Journal articles on the topic 'Symbolism in politics – France – History'

This article examines the politics of wine making in Alsace in the two decades after the region returned to French rule in 1918. During these years Alsatian wine makers worked to transform their wines to meet the tastes of French drinkers, following five decades of producing wine for German consumption. As wine makers grappled with the question of how to secure the future of their industry, Alsatian wine became emblematic of the most contentious aspects of Alsace's reintegration into France. The introduction of new laws on viticulture raised the question of what was French about wine, the wine industry's woes symbolised the difficulties of Alsace's economic reintegration and wine became an emblem for often fierce wrangling over identity and belonging in the recovered region. This article traces this process and argues that while wine became a symbol of the complications of reintegration, its importance in understandings of French national culture equally allowed it to offer a solution to the problems that return to France caused for Alsace's wine industry in the interwar years. In this way, this case study of the politics of wine making in Alsace is suggestive of wine's broader power as a symbol of national belonging.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the Crucifixion from the Parliament of Paris – a painting that decorated the Great Hall of the Royal Court from the beginning of the 15th century until 1904. The author focuses on the political and legal meanings that were embedded in the Crucifixion. From this point of view, the main characters of the retablo, their appearance and attributes, as well as the general structure of the picture are studied. The author comes to the conclusion that the foreground of the retablo was intended primarily for educated people who are familiar not only with the history of the Passion of Christ or the martyrdom of St. Dionysius, but also with the Christian doctrine of redemption and the separation of powers. The background of the retablo, on the contrary, was intended for the common people. For each group of viewers, the artist used special symbolism and understandable markers. Nevertheless, the purpose of the Crucifixion remained the same – to emphasize by all means that the Parliament of Paris is the highest Royal Court of France, the place of judicial power par excellence, which is equal for everybody: the representatives of the nobility and the church, the high-ranking courtiers, the persons of the Royal blood, the ordinary people.

The Quandary of 1492The year 1492 evokes a powerful symbolism.1The symbolism is most charged, of course, among peoples whose historical memory connects them directly to the forces unleashed in 1492. For indigenous Americans, Latin Americans, minorities of Latino or Hispanic descent, and Spaniards and Portuguese, the sense of connection is strong. The year 1492 symbolises a momentous turn in historical destiny: for Amerindians, the ruinous switch from independent to colonised history; for Iberians, the launching of a formative historical chapter of imperial fame and controversy; for Latin Americans and the Latino diaspora, the painful birth of distinctive cultures out of power-laden encounters among Iberian Europeans, indigenous Americans, Africans, and the diverse offspring who both maintained and blurred the main racial categories.But the symbolism extends beyond the Americas, and beyond the descendants of those most directly affected. The arrival of Columbus in America symbolises a historical reconfiguration of world magnitude. The fusion of native American and European histories into one history marked the beginning of the end of isolated stagings of human drama. Continental and subcontinental parameters of human action and struggle, accomplishment and failure, would expand into a world stage of power and witness. The expansion of scale revolutionised cultural and ecological geography. After 1492, the ethnography of the humanoid other proved an even more central fact of life, and the migrations of microbes, plants and animals, and cultural inventions would transform the history of disease, food consumption, land use, and production techniques.2In addition, the year 1492 symbolises the beginnings of the unique world ascendance of European civilisation.

RESUMENLa historia del cristianismo no se entiende sin el complejo fenómeno mariano. El culto mariano ha afianzado la construcción de identidades colectivas, pero también individuales. La figura de la Virgen María estableció un modelo de conducta desde cada contexto histórico-cultural, remarcando especialmente los ideales de maternidad y virginidad. Dentro del imaginario católico, la Europa contemporánea ha estado marcada por la formación de una cultura aparicionista que se ha generadoa partir de diversas apariciones marianas que han establecido un canon y un marco de interpretación que ha alimentado las guerras culturales entre secularismo y catolicismo.PALABRAS CLAVE: catolicismo, Virgen María, cultura aparicionista, Lourdes, guerras culturales.ABSTRACTThe history of Christianity cannot be understood without the complex Marian phenomenon. Marian devotion has reinforced the construction of collective, but also of individual identities. The figure of the Virgin Mary established a model of conduct through each historical-cultural context, emphasizing in particular the ideals of maternity and virginity. Within the Catholic imaginary, contemporary Europe has been marked by the formation of an apparitionist culture generated by various Marian apparitions that have established a canon and a framework of interpretation that has fuelled the cultural wars between secularism and Catholicism.KEY WORDS: Catholicism, Virgin Mary, apparicionist culture, Lourdes, culture wars. BIBLIOGRAFÍAAlbert Llorca, M., “Les apparitions et leur histoire”, Archives de Sciences Sociales des religions, 116 (2001), pp. 53-66.Albert, J.-P. y Rozenberg G., “Des expériences du surnaturel”, Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions, 145 (2009), pp. 9-14.Amanat A. y Bernhardsson, M. T. (eds.), Imagining the End. Visions of Apocalypsis from the Ancient Middle East to Modern America, London and New York, I. B. Tauris, 2002.Angelier, F. y Langlois, C. 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Les couronnements de vierges de pèlerinage à l’époque contemporaine (XIXe et XXe siècles), Limoges, Presses universitaires de Limoges, 2011.D´Orsi, A., 1917, o ano que mudou o mundo, Lisboa, Bertrand Editora, 2017.De Fiores, S., Maria. Nuovissimo dizionario, Bologna, EDB, 2 vols., 2006.Delumeau, J., Rassurer et protéger. Le sentiment de sécurité dans l’Occident d’autrefois, Paris, Fayard, 1989.Dozal Varela, J. C., “Nueva Jerusalén: a 38 años de una aparición mariana apocalíptica”, Nuevo Mundo, Mundos Nuevos, 2012, s.p.Driessen, H., “Local Religion Revisited: Mediterranean Cases”, History and Anthropology, 20/3 (2009), pp. 281-288.Driessen, H., “Local Religion Revisited: Mediterranean Cases”, History and Anthropology, 20/3 (2009), p. 281-288.González Sánchez, C. A., Homo viator, homo scribens. Cultura gráfica, información y gobierno en la expansión atlántica (siglos XV-XVII), Madrid, Marcial Pons, 2007.Grignion de Montfort, L. M., Escritos marianos selectos, Madrid, San Pablo, 2014.Harris, R., Lourdes. Body and Spirit in the Secular Age, London, Penguin Press, 1999.Harvey, J., Photography and Spirit, London, Reaktion Books, 2007.Hood, B., Supersense: Why We Believe in the Unbelievable, New York, HarperOne, 2009.Horaist, B., La dévotion au Pape et les catholiques français sous le Pontificat de Pie IX (1846-1878), Palais Farnèse, École Française de Rome, 1995.Kselman, T., Miracles and Prophecies in Nineteenth Century France, New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press, 1983.Lachapelle, S., Investigating the Supernatural: From Spiritism and Occultism to Psychical Research and Metapsychics in France, 1853-1931, Baltimore, The John Hopkins University Press, 2011.Langlois, C., “Mariophanies et mariologies au XIXe siècles. Méthode et histoire”, en Comby, J. (dir.), Théologie, histoire et piété mariale, Lyon, Profac, 1997, pp. 19-36.Laurentin, R. y Sbalchiero, P. 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Una aproximación interdisciplinar a las religiones antiguas y contemporáneas, Barcelona, Editorial Universitat Oberta Catalunya, 2003.Martina, G., Pio IX (1846-1850), Roma, Università Gregoriana, 1974.Martina, G., Pio IX (1851-1866), Roma, Università Gregoriana,1986.Martina, G., Pio IX (1867-1878), Roma, Università Gregoriana, 1990.Maunder, C., “The Footprints of Religious Enthusiasm: Great Memorials and Faint Vestiges of Belgium´s Marian Apparition Mania of the 1930s”, Journal of Religion and Society, 15 (2013), s.p.Maunder, C., Our Lady of the Nations: Apparitions of Mary in Twentieth-century Catholic, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2016.Mínguez, R., “Las múltiples caras de la Inmaculada: religión, género y nación en su proclamación dogmática (1854)”, Ayer, 96 (2014), pp. 39-60.Moreno Luzón, J., “Entre el progreso y la virgen del Pilar. La pugna por la memoria en el centenario de la Guerra de la Independencia”, Historia y política, 12 (2004), pp. 41-78.Moro, R., “Religion and Politics in the Time of Secularisation: The Sacralisation of Politics and the Politicisation of Religion”, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 6/1 (2005), pp. 71-86.Multon, H., “Catholicisme intransigeant et culture prophétique: l’apport des Archives du Saint Office et de l’Index”, Revue historique, 621 (2002), pp. 109-137.Osterhammel, J., The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2014.Oviedo Torró, L., “Natural y sobrenatural: un repaso a los debates recientes”, en Alonso Bedate, A. (ed.), Lo natural, lo artificial y la cultura, Madrid, Universidad Pontificia Comillas, pp. 151-166.Pelikan, J., María a través de los siglos. 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One of the defining paradoxes of interwar France was the coexistence of a deep-rooted belief in national decadence with the development of a wide range of innovative organisations, cumulatively mobilising millions of people, as a means of fighting this supposed decline. While women played a key role in perpetuating the belief that the Republic was deteriorating, created numerous politically-oriented groups and entered into the government as ministers for the first time, these facts have barely entered into scholarly analysis of the state of France's political culture. Beginning in the 1960s a narrative of stagnation tended to dominate scholars’ interpretations of the interwar years. Reflective of the times, gender was absent from such analyses, as scholars defined ‘politics’ in certain ways and assumed that political actors were men. The influential political scientist Stanley Hoffman, for example, insisted that this was a period of stalemate, essentially the consequence of a failure to modernise during the Third Republic (1870–1940). Hoffman argued that peasants, small business and the bourgeoisie coalesced to advocate for protectionist measures and resist social and economic reforms. This conservative agenda was facilitated by governments that sought to limit economic change, which contributed to ministerial instability: during the interwar period, the French government changed forty-seven times, compared to thirty in Poland and Romania, nine in Great Britain and an average of one per year in Weimar Germany, Belgium and Sweden. For Anglophone and Francophone proponents of the idea of a systemic crisis, the Third Republic appears fundamentally flawed, crippled by an intrinsic defect rather than a democratic government that opened spaces for dynamic groups and movements to effect real change.

The symbol of apocalypse contains strong political connotations linked to eschatological expectations: the faith in a divine intervention on the course of history has often generated social instability, outbreaks of violence, and ideological claims.This article aims to demonstrate as the overlap between apocalyptic symbolism and political phenomena is still ongoing, even assuming new critical implications in connection with recent geopolitical dynamics on a global scale.The detection of the apocalyptic trends is supported by a historical premise, a brief summary of theoretical perspectives, and three study cases: the presence of messianic aspects in US imperialism, the influence of the doctrine of the Hidden Imam in the Iranian politics during the Ahmadinejad presidency, and the use of apocalyptic prophecies in the Islamic State’s propaganda

The purpose of the article is to analyze the role of intellectuals in the political life of France based on the study of the views and state activities of the famous French historian and political figure François Guizot (1787–1874). The author examines the relationship between the historical views of Guizot, his understanding of the main problems of French and European history, his public and state activities during the Restoration (1814–1830) and the July Monarchy (1830–1848). The theme of the intelligentsia in power is most vividly revealed through the personality and activities of F. Guizot. He was more than just the leading politician of the July Monarchy. He enriched such fields of knowledge as history, pedagogy, constitutional law, sociology, political science. Similarly to many of his contemporaries, Guizot pursued two careers at the same time: scientific and political. However, Guizot’s failure as a politician overshadowed Guizot as a scientist. The article concludes that history and politics have always been closely intertwined for Guizot. Guizot searched in the past for answers to questions pertaining to modern France. Guizot saw history as a direct continuation of politics. In doing so, Guizot took into account not only the lessons of the past. He formulated his concept of French leadership in Europe and built a theoretical framework for his foreign policy based on knowledge of history. In addition, the article concludes: turning to the historical heritage of France and Europe for Guizot was important not only from a practical point of view, but also from the point of view of morality and education. For him, the history of the development of civilization was the history of the moral improvement of mankind.