Browsing by Author "Miller, Martin"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7

Open Access
Caught in Between: The Japanese “Men of High Purpose” of the Nineteenth Century and Their Ambiguous Position Between Assassin and Terrorist.
(2018-06-11) Zhao, Yiming
For a long time, the mid-nineteenth century Japanese shishi, or “men of high purpose,” have been considered terrorists for their violent campaign under the banner “revere the emperor, expel the barbarians.” As a result of a series of assassination plotted by the shishi in the 1860s, scholars often refer to them as terrorists without always providing a detailed assessment. Following the three criteria of historian Martin A. Miller (The Foundations of Modern Terrorism, 2013) in differentiating terrorism from other genres of political violence—“fear,” “violent entanglement,” and “contestation over state legitimacy”— this paper attempts to shed further light on our understanding of the shishi violence in Tokugawa Japan. This project investigates both individual shishi like Ōshio Heihachirō and Yoshida Shōin as well as collective shishi movement in the early 1860s. It pays special attention to both shishi and the state’s justification in using violence. This project also argues that the shishi cannot be collectively defined as either terrorists or non-terrorists. Although they appeared unified in fighting for the same political course, a deep investigation reveals some notable differences among them. For example, some shishi attacked foreigners, whereas others assassinated statespersons; some shishi chose violence as the last resort, while others preferred it over available peaceful means. Furthermore, the author argues that there existed a disjuncture between the overarching shishi ideology on top and individual shishi’s motives in practicing the terror and violence. All these variations complicate one’s understanding of shishi’s political identity.
Open Access
Corruption and the Counterrevolution: the Rise and Fall of the Black Hundred
(2007-12-17) Langer, Jacob
This dissertation analyzes the ideology and activities of the Black Hundred movement at the end of the Imperial period in Russia (1905-1917). It seeks to explain the reasons for the sudden, rapid expansion of Black Hundred organizations in 1905, as well as the causes of their decline, which began just two years after their appearance. It further attempts to elucidate the complex relationship between the Black Hundred and Russian authorities, including the central government and local officials. The problem is approached by offering two distinct perspectives on the Black Hundred. First, a broad overview of the movement is presented. The focus here is on the headquarter branches of Black Hundred organizations in St. Petersburg, but these chapters also look at the activities of many different provincial branches, relating trends in the provinces to events in the center in order to draw conclusions about the nature of the overall movement. Second, this dissertation offers an extended case study of the Black Hundred in the city of Odessa, where a particularly large and violent Black Hundred movement emerged in 1906. It explores the factors that made Odessa conducive to the Black Hundred, and explains events in Odessa as symptomatic of the overall condition of Black Hundred groups. The research is based primarily on material from archives in Moscow and Odessa comprising police reports and resolutions approved at national monarchist congresses. It also draws on memoirs, newspaper accounts from the liberal, leftist, and Black Hundred press, and the secondary literature. The framework primarily consists of analyzing the membership, leadership, ideology, funding, and activities of the Black Hundred organizations that served as the main expression of the monarchist movement. This dissertation concludes that the decline of the Black Hundred cannot be attributed to the harmful actions of government officials, as historians have previously argued. Instead, the movement lost public confidence and fell victim to bitter infighting owing to the corruption of Black Hundred leaders, both in the center and in the provinces. Because Black Hundred organizations enjoyed the backing of many state officials and the outspoken support of the tsar, they were often perceived as officially-sponsored parties. This attracted many unscrupulous members who hoped to use their links to the Black Hundred to cultivate official connections or to identify money-making opportunities. These members, often rising to leadership positions, proved particularly prone to corruption, a habit that ruined the organizations' finances, sparked bitter internecine rivalries, and ultimately discredited the entire movement.
Open Access
Red Lovers and Mothers on the Silver Screen: Hollywood’s Feminine Lens on the Soviet Debate from 1933-1945
(2014-10-06) Justice, Katherine
The main goal of this thesis is to examine images of Russians in Hollywood film from 1933 to 1945, the years representing U.S. recognition of the U.S.S.R. through their WWII partnership as allies to the conclusion of the war. To narrow the focus of this study, films covered within this argument focus solely on images of Soviet-era Russian women. The woman plays an important role in these films, often standing as a metaphor for the Soviet nation and provides a useful trope to define the United States’ myth of nation, approach to foreign policy, and cultural understanding of the Russian people. I argue that Hollywood film feminized the image of Russia in film and defined her as the “Other” to help both justify the United States’ ideological fears and illustrate our desires for its political behavior on the body and actions of the female. Of primary importance to my argument are films such as Ninotchka, Comrade X, North Star, Song of Russia, and Days of Glory, which feature Russian women in two archetypal roles: as lover or mother. Following the argument that images of Russian women are tropes within these films that persist to this day, I explore how gender coding has helped restructure and reinforce structures of American society and history through a process of Americanizing the image and reinforcing the patriarchal power system of the United States. In this context, the lover and mother are actually not realistic representations of Russian ideology or culture but are evocative symbols that are employed to define “Otherness” of a foreign people in terms of the American status quo, reflect and to define the culture of the U.S. nation, and justify its political motives.
Open Access
Revisiting Jewish Role in Polish Security Service, the UB: Between Soviet Communist Rule and a Hard Place 1945-1948
(2016-05-09) Knebel, Batya
This research paper provides insight into the political considerations and goals of the regime to institute a new order in Poland. It is ironic that after World War II, at the very time when the Jewish people was recovering from near-elimination, they become the enforcers of Soviet authority in Poland. The research challenges the Polish denial of anti-Semitism and false truth by investigating how Jews became the convenient, trusted employees with sensitive positions in Poland’s controlled intelligence organization, particularly in the wake of the war’s destruction, as well as being regarded as racially inferior and “enemies of the state” in postwar Poland. The study fills the gaps in the current historiography of the period in understanding the limits of Jewish participation in its service. My statistical analysis of IPN tables shows that Jewish participation in the managerial positions of the security service was not proportionally that high to warrant the stereotypical accusation of over representation, but rather it points to other variables that were involved in shaping this stereotype. Ironically, the small fraction of the surviving Jews, who was represented in the new post-war power structure, had limited influence on security issues. Post-war years were marked with intense attacks on Jewish communities, which the government did not succeed to control.
Open Access
Russian Literary Conflicts over the Antinihilist Novel, 1861-1881
(2021-04-05) Ali, Muhammad
This thesis examines the representation of nihilism in antinihilist and radical novels written in post-emancipation Tsarist Russia, between 1861 and 1881. During this period, nihilism emerged as a social and political phenomenon and contributed not only to the emerging differences between the generation of the “superfluous men” (1840s) and of the prominent literary critics (1860s), but also to the radicalization of a segment of society. As a result, it was actively discussed and debated in most of the literature produced in this period. I have limited my analysis to three of the major works written during this time: Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Sons, Nikolai Chernyshevsky's What Is To Be Done?, and Fyodor Dostoevsky's Demons. Through my analysis of literary conflicts within these novels, I have explicated connections between the novels, identified influences over the authors, and explored how representations of nihilism evolved within Russian society during the 1860s and the 1870s.
Open Access
The Last Shall Be First: The Genealogy of Russian Historical Exceptionalism and the Road to Revolution, 1830-1917
(2023-04-22) Duan, Patrick
The legitimacy of Russia’s October Revolution of 1917 is widely debated due to its divergences from a western-centric Marxist view of historical progression. In particular, socialism was hastily declared amid underdeveloped economic conditions while being executed via authoritarian means. Scholars have long sought to either critique or justify such conspicuous departures from Marxist Orthodoxy and Occidental normativity. This thesis looks past the Marxist and western-centric parameters of discussion to instead investigate the indigenous intellectual traditions which prefigured, influenced, and shaped these peculiar characteristics of the Russian Revolution. Contrary to the dominant view that the Russian revolutionary tradition was essentially unilaterally defined by a ‘Westernizing’ worldview, this thesis discloses alternative roots of revolution in an anti-western philosophy that diametrically opposed the former ethos. To draw this connection across eight decades, this study uncovers ideological continuities across multiple movements, otherwise thought to be mutually-hostile, ultimately identifying and organizing a novel genealogy of ideas. This investigation finds that the non-western ‘aberrations’ of the Russian Revolution were rather a logical continuation of an intellectual heritage which precisely sought to bulk Western precedents for a historically-exceptional road of the nation’s own.
Open Access
The Origin of the Curaçao Sephardim and The Bond which Held the Diaspora Together
(2016-02-23) Galletta Lewis, Melissa
The Origin of the Curaçao Sephardim and the Bond Which Held the Diaspora Together explores two main questions regarding the Jewish Diaspora of Curaçao, "Where did the Jews of Curaçao originate from?" and "How did this diaspora, although scattered over time and space, remain unbroken for over five centuries? I trace the diaspora's origin to the Sephardic Jews of the Iberian Peninsula and examine how they came to the New World and Curaçao. I first analyze the Sephardim in the Americas from a historical perspective, tracking the Sephardic Jewish origin from Spain and follow their exile to Portugal in the late 1400s, then to the Netherlands exploring their travels to South America, and ultimately to the island of Curaçao in the 1600s. The journey begins by studying the Spanish Inquisition and how it served as the point of transformation which led to the first significant exodus of the Sephardic Jewish population out of Spain. I analyze how Christopher Columbus' first transatlantic journey may have been responsible for the initial introduction of the Sephardim to the New World. Following the expulsion and migration of the Sephardim from Spain and Portugal to the Netherlands, I explore how the Amsterdam Jews influenced the growth of a derivative Jewish Diaspora in the New World and Curaçao, exploring the Sephardim's expansive mercantile and business networks. I also analyze the sociological profile and cultural practices of the Curaçao Sephardic Diaspora in order to understand how the group avoided cultural and religious assimilation. One significant question is how did the Diaspora maintain its religious identity during a time of intense anti-Semitism? Ideological clashes and disputes of Curacao’s Jewish community and congregation are examined as they faced religious reform. In addition, central ties and influential figures among Curacao’s Jews, for example prominent Hahams and Rabbis, are studied to see how they shaped Curacao’s Jewish community. As I trace the history of these Caribbean Sephardic Jews, I examine how the diaspora remained loyal to Jerusalem through monetary donations and other gestures. This project reveals how the Sephardim faced and overcame both the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions, cultural and religious intolerance, and how they remained connected through time and distance and ultimately built one of the most successful Jewish Diasporas in the New World.