European History Commons^™

Life Is Beautiful, Or Not: The Myth Of The Good Italian, Shira Klein

History Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"Life is Beautiful illustrates a popular misconception about Italy's role in the Holocaust. The film features the good Italian and the warped view that Italy treated Jews kindly in the late 1930s and during World War II. Historians have proven this claim to be grossly exaggerated, arguing that Italians persecuted Jews vigorously. Yet popular representations of the past-films, novels, museum exhibits, and websites-continue to give credence to the notion that Italians were overwhelmingly good to Jews. Although France and Germany cultivated similar self-acquitting myths in the decades immediately after the war, they eventually moved on to accept the more …

Eis Ein Vergessenes Ladungsgut, Ingo Heidbrink

History Faculty Publications

Natural ice was an important maritime cargo throughout the 19th and 20th century with Norway being the largest European ice exporting nation in Europe. This trade was mainly operated with small to medium size wooden sailing vessels and often secured long time survival of these craft. Although it is not known if any of today's historic sailing ships operating in European waters, has ever actually transported natural ice, this trade among others contributed to the survival of the fleet. While today ice is mainly considered as an obstacle for the operation of historic watercraft, it was actually one of the …

The Ill-Treatment Of Their Countrywoman: Liberated African Women, Violence, And Power In Tortola, 1807–1834, Arianna Browne

Master's Theses

In 1807, Parliament passed an Act to abolish the slave trade, leading to the Royal Navy’s campaign of policing international waters and seizing ships suspected of illegal trading. As the Royal Navy captured slave ships as prizes of war and condemned enslaved Africans to Vice-Admiralty courts, formerly enslaved Africans became “captured negroes” or “liberated Africans,” making the subjects in the British colonies. This work, which takes a microhistorical approach to investigate the everyday experiences of liberated Africans in Tortola during the early nineteenth century, focuses on the violent conditions of liberated African women, demonstrating that abolition consisted of violent contradictions …

Book Review: Marie-Angèle Lovis. Un Village Suisse Émigré: Le Cas De Cornol Dans Le Canton Du Jura (1815-1956), Dwight Page

Swiss American Historical Society Review

A great deal has been published concerning emigration from German-speaking, Alemannic Switzerland. The present book fulfills the great need to give more attention to the French speaking cantons of the western part of Switzerland, La Suisse romande.

To Touch The Heavens: A Short Story, Sarah Hedrick

Swiss American Historical Society Review

A light Swiss breeze blew through Heidi’s curly blonde hair as she and her grandfather Adolph walked along the mountain path. They had been walking up the mountainside for several hours and were nearing the top. Heidi couldn’t wait to get to the mountaintop; it was the one part of the mountain that she had never been to before. Her grandfather told her that when you were at the top, you’re up so high that you can almost reach up and touch the heavens. However, the trek was quite long, and Heidi had never gone that far up the mountain …

Compromised Values: Charlotte Posenenske, 1966–Present, Ian Wallace

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Fabricated in unlimited series and sold at cost, the sculptures produced by Charlotte Posenenske between 1966 and 1967—modular wall reliefs, interactive cubic structures, and tubular geometric units whose installation requires collective decision making—were meant to confront both the artwork’s commodity status and the limitation of its consumption to a privileged elite. Nevertheless, Posenenske’s work has been effectively recuperated by the art system: first, in the 1980s, through a series of exhibitions and publications organized by her estate; and second, with her inclusion in Documenta 12 in 2007, which reintroduced her work to the market. Since the artist’s death in 1985, …

Lawful Violence: The Relationship Between Marriage And Conflict In The Wars Of The Roses, Hannah R. Keller

Masters Theses

England’s King Edward IV married Elizabeth Woodville in 1464. Edward’s sister Margaret of York married Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, in 1468. Both marriages occurred during England’s fifteenth-century conflict, the Wars of the Roses. And both created conflict between Edward, Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick, and France’s King Louis XI. Most historians regard this conflict as either a sign of or product of disorder. I, however, argue that both marriages could have been a calculated form of “lawful” violence known as disworship used to damage the political capital of Warwick and Louis and thereby instigate war with France. …

"Rivals And Partners”: The Competition For Control Of Judenpolitik In Reichskommissariat Ostland (1941–1944), Barbara Lynne Bailin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The dissertation recounts and investigates the impact of the bureaucratic conflicts inherent in the Nazi state apparatus in the implementation of Judenpolitik in an underdeveloped research area--the mass murder of Baltic Jews during World War II. It focuses specifically on Hinrich Lohse, the newly appointed Reichskommissar of the Reichskommissariat Ostland, the German-occupied Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia and parts of western Belorussia in the Soviet Union (known as the RKO), as he sought to navigate the bureaucratic clashes in what was, arguably, one of the most contentious conflicts within the senior Nazi leadership, that is, the Wehrmacht’s …

The King Of Witchcraft: Scotland's Witchcraft Crisis And Religious Politics Under King James Vi, Tristan Rimmer

LSU Master's Theses

In 1590 King James VI of Scotland was the supposed target of diabolical witchcraft; the North Berwick witches were accused of attempting to sink the ship carrying James and his new bride from Copenhagen back to Edinburgh following their marriage. This event set off a widespread witch-hunt in Scotland, one that James took a personal and vested interest in. The hunt continued through 1597, occurring across multiple Scottish locales, resulting in judicial statute rearrangements, and famously inspiring James’ treatise Daemonologie. In addition to Daemonlogie, James also wrote multiple treatises on the theory of divine right in the midst …

Against All Odds, British Government Policies And Civil Defense During The Blitz, Shawna Lynn Kozisek

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

During World War I, technological advances in air power expanded the field of battle beyond the front lines and British civilians previously insulated from the realities of war experienced a new threat from the air. This experience highlighted the impact of modern warfare on citizens and the need for greater home defense measures. Bombing attacks in Europe, Asia, and Africa during the 1930s further demonstrated this type of conflict, making British civil defense more critical. After nine months between September 7, 1940 and May 10, 1941, over 40,000 civilians perished from the bombs dropped by the German air force on …

Between Myth And Memory: The Case Of Italian Fascist World War I Monuments, Grant Gregory Topjon

Theses - ALL

"Between Myth and Memory: The Case of Italian Fascist World War I Monuments" examines the relationship between Italian soldiers' testimonies from the First World War and later Italian Fascist monuments that commemorated their sacrifices. During the First World War, soldiers' diaries and letters home expressed feelings of abandonment, dehumanization, and a lack of patriotic enthusiasm for the war effort. Combined with the Supreme Command's widespread use of summary executions, the mass desertion at the Battle of Caporetto, and the Italian government's complete abandonment of its prisoners of war, the First World War was a tragic experience for many. By contrast, …

Between Myth And Memory: The Case Of Italian Fascist World War I Monuments, Grant Gregory Topjon

Theses - ALL

“Between Myth and Memory: The Case of Italian Fascist World War I Monuments” examines the relationship between Italian soldiers’ testimonies from the First World War and later Italian Fascist monuments that commemorated their sacrifices. During the First World War, soldiers’ diaries and letters home expressed feelings of abandonment, dehumanization, and a lack of patriotic enthusiasm for the war effort. Combined with the Supreme Command’s widespread use of summary executions, the mass desertion at the Battle of Caporetto, and the Italian government’s complete abandonment of its prisoners of war, the First World War was a tragic experience for many. By contrast, …

Continuous Extremes: Architecture Of Uncertainty In Poland, 1945—, Cayce Davis

Masters of Environmental Design Theses

In this thesis, architecture situates between extremes. The dichotomies of destruction and construction, mobility and fixity, performance and reality, inside and outside, and form and time frame architecture and the processes through which it is made. The context is Poland in the fallout of the year 1945, when Warsaw’s unique, nearly total destruction and the ascendance of a new communist regime raised the political stakes of architecture. The thesis focuses on a cast of characters in architecture and related artistic disciplines—individuals haunted by the traumas of their own pasts, negotiating a Polish state that created oppressive limitations through artistic mandates …

Marketing Race In British History: An Analysis Of The British Empire Marketing Board Posters (1926-1933), Jules Matthew Maffei

Theses and Dissertations

Contemporary instances of racially charged product imagery are deeply intertwined with history. Products like "Aunt Jemima", "Uncle Ben's Rice", or the indigenous peoples portrayed on "Land O' Lakes" butter affects perception of race, class, and gender. The continued existence of these controversially branded products helps to construct attitudes about these subjects and demonstrates a societal acceptance of these as norms. The British Empire Marketing Board (EMB) represents an important historical example of the production of such racialized values. Between 1926 and 1933, the EMB created and disseminated marketing materials to promote intra-Empire trade. While the EMB was generally considered to …

Session 2: Panel 1: Presenter 1 (Paper) -- The Struggle Of The Soul Medieval Women Mystics And The Constraints Of The Orthodoxy, Kasaundra A. Bonanno

Young Historians Conference

First Corinthians 14:34 tells us, “let your women keep silence in the churches for it is not permitted unto them to speak.” But what happened when medieval women in the 12-15th centuries did speak, and what techniques did they apply to gain credibility? This paper explores the various methods (along with cultural aspects such as the appearance of piousness) women mystics utilized to gain power within the Church in a time when their voices were silenced, and the factors that allowed individuals such as Catherine of Siena to gain incredible influence where individuals like Joan of Arc were burned at …

Session 1: Panel 3: Presenter 3 (Paper) -- The Reforms Of Mikhail Gorbachev And Their Effect On The Ussr, Fevronia M. Van Sickle

Young Historians Conference

This paper explores the influence of Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies on Soviet governance in relation to the USSR’s foundational ideology of communism, and the factors that led to the Union’s demise.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, most commonly referred to as the USSR, came into being in the early 20th century and lasted only around seventy years. Built upon revolutionary Marxist ideology, the USSR governed according to the ideology of communism while simultaneously contradicting the very ideology that formed its foundations, such as clinging to the existence of a state. Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the …

Session 1: Panel 2: Presenter 2 (Paper) -- The Irish Language And Nationalism In The 20th Century, Charlotte Cody

Young Historians Conference

Under centuries of British colonial rule, mass emigration, and discriminatory laws, the Irish language took a secondary position to English. As Irish nationalist ideology gained momentum in the early 20th century, Irish became useful and popular as a powerful symbol of resilience and a discrete national identity. However, the significance of Irish to nationalism had a mixed impact on its perception across the island due to the violence and sectarianism that accompanied the struggle for independence. This paper explores the influence that this divisive history had and continues to exert on the perception of and legislation supporting the Irish language, …

An Ominous Horizon: Fascism On The Rise, Matt Bergh, Carol Helstosky

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

The notorious dictator, Bentio Mussolini, became Prime Minister of Italy in 1922- 3 years after the Treaty of Versailles concluded the settlements for World War I in the summer of 1919. Shortly thereafter, Mussolini established his formidable dictatorship that would last 23 years. Post-war Italy experienced economic stagnation, high unemployment, inflation, frequent labor strikes, and stalled production and output among other problems. Many Italians were also frustrated that their country did not receive more recognition in the Versailles Treaty for its contribution to the Allied Cause in the Great War. Interestingly, though, the situation in Italy was very similar to …

Meddling In The Post-Black Death Economy: Edward Iii’S Policies To Repress The Peasantry, Leah Diciesare, Daniel Melleno

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

The Black Death caused a mass mortality in England, drastically affecting society. However, it was the aftermath of the plague that had the greatest impacts. The loss of life removed pressure on the economy due to population density, which gave the peasants opportunities to improve their lives. But that was a short-lived phenomenon; the peasantry ultimately remained repressed, as they had been prior to the plague. Edward III meddled in the English economy in the wake of the Black Death by introductions price and wage regulations. These efforts were to maintain the status quo in English society so that the …

Developing Effective Intervention: A Case Study Of Genocidal Moments In Srebrenica And Kosovo, Caleb Bryan

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

Despite numerous treaties and international agreements aimed at stopping genocide, genocidal mass killings continue to take place within the current international system. In order to better understand how to best combat genocide, scholars have developed two main approaches: intervention and prevention. The interventionist approach argues genocide can be stopped in its tracks through use of military force and targeted diplomacy, while the preventionist approach argues pre-emptive action is needed to truly stop genocide. Both approaches, however, have relied too heavily on hypothetical analysis of how past genocides could have turned out differently given certain factors. This study instead aims to …