Η ευθανασία και η υποβοηθούμενη αυτοκτονία καθίστανται νόμιμες μόνο σε τέσσερις χώρες στην Ευρώπη, αυτές είναι οι εξής: η Ολλανδία, το Βέλγιο, το Λουξεμβούργο και η Ελβετία. Η ευθανασία και η υποβοηθούμενη αυτοκτονία δεν είναι μόνο ένα νομικό ζήτημα, για το πώς θα μπορούσε να είναι η νομοθεσία από τεχνικής άποψης, αλλά είναι επίσης, ένα αμφιλεγόμενο θέμα, για το οποίο πολλές χώρες δεν είναι έτοιμες να συζητήσουν. Εκτός από τη νομική πλευρά, υπάρχουν κι άλλες πτυχές που σχετίζονται με αυτό το ζήτημα. Το ερώτημα που πάντα εγείρεται, είναι εάν η κοινότητα αισθάνεται την αναγκαιότητα ύπαρξης μιας τέτοιου είδους νομοθεσίας.Ο σκοπός αυτού του άρθρου είναι να εξοικειώσει τον αναγνώστη, με τη νομοθεσία περί ευθανασίας στην Ολλανδία και με τη δημόσια συζήτηση που την περιβάλλει. Το άρθρο επιχειρεί να δώσει μια γενική εικόνα και μια επεξήγηση της ισχύουσας νομοθεσίας. ; Euthanasia and assisted suicide is made legal only in four countries in Europe, the countries being: The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland. Euthanasia and assisted suicide is not only a legal question, how would the legislation look like technically speaking, but it is also a controversial topic which many countries are not ready to discuss. In addition to the legal aspects, other aspects are also associated with this issue. The question that always arises is whether the community feels the necessity for this kind of legislation. The aim of this article is to familiarise the reader with the euthanasia legislation in The Netherlands and the public debate surrounding it. The article will give an overview and explanation of the current legislation.Firstly, the creation of the current legislation will be discussed, followed by an explanation of the current legislation on the basis of two cases that will be discussed in greater detail. In addition, attention will also be paid to other ending of life possibilities and concluded with the public debate on the legislation.
Δεν παρατίθεται περίληψη στα ελληνικά. ; Photini Danou, The words of the voiceless Did ordinary men and women in pre-modern England have an opinion about politics? What was "politics" for the common people at a time when they had not any say in choosing who would rule them? Was popular engagement in state politics only to secure subsistence? Were "knife and fork" politics of the masses so separate from issues of "high politics" of the State? Was pre-modern commoners' mentality, "pre-political" as well? This paper discusses early modern popular political awareness. I argue that commoners in Tudor England pursued their own political agenda, by exploiting the sovereign's self-image as the "protector of the poor". However, as I set out to show, in pursuing their political agenda commoners also raised issues on the content of Englishness, common good, patriotism, legitimate governance and the right of resistance. The political identity of the lower strata was not an entity fixed in its essence. On the contrary, plebeian political identity was rather shifting, changeable, and always constituting its content in particular historical contexts. The commoners' commitment to the ideal of the"nation", their loyalty to the government, their allegiance to their Queen, their obedience to her laws, or their active participation in the enforcement of state policies were not unconditional. The ways they practiced their political identity was interrelated to their superiors' behavior and draw its legitimacy from the public transcript of the English Common wealth. Common prosperity, reciprocity, solidarity and, in general, protection of the poorer and weaker members of English society were ideals that constituted the meaning of "common wealth" in the plebeian mind. Those ideals were prerequisites for their giving of devotion and loyalty to the state. Thus, the commoners' political mentality and behavior ranged from national loyalty to indifference or even animosity to state officials; from cooperation and acquiescence to covered or overt forms of opposition and active resistance.
Δεν παρατίθεται περίληψη στα ελληνικά. ; Tonia Kafetzaki, Female Contention and Communist Commitment: Working Women in the Midwar Novels and Essays of Galateia Kazantzaki The paper examines the representations of working women in the midwar novels of Galateia Kazantzaki (1881-1962), the relation of these representations to the author's political views on female labor —as articulated in two essays written in the same period—, as well as the manner in which her views are integrated into the discussion of these issues during this time period, specifically in the confrontation between the radical feminists, the socialists and the communists. G. K. was a writer with an enduring interest in the social status of women, an intellectual who actively participated in the debates of the Left regarding the role of art, and unswerving in her commitment to the communist movement. Including women in her work, she intended to denounce the decay of the bourgeois system that imposes upon women additional forms of exploitation, to tackle issues regarding the status of her female contemporaries and to examine women's labor in relation to women's emancipation perceived as a change in mentality and morals. Her prose in its entirety, literary and political, is an interesting expression of female contention in the period between the wars, an expression consistent with the basic tenets of the communist party, conversant with the views of the radical feminist scene, and showing a clear proximity to socialist opinions. Revealing a broader and more liberal attitude regarding women's labor and women's issues than the political party she is affiliated to, she chiefly expresses her concern for attaining a new female ethos, a new consciousness.
Δεν παρατίθεται περίληψη στα ελληνικά. ; This article focuses on the function of the institution of family in the framework of the Greek Orthodox society of Kos during the 18th and 19th centuries. The existence of issues which consisted violation of what was legislated according to the regulations of the Church was remarkable. Such violations were the provision of divorce after adultery and the usual records of divorces after the «common will» of the couple. In particular, during the 18th century, according to the practice of the Court of the Church in Kos, it is obvious that any case was not solved as it was legislated by the Church in the past but it was solved «ad hoc». Thus, the function of the Family Law in the provision of justice by the Court of the Church in the 18th century was based, not on already existed and objective criteria, but on solutions ad hoc («κατ' οίκονομίαν») as the terminology of Church describes them. In this case the model of the Greek Orthodox Church became flexible in order to keep the control of the local Christian society, adapted in local or even temporary needs. This situation changed during the 19th century, when the Church tried —with the support of the local «demogerontes»— to play the role of the strict supervisor in issues of violation of the Family Law.
Δεν παρατίθεται περίληψη στα ελληνικά. ; Understanding monetary phenomena does not only require a pure economical research but an examination of money through it's various social, ideological and political aspects. Literature may provide a framework for a fruitful investigation of these aspects of past and present life. This article tries to find monetary traces in the 19th and early 20th century Greek literature. The circulation of foreign and domestic metallic currencies, as it emerge from the texts of various writers of the time (Palaiologos, Calligas, Vikelas, Carcavitsas, Theotokis, Papadiamantis, Mirivilis, etc.), the role of Turkish currencies, the social evaluation of the drachma, the apparition of token currencies and the penetration of paper money in daily transactions, are few of the issues that this investigation involves.
Δεν παρατίθεται περίληψη στα ελληνικά. ; Alexandros N. Teneketzis, Art and Politics in Cold War. The International Sculpture Competition for the Monument to the Unknown Political Prisoner The gradual transfer of the metropolis of the western art world from Paris to New York and specifically in circles around the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) under the leadership of Alfred H. Barr Jr. and with the theoretical foundation by Clement Greenberg, but practically under the guidance and financing from the CIA, was also visible in the case of public memory and art about the Second World War. The international institution that was the cause for the widespread diffusion of the artistic standards grown in USA was the "International Sculpture Competition for the Monument to the Unknown Political Prisoner", which was organized under the auspices of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London and the Tate Gallery, but actually with the encouragement, blessings and supervision of the CIA. The competition was from the beginning a large turnout and the proposals submitted until January 1953 surpassed 3.500 –mainly abstract or semiabstract stylistic suggestions. The biggest names at the time in the international arena of sculpture in West took part, while artists from the Eastern Bloc boycotted the process. Therefore were precluded any realistic academic representative works and of course any relationship with socialist realism, giving thus the tone for both the style, and for all other future monuments in the western world. Eventually, the first prize of 2.500 pounds awarded to the British sculptor Reg Butler, unknown to the general public until that time but with a decisive commitment to abstraction. However, the work of Butler was never completed, principally because of the changing international circumstances and relationships after the death of Stalin in '53 and Khrushchev's secret speech in '56. The new "Thaw" era in EastWest relations imposed the final rejection in 1960. A public monument like that of Butler's, which would refer to the previous tense situation, was no more possible. Nevertheless, the dual objective of recognition and legitimization of abstract art in the western world and at the same time of the weakening of socialist realism and therefore of communism was promoted and achieved up to a certain degree.
The database Cretan Institutional Inscriptions was created as part of the PhD research project in Ancient Heritage Studies Kretikai Politeiai: Cretan Institutions from VII to I century BC, carried out at the University of Venice Ca' Foscari by Irene Vagionakis from 2016 to 2019, under the supervision of Claudia Antonetti and Gabriel Bodard. The research project aimed at collecting the epigraphic sources related to the institutional elements of the many political entities of Crete, with a view to highlighting the specificity of each context in the period between the rise of the poleis and the Roman conquest of the island. The main component of the database consists of the epigraphic collection of the 600 inscriptions constituting the core of the documentary base of the study, for each of which an XML edition compliant with the TEI EpiDoc international standard was created. Each EpiDoc edition includes a descriptive and a bibliographic lemma, the text of the inscription, a selective apparatus criticus and a commentary focused on the institutional data offered by the document. In addition to the epigraphic collection, the database includes a collection of the main related literary sources, a catalogue of the attested Cretan institutions (assemblies, boards, officials, associations, civic subdivisions, social statuses, age classes, months, festivities and other celebrations, institutional practices, institutional instruments, public spaces) and a catalogue of the political entities of Crete (poleis, koina, dependent communities, extra-urban sanctuaries, hegemonic alliances). Data and SW available at https://github.com/IreneVagionakis/CretanInscriptions
Δεν παρατίθεται περίληψη στα ελληνικά. ; Kostas Raptis, Merchants in Imperial Austria during the 'Long' Nineteenth Century This article, which draws mainly on the Archives of the Austrian Ministry of Commerce, as well as on contemporary works and modern li terature, focuses on the examination of the historical course of merchants (above all the whole sale traders and the well suited shopkeepers and retail merchants) in Old Austria as a distinctive group within the Central European bourgeoisie. The contribution of the merchantmagnates (Großhändler) to the industrialization of the Austrian Half of the Habsburg Empire and the formation of a powerful business class, the importance of the involvement of businessmen from abroad in Austrian wholesale and foreign trade, the grip of the state and imperial allegiance in the commercial sector, the social position and the political activity of merchants– primarily at local and regional levels –as well as the attitudes of the multiethnic merchant class towards all kinds of nationalist movements in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, are the central issues of this essay. Merchantmagnates, among whom many of foreign provenance or/ and not of Catholic faith (Protestants, Jews and Greekorthodox) established themselves as the most active entrepreneurial group within the Austrian bourgeoisie during most of the nineteenth century (at least until the 1870s), since they exploited promptly every new opportunity to accumulate and augment their capital and income: in industry, banking, insurance and other shareholding companies, transport, shipping and real estate. The bourgeois status of the Austrian merchants is confirmed for the same period by their participation in all sorts of (bourgeois) associations, their subscription to public benefit causes, their charitable and philanthropic activities. The imperial state's favorable disposition towards entrepreneurs in general and merchants in particular, its recognition and reward of their contribution to the Austrian economy and export trade, of their mercantile knowledge and professional experience, as well as of their charity and philanthropic work, are documented in the appointment of honorary consuls of Austria abroad or of consuls of foreign states in the capital and cities of the Monarchy, the conferring of the highest social distinctions on merchants by Emperor Franz Joseph through award of medals, honorary titles and titles of nobility or the merchants' collaboration with the Ministry of Commerce as elected members and officials of chambers of commerce, as experts, special advisers and commission agents. In addition to the merchants' indirect relations with politics there were direct ones too, in other words their active participation as elected representatives, primarily to municipal councils and secondarily to the local and imperial parliaments of Austria after the constitutional reforms of 18601861. During the socalled era of liberalism, from the 1860s up to the mid1880's, it was mainly germanspeaking merchants, who, together with industrialists and other middle class groups, dominated in most towns, whereas in the three decades which preceded the First World War –an era of increasing antisemitism and nationalism– they had to share power with new emerging petitbourgeois strata (among them many shopkeepers). The article concludes with a remark on the upheavals caused to the merchant world by the two World Wars and nationalsocialism, which destroyed the unified economic space of AustriaHungary, nationalized its cosmopolitan bourgeoisie and finally led to the expulsion, material depravation or/and extermination of such a dynamic and prominent group, like the Jewish merchants and entrepreneurs, followed by the abolition of the capitalist economy by the new socialist regimes in Central and EastCentral Europe after 1945.
Dimitrios Stamatopoulos, The Church as State: representations of the Orthodoxmillet and the model of constitutional monarchy (second half of thenineteenth century)The institutionalised introduction of secular elements into the administrationof the Patriarchate of Constantinople after the ratification ofthe General Regulations (1860-1862) created the conditions for the emergenceof a discourse aimed at the internal reorganization of ecclesiasticalinstitutions based on the state model. This model was adopted not onlyby reform-minded circles but also by representatives of the clericalistwing, each with completely different political aims. The model of constitutionalmonarchy appeared as the most «functional» for solving thecentral political problem posed by the clericalist wing in the discussion:how could a regime of patriarchal centralization be applied without confutingthe essence of reform. This model of constitutionality prevailednot only because the reformers preferred it as an alternative version ofrestructuring the millet but because the clericalists espoused and promotedit in the form of a state model: that of the constitutional monarchy.And their aim was not only to prevent the domination of thelay element but also to avoid the formation of a public sphere, whichin any case in Eastern and Southeastern Europe was inherent in theemergence of a discourse on nation and nationalism. ; Dimitrios Stamatopoulos, The Church as State: representations of the Orthodoxmillet and the model of constitutional monarchy (second half of thenineteenth century)The institutionalised introduction of secular elements into the administrationof the Patriarchate of Constantinople after the ratification ofthe General Regulations (1860-1862) created the conditions for the emergenceof a discourse aimed at the internal reorganization of ecclesiasticalinstitutions based on the state model. This model was adopted not onlyby reform-minded circles but also by representatives of the clericalistwing, each with completely different political aims. The model of constitutionalmonarchy appeared as the most «functional» for solving thecentral political problem posed by the clericalist wing in the discussion:how could a regime of patriarchal centralization be applied without confutingthe essence of reform. This model of constitutionality prevailednot only because the reformers preferred it as an alternative version ofrestructuring the millet but because the clericalists espoused and promotedit in the form of a state model: that of the constitutional monarchy.And their aim was not only to prevent the domination of thelay element but also to avoid the formation of a public sphere, whichin any case in Eastern and Southeastern Europe was inherent in theemergence of a discourse on nation and nationalism.
Δεν παρατίθεται περίληψη στα Ελληνικά. ; Dans une époque de grands efforts pour l'organisation de l'état grec, qui était nouvellement établi, Spyridon Skoufos a adressé en Octobre 1829 au gouverneur Jean Kapodistrias un «Mémoire sur la statistique de la Grèce». L'auteur a rédigé ce mémoire sous l'influence des idées qui existaient depuis longtemps en Europe; on peut constater cette influence tant sur le plan général, que sur les termes utilisés (par exemple, Arithmétique Politique), sans toutefois que le rédacteur ignore la réalité grecque. Dans les vingt pages du Mémoire Skoufos met l'accent sur la nécessité d'un dénombrement de la population et décrit la manière par laquelle on peut le réaliser tant par des recensements, que par l'organisation de l'état civil (enregistrement des naissances, mariages et décès). Skoufos rédigea ce Mémoire dans le but évident de se faire procurer un emploi public, ce qui lui fut accordé, en 1833, après l'arrivée du roi Othon. On ignore si ce Mémoire a influencé les méthodes statistiques de l'état grec; on peut cependant dépister quelques similitudes entre le Mémoire de Skoufos et quelques textes postérieurs.
Konstantinos Katsoudas, "A Dictatorship that is not a Dictatorship". Spanish Nationalists and the 4th of August The Spanish Civil War convulsed the international public opinion and prompted most foreign governments to take measures or even intervene in the conflict. Greek entanglement either in the form of smuggling war materiel or the participation of Greek volunteers in the International Brigades has already been investigated. However, little is known about a second dimension of this internationalization of the war: the peculiar forms that the antagonism between the two belligerent camps in foreign countries took. This paper, based mainly on Spanish archival sources, discusses some aspects of the activity developed in Greece by Franco's nationalists and the way Francoist diplomats and emissaries perceived the nature of an apparently similar regime, such as the dictatorship led by general Metaxas. The main objectives of the Francoist foreign policy were to avoid any escalation of the Spanish civil war into a world conflict, to secure international assistance for the right-wing forces and to undermine the legitimacy of the legal Republican government. In Greece, an informal diplomatic civil war broke out since Francoists occupied the Spanish Legation in Athens and Republicans took over the Consulate in Thessaloniki. The Francoists combined public and undercover activity: they worked hard to achieve an official recognition of their Estado Nuevo, while at the same time created rings of espionage and channels of anticommunist propaganda. The reason of their partial breakthroughs was that, contrary to their Republican enemies, the Nationalists enjoyed support by a significant part of the Greek political world, which was ideologically identified with their struggle. Francoist anti-communism had some interesting implications for Greek politics. An important issue was the Francoist effort to reveal a supposed Moscow-based conspiracy against Spain and Greece, both considered as hotbeds of revolution in the Mediterranean, in order to justify both Franco's extermination campaign and Metaxas' coup. Although this effort was based on fraudulent documents, forged by an anti-Bolshevik international organization, it became the cornerstone of Francoist and Metaxist propaganda. General Metaxas was the only European dictator to invoke the Spanish Civil War as a raison d'etre of his regime and often warned against the repetition of Spanish-like drama on Greek soil. Nevertheless he did not approve of Franco's methods and preferred Dr. Salazar's Portugal as an institutional model closer to his vision. For Spanish nationalist observers this was a sign of weakness. They interpreted events in Greece through the disfiguring mirror of their own historic experience: thus, although they never called in question Metaxas' authoritarian motives, the 4th of August regime was considered too mild and soft compared to Francoism (whose combativeness and fanaticism, as they suggested, the Greek General should have imitated); it reminded them the dictatorship founded in Spain by General Primo de Rivera in 1920s, whose inadequacy paved the way for the advent of the Republic and the emergence of sociopolitical radicalism. Incidents of the following years, as Greece moved towards a civil confrontation, seemed to strengthen their views. ; Konstantinos Katsoudas, "A Dictatorship that is not a Dictatorship". Spanish Nationalists and the 4th of AugustThe Spanish Civil War convulsed the international public opinion and prompted most foreign governments to take measures or even intervene in the conflict. Greek entanglement either in the form of smuggling war materiel or the participation of Greek volunteers in the International Brigades has already been investigated. However, little is known about a second dimension of this internationalization of the war: the peculiar forms that the antagonism between the two belligerent camps in foreign countries took. This paper, based mainly on Spanish archival sources, discusses some aspects of the activity developed in Greece by Franco's nationalists and the way Francoist diplomats and emissaries perceived the nature of an apparently similar regime, such as the dictatorship led by general Metaxas. The main objectives of the Francoist foreign policy were to avoid any escalation of the Spanish civil war into a world conflict, to secure international assistance for the right-wing forces and to undermine the legitimacy of the legal Republican government. In Greece, an informal diplomatic civil war broke out since Francoists occupied the Spanish Legation in Athens and Republicans took over the Consulate in Thessaloniki. The Francoists combined public and undercover activity: they worked hard to achieve an official recognition of their Estado Nuevo, while at the same time created rings of espionage and channels of anticommunist propaganda. The reason of their partial breakthroughs was that, contrary to their Republican enemies, the Nationalists enjoyed support by a significant part of the Greek political world, which was ideologically identified with their struggle. Francoist anti-communism had some interesting implications for Greek politics. An important issue was the Francoist effort to reveal a supposed Moscow-based conspiracy against Spain and Greece, both considered as hotbeds of revolution in the Mediterranean, in order to justify both Franco's extermination campaign and Metaxas' coup. Although this effort was based on fraudulent documents, forged by an anti-Bolshevik international organization, it became the cornerstone of Francoist and Metaxist propaganda. General Metaxas was the only European dictator to invoke the Spanish Civil War as a raison d'etre of his regime and often warned against the repetition of Spanish-like drama on Greek soil. Nevertheless he did not approve of Franco's methods and preferred Dr. Salazar's Portugal as an institutional model closer to his vision. For Spanish nationalist observers this was a sign of weakness. They interpreted events in Greece through the disfiguring mirror of their own historic experience: thus, although they never called in question Metaxas' authoritarian motives, the 4th of August regime was considered too mild and soft compared to Francoism (whose combativeness and fanaticism, as they suggested, the Greek General should have imitated); it reminded them the dictatorship founded in Spain by General Primo de Rivera in 1920s, whose inadequacy paved the way for the advent of the Republic and the emergence of sociopolitical radicalism. Incidents of the following years, as Greece moved towards a civil confrontation, seemed to strengthen their views.
Anne Karakatsoulis, La Revue des Deux Mondes pendant l'entre-deuxguerresLa Revue des Deux Mondes nuance fortement l'image-type de la revuequi a attiré l'attention de la recherche historique récente. Elle n'est pasle produit d'un petit groupe d'intellectuels marginaux, elle ne connaîtpas de mésaventures économiques ou de vacillations idéologiques, elleabhorre tout ce qui de loin pourrait ressembler à une avant-garde eten plus, elle réussit un trajectoire plus que centenaire. Fondée en 1829,elle avait rapidement trouvé son espace comme «grande revue de culturegénérale» s'adressant à une «élite intellectuelle», bourgeoise et bienpensante.Si en ses débuts elle côtoya les romantiques, après 1848 ellesuivit l'évolution de son public vers le conservatisme social et y demeura.Depuis le Second Empire et jusqu'à l'entre-deux-guerres, sesidées de fond furent le libéralisme et la grandeur de la France, avec unintermède fortement tenté de polémique catholique durant le passagede Ferdinand Brunetière à sa direction à l'aube du vingtième siècle.La Reçue des Deux Mondes dépasse le simple cas de la revue etatteint la dimension d'une institution littéraire et politique en réunissantpour cela les exigences de la permanence et de la reconnaissanceofficielle. De par sa longévité, sa diffusion mondiale croissante, sonpartimoine inébranlable d'abonnés fidèles qui transmettent la traditionde l'abonnement familial à la Revue de génération en génération, et enconséquence, sa situation économique florissante, mais aussi et par dessustout, de par la direction inspirée de René Doumic (1916-1937) etson équipe rédactionnelle, la Reçue des Deux Mondes devient la tribunedes grands hommes politiques et des littérateurs consacrés et parvientainsi à s'imposer comme «l'ambassadrice des lettres françaises». ; Anne Karakatsoulis, La Revue des Deux Mondes pendant l'entre-deuxguerresLa Revue des Deux Mondes nuance fortement l'image-type de la revuequi a attiré l'attention de la recherche historique récente. Elle n'est pasle produit d'un petit groupe d'intellectuels marginaux, elle ne connaîtpas de mésaventures économiques ou de vacillations idéologiques, elleabhorre tout ce qui de loin pourrait ressembler à une avant-garde eten plus, elle réussit un trajectoire plus que centenaire. Fondée en 1829,elle avait rapidement trouvé son espace comme «grande revue de culturegénérale» s'adressant à une «élite intellectuelle», bourgeoise et bienpensante.Si en ses débuts elle côtoya les romantiques, après 1848 ellesuivit l'évolution de son public vers le conservatisme social et y demeura.Depuis le Second Empire et jusqu'à l'entre-deux-guerres, sesidées de fond furent le libéralisme et la grandeur de la France, avec unintermède fortement tenté de polémique catholique durant le passagede Ferdinand Brunetière à sa direction à l'aube du vingtième siècle.La Reçue des Deux Mondes dépasse le simple cas de la revue etatteint la dimension d'une institution littéraire et politique en réunissantpour cela les exigences de la permanence et de la reconnaissanceofficielle. De par sa longévité, sa diffusion mondiale croissante, sonpartimoine inébranlable d'abonnés fidèles qui transmettent la traditionde l'abonnement familial à la Revue de génération en génération, et enconséquence, sa situation économique florissante, mais aussi et par dessustout, de par la direction inspirée de René Doumic (1916-1937) etson équipe rédactionnelle, la Reçue des Deux Mondes devient la tribunedes grands hommes politiques et des littérateurs consacrés et parvientainsi à s'imposer comme «l'ambassadrice des lettres françaises».
Δεν παρατίθεται περίληψη στα ελληνικά. ; Nassia Yakovaki, The «Traité des trois imposteurs)) and the European Enlightenment The aim of this article is to present the obscure but fascinating story of the production and diffusion of the Traité des trois imposteurs, the best seller of the clandestine literature in Europe during the first half of the 18th century and to discuss the new and to some extent controversial interpretations that the study of this text has provoked as far as the understanding of the European Enlightenment is concerned. The importance of this text derives, first of all, from its subversive ideas: it offers a bold and straightforward attack on all three monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) by rejecting the principle of revelation and by pronouncing their founders as «impostors», while attributing the appearance of organized religions to political interests. Yet, the significance of this text goes beyond its content: the conditions of its production as well as of its circulation offer to modern historical research the chance to explore an «underground universe», peopled by relatively unknown figures, working among the middlemen of the publishing world. These circles —as it seems— had the readiness to respond creatively to a turbulent religious and political environment, to adopt rigid philosophical stands and to step into radical politics. Historical research has recently succeeded in investigating the complicated issues of the origin, dating, authorship and circulation of this notorious text and in disentangling the thread connecting this late 17th century production with the medieval legend of the «imposture». Crucial among these findings is on the one hand the bond that links the Traité with the works of Spinoza and on the other the connection between the production of the text and a group of people in late 17th and early 18th century Holland. The interesting questions concerning the general understanding of the era of «the crisis of the European consciousness» that the historical scholarship about the Traité has raised have already led to the formation of a new, stimulating, yet controversial historiographical trend which elaborates a new interpretation of the Enlightenment, around the idea of an early and radical Enlightenment (Margaret Jacob, 1981 and 2003, Jonathan Israel, 2001).
Δεν παρατίθεται περίληψη στα ελληνικά. ; Maria Papathanassiou, Illegitimate Children and Foster Children in the Eastern Alps: Research Directions and Perspectives This article deals with the history of illegitimate and foster children (usually also illegitimate) in the region of Eastern Alps (Austria) between the mid-18th and the early 20th centuries. During that period these childrens' number, though not stable, remained considerably high in absolute and relative terms. The paper discerns three basic trends in literature on the subject and comments on their results: a) Studies related to an international historical debate on bastardy in Europe and trying to explain impressive statistical data by pointing to social and economic factors, such as the domination of animal husbandry, the system of inheritance, the family system, labour organization and the so-called «agricultural revolution» in Europe. b) Studies on legislation, on official politics regarding single mothers and illegitimate or foster children, as well as studies on public institutions taking care of illegitimate children and their mothers from the second half of the 18th century on. Austrian law did not provide clearly for illegitimate children until the civil code was enacted in 1811 and only in 1919 a new law came into being regarding illegitimate and foster children together. c) Studies in a «history from below» direction, regarding people and their experiences but clearly not dominating the field in terms of numbers as well as analytical breadth. This essay suggests a more systematic approach in this last direction, particularly by comparing social groups, for example illegitimate children with peasant children, illegitimate children in rural with illegitimate children in urban environments, illegitimate foster children with other foster children in rural Austria, single mothers born and grown up as illegitimate children themselves with single mothers born and grown up as peasant daughters etc.
Δεν παρατίθεται περίληψη στα ελληνικά. ; The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of cultural propaganda in formulating and conducting foreign policy aiming at political supremacy and cultural penetration within the overall context of the ideological conflict between East and West during the Cold War era. Educational and cultural exchanges and other events of a nominali}'' nonpolitical nature are examined within their political context. In particular, the paper observes Anglo-Soviet relations over Greece. These relations turned increasingly hostile in mid-February 1945. Around that time a marked intensification of Soviet propaganda occurred. In July 1945, the Greek-Soviet League was established. It is interesting that, in response, the British Foreign Office concidered that the British Council in Athens should be reinforced and acquire a permanent representative. It was also decided to reopen the question of the Anglo-Greek Cultural Convention that was signed in 1940 but never ratified. This presentation seeks to examine the purpose of establishing these two cultural agencies, their staffing, the funding of their activities, the content of their cultural programmes, and the profile of their Greek supporters, both state officials and private individuals. How successful was the effort by the British Council and the Greek-Soviet League to promote their cultural programmes and what was the impact of these programmes on Greek public opinion? How did their cultural initiatives continue during the Greek Civil War? On the basis of the sources available, did each agency, and if so to what degree, enjoy the support of the country it represented? The comparative study of British and Soviet cultural propaganda in Greece will contribute to understanding the differences and similarities in the means used by each country to achieve its political ends in Greece.
