Death of Mikhalkov, author of lyrics of Russian national anthem

by Kathryn Hadley

Sergei Mikhalkov, the author of the lyrics of the Soviet and Russian national anthems (and father of the Russian film director Nikita Milhalkov), died in Moscow yesterday, August 27th, aged 96. The life of the Russian writer is truly extraordinary. He lived through almost a century of Russian history and, from the Stalinist Soviet Union to the 21st century, rewrote the words of the Russian national anthem three times in accordance with the prevailing political agenda.

Mikhalkov was first commissioned to write the words for a national anthem, which would inspire the Red Army troops fighting Nazi Germany, in 1943. The lyrics, co-authored with the journalist Gabriel El-Registan, were set to music by Aleksandr Aleksandrov and praised Stalin as a great leader who had ‘raised [the Russian people] to be loyal to the nation, inspired us to labour and great deeds’.

In the aftermath of Stalin’s death in 1953, under Khrushchev’s policy of De-Stalinisation, all references to Stalin were discarded. The anthem was still used, albeit without any official lyrics. Mikhalkov reworked the words for the 60th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1977. The lyrics were approved by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and became official with the adoption of the new Soviet Constitution in October 1977.

In 1991, however, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the music and lyrics of the national anthem were replaced with a piece by the 19th-century composer Mikhail Glinka. Nevertheless, in 2000, President Vladimir Putin decided to restore the old music by Alexamnder Alexandrov and Mikhalkov was commissioned, once again, to rewrite the lyrics for a third time. The current version, which extols Russia’s uniqueness and vastness and describes it as a land ‘protected by God’, was first used officially on December 30th, 2000, during a ceremony at the Great Kremlin Palace in Moscow.

Mikhalkov began his career as a children’s writer and adopted various European and Russian fairy tales to make them conform with Stalinist propaganda. He was decorated by the State for his works and notably received three Stalinist prizes for plays and film scripts. In 2003, Putin presented him with the Order of Service to the Fatherland. An article published on The Times website quoted President Medvedev’s praise of Mikhalkov, yesterday, who described the author as having ‘lived up to the interests of his Motherland, served it and believed in it’.

Nevertheless, Mikhalkov’s membership of the state-controlled Union of Soviet Writers and consequent involvement in various smear campaigns against alleged anti-Soviet writers such as Boris Pasternak and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn continues to be a source of controversy. Formed by the Communist Party Central Committee in 1932, the Union promoted the theory of Socialist Realism and other writers groups were effectively banned.

According to the article published by The Times, his lyrics also continue to cause controversy. The reproduction of those of his first national anthem in praise of Stalin in the Kurskaya station on the Moscow Metro has been heavily criticised, notably by human rights activists. However, the controversy surrounding the author’s legacy and lyrics provides, above all, an insight into how Russia has dealt, and continues to deal, with the memory of its Soviet past.

Catherine Merridale’s latest research on the topic, published in the September issue of History Today, explained this return to Russia's Stalinist past. She concluded that

‘Stalin’s ghost still walks, […] and, though it is easy to condemn the Kremlin’s
new occupants for evoking it in their pursuit of power and wealth, the strategy
could work only because a large proportion of Russia’s people was ready to
welcome the old villain home with open arms’.

Mapping Medieval Chester Festival

by Kathryn Hadley

A new website devoted to medieval Chester will be launched tomorrow, August 29th, as one of the final stages of the Mapping Medieval Chester project. The project was developed by Swansea University, Queen’s University Belfast and King’s College London in an effort to understand how different communities lived and interacted in Chester between 1200 and 1500AD. It addressed issues of space, place and identity in the town on the border town between England and Wales and explored how writers form various ethnic communities and cultural backgrounds imagined and represented Chester.

The new website features a multi-layered map of Chester at the end of the Middle-Ages and is linked to medieval texts, which are being made accessible to the public for the first time. The texts include De laude Cestrie, a 12th-century description of the city in Latin by Lucian who was probably a monk at St Werburgh monastery, and the Life of St Werburge a verse celebration of Chester and its patron, St Werburgh, written by the monk Henry Bradshaw in approximately 1513.

The Grosvenor Museum has been a partner in the project and has organised a programme of events on August 29th to celebrate the launch of the new website. Highlights at the Grosvenor Museum include a series of readings from medieval texts relating to Chester, a photographic display of medieval sites in Chester and the opportunity to view the museum’s collection of medieval documents.

For further information on the project visit http://www.medievalchester.ac.uk/
For further information on the Mapping Medieval Chester Festival visit http://www.grosvenormuseum.co.uk/

The Liberation of Paris 65 Years On

by Kathryn Hadley

Paris liberated itself. The French people, the Parisian police, members of the resistance and the French army rose in unity and fought together for the liberation of their capital city, which was, and remains today, a symbol of France. Such is the view of many French people, the view taught in French schools and the view put forward by Nicolas Sarkozy in a speech at the Paris prefecture of police on Tuesday to mark the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Paris.

In Sarkozy’s words, the liberation of Paris was a French victory. It was the victory of an entire people and the victory of a common national will (la victoire de la volonté nationale). The French people united under common national values, forged during the French Revolution, in the belief that, together, they were strong enough to change the course of France’s destiny. Moreover, this victory marked a new beginning, it was the dawn of a new era during which nations would come together to ensure that the mistakes of the past would never be made again. Lastly, Sarkozy compared the challenges faced by France under the yoke of German occupation to current challenges, in particular those caused by the financial crisis, and stressed the need for a rebirth and new economic order.

But did Paris really liberate itself? What about the 4th US infantry division which marched towards Paris alongside the French 2nd armoured division, the 2eme division blindée, led by General Leclerc? Would the liberation of Paris been at all possible without the Allied invasion of Normandy on D-Day?

Despite the heavy criticism met by this fervently patriotic version of French history, such a rewriting, or rewriting, of French history was understandable in the light of the traumatic French experience of the Second World War. The creation of a myth of a regenerated and new France was key in order to overcome the humiliation of the French defeat and four years of German occupation.

During the occupation, France and the French people had become to extent divided: some had resisted the German occupying forces; others had collaborated. The reality was, however, far more complex. The lines between collaboration and resistance were blurred and there was a predominance of ‘grey areas’, in which people both collaborated and resisted in an effort to pursue their daily lives and survive as best they could. Nevertheless, people had been forced to take sides and Jews in particular had been singled out with many being deported to concentration camps. France had been divided; but France was now united, once again, by the jubilation of victory and by the desire for a new start. The idea of rebirth was also important for de Gaulle in order to legitimise his leadership and to secure a place for France in the new world order, amongst the victorious nations at the end of the Second World War.

More interesting is that fact that, 65 years on, President Sarkozy is advocating the same myth of the liberation and history of the postwar period.

Paris correspondent for The Times, Charles Bremner, notably commented on Sarkozy’s speech.
The full version of Sarkozy's speech is available on the website of the Elysée Palace.

For further information on France during the Second World War, visit our French history page.

Here is also a selection of articles about France’s attitude to its history during the Second World War and in the postwar period
- The First War Baby to be Granted German Citizenship
- Is France still haunted by its past?
- French recognition of responsibility in deportation of Jews
- International colloquium sheds new light on denunciation in France during the Second World War

The earliest timber structure in London

by Kathryn Hadley

A couple of weeks ago, the earliest timber structure ever discovered in London was unearthed by archaeologists from Archaeology South-East (part of the Institute of Archaeology at University College London). The structure, which consists of a timber platform or trackway, was found at a depth of 4.7 metres, beneath two metres of peat, during the excavation of a prehistoric peat bog adjacent to Belmarsh Prison in Plumstead, Greenwich. The site is adjacent to an ancient river channel and is currently being excavated in advance of the construction of a new prison building. Radiocarbon dating has revealed that the structure dates back almost 6,000 years, predating Stonehenge by over 500 years. The structure oldest timber structure previously discovered in Greater London is the timber trackway in Silvertown, which has been dated to 3340-2910BC.

It is believed that wetlands adjacent to rivers were an important source of food for prehistoric people. The timber trackway was thus constructed to provide easier access to the boggy terrain. Other artefacts were also discovered during the excavations in Plumstead, including an Early Bronze Age alder log with unusually well-preserved marks made by a metal axe. The log was scanned at UCL’s Department of Civil, Environmental and Geometric Engineering and is currently undergoing conservation treatment. It will thereafter go on display in Greenwich Heritage Centre in Woolwich. Studies of the trackway are due to continue for the next couple of years in the hope that they will provide further clues about the structure itself and the environment in which it was constructed.

Mark Stevenson, Archaeological Advisor at English Heritage, commented on the discovery:

‘The discovery of the earliest timber structure in London is incredibly
important. The timber structure is slightly earlier in date than the
earliest trackways excavated in the Somerset Levels, including the famous ‘Sweet
Track’ to Glastonbury, which provide some of the earliest physical evidence for
woodworking in England.’

To visit the website of the Greenwich Heritage Centre, go to http://www.greenwichheritage.org/
For further information on the prehistoric period, visit our ‘Prehistoric’ Focus Page.

Did climate change cause the extinction of the Neanderthals? Do modern human beings descend from the Neanderthals? To find out more, there is also a series of articles related to the prehistoric period in the archives of our News Blog.

Pictures:

- excavation of the timbers at the Plumstead site

- laser scan of the Early Bronze Age alder log

Mozart’s Mysterious Death

by Kathryn Hadley

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died on December 5th, 1791, in Vienna. Over 200 years later, the cause of his death still remains a mystery. It has been the subject of considerable speculation with theories ranging from poisoning to renal failure to trichinosis, a parasitic disease caused by eating undercooked or raw pork. However, a Dutch study published on Tuesday August 18th in the Annals of Internal Medicine reported that the composer may have died of complications stemming from strep throat.

The research was carried out by Richard Zegers (University of Amsterdam), Andreas Weigl (University of Vienna) and Andrew Steptoe (University College London). According to his death certificate, Mozart died of hitziges Frieselfieber or ‘heated military fever’, a type of fever accompanied by a rash. Researchers argued, however, that previous studies of the composer’s death were based primarily on subsequent accounts written decades after his death by people who witnessed his final days.

Zegers, Weigl and Steptoe based their study instead on official Viennese death records from November 1791 to January 1792 from the time surrounding Mozart’s death , which they compared with the records for the corresponding periods in 1790 and 1791, and 1792 and 1793. Over these periods, the deaths of 5011 adults were recorded (3442 men and 1569 women). The mean ages of death were 45.5 years for men and 54.5 years for women. The records also revealed that tuberculosis and related conditions was the most common cause of deaths, followed by cachexia, a condition of wasting associated with chronic disease, and malnutrition. Edema, a condition characterised by an excess of fluid collecting in the cavities or tissues of the body, was the third most common cause of death.

According to eyewitness accounts, Mozart’s symptoms included ‘inflammatory fever’, severe swelling, malaise, back pain and a rash, closely resembling those associated with edema. Researchers believe that the composer developed complications which led to edema as a result of a streptococcal infection, an epidemic of which may have originated in Vienna’s military hospital. Mozart’s sister in law Sophie Haibel notably recalled thirty years after his death that the swelling was such that he was unable to turn in bed. The official death records for the weeks surrounding Mozart’s death reveal an increase in deaths from edema compared with the previous and following years.

Richard Zegers was quoted in an article published by Reuters:

‘Our findings suggest that Mozart fell victim to an epidemic of strep throat
infection that was contracted by many Viennese people in Mozart's month of
death, and that Mozart was one of several persons in that epidemic that
developed a deadly kidney complication.’

For further information on how Joseph II established German opera in Vienna in an effort to homogenise the Habsburg Empire, read our article The Politics of Culture: Joseph II's German Opera

Picture:
Mozart family grave, Sebastian Cemetery, Saltzburg

Safety belt is 50 years old

by Kathryn Hadley

Almost exactly 50 years ago today, the first car to be produced with a standard fitted three-point safety belt rolled off the Volvo production lines in Sweden, on August 13th 1959. The three-point safety belt was invented by the Swedish engineer Nils Bohlin (1920-2002) who was employed at the time as Volvo’s first ever safety engineer.

It is estimated that there are 600 million cars on the roads today. Over the past 50 years the safety belt is believed to have saved one million lives. In reality, Bohlin’s invention was not entirely novel and the history of the safety belt dates back more than 50 years.

The safety belt was first invented at the beginning of the 19th century by the English aeronautical engineer Sir George Cayley (1773-1857) for his glider, which successfully transported human beings for the first time. Over a century later, in 1949, the American car company Nash began to offer seatbelts to consumers and they were fitted as an option in some Ford models for the first time in 1955. In 1958, the Swedish firm Saab was the first to fit seatbelts as standard, but they were two-point belts that simply restrained the chest. An early three-point safety belt restraining the chest and the lap by an additional belt had, however, previously been designed by two Americans, Roger Griswold and Hugh De Haven, in 1951. However, once again, the buckle remained in the middle.

Nils Bohlin was the first to design a three-point safety belt that fastened by the occupant’s hip rather than over the abdomen. Buckles, which were previously placed over the abdomen, often caused internal injuries in high-speed crashes. Bohlin had previously worked for the aircraft maker Saab where he helped to develop ejection seats and used his experience there to design a model that would be easy and fast to use.

Bohlin was quoted in an article on the website of The Independent:

‘I realised both the upper and lower body must be held securely in place with
one strap across the chest and one across the hips. The belt also needed an
immovable anchorage point for the buckle by the occupant's hip, so it could hold
the body properly during a collision. It was a matter of finding a solution that
was simple, effective and could be put on conveniently with one hand.’

Consumers remained reluctant to pay for safety belts and Volvo’s system was initially only fitted to cars for the Swedish market. In 1963, three-point safety belts were fitted as standard for the first time worldwide. It became compulsory to wear a seatbelt in Britain in 1983. It became compulsory for rear passengers to wear seatbelts in 1989, for children, and 1991, for adults. Bohlin was inducted in the Automotive Hall of Fame for his invention in 1999. In 2002 he was also inducted in the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

For further information on the beginnings of the motor car industry, read our article The Early Days of Motoring

Send us your review for your chance to win one of the latest history books

by Kathryn Hadley

Every Monday and Wednesday, we feature four of the latest history books that have been released in hardback and paperback on the History Today Books blog.
Our books blog is an interactive forum where readers add their own recommendations and comment on our selection.
We are now giving our readers the opportunity to review some of the latest publications and to have their review published on the History Today Books blog.
Every month, we will offer a selection of books which we will send out to readers in return for their reviews.
To submit a review, please send an email to Kathryn Hadley (k.hadley@historytoday.com) specifying your choice of book. We will then send you the book with a one-month deadline to send us your review.
Books will be sent on a first come first served basis.

Here is our August selection of books up for review.

- Escape from Germany: True stories of POW escapes in WW2, ed. Graham Pitchfork (The National Archives)

Published to mark the 65th anniversary of the Great Escape from Stalag Luft III in 1944, a series of first-hand accounts of the greatest PoW escapes of the Second World War based on unique records held at the National Archives.

- The Book of English Magic, Philip Carr-Gomm & Richard Heygate (John Murray)

A survey of England’s little-known but rich history of magical lore and practice, which combines historical explorations and biographies of leading figures with suggestions for sites to visit and experiments to perform.

- Mavericks, Robert Harvey (Constable)

Based on twelve individual portraits, an insight into the minds and actions of military mavericks, such as Clive of India, George Washington, Horatio Nelson, and George Patton, who helped change the course of military history.

- Millennium, Tom Holland (Abacus)
An account of the two centuries on either side of the year 1000, which did not herald the end of the world as was feared, but instead saw the emergence of western Europe as a distinctive and expansionist power.

- Soldiers of the Queen: Victorian Colonial Conflict in the Words of those who Fought, Stephen Manning (The History Press)

Told through the letters and diaries of those who served, this account of Queen Victoria’s colonial campaigns covers all aspects of colonial service, from the time the soldiers left their barracks to go on campaign, to the journey at sea aboard transport ships, and the conflict itself.

- Imperial Island: A History of Britain and Its Empire, 1660-1837, Paul Kleber Monod (Wiley-Blackwell)

An account of Britain’s imperial path from the Stuart Restoration of 1660 to its emergence in the 19th century as a dominant global superpower, which addresses international political events as well as England and Scotland’s political, social and economic history.

‘Fair wind and thick fogs’: John Quincy Adams on Twitter

by Kathryn Hadley

Almost exactly 200 years ago, on August 5th 1809, John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) set sail from Boston to St. Petersburg. President James Madison had appointed him minister plenipotentiary to Russia on June 27th and, sailing first to Denmark, Adams eventually arrived in Russia in October. From the day of his departure, he began to summarise each day of his three-month voyage in a line-a-day diary. 200 years on, since August 5th, the Massachusetts Historical Society has published John Quincy Adams’ daily diary entries on twitter.

200 years ago today, Adams reported a ‘fair wind and thick fogs’. On August 11th, his dairy entry read:

‘up great part of the Night. wife and child sick. Lat: 43-39. Saw nothing. Calm
day. Read Mrs Grant's Letters’.

The Adams Family Papers is the most important manuscript collection owned by the Massachusetts Historical Society. The collection dates from 1639 to 1889 and includes correspondence, diaries, literary manuscripts, speeches, legal and business papers, a significant part of which is related to John Quincy Adams. Resources notably include digitised images from Adams’ diary which are available on the website of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

In addition to his line-a-day diary about his voyage to Russia, John Quincy Adams had begun to keep a long diary in 1779, aged twelve, which he continued to write until shortly before his death in 1848. The diary includes 51 volumes and is 14,000 pages long.

Adams served as a diplomat to Russia until 1815. He was thereafter commissioned envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Great Britain until 1817. He became Secretary of State under President Monroe in September 1817 and on March 4th, 1825, he was inaugurated as the sixth president of the United States.

To follow Adams’ journey to Russia on twitter visit, http://twitter.com/JQAdams_MHS
A timeline providing an overview of the main events of Adams’ life and featuring his relevant diary entries is available on the website of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
http://www.masshist.org/
A short biography is also available on the website of the White House. http://www.whitehouse.gov/

For further information of John Quincy Adams’ presidency and his contribution to American politics, read our article John Quincy Adams

Picture:

Engraving of John Quincy Adams by Charles Kennedy Burt, 1870, from the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Harry Patch and the currywurst

by Kathryn Hadley

I tried and tried, but could not find a link between the following two new exhibitions. Their tone alone is completely different, but I felt that they were both worth a mention nonetheless.

Harry Patch’s medals went on display at the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry Regimental Museum in Bodmin this week. Patch, who died on July 25th, aged 111, was a machine-gunner with the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry. His eight medals include the British War Medal, the Allied Victory Medal and two French Legion d’Honneur awards. They were brought to the museum by the Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall, Lady Mary Holborow, after Patch’s funeral last Thursday, August 6th, and will form the centrepiece of a display until October. The medals will thereafter be displayed alongside other awards belonging the veterans of the same regiment.

Major Trevor Stipling, curator of the museum, was quoted on the website of Legion, the official magazine of The Royal British Legion:

‘We're very pleased and very proud […] He wanted [the medals] to go on permanent
display for the public to see - that was Harry's wish rather than being put away
at the back of a drawer where nobody would see them.’

The Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry Regimental Museum
The Keep, Bodmin
Cornwall PL31 1EG
Telephone: 01208 72810
http://www.lightinfantry.org.uk/

On a lighter note, a new museum devoted to the currywurst is due to open in Berlin tomorrow, August 15th, to mark the 60th birthday of the German speciality. Currywurst is a chopped up fried sausage which is then covered in tomato ketchup and sprinkled with curry powder. A section of the new exhibition notably describes the history and cultural significance of the snack and addresses some of the legends and controversies surrounding it, including the place of its birth. The exhibition thus refutes the claim that the currywurst originated in Hamburg and presents Berlin as the sausage's true home. The snack was allegedly first created in the western Berlin district of Charlottenburg in 1949 by a woman called Herta Heuwer.

No matter how excessive the concept may seem, the museum curators have take the new exhibition seriously. Museum director Birgit Breloh was quoted in an article on the Spiegel Online International website:

‘no other German national dish inspires such excitement as the currywurst.’

Deutsches Currywurst Museum
Schützenstraße 70
10117 Berlin
Telephone: 00 49 30 88718630
http://www.currywurstmuseum.de/

60th anniversary of Geneva Conventions

by Kathryn Hadley

The Geneva Conventions were adopted 60 years ago, on August 12th 1949. Yesterday, to mark the anniversary, Jakob Kellenberger, the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), addressed a diplomatic gathering in Geneva and various commemorative events were organised across the world. A one-day seminar on international humanitarian law was notably held in Beijing, there was a presentation on the relevance of the Geneva Conventions in Contemporary Armed Conflicts in Addis Ababa, a public forum was held in Manila to mark the anniversary, and a conference with the American Red Cross was organised in Washington.

Jakob Kellenberger began his address with the following words:

‘We gather here to mark a significant coming of age. Sixty years ago today, the
Geneva Conventions were adopted. This defining event played a central role in
expanding the protection provided to victims of armed conflicts. It also
expanded the ICRC's humanitarian mandate, and facilitated our access as well as
our dialogue with States.’

He continued to outline the evolution of armed conflict over the past 60 years, how international humanitarian law had adapted to the changing nature of warfare and the new challenges which it faced today. Statistics quoted in an article on the website of the BBC revealed a considerable increase in the number of civilian casualties from the First World War to the Second World War. During the First World War, it is estimated that ten soldiers were killed for every civilian; during the Second World War, the ratio of soldiers to civilians killed increased to 50 to 50. Today it is estimated that the figures are almost reversed: ten civilians are killed for every one soldier.

To mark the anniversary, the ICRC notably commissioned Ipsos to carry out a survey on what people in countries affected by war consider acceptable behaviour during hostilities and on the effectiveness of the Geneva Conventions. The research is entitled ‘Our World. Views from the Field’ and was carried out in Afghanistan, Columbia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Georgia, Haiti, Lebanon, Liberia and the Philippines. The ICRC’s director for international law, Philip Spoerri, presented the results of the survey:

‘Most of the roughly 4,000 people surveyed across the eight countries – 75% –
say there should be limits to what combatants are allowed to do in the course of
fighting. But when asked if they had ever heard of the Geneva Conventions,
slightly less than half said they knew such rules existed. Among them, around
56% believe the Conventions limit the suffering of civilians in wartime.’

The Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols form the core of the international humanitarian law (IHL), the body of law that regulates the conduct of armed conflict and seeks to limit its effects. They are aimed specifically at the protection of those who are not taking part in the hostilities (civilians and aid workers) and those who are no longer able to fight such as wounded and sick soldiers and prisoners of war. The 1949 Geneva Conventions are divided into four parts.

The first Geneva Convention protects wounded or sick soldiers on land during war and also provides for the protection of medical and religious personnel. The second Geneva Convention protects wounded, sick and shipwrecked military personnel at sea during war. It is similar to the first convention in terms of structure and content but applies specifically to war at sea. The third Geneva Convention applies to prisoners of war and the fourth Geneva Convention provides for the protection of civilians, including in occupied territory.

The history of the Geneva Conventions does not begin with the Second World War. Various conventions to protect those involved in armed conflict were adopted from the mid-19th century onwards. The first Geneva Convention, for example, is the fourth version of the convention on the sick and wounded which was initially adopted in 1864. However, the conventions adopted before 1949 were restricted to combatants and did not apply to civilians. The Second World War had revealed the disastrous effects of war on civilian populations and the consequent need for adequate protection. The existing conventions were thus expanded and formalised in the 1949 Geneva Conventions. The 1949 Geneva Conventions also include Article 3, which is common to all four conventions and, for the first time, made all the essential rules of the four conventions applicable to conflicts of a non-international character. Three further protocols were added to the Geneva Conventions in 1977 and 2005.

The Geneva Conventions entered into force on October 21st, 1950 and ratification grew steadily from then onwards. In the 1950s, 74 states ratified the Conventions; 48 states did so during the 1960s; 20 States signed on during the 1970s; and another 20 States did so during the 1980s. Twenty-six countries ratified the Conventions in the early 1990s, largely in the aftermath of the break-up of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and the former Yugoslavia. Since 2000, seven new states have ratified the conventions, bringing the total number of ratifications to 194 and making the Geneva Conventions universally applicable.

Despite their universal ratification, the Geneva Conventions are not always respected and considerable obstacles remain.

To mark the anniversary, further events are planned worldwide over the coming months. For more information, visit the website of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
http://www.icrc.org/


Pictures:

- Geneva. Diplomatic conference for the revision of the Geneva conventions, 12/08/1949 (copyright ICRC/WASSERMANN, M.)

- ditto (copyright ICRC/CADOUX, J.)

Scotland’s national collection of buildings, archaeology and industry opens its files to the public

by Kathryn Hadley

The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) was established in 1908 and for the past 100 years has collected, recorded and interpreted information on the architectural, industrial, archaeological and maritime heritage of Scotland. Yesterday, its main web-based archive, Canmore, opened its files to the public, becoming interactive for the first time. Members of the public are now able to add their own knowledge directly to the archives by providing more detailed information and uploading their own photos to any of the 280,000 places of interest recorded on the database. To add information to the archives, members of the public simply search for a site, register and then upload the additional information.

The RCAHMS currently holds over 15 million items, including drawings, photographs, maps and documents, which are made available to the public via the website, but also in the RCAHMS search room in Edinburgh and through exhibitions and publications. RCAHMS collections include the National Collection of Aerial Photography, which represents one of the largest collections of aerial imagery in the world; a collection of approximately 2.5 million photographs relating to the built environment; over 2 million prints and drawings dating from the 17th century to the present day; some 25,000 books relating to the archaeological, architectural and historical heritage of Scotland; as well as collections of architectural models and manuscripts, many of which remain unpublished.

RCAHMS project manager, Siobhan McConnachie, explained:

‘The RCAHMS online database gives access to a lot of information about
Scotland’s built heritage and it is completely accessible to the public. The
collection ranges from drawings and photographs of prehistoric sites such as
Skara Brae, to iconic modern structures such as the Falkirk Wheel as well as a
huge range of material on our everyday buildings from villages to cities across
the whole of Scotland. We know from the work that we do and the people we meet
while doing it, that many people have a wealth of information they would
like to share with us that will add to our knowledge of a building’s past
or images that will help tell a story.’

For further information and to add details to the Canmore online database, visit http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/

Pictures:

- Princes Street, Edinburgh

- The Clyde (© RCAHMS. Licensor http://www.rcahms.gov.uk/)

The First War Baby to be Granted German Citizenship

by Kathryn Hadley

66 years after his birth, Daniel Rouxel was granted German citizenship at the end of last week. Rouxel, who was humiliated as a child for being the ‘son of a Boche’, was the first to sign up to a German scheme to recognise war children born in France, which was launched last February when German authorities agreed to grant joint citizenship to those fathered by German soldiers during the Second World War. He collected his new identity papers from the German consulate in Paris on August 5th.

Rouxel was born to a French mother and German solider in occupied France in 1943. His mother was employed in a German airbase canteen in Brittany when she met Lieutenant Otto Ammon. Ammon was later killed during the Allied invasion of France and Rouxel was brought up by his grandmother in a village in Brittany. He remembers how his grandmother forced him to sleep in a henhouse and how, aged six, he was publicly humiliated by the local village mayor. He is quoted in an article published on the BBC website.

‘Which one of you knows the difference between a swallow and a Boche?’ The mayor
asked. ‘I'll tell you. When the swallow makes its babies here in France, it
takes them with it when it leaves. But the Boche - he leaves his behind.’

Rouxel described how:

‘I wept and wept […] I was so ashamed that I ran and hid under a bridge for the
whole night. I even thought of doing away with myself.’

It is estimated that as many as 200,000 French children may have been born to illicit liaisons during the German occupation. In the aftermath of the war, neither the French nor the German authorities recognised the parentage of these war children. The children were registered as ‘father unknown’.

Ms Nivoix-Sevestre is the president of the French association Amicale Nationale des Enfants de la Guerre (ANEG), or the French National Association of War Children. She too was born to a French mother and German soldier in 1942 and described how in the worst cases some children were even forced to eat cockroaches or to drink their own urine. Ms Nivoix-Sevestre’s mother was killed during the Allied bombardment of Caen during the summer of 1944. She was brought up by a foster mother and discovered her father’s identity when she was 13. She first began trace her father in 2003. She is still searching and believes that her father died on the Eastern Front.

The ANEG was founded in 2005 to provide support to war children and their descendants and to help them retrace their families in Germany or Austria. It currently has 384 members and has helped over a third of them to locate their paternal families in Germany. The association works closely with the Deutsche Dienststelle, the Wehrmacht Information Office for War Losses and Prisoners of War (WASt), which was opened in Berlin shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War and currently holds some 18 million index cards on Second World War German soldiers.

One of the main tasks of the WASt was to register and process German Wehrmacht casualties. The organisation was transferred to Thuringia in central Germany in August 1943. From April 1945 onwards, following the occupation of Thuringia, it worked under the supervision of the American Military Commission and was moved, once again, to Furstenhagen near Kassel in the north of the state of Hessen. The WASt returned to Berlin at the end of January 1946. In June, the Allied Control Commission declared that the WASt was to carry on its work and its administration was taken over by the French section of the Control Commission.

Alongside the launch of the German scheme to grant citizenship to children born to German fathers during the occupation in France, there were also moves in France in February towards increased recognition of some aspects of its difficult and controversial past during the Second World War. On Monday February 16th, the French council of state officially recognised, for the first time, the responsibility of the Vichy government in the deportation of Jews during the Second World War.
Have these recent measures put an end to the fights for increased recognition fought by some of the victims of the Second World War and German occupation of France? The answer is far from simple and for many the battle of historical memory continues.

For further information on some of the recent debates in France over resistance to the German occupation, read our article The Aubrac Controversy

The Forsaken

by Kathryn Hadley

The Forsaken by Tim Tzouliadis was published in paperback at the end of last week by Abacus. The book was the winner of the 2008 Longman/History Today Book of the Year award. Every year since 1994 History Today has presented the award in conjunction with the publisher Longman in memory of History Today’s co-founding editors Peter Quennell and Alan Hodge. This year’s judges were Professor Miri Rubin of Queen Mary, University of London, Professor Jeremy Black of University of Exeter, Taylor Downing, a documentary film-maker and historian and Peter Furtado, former editor of History Today.

‘I am in jail in Russia. Go to the nearest police station and report it. Matter of dead or live. Save me please and all the others.’

The author discovered this plea inscribed on a wooden tag smuggled out of a Soviet Gulag camp whilst carrying out research in a State Department Archive. Based on official records, memoirs, newspaper reports and interviews, The Forsaken describes the fate of the thousands of Americans who, in the 1930s in the depths of the Great Depression, emigrated to the communist Soviet Union, lured by the prospect of racial equality and honest work under Stalin’s Five Year Plan. They were, however, betrayed both by Stalin’s Russia and by their own countrymen, when the US embassy failed to protect US citizens caught up in the Terror.

For further information read the review by Taylor Downing published in the March issue of History Today.

Tennyson at Farringford

by Kathryn Hadley

Yesterday, our editor Paul Lay wrote a piece listing some of the radio programmes commemorating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892). Today, the Victorian Poet Laureate’s newly restored library opened at Farringford House on the Isle of Wight, bringing together Tennyson’s furniture, paintings and manuscripts for the first time since the poet’s lifetime. The library will be used to house a series of exhibitions celebrating the life of Tennyson at Farringford. ‘Tennyson at Farringford’, the first exhibition in the series, also opened today. Showcasing many important artefacts on loan from private collectors and institutions, the exhibition brings back to life the Tennyson household and provides an insight into the many important visitors which the poet attracted, including Benjamin Jowett, Charles Darwin, Bishop Wilberforce, William Holman Hunt and Lewis Carroll.

Highlights of the exhibition include Tennyson’s terrestrial and celestial globes, the throne that he had made from a Farringford ilex for the widowed Queen Emma of Hawaii when she came to stay in 1865 as well as portraits of the poet, his wife and sons by George Frederick Watts, and of General Guiseppe Garibaldi, who famously planted a wellingtonia at Farringford in 1864. Living at Dimbola Lodge at Freshwater Bay, the British photographer Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) was one of Tennyson’s neighbours. Also on display in the exhibition is an album of the photographs she created to illustrate Tennyson’s Idylls of the King cycle of 12 narrative poems published between 1856 and 1885, which retell the legend of King Arthur.

Tennyson and his wife Emily Sellwood rented Farringford in 1853 with the right to purchase, which they eventually did in 1856 with the proceeds of the publication of Maud. Farringford remained their home for the next 40 years and Tennyson had his second study built in 1871.

Tennyson at Farringford
August 7th – September 9th
Farringford Hotel
Bedbury Lane, Freshwater Bay
Isle of Wight PO40 9PE
Telephone: 01983 752 500
http://www.farringford.co.uk/

French Polish at Waddesdon

by Charlotte Crow

The love of French fine and decorative arts and the Rothschild family tradition for collecting such pieces is celebrated this season at Waddesdon with a special display centred on a newly acquired portrait ‘Etienne-François, duc de Choiseul at his desk’. Painted in 1786 by the female court artist Adélaïde Labille-Guiard (1749-1803), the portrait was commissioned by the sitter and though Choiseul died before it was completed, it shows a fresh-faced and lively man at ease in the study of his Parisian home.

Choiseul, born Comte de Stainville in 1719, was a powerful figure at the court of Louis XV (r.1715-74) playing a key role in French foreign policy as a diplomat and minister at a turbulent time in European affairs dominated by fierce colonial rivalry between Britain and France. He fought as a soldier during the Austrian War of Succession (1740-48) and became Ambassador to Rome in 1753. In 1758 he was made Minister of Foreign Affairs, acquiring the dukedom the same year. His early advancement was partly due to having earned the gratitude in 1752 of the king’s mistress, Madame de Pompadour, whom he helped to avoid a potentially scandalous intrigue. He subsequently served as a naval minister (1761-66). When the Treaty of Paris brought the Seven Years War to an end in 1763 with humiliating colonial losses for France, he sought to reduce its impact. As minister of war from 1766 he instigated military reforms that he hoped would enable France to redress defeat. Eventually, however, he fell victim to court factionalism and was dismissed by Louis in 1770 after calling for war with Britain and retired to his estate at Chanteloup in the Loire.

The duc himself was an avid patron of the arts and his taste for exquisitely crafted objects, a quality shared by many in the Rothschild family, is reflected in this display. One of the highlights is a tiny but stunningly detailed enamel-painted gold box by the Van Blaremberghes that shows in miniature scenes of Choiseul’s spectacular chateau (destroyed in 1823) and gardens at Chanteloup and on loan from the Metropolitan Museum, New York. But the pièce de resistance is the magnificent desk depicted in the portrait and referenced in its title. The desk made by the master ebeniste Simon-François Oeben (c. 1725-86), was at one time owned by the English Rothschilds and was displayed at Mentmore, another of their family homes. Oeben, together with his brother Jean-François made many pieces for Madame de Pompadour and members of court. The desk is reunited with the portrait for the first time in 150 years and to be able to view the two together is a vivid and exciting experience.

This exhibition and the new acquisition gives visitors to Waddesdon an insight into Choiseul the man and his times. It also demonstrates how the French Renaissance-style Buckinghamshire home to four generations of Rothschilds is not simply a monument to the past as so many historic houses can be. Instead, with the present Lord Jacob Rothschild living on the estate and actively involved with the National Trust in its management, the manor actively sustains the spirit of its creator Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild who built it in the 1870s as a home in which to entertain lavishly and as a showcase for his many French ‘gimcracks’ – as he liked to refer to his fabulous objets d’art.

The Choiseul exhibition can be seen at Waddesdon until November 1st.
Waddesdon Manor
Near Aylesbury
Buckinghamshire HP18 0JH
Tel: 01296 653211
http://www.waddesdon.org.uk/

Pictures:

- portrait 'Etienne-François, duc de Choiseul at his desk' by Adélaïde Labille-Guiard

- aerial view of Waddeson Manor

Nelson’s Heroic Facial Traits Part II: Images of the Hero

by Kathryn Hadley

Yesterday, I wrote about the latest research by the personologist Naomi Tickle to identify the key facial traits that epitomised heroism. She applied these traits, which included a Roman nose, a pointed chin, set back ears, oval eyebrows and exposed eyelids, to a portrait of Viscount Horatio Nelson and concluded that had the facial characteristics of a hero. I was very skeptical about her conclusions and decided to carry out further research. In particular, what portrait was the study based on? How accurate a representation of Nelson would it have been?

The main image used for the study was the above portrait, which was allegedly studied alongside various other portraits.

The story of this wax effigy of Nelson, which I used to illustrate my article yesterday, provides an insight into some of the limitations of Tickle’s study based on portraits and moulded masks. The wax effigy is a modern reconstruction held at the Royal Naval Museum, which is based on two of three surviving masks of Nelson. The first is known as the Queen Mary mask because it was discovered by Queen Mary, the wife of King George V, in an antique shop on the Isle of Wight. The second is the Nelson-Weekes mask owned by the Weekes family, who are descendents of Nelson’s daughter Horatio. The third mask is held at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. It is known as the Nelson-Ward mask and shows Nelson with his eyes open.

Making life masks was a very popular style of portraiture in the 19th century. Subjects were sat in a tilted chair with their eyes closed. Straws were placed in each nostril to enable the subject to breathe and wet plaster was moulded over the face. When the plaster was dry the mould was then removed.

Although the three masks were originally believed to be death masks taken from Nelson’s face in December 1805, two months after the Battle of Trafalgar, when HMS Victory returned to Portsmouth, there is no evidence to confirm this theory. Moreover, according to scientists, Nelson’s face would have been too decomposed to make a mask. If the masks were therefore taken during Nelson’s lifetime, it would suggest that they were accurate representations of his facial traits.

However, in the Nelson-Ward mask the eyes are open, thus revealing that the mould was touched up shortly afterwards. As for the Nelson-Weekes mask, it is believed that it was cast from a marble bust of Nelson. The Queen Mary mask is considered the most accurate representation because Nelson’s eyes are closed. It was allegedly taken in Vienna at the time of Nelson’s return to Britain from the Mediterranean in 1800.

How can one draw up conclusions about Nelson’s personality based on interpretative forms of arts such as portraits? Even if the portraits were made during the hero’s lifetime, the artists could have flattered their subject in accordance with their own ideals of heroism. Had Tickle based her study primarily on the moulded masks of Nelson, these would not have provided entirely accurate representations of his facial traits either.

Nelson’s heroism written all over his face?

by Kathryn Hadley

To celebrate their 150th anniversary and its strong naval heritage, Woods’ 100 Old Navy Rum recently launched a project to find out what it means to be a hero for people in the UK today. During the month of June researchers interviewed 1,000 people from across the UK. The results of their research revealed that for 41% of people members of the army and the navy were considered the most heroic. A quarter of those questioned viewed doctors and paramedics as particularly heroic, followed by the police and fire services (23%). You may ask, however, where history fits into the survey...

The second part of the research project was carried out by Naomi Tickle, an international personologist and author of You Can Read a Face Like a Book, who identified the key facial characteristics that epitomise heroism. To test her theory, she applied these characteristics to a portrait of Viscount Horatio Nelson in order to ascertain whether or not he displayed the traits and whether they were common among today’s heroes and leaders. According to Tickle, Nelson had a Roman nose, a square forehead that was also high and sloped back, set back ears, a pointed chin, oval eyebrows and exposed eyelids. The outer corners of his eyes were also lower than the inner corners and his head was wider at the back. All these traits are allegedly symbols of heroism. A Roman nose reveals, for example, management skills and an ability to delegate and oversee people. A pointed chin is a sign of stubbornness and tenacity and oval eyebrows show that Nelson was good at bringing ideas together, organising his thoughts and expressing them clearly.

Naomi Tickle explained her findings:

‘The relationship between the physical facial structure and personality has been
well researched since the 1920's. Whether it’s traditionally heroic traits like
a Roman nose or more obscure characteristics such as a square forehead, heroic
people do share similar facial features, and Nelson is no exception. These are
also present on the faces of powerful figures today, whether it’s world leaders,
sportsmen, or simply brave people we know.’

Personology is the relationship between physical features and personality. Research was first carried out by Edward Jones, a California judge, in the 1930s, when he noticed a pattern between the facial traits and the behaviour of hundreds of people who appeared before him in court. It has allegedly proved to be 92% accurate.

Personally, I am not entirely convinced. I wonder if the study has been extended to other historic heroes. Do these conclusions mean that someone who does not have a Roman nose, a pointed chin, exposed eyelids and oval eyebrows cannot be a hero? Reversely, were then any heroes in history that had none of these facial features? Lastly, how do we define a hero? Do our historic heroes not go up and down in popularity in accordance with the political trends of a particular time and as their careers and lives are increasingly researched?

Was it Horatio Nelson’s successful and surprisingly modern leadership strategy that made him a hero? For further information read our article Nelson and Mission Command
For further information on how public art was used in Britain to celebrate Nelson as a national hero, both during and after his lifetime, read our article Painting, Propaganda and Patriotism
For an insight into some of the complexities of Nelson’s character, read our article Nelson: Admirable Lord

Pictures:

- Wax effigy of Nelson in the Royal Naval Museum at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard

- One of the portraits of Nelson used in the study

www.historicdockyard.co.uk

Executed for cutting down a tree! 19th-century England and Wales Criminal Registers Online

by Kathryn Hadley

The England and Wales Criminal Registers from 1791 to 1892 have recently been published online by the family history website Ancestry. The collection comprises 279 bound volumes, which were scanned at The National Archives in Kew. It features over 500,000 names and includes documents from 1.4 million criminal trials, providing information on charges, sentences or acquittals and dates of execution and an insight into justice in the Victorian era.

As a result of the 1.4 million trials, 900,000 criminals were sentenced to imprisonment and 97,000 were transported, primarily to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), where they were condemned to lives of hard labour. 10,300 of those who were tried were executed, including a boy aged 14. The death penalty could be handed down for more than 200 separate offences such as stealing livestock, cutting down trees, stealing rabbit from a warren, being out at night with a blackened face or being in the company of gypsies for a month.

The collection also includes documents relating to high profile trials, such as that of Roderick McLean, who was accused of attempting to assassinate Queen Victoria with a pistol at Windsor Castle in 1882, and John Bellingham who murdered Prime Minister Spencer Perceval in the lobby of the House of Commons in 1812. Bellingham is the only person to have assassinated a British prime minister. He was tried and executed on May 18th 1812.

Access to the collection is available for a free 14-day trial on the website http://www.ancestry.co.uk/

For further information on the treatment of young offenders in 19th century England, read our article The Idea of Juvenile Crime in 19th-Century England
For further information on blasphemy in Victorian Britain, read our article
Blasphemy in Victorian Britain? Foote and the Freethinker
In Crime and Justice in 19th-Century England R.D. Storch considers the extent to which reforms in the system of law enforcement and the punishment of criminals, introduced in the 19th century, helped to reduce crime.

History Carnival

by Kathryn Hadley

Thank you all for your nominations for the History Carnival. There remain many mounds of unearthed, little known, previously ignored and unusual history and this month’s carnival is dedicated to this hidden history and the peculiar past.

Animals have very rarely featured in our news stories, but here are three posts devoted to animal history. On July 9th, a previously unknown 17th-century Dutch portrait of a dodo, an animal that had become extinct by 1700 and has fascinated popular imagination ever since, was sold at Christie’s for £44,450 (the estimated sale price was between £5,000 and £7,000). Quoting a chapter on the impact of passions from Agrippa von Nettesheim’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy, ‘Passion and white peacocks’ considers the curious 17th-century belief that the passions, imagination and the environment of animals could affect their offspring. Lastly, images from Volume One of Albertus Seba’s Cabinet of Curiosities, published in 1734, have recently become available on the Botanicus website of the Missouri Botanical Gardens.

The following two posts are devoted to little celebrated or forgotten anniversaries. On July 6th 1885, Louis Pasteur administered the first shots of a vaccine against rabies that had never been tested on humans before. On July 2nd 1706, Kimpa Vita, a Congolese noblewoman who claimed to be a spirit of Saint Anthony of Padua was burned as a witch in Evululu. Who was Kimpa Vita and what was the situation in the Kingdom of Kongo at the time?

These three posts explore little-studied and previously unknown areas of history in Europe, the United States and Asia. During the Second World War, it is estimated that there were 12,250,000 non-battle deaths in the USSR. This figure is by far the highest of any nation attacked by Nazi Germany in the period between 1933 and 1945. ‘Nazi body count in the USSR’ seeks to explain how this devastation came about. The prehistoric era in North America is another rarely studied period of history. Yet, in the state of Ohio there exist a series of earthen mounds which are remnants of prehistoric walls. But in Alabama permission has recently been given to Walmart to level one of the mounds in order to build a new supermarket. ‘Curating the Oceans’ provides a description of the treasures dated to the Chinese Tang dynasty that were recovered, in 1998, from the Belitung shipwreck in the Gaspar Strait in Indonesia.

Lastly, there remain a significant number of unpublished, understudied and relatively ignored historical sources. In 1935, Peter Fleming travelled from Beijing to India to report back to The Times on what was happening in the remote territory of Xinjiang, or Chinese Turkestan. His reports are published on The Times Archive Blog. On the Soldier’s Mail blog, 91 years after the events, we follow the daily life of Samuel Edward Avery in France during the First World War through his letters and diary notes. Finally, can the Ladybird book Oliver Cromwell: An Adventure of History teach us anything about the English Civil War?