to be from Grigori Zinoviev, the head of Comintern in Moscow. Contained underneath the headline ‘Civil
War Plot by Socialists’ Masters’, this highly provocative document, addressed to the British Communist Party, called for the radicalisation of the working-classes to precipitate revolution. The subsequent election resulted in the Conservatives achieving a majority of 209. The ZL is believed to have had a huge impact on the collapse of the Liberal vote, with Labour also losing 40 seats. Under modern inspection, the ZL is considered to be a forgery. The willingness to accept this document as genuine in 1924 begs several, crucial, questions. Noted by historians Robert Grave and Alan Hodge as the ‘age of disguise’, the 1920s was a period of intense social anxiety, which, combined with the political intrigue circulating throughout MacDonald’s ministry, suggests why this document was so easily accepted. Historians have largely concluded that this blind acceptance was supported by a strong political partisanship between the British intelligence community and the media towards the Conservatives. Gill Bennett, the chief historian of the Foreign Office commissioned to investigate the ZL, concluded that the intelligence community was an ‘incestuous circle’, comprised of individuals who had attended the same public schools, with shared political values. This right-wing bias is still a subject of debate in modern political discourses, adding to the controversy’s relevance.
authorship, Bennett and Jonathan Pile, another prominent historian of the affair, have pointed to Desmond Morton, an SIS agent and personal friend of Churchill, and Sir George Joseph Ball, an MI5 officer, as orchestrators of the affair. The combination of fake news and ‘half-truths’ pose more questions than they answer, however. The difficulty in discerning the correct actors and order of events has provided this conspiracy with longevity. Conjecture and speculation has not provided this controversy with a lasting impact on British politics, however. The effect on Labour’s psychology in the years that followed has provided the ZL with another layer of historical interest though. While it did not help MacDonald’s cause in the 1924 election, it is noteworthy that Labour’s vote increased by one million votes from the 1923 election, suggesting that other factors were at play in Labour’s defeat. The hostile political environment and general acceptance of the ZL speaks more broadly to the phenomenon of fake news - in which people choose what they want to believe, whether true or false. The importance of the ZL in the outcome of the election is debatable, but it is nonetheless demonstrative of the societal anxieties of the time.
Bennett has published extensively on the ZL, of which her 2018 publication, The Zinoviev Letter: The Conspiracy that Never Dies, is her most recent work. Bennett notes that no one is certain who the authors of the document were, despite suspicions that the document was forged by White Russian conspirators. MacDonald and Zinoviev claimed that the document was a forgery at the time. Bennett notes that Zinoviev was keen to distance himself from interfering in British affairs during the election period to best ensure that The Zinoviev Letter is often left obscured in the Anglo-Soviet treaty was ratified. the popular conscience of British political While impossible to be certain of the true controversies. In a political climate that requires every piece of information to be scrutinised for authenticity, the ZL acts as a reminder of the impact that fabrication can have. While the Daily Mail’s publication was the last match thrown on the funeral pyre of MacDonald’s government, the political and media climate had already ensured the government was up in flames. This has not prevented almost a century of political intrigue from developing, however. This intrigue has never been more relevant than it is today.
“Civil War Plot by Socialists’ Masters” 1924 headline, Daily Mail
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Satirical cartoon depicting a Bolshevik aligning support for himself and MacDonald, Punch
Cieran McLachlan www.manchesterhistorian.com
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The Nazi Quest for Atlantis The Danger of Focusing on Mythology
For centuries, ancient myths, such as the legend of Atlantis, have captured people’s imagination. It is an enthralling narrative of a lost civilisation, something that caught the attention of high-profile Nazis and their sympathisers in early 20th century Germany. Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, a paramilitary group and famed for his brutality, obsessively pursued the lost city. Why was his attention to this myth so dangerous? Rather than it being a simple yearning for an ancient world, Himmler’s Artistic rendering of the imagined ruins of the Lost City of Atlantis, World Atlas website and the Nazis’ interest went beyond a fascination with the past. They used the if they were descendants of the ‘racially Nazism was mystified and the cultish myth to justify their absurd views on racial pure’ Atlantan diaspora. What does this aspects of the beliefs of Himmler and extensive research tell us about the Nazis the Thule Society were discussed in ways purity and legitimise mass genocide. and the way they used this myth? that could be compared to a religion. The archaeologist Herman Wirth thought A mythology within the discipline of that that the former inhabitants of Atlantis Firstly, it tells us about the various groups history was formed, claiming that people were of a superior race and that some had of people that were invested in it. It was not in the 1930’s believed Hitler possessed managed to leave the city and disperse just political elites who used these myths to ‘supernatural powers’ helping his rise around the world before its alleged justify their racist and inhumane policies. to power, and removing any material destruction. Himmler used this idea to It was also a focal point of academic explanations for his ascension. Goodricksupport his own ‘theory’ on the superiority interrogation across multiple disciplines. Clarke claims that the mythical qualities of the Aryan race, helping Wirth with his Interestingly, the Nazis’ funding of ascribed to the Nazis by these historians endeavours to find the lost city. Himmler academics to go out and discover Atlantis gave rise to neo-Nazism in the late 20th and Wirth’s fascination pre-dated the involved collaboration with those who did century. period of Nazi rule, and they were part not necessarily support the Nazi regime. of a wider group perpetuating this myth: For example, Otto Rahn, who was openly Sources from the period of Hitler’s rise, the Thule Society. Whilst Hitler himself gay and frequented anti-Nazi circles, usually from French Christian writers, led was never part of this society, which gained the sponsorship of the SS in 1934 to to the historiographical belief that Hitler was dissolved long before the Nazi party search for the Holy Grail. Later, Himmler was perceived as a demonic figure. Or ascended to power, their views and many would believe that if the Nazis could find that he had magical powers that derived of its members were prominent from 1933 the Holy Grail then they would win the from his vegetarianism - an absurd myth. Second World War. This shows that the This shows the danger of mythology. To onwards. Nazi obsession with mythology was not portray Hitler as a ‘mystical being’ gives just restricted to Atlantis but a variety of him a sense of superiority that should myths. not be given. Furthermore, it is hard to take these historical accounts seriously, However, the emphasis placed on because of the sources they use. Goodrickmythology in the historiography can Clarke argues that they present Hitler as be rather problematic. There is a clear demonic in order to generate a sense of historical interest in how the Nazis tried national pride, the idea being that France to prove the existence of an ancient could only be defeated and occupied by a mythological world, exemplified in films supernatural force. such as Indiana Jones. However, historians tend to focus on the Nazi quests themselves, The Nazis were not only fascinated with which does a disservice to the very real mythology, but since the regime’s demise atrocities they caused as a product of their a whole new mythology has been founded fantasies. Eric Kurlander, for example, around them. The awfulness of the Nazis’ argues that these studies can distract actions are difficult to comprehend, from the reality of what really happened. and historians will always struggle to 1938 Nazi expedition to Tibet, Rare Historical Photos website They can provide material for neo-Nazis understand their actions, but this often Whilst no evidence was found for the because Hitler and the Nazi regime are leads to a heightening of their interest existence of this lost city, this did not not presented as humans perpetuating evil in the Nazi commitment to mythology. stop the Nazis from looking. There were acts but rather as mystical fanatics, whose Perhaps the Nazis were motivated by a strong conviction towards the myth of multiple expeditions, including one to the actions can somehow be justified. Himalayas in 1938. The fact that SS troops Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke’s book Black Atlantis, but the problem is when this is and resources were allocated to achieving Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the used to explain away the Holocaust and these aims shows the Nazis’ commitment Politics of Identity illuminates an unusual diminish its significance as one of the to such mythology. On this particular historiographical trend that emerged in greatest evils of humanity. trip to Tibet, the features of the local the 1960’s and 70’s concerning the history Sheona Mountford population were studied extensively to see of Nazi Germany. In this historiography,
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Anticlericalism in Spain: 1931-1939 the nationalist right. Moreover, while the right-wing press disseminated reports that the Second Republic was a Judeo-MasonicBolshevik contubierno, the Catholic Church began to advocate the need for a holy crusade of similar scale to that of the Christian Reconquista against the Moors. Furthermore, historian Paul Preston claims that Catholic ‘hardliner fundamentalists’ were so dedicated to the formation of a Spanish ‘Confessional State’ that they themselves were prepared to call for a Civil War, with some prominent clerics, such as the Archbishop of Segura, making calls to arms.
Vengeance against the Church
Burning of convents in Spain during 1931 to 1939, Digital Alert
The 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War, and the years prior, saw an unprecedented rise in anticlerical violence, with an estimated 296 nuns, 2,365 monks and 4,184 priests having been killed in the Republican zones by 1939. One of perhaps the most surprising aspects of Spain’s bloody civil war however, is the role played by the Catholic clergy as both the victim of anticlerical violence and the antagonist. In keeping with the old expression that “a Spaniard always follows a priest with either a candle or a stake”, during the period of 1931-1939, a Spaniard’s political position was arguably influenced by his sentiments towards the Catholic Church.
undercut. Additionally, the Church’s monopoly over education and public ceremonies often saw public segregation of the wealthy from the impoverished lower and working classes, breeding resentment towards the Church’s preferential treatment of the upper classes. Finally, historian Maria Thomas argues that in the absence of support from the Church in newly urbanised industrial areas, aid was instead provided by left-wing unionists, leading to the formation of newly politicised public spheres of urban working classes, who were now free from relying upon the Church for support and charity.
Anticlerical Sentiment
The Political Standing of the Church
Anticlerical sentiments in Spain were by no means unique to the 1930s, having emerged over the course of hundreds of years. Distrust for the clergy amongst the lower classes was perpetuated by historical myths such as those of monks and Jesuits poisoning the water supply in Madrid. Whilst the medieval tradition of barraganía, in which priests were permitted to live amongst concubines, reinforced the idea that the clergy was sexually deviant. However, more deep-seated distaste towards the Catholic Church owed to its position as an ally to the repressive ruling monarchy, with the clergy using its wealth to become involved in electoral campaigns. Furthermore, the Church’s perceived manipulation over the everyday lives of the lower classes further stirred their anticlerical sentiments, as attendance of mass was utilised as leverage for employment opportunities and charitable aid. The supposed corruption of the Catholic Church was another factor attributed to the development of anticlericalism during the 1930s. Through the production and sale of cheap products, manufactured in Catholic penal institutions, average workers were often
The presence of anticlericalism alone however does not explain why many of those associated with the political left resorted to such brutal violence against the Church and clergy between 1931 and 1939.
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One factor which must be taken into account, is in fact the polarising effect of the Catholic Church’s political standing in the lead up to the 1936-1939 Guerra Civil. Prior to the 1930s, the Church had held longstanding designs to create a ‘Political Catholicism’ as a means to retain a traditional, Catholic society in spite of state modernisation. The reforms put forward by the democratic Second Republic in their 1931 Constitution, however, greatly threatened this, as Articles 44 and 26 aimed to secularise Spanish society through reforming church control over property and education. Such action by the Republic was seen as a direct attack on Catholicism by an anticlerical, socialist left. With growing international fears of a communist revolution, the socialist government soon came to embody such a threat, and as such many more moderate Catholics were pushed to align instead with
With the breakdown of the state of order at the outbreak of civil war in 1936, the frictions existing between the anticlerical left and the religious right were exacerbated. There is a general consensus between a number of historians on the subject, that the shattering of law and order provided left-wing, anticlerical, anarchists with an opportunity to seek vengeance against the Church, which they deemed to be the cause of much of their repression. A further argument to explain the emergence of the use of such brutal violence against the clergy, was the growing discontent over the slow pace and limited success of the republican reforms, such as those to education. As such, it is argued that the left took action into its own hands, turning the churches and religious properties that were not burned into schools, hospitals and warehouses. Further triggers of anticlericalism could be owed to the actions of the Catholic Church in the wake of the civil war. A policy of ‘National-Catholicism’ was adopted under the Francoist regime, allowing the church authority over education and elements of the mass media in the nationalist zones. Thereafter, the Catholic Church took up the crusade to liberate Spain from the tyranny of the allegedly communist republican left, with publications becoming more extreme. Works such as the 1938 publication Guerra Santa, advocated that violence against the left was warranted, whilst some priests preached the nationalist cause from the pulpits and a few even went so far as to take up arms themselves. The extreme anticlerical violence perpetrated between 1931 and 1939 is arguably owed to the long-standing sentiments of betrayal and distrust amongst the lower classes towards a church which seemingly aided the monarchical rule which suppressed them. However, it must also be considered that anticlericalism was surely not the sole cause of such brutality towards the clergy, and that tensions were greatly fuelled by the Church’s adoption of the role as a legitimiser firstly of the monarchical repression prior to the 1930s, and subsequently as the defender of the nationalist regime.
Elysia Heitmar www.manchesterhistorian.com
The Debate over Italian Fascism After the Second World War, Italy’s New Republic found its ideological foundation in the myth of the Italian resistance to Fascism. The Italian people were, the narrative went, essentially good, and they had resisted Fascism all that they could. The historiography emphasised the brutality and coercion of Mussolini’s rule, and denied any popular support or consensus for the regime. This political context is why Renzo De Felice’s multi-volume biography of Mussolini, released in the 1970s, was so controversial. It had two central claims. Firstly, that there had been a popular consensus for Mussolini’s regime: look at mass participation in Fascist organisations, or the lack of protest against the regime, for example. Secondly, especially when compared
Italian historian Renzo De Felice, Artribune
The Duality of Italian Nationalism
ISSUE 33 | JUNE 2019 to their murderous German allies, the fascist regime in Italy was not as bad as it had been traditionally painted. It never achieved, so the argument went, the totalitarian control of Hitler’s Germany or Stalin’s USSR. De Felice’s argument divided politicians and historians along political lines, and personal and political attacks ensued. However, since then, a more serious debate has emerged of the issues that De Felice raised. While accepting the inadequacy of the simplistic and politically expedient postwar historiography of Italian Fascism, De Felice’s argument also has flaws. De Felice’s two central ideas, that of popular consensus, and the un-extreme nature of fascism, do not come together. In Germany, since the 1990s, historians have begun to examine popular support for the Nazi regime, but they have done this without trying to minimise the Nazi’s crimes. The idea that because the people gave some support to a regime, it cannot have been that bad, simply does not stand up. In fact, it is important to emphasise and remember how ordinary people can support and contribute to horrific crimes and brutal state coercion.
imprisonment, or even worse. We cannot take participation in Fascist organisations as evidence for consensus for Fascist rule if participation was mandatory, or social security was dependent on it. In a state that aspired to have control over all aspects of society, the appearance of a popular consensus is an argument for the success of Fascist repression, rather than genuine popular support.
Having said this, it is important to recognise the aspects of popular support for Fascism that did exist in Italy. Mussolini was undoubtedly personally very popular. However, there does not have to be a dichotomy between consensus and coercion. While not over-emphasising popular support, we must remember that the way people interacted with the Fascist regime Then there is the problem of De Felice’s was complex; support for the regime, and in conception of consensus. What does it mean particular for Mussolini, is not incompatible for there to be a popular consensus in the with the brutality of Fascism in Italy. context of authoritarian rule? We cannot take the lack of protest as evidence for consensus Reuben Williamson if protest was punished by losing your job, Italian nationalism. The Janiculum hill was crossed his own metaphorical and literal a hill that was dedicated to the Roman god Rubicon, and he was marching on his way to Janus, god of duality: god of beginnings, a new era of dominion. transitions, and endings. With two faces, one looking to the future, and the other to the past, Janus perfectly represents the ambivalence of Italian nationalism that had begun in the late eighteenth century, thrived under the Risorgimento, and culminated in Mussolini’s fascist rule.
In 1932 during commemorations for the first 10 years of fascist rule, Il Duce Benito Mussolini sought to celebrate his achievements in reviving the glorious spirit of the Italian nation, and completing his Generating a narrative of historical interpretation of the Risorgimento. continuity of an Italian spirit in Romanita was vital to support the claim that the fascist project was building on past glory. In a Janus-esque way, links to the past were created in order to legitimize the political direction for the future. Whilst possession of Garibaldi was heavily contested by those on the left and the right of the political spectrum, Mussolini successfully distinguished his movement and its’ unique embodiment of Romanita with a revival of classical Roman antiquity. For example, Il Duce’s march on Mussolini and Roman Warriors by Baldinelli Armando, Pixels Rome not only had links to the incomplete The celebration of Mussolini’s first decade in work of Garibaldi and thus the failures of the rule coincidentally coincided with the fiftieth Risorgimento, but it further evoked parallels anniversary of Garibaldi’s death, a figure who with Sulla and Caesar in the late Republic. had been central to Mussolini’s conception Evoking parallels to these great figures of the Italian spirit - Romanita. Mussolini in Roman history, Mussolini was able to decided to commemorate Garibaldi’s death situate his project in a familiar narrative of through an exhibition of relics in Rome and working towards Roman (understood as the construction of monuments dedicated Italian) dominance and prowess - that of to Garibaldi’s life on the Janiculum hill in the Principate. With Fascist propaganda Rome. The location of these celebrations alluding to the tribulations of Sulla and highlights the integral dualistic nature of Caesar, Mussolini implied that he had
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Mussolini at Palazzo Venezia, The Guardian
Inside a Fascist Party rally, Rome, 1937, All That’s Interesting
Not only was this narrative important in reviving and glorifying Romanita, it also acted as a historical precedent for the transformation of the political system, and transferral of political power to one figure, conferring auctoritas to Mussolini’s martial dictatorship. Just as the domestic tumult of the late Republic had immediately preceded the glory of Augustus in the Principate, Mussolini’s presentation of himself in relation to the shortfalls of the Risorgimento implied that under his leadership, greatness was imminent.
Wilf Kenning
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Riches and Revolution: The Politics of the Palace of Versailles The Palace of Versailles, situated just nineteen kilometres from the city of Paris, has become a symbol of power and corruption. The grandeur of Versailles represents the Ancien Régime, which was ended by the French Revolution and fall of the monarchy. With humble beginnings as a lodge for hunting retreats in the small village of Versailles in the early 1600s, the chateau was gradually expanded. It later became an appropriate home to the royal court and one of the largest palaces in the modern world. Today, the palace’s impressiveness can still be seen with extensive gardens and room upon room of grandeur. It is strange to imagine this building, with its overt extravagance, being built during a time where the people of France were so impoverished they struggled for bread. Louis XIV, the reigning King of France from 1638 - 1715, is responsible for the palaces’ dramatic expansion, making Versailles the seat of absolute monarchical power in France. Louis XIV’s move to Versailles has been the subject of much debate. He moved hundreds of the governing nobility and courtiers to the palace, ensuring that they stayed at court for extended periods of the year. It is likely this was a political move made by Louis XIV to ensure that members of the nobility did not gain allegiance from his subjects away from Versailles. Centralising political power also allowed Louis XIV to keep a close eye on the governors of France’s provinces. They were far less likely to revolt if they were at court. The palace therefore became a tool of absolute power.
Hall of Mirrors, Palace of Versailles website
Undoubtedly, the architecture of the palace was designed to reflect the absolute power held by the king; the ceremonial bedroom of the king was in the precise centre of the palace, with the rooms
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Palace of Versailles exterior and gardens, Palace of Versailles website
dedicated to government and courtiers places around his quarters. Cecil Jenkins, a contemporary scholar on the history of France, has described Louis XIV in his palace as like “a queen bee in a giant hive”. This seems an appropriate comparison, as the architecture of the palace, with the absolute monarch in the centre, mirrored the political climate of France.
Versailles, Marie-Antoinette became a symbol of the injustice and corruption in France that lead to the revolution. Not only was she part of the aristocracy, who enjoyed wealth and luxury as the poor struggled to eat, her Austrian descent was disliked by many of the revolutionaries, who viewed her as a traitor to France. Whether it is a fair portrayal or not, Marie-Antoinette had a reputation for extravagance. Her death The wealth and superiority of the monarch became a symbol of revolution against the was not only reflected by the architecture greed and power of the elite. of Versailles. In fact, the customs, or etiquette, of the court were also a highly The revolution also caused the royal seat of important feature of the palace. Social power to move from Versailles back to Paris, rank dictated everything. If the King following the women’s march on Versailles was passing by a person they had to in 1789. This revolt, which occurred remove their hat, people had to dress early during the French Revolution, saw according to their class, and only certain women protesting against the poverty and classes of people were allowed to sit in starvation they were experiencing as a the presence of the King. These rather result of the aristocracy’s greed. Alongside complex conventions reinforced social the women protesting were revolutionaries hierarchy, and consolidated the monarch’s demanding a constitutional monarchy position as an absolute ruler. These and political reform. It is no surprise the highly structured social conventions were people of Paris were angry - wealth and likely to intimidate visitors to the court, luxury were in the hands of the very few although, this style of court etiquette had at Versailles, whilst the working people become fashionable elsewhere in Europe. suffered at their hands. The women’s The customs of Versailles exemplify the march on Versailles represented the will power and greed of Louis XIV; his life was of the people. They wanted bread, and for essentially a public performance, revolving their monarch to return the seat of power around his own power and image. Some to Paris. scholars believe that this greed and lust for power went so far as to have created a Surprisingly, the palace of Versailles sort-of religious cult, centred around Louis survived the French Revolution. Food XIV. shortages, drought, and the extravagant spending of the monarchy, on riches Versailles was briefly abandoned by the and wars, are believed to be the causes court following Louis XIV’s death, but after of France’s revolution - or arguably, renovation became the monarchical seat of revolutions. Versailles can be seen as power again under Louis XV. The palace is a symbol of the extravagance of the well known for housing the celebration of monarchy. Separated from the common Louis XVI’s marriage to Marie-Antoinette, people of Paris, the Palace of Versailles the Archduchess of Austria. She later was a playground for the monarch to assert became arguably one of the most infamous absolute rule over his subjects. faces of the French Revolution, being executed by the Revolutionary Tribunal in 1793. Residing at the royal court at Skye Demar
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Talleyrand and Napoleon series of peace deals. The first came in the 1801 Treaty of Lunéville which secured peace with the Austrians and, later, with the British in the 1802 Treaty of Amiens. Seeing his continued success, Napoleon bestowed Talleyrand with the title of Grand Chamberlain of the Empire in his coronation year of 1804. However, despite serving the Emperor well, Talleyrand articulated his worries about Napoleon’s renewed war with the Allied forces. Furthermore, Talleyrand strongly opposed the harsh treatment of the Austrians at the 1805 Treaty of Pressburg and the unstable alliance created between France and Russia at the 1807 Treaty of Tilsit. Fearing Napoleon was leading France into disaster, French Foreign Minister Talleyrand, Wikimedia Commons Talleyrand resigned as foreign minister in Charles Maurice de Talleyrand remains 1807. With that the notorious legacy of one of the most controversial figures Talleyrand began. in Napoleonic history. Notoriously untrustworthy, his double-dealings helped While having resigned from his position as secure Napoleon Bonaparte’s downfall. foreign minister, Talleyrand maintained Born into a Parisian aristocratic family, influence in the Napoleonic government. both of Talleyrand’s parents held positions However, he, alongside police minister of influence in court with his father and Joseph Fouché, began to accept bribes uncle having experience in the French from foreign powers to give up Napoleon’s Royal Army. Talleyrand began his career secrets. Talleyrand and Fouché also in the French clergy before moving into spread worries over the imperial line of the political community where he served succession. At this point, Napoleon and five different regimes: Louis XVI, the Empress Josephine had no heirs, leading revolutionary governments, Napoleon, to concerns about the power struggle Louis XVIII and Louis Philippe. that would ensue after Napoleon’s death. Rigidities between the Emperor and Before coming into Napoleon’s service, Talleyrand did not end there, as Talleyrand Talleyrand welcomed the outbreak of the expressed doubts about situation on the French Revolution. He helped write the Iberian Peninsula. Following Napoleon’s Declaration of the Rights of Man, proposed decision to invade Portugal and place his the nationalisation of the church, and brother Joseph on the Spanish throne, championed public education. While brutal revolts broke out across Spain. polarising scholarly opinion, Talleyrand’s Napoleon would later refer to the conflict ability to understand and predict political as the “Spanish ulcer.” After receiving situations has provided him with a legacy word of Talleyrand’s actions, Napoleon as one of the finest diplomats in modern rushed back to Paris to deliver a furious European history. In addition, French beratement of Talleyrand in front of his philosopher Simone Weil argued that even Marshals. During the argument, Napoleon though Talleyrand changed allegiances, claimed that he wanted to “break him like every decision he made had France a glass, but it’s not worth the trouble” to behind it. This article will provide a brief which Talleyrand quietly muttered, “What overview about the way Talleyrand came a pity that so great a man should have been into Napoleon’s service and how his later so badly brought up!” actions would help instigate the collapse of the Napoleonic dynasty by 1814. It will also Despite his other actions, Talleyrand’s challenge interpretations of Talleyrand’s most important deed in Napoleon’s legacy and how, as modern historians, downfall came at the 1808 Congress of we should interpret such a complex and Erfurt. Napoleon hoped Talleyrand would intriguing figure. discuss an anti-Austrian military alliance with Tsar Alexander. However, Talleyrand Alongside Napoleon’s brother, Lucien, did not fulfil Napoleon’s wishes, rather Talleyrand played an instrumental part in instilling doubt in the Tsar towards a the 1799 Coup of 18 Brumaire, establishing Franco-Russian relationship. This led to a Consulate government with Napoleon at massive distrust between Tsar Alexander the helm. Realising his talents, and despite and Napoleon, influencing Napoleon’s anxieties over his loyalty, Napoleon fateful decision to invade Russia in appointed Talleyrand as foreign minister. 1812 – a choice that ended his empire. Talleyrand’s early service to Napoleon was Following the events in Erfurt, Talleyrand particularly fruitful as he helped secure a still maintained influence and continued
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his opposition towards the Emperor’s foreign policy. He again opposed the harsh treatment of the Austrians after the War of the Fifth Coalition. By this point most figures would have been executed for their actions, but Talleyrand managed to stay alive, subsequently going on to support the Bourbon Restoration under Louis XVIII, yet again finding himself on the winning side.
Napoleon Bonaparte’s First Consul, Wikimedia Commons
Following Napoleon’s 1815 return, Talleyrand maintained his service to the Bourbons. He continued to his Machiavellian exploits by crafting a treaty with Britain’s Castlereagh and Austria’s Metternich, agreeing to use necessary force to “repulse aggression” of Russia and Prussia to guarantee each country’s independence. Despite his disloyalty to previous regimes, he was welcomed by both Louis XVIII and Louis Philippe. This signposts just how good of diplomat Talleyrand was and why historians perceive him as the French Machiavelli. He had seen the threat revolutionary France was under, backing Napoleon’s 1799 coup. He then went on to secure peace with both Austria and Britain under the consulate government. However, Talleyrand began to lose faith in the Emperor with his renewed conflicts with the European powers resigning his post in 1807. Without Talleyrand there stood a chance Napoleon may have never gone to war with Russia in 1812. If that was the case, the direction of Napoleonic France may have taken a much different course.
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Urban Revival in the High Middle Ages The Rise of Productivity and Trade from the Mid-11th Century
Much of the Middle Ages is written off in popular imagination as a ‘Dark Age’, characterised by illiteracy, poverty, and a fundamentally agrarian economy. While this characterisation is largely incorrect, it may be a result of the transformation that the European economy underwent just a few centuries later. This phenomenon of the High Middle Ages has been called the ‘Urban Revival’, and much ink has been dedicated to understanding what happened and why. In the tenth and early eleventh centuries, Europe’s economy was caught in a ‘Catch 22’, with low population growth, low agricultural productivity, and poor trade and communication links which served to be mutually reinforcing, thus inhibiting economic growth. However, by the mid11th century, a series of developments would break this cycle. From 1048 to the Black Death in 1348, Europe’s population increased by an estimated 300%. This rate was even higher in England where, thanks to excellent records such as the Domesday Book, historians have accurate statistics about population growth. One contributing factor was an ‘agricultural revolution’ in farming technology, which drastically increased crop yields. Such innovations as crop rotation, rigid collar harnesses, and water wheels became more common across European farms, thus facilitating a rise in productivity. This transformation was coupled with increasing land reclamation; swamps were drained in Italy, forests were chopped down in Germany, and the ‘Medieval Warm Period’ (c. 900-1250CE) raised temperatures sufficiently for grapes to be grown in the British Isles. This allowed land to carry far greater populations than before. Another major development was the rising levels of interconnectivity between regions on Europe’s peripheries. The cities of Flanders and Venice, which would become the focal points of the later medieval economy, prospered through their role as entrepots for Baltic and Mediterranean trade. Increases in political and social stability, particularly with the end of Viking and Magyar raids, facilitated a revival in long-distance trade. Most trade before this point had been internal, with only luxury goods being shipped to distant markets.
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Artwork of a Medieval market scene, FEE.org
These two ‘revolutions’ transformed urban communities and the medieval economy. Most population growth was directed into new villages and towns, rather than expanding existing ones. This can be tracked in the rise of towns and cities with names such as Newport, Niewpoort, Villanova, and Villeneuve. However, the new trade links did allow some cities to achieve enormous populations. Cities such as Venice, Milan, and Paris reached populations of around 100,000 by the time of the Black Death. Scores of small towns and a few large cities could also be found in Spain, Germany, and England, which, unable to feed themselves from their hinterland alone, would import grain. The Italian communes imported much of this grain from the Kingdom of Naples in the south, but also from as far away as Egypt. Mediterranean trade did not only help feed these cities though; it was instrumental in their growth, with coastal cities such as Marseille and Barcelona benefitting enormously. The establishment of the Crusader States also opened much of the Middle East to trade, particularly with Italian city-states. Venetian Quarters could be found in every city in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.
Milan (1156), Wikkicommons
Trade in the Baltic Sea was a nascent development in comparison to Mediterranean trade, and had continued at a low intensity since Late Antiquity. The mercantile city of Lübeck was only founded by Count Adolf of Holstein in 1143, but it was instrumental in the development of urban communities in northern Europe. Associations of merchants called hansas became common in the region, handling the diverse trade in raw materials, including wax, furs, tar,
metals, and hides. New settlements, often founded by Vikings, flourished off of this trade along the coastline of the English Channel, and the North and Baltic seas. An accompanying process of regionalisation also allowed cities such as Bremen and Hamburg, and Flanders, to grow. Wool production became concentrated in England and Flanders, cloth in Italy, and wine in France. This created a degree of proto-industrialisation and helped balance the enormous trade deficit between Western and Eastern Europe. The social implications of the urban revival on life in medieval cities were also significant. In addition to natural population growth, much of the increase in cities’ populations was fuelled by the immigration of fugitive serfs. Some cities passed laws which stated that if fugitive serfs lived in a city for a year and a day they were freed of their obligations to return. This phenomenon only occurred because of the increasing economic dominance of the cities on their immediate regions. It began a process of weakening of the feudal social structure, which would be completed by the Black Death in the fourteenth century. Urban autonomy also increased due to the urban revival, as rulers sought to bolster trade and strengthen border towns. This was most notable in Italy, as the communes strived to achieve independence from the Holy Roman Emperor, but was also present in Castile and Leon. If a Parisian or a citizen of Milan from the turn of the millennium were to travel forward 300 years, the Europe they would find would be almost unrecognisable; cities were larger, populations were more mobile, industries had cropped up across Western Europe, and ships ploughed the old trade routes of the Mediterranean again. The developments of this period would shape the dynamics of the region for several centuries and would help forge a modern Europe. Perhaps this explains our contemporary fascination with this section of medieval history, at the expense of other eras.
Daniel Johnson www.manchesterhistorian.com
VOC: Costs, Risks and Profits The first corporation to be listed on the official stock exchange in 1602 was the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (hereafter referred to as the VOC). This was a copycat venture founded two years after the English East India Company (EIC) in 1600. The VOC had enormous influence, as seen with the founding of the Verenigde West Indische Compagnie (WIC) in 1621, which had been modelled on the VOC.
Painting of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, leading statesman of the Dutch Republic, Wikipedia
How the East India Company Built the British Raj Created by royal charter in 1600, this rogue multinational corporation, with its headquarters in a small London office, would go on to conquer the entire Indian subcontinent and lay down the foundations for what was for centuries, Britain’s biggest cash cow. Founded with the sole intention of gaining seaborne access to Asia’s luxury markets, the East India Company was given a full monopoly on “trade with the East”, as well as the right to wage war. In seventeenth century India, the Mughal empire had dominated the subcontinent. Its emperor, Aurangzeb, amassed a wealth greater than all the crown-heads of Europe combined. On his death, the empire would fracture into several rival successor states, as well as face uprisings and revolts from its historically marginalised Hindu and Sikh subjects. One of these states was Bengal, whose Nawab (ruler) was wary of European imperialism in other parts of the world.
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ISSUE 33 | JUNE 2019 Similar ventures can be seen in Scotland, Denmark, Sweden and BrandenburgPrussia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Whilst the WIC focused on the ‘Atlantic Economy’ (West Africa, North & South America, Caribbean), the VOC operated from East Africa to the Indian Ocean and China. The VOC is the most prominent example of merchant coalition with the state to create a fiscal-military state. As historians we should go beyond simply analysing the idea of trade as a state affair and the VOC offers a lens in which to view the effectiveness of merchant costs and profits, as well as the repercussions and risks involved in funding imperial powers. One of the prominent issues with the VOC was the length of voyages. For example, a trip to East Asia (such as the Banda Islands) took up to twenty-four months at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Between the order and delivery of goods (such as pepper, mace, nutmeg and so forth) there could be a thirty-month interval. Other expeditions were thus often dispatched whilst the first venture was ongoing. Consequently, profits were a long-term investment. Costs in the short term however were large. In c. 1600, approximately fifty per cent of capital subscribed was spent on: crew, weapons, ships and sailors’ wages. Merchants and Enter Major-General Robert Clive. Hired by the EIC to expand British influence in Bengal, India’s richest and most economically productive region, Clive went on to orchestrate the overthrow of the Nawab with the Battle of Plassey, replacing him with a puppet, and absorbing - for the first time in the company’s history - a whole kingdom. And along with it, the governance of million. Bengal, within a decade, was reduced to a dustbowl. The imposition of dreadfully high taxes, the forcing of farmers to harvest cash crops and the utter disregard for famine relief had culminated in 10 million deaths and a reduction in Bengal’s population by a third. This resulted in a parliamentary inquiry into company practices the following year in 1773, but not for the reason you may think. The greed of Robert Clive to ruthlessly plunder Bengal for his shareholders (whom a quarter of MP’s were) and his own personal fortune, had destroyed Bengal’s economy, and with it, the EIC’s share price. Banks across Europe went bust and the British government was forced to bail out the company, which controlled 50% of British exports. A flurry of acts would follow to begin to regulate and partly-nationalise the company. Yet this corporation was still granted the right to administer its territories, largely due to corruption and capital interests, as well as enabling entrepreneurs to rise
imperial powers were summarily in a lucrative but fluctuating business. The VOC had high operating costs, high risks and huge fluctuations in profits. As the popular economic theory of the time focused on conquest and commerce as the route to becoming a dominant country, it is understandable as to why trade became a state affair for the Dutch. Militaries could not compete without the Royal Navy and the state could not protect liberty, which was becoming a competitive commodity, without international trade. Hence the VOC was created, leading to wealth and success for some merchants and their funding imperial powers. However, it is important to remember the risk and cost of such ventures, as has been explored in this short article. In summary, the VOC was a long-term investment for imperial powers and for merchants, it did not offer a quick return. This is one of the factors that led to merchants no longer having a corporate monopoly by the end of the eighteenth century. The VOC was still largely influential in the escalation of globalisation through corporate companies in the early modern period.
Caitlin Touhey
Clive Robert, OxfordDNB.com
the ranks and make their fortunes in the subcontinent. This all came to a plummeting end when the company land-grabs and increased taxation had resulted in the Indian Rebellion of 1857, which despite being short-lived, had displayed a dangerous possibility, that once-belligerent religious groups and principalities could unite against a common insatiable enemy. So it was, that the greed of the EIC would make way for the “civilising” mission of the Victorians, who would try in every way to erase the history of corporate looting and the unity amongst the Indians that it sparked.
Pallav Roy
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ISSUE 33 | JUNE 2019
Capture of Jugurtha: Seeds of Civil War Jugurtha (c.160-104 BC) was a Numidian prince, the adopted son of King Micipsa. Having served with Scipio in Spain, he was noted not just for his soldierly prowess, but also his great intellect. However, these qualities were soon to cause problems for the Roman Republic, and it was the controversy over his capture in 104 BC which set off the infamous civil wars between Sulla and Marius. After the Second Punic War in 202 BC, the Romans decided that an allied state in North Africa would help keep Carthage in check. King Massinissa, a Roman ally during the war, was therefore allowed to establish the Kingdom of Numidia. He was succeeded in 148 BC by his son, Micipsa. But when Micipsa died in 118 BC, trouble started brewing. He bequeathed the Kingdom to his two sons Hiempsal, Adherbal, and adopted son, Jugurtha, to share equally. However, Jugurtha had greater ambitions. He had Hiempsal killed and went to war against Adherbal so that he may rule all of Numidia. Adherbal sought protection from the Romans, who later sent out a delegation to end the war by dividing the land in two. However, Jugurtha’s popularity in Rome for having served with Scipio in Spain meant that there were accusations that the Romans had unfairly favoured Jugurtha and, indeed, they had been bribed. Having been summoned to Rome to testify in ensuing bribery trials, Jugurtha was acquitted because he engaged in even more bribery. After leaving Rome, Sallust (clearly putting words into his mouth) said that Jugurtha described Rome as ‘a city for sale and doomed to quick destruction, if it should find a buyer.’ (War Against Jugurtha 35.10)
Jugurtha, leaving Rome after being summoned by the senate, Warfarehistorynetwork.com
However, this was not a war which used conventional tactics – one might say it was a form of guerrilla war. Successive Roman consuls, including Bestia and Aulus Postumius were unable to end the war, with the latter attempting to end the war on terms, having been bribed by Jugurtha. The senate would accept nothing short of total victory, and thus they sent out Quintus Metellus, consul for 109 BC. With his legate, Gaius Marius, Metellus continued the war. The war continued for another year, but Metellus was deposed by the comitia populi tributa, having been accused of dragging out the war so to win more glory when it was over. As a result, Marius, a plebeian and novus homo, was elected consul for 107 BC and set out to continue the war with L. Cornelius Sulla, who was quaestor. The war proved genuinely difficult to end – Jugurtha refused to meet the Romans in a pitched battle, and consequently he could not be Once Roman attention shifted away from defeated conventionally. Numidia, Jugurtha quickly resumed the war, seeking to control the entire kingdom By 105 BC, the war was still ongoing. It as he originally planned. His army made was at this point that Bocchus, Jugurtha’s great progress against Adherbal, but there father-in-law and uneasy ally, fearing came a turning point in his fortunes. The the approaching Roman army, contacted siege of Cirta, Adherbal’s capital, was Sulla, asking him if a settlement were proving particularly difficult. It had great possible. Sulla proposed that if Bocchus walls, so Jugurtha encircled it to starve handed Jugurtha over, he would become a them out. Adherbal was pressured by the friend of the Romans and become King of Italian inhabitants of the city to surrender, Numidia in his place. Reluctantly, Bocchus with the suggestion that Rome would agreed. An ambush was laid for Jugurtha, guarantee the terms, so he finally gave who was en route to meet Bocchus, during in. Thus, Jugurtha captured Cirta and which he was captured and handed in his army massacred all its inhabitants, chains to Sulla. including the Italians. This transgression Put bluntly, who deserved the credit for the against their allies prompted the Romans capture of Jugurtha was a big deal. On the to declare war against Jugurtha in 112 BC. one hand, Sulla was subordinate to Marius,
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and thus it was under Marius’ command as consul that Jugurtha was captured, so one might say that he deserved the credit. But, as Plutarch, Life of Marius 10.5-6 summarises: ‘[5]This was the first seed of that bitter and incurable hatred between Marius and Sulla, which nearly brought Rome to ruin. For many wished Sulla to have the glory of the affair because they hated Marius, and Sulla himself had a[n emerald (see Pliny, NH 37.4)] seal-ring made, which he used to wear, on which was engraved the surrender of Jugurtha to him by Bocchus. [6]By constantly using this ring Sulla provoked Marius, who was an ambitious man, loath to share his glory with another, and quarrelsome. And the enemies of Marius gave Sulla most encouragement, by attributing the first and greatest successes of the war to Metellus, but the last, and the termination of it, to Sulla, so that the people might cease admiring Marius and giving him their chief allegiance.’ In 56 BC, Sulla’s son, Faustus, minted a denarius (Crawford 426/1) which reproduced the design on the reverse. Sulla is in the centre (hence ‘Felix’ - Lucius Cornelius Sulla ‘Felix’), Jugurtha on the right - hands bound, and Bocchus on the left offering Sulla a laurel wreath. Clearly, the hatred between Marian and Sullan factions still continued on long after both men had died, and, despite the focus on both Marius’ and Sulla’s respective dictatorships, the incident which caused this bitter rivalry and the subsequent civil wars was certainly not forgotten.
Will Kerrs www.manchesterhistorian.com
Coinage and the Social War The Social War (91-88 BC) was a war fought between the Roman Republic and many of its Italian allies, the instigators of the war, who were broadly categorised into the Marsic Confederation and the Samnites. Sources for this period are scarce – the relevant books of Livy’s History of Rome no longer exist. Thus, the Italian aim of the war is a contentious issue. Some scholars interpret the Italica, the mysterious body under which the Italians unified, as merely a military organisation whose sole purpose in starting the war was to gain Roman citizenship - this being the traditional Roman view of the war. Other scholars, however, draw on Diodorus Siculus, who suggests that the Italica followed the Roman model of government with five hundred ‘senators’ and twelve generals chosen annually, to suggest that it was a fully-fledged rival state. The dichotomy between senators and generals is telling because it may indicate a nonmilitary state structure separate from a war council (although Roman senators did act, in some capacity, as such), thus suggesting that the Italians had set up a
Alexander and the Banquet at Opis
Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) created one of the largest empires ever, but it was short-lived, lasting only eleven years starting from 334 BC with the beginning of his Persian expedition and ending in 323 BC with his death. As a result, scholars have debated and reached divergent conclusions as to Alexander’s intentions for his empire. In 1933, William Tarn delivered a lecture to the British Academy, arguing that Alexander’s intention was to ‘unite mankind’ into a ‘single brotherhood’. Much of his evidence for the ‘unity of mankind’ thesis comes from the banquet at Opis (near modern day Baghdad) in 324 BC. Indeed, Alexander, like all Macedonian kings, was famed for his banquets, featuring all-night drinking and the finest Attic courtesans, but the banquet at Opis stood out to Tarn.
ISSUE 33 | JUNE 2019 rival state, with self-determination being to depict an Italian bull goring a Roman wolf, thus suggesting that the Italians were the main driver of the Social War. actually aiming to conquer and destroy Evidencing this further, modern classicist Rome. Similarly, the rather common oathEmilio Gabba asserts that Poppaedius taking scene coins have been interpreted as Silo and C. Papius Mutilus were supreme taking an oath to the Italica, thus making commanders of the Italian state who it a state because such oaths would be to seem to have acted as consuls. However, Rome. This symbolism might just prove Christopher J. Dart notes that Appian, the ‘rival state’ theory to be true, but like another ancient writer, did not distinguish many questions Classicists have on the them in rank from the other commanders. Roman Republic, we are hampered by Therefore, each Italian ethnicity had our lack of sources, and contradictions in their own commander, as opposed to two extant ones. ‘consuls’ in charge of an Italian state. If one accepts this view, then there must have Will Kerrs been an alliance of independent Italian states as opposed to a fully-fledged rival state. Evidently, the ancient literary sources on the Social War are unreliable and contradictory. They were written long after the war had ended – two centuries later in the case of Appian – and were Roman sources, which are notorious for not understanding the ‘barbarians’ of Italy. Modern interpretation is also dubious as a result. The only contemporary Italian source on the Social War is coinage. At the outbreak of war, the Italians set up two mints and copied Roman denarii, albeit with evocative Italian imagery. One example of many, HN Italy 427, has been argued from his krater. The symbolism of the seating arrangement, and especially the drinking from the same krater is revealing, thus concluding (drawing on other details, such as the marriage of his Macedonian troops to Persian wives) that Alexander was attempting to ‘unite mankind’. But how significant was the banquet really?
Alexander’s banquet at Samarkand, Alexanderstomb.com
broader narrative. It only took place because Alexander’s Macedonian veterans had rebelled owing to his excessive ‘orientalism’. This included adopting Persian dress, encouraging prostration, allowing Persian soldiers to be trained in Macedonian methods, and even incorporating ‘Persians’ into his elite companion cavalry. In other words, the banquet is of secondary interest to Arrian’s account of the mutiny, only serving to show reconciliation between Alexander, his Macedonian veterans, and ‘the Persians’. Finally, the banquet at Opis is only reported in Arrian’s Anabasis of Alexander (7.8-11) and is not mentioned at all in Plutarch’s Life of Alexander, or Quintus Curtius Rufus’ History of Alexander, thus suggesting its overall significance to have been minimal. In fact, put bluntly, it seems to have been just another feast and heavy drinking session to smooth over Alexander’s poor managerial skills.
As Ernst Badian notes in his 1958 refutation, Tarn has misinterpreted the seating arrangement details. The sheer numbers of people at the banquet – ninethousand, in fact – make it impossible that all were seated at a symbolic single table. Furthermore, Arrian actually says that Macedonians surrounded Alexander So much for the ‘unity of mankind’… (presumably only high-ranking officers and courtesans), with the Persians seated Will Kerrs further away. Tellingly, Arrian also remarks that ‘those around’ Alexander shared wine from his krater, thus referring to only the Macedonians - the very people Alexander was trying to reconcile himself with.
Tarn reports that according to Arrian (our only extant narrative source mentioning the banquet, and drawing on Ptolemy, one of Alexander’s generals), officers of different nationalities (including Greeks, Additionally, the banquet should not Macedonians, ‘Persians’, and others) were be taken out of the context of Arrian’s sat at Alexander’s table and shared wine
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HN Italy 427, Numisbids.com
Greek manuscript depicting Byzantine Greek musicians and instruments, Wikimedia Commons
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