History Commons^™

Who Sent The Devil Down To Georgia? An Analysis Of The Causes Of The Russo-Georgian War Of 2008 And Its Effects On Georgian Democracy, Kris Bohnenstiehl

The Commons: Puget Sound Journal of Politics

No abstract provided.

The Commons: Volume 3, Issue 1, Kris Bohnenstiehl, Leona Derango, Ethan Stern-Ellis

The Commons: Puget Sound Journal of Politics

Table of Contents

• Letter From the Editors
  LILA BERNARDIN AND HANNAH WILLIAMS
• Who Sent the Devil Down to Georgia?
  KRIS BOHNENSTIEHL
• The Dehumanizing Gaze: Race in the Context of Academic Tourism
  LEONA DERANGO
• Balancing Populations of Electoral Districts
  ETHAN STERN-ELLIS

Budding Nationalism In The Black Garden; Nagorno Karabakh And The Role Of Conflict In Developing Azerbaijani National Identity, Kris Bohnenstiehl

History Theses

Azerbaijan's war with Armenia in late 2020, was dubbed the "Patriotic War" by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and his supporters. Emphasizing the nature of conflict with Armenia as the greatest possible expression of Azerbaijani nationalism, the Aliyev cabinet has utilized the conflict to generate popular support for the authoritarian government. This paper delves into the history of Azerbaijan to flesh out the roots of the conflict and better understand how Azerbaijanis understand their own national identity.

Proto-Nationalism In Scandinavia: Swedish State Building In The Middle Ages, Alexander Jacobson

Honors Program Theses

Nationalism is usually considered a modern socio-political development and a product of the French and Industrial Revolutions. However most scholarship done on nationalism largely overlooks religion, and excludes both its presence in the Middle Ages and its development in Scandinavia--focusing heavily on German, British, French, and Central European variations of nationalism. For Scandinavians in the late Middle Ages and Early Modern era, nationalism did not emerge exactly like their European counterparts. It was the product of early religious, technological, and economic changes over the course of the 15th and 16th Centuries that restructured European politics, society, and identity. Using early …

A Historiography Of Nationalism: And The Case For Scandinavia, Alexander L. Jacobson

Summer Research

This project surveys the historiography of nationalism and its theoretical shortcomings. It builds upon the work of emerging theorists and revisionists across a wide variety of disciplines and this project then contextualizes nationalism and its related theories in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. After establishing a firm history, the project ends with a quick survey of Medieval Scandinavian History and suggest that this region developed a proto-nationalism during the period. Moreover, this project looks to insert the developments of the Middle Ages into the scholarly discourse surrounding nationalism. In opposition to modernist theories of nationalism—who point to the …

‘Playing Hapsburg:’ The Hapsburg Monarchy And The Post-Yugoslav Croatian Society, Fran Leskovar

Summer Research

One of the more interesting forms of memory of the Hapsburg past, one can find in Croatia. This small European state, to borrow Benedict Anderson’s words, started to “reimagine” itself in the 1990s and reclaim its “Western” European heritage lost following admissions, first, into the South Slav Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and then authoritarian socialist state in the aftermath of World War II. Not surprising, given that many of Eastern European nations, formerly part of the Soviet sphere of influence, started to fabricate their own past and utilize nationalism as a tool of not only awakening national consciousness necessary to delegitimize …

Some Papal Bull: 16th Century Alum Trade And English Royal Autonomy, Kyra Zapf

Summer Research

The early 16^th century saw the rise of a wealthy middle class fueled by a new and expanding global textile industry. With this expansion came opportunities for exploitation fueling the rise of a new economic nationalism at odds with the ideals of a unified Christian church. In this essay, I shall be looking at the popular alum trade in Italy, Spain, and England from the 14^th to the 17^th centuries and explore how the lucrative trade profoundly shaped early modern economies, social hierarchies, governance, and law.

Alum, a dye fixative was one of the first and most …

"No Room For Denial"?: Historical Memory And The 1995 Genocide At Srebrenica, Julia Masur

History Theses

The title of this research project comes from a documentary by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) called “Srebrenica Genocide: No Room for Denial”, that commemorated the 20^th anniversary of the genocide of Bosniak Muslims.The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has called the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, “the single worst atrocity committed in the former Yugoslavia during the wars of the 1990s and the worst massacre that occurred in Europe since the months after World War II.”^[1] Based on evidence from exhumations of mass graves, demographics studies, interception of …

Queen Catherine's Material Body, Kyra Zapf

Summer Research

In an era when most women were at the mercy of their husbands and the courts who ruled in their favor, Catherine managed a long and drawn out fight against being divorced by the most powerful man in England. Material goods contributed to much of Catherine's autonomy. Examples include: naming of items in her will, royal jewels she owned as personal property, and gifts she gave and received. Catherine used her wardrobe as a political statement. For centuries England's queens have been instrumental in creating an image for the monarchy, one tied not only to their clothing and jewels but …

The Moral Politics Of Infancy: Formation Of A Protestant Maternity In England, Ca. 1550-1650, Katharine Etsell

History Theses

This paper studies a shift in conceptions and responsibilities of maternity during the English Reformation, 1550-1650. A focus on interpersonal family life pushes against and complicates traditional views of the Reformation, and a social historiographical lens furthers this agenda and grants perspective to how certain aspects of religious reform changed the rules of motherhood. In seeking to answer questions about the effects of this new religion on women and family life, it becomes evident that there was an obsession with correcting and directing maternity from a wide variety of authorities, including mothers, medical intellectuals, and members of the clergy; what …

Crusader Orientalism: Depictions Of The Eastern Other In Medieval Crusade Writings, Henry Schaller

Summer Research

This paper examines the ways in which different texts (crusade chronicles, French epic poems, and crusade sermons) written during the early Crusades and Crusader States created a coherent portrait of the East. It compare the ways Edward Said’s Orientalism, which examines colonial texts, and the effect their portrait of the East had on European identity, with texts of the Crusades. These texts cast the Orient into a place that was the antithesis of Christendom, defining what it meant to have a Christian, European white identity. This was done through representations of: threatening sexuality, skin color, unlimited wealth, and a fictional …

Fighting An Invisible Enemy: The Polish Media Campaign Against Radio Free Europe, 1950-1972, Nicholas Kulawiak

Summer Research

This project builds off work done in Spring 2017 for a History 400 paper on the development of Radio Free Europe broadcast strategy in Poland from 1950 to 1956. Broadly, my summer project focuses on the way the People’s Republic of Poland (PRL) reacted to and sought to discredit RFE’s broadcasts from 1950 to 1972. The project’s specific analysis is on the way this reaction was manifested in PRL propaganda’s principal outlets: media organs such as state radio stations and newspapers.

My final paper’s central argument is that from 1970 to 1952, RFE was portrayed continuously as an obstacle to …

Ladder To Heaven: An Evaluation Of Twelfth Century Latin Catholic Non-Dichotomous Spiritual Gender Identity, Helen W. Tschurr

Summer Research

In the 1970s, historian Richard Southern argued that the period of reform in the Twelfth Century solidified a patriarchal state in the medieval period, and since his publication (continuing into the current tradition), historians have agreed with this thesis that the period of centralization and codification within the canon tradition existed antithetically to female empowerment and agency, and solidified the authority and normatively of heterosexual, dominate, masculinity. When discussing the canon celebrations and successes of women in the Twelfth Century, historians use the term “token,” ascribing their ability to survive in a state which denounced their agency to circumstances such …

Clad In Steel: The Evolution Of Plate Armor In Medieval Europe And Its Relation To Contemporary Weapons Development, Jason Gill

History Theses

Plate armor developed and evolved in Medieval Europe in response to the effectiveness of weapon designs, which in turn changed to match the strength of contemporary armor.

Sanctuary Burning: The St. Brice's Day Massacre And The Danes In England Under Aethelred The Unready, Erica Thomas

History Theses

An examination of the St. Brice's Day Massacre in conjunction with the chronicles, archaeological evidence, legal implications and ethnic identities related to the English-Danish conflict. This paper argues that examinations of the Massacre have been extremely limited in the past, and the full range of evidence must be consulted in order to uncover the full historical context and significance of this event.

"To The Devil We Sprang And To The Devil We Shall Go": Memory And History In The Narrative Of British Medieval Constitutionality, Helen W. Tschurr

Summer Research

The British Bill of Rights is arguably one of the most important documents in history; it symbolizes modernity, legal protection for popular sovereignty, and has inspired several political and intellectual revolutions. The Bill of Rights is a physical manifestation of the British constitution and represents a triumph of constitutionality over despotism, the struggle which has defined British history since the Norman Invasion in 1066, and which has been deemed the de facto constitution itself. Because of its unique composition, the British constitution has been a hotly debated historical subject since the Glorious Revolution. Most scholarship on this topic has been …

Daniel O’Connell’S Struggle To Harness Religion And Nationalism In The Pursuit Of Universal Civil Rights And Home Rule In Ireland, Colin Daunt

History Theses

In this paper I examined the religious shift in Irish national identity, from Protestant to Catholic, in the early 19^th century. This shift was led by Daniel O’Connell, who led the Irish home rule movement up until his death in 1847. O’Connell had to maintain a delicate balance in his push for independence; he wanted a legislatively independent and unified Ireland for both Catholics and Protestants. But he could never attain the balance he desired because the Protestants were always wary of the O’Connell’s Catholicism. Their wariness was due to O’Connell’s early focus on Catholic Emancipation; he believed every …

Bawds, Babes, And Breeches: Regendering Theater After The English Restoration, Laura Larson

History Theses

Restoration England (1660~1720) was a raucous time for theater-making. After an 18- year Puritanical ban on the theater, and with the restoration of the worldly Charles II to the throne, English theater underwent a pivotal rebirth. At this time, women were allowed to act on the public stage for the first time, an event carrying enormous implications for gender roles. This paper argues that actresses posed a threat to the patriarchal hierarchy that was in place at this time. Their unique position in professional theater and unusual access to a public voice not available to the rest of women enabled …

“Honest As The Devil:” English Rhetoric And Representations Of Catholicism In Ireland During The Reformation, Allie Werner

Summer Research

This essay focuses on the changes in English rhetoric concerning Irish Catholicism from 1578-1610. Authors used specific rhetoric and terminology meant to imply the Catholicism and otherness of the Irish native population. This rhetoric fell into three different stages, the first two of which overlapped chronologically. These stages included acknowledging Irish Catholicism as a somewhat legitimate belief system, denial of any Irish religious tendencies, and a compromise between the two in which authors described the Irish as practicing popery, sin and superstition, but they still had religious beliefs. These changes show the relationship between the Tudor church and state during …

Fashion And Self-Fashioning: Clothing Regulation In Renaissance Europe, Kayla Arnold

Summer Research

The advent of true fashion in Italy during the 1350s introduced a new system of values to a society whose members were becoming increasingly concerned with self-presentation. The new social and economic changes that arose during the Renaissance began challenging existing social hierarchies and forced groups to display their status through their apparel and be able to recognize other groups through theirs as well. As a result, during the Renaissance the regulation of clothing became a way for city officials to define different social, religious and gender groups as well as maintain the boundaries between them. This paper analyzes sources …

The Problems Of Treason And Tyranny: The Effect Of The Gunpowder Plot On Artistic Expression, Jessica K. Spevak

Summer Research

Most people today probably recognize the term “Gunpowder Plot”. They may know it was some sort of assassination plot against the King of England; they might also have heard that there are bonfires in England every November the 5^th; they might also have seen the numerous movies, poems, and plays dealing with the Plot. However, many do not know how the Plot was perceived in the years immediately following the failed 1605 attempt to blow up Parliament building with King James I inside. How was the Plot perceived by the English people compared to how we perceive it …