Biography

[English abstract]:
Abstract

In trying to fathom the crux of Rumi’s mystical ghazals, there is the thrill of investigation, the mental challenge of evaluating discordant sources, and the prospect of a better understanding of what Rumi wanted to say to his disciples, and by extension, what he might have wanted to say to us. Rumi tells a famous story, ultimately from a Buddhist source, in which people encounter an elephant for the first time in their lives, but it is in a pitch-black room, so that they are forced to feel it with their hands. Everyone comes up with a different description of the beast, based upon whether he touches the trunk, the tusks, the legs, the tail, the sides, and they fall to disputation, for lack of a candle to illuminate the truth. It was because of their vantage points that they disagreed.
All of us approach Rumi’s elephant from a particular, limited, vantage point. How might Rumi teach us to resolve these limitations? As we progress on our quest, step by step, toward the encounter with God, some are above us, some below us, but we cannot know where others are, and must be humble. We need a guide. Maybe not just one – who in Rumi’s case was the example of the Prophet Muhammad, but also there was Shams, then Salâh al-Din then Hosâm al-Din, and of course all through his life, his own spiritual practices. Perhaps, whatever civilization we identify with, his work may have something to tell us about how to avoid the kind of clash that diverts us from the path toward truth. Even if it does not fulfill that very lofty function, you may find that there are very beautiful stories and engaging, memorable poems from this 13th century Persian mystic, Rumi. Try to understand them historically, try to understand them traditionally, try to understand them spiritually, try to understand them poetically, try to understand them seriously.

El álbum reproduce todas las fotografías y los retratos del poeta hechos durante su vida. Además, incluye un disco compacto con las únicas imágenes fílmicas que se conservan del poeta, tomadas durante el II Congreso Internacional de Escritores para la Defensa de la Cultura en 1937.

Après avoir retracé brièvement l’histoire de la Casa Buonarroti de Florence, maison familiale devenue une sorte de temple domestique à la gloire de Michel-Ange, et présenté Michelangelo Buonarroti il Giovane (1568-1646), le descendant de l’artiste qui prit l’initiative de cette transformation, cet article s’intéresse plus particulièrement à la Galleria, pièce d’apparat dont la riche décoration peinte et sculptée dessine une véritable vie en images de l’artiste. Cette intention biographique est surtout évidente dans le cycle des Storie, dix grandes toiles réalisées par les meilleurs peintres florentins de l’époque et mettant en scène Michel-Ange aux côtés des princes et des papes pour lesquels il travailla. Dans ces images, l’exaltation du prestige social de l’artiste va de pair avec une censure qui frappe aussi bien les aspects manuels de son métier que le côté « saturnien » de sa personnalité, jugés sans doute incompatibles avec un idéal s’inspirant du modèle aristocratique. Dans ce contexte, la toile évoquant l’activité poétique de Michel-Ange – due à la collaboration entre Cristofano Allori et Zanobi Rosi et première œuvre connue traitant ce sujet – constitue une exception remarquable : en plus de souligner l’association étroite entre inspiration et mélancolie, en effet, elle emprunte aux Rime de l’artiste les symboles de ce sentiment de vanitas qui hante toute œuvre humaine. Tiraillée entre sociabilité prestigieuse et solitude créatrice, entre indépendance et soumission politique, l’image de Michel-Ange que construit la Galleria fait ainsi apparaître les tensions qui parcourent l’élaboration d’un nouveau modèle intellectuel dans l’Italie du XVIIe siècle.

En este ensayo, Cesar Vallejo en Madrid en 1931, Carlos Fernández y Valentino Gianuzzi analizan y tratan de reconstruir el periodo comprendido entre el 30 de diciembre de 1930 y el 12 de febrero de 1932, que constituye el lapso de tiempo más extenso que César Vallejo vivió en Madrid.

كتاب تراجم يتناول حوالي 1000 شخصية كويتية من الرجال والنساء في القديم والحاضر ممن قدموا جهوداً في سبيل رفعة شأن الكويت دون قصد إلى مكانة تاريخية أو شهرة زمانية أو دعاية متعمدة. وقد تم سرد البيانات تحت الشخصيات في ترتيبها الهجائي وفقاً للأسماء التي عُرف بها أصحابها، مع توفير كشافات تساعد القارئ على الوصول للشخصية بأي صورة من صور اسمه؛ سواء الاسم الطبيعي أو اسم العائلة أو اسم الشهرة...الخ. كما يشتمل الكتاب على ثلاثة ملاحق بأسماء بعض الفئات الهامة في تاريخ الكويت ممن لا تنطبق عليهم منهجية التغطية الشاملة للعلم.

As a German historian recently remarked, for Germany Adolf Hitler was the “off-spring,” the outstanding legacy, of World War I, and no one doubts that.1 He himself started his political career in 1919 in the wake of a lost war and the crushing peace of Versailles. That treaty reduced Germany’s territory by 14 percent and its population by 6.5 million citizens. It created for Germany large minorities outside its new borders and for the time being an unlimited reparations liability.2 Hitler’s rise to dictatorship is unthinkable without the humiliation and misery that resulted for the German people out of their defeat. And still: was he bound to become the war’s nemesis in destroying the Weimar Republic? This article thus asks the question whether Hitler’s rise to power from Germany’s defeat to the proclamation of the Third Reich was inevitable. For that purpose the ways in which Germans tried to come to terms with their defeat and the war’s legacies will be discussed. As an illustration the article focuses on two highly popular political doctrines, both legacies of the war of its own—both in different ways denying the hopelessness of Germany’s military situation at the end of the war. These were: (1) the doctrine of the so-called “stab-in-the-back” (Dolchstoss); and (2) the doctrine of the so-called “war guilt lie” (Kriegsschuldlüge). At its conclusion, this analysis will raise the question as to whether Hitler’s exploitation of these two doctrines immediately led to his dictatorship.
(1) The stab-in-the-back doctrine first was foreshadowed, when, on October 3, 1918, the German government requested an armistice with the Allies and peace negotiations on the basis of the peace program that President Woodrow Wilson had propagated. To the German public this move was an absolutely shattering surprise. Until then the German High Command had failed to admit the increasing seriousness of Germany’s military position resulting from strategic overstretch and military exhaustion.3 Instead, all the public had perceived was that the German troops fighting in France had protected them against the direct experience of war and that in the East Germany's predominance extended as far as the Caucasus Mountains. How then could Germany’s bid be explained?4 Could it be that the million-fold sacrifice of lives had been in vain? The gap that throughout the war had yawned between far-flung popular hopes and the grim military reality thus deepened even further. Other, non military reasons, it was believed, must have been behind Germany’s sudden giving up. The German military command concealed what it had confessed to the political leadership in Berlin—that it feared German troops in France were on the verge of being routed. To avoid a public loss of face, it claimed that nonmilitary reasons lay behind Germany’s critical military situation. Ludendorff, the de facto highest commander of Germany’s troops, concocted an explanation by inventing the stab-in-the-back doctrine. Germany had sued for an armistice, he asserted in a confidential talk with his officers, because it had become impossible to continue the war. This was due to the “poison” of Marxist–Socialist propaganda that had undermined the soldiers’ resolution to go on fighting and made them “unreliable,” although the chances of a successful defense, if not victory, continued to be good.5 Ludendorff’s statement initiated a lengthy process of political onus shifting between military and civil authorities, between the Right and the Left, regarding the responsibility for the military disaster that was threatening their country.6
Actually, the antecedents of this doctrine went further back—well into the fall of 1916. At that point, under the impression of a precarious military situation during the battle of the Somme, the first doubts arose in Germany regarding the prospects of a victory. A heated controversy about the war’s purpose and Germany’s war aims broke out. The military leadership and the exponents of the nationalist right kept insisting that a total victory was indispensable that would ensure sizable annexations, improve Germany’s geopolitical position, and entail a reward for the sacrifices the German people had made. Significantly, it was also held that only the perspective of a total victory would maintain morale at home and at the front.7 The forces of the German Center and Left, not least Labor, on the other hand, pressed for a peace of accommodation based on a military tie as the only realistic way out of a war that Germany apparently could not win. The real reward of the war seemed to be liberal reforms in Prussia and the Empire.8 On July 19, 1917, a majority of the German Reichstag passed a resolution demanding just that.9 To the rightist die-hards this amounted to outright treason subverting the public morale. According to the Right, internal reforms could not be a substitute for military victory.10

The First of the Modern Ottomans blends biography with intellectual history. On the one hand, it is the story of an Ottoman life – the life of the scribe, ambassador, and prolific historian Ahmed Vâsıf (ca. 1735-1806), a man who improbably rose from obscurity in Baghdad to travel the empire, fight its wars, advise its sultans, and, in time, write its history. As a full-scale biography, the book is a rarity for the field of Ottoman history and reconstructs Vâsıf’s life, career, and opinions through meticulous research in both Ottoman and European sources. On the other hand, The First of the Modern Ottomans is also one of the first detailed intellectual studies of the early modern Ottoman Empire. Weaving together Vâsıf’s life and thought with the larger intellectual currents of the day – especially at the court of Sultan Selim III in Istanbul – it explores central debates among the Ottoman ruling elite over Europe, political reform, war and peace, justice, and the empire’s renewal. Vâsıf’s life reveals a vital response to the empire’s challenges at the turn of the nineteenth century – one that was novel and deeply enmeshed in Islamic philosophy, ethics, and statecraft.

Most modern historians perpetuate the myth that Giuliano de' Medici (1479-1516), son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, was nothing more than an inconsequential, womanizing hedonist with little inclination or ability for politics. In the first sustained biography of this misrepresented figure, Josephine Jungic re-evaluates Giuliano’s life and shows that his infamous reputation was exaggerated by Medici partisans who feared his popularity and respect for republican self-rule.

Rejecting the autocratic rule imposed by his nephew, Lorenzo (Duke of Urbino), and brother, Giovanni (Pope Leo X), Giuliano advocated restraint and retention of republican traditions, believing his family should be “first among equals” and not more. As a result, the family and those closest to them wrote him out of the political scene, and historians - relying too heavily upon the accounts of supporters of Cardinal Giovanni and the Medici regime - followed suit. Interpreting works of art, books, and letters as testimony, Jungic constructs a new narrative to demonstrate that Giuliano was loved and admired by some of the most talented and famous men of his day, including Cesare Borgia, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Niccolò Machiavelli, Leonardo da Vinci, and Raphael.

More than a political biography, this volume offers a refreshing look at a man who was a significant patron and ally of intellectuals, artists, and religious reformers, revealing Giuliano to be at the heart of the period’s most significant cultural accomplishments.

Transitional justice is a major concept in promoting peace and reconciliation between conflicting parties. It is usually associated with formal judicial processes such as criminal justice, rule-of law reform and paying reparations. This chapter focuses on another transitional justice method, a more informal one: memory work. There is a growing realization of the major impact on the way in which the history of a conflict is viewed by the members of parties involved on their psychological and behavioral reactions. Addressing that history properly can promote their well being, conflict resolution and reconciliation between the parties. There are many ways of addressing the relevant history, for example, through truth and reconciliation committees, the rewriting of history textbooks, and commemoration projects. This chapter focuses on another way: the role of the autobiographical memory, that of the people who experienced the conflict directly, as it is manifested in their memoirs, newspaper articles and interviews with scholars. To this end the chapter uses a case study approach, regarding the causes for the main historical event of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the 1948 Palestinian exodus. It explores for the first time the way in which Israeli-Jewish 1948 war veterans presented these causes between 1949 and 2004. The question posed was: did their autobiographical memory present a Zionist narrative (willing flight of the Palestinians) or a critical/post-Zionist narrative (willing flight combined with expulsion)? This exploration is based on an analysis of all published war veterans' memoirs and newspaper articles, as well as interviews with scholars, in the 56 year research period. During this study, interviews were also conducted with 1948 war veterans. Following the description of the empirical findings regarding the Israeli-Jewish autobiographical memory of the exodus, these findings are used to theoretically conceptualize various phenomena. For example, what determines the way in which direct-experience people describe their experiences during a conflict, how these people influence directly and indirectly the collective memory of their society of a given conflict, and the way in which they influence the dynamics of

Edited collection -- with chapters by Adam Smyth, Barry Windeatt, David Matthew, Molly Murray, Kathleen Lynch, Suzanne Trill, Tessa Whitehouse, Robert Folkenflik, Lynn Festa, John Richetti, David Vincent, Duncan Wu, Richard Hughes Gibson, Timothy Larsen, Carol Hanbery MacKay, Julie Codell, Stephen Colclough, Max Saunders, Georgia Johnston, Hope Wolf, Laura Marcus, Maud Ellman, Michael O'Neill, Nick Hubble, Bart Moore-Gilbert, Joseph Brooker, Neil Vickers, Roger Luckhurst, Andreas Kitzmann

Writing scientific biographies evokes the problem of representativeness or of integrating the single case into more general questions of scholarly interest. The establishment of a link between micro and macrolevels inspired the present paper, which attempts to conceptualize the link between the individual biographical case and more general questions via the concept of microhistory. Microhistory does not present an easy solution to this problem, but it can generate sensitivity for the epistemological problems and narrative pitfalls of the biographical genre
After presenting a brief overview of the methodological foundations of microhistory, I evaluate publications on German sweets manufacturer Gebrüder Stollwerck AG as examples of microhistories of globalization and of kinship in entrepreneurial families. In a third step, I examine the specifics of entrepreneur biographies, paying particular attention to their narrative structure, as they tend to explain developments from within the black box of the entrepreneur or his family. There exists a broad spectrum of research questions that may go way beyond the chronological sequence of a biographical subject’s life course.
I suggest avoiding the pitfalls of the biographical method by linking the life of the subject to a reference value, to a research question that, in the best case, provides an experimental cardinal point outside of the object of study. In this sense, biographies — as well as case studies on companies — can be understood as microhistories of X.

In 1955, Jean Cocteau commented on the retrospective exhibition of Hosayn Behzad's works at the Musée d'Art Moderne, Paris: "Hosayn Behzad is an enchanter of the East of the storytellers. (...) No doubt, in our country (...) there is only one master in the art of miniature painting and that master is Hosayn Behzad, (the) Iranian artist". Supported by an autobiographical testimony of Hosayn Behzad dating from 1953, this paper focuses on the changes that Persian miniature painting underwent in the first half of the twentieth century. At that time, the booming international art market and the increased demand for old miniatures led to several decades of the restoration of Safavid art in Iran before giving birth to a new artistic movement specific to that country, the so-called "New miniature painting," which was initiated by Hosayn Behzad. The context of its emergence and the forms taken by "New miniature painting," will be highlighted.


« Twentieth-Century Mutations of Persian Miniature Painting : A Testimony from the Iranian Miniaturist Hosein Behzad », in Markus Ritter, Ilse Sturkenboom and Fernando Valdéz Fernandéz (eds), Beiträge zur Islamischen Kunst und Archäologie, series ed. Ernst Herztfeld Gesellschaft, vol. 5, Reichert Verlag, Wiesbaden, 2017, pp. 149-166.

İnsanın kişiliğini genetik özelliklerine ek olarak doğası, tarihi, kültürü
özetle topyekûn çevresinin oluşturduğu/biçimlendirdiği varsayılmaktadır. Bu
belirleyici/biçimlendirici etmenler sanatçının sanatçı kişiliğini de belirleyerek
biçimlendirir. Sanat yapıtı sanatçının, hayal gücü tarafından tasarlanarak
uygulamasıyla somutlaşır. Tasarlayan ve yapıt olarak somutlaştıran sanatçı
ve kişiliğinin yansımalarını analiz ettiğimiz yapıtlarında görürüz. Yani yapıtı
analiz edilen sanatçının, kişiliği apaçık görülür.
Bu araştırmanın amacı, Alaybey Karoğlu resimlerini analiz ederek
sanatçının doğup büyüdüğü kültürel, çevresel ortamın kişiliği üzerinde
gerçekleştirdiği düşünülen kavramsal biçimlendirmenin yapıtlarına yansıyan
görsel yönünü ortaya koyabilmektir.
Araştırmada “literatür tarama” ve “doküman incelemesi” yöntem olarak
seçilmiştir. Araştırma bulguları doğrultusunda, Dört resim yapıtı üzerinde
yoğunlaşılarak bu yapıtların ön yapı arka yapıları ve öz’de yer alan
kavramlar analiz edilerek sanatçı kişiliğinin yapıta yansımaları ortaya
konulmuştur.
Yapılan araştırma sonucunda sanatçının doğduğu çevresel ve kültürel
ortamın yapıtlarına yansıdığını ve sanatçı kimliğinin oluşmasında çevresel
ve kültürel bütün faktörlerin etkin olarak rol aldığını söylememiz mümkündür.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Alaybey Karoğlu, Sanatçı, Yapıt, Kişilik.

THE ARTISTIC PERSONALITY AS REFLECTED IN ALABEY KAROĞLU'S
PAINTINGS
ABSTRACT
In addition to the genetic traits, it is assumed that human personality is formed by his
nature, history, culture, in a nutshell, all environment. These formative factors also shape the
artistic personality of the artist. Work of art is embodied in the application designed by the
imagination. We see the reflections of personality and artist who designed and embodied it
as work through the works we analysed. In other words, the personality of artist whose works
are analysed is observed obviously.
The aim of this study was to reveal the visual aspect of conceptual forming reflected
on his works which was thought to be effectuated on his personality through cultural and
environmental atmosphere the artist was born in and raised by analysing Alaybey Karoğlu,
paintings.

Arthur Posnansky was the illustrious pioneer of Tiwanaku archaeology, remembered as a quixotic, flamboyant, and swashbuckling character. He was a naval officer, a businessman, and a scholar. He dedicated nearly fifty years of his life to the study of the Andean past, which resonates through the history of Bolivian archaeology. While clearly not the field’s father, his commanding presence and outsized legacy could make him the czar of Tiwanaku archaeology. He developed a hyperbolic narrative of Tiwanaku as the ’cradle of American man’ and tirelessly promoted it in Europe and the Americas. Like many pioneers, he was not trained as an archaeologist. His theories were based on little concrete information but he defended them with enviable passion. His ideas were strongly influenced by intellectual trends he lived though and participated in, including racist anthropology. This has led some to dismiss him as a misguided, self-appointed champion of Tiwanaku. However, I suggest that Posnansky’s life and times are very relevant to both understanding popular views and scholarly interpretations of the site.

Husserl's phenomenology of appearances and the role of variations in the constitution of reality inspire Arendt's examinations of 'story' in The Human Condition. According to her, life is produced as a 'story'. Yet, a life story presents two significant difficulties: first, the unpredictability of events prevents individuals to be the author of their own stories, and second, due to the lack of sufficient distance to one's own story, only others can see and tell someone's story. Both claims give rise to difficulties in writing an autobiography. If narration is only possible when the narrators have sufficient distance to the narrated life, is it convincing that what they see and tell is the truth of the story? This article argues that if distance is a precondition of seeing and narrating, then variations of appearances and the reality that they constitute through different perspectives become a part of seeing and narrating.

Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Macedonia, on August 26, 1910. Her family was of Albanian descent. At the age of twelve, she felt strongly the call of God. She knew she had to be a missionary to spread the love of Christ. At the age of eighteen, she left her parental home in Skopje and joined the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns with missions in India.

Se trata de un libro que aborda la vida de José María Samper (1828-1888), figura indispensable para comprender la historia de Colombia en el siglo XIX, tras la independencia de España.
Samper, cuya prolífica obra escrita ha sido referente indispensable para los historiadores e investigadores que se han ocupado de ese siglo, se caracterizó en primer lugar por su polémica actividad como político e ideólogo. Militó tanto en el partido liberal como en el partido conservador. Ese proceso de conversión se detalla en la biografía, pues da una idea clara de su ingenio para defender posiciones y argumentos en el campo ideológico donde actuaba.
Fue, además, reputado periodista, novelista, autor de obras de teatro, de libros de viajes y dotado de una enorme capacidad intelectual en el derecho constitucional. Fue tal su visión que la Constitución de 1991 incorpora propuestas suyas. Escribió, también, una autobiografía que, aunque incompleta, aún se consulta para entender algunos pormenores de la historia colombiana. 
Su vasta producción lo sitúa como el escritor más prolífico que ha tenido Colombia. Un cálculo inicial le atribuyó 50.000 páginas a lo largo de su vida. En realidad, alcanzó la mitad de esa cifra, según se pudo leer y constatar en esta biografía. Un número, de cualquier manera, nada despreciable.
Samper fue, junto a otros personajes de la época, artífice de la construcción de la nación. Primero como revolucionario liberal y luego como sosegado conservador. Al lado de Rafael Núñez y Miguel Antonio Caro, fue determinante en la consolidación institucional del país a finales del siglo XIX. Sobre él dijo Carlos Martínez Silva, hombre de su tiempo: Samper fue “la más acabada y viva personificación de la revuelta vida democrática vivida por Colombia desde cuando se constituyó en nación independiente”. Esa personificación aparece detallada en la biografía.
Esta, por otra parte, busca que el lector obtenga, además, un conocimiento directo del pensamiento de Samper. No solo responde a un criterio pedagógico, desde luego necesario para que las nuevas generaciones comprendan una parte clave de la historia del país, cuyos efectos aún se perciben, sino a la necesidad de que ese lector se enfrente directamente con sus palabras y lo ubique adecuadamente dentro del contexto histórico.
Esta biografía se ocupa, además, de la vida matrimonial de Samper con la escritora Soledad Acosta, pionera del feminismo en Colombia y cuya obra es objeto de estudio en el país y en el extranjero desde hace algunos años.  Da cuenta de su compleja relación, su actividad compartida y su papel durante las persecuciones políticas vividas por su marido.
Para la redacción de la biografía se recurrió al estudio de varios archivos privados y a una intensa relación epistolar inédita con figuras nacionales e internacionales de la época. No menos útil resultó también el estudio de las cartas inéditas que intercambió con Soledad Acosta, donde se reflejan sus mentalidades.
De muchas maneras, Samper, un personaje transversal del poder social en Colombia, sigue en el primer plano en la historia del país durante el convulso siglo XIX. Como se dijo al momento de su muerte: “Amado por unos, atacado por otros, pero para ninguno indiferente”.

Abstract. In 1801 at the cemetery in Vienna, Austria, the skull of W.A. Mozart was exhumed, and now it has been examined for identification. The osteological findings correspond with the available data of W.A. Mozart. Additional individual particularities and a bone lesion are described. This Applied Anthropology Inquest is available at  http://www.pontecorboli.com/scheda.php?codice=puech