Секция History in English
IRELAND AND ENGLAND:
THE ROOTS OF CONFRONTATION
Mitrukova S. А. — 3rd year student
Supervisor — ass. prof. Tcherniakova I. A., consultant — Ananyina A. V.
Political, ethnic and religious conflicts taking place in Ireland nowadays are rooted in the events of the XII—XVI centuries when the English colonization of Ireland started.
It was the clash of two civilizations. Some historians see in England the only possibility of ordered state in Ireland. The others believe that English invasion resulted in economic, political and cultural lag of the Irish race.
Ireland had a remarkable culture and unity of her own that time. But the invaders considered the natives as barbarians, wild and primitive people and treated them with great cruelty. In 1336 the Statutes of Kilkenny were enacted against the Irish language, dress, law and customs. The Irish were excluded from cathedrals and benefices among the English. The natives were dislodged from fertile lands to mountains and marshes.
The Irish people didn’t submit and in official documents we can find a lot of Lord Deputies’ reports about uninterrupted so called «small wars». Three large-scale rebellions broke out during the reign of Elizabeth I.
For some twelve years during the reign of Henry VII Ireland was the stage of successive attempts against the new Tudor dynasty which were centered round the names of two pretenders Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck.
The confrontation of two nations was aggravated with religious resistance in the XVI century when Henry VIII tried to make the Irish accept his English Church Reformation. The Reformation never made any real impression on Irish people. The Irish worshiped Catholic form of Christianity they accepted in the very early Middle Ages. In religion the Irishmen preserved their national culture and traditions. So by the end of Elizabeth’s reign Roman Catholicism was as strong as it had been for generations despite all persecution and deprivation.
The Tudors fought four wars in the period of their century reign to make the Irish accept their authority and their religion in the form of Protestantism. Ireland became England’s first important colony. But this colonization didn’t make England richer, while it destroyed much of Ireland’s society and economy. It is evident that it also laid the foundations for those political and, that is more important nowadays, religious contradictions between the Irish people and the Englishmen, Protestants and Catholics in Ulster which resulted in division of Ireland at the beginning of the twentieth century and are not resolved up to the present.
THE POLES IN THE OLONETS EXILE
Chakkiyeva T. А. — 3rd year student
Supervisor — ass. prof. Pashkov A. M.
Little has been done on the investigation of this topic. That’s why the survey is mainly based on the archival documents of the Olonets province. This work is concluded in the investigation of the dynamic of the Polish exile in the Olonets province during the reign of Alexander II (1856—1881).
As the consequence of three Partition of Poland in 1772, 1793 and 1795, and the Congress in Vienna in 1815 Russia got the central part of Poland with its capital Varshava. The result of it was the strong national movement for freedom of the Poles. During the reign of Alexander II thousands of the Poles were forced into exile in Siberia, to the north and also in the Olonets province.
In the XIX-th century the word «exile» was largely extended in Russia. It’s a type of criminal punishment when a convict had to leave his homes and settle in a particular province. He kept this duties and social status. The first task was to choose the Poles among other nations in a register drawn up of people under the control of the policy in the Olonets province.Three principles were put into achieving it: 1) a person shoud bear a Polish name (for example, August, Kazimir, Iosiv, Stanislaw etc.) or a surname which ends with — sky (e. g., Stensky) or — itch (e. g., Ussevitch); 2) religious beliefs (Catholicism) 3) a person should belong to a particular province (Varshava, Vilno, Grodno, Kovno, Minskya province etc.). In the exile of the 50’s there were 15 Poles among 199 convicted during this period. They were exiled for 1) political crimes, (e. g. Iosiv Krasnovsky and Aduard Chelogovsky); 2) criminal crimes, (e. g. Iosiv Lursevsky and Gomer Stensky); 3) immoral behavior (drinking alcohol, gambling etc.), e. g. Sigizmund Davidovich, Avgust Kohanovsky; 4) being religious differently minded, e.g. Mamert Zaionchkovsky.
In 1856 in honor of the coronation of Alexander II 99 persons were freed, among them were seven Poles. The figure raised dramatically in the 60’s — 157 persons. The most part of them were convicted for the revolutionary activity. Among them were Vladislav Phialkovsky, Adolph Kaminsky, Bronislav Uytkevitch, Leonard Lupinsky and others. And there was a very small percentage of those who were exiled for plunder and killing. And in the 70s the quantity of the convicted reduced greatly — only eleven Poles. Among them were the representatives of the clergy as they performed their duties in a wrong way (Stanislaw Yackovsky, Alexander Ludovich, Semen Lapinsky), one student for anti-government actions (Admunt Riuzhnevsky) and others. In 1881 year some of them were freed because of good behavior. It can be summarized, therefore, that the number of people in the Polish exile raised dramatically since 1850’s; the 60’s were the peak of the Polish exile, since it was closely connected with the political situation at the time, i. e. the outbreak of the Polish riots against the Russian government; and in the 70’s the number of exiled reduced.
ALEXANDER NIKOLAYEVICH BENUA (1870—1960)
AND HIS ROLE IN RUSSIAN CULTURE
Aniskovich O. А. — 4rd year student
Supervisor — Trifonova L. V., consultant — Ananyina A. V.
Alexander Benua — an outstanding Russian painter, specialist in art studies and author of the silver age masterpieces «My memoirs» and «Reminiscences of the Ballet Russe». In his own way Alexander Benua is an exceptional phenomenon in the history of Russian culture: he was an excellent illustrator, a subtle history painter, one of the first-rate artists of the theatre-decorative art and a respectable critic, an art historian.
He was born in a glorious family of artists in 1870. In 1890 he graduated from St. Petersburg University’s law department, lived in Paris and served as an art adviser of princess Tenisheva. In 1898 Alexander Benua together with Sergey Dyagilev founded «The World of Art» — a group and a magazine of the same name, foreshadowed by foreign and Russian exhibitions. The magazine printed polemic articles on literature, theatre, music. Benua being one of the authors of these articles can be described as the founder of art criticism in Russia. The World of art representatives proclaimed their inclination to the art, which hasn’t national and thematic limits. Founded by Benua and Dyagilev «The World of Art» brought together artists belonging to different, often opposing schools and trends. Alexander Benua was a very educated man and had great knowledge of art. In his historical compositions he thoroughly reproduced masterpieces of art. Among his works are paintings called «Versailles series». Art critics say that his style was formed on the basis of synthesizing contemporary western art and addressing the past times — the turn of the 18th century. His illustrations, particularly to «The Queen of Spades» and «Copper Rider» by Pushkin took an honorable place in the Russian fine arts history. Alexander Benua developed an exclusively personal attitude to Petersburg architecture. Benua’s memories of the military parades of his youth gave birth to the historical canvas «A Parade under Paul I». Alexander Benua was closely linked with the rise of the Russian theatrical setting art, which won a world recognition at the famous Russian seasons in Paris and London. An original ballet called «Petrushka» designed by Benua became the starting point for 20th-century theatre. He is known for many ballets staged in Russia, Western Europe and America. Benua worked from 1918 until 1926 as a curator of the Hermitage in St.Petersburg and settled down in Paris where he lived till his death in 1960. Benua greatly contributed much to creation of modern ballet, managed to unite in his works all kinds of fine arts: music, theatre, decorative art. Obviously he was also a great painter. Many Russian museums such as the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum take pride in holding works by Benua. There are all reasons to conclude that Benua played a significant role in development of Russian culture of the 20th century.
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