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Annotation "I find this story interesting and captivating. I think it will be of general interest to the public because the story chronicles an important part of our history. It can serve to gauge the progress we've made in society and in our legal system. I strongly recommend it." -Hon. Raul A. Gonzalez, former Justice, Texas Supreme Court "Esto no es cosa de armas" (this is not a matter for weapons). These were the last words of Don Francisco Gutieacute;rrez before Alonzo W. Allee shot and killed him and his son, Manuel Gutieacute;rrez. What began as a simple dispute over Allee's unauthorized tenancy on a Gutieacute;rrez family ranch near Laredo, Texas, led not only to the slaying of these two prominent Mexican landowners but also to a blatant miscarriage of justice. In this engrossing account of the 1912 crime and the subsequent trial of Allee, Beatriz de la Garza delves into the political, ethnic, and cultural worlds of the Texas-Mexico border to expose the tensions between the Anglo minority and the Mexican majority that propelled the killings and their aftermath. Drawing on original sources, she uncovers how influential Anglos financed a first-class legal team for Allee's defense and also discusses how Anglo-owned newspapers helped shape public opinion in Allee's favor. In telling the story of this long-ago crime and its tragic results, de la Garza sheds new light on the interethnic struggles that defined life on the border a century ago, on the mystique of the Texas Rangers (Allee was said to be a Ranger), and on the legal framework that once institutionalized violence and lawlessness in Texas

The division of Germany into two militarized blocs during the Cold War fundamentally shaped the lives of people living in both East and West. Yet, as recent scholarship has increasingly highlighted, there were also numerous areas of contact and interaction, whether in the cultural, political or social sphere. One largely overlooked aspect of these Cold War relations, which this article explores, is the environment. Focusing on the history of the shared German environment from the end of the Second World War through to the early 1970s, the article argues that on a local level, environmental problems helped to ensure the survival of cross-border relations. Despite their repeated efforts, the two states failed to divide the German landscape in half. Rivers, lakes and forests continually crossed the fortified border, while animals and plant life traversed from one side to the other too. In attempting to maintain this shared border landscape, East and West Germans were repeatedly forced into dialogue. Although relations gradually faded as the border regime was strengthened, it proved impossible for either side to escape fully the entangled German environment.

This article evaluates UNRRA as one of the first international agencies established during the war to manage the transition from war to peace and to provide liberated countries with essential relief. It argues that this organization was a forum for debates on questions not only of internationalism, but also of the future of the nation-state, national reconstruction, national sovereignty, patriotism and citizens' relationships to their states. Moreover, the article explores this chapter of international history at the national level, by asking how the problem of Polish reconstruction after 1945 was framed, discussed and understood by UNRRA's diplomats and relief workers in Poland and in the DP camps. Problems of Polish sovereignty and reconstruction were interpreted differently in different sections of UNRRA, as a pragmatic interpretation of civic usefulness and patriotic responsibilities coexisted with an ethnological understanding of Polish cultural traditions, shared land and ancestry. But even as these different interpretations came into conflict, both models continued to be grounded in a world view which saw nation-states as unavoidable constituents of the international order, and international organizations as having to bind nations together without abolishing them.

The article is based on the material of the recently published A. Makhov's Emblematica: Microcosm. Pushkin is included in the "personal pantheon" of
A. Makhov, being a link between the main research worlds of the scholar: emblem
studies, the history of Russian and European poetics, the history of European Romanticism, etc. By Pushkin's "presence", we mean not only mentions of Pushkin's
name and direct quotations from his writings, but also more or less easily readable
convergences at the topic level. Makhov's new book is devoted to man as a subject
of European emblems of the 16th and 17th centuries; an important place in it is occupied by the study of the human body as the language of emblems and the source
of signs, the application of the main four combinatorial operations in the creation
of emblematic composite images. When interpreting European emblems, associations with Pushkin's work constantly arise — for example, the figure of the conciliatio of the stingy rich and poor, expressed in the topos "rich is poor", allows a Russian reader to see a parallel with Pushkin's "The Miserly Knight"; the topos of "vain
flight from love, the incurable love disease" — with his lyrics. The method of reading "through the prism of Pushkin" used in the article allows us to look at the rich
material of the monograph at least in two aspects: to shed new light on Pushkin's
connection with European emblems and to incorporate his work even more deeply
into the European cultural tradition; to see how the Pushkin principle can serve as
a kind of core, an immanent dominant in interpretations of European cultural realities by such a multi-world scholar as A. Makhov.

The purpose of the article involves a thorough study of the original sources of the emergence in Latin and South America of such an instrument as the piano. In addition, it is necessary to trace the historical stages of the transformation of the composer's style — from European classical to a new ideological and artistic musical embodiment of a specific Latin American culture.
The methodology. The main research method in the article is based on next principals: cultural-historical, comparative-typological, structural, analysis and synthesis and ascent from the abstract to the concrete.
The results. The conducted historical and musical analysis revealed the importance of the piano for the formation of the musical culture of South and Latin America. Thanks to touring artists from Europe, the piano gradually gained popularity. Its evolution has gone from European imitation to the formation of its own identity in world music culture. The path of Latin and South American composers to national identity took place through rethinking and interpreting the musical styles of past eras (baroque, classicism, romanticism) and folklore. During the period of experiments, study and introduction of national cultural elements, piano works by composers of Latin and South America had a high level of professionalism and popularity.
The scientific novelty. It is that the work is a comprehensive scientific study, which substantiates a holistic system of evolution and transformation of piano culture in South and Latin America.
The practical significance. The materials of the article can be used in further research on the phenomenon of Latin America piano culture, as well as in classes on the history of piano art and world music history.

The independent Republic of Lithuania, with Kaunas settled as the capital in 1919, rebuilt the foundations of modern Jewish, as well as Lithuanian, culture. In the newly formed state of Lithuania, the second largest community in the provisional capital was busy establishing its cultural life and searching for its identity. In the case of art, there was a correlation between the attempts to join the general artistic life of Lithuania and the satisfaction of the inner needs of the community. Lithuania's familiarity with Jewish art has been rather one-sided: what prevails is the analysis of Jewish artists' activity and creative work from the point of view of their integration into the general culture of the country. For this reason, the picture of interwar Lithuania's Jewish art and its contexts that has formed in Lithuanian art studies is incomplete, and many artists and artistic events have remained in the margins or completely unknown. This applies to the art and artists dedicated to the needs of the Jewish community, but also to the activities of local Jewish artists in other countries who left Lithuania. Jewish art life in Lithuania, as an individual and unique process that experienced ebbs and flows, adapted to political and historical realities, and absorbed and reflected a wide range of influences, was multifaceted and varied. Its trucated cognition does not allow us to see the overall picture as a whole, as a distinctive element of interwar Lithuanian cultural life. This kind of congition offers a new insight into the migration of artistic ideas and influences, art organisers and participants, and is important for the history of Jewish culture, but also for the general history of Lithuanian culture.

The independent Republic of Lithuania, with Kaunas settled as the capital in 1919, rebuilt the foundations of modern Jewish, as well as Lithuanian, culture. In the newly formed state of Lithuania, the second largest community in the provisional capital was busy establishing its cultural life and searching for its identity. In the case of art, there was a correlation between the attempts to join the general artistic life of Lithuania and the satisfaction of the inner needs of the community. Lithuania's familiarity with Jewish art has been rather one-sided: what prevails is the analysis of Jewish artists' activity and creative work from the point of view of their integration into the general culture of the country. For this reason, the picture of interwar Lithuania's Jewish art and its contexts that has formed in Lithuanian art studies is incomplete, and many artists and artistic events have remained in the margins or completely unknown. This applies to the art and artists dedicated to the needs of the Jewish community, but also to the activities of local Jewish artists in other countries who left Lithuania. Jewish art life in Lithuania, as an individual and unique process that experienced ebbs and flows, adapted to political and historical realities, and absorbed and reflected a wide range of influences, was multifaceted and varied. Its trucated cognition does not allow us to see the overall picture as a whole, as a distinctive element of interwar Lithuanian cultural life. This kind of congition offers a new insight into the migration of artistic ideas and influences, art organisers and participants, and is important for the history of Jewish culture, but also for the general history of Lithuanian culture.

The independent Republic of Lithuania, with Kaunas settled as the capital in 1919, rebuilt the foundations of modern Jewish, as well as Lithuanian, culture. In the newly formed state of Lithuania, the second largest community in the provisional capital was busy establishing its cultural life and searching for its identity. In the case of art, there was a correlation between the attempts to join the general artistic life of Lithuania and the satisfaction of the inner needs of the community. Lithuania's familiarity with Jewish art has been rather one-sided: what prevails is the analysis of Jewish artists' activity and creative work from the point of view of their integration into the general culture of the country. For this reason, the picture of interwar Lithuania's Jewish art and its contexts that has formed in Lithuanian art studies is incomplete, and many artists and artistic events have remained in the margins or completely unknown. This applies to the art and artists dedicated to the needs of the Jewish community, but also to the activities of local Jewish artists in other countries who left Lithuania. Jewish art life in Lithuania, as an individual and unique process that experienced ebbs and flows, adapted to political and historical realities, and absorbed and reflected a wide range of influences, was multifaceted and varied. Its trucated cognition does not allow us to see the overall picture as a whole, as a distinctive element of interwar Lithuanian cultural life. This kind of congition offers a new insight into the migration of artistic ideas and influences, art organisers and participants, and is important for the history of Jewish culture, but also for the general history of Lithuanian culture.

Even today in the history of Cuban anthropology, little attention is paid to the writer and anthropologist Lydia Cabrera, who has only recently begun to be part of the list of intellectuals in official Cuban culture. However, because of her work and life trajectory, Cabrera can be considered the modern founder of studies on Afro-Cuban religions. The main purpose of this text is to analyse Lydia Cabrera's ethnographic work based on the idea that there was a 'counterpoint', a dialogue, a metaphorical game, between the liminal identity of the author herself – manifested in a racial, cultural, gender, social and political sense – and her interest and dedication to the contribution of slaves and the population of African origin to the history, culture and, ultimately, the identity of their Cuban homeland. ; Todavía hoy en la historia de la antropología cuba­na se presta poca atención a la escritora y antropóloga Lydia Cabrera, quien solo muy recientemente ha empezado a formar parte de la nómina intelectual de la cultura cubana oficial. Sin embargo, en función de su obra y trayectoria vital puede consi­derarse a Cabrera como la fundadora moderna de los estudios sobre las religiones afrocubanas. El objeto central de este texto es analizar el trabajo etnográfico de Lydia Cabrera a partir de la idea de que existe un contrapunteo, un diálogo, un juego metafórico, entre la identidad liminar de la propia autora -manifiesta en un sentido racial, cultural, de género, social y político- y su interés y dedicación a la aportación de los esclavos y la población de origen africano a la historia, a la cultura y, en última instancia, a la identidad misma de su patria cubana.

Summary: In this work, we analysed the idea of University formulated by Communist academic Hernán Ramírez Necochea, based on his experience as a teacher and researcher at the University of Chile. We argue that Ramírez conceived the University as a place of ideological dispute with the dominant class and American cultural imperialism. In order to confirm this hypothesis, we will first investigate the relationship between the Communist Party of Chile (CCP) and the University at the end of 1950 and the beginning of 1960. Secondly, we will reconstruct Ramírez Necochea's academic and political biography and, finally, analyse its concept of University through the review of memories, unprecedented documents, historical production, interviews, the militant press and the university press of the time. This work is embedded in the disciplinary foundations of new political history and intellectual history. ; Resumen: En este trabajo analizamos la idea de Universidad que formuló el académico comunista Hernán Ramírez Necochea, a partir de su experiencia como docente e investigador en la Universidad de Chile. Sostenemos que Ramírez concibió la Universidad como un espacio de disputa ideológica con la clase dominante y el imperialismo cultural norteamericano. Para confirmar esta hipótesis, en primer lugar, indagaremos en la relación entre el Partido Comunista de Chile (PCCh) y la Universidad a fines de 1950 e inicios de 1960. En segundo lugar, reconstruiremos la biografía académica y política de Ramírez Necochea, y, por último, analizaremos su concepto de Universidad a través de la revisión de memorias, documentos inéditos, producción historiográfica, entrevistas, prensa militante y universitaria de la época. Este trabajo se inserta en los fundamentos disciplinares de la nueva historia política y la historia intelectual.

Combustion – especially the burning of fossil fuels – is central to the problematic of human geologic agency and to any meaningful political or cultural response to the current planetary predicament. But a consideration of the politics of combustion raises the issue of another kind of fire: the explosive combustion that is at the core of state or military arsenals and the crux of most forms of insurrectionary force. While fire has been part of our planet's history for hundreds of millions of years, there is no natural equivalent to the high-speed combustive chain reaction that is the blast of gunpowder. This paper traces the 'thermopolitics' of firearms that began with the discovery of explosive powders in 9th century China, but which builds on a much longer history of experimentation with and application of chambered fire. While the fire of the artisan brought enchanting and beautiful objects into the world, escalating military use of gunpowder installed new powers of destructiveness into the very core of modern social life. Moving from a biopolitical to a thermopolitical perspective, it is argued that the shocking demands of functioning in proximity to the explosion turns the social organization and cultural sensibilities of modernity into a kind of infernal machinery. In our own era, the internal combustion engine has inherited something of the 'infernal' power of the militarized explosion, and ramped it up to the scale of global environmental change. This raises questions not only about to get the runaway forces of planetary fire under control, but about what other uses – more gratuitous and glorious – might yet be made of the explosive firepower we have brought into the world.

In the revolutionary year 1905, Odessa became an area of violence in the tension of social, religious and cultural upheaval. In this year there were strikes, escalations of revolutional mood, a fire in the port after the arrival of the battleship «Knjaz´ Potemkin-Tavričeskij» («Potemkin») in the night of June 14-15. Arrival of the rebellious battleship was a significant event not only for the city of Odessa and the Russian revolution, but also for the history of the fate of Jews of the early 20th century. This was the first armed insurrection in the course of the revolution, which moved Odessa and its social, geographical and semiotic city spaces. The «Potemkin days» entered the history of the city of Odessa mainly through the periodicals of that time but also through the Russian-Jewish literature such as Lazar Karmen's story «Potemkin Days» (1907), Korney Chukovsky's essay «1905, June» (1958) and Vladimir Jabotinsky's novel «The Five» (1936). These works depict not only the resulting collective violence but also its semiotic and social spaces in the city. Up until now, this field has not been investigated in any historical, cultural or literary research. The focus of this paper is to analyse geographical, social and symbolic city spaces in Odessa with the help of the space theories by Jury Lotman and Michel de Certeau. Both scholars work with the definitions of the city, the place and the space, which are significant for the selected literate works about Odessa in 1905. The analysis will show not only the ambivalence, mobility and variability of city spaces, but also the narrators expectations and thus the fate of Jews in Odessa and the perspectives in the historical processes for them — assimilation or emigration.

In A Mercy Toni Morrison tackles the multilayered and strikingly powerful Gothic "haunted" house metaphor from a female perspective. Her revenants and hauntings are not just individual, but also historical, political and cultural manifestations. Through the Gothic dwelling, Morrison explores the fragmented personal and familial identities, conventional gender arrangements, failed domestic ideology, racist and colonial past, etc., in a patriarchal society dominated by whites. Her transgressive rewriting draws attention to the impact of slavery and racism and, consequently, to the othering of ethnic females, especially blacks. Morrison not only depicts the unspeakable horrors of American history, but also provides ways for its regeneration, such as women's empowerment and their struggle for self-definition. Morrison's revisitation of the "haunted" house formula offers an alternative female perspective on American identity and history. ; En A Mercy Toni Morrison aborda la poderosa y compleja metáfora de la casa gótica "encantada" desde una perspectiva femenina. Sus fantasmas no son exclusivamente individuales, sino manifestaciones históricas, políticas y culturales. Mediante la mansión gótica, Morrison analiza la fragmentada identidad personal y familiar, las convenciones de género, la fallida ideología doméstica, el pasado racista y colonial, etc., en una sociedad patriarcal dominada por blancos. Su reescritura transgresora destaca el impacto de la esclavitud y el racismo y, consecuentemente, la alterización de la mujer étnica, especialmente las negras. Morrison no sólo describe los inefables horrores góticos de la historia americana, sino que también proporciona formas de regeneración, tales como el empoderamiento de la mujer y su lucha por autodefinición. La revisitación de Morrison de la fórmula de la casa "encantada" ofrece una perspectiva femenina alternativa de la identidad e historia americanas.

During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) the Portuguese-Spanish border was an instrument of protection and resistance, an imaginary line that demarcated the life and death of thousands, surviving Salazar's reinforcement of control and surveillance. The article analyses the cross-border solidarities that took place during the war, electing as its empirical and historiographical object, the case of republican refugee fluxes, and in particular, the case of Barrancos. Methodologically we seek to intertwine ethnography and history, blending oral and documental sources with the data from our field work in Barrancos (Alentejo), bridging and comparing Barrancos' local history to that of their neighbours from Encinasola (Andalucía) and Oliva de la Frontera (Extremadura). The analytical approach to historical memory, borders and power relations, explains the strategies of resistance of social actors, defining them as a cultural praxis conformed throughout the historical process. ; Durante la guerra civil de España (1936-1939) la frontera hispano-portuguesa fue un instrumento de protección y de resistencia, una línea imaginaria demarcando la vida y la muerte de miles de personas, sobre la que Salazar había reforzado su control e vigilancia. El artículo analiza las solidaridades fronterizas en tiempo de guerra, eligiendo como objeto empírico e historiográfico los flujos de refugiados republicanos, en particular, el caso de Barrancos. Metodológicamente entrelazamos la etnografía y la historia, cruzando fuentes orales y documentales con trabajo de campo realizado en Barrancos (Alentejo), estableciendo puentes con sus vecinos de Encinasola (Andalucía) y Oliva de la Frontera (Extremadura). El acercamiento analítico atribuido a la memoria, al lugar de la frontera, y a las relaciones de poder, evidencia las estrategias de resistencia de los actores sociales, como praxis culturales conformadas a lo largo del proceso histórico.