Interconnected - Actors, Objects, and Ideas on the Move

GRAINES Summer School, St Andrews, 7-10 June 2015

Tag: mapping

Getting the Know-how for Mapping the Empire: Struve (1793‐1864), a Leading Astronomer of Tsarist Russia and his Scientific Network.

May 13, 2015 / / 0 Comments

My Name is Martin Jeske and I am a PhD student at the department of East European History at the University of Basel (Switzerland), and a member of the Basel Graduate School of History (BGSH). I studied Human Geography, Cultural Sciences and East European History in Jena and Frankfurt/Oder (Germany), and also in Barnaul (Russian Federation). Prior to my studies at university I completed a professional training as a surveyor at the Thuringian survey ordnance in Gotha (Germany).

As one aspect of my recently started PhD thesis “Mapping an Empire. Territorialization, Cartography and Scientific Transfer in Tsarist Russia (1797-1919)” I research networks of European astronomers and mechanics to understand, how geodetic and astronomic methods and instruments found its way to the Russian Empire, which spaces could be mapped, and what the Russian progress could contribute to the European scientific development.
Permanent transnational exchanges between a great number of experts enabled the progress and standardization of cartography as a key tool for territorialization of European and colonial space in the 19th century. In order to reconstruct how those scientific ideas and objects had migrated and developed it is necessary to analyse who submitted what in which quality to whom and also how and when this happened.

Ansicht_Pulkovo

Pulkovo Observatory

Finding a suitable narrative to arrange the complex connections is a challenge. My interest focuses on Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve (1793-1864), the leading astronomer of the Russian Empire in the first half of the 19th century. His European-wide network of astronomers and mechanics can be regarded as crucial for the development of geodesy as a basis for advanced topographic cartography in Russia.

 

Struve_Portrait_1844

F.G.W. Struve (1844)

I use the approach of scientific transfer (Wissenschaftstransfer), which describes the move from knowledge, research methods and technologies across state borders. With respect to cultural transfers (Kulturtransfers) between the Russian Empire and its neighbours, the approaches of histoire croisée and entangeled history seem to be also suitable because they allow the research of interactions on different national, regional, and imperial levels. The concept of histoire croisée demands a historiography, which focuses on the actors, their conflicts, and solution strategies. Biographic and prosopographic perspectives can be applied, to investigate the role of such actors in the process of transfers. To reconstruct and analyse their communication and networks, which were constitutive for the exchange process, the development of mediators within the scientific transfer is relevant. The methods of historical network research should be used to visualize those scientific networks.

References:

Aust, Martin; Vulpius, Ricarda; Miller, Aleksej (Hrsg.): Imperium inter Pares: Rol’ transferov v istorii Rossijskoj imperii (1700-1917), Moskva 2010.

Düring, Marten; Eumann, Ullrich: Historische Netzwerkforschung, Ein neuer Ansatz in den Geschichtswissenschaften, in: Geschichte und Gesellschaft, Zeitschrift für historische Sozialwissenschft, Jg. 39, H. 3, (2013), 369-390.

Schweiger, Hannes; Holmes, Deborah: Nationale Grenzen und ihre biographischen Überschreitungen, in: Fetz, Bernhard (Hrsg.): Die Biographie – Zur Grundlegung ihrer Theorie, Berlin [u.a.] 2009, 385-418.

Stegbauer, Christian ; Häussling, Roger (Hrsg.): Handbuch Netzwerkforschung, Schriftenreihe: Netzwerkforschung, Bd. 4, Wiesbaden 2010.

Werner, Michael; Zimmermann, Bénédicte: Vergleich, Transfer, Verflechtung, Der Ansatz der Histoire croisée und die Herausforderung des Transnationalen, in: Geschichte und Gesellschaft 28 (2002) Nr. 4, 607-636.

The Left-Wing Terrorism and Political Violence in Western Europe in the 1970s

May 12, 2015 / / 0 Comments

My name is Mikuláš Pešta, I am a PhD candidate at the Institute of World History at Charles University in Prague. I am currently studying as an exchange student at the University of Hamburg. During my undergraduate years, I studied one semester at the University of Bologna, where I have researched the subject of Italian Left-Wing terrorism. I also took part in the short-term exchange program at the University of Cologne and University of Regensburg.

My thesis deals with the European Left-wing terrorism in the 1970s and the 1980s, especially with its origins within the New Left movement, with specifics of the development in Germany and Italy and with the positions of the most influential terrorists organizations. My goal is to find and define common features of the European terrorism and its ideological background – reinterpretation of the Socialist and Anarchist thinkers, methods of the fight of the Latin American and Vietnamese guerrilla units, and disillusion of the Soviet way of fighting the capitalism.
The project focuses on the comparison of the terrorist movements in Germany and Italy, where the violent organizations were strongest. The goal is satisfyingly mapping the extent of the cooperation (or even the coordination of the plans) of the anti-state movements in Italy and the Federal Republic of Germany. The thesis will also include a comparison of the origins, structure, and functioning of the clandestine groups, as well as the analysis of their language, methods, aims, or the relations to the “Old Left”. I will try to answer the question to what extent the terrorists were directly influenced by a student-worker movement and if the escalation of the violence was inevitable consequence of it.

Studying the terrorist organizations brings many complications; as the illegal formations, they do not archive the documents concerning their functioning. The analysis will have to be carried out indirectly, especially from the governmental and police documents which relate to the terrorism, newspaper articles and other contemporary reflections of their functioning, and subjective sources, such as the memoirs or interviews with the terrorists themselves.

I would like to contribute to the GRAINES Summer School with the mechanics of the transnational influence and cooperation of the clandestine organizations and their role in the European New Left movement. My motivation to participate is mainly to deepen the general knowledge about the processes of transnational networks, especially the about the transfers of ideas and know-how.

Selected bibliography:

1968 in Europe. History of protest and activism 1956-1977, KLIMKE, M., SCHAROTH, J. (eds.), New York 2008

STERLING, C., The terror network. The secret war of internaional terrorism, New York 1981

ALEXANDER, Y., PLUCHINSKY, D., Europe’ Red Terrorists. The fighting communist organizations, London 1992

COLVIN, S., Ulrike Meinhof and West German Terrorism: language, violence and identity, New York 2009

TERHOEVEN, P., Deutscher Herbst in Europa. Der Linsterrorismus der siebziger Jahre als transnationales Phänomen, München 2014

© 2026 Interconnected – Actors, Objects, and Ideas on the Move

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑