content
stringlengths 71
484k
| url
stringlengths 13
5.97k
|
|---|---|
Another theory is that they were brought much nearer to the site as glacial erratics by the Irish Sea Glacier although there is no evidence of glacial deposition within southern central England.
Outside its south entrance stood a third concentric timber circle—Woodhenge. Their understanding of the solar and lunar cycles must have led to a high regard for the cosmic order. Although banned in as a result of violent clashes with policethe annual gathering resumed in and now draws a crowd of more than 30, A source for one of the rhyolites, however, was identified in as Pont Saeson, north of the Preselis.
Model showing a reconstruction of how the completed Stonehenge monument may have looked. More recent hypotheses have them transporting the bluestones with supersized wicker baskets or a combination of ball bearings, long grooved planks and teams of oxen.
This "exclusion-zone" policy continued for almost fifteen years: The presence of these "ringing rocks" seems to support the hypothesis that Stonehenge was a "place for healing", as has been pointed out by Bournemouth University archaeologist Timothy Darvill, who consulted with the researchers.
A timber structure of some form may have existed within the enclosure, as suggested by a series of postholes dated to around this period. Your tour begins and ends in London - a globally famous city, that needs no introduction. All the Moon alignments necessary for determining this cycle are marked by massive stones.
Some 50 sarsen stones are now visible on the site, which may once have contained many more. Many modern historians and archaeologists now agree that several distinct tribes of people contributed to Stonehenge, each undertaking a different phase of its construction.
It is simply the number of days between one full Moon and the next. About bce the bluestones were rearranged to form a circle and an inner oval. In British archaeologists Tim Darvill and Geoffrey Wainwright suggested—on the basis of the Amesbury Archer, an Early Bronze Age skeleton with a knee injury, excavated 3 miles 5 km from Stonehenge—that Stonehenge was used in prehistory as a place of healing.
The stones in the horseshoe of trilithons are arranged by size; the smallest pair of trilithons are around 20 feet tall, the next pair a little higher and the largest, single trilithon in the south west corner would have been 24 feet tall.
Some archaeologists argue that some of these bluestones were from a second group brought from Wales. Carvings of dagger blades and axe heads appeared on the stones around BC. The pits may have contained standing timbers creating a timber circlealthough there is no excavated evidence of them.
In Henry gave the estate to the Earl of Hertford. In the survey of conditions at 94 leading World Heritage Sites, conservation and tourism experts ranked Stonehenge 75th in the list of destinations, declaring it to be "in moderate trouble".
Only two of the stones—both of sarsen—have survived. An early photograph of Stonehenge taken July The monument from a similar angle in showing the extent of reconstruction A contemporary newspaper depiction of the restoration — William Gowland oversaw the first major restoration of the monument in which involved the straightening and concrete setting of sarsen stone number 56 which was in danger of falling.
The area surrounding the Aubrey Holes was used as a place of burial from roughly to bce; it is the largest known cemetery from the 3rd millennium bce in Britain.
The buildings were removed although the roads were notand the land returned to agriculture. The archaeology points to a construction date between 5, and 3, years ago more than likely, several construction dates over this time. Stonehenge is located in the open land of Salisbury Plain two miles west of the town Amesbury, Wiltshire, in Southern England.
Theories about who built Stonehenge have included the Druids, Greeks, Phoenicians, or the Atlanteans (Stone). Located in southern England, it is comprised of roughly massive upright stones placed in a circular layout. Whi1e many modern scholars now agree that Stonehenge was once a burial ground, they have yet to determine what other purposes it served and how a civilization without modern technology—or even the wheel—produced the mighty monument.
The Stonehenge bluestones, which may have been thought to have healing powers, were carried to the site from Wales-by boat or rafts along the Welsh coast, or around the southwest tip of England. Find out more about the history of Stonehenge, including videos, interesting articles, pictures, historical features and more.
Introduction. Located in southern England, it. Private tours to the best of southern England from Classic England visit Oxford, Bath, the Cotswolds and more, or can be tailored to your personal tastes Introduction Time: All Year Accommodation: Luxury Hotels the ancient mystical sites of Stonehenge and Avebury before ending at the dreaming spires of Oxford.
1. | https://vilexahipaty.cwiextraction.com/an-introduction-to-the-history-of-stonehenge-in-southern-england-48332tp.html |
Puzzling ancient finds have a way of captivating the public, perhaps because it’s just too easy to dream up interesting explanations for how and why things exist. These seven archaeological discoveries have managed to stay hot topics despite their age, appearing on magazine covers year after year and inspiring new theories for their existence along the way.
10. Easter Island Statues (Easter Island)
The island’s name comes from Dutchmen who landed here on the first day of the Easter week, in 1722. The Easter Island, or Rapa Nui how local people call it, was discovered by the Dutch seaman Jacob Roggeveen 280 years ago and is the most secluded island on earth � the closest neighbours live 2000 km away.
Thanks to its unique geographic location, complete seclusion and a kind of isolation from the rest of the world, the Easter Island is still surrounded with mysteries. One of these is the origin of the local people, which was partly solved by an archaeologists and a traveler Thor Heyerdahl, who swam over the Pacific ocean on a raft and proved that people could get here from South America.
Another mystery is the collection of giant statues that local people call moai. Some of them are 21 meters high and weigh up to 200 tons. Ancient people believed that moai guarded them and the earth from evil spirits. The main question that researchers faced was how these huge colossi were moved around the island. Archeologists think thast, having a low centre of gravity, the statues could have been installed by men with the help of ropes. The installation of one statue takes about 2 months and the work forces of 90 people.
9. Rosetta Stone (Egypt)
The Rosetta Stone was discovered by the French army under Napoleon during his campaign in Egypt. In 1798, a convoy under Napoleon�s leadership took possession of Malta and continued on into Egypt. In addition to the requisite soldieres, Napoleon had also brought along what he referred to as �men of letters and science� with the goal of understanding and unlocking the mysteries of the Egyptian lands. Interestingly, after taking the port city of Alexandria in July, by August the Institute of Egypt was established, which effectively founded what is today called the Science of Egyptology.
During this stay, in a town called Rosetta by the Europeans, a large engraved stone was discovered. Some say it was found just lying on the ground. Others claim that it was part of an old wall which was ordered demolished by French soldiers. The chiseled inscriptions are in two languages – Greek and Egyptian – and three scripts. The first of the Egyptian scripts is Hieroglyphs, used 3,000 years ago at the time of the First Dynasty. The second was later determined to be Demotic, a cursive language that evolved from Hieroglyphs and dating from 643 B.C. The third was ancient Greek. Since it appeared that the Stone’s message was repeated in the three scripts, and because Greek could be read, over time it might be used to decipher the other two. This was exactly what was done, and it was the accidental discovery of the Rosetta Stone that allowed the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt to be able to be translated and understood. The text on the Rosetta Stone is a decree passed by a council of priests. It is one of a series that affirm the royal cult of the 13-year-old Ptolemy V on the first anniversary of his coronation.
8. Dead Sea Scrolls (Israel)
The accidental discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is one of the most exciting, fascinating and important discoveries in the social and cultural history of civilization. yes – this opening sentence is quite a collection of superlatives to use in “classical list writing”, which should be objective and dispassionate – but there is just no denying the import of this discovery. In the winter of 1946�47, Palestinian Muhammed edh-Dhib and his cousin discovered the caves, and soon afterward the scrolls. It was this discovery that allowed researchers to piece together the most important shared building blocks of western religions – Christianity, Judaism and Islam – as these were the lost original writings of the ancients, the original old testament of the bible, much older than the Nash Papyrus, which was at the time the oldest document of the biblical age.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of about 900 documents, dating between 150 BC to 70 AD, discovered between 1947 and 1956 in eleven caves in and around the ruins of the ancient settlement of Khirbet Qumran on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea in the present day West Bank. The texts include the oldest known surviving copies of Biblical and extra-biblical documents and preserve evidence of great diversity in late Second Temple Judaism [Wikipedia]. They are written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, mostly on parchment, but with some written on papyrus. Amazingly, it took d a decade for the find to be fully realized; the scrolls ended up being sold through a classified ad in the paper before reaching the academic world and getting full recognition for what they were.
7. Atlantis (Greece)
This one may be a bit of misnomer, since it is not really certain that Atlantis has indeed been discovered. The civilization is known through the documented work of Greek philosopher Plato from 360 BC, yet its exact location remains a subject of debate. The leading contender is the island of Santorini in the Aegean Sea. the mythological island was supposedly a great naval power before sinking into the sea over 10,000 years ago in a catastrophic event. Archaeologists debate the actual historical existence of the island as well as its most plausible location � if it ever actually existed � among the many sunken ruins discovered around the world. But even without definitive proof, Atlantis continues to engage the popular imagination like few other archaeological mysteries out there.
6. Stonehenge (UK)
Stonehenge is one of the world’s most famous landmarks, and has found its way into modern pop culture as one of the funniest scenes in the movie Spinal Tap. The ring of megalithic stones was built approximately 4,000 years ago and was an impressive feat for the primitive people who constructed it � but that’s about all archaeologists know for sure. None of the theories on the original purpose of Stonehenge, which range from an astronomical observatory to a religious temple of healing, has ever been well set in stone.
5. Stone Walls In the Negev Desert (Israel)
Low stone walls crisscrossing the deserts of Israel, Egypt and Jordan have puzzled archaeologists since their discovery by pilots in the early 20th century. The chain of lines � some up to 40 miles (64 kilometers) long and nicknamed “kites” by scientists for their appearance from the air � date to 300 B.C., but were abandoned long ago.
The mystery might be somewhat clearer thanks to a study claiming that the purpose of the kites was to funnel wild animals toward a small pit, where they could easily be killed in large numbers. This efficient system suggests that local hunters were much more sophisticated than previously thought.
4. Antikythera Mechanism (Greece)
Like something from a fantastical treasure movie, the discovery of the Antikythera Mechanism remains a major archaeological head-scratcher. Found in the sunken wreckage of a Greek cargo ship that is at least 2,000 years old, the circular bronze artifact contains a maze of interlocking gears and mysterious characters etched all over its exposed faces. Fragments of the Antikythera Mechanism, left, have now been examined with the latest in high-resolution imaging systems and three-dimensional X-ray tomography. Originally thought to be a kind of navigational astrolabe, archaeologists continue to uncover its uses and now know that it was, at the very least, a highly intricate astronomical calendar.
It is the most sophisticated device ever found from that period, preceding the next appearance of similar devices by 1,000 years.
3. Nazca Lines (Peru)
From the ground, the Nazca Lines of Peru are nothing spectacular. However, seen from the air, from which they were first spotted by commercial aircraft in the 1920s and 30s, they are staggering. Archaeologists agree the enormous shapes � there are hundreds of them, ranging from geometric lines to complicated depictions of animals, plants and imaginary figures � were made over 2,000 years ago by people of the pre-Inca Nazca culture, who simply removed the red surface pebbles to reveal the lighter earth below in designs of their choice.
Just why they did it remains enigmatic, prompting conspiracy theorists to float ideas about alien landings and ancient astrology. Archaeologists say the lines were more likely to have been a ritual communication method with the Nazca’s deities.
2. Great Pyramids (Egypt)
Built almost 5,000 years ago in what is now Cairo, the three-pyramid complex � with the largest, Khufu, dominating the site � is a testament to the ancient Egyptians’ reverence for their Pharaohs and the intricacies of their belief in the afterlife.
Archaeologists are still discovering new tunnels and shafts built within the pyramids, and are still searching for clues on who built the great monuments and how these amazing accomplishments were engineered.
1. Gobekli Tepe
Hailed as the most important archaeological site in the world, the Mesolithic temple of Gobekli Tepe (pronounced Go-beck-lee Tepp-ay) lies part-buried on a hilltop in the arid Anatolian plains of southeastern Turkey, just a few miles from the ancient city of Urfa.
But nobody knows who built it, when or why.
Archaeologists have carbon-dated the site to 10,000 BC, predating the generally accepted construction dates of the Pyramids and Stonehenge by a staggering 7000+ years. If the identity of Stonehenge�s architects remains a mystery, then identifying the builders of Gobekli Tepe is even more a mystery, because 12,000 years ago we were still hunter-gatherers unable to read, write, fashion pottery or even build a home beyond a makeshift animal-hide tent.
And yet Gobekli Tepe displays all the signs of architectural magnificence we associate with Stonehenge and other megalithic structures. | https://listsoplenty.com/blog/?p=10969 |
Dr. Richard Madgwick's research indicated that the pigs used for these ancient feasts weren't locally raised, suggesting attendees transported the animals for hundreds of miles as a contribution.
Stonehenge has fascinated mankind for centuries as to what function the UNESCO World Heritage Site had in ancient societies. Human bone deposits found at Stonehenge suggested the group of obelisks served as an ancient burial site, but a new study points toward the Wiltshire, England site having filled a more celebratory need as well.
According to a Cardiff University-led study, recently uncovered and examined the bones of 131 pigs suggest the four Neolithic sites — Durrington Walls, Marden, Mount Pleasant, and West Kennet Palisades Enclosure — were home to the earliest celebratory feasts in Britain.
Led by Dr. Richard Madgwick of Cardiff University’s School of History, Archaeology and Religion, the evidence indicates that people and animals across the United Kingdom traveled hundreds of miles for these early food-centric rituals and brought their own animals.
“This study demonstrates a scale of movement and level of social complexity not previously appreciated,” said Madgwick.
While the excavation itself and subsequent dating of the discovered bones served to reveal that early Britons did, indeed, use the location as a place to feast, it was the study’s multi-isotope analysis process that clarified the migratory aspects of the research: the consumed animals were not raised locally.
Madgwick’s research, published in the Science Advances journal, suggests the pigs had come from all corners of the region including Scotland, northeast England, West Wales, and other areas across the British Isles.
The Cardiff University professor proposed that this meant it was important for attendees to contribute livestock for the feast as a sign of goodwill.
“These gatherings could be seen as the first united cultural events of our island, with people from all corners of Britain descending on the areas around Stonehenge to feast on food that had been specially reared and transported from their homes,” said Madgwick.
Though some human remains have been found at the site, their scarcity left archaeologists and research teams without enough resources to properly study who died there and where they came from. Since pigs were the most popular animal for these feasts, however, their bone analysis filled those gaps — and became more informative than their human counterparts.
“Arguably the most startling finding is the efforts that participants invested in contributing pigs that they themselves had raised,” Madwick said. “Procuring them in the vicinity of the feasting sites would have been relatively easy.”
Isotope analysis can essentially identify chemical signals from the food and water an animal has consumed. This allowed Madgwick’s team to make informed estimates as to the locations of where these pigs were raised.
Since the strontium-87 isotope is more common in relation to strontium-86 in the Scottish Highlands and Wales than it is in south-central England, for instance, Madwick’s team was able to garner a clear picture of the migration patterns at work. According to IFL Science, animals reflect these ratios in their bones.
In terms of Stonehenge studies, this is one of the most comprehensive projects regarding mobility and migration of the site during that era.
“Pigs are not nearly as well-suited to movement over distance as cattle and transporting them, either slaughtered or on the hoof, over hundreds or even tens of kilometers, would have required a monumental effort,” said Madgwick.
“This suggests that prescribed contributions were required and that rules dictated that offered pigs must be raised by the feasting participants, accompanying them on their journey, rather than being acquired locally.”
After learning about the study suggesting Stonehenge served as one of the earliest large-scale feast locations in Britain, read about Gobekli Tepe — the oldest temple in the world. Then, learn about a study suggesting the earliest humans came from Europe instead of Africa. | https://allthatsinteresting.com/stonehenge-ancient-celebrations |
What did the landscape of Stonehenge look like in its Neolithic heyday?
How did Ancient Egyptians produce their food? Such questions can be addressed by environmental archaeology - the study of past people from biological remains and geological phenomena.
Environmental Archaeology shows the methods used by archaeologists not only to reconstruct landscape settings of archaeological sites, but also to determine what people ate, the raw materials they used and the technology that allowed them to farm, hunt and build.
In this revised version of their 2003 book Keith Wilkinson and Chris Stevens explore the environmental archaeology from first principles.
They discuss the concepts that underpin the subject, outline the techniques used by environmental archaeologists and explain how biological and geological data are used to illuminate the archaeological past.
The book is written for those who have some archaeological knowledge but no background in the natural sciences, or vice versa.
It is a pragmatic guide to the subject, taking the reader step-by-step through approaches, methods, theory, and focusing particularly on interpretation/ The authors' intention is to highlight the importance of environmental archaeology in the reconstruction of the interaction between life and landscape in the past. | https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Keith-Wilkinson/Environmental-Archaeology--Approaches-Techniques--Applications/1970548 |
Archaeologists believe the iconic stone monument was constructed anywhere from 3000 BC to 2000 BC. The site and its surroundings were added to the UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1986. It is a national legally protected Scheduled Ancient Monument.
Archaeological evidence found by the Stonehenge Riverside Project in 2008 indicates that Stonehenge could possibly have served as a burial ground from its earliest beginnings. The dating of cremated remains found on the site indicate that deposits contain human bone material from as early as 3000 BC, when the initial ditch and bank were first dug.
LostMonuments.com offers the Stonehenge Images, Photos, Wallpapers and Pictures for you. View and download the images of Stonehenge . | http://lostmonuments.com/stonehenge.html |
Chapter 8 – Barrows
Book Extract……………………………..
A tumulus (plural tumuli) the word tumulus is Latin for ‘mound’ or ‘small hill’, from the PIE root *teuh- with extended zero grade *tum-, ‘to bulge, swell’ also found in tumor, thumb, thigh and thousand – A mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, Hügelgrab or kurgans, and can be found throughout much of the world. A tumulus composed largely or entirely of stones is usually referred to as a cairn. A long barrow is a long tumulus, usually for numbers of burials. The method of inhumation may involve a dolmen, a cyst, a mortuary enclosure, a mortuary house or a chamber tomb.
It’s a grave, although the Latin word does not mean the grave, but a ‘small hill’. That’s a big difference; they also can be long or round, stone or earth, etc. When we look at the traditional archaeological definition of tumuli, we are offered:
• Bank barrow
• Bell barrow
• Bowl barrow
• D-shaped barrow – round barrow with a purposely flat edge at one side often defined by stone slabs
• Fancy barrow – a generic term for any Bronze Age barrows more elaborate than a simple hemispherical shape.
• Long barrow
• Oval barrow – a Neolithic long barrow consisting of an elliptical, rather than rectangular or trapezoidal mound.
• Platform barrow – the least common of the recognised types of round barrow, consisting of a flat, wide circular mound, which may be surrounded by a ditch. They occur widely across southern England with a marked concentration in East and West Sussex.
• Pond barrow – a barrow consisting of a shallow circular depression, surrounded by a bank running around the rim of the depression.
• Ring barrow – a bank which encircles several burials.
• Round barrow – a circular feature created by the Bronze Age peoples of Britain and also the later Romans, Vikings, and Saxons. Divided into subclasses such as saucer and bell barrow.
• Saucer barrow – circular Bronze Age barrow featuring a low, wide mound surrounded by a ditch, which may be accompanied by an external bank.
• Square barrow – burial site, usually of Iron Age date, consisting of a small, square, ditched enclosure surrounding a central burial, which may also have been covered by a mound
If the archaeologists are right, and barrows are just grave plots, they could be any shape. But do we believe each had a different function or the same purpose in various forms? The truth is that there are (in my view) just five categories of barrow:
• Long Barrow – the most significant and earliest form used for burials
• Round Barrows – big and round used as markers
• Pond Barrows – wells for water extraction
• Disturbed barrows – Round/Long/Pond Barrows that have degraded over 5,000 years by the elements and man’s attempts to destroy or excavate them
• Copy barrows – imitation Barrows from a later date, mimicking their ancestors.
Barrow Altitude
We have surveyed a sample of 50 prehistoric sites and monuments within the Stonehenge area, to look at their topology, in connection to the landscape. Our findings show that the traditional belief, that prehistoric man, located his burials, ceremonial sites and structures on top of hills are wholly inaccurate – in fact, in our survey shows that only 8% of sites are on top of a hill.
This includes our most ancient site, Stonehenge. Consequently, we are led to believe by archaeologists that our ancestors brought the bluestones all the way from Wales (some 250 miles) only to stop 50 metres short of the top of the hill because they were….. tired, or some other obscure unknown ceremonial or astronomical reason.
Moreover, our survey also shows that these barrows were not constructed at random heights either. In the Stonehenge sample, the lowest burial was at 89m OD (above current sea level), the highest at 115m OD. The only logical reason you would construct your barrow at the mid-point or two-thirds up a hillside would be that there was another overriding factor to consider. This reason can only be that you can’t build a barrow below this level as it would be underwater.
The variations shown in these sites is due to the groundwater tables falling from the Mesolithic (high) to the Neolithic (low), after which barrows were no longer built for their original purpose as the Bronze, Iron Age, Vikings and even Saxons civilisations copied their ancestral rituals and barrows for burial purposes only, and these are the only barrows built are below the old prehistoric water table. This empirical evidence I call ‘archaeology of the landscape’ – where we can date the ancient sites by the location of their shorelines.
Long Barrows
The first thing we should note about Long Barrows is that they are unique to Northern Europe, unlike Round Barrows, which are found all over the world. Archaeologists agree that the Long Barrow is the oldest monument to exist in our landscape. As shown by the carbon dating from Carnac in France of St Michael’s tumuli (a Long Barrow) dated to 6850 BCE. Prior to this confirmation archaeologists have always believed these enormous and elaborate structures which include giant megaliths at their entrances clearly belonged to a civilisation that lived long ago. Moreover, they are also aware that the bones from many dead people were collected together inside the chambers, rather than in individual graves, or cremations that were seen at a later date.
The number and condition of these bones show us that they were disarticulated, with only the larger bones and skulls being brought to the sites after death, probably after the bones had been defleshed. We believe their shape and design are of great importance. Firstly, the monuments are long and thin, with the entrance at the end of the mound. The entire Long Barrow mound originally had a ditch dug completely around its exterior, to represent water and the voyage to the afterlife.
During the prehistoric period, Long Barrows like West Kennet were on a peninsula, surrounded on three sides by water. This groundwater now gives us a clue as to why the ditches that surrounded the monument were dug, for the bottom of the ditches would have been below the groundwater table at this location. Therefore, the ditches of today were moats of yesteryear.
The other noteworthy aspect of Long Barrows is the size and construction of the monument. At West Kennet and other Long Barrows, giant megaliths were used to highlight the entrance to the chambers; these boulders are over 15 tonnes in weight and four to five metres in height. They are an unnecessary addition to the construction, but they are visible even a couple of miles away on a clear day. Long Barrows when first constructed would have been covered not with grass as today, but with the sub-soil that came from the ditches they dug that surrounded the monument, in the case of West Kennet, it would be bright white chalk. The massive size of these monuments must also be taken into consideration as they are over 100m in length – five times longer than the chambers they hide within them, and they are tapered from the helm 4m high to the bow, just 1m high. Making them look like a gigantic direction indicator.
Another remarkable aspect of Long Barrows is their location and position on the landscape. If we look at the extensive river ways after the last ice age, we notice that these monuments are built parallel to major rivers and appear at junctions where rivers converge. Moreover, they don’t appear on the top of the hills that surround the rivers, but actually appear just over halfway up – so that they cannot be seen over the top of the hill on the opposite side. Because of their size and construction materials, these ‘markers’ are visible for miles like white pointers in daylight, but because they are pure white, they can also be seen at night with ‘moonshine’.
The Long Barrow represents the boat culture of this ancient society; they lived in boats, and so, when they died, they were sent on their last voyage by boat to the afterlife. Even today, we still have a custom of placing money over a dead person’s eyes as their fare to be collected by the ferryman. Consequently, this also gives us a fantastic insight into the design of the boats used in this period. This boat looks more like a barge than a canoe, with the back end (the stern) being where they steered the craft with a rudder, which means they used sails (not paddles) for power.
Round Barrows
In our examination of Long Barrows, we have discovered that this civilisation traded heavily with other cultures, tribes, clans and groups within prehistoric Britain and beyond.
Herefordshire businessman Alfred Watkins was sitting in his car one summer afternoon, during a visit to Blackwardine in Herefordshire in 1921, when he happened to consult a local map and noticed that a number of prehistoric and other ancient sites in the area fell into alignments.
Subsequent field and map work convinced him that this pattern was indeed a real one. Watkins came to the conclusion that he saw the vestigial traces of old straight tracks laid down in the Neolithic Period, probably, he surmised, for traders’ routes.
He concluded that after modernisation in the later Bronze and Iron Age periods, the tracks had fallen into disuse during the early historic period. The pattern had been accidentally preserved here and there due to the Christianisation of individual pagan sites that were markers along the old straight tracks. He published these theories in two books.
Reaction to Watkins’ book ‘The Old Straight Track’ was sharply divided. Many thought he had uncovered a long-forgotten secret within the landscape, and The Straight Track Club was formed to carry out further “ley hunting”, while orthodox archaeologists vehemently dismissed the whole notion. And with a few notable exceptions, this situation still exists today.
There are two kinds of tracks: Firstly, as we have shown, the older Long Barrows were markers based on islands and peninsulas within the river routes to known sites; then, after the groundwater subsided, Round Barrows were used for overland routes.
When the groundwater subsided after the Neolithic Period, our ancestors needed a further navigational aid to allow them to find the location overland rather than by river as in the past. These markers are known today as Round Barrows, and they are consequently, more frequent than Long Barrows because dense foliage makes the line of sight shorter for someone on foot than for someone taking the same route by boat and secondly, there are more routes by foot, than by river to navigate.
The incorrectly conceived aspect of Watkins land markers is that they did not run in perfectly straight lines, but actually to the high ground. This was because the lower ground that had been flooded in the Mesolithic period would still be boggy and wet in some seasons, and therefore impassable. Therefore, these tracks are straight, but not ruler-straight as Watkins first believed. One of the closest sites to Stonehenge is Quarley Hill, to the East, the path between these two sites passes 13 barrows, in a 15 km distance.
If you stand on top of one of these barrows, you can see the next one in line very clearly. You must also take into consideration, that farmers have ploughed out nearly half the barrows, and that the mounds would have been at least 30% larger, and pure white, at time of construction. Even so, they can still be seen as path markers today in some areas, 5,000 years later.
It is almost impossible to know what information would have greeted a walker in the Neolithic when he reached a Round Barrow, but we still have roman milestones surviving today on our modern roads, and I believe, this is a relic from our ancient past. One can only imagine that somehow the barrow, like a milestone, would give an indication of the distance to be travelled, this was probably on a standing stone, buried upright in the centre of the barrow. It should also be noted that the burials within these Round Barrows, were placed in them at a much later date, which would explain why these barrows do not contain burials at the centre and have been dug into the edges as an afterthought and not the original design.
Pond Barrows
Now we have established the use of the majority of prehistoric barrows by our ancestors. We can look at the ‘other’ barrows catalogued by archaeologists, to see what function they had in helping our ancestors navigate from town to town in prehistoric days. Pond barrows’ shape is just as described: ‘pond-like’, and as we now understand, the groundwater tables were higher in the past, consequently, creating artificial ponds.
Water, in any civilisation, is critical to survival. Our ancestors were no exception, so when they travelled on foot to other towns or sites, the provision of water was essential. Most pond barrows have the centre dugout, which would have tapped into the groundwater course; this would allow the pond to flood, depending on the tide levels. This tradition continues into modern days by the use of dew ponds, which are of the same size and shape, but relied more on rainwater to fill the pond.
Other Barrows
These barrows are the original path markers that have either eroded over the last five thousand years or the remains have been altered and adapted over time by later descendants. Burials mark a change in use for these round barrows by later civilisations including the mimicking of similar round barrows by Bronze and Iron age people (including the Vikings) as a mark of respect for their ancestors who they wish to be buried amongst and hence the historical confusion and variety.
For more information about British Prehistory and other articles/books, go to our BLOG WEBSITE for daily updates or our VIDEO CHANNEL for interactive media and documentaries. The TRILOGY of books that ‘changed history’ can be found with chapter extracts at DAWN OF THE LOST CIVILISATION, THE STONEHENGE ENIGMA and THE POST-GLACIAL FLOODING HYPOTHESIS. Other associated books are also available such as 13 THINGS THAT DON’T MAKE SENSE IN HISTORY and other ‘short’ budget priced books can be found on our AUTHOR SITE. For active discussion on the findings of the TRILOGY and recent LiDAR investigations that is published on our WEBSITE you can join our FACEBOOK GROUP. | http://the-stonehenge-enigma.info/tse_barrows |
Stonehenge is one of the most mysterious and fascinating ancient monuments in the world. Located in Wiltshire, England, it is a prehistoric structure believed to have been built over 4,500 years ago. It has long been the subject of archaeological study, inspiring theories about its purpose and construction. Here are 10 interesting facts about Stonehenge that you may not have known.
1. Stonehenge is a stone circle in Wiltshire, England
Stonehenge is a stone circle made up of 38 stones on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire.
2. It was built 5000 years ago
Archaeologists think work started on Stone Henge around 5,000 years ago, in a period of history we call the late Neolithic Age.
3. It took 1,000 years to build
It then took over 1,000 years to build, in four long stages! Archaeologists believe the final changes were made around 1,500BC, in the early Bronze Age.
4. Scientists think that the stones were a way to tell the time of year
Each year, on 21 June, which is the longest day of the year, the sun rises over the Heel Stone at Stonehenge -this is called the summer solstice. The sun also always sets over the Heel Stone on the shortest day of the year.
This means that our ancestors were probably using Stonehenge as a calendar. There are lots of theories about how the placement of the stones would coincide to their months, seasons and years.
5. Stonehenge is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
A World Heritage Site is a landmark with legal protection for having cultural, historical or scientific importance. Stonehenge is one of the most famous prehistoric landmarks in the world and has great historical significance.
6. Nobody knows for sure how the stones were moved to Stonehenge
How the stones were moved to the Stonehenge site is a mystery that still hasn’t been solved.
We know some of the stones came from Wales – that’s a long way to transport stones that weigh more than 4 elephants each .
Some theories are that they were dragged on sleighs before being taken on rafts over water but this has never been proven.
7. In the 12th Century there was a rumour Stonehenge was moved by a wizard
A legend from the 12th century claimed giants placed Stonehenge on a mountain in Ireland before a wizard named Merlin magically moved the stone circle to England.
8. New research suggests Stonehenge was once in Wales
New research shows that this stone circle may have been made and standing in Wales before being moved! This would have been very hard work – and means that these stones must have been very important to them.
9. Each year people gather at Stonehenge to celebrate the Summer Solstice and be present at stone henge as the sun rises
Every year on the 21st June around 20,000 people watch the sunrise over Stonehenge.
10. We know Stonehenge was used as a cemetery
Archeologists have worked out that Stonehenge was used as a cemetery and it’s likely funeral ceremonies would have been performed at the site – though why those who passed away were buried here no one is quite sure. | https://www.funkidslive.com/learn/top-10-facts/top-10-facts-about-stonehenge/ |
Excavations at two quarries in Wales, known to be the source of the Stonehenge "bluestones," provide new evidence of megalith quarrying 5,000 years ago,...
Stonehenge May Have Come From a Different Monument 500 Years Earlier
If you are interested in Stonehenge, then you will want to know about this new discovery. It has now been suggested that Stonehenge's "bluestones"...
The Mysterious Monument as Old as Stonehenge, ‘Rujm el-Hiri’
In a land dotted with ancient dolmens or tombs from a time before the urban centers of civilization had arisen in Mesopotamia and Egypt,...
The First Stone Age ‘Eco Home’ Discovered at Stonehenge
A Stone Age "eco home" has been discovered in the Stonehenge landscape that was built at least 1,300 years before Stonehenge, making it the oldest...
Artifacts Around Stonehenge Shed Light on the Diet of Its Builders
Archaeologists from the University of York have now revealed new insights into food choices and the eating habits at the Late Neolithic monument Durrington...
Has Stonehenge Had One of Its Theories Proven?
Stonehenge has had a lot of speculation and theories in its time, but what we do know is that Stonehenge aligns with the midsummer...
Most Read
Important Tips to Enhance Your Immunity
Like a protective umbrella and defense army, the immune system can enhance the body's resistance to diseases and reduce one's susceptibility to infections. As...
New Knowledge About What Causes Thunderstorms and Cloudbursts
Thunderstorms often provoke violent cloud bursts that can result in devastating flooding. But what actually spawns thunderstorms and cloud bursts? This question has spurred...
Germany Teams Up With Australia Against China
Germany has decided to send a frigate to patrol the Indian Ocean so as to counter Chinese influence. In addition, German officers will also...
Pennsylvania Election Certification Delayed by State Judge
On Nov 2., Patricia McCullough, a Pennsylvania judge, ordered state officials not to verify the results of the 2020 presidential election until her court... | https://visiontimes.com/tag/stonehenge |
How did the stones get to Stonehenge? How was the Stonehenge complex built? What was the purpose of Stonehenge? With The Mysteries of Stonehenge, kids can explore questions and mysteries that have puzzled scholars and experts about Stonehenge, the great circle of stones that lies on the Salisbury Plain in England.
Explore fascinating mysteries and secrets of history and folklore from countries and cultures around the world. Designed for students was a 6th to 8th grade primary reading level, World Book's Enigmas of History 1 presents the most recent findings and theories of scientists, archaeologists, historians, and folklorists concerning questions that have puzzled experts for hundreds, sometimes thousands, of years. In each nonfiction book in the series, kids will find maps, diagrams, timelines, and glossaries to aid their in-depth understanding of the topic.
How did the stones get to Stonehenge? How was the Stonehenge complex built? Kids can explore questions and mysteries that have puzzled scholars and experts about Stonehenge, the great circle of stones that lies on the Salisbury Plain in England. | http://vip.worldbook.com/Enigmas-of-History-The-Mysteries-of-Stonehenge |
Perhaps the most popular and at the same time the most mysterious sights of the world were, and remain, Stonehenge, the Nazca desert geoglyphs, and giants of Easter island. It is about them and discussed today.
Stonehenge is considered one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world. Located in the English County of Wiltshire, it annually attracts crowds of travelers from all over the world who want to see this mysterious construction.
Despite the fact that the study of Stonehenge, scientists are not one hundred years, precisely to define its purpose so far failed. And there are disputes about when exactly it was erected, and about what purpose this building.
Was put forward the theory that Stonehenge is an ancient cemetery, ancient Observatory and place of worship of the druids of England. All these theories have a right to life, but none of them has not yet been adopted as official.
Also still not been determined how the ancient inhabitants of England were able to deliver and install multi-ton stones that make up Stonehenge, because the nearest quarry is located almost 400 kilometers from megalithic structures. There have been numerous reconstruction using materials available to man at that time, there were even fantastic theory, according to which the stones were moved telepathic the efforts of the druids, or delivered by extraterrestrials. In this issue, scientists also cannot come to an agreement.
In any case, Stonehenge, seen by the eyes, leave an indelible mark on the soul of every traveler, making him smash his head on the issues that haunt archaeologists all over the world.
A terrible headache for archaeologists and are geoglyphs in the Nazca desert in southern Peru. The first records about them date back to the XVI century, when the Conquistador Pedro Cieza de Leon wrote: “In all those valleys and on those that had already passed, throughout is beautiful, great road of the Incas, and in some places the Sands are seen the signs, to guess the trail”.
However, to see the full picture was only in 1939, when the American archaeologist Paul Kosak flew over the plateau on the plane. From the height of bird’s flight he opened a finely crafted images of animals, birds, insects and plants the magnitude of each of which reaches several kilometers.
The fact that the drawings can be seen only from air, gave rise to a number of assumptions and hypotheses, sometimes, quite unusual. Someone claimed that in this way the creators of the lines communicated with their gods, others believed that the figures and lines of the runway and markings for alien ships, still others argued that the ancient people of Nazca skillfully build aircraft. In favor of a more advanced ancient civilization talk and dry facts. So, for example, drawings, Dating back to the early period, distinguished by their elegance and refinement, while the later represent a simple line and geometric patterns.
The Nazca lines are dug in the black stony soil of a furrow, exposing the lighter rock. Features climate allow one drawn on the ground line remain intact for thousands of years.
Despite the fact that the trip to Peru and flight over the Nazca lines are not cheap, many people will not spare any money to see this man-made wonder of the world.
Rapa Nui, better known as Easter island, at the time, gave scientists quite a few reasons to break down. For example, this is the only island of the Pacific ocean, which has its own system of writing – rongorongo. Despite the fact that he wrote the ancient inhabitants of Rapa Nui pictograms, that is pictures, still no one was able to decipher their written language.
However “business card” of Easter island remain huge stone statues – the moai, established in abundance on the island. According to local legend, the statue was at their Parking place from the quarries where they were made.
The moai are huge monolithic image of a human head, carved from compressed volcanic ash, a weight of 20 tons and a height of 6 meters. However, the huge statue, found on the island, was more than 20 meters in length and weighing 270 tons. All the moai, in addition to the seven, the face is set deep into the island.
According to legend, the moai lies in the magical power of the ancestors Mans, although it was suggested that the giant statues were used as symbols of clans and apparently had to distinguish between their territorial domain.
In 1956 the Norwegian Explorer Thor Heyerdahl together with local residents fully repeated cycles of fabrication, delivery and installation of MAOI, thereby proving that a small number of people are quite able to do so. Despite this, until now (as is the case with Stonehenge) many people have the supernatural version of the appearance of the moai statues.
Acutely Easter in our day lives on account of tourists. Therefore, the prices for accommodation and food here is quite large. This is not due to the greed of the locals, and the high prices of goods, most of which is imported to the island. The island is small, so the main attractions can be reached on foot or by bike, and fans of the exotic is also possible to rent a horse.
On Easter island there are only one airport and one dock, where tourists arrive. However, regular communication with other countries, not here, so stay schedule every tourist determines individually, depending on the schedules of planes and ships. | http://deray.info/post2100 |
Nishkam Seva Sambhal (Selfless service)
Seva is a voluntary service to others to attract God’s grace. It is a Selfless service to the humanity and is a unique concept in Sikhism. Seva is the willingness to sacrifice selfish desires for the benefit of larger interest of others as an indication of love and commitment. Seva is the most important conduct expected of a true Sikh. It is a source of love and other virtues in life. It shuns vices and removes pride. It helps those who are needy, poor and sick.
Sikh is always willing to endure pain and suffering in order to provide comfort and facility to others. He does not want another person to suffer through him.
“You have not shunned lust. O brother, you have neither forgotten anger nor avarice. You have not abandoned slander of others. Your service or Seva is fruitless if all these vices are your friend.”
ਕਾਮੁ ਨ ਬਿਸਰਿਓ ਕ੍ਰੋਧੁ ਨ ਬਿਸਰਿਓ ਲੋਭੁ ਨ ਛੂਟਿਓ ਦੇਵਾ ॥
ਪਰ ਨਿੰਦਾ ਮੁਖ ਤੇ ਨਹੀ ਛੂਟੀ ਨਿਫਲ ਭਈ ਸਭ ਸੇਵਾ
(1253)
It is an important event in the Sikh History when the title of Nawab was conferred upon Kapur Singh who accepted this bestowment provided he was not debarred from doing menial Seva (service) in the horse stable and fanning the Sikh congregation
The Gurdwaras are training centers where the Sikhs learn the technique of doing Seva. It may be the Seva of cleaning the building, washing utensils, preparing Langar in the Kitchen etc.
“Whatever good service to humanity is done on this earth, will secure a seat in the Court of Lord.”
Vich dunya sev kamayie ta dargah baisan payie.
ਵਿਚਿ ਦੁਨੀਆ ਸੇਵ ਕਮਾਈਐ ॥
ਤਾ ਦਰਗਹ ਬੈਸਣੁ ਪਾਈਐ ॥
(26)
SEVA from Sanskrit rot sev (to serve, wait or attend upon, honour, or worship, is usually translated as ‘service’ or ‘serving’ which commonly relates to work paid for, but does not convey the sense in which the term is used in the Sikh tradition. The word seva has, in fact had two distinct connotations; one, it means to serve, to attend to, to render obedience to and the second, to worship, to adore, to reverence, to pay homage to. Traditionally in the Indian (Hindu) society, seva in the sense of worship (of gods) has been the preserve of the high-caste Brahmans, while that in the sense of service (to man) relegated to the lowest of the castes. In the Sikh sense, the two connotations seem to have merged together for the reasons: first, because of its egalitarian meaning. Sikhism does not recognize caste distinctions, and hence no distinctive caste roles in it; and second, God in Sikhism is not apart from His creatures. He pervades His Creation (GG, 1350). Therefore service rendered to humanity (i.e. God in man) is indeed considered a form of worship. In fact, in Sikhism, no worship is conceivable without seva (GG, 1013). The Sikh is forbidden from serving anyone apart from God (‘Serve you the Lord alone: none else must you serve’ ((GG, 490). However, this also means that whomsoever we serve, we really serve our Lord through him. Therefore it becomes incumbent upon the Sikh to render seva with the highest sense of duty since thereby he or she is worshipping the Lord.
Seva in Sikhism is imperative for spiritual life. It is the highest penance (GG, 423). It is a means to acquiring the highest merit. The Sikh often prays to God for a chance to render seva. Says Guru Arjan, Nanak V, “I beg to serve those who serve you (GG, 43)” and “I, your servant, beg for seva of your people, which is available through good fortune alone (GG, 802).” According to Guru Amar Das, “He who is turned towards the Guru finds repose and joy in seva” (GG, 125).
Three varieties of seva are sanctioned in the Sikh lore: that rendered through the corporal instrument (tan), that through the mental apparatus (man) and that through the material wherewithal (dhan).
The first of them is considered to be the highest of all and is imperatively prescribed for every Sikh. “Cursed are the hands and feet that engage not in seva” (Bhai Gurdas, Varan, 27.1). In traditional Indian society work involving corporal labour was considered low and relegated to the humblest castes. By sanctifying it as an honourable religious practice, the Sikh Gurus established the dignity of labour, a concept then almost unknown to the Indian society. Not only did the Gurus sanctify it; they also institutionalized it, e.g. service in Guru ka Langar (the Guru’s community kitchen) and serving the sangat (holy assembly) in other ways such as by grinding corn for it, fanning it to soften the rigour of a hot day and drawing water for it. “ I beg of you, O, Merciful One, make me the slave of your Slaves. . . Let me have the pleasure of fanning them, drawing water for them, grinding corn for them and of washing their feet,” prays Guru Arjan (GG, 518).
Seva through the mental apparatus (man) lies in contributing ones talents—creative, communicative, managerial, etc.—to the corporate welfare of the community and mankind in general. It also lies in sharing the pain of others. Response to the pain of others is a sine qua non of the membership of the brotherhood of man. That is why the Sikh prayer said in unison ends with a supplication for the welfare of all. Seva of this kind is motivated not by the attitude of compassion alone, but primarily to discover practical avenues for serving God through man.
Seva through material means (dhan) or philanthropy (dan) was particularly sought to be made non-personal. The offerings (kar bheta) made to the Gurus and the dasvandh (tithe) contributed by the Sikhs went straight into the common coffers of the community. Personal philanthropy can be debasing for the receiver and ego-entrenching for the giver, but self-effacing community service is ennobling. Seva must be so carried out as to dissolve the ego and lead to self-transcendence, which is the ability to acknowledge and respond to that which is other than oneself. Seva must serve to indicate the way in which such transcendence manifests in one’s responsiveness to the needs of others in an impersonal way.
The Sikh is particularly enjoined upon to render seva to the poor. “The poor man’s mouth is the depository of the Guru”, says the Rahitnama of Chaupa Singh. The poor and the needy are, thus, treated as legitimate recipients of dan (charity) and not the Brahman who had traditionally reserved for himself this privilege. Even in serving the poor, one serves not the individual concerned, but God Himself through him. Even as one feeds the hungry, it has been the customary Sikh practice to pray: “The grain, O God, is your own gift. Only the seva is mine which please be gracious enough to accept.”
In the Sikh way of life, seva is considered the prime duty of the householder (grihasthi). “That home in which holymen are not served, God is served not. Such mansions must be likened to graveyards where ghosts alone abide”, says Kabir (GG, 1374). The Sikhs are all ordained to be householders, and seva their duty. In Sikh thought, the polarity of renunciation is not with attachment, but with seva.
True seva according to Sikh scriptures must be without desire (nishkam), guileless (nishkapat), in humility (nimarta), with purity of intention (hirda suddh), with sincerity (chit lae) and in utter selflessness (vichon ap gavae). Such seva for the Sikh is the doorway to dignity as well as to mukti (liberation). “If one earns merit here through seva, one will get a seat of honour in His Court hereafter” (GG, 26).
According to Sikh tenets, “You become like the one you serve” (GG, 549). Therefore, for those who desire oneness with God, serving God and God alone is the prime way. But God in Sikhism is transcendent as well as immanent. The Transcendent One is ineffable and can only be conceived through contemplation. Service of God, therefore, only relates to the immanent aspect of God and comprises service of His creatures. Humanitarian service is thus the Sikh ideal of seva. | https://www.allaboutsikhs.com/sikh-way-of-life/sikh-principles/nishkam-seva-sambhal/ |
Tuesday September 8 – October 6, 2015
“The Five Pillars of Spirituality” is intended both to introduce newer congregants to the key spiritual practices encouraged in our Center, as well as to provide a “spiritual practice boost” to those already practicing. As this is a short course (five, 2-hour classes), it is accessible to those who are not able to attend a 10-week accredited course.
Five Pillars of a Spiritual Life include:
- Spiritual Study which expands understanding through reading, study, investigation and reflection.
- Affirmative Prayer is active communion with the Divine. This practice emphasizes affirmation, affirmative prayer and devotional prayer.
- Meditation increases awareness of the Divine Presence through contemplation, concentration, focus and other meditative techniques.
- Circulation encourages right relationship to the flow of life through balancing giving, receiving, asking, forgiving and gratitude.
- SEVA (Selfless Service) is the practice of serving others without expectation of reward or of a specific result.
5 Weeks
Tuesdays, September 8th – October 6th, 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. | https://cslcv.org/the-five-pillars-of-spiritual-practice/ |
Michael R. Pompeo secretary of state has said that on behalf of the Department of State, I would like to wish all those celebrating Diwali a joyous and prosperous holiday.
Also known as the “Festival of Lights,” this special occasion celebrates the triumph of light over darkness. Nearly a billion celebrants from around the world will light the diya, or lamp, as a reminder that good ultimately overcomes evil, understanding over ignorance, and kindness over animosity. Diwali is also a time of reflection and prayer when observers perform seva, or selfless service, without any expectation of reward or payment.
As those celebrating decorate their homes with vibrant lights, I would also like to recognize the achievements of our friends in the United States observing Diwali who make important contributions to our country on a daily basis. Again, to those celebrating this joyous time I wish you a happy Diwali. | http://alburaaqnews.com/2018/11/07/wish-you-a-happy-diwali-michael-r-pompeo-secretary-of-state/ |
Hinduism preaches serving both God and humanity, as one begets the other. Seva is a Sanskrit word that means more than just service or to serve. It means to serve without the existence of one’s own identity – to serve selflessly. Bhagwan Swaminarayan revived the true meaning of seva and initiated many humanitarian projects among His followers, ranging from digging wells to serving the ill. His personal example, set as a teenager while traveling through southern India, was the selfless service of an ill stranger. Sevakram was a Brahmin who had contracted dysentery. Neelkanth Varni, as Bhagwan Swaminarayan was known at that time, stopped on His travels to nurse Sevakram back to good health, staying for over two months until he was well again.
Pragji Bhakta, the second spiritual successor, set very high standards of seva. For many months, he served the mandir, sadhus, and devotees for twenty hours every day and slept for only four hours. Yogiji Maharaj, the fourth spiritual successor, stressed seva as a form of bhakti and personally engaged in seva like washing utensils and sweeping the floor. Pramukh Swami Maharaj, the fifth spiritual successor, has shown the same inclination for seva and never tires of it. Even over the age of 90 , he still spends hours personally meeting and writing to devotees for their well-being and personal growth.
Following the lead of Pramukh Swami Maharaj, the devotees of the BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha also regularly engage in seva. Medical activities are organized to help communities. Educational initiatives guide children on future courses to follow. Volunteers engage in relief activities when a disaster strikes in their area. Blood drives, career fairs, walkathons for charity are among the activities conducted regularly by volunteers from BAPS centers across the world. Pramukh Swami Maharaj’s adage, ”In the joy of others, lies our own,” propels the organization to devote time and energy towards humanitarian activities in the service of others. | https://www.baps.org/Spiritual-Living/Hindu-Beliefs/Service---Seva.aspx |
Service or Karma path aims to translate the message of Sathya Sai Baba by encouraging devotees to take part in selfless service to the community, by way of providing meals for the homeless (narayana seva), blood donation drives, and visiting retirement homes to care for the elderly through providing support and companionship (home seva) among others. Through service, Sathya Sai Baba believes the ego is eliminated, bringing man closer to God, and promoting love and humility.
Sathya Sai Baba has said,
"The members of our Organization must be ready and eager to help students, the sick, and the poor. Feel that this is work that pleases Me. Spend your days and years in activities that help those in dire need, and thus make this human existence of yours worthwhile and fruitful."
"The inner significance of this activity is that the entire creation is only the manifestation of God in different names and forms and service is the form in which Love is expressed. Therefore, by rendering loving service to fellow-beings, the individual will be serving and loving God. He will thus be fulfilling his purpose in life and ensuring his lasting happiness and joy. The objective is that through Seva, one is able to get rid of one's delusion and ego, and thereby awaken himself to the awareness of his inherent Divinity."
"Society is the coming together of people. Co-operation among people in society motivated by spontaneity and pure intentions is the hall-mark of Seva (service). Seva can be identified by means of two basic characteristics-compassion and willingness to sacrifice."
"Service is the best form of worship, the highest spiritual discipline, the essence of devotion. The bliss you receive through service cannot be gotten through any other activity. Service is more fruitful than repetition of the name, meditation, or sacrifice. There is no morality higher than truth, no prayer more fruitful than service."
Narayana Seva
Feeding the hungry or Narayana Seva is carried out by most centers and groups in Japan. Sathya Sai Baba says,
"Narayana Seva which is feeding the hungry with reverence and humility, is the seva that is urgent today. The cry for food is being heard everywhere, though if each one worked hard, the problem would not arise at all. We talk of stomachs to be filled, but each stomach arrives in the world with two hands. Those hands, if they are kept idle or unskilled, cannot fulfill their assignment of finding the food for the stomach. Work hard.....that is the message. And share the gain with others. The harder you work, the greater your gain, the more you can share. Work hard and, more important still, work together with others in loving kinship."
"Serve man as God. Give food to the hungry, food that is gift of Goddess Nature. Give it with Love and humility, give it sweetened with the name of the Lord."
"The best service is giving a thirsty man a cup of water, and the best time is when he is thirsty. The best type of service is feeding the hungry. Set aside a handful of rice every day while cooking, as an offering to God; each week, feed a few hungry people with it."
Visit of Hospitals, Orphanages and Homes for the Elderly & the Handicapped
Volunteer members also visit hospitals, orphanages, homes for the elderly and the handicapped to provide companionship and support to those who are in the homes, as Sathya Sai Baba says,
"You too should keep God in your mind as the pace-setter, whether you are serving patients in hospitals or cleaning drains in the streets. That is the highest form of spiritual exercise."
"These little acts of Seva can confer on you great spiritual benefit, firstly it will destroy your egoism. Pride will transform friends into enemies, it will keep even kinsmen afar, it will defeat all good schemes. Seva will develop in you the quality of humanity. Humanity will enable you to work in happy unison with others." | https://www.sathyasai.or.jp/home/e/aboutssoj/service/ |
Service before self.
It’s one of the most selfless acts a person can partake in — helping others without any expectation of reward, monetary gain or formal recognition. Janice Makowecki is one such person.
Makowecki began her volunteering journey with the Community Lunch Box (CLB) three years ago when she was accepted to join the CLB Society as vice chair.
“I wanted to get involved with the community again and I like kids. I think that the divisive program spoke to that vulnerable population and I believed I could do both,” she said.
“I believed that some of my prior experiences co... | https://www.communitylunchbox.ca/blog/date/2017-04 |
Seva is selfless service performed without any thought of reward or payment. I like to think of Seva as food for the soul.
In June 2016 I had an incredible Seva opportunity. I traveled to Africa as a volunteer with The Red Sweater Project.
I had the honor and privilege to be part of a team selected to build a 20,000 square foot garden at The Mungere School in Mungere Village, Tanzania. School was not in session when I arrived, yet close to 40 children showed up daily, eager to learn and ready to do their part in building their farm. We worked hard and sang songs led by the renowned Timber Jim, my Dad, and the Director of Love and Celebration for the Portland Timbers Soccer Club. With Timber Jim’s direction and the vision of Ashley Holmer, the founder of the Red Sweater Project, we successfully created an organic farm which is now feeding the children at The Mungere School.
With this life-changing experience we have realized the next step in assisting this impactful program is generating funds for a greenhouse and funds for more gardening tools to further facilitate the growth of this project. | https://shepaused.com/soulful-seva |
Courses:
Selfless service (seva): Seva is the spiritual practice of selfless service. Seva, a Sanskrit word, springs from two forms of yoga, Karma Yoga which is yoga of action and Bhakti Yoga, the yoga of worship inspired by divine love. Seva is one of the simplest and yet most profound and life changing ways that we can put our spiritual knowledge into action. Seva is asking “How may I serve you?” Or ask “Can I help you?” Another way of doing service is to roll up your sleeves and help where you notice that you are needed. We can share our resources and energy with those in need and respond positively when a person asks for help. “Being there as the need arises” is a simple definition of Seva by Sri Ravi Shankar of the Art of Living Foundation. When you consider work as divine service, you can do it anywhere, at any time. Doing Seva is uplifting your own self, your own people and your world. Offering our Seva is a way to make a significant contribution to the spiritual community of fellow beings on earth. It is a practice that feeds us spiritually and a spiritual discipline that awakens us to the greater truth of our own being.
We are one big family; we depend on each other for our existence and we cannot exist alone. Therefore, we should work for the good of all. I am reminded to how Native Americans say “All my relations” as a blessing to all beings and an acknowledgement of connectedness with all life. In our interconnected existence, we are called to treat each person as a sister or a brother and to remember ahimsa, the yogic precept of non-harming. Performing Seva helps us live in a way that is non-harming to others and to live up to that ideal.
All people have a human need for contribution. Everyone wants to help people and have their efforts make a difference in the world. What is your path? What is your contribution? The question in thinking of Seva, is less what you do and more how you do it. When we practice selfless service, we imbue our actions with intention, and we do so without expectation of reward.
There are two main benefits in practicing Seva; the healing impact it has on other people and the environment in which we are offering our service and the transformation that takes place within us as we come to new spiritual understanding. Doing service as a devotional act can bring us to an elevated state of being. It can connect us with our ability to love. Seva is an ideal way to both give and receive simultaneously. We are giving the very best of ourselves to the people and the activities we are engaged with and by the nature of spiritual law we cannot help but receive in return the inner inspiration, revelation and fulfillment.
Kirtan: What is Kirtan? Kirtan (from the Sanskrit word for singing) is easily learned and instantly memorable. The mantras are projected overhead, making them simple to follow. The form is simple: a lead group calls out the melodies. The crowd responds, clapping and dancing as the rhythms of tablas, finger cymbals, harmonium, tamboura, electric bass and guitar build and accelerate.
Meditation: Meditation is the process of conscious, controlled focus of the mind which may take place when the thinking processes, both in pictures and in words, have been stopped. Meditation, or any other activity that focuses the mind, causes the mind to become quiet because it keeps it busy with a task. Actually any activity that we are fully engaged in can serve as a meditation. When we focus all of our attention on something, the mind becomes quiet and serves us only when needed.
We tend to skim by on the surface of life, instead of diving into the moment and really experiencing it. The mind keeps us at a distance from the real experience and, instead, substitutes thoughts about the experience. It distances us from the present moment, where life is rich and alive. We can learn to be more present to the moment by just noticing what is going on. This is usually accomplished by taking our attention off of thoughts and putting it on whatever else is happening in the moment.
Satsang: Satsang, meaning “companionship of the righteous,” is emphasized for spiritual aspirants of all levels….What is so important about worshipping together or interacting with other people who share the same interest in spirituality? First of all, it teaches us to connect to each other and to God in place of connecting to God alone. Connecting with each other for a righteous cause is an important lesson to be learned in life, for it gives us a foresight in dharma at a collective plane. Without this initial lesson, we may never develop the impressions for tolerance, peace, and “seeing God everywhere,” cultivation of which is compulsory for becoming a great soul. Satsang teaches us to keep our ego in check, for it promotes sharing of God’s love and prevents us from ignoring fellow humans under the excuse of spiritual evolution. It opens the gates for exchanging good wishes and blessings with fellow beings. In addition to making us more spiritual, satsang develops the wish to live with ethically gifted people. Thus, in the long run, this translates to an eternal wish of making our community a better place to live.
In a more traditional sense, satsang refers to the company of saints, who have God in their heart and continuously aspire for him.* It is believed that they can radiate positive or spiritual energy to our minds, and their presence can accelerate our spiritual progress, just like the company of the immoral can trigger our tamas instincts.
Activities:
The Neem Karoli Baba Ashram facilities are provided to support devotional activities such as selfless service (seva), kirtan, meditation, satsang and the offering of food (prasad).
All are invited to share in the lunch prasad served on Sundays. All are welcome to take from the prasad at Hanuman’s feet and to have chai
Daily Schedule
7 am – Opening Aarti
7 pm – Evening Aarti
9 pm – Temple Closes
(Winter Hours 7 am-8 pm)
Weekly Schedule
7 pm Tuesday – Evening Aarti
followed by kirtan and prasad
11 am Sunday – Hanuman Chalisas followed by prasad
Aarti is a form of worship where we offer the light from the aarti lamp to Maharaj-ji and all of the deities in the temple room. In essence, we are acknowledging the Source of All. The Hanuman Chalisa is a chant consisting of forty verses in praise of Sri Hanuman-ji.
Pictures
Contact: | https://www.hinduscriptures.com/modern-india/neem-karoli-baba-ashram/30493/ |
Sikhism is one the most value-based religions in world which is based on simplicity, sevice and devotion through name-chanting.
This facet of religion was observed during the current farmers' movement for the recall of anti-formers bills passed by the Indian Parliament to coropratise agriculture without consulting the farmers.
During the movement, they shared the meals with the police personnel in my hometown, Kurukshetra, despite earlier use of force by the police to contain and foil the movement.
The simplicity of the religion lies that it believes in 'Humanism' calling 'all belong to the same Creator' (Kudrat de sab bande)'. When said in Hindi, it goes as follows: अव्वल अल्लाह नूर उपाया कुदरत के सब बंदे, / एक नूर ते सब जग उपजाया कौन भले को मंदे.
Sikhism principally has three tenets as follows:
- Devotion to Almighty - the Creator - through name-chanting (Naam Japo)
- Ethical - just and fair - earning and living through care-and-share (Vand Chhako)
- Service to humanity with humility on daily basis (Kirat Karo)
For community living with amity through 'Vand Chhako' is evident through charity by the followers in the form Langar and helping others in the community for worthy causes. In other words, the true Sikhs are meant to share their earning and skills with others as selfless service or service with humility
It is believed that serving by serving humanity, the Sikhs receive blessings of the Creator. | https://www.speakingtree.in/blog/sikhism-is-religion-based-on-humanism-in-its-truest-sense |
The students will examine the role of discipline in their lives, in the lives of others and in a civil society....
Filter by subjects:
Filter by audience:
Filter by unit » issue area:
find a lesson
Unit: Character Education: Self-Discipline (Grade 6)
Unit: Social Action Project (The)
Students will share their experiences volunteering for a philanthropic organization with others.
Unit: Truth, Trash and Treasure
The learners will create a bridge between their personal reflections and a visual expression of their experience.
The focus will be on words and images that express the learner's emotional response to the service-learning experience and a reflection of their role as a...
Unit: Drumming from the Heart
The purpose of this lesson is to have students identify the shared gifts in the folktale, "The Drum" and determine their relative value. The students brainstorm gifts they have to give (time, talent, and treasure) and the value these gifts may have to others.
Unit: Water Resources and the Role of the Independent Sector
The purpose of this lesson is to raise awareness about the various ways we use water in our daily lives.
Unit: Worthless to Priceless: It's all Relative
Students read and discuss the folktale "The Drum," a folktale from India. Students determine the central message of selfless giving (giving without expectation of reward) and write and produce a play that communicates that message clearly. They perform it for an appropriate audience.
Unit: TeachOne for Earth Day
Students get outside and play in nature and recognize the beauty of diverse living things in their environment. Their service project is to take action to protect nature and share nature with someone else.
Unit: Project on Poverty and Homelessness at Sea Crest School
Students learn how poverty and hunger are related.
Unit: Native American Legend about Community (A) (3rd Grade)
To review the idea of philanthropy and community through a Native American legend in which people take action in response to a community need.
Unit: Grow Involved 3-5
Students listen and respond to a nonfiction literature book The Librarian of Basra by Jeanette Winter. They discuss serving others and working for the good of the community. Students create book covers and donate them to a community organization. | https://www.learningtogive.org/resources/lessons-units?search_api_views_fulltext_1=Cruel%20Creditor%20and%20the%20Judge%E2%80%99s%20Wise%20Daughter%20%28The%29&page=15 |
They belief in one pantheistic God. The opening sentence of the Sikh scriptures is only two words long, and reflects the base belief of all who adhere to the teachings of the religion: Ek Onkar “Ek” is One and “Onkar” is God – “There is only one God.”
Founder of Sikhism was Guru Nanak Dev. The Sikhs have ten Gurus. It is believed that they all had same soul though they had different bodies, and that it was Guru Nanak Dev’s spirit which passed on into his nine successors.
The Sikhs call God as ‘Waheguru’, meaning that God is great. Their common salutation is Sat Siri Akal (God is supreme and is immortal).
“Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh”
has a two fold meaning. It denotes a special relationship between God and those who dedicate their lives to his love and service. Guru Granth Sahib is the holy book of the Sikhs. According to the Sikh belief, God is the eternal truth; he is beyond fear, enmity and death. He himself is the creator, preserver and destroyer.
The Sikhs believe that all existence is controlled by one omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient Lord called by different names: Ishwar, Jehovah, Allah and Waheguru.
Sikh Beliefs about God:
- There is only one God
- God is without form, or gender
- Everyone has direct access to God
- Everyone is equal before God
- A good life is lived as part of a community, by living honestly and caring for others
- Empty religious rituals and superstitions have no value
Sikhs focus their lives around their relationship with God, and being a part of the Sikh community. The Sikh ideal combines action and belief. To live a good life a person should do good deeds as well as meditating only in God in abstract form. They have rules to believe in truthful life with hard work and honest living, share earnings with others in need, love your children and respect your parents, Do not harm anyone.
God and the cycle of life
Sikhs believe that human beings spend their time in a cycle of birth, life, and rebirth. They share this belief with followers of other Indian religious traditions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.
The quality of each particular life depends on the law of Karma. Karma sets the quality of a life according to how well or badly a person behaved in their previous life. The only way out of this cycle, which all faiths regard as painful, is to achieve a total knowledge of and union with God.
The God of grace
Sikh spirituality is centered round this need to understand and experience God, and eventually become one with God.
To do this a person must switch the focus of their attention from themselves to God. They get this state, which is called mukti (liberation), through the grace of God. That means it’s something God does to human beings, and not something that human beings can earn. However, God shows people through holy books, and by the examples of saints, the best ways to get close to him.
Sikhs believe that God can’t be understood properly by human beings, but he can be experienced through love, worship, and contemplation. Sikhs look for God both inside themselves and in the world around them.
Getting Close to God
When a Sikh wants to see God, they look both at the created world and into their own heart and soul. Their aim is to see the divine order that God has given to everything, and through it to understand the nature of God.
Most human beings can’t see the true reality of God because they are blinded by their own self-centered pride and concern for physical things.
God inside us
Sikhs believe that God is inside every person, no matter how wicked they appear, and so everyone is capable of change. The message is written in the whole of creation; look at it with open eyes and see the truth of God, for creation is the visible message of God.
Sikhs believe that most of us misunderstand the universe. We think that it exists on its own, when it really exists because God wills it to exist, and is a portrait of God’s own nature.
Living a good life in this world
Sikhs don’t think it pleases God if people pay no attention to others and simply devote themselves slavishly to religion. Sikhism doesn’t ask people to turn away from ordinary life to get closer to God. In fact it demands that they use ordinary life as a way to get closer to God. A Sikh serves God by serving (seva) other people every day. By devoting their lives to service they get rid of their own ego and pride.
Many Sikhs carry out chores in the Gurudwara as their service to the community. These range from working in the kitchen to cleaning the floor. The Langar, or free food kitchen, is a community act of service.
The Sikh Value System comprises the following-
(I) Physico-economic values : A Sikh treats body as the sacred abode of the Spirit. There is no place for austerities and torturing of the body as a way of salvation.
(2) Intellectual Values : Knowledge and wisdom are the key concepts; reason plays the pivotal role and truth is the highest value to be cherished.
(3) Aesthetic Values : Loving devotion to the Lord, generating ecstatic state of bliss leading to the enjoyment of the grandeur and beauty of his creation.
(4) Ethical Values : Virtue as reflected in valor, purity of conduct, realization of the Divine presence in all the human beings and service of the mankind.
(5) Spiritual Values : Mukti and Nirvana in Sikhism is emancipation in life through Divine Grace.
The three pillars of such way of life are –
- a) Naam-Japna: Meditation of God –
Sikhs are directed to concentrate their minds on God, to reflect on God’s virtues such as love, benevolence, and kindness. Sikhs practice this to inculcate such virtues into their own character. This can be done by reciting Gurbani, by listening to the singing of hymns from Gurbani, or by sitting in a quiet place and attentively thinking of God, forgetting all else.
- b) Kirt Karni: Earningwith hard labor-
Sikhs are advised to earn their livelihood by honest means. They are not supposed to be parasites on society. Non-earners become dependent on others and because of this, are influenced to think and act as their benefactors expect. If a person is dishonest, and takes what is not justly his, the Gurus declare these earnings as the ‘blood of the poor’. They are prohibited to Sikhs, just as beef is prohibited to Hindus and pork to Muslims.
There is temptation to live a comfortable life by earning money through unfair means. The Gurus want us to resist this desire by keeping in mind that such earnings pollute the mind. Only honest earnings are like “milk” and hence “nourishing”.
Kirat Karni is one of three primary pillars of Sikhism. To perform Kirat is like saying a prayer or performing meditation. It is equal to your Sunday Service attendance at your place of worship.
- c) Wand Chhakna: Sharing one’s earning with the needy –
The recitation of Nam helps disciples realize that they are members of the human brotherhood. This thought creates in them feelings of kindness and love for those who need their help. As a consequence, they enjoy sharing their earnings with those less fortunate. This sharing must be done out of a sense of responsibility, and not of pride. A person can judge their closeness to God by sharing their bread with the needy. If this can be done without feeling as if they are doing someone a favor, then they are on the right path and are close to God.
The Five Vices:
Sikhs try to avoid the five vices that make people self-centered, and build barriers against God in their lives – Lust, Covetousness and greed, Attachment to things of this world, Anger and Pride.
If a person can overcome these vices they are on the road to liberation. | http://gurdwarabuenapark.com/about-sikhism/sikh-beliefs/ |
2017 Midsouth Covenant Camp
Midsouth Covenant Camp will be again at Frontier Camp in Grapeland, TX. As always, a wonderful line-up of lessons, games and activities is planned. This seven day camp ministry is for children entering grades 2-9, with CILT leadership training for students entering grades 10-12. We have a wonderful staff, lead by Camp Director Dale “Munk” Lusk, who volunteers their time and energy to minister to campers this summer. We look forward to having camp this summer!
Campers from across the Midsouth Conference gathered at Frontier Camp to focus on their relationship with God and discuss this year’s camp the theme “Seva – Jesus Style.” “Seva” is a Sanskrit word meaning “selfless service” or work performed without any thought of reward or repayment. This is the art of giving with no need to receive, where the act itself is a gift to everyone involved. Seva is the art of blessed action and we will base our study on Mark 10:42-45.
You can see camp pictures and posts on the Midsouth Covenant Camp Facebook page!
Important dates: | https://knowliveshare.com/th_event/midsouth-summer-camp-2/ |
The Newfoundland and Labrador Volunteer Hall of Fame was launched in 2012 by The Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award Newfoundland and Labrador with the primary goal of honoring, documenting and recognizing the significant efforts of those in our province who have made long-standing volunteer efforts.
This special gala event is not only a tribute for the inductees; it also raises much needed funds to support The Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award program in Newfoundland and Labrador. The Award is a non-competitive program that challenges youth ages 14-24 to set and achieve personal goals for community service, skills, physical recreation and adventure. There are three Award levels – Bronze, Silver and Gold – each requiring an increasing level of commitment. The Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award was founded by His Royal Highness The Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh, in 1956 in the United Kingdom, was started in Canada in 1963 and began in Newfoundland and Labrador in 1974.
A Celebration
Leadership is an extremely important part of building and strengthening the future of our communities and the province. It is our belief that the people who give selflessly of their time and talents should be acknowledged. They serve as an inspiration to others, specifically our youth. The Volunteer Hall of Fame aims to enshrine the achievements of both individuals and organizations that have set the standards for selfless giving without reward or gain, for all to see. | http://volunteerhalloffame.ca/ |
This is the fourth in my 7-part series that explores the Army leadership values, represented by the acronym LDRSHIP.
For my previous three blogs, I was able to identify a colleague’s actions that stood out. In this case, I recall so many instances of selfless service that I couldn’t justify choosing one example.
This led me to research why selfless service is a core Army leadership value.
(Blog updated to include Values & Beliefs video)
Army Leadership Values
- Loyalty – Bear true faith and allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, the Army, your unit, and other Soldiers
- Duty – Fulfill your obligations
- Respect – Treat people as they should be treated
- Selfless Service – Put the welfare of the Nation, the Army, and subordinates before your own
- Honor – Live up to all the Army Values
- Integrity – Do what’s right—legally and morally
- Personal Courage – Face fear, danger, or adversity (physical and moral)
— FM 6-22: Army Leadership
How Important is Selfless Service?
In “Is Selfless Service Possible?,”
—doing something to benefit another person without expecting anything in return.
Dr. John A. Johnson questioned the notion of pure altruism and argued that people couldn’t feel altruistic for very long without reciprocation. Otherwise, because of our human nature, selfless tendencies would dissipate over time.
The only way in which it is mathematically possible for any kind of selflessness to evolve is for selfless individuals to associate more frequently with other selfless individuals than with non-selfless individuals.
John A. Johnson
Dr. Johnson then pointed to selfless service as one of the core Army Values, which caused me to reflect on why I had witnessed so many instances of selfless service throughout my career.
Selflessness: The Key to Leadership, and Teamwork
If there is any phrase I learned about leadership, it was “set the example.”
As I started thinking more about the importance of selfless service, I realized that when you are willing to put others’ needs before your own, it becomes so much easier to live all of your other values.
I recalled a situation that occurred early during my first semester while serving as the ROTC Battalion commander for Northeastern University and Boston College.
The senior cadets were holding their monthly meeting in which my cadre and I observed not only their conduct of the meeting, but we assessed their planning, preparation, and coordination for events later that semester.
When it was Jon’s turn to present, he said that he did not have his expected answers. When asked why not, his response was that Toby didn’t provide him the information he needed.
Typically, I waited for other members of my staff reply. This time was different; calling a colleague out in public simply was not OK.
Put the Welfare of the Nation, the Army, and Subordinates Before Your Own
I always thought Jon’s lack of teamwork prompted my visceral reaction.
In 17 years of service, I had witnessed so many examples of selfless service that I was keenly aware that his response was not an acceptable part of our culture. Something wasn’t right.
Did Jon pursue Toby for the information? He could have taken the extra step easily and reached out to Toby. He did not.
Subconsciously, I knew what Dr. Johnson meant:
In order for our spirit of selfless behavior to survive, those of us in the Army had to associate with others who exhibited the same behavior.
This incident wasn’t just about teamwork, it was about something much more important: a core leadership value; a lesson that Jon, Toby, and 20 other future leaders learned in our meeting that day.
Live Your Values
As the senior member responsible for our leadership development program, I owed it to these future leaders that they understand, live, and carry on our tradition of selfless service. Just as those who served before me, I knew that selflessness would provide our cadets the glue they would need to build trust and promote teamwork when it was their turn to lead.
I am a big fan of Dale Carnegie’s “praise in public, criticize in private” message, but this was too important to let pass. But, selfless service was one of our core values that couldn’t be compromised.
Moving forward, every cadet in the room knew that teamwork was expected. And, over time and countless examples from my cadre, they saw that selfless behavior was a part of our culture.
You have similar, core values that define your organization’s culture.
One Final Observation:
During my research, I came across these messages from Joshua Becker on The Pursuit of Selflessness:
Selflessness is an important key to marriage, friendships, and relationships. It is also an essential key to happiness and fulfillment. But unfortunately, often overlooked.
Our lives can be lived for any number of purposes. …the pursuit of justice, happiness, or growth for another person or people group.
But only when we embrace service and selflessness will we find lasting significance in our world. | https://blackhawkcoach.com/core-leadership-values-part-4-selfless-service/ |
Anarchism is a term derived from the Greek anarkhia, meaning “contrary to authority” or ”without a ruler.“ Anarchism narrowly refers to a theory of society without state rule, and generally to a social and political ideology advocating a society that does not use coercive forms of authority. Many advocates trace its roots to the Greek Stoics. William Godwin’s An Inquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness (1793) is widely recognized as the first work to present a full articulation of the idea of anarchism.
The term was considered derisory until the French social philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon used it in 1840 to describe his political program. Proudhon is credited as the first to call himself an anarchist. The Russian revolutionary Michael Bakunin (1814–1876), a key figure in anarchism, sought the violent overthrow of the state in order to replace it with a federation built on the basis of voluntary associations. Bakunin was a proponent of what would become anarcho-syndicalism, a term not coined until the early 20th century by Sam Mainwaring in Britain and Georges Sorel in France. Anarcho-syndicalism focused on trade unions as the transformative agent of social change, because they championed workers and could serve as a foundation for a new social organization after the successful overthrow of the existing state. | https://www.rem.routledge.com/articles/anarchism |
The Anarchist FAQ website, which is reasonably reflective of broad anarchist opinion, lists Max Stirner, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Michael Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin as the major anarchist thinkers. In this article I intend to focus on Stirner and Proudhon, as they played a decisive role in establishing the anarchist world view and moulding the outlook of subsequent anarchists including Bakunin and Kropotkin. Indeed we can’t understand the outlook of the anarchist movement today without coming to grips with Stirner and Proudhon. So what did they stand for?
Let’s start with the German writer Max Stirner, most famous for his 1844 book The Ego and His Own. There is no doubt that Stirner still exercises a major influence on anarchist writers. According to An Anarchist FAQ “his ideas remain a cornerstone of anarchism”, while the sympathetic historian of anarchism George Woodcock stated that Stirner had “a considerable influence in libertarian circles during the present [twentieth] century”. The anarchist writer April Carter describes Stirner as “the next major anarchist theorist” after William Godwin, and states that Stirner’s book “had an impact on Bakunin just when the latter was being radicalized for the first time in Young Hegelian circles”.
In the words again of An Anarchist FAQ, Stirner argued for “an extreme form of individualism”, which placed the individual above all else. Stirner believed that the concept of workers’ solidarity was “quite incomprehensible”. Indeed for Stirner there was no common humanity or social morality other than the demands of the individual Ego. He proclaimed; “I, the egoist, have not at heart the welfare of this ‘human society’. I sacrifice nothing for it. I only utilize it”. Stirner glorified crime and exalted murder, declaring:
I do not demand any right; therefore I need not recognize any either. What I can get by force I get by force and what I do not get by force I have no right to.
As Woodcock puts it, Stirner
sets forth his ideal the egoist, the man who realizes himself in conflict with the collectivity and with other individuals, who does not shrink from the use of any means in the “war of each against all”, who judges everything ruthlessly from the viewpoint of his own well-being.
There is nothing in any sense left-wing or progressive about such an approach. Stirner was a reactionary self-centred individualist. It is unsurprising that the reactionary philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche had high regard for Stirner. As Woodcock writes:
There is no need to point out the resemblance between Stirner’s egoist and the superman of Nietzsche; Nietzsche himself regarded Stirner as one of the unrecognized seminal minds of the nineteenth century.
Stirner was not in any serious sense anti-capitalist. Indeed he supported a market economy. He rejected political or social revolution in favour of individual ego rebellion, declaring:
[M]y object is not the overthrow of an established order but my elevation above it, my purpose and deed are not political and social, but egoistic. The revolution commands one to make arrangements; rebellion demands that one rise or exalt oneself.
Reflecting this reactionary outlook Stirner abstained from any involvement in the revolutions that swept Germany and much of Europe in 1848 and 1849. However on the basis of his extreme individualism Stirner was anti-state, anti-authority and anti-hierarchy.
To be fair there are some anarchists, for example Lucien van der Walt and Michael Schmidt in their book Black Flame, who reject the view that figures such as Stirner and for that matter Proudhon are part of the anarchist tradition. They argue that “individualist anarchism” and “lifestyle anarchism” are not genuinely anarchist and that “class struggle anarchism” is the only true anarchism. It would undoubtedly be an important step forward if this was true as it would bring anarchism much closer to a Marxist approach. However as van der Walt and Schmidt concede, their standpoint is very much a minority view among anarchists. They acknowledge that the views of Stirner and other reactionary individualists like Nietzsche have had a significant impact on the anarchist movement.
This is clearly reflected in An Anarchist FAQ, which repeatedly quotes Stirner favourably and is obsessed with the individual and the need for “individual sovereignty”. It emphasises the individual much more than it does the collective struggle of the working class. An Anarchist FAQ states that “anarchists recognise that individuals are the basic unit of society and that only individuals have interests and feelings”. And it proclaims the need for individuals to free themselves. This represents an abandonment of a class analysis of society. There is simply no way that individuals as individuals can in any meaningful way free themselves from capitalist rule. The only freedom possible is collective freedom. Freedom can only be obtained by mass collective working-class struggle that overthrows the rule of the capitalist class and smashes the capitalist state.
And it is totally wrong to believe that only individuals have interests. The working class very much has its own collective class interests – to improve its living standards, increase its democratic rights and to liberate itself as a class, not as a series of discrete individuals. Moreover a series of the interests and rights that workers have fought for – including the legalisation of trade unions, the right to assemble, the right to hold mass meetings, the right to vote, a public health system, free education, the ending of wars – are not individual rights but mass collective rights. The ruling class also has collective interests, to maintain their domination over workers and the poor, to expand their profits and market share, and so on.
An Anarchist FAQ argues: “For anarchists, the idea that individuals should sacrifice themselves for the ‘group’ or ‘greater good’ is nonsensical”. But in any mass struggle or revolution that is precisely what workers and the oppressed have done time and time again – giving their lives in the hope that their sacrifice would help liberate their class. Just look at the recent protests in Myanmar, Kazakhstan or Hong Kong. Some brave people marched in the front rows knowing that they could well be tear-gassed, arrested, tortured or shot.
In virtually every strike individual workers make financial sacrifices for the good of the collective – both their own immediate workmates and often in the hope that any gains that they make will flow on to other workers they have never even met. They refuse to scab on a strike because they would be a traitor to their class. Similarly in the current COVID crisis, health workers and many other groups of essential workers risk their lives on a daily basis out of a broader collective responsibility. This collective approach is central to what makes us human – not individual egoism.
The strong emphasis by anarchists on individualism is not simply some foible of An Anarchist FAQ. Woodcock states: “Democracy advocates the sovereignty of the people. Anarchism advocated the sovereignty of the person”. The anarchist historian Alexandre Skirda champions Stirner’s individualism. As has already been noted, Bakunin was strongly influenced by Stirner. Woodcock points out that among anarchists in the 1890s and the early twentieth century there was a significant revival of interest in Stirner and his book The Ego and His Own was widely read. Proudhon saw freedom in individual terms, not in working-class collective terms as a product of mass class struggle. The prominent British anarchist Nicolas Walter declared: “Nearly all individuals live in society, but society is nothing more than a collection of individuals”. Similarly Emma Goldman, one of the best known twentieth century anarchists, insisted:
Anarchism alone stresses the importance of the individual, his possibilities and needs in a free society… Anarchism insists that the center of gravity in society is the individual.
She declared:
I, too, will accept anarchist organization on just one condition: that it be based on the absolute respect for all individual initiatives and not obstruct their development or evolution.
The essential principle of anarchy is individual autonomy. The International will not be anarchist unless it wholly respects this principle.
And as van der Walt and Schmidt note, even many anarchists who distance themselves from the extreme individualism of Stirner and accept the need for some form of organisation do so hesitantly, and advocate a loose organisation. This reflects a common anarchist idea that it is somehow authoritarian for an organisation to prescribe specific views and actions as a basis for membership, and to insist on a political program based on clear positions.
The ongoing influence of individualism among anarchists is also reflected in the fact that today’s anarcho-syndicalists and anarcho-communists who claim to stand for class struggle politics generally refuse to make a sharp break politically from lifestyle anarchists and other individualist anarchists. And consequently by default they go along with various individualist ideas hostile to class politics. In particular identity politics, being currently the most common form of middle-class liberal individualism today, are dominant in anarchist circles.
As An Anarchist FAQ puts it,
individualism by definition includes no concrete programme for shaping social conditions. This was attempted by Proudhon…who had a profound effect on the growth of anarchism.
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, famous for coining the phrase “property is theft”, is widely recognised as the founder of anarchism. As Proudhon’s anarchist biographer Woodcock states: “All the fundamental anarchist ideas are there [in Proudhon’s writings]; it was only in matters of tactics that his successors have ever really differed from him”. An Anarchist FAQ agrees, stating: “It would be no exaggeration to state that Proudhon’s work defined the fundamental nature of anarchism”. Anarchist historian Alexandre Skirda credits Proudhon with providing “the inception of the notion of abstention from politics” which is a key pillar of anarchism. Even left-wing anarchists like van der Walt and Schmidt, despite being very critical of Proudhon, acknowledge he influenced anarchism profoundly.
Both Kropotkin and Bakunin admired Proudhon. Kropotkin described him as “the father of anarchy”, while Bakunin famously proclaimed that in his “instinct” for freedom Proudhon was “the master of us all” and that his own ideas were simply Proudhon’s ideas “widely developed and pushed right to these, its final consequences”. EH Carr in his biography of Bakunin argues that “it was Proudhon more than any other man who was responsible for transforming Bakunin’s instinctive revolt against authority into a regular anarchist creed”. Eugene Pyziur in his study of Bakunin writes:
[I]t must be stressed that it was due to the influence of Proudhon’s ideas that Bakunin’s instinctive rebellionism was transformed into a formulated, doctrinaire anarchist creed. It was Proudhon who provided Bakunin with the theorems and concepts which were essential to him in his later creation of a species of anarchist doctrine, when this became necessary for Bakunin in his duel with Marx.
There is no doubt that Proudhon was one of the most influential radical figures in France in the 1840s and 1850s. He edited probably the most widely read paper in Paris around the time of the 1848 revolution, with a daily circulation of 40,000 copies at its peak. This was quite an amazing achievement for the time. And this was no tabloid scandal sheet but a serious publication with lengthy articles. Proudhon’s mass support was reflected in his election to parliament, first at a by-election and then again with an increased majority at the May 1849 general elections. His influence continued well after his death in 1865. The Proudhonist current, which he inspired, was the major radical current in France for some decades, playing a substantial (if often quite negative) role in the 1871 Paris Commune.
Proudhon promoted a range of reactionary ideas that anarchists today would find highly embarrassing. I do not have the space to provide a full charge sheet, but here is a representative sample.
Proudhon was hostile to trade unions and to strikes, and at times called for them to be suppressed by the authorities. He condemned strikes for provoking hostility to employers and being contrary to the right of free competition. He viewed trade unions as an assault on individual freedom and denounced as outrageous trade union attempts to interfere with workshop management. As van der Walt and Schmidt comment: “From his Mutualist perspective, strikes were at best irrelevant and at worst a positive threat; they were not really a viable means of struggle for his constituency of petty commodity producers”. In his election campaign he called on workers to “offer their erstwhile employers the hand of friendship”. In his last complete work, The Political Capacity of the Working-Classes, he called on workers to form an alliance with the bourgeoisie and criticised them for having “been too busy with their own wrongs to understand the sorrows of the middle classes”.
He opposed voting rights for workers, declaring that “universal suffrage is the counter-revolution”. He supported the right of the slave-owning states of the United States to secede at the time of the US Civil War. He opposed the abolition of capital punishment. He was stridently anti-Semitic, declaring:
Jews. Write an article against this race that poisons everything by sticking its nose into everything without ever mixing with any other people. Demand its expulsion from France with the exception of those individuals married to French women. Abolish synagogues and not admit them to any employment… Finally, pursue the abolition of this religion… The Jew is the enemy of humankind. They must be sent back to Asia or be exterminated… The Jew must disappear by steel or by fusion or by expulsion… The hatred of the Jew like the hatred of the English should be our first article of political faith.
Proudhon idealised the nuclear family as a core unit of society that had to be protected at all costs. For that reason he opposed divorce and sexual freedom, especially for women. As Carter comments: “Proudhon, unlike most anarchists, sees a positive value in a marriage ceremony”. He was an extreme sexist, notoriously declaring that a “woman knows enough if she knows enough to mend our shirts and cook us a steak”. According to Proudhon men must be the master in the house. Women should be denied all rights in money and business. As he put it: “Men must always be superior to the women, as three is to two”. Despite being hostile to the church, he thought religion a good thing for women given that they were supposedly incapable “of taking a place in the life of society in their own right”.
When it came to political strategy Proudhon was a reformist, making it clear in a letter to Karl Marx in 1844 that he opposed “violent revolution”.
Yet despite all this, Proudhon was upheld for decades by anarchists as a champion of human freedom against the supposedly authoritarian Marx. Such arguments ignore Marx’s polemics in favour of democratic working-class organisation and the vital role of strikes against Proudhon’s reactionary views. Right up until the present day the litany of Proudhon’s backward positions has been covered up or apologised for or brushed aside by numerous anarchist writers. There are a few honourable exceptions among anarchists, such as van der Walt and Schmidt, who denounce and disown Proudhon. Murray Bookchin is also highly critical of him. However they are very much in a minority, with book after book by anarchists championing Proudhon. Most anarchists simply ignore Proudhon’s hostility to strikes and tend to brush aside his sexism and anti-Semitism as unfortunate side issues. But to just take one example, championing the nuclear family was not some side issue for Proudhon. It was a central element of his whole world view, a cornerstone of his “small is beautiful” federalist standpoint. The great bulk of anarchists refuse to acknowledge that Proudhon’s hostility to strikes and his sexism and anti-Semitism are integral to his overall petty-bourgeois populist politics and social base. The anarchist unwillingness to sharply disown Proudhon is but a reflection of the fact that many of Proudhon’s core ideas remain central to anarchism right down to the present day.
At the centre of Proudhon’s world view is a hostility to all forms of authority as an infringement of individual freedom, which, like Stirner, Proudhon upheld as an absolute principle. Proudhon declared that he was for the “complete freedom of every man for himself and his family, and to the association of fellow workers into which he enters under the terms of a contract”. As he wrote in The General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century:
The idea of contract excludes that of government… What characterises the contract, the mutual convention, is that in virtue of this convention man’s liberty and wellbeing increase, whilst by the institution of an authority, both necessarily diminish.
Proudhon saw all forms of authority, whether it be God or, above all, the state, as the fundamental problem in society. He viewed the state as hostile to the natural order of society. All that was needed to achieve human freedom was for the state to simply disappear or be abolished. But this was simply utopian nonsense. As the Marxist theorist Hal Draper notes:
[T]he state performed a necessary function for society, and was not a mere excrescence or cancer, and that therefore it could not be “abolished” until society was able to perform this function with different institutions. This is the stumbling block over which anarchism breaks its neck theoretically.
Proudhon opposed all forms of representative democracy as hierarchical and authoritarian. He believed that democracy would usher in a period of retrogression that would bring the nation and the state to ruin. He also opposed the mass of workers exercising direct democracy as he argued it would lead to just another form of authoritarian rule. This reflected his contempt for the masses who he believed would always support authoritarian leaders.
The people…by reason of their ignorance, the primitiveness of their instincts, the urgency of their needs and the impatience of their wishes, they incline to summary forms of authority… They seek a leader whose word they trust, whose intentions are known to them, and whom they believe devoted to their interests; to him they give unlimited authority and irresistible power…all they have faith in is the will of a man.
As Carter comments: “Proudhon argued in The Federative Principle that historically the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie have tended to protect liberty and federalism, whilst the masses have supported a despotic and unitary state”. Consequently democracy, universal suffrage and the referendum must be opposed, as “the people as a whole must be protected from their own folly by a federal structure which limits the effects of their mistakes”.
Proudhon’s classless opposition to authority and the state also led him to oppose inheritance taxes on the rich; indeed he saw any form of taxation on the rich as oppressive. Wealth taxes would just concentrate the control of wealth in the state; much better just to leave it decentralised in the arms of the bosses. Similarly he opposed nationalisation of the banks and of giant corporations, even if it occurred under workers’ control.
Following the same abstract anti-statism, Proudhon opposed making any demands on the state for reforms that would benefit workers. He opposed all government welfare payments for workers and the poor, including age pensions and free healthcare. Most controversially in terms of practical politics at the time of the 1848 revolution in France, Proudhon opposed the most popular demand of the workers of Paris that the government create jobs for them.
Proudhon’s second core principle was opposition to all forms of centralism, which he spuriously claimed was innately authoritarian. He was for a completely decentralised, small-scale society which he believed was inherently progressive. He declared that “all of my political views can be stripped down to a similar formula: political federation or decentralization”. This fetish for decentralisation led Proudhon, as mentioned previously, to back the southern US slave states breaking away from Abraham Lincoln’s centralised republic – the epitome of his classless world view. He praised the Austrian monarchy as it was moving towards a decentralised empire. His “small is beautiful” approach also led him to favour small reactionary monarchies over unified republics. He claimed: “In a little state, there is nothing for the bourgeoisie to profit from”. Consequently he opposed Italian unification, defended the Papal States and lamented the defeat of the armies of the ultra-reactionary King Francis of Naples by Garibaldi’s rebel forces.
Proudhon’s solution to society’s ills was that workers and small producers should set up their own companies to compete on the capitalist market. They would then ruin the big capitalists by out-competing them on the market, and by denuding them of a labour force. At the centre of this fantasy was a People’s Bank to which ordinary people would loan their money and which in turn would provide cheap credit to finance the producer-owned companies. This schema, known as Mutualism, would succeed according to Proudhon by simply ignoring the state. Definitely there should be no recourse to violence by the oppressed, or expropriation of those with existing wealth. At most all that would be needed was a campaign of civil disobedience and passive resistance.
The producer-owned companies would be federated together by mutual agreement. The state would become redundant. Freedom of trade and the market would, however, continue to exist and money would still circulate. Indeed Proudhon stridently opposed communal equality and collective working class ownership of industry, and “defended the rights of private property as a necessary bulwark of personal liberty”.
Proudhon’s schema was a typical petty-bourgeois utopia reflecting the social class from which he came and sought support. As the anarchist writer April Carter puts it: “The type of anarchism developed by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon…idealized the sturdy independence of the small peasant proprietor or skilled craftsman”. Similarly Woodcock notes: “The ideal of the free peasant life was to become a shaping element in Proudhon’s social and political thought”. Proudhon had owned a small printing business that went broke. And this libertarian very much saw the paper he edited as his own individual property, subject to his dictatorial control.
As Marx wrote:
From head to foot M. Proudhon is the philosopher and economist of the petty-bourgeoisie…he is dazed by the magnificence of the big bourgeoisie and has sympathy for the sufferings of the people. He is at once both bourgeois and man of the people. Deep down in his heart he flatters himself that he is impartial and has found the right equilibrium… A petty-bourgeois of this type glorifies contradiction [in his theorising] because contradiction is the basis of his existence. He is himself nothing but social contradiction in action. He must justify in theory what he is in practice.
Proudhon decreed that under his schema, “Retail trade should be left to the small shopkeeper”. Indeed he championed the right to be a shopkeeper, the rights of other small business owners and he opposed consumers’ cooperatives that were being set up to compete with them. Similarly Proudhon proclaimed that peasants would own their own patch of land and compete in a market economy. Property would be bought and sold but large landowners would not be permitted. So ironically, despite being famous for the phrase “property is theft” Proudhon, as one of his biographers DW Brogan notes, “explained, for twenty years, that he was a defender, not an enemy of property”. According to Proudhon it was only large-scale industry, which he did not view favourably, that would be run as producer-owned companies. However he opposed workers forcibly seizing capitalist companies as a violation of property rights, and also opposed workers’ co-operatives. As Fredrick Engels put it, Proudhon “wants existing society, but without its abuses”.
Large income differentials of up to three to one were to be allowed under Proudhon’s Mutualist utopia. No welfare payments would be available to the poor. As Hyams, who is very sympathetic to Proudhon, puts it: “Mutualism, excluding welfarism, has to tolerate poverty; but not degrading poverty”. Proudhon supported piece work and fee for service, and saw competition on the market by individuals as very important to ensure that they worked hard. He argued:
The most deplorable error of socialism is to have considered it [competition] as the disorder of society. There can…be…no question of destroying competition… It is a matter of finding an equilibrium, one could say a policing agent.
Unsurprisingly the Mutualist schema was an abject failure when put to the test of practice. Reflecting his own naivety, and in contradiction to his proclaimed anti-state principles, Proudhon called on the French government to fund his People’s Bank. When the government refused his request, he tried to establish a People’s Bank on the basis of private financial subscriptions. It quickly collapsed – though it should be noted that this proclaimed libertarian appointed himself “the sole responsible manager” of the bank, registering it as “PJ Proudhon and Company”. Indeed he attempted to impose dictatorial control over the entire Mutualist system. The whole project was of course an utter fantasy. As though the capitalist class and its state were ever going to allow themselves to be peacefully forced out of existence by competition from producer-owned enterprises. If Proudhon’s Mutualist enterprises had started to pose any serious threat to big business the police and army would have been unleashed to crush them.
The final core element of Proudhon’s philosophy was hostility to political organisation and parties, and to politics in a more general sense. For Proudhon, the masses should not look to political solutions to their problems. They should rely instead solely on their own economic strength. It was by economic competition from producer-owned enterprises that the existing order would be undermined. In the 1848 revolution in France no revolutionary working-class party existed to organise the ranks of the rebellious workers of Paris or to provide a socialist political alternative to the bourgeois Republicans. Proudhon’s influential anti-party current opposed any such attempt, which helped contribute to the terrible defeat and mass repression that workers suffered.
Later anarchists like Bakunin and Kropotkin ditched some of the more outlandish and utterly reactionary elements of Proudhon’s politics. Anarchists today don’t campaign against strikes or oppose divorce or taxes on the rich or want to abolish age pensions. Anarchists, with rare exceptions, no longer champion the idea of a People’s Bank as the way forward to freedom. Nonetheless as An Anarchist FAQ acknowledges, Proudhon’s core principles still profoundly influence anarchism.
Bakunin and other anarchists such as Errico Malatesta saw themselves as revolutionaries and rejected Proudhon’s reformist perspective that capitalism and the state could gradually be abolished or fade away in the face of economic competition from producer-owned enterprises. But Proudhon’s reformist orientation is embodied in the approach of lifestyle and individualist anarchists, who form easily the largest anarchist current today. Lifestyle anarchists believe that by disavowing the norms of mainstream society and living an alternative lifestyle in communes or squats, by eating ethically, growing their own food, dumpster diving or running soup kitchens they can escape the state, or make it irrelevant and thus lay the basis for freedom. Just like Proudhon they don’t see the collective struggle of the working class as the key to liberating humanity.
But it is not just the lifestyle anarchists who don’t recognise that it is only the collective power of the working class that can liberate humanity. Various anarchists who would see themselves as revolutionaries look to classes or social layers other than the working class as a revolutionary liberating force. Indeed Bakunin viewed the Russian peasant commune as a basis for socialism. He looked to a whole variety of non-proletarian social layers – peasants, criminal elements, students, petty-bourgeois intellectuals – to tear down bourgeois society. Bakunin considered the “world of tramps, thieves, and brigands” to be among “the best and truest conductors of a people’s revolution” as they were gifted with “evil passions” and the “devil in the flesh”.
Similarly the Narodniks in Russia saw the peasantry as the revolutionary force and dismissed the workers. Right down to this very day many anarchists, including An Anarchist FAQ, hold up Nestor Makhno’s peasant army in Russia as a force that could have established an anarchist society. But it is not just An Anarchist FAQ that looks to the peasantry as an anarchist force. Even some of the most left-wing anarchists like van der Walt and Schmidt champion Makhno – a reflection of the fact that like Proudhon they don’t have a thoroughgoing class analysis of society. They argue that the property-owning peasantry can, by a voluntaristic act of will, create socialism even in a poverty-stricken pre-capitalist society. Material conditions do not matter to them. “It was not necessary to wait for capitalism to create the material basis for freedom, freedom would create its own material basis.”
The continuing influence of Proudhon’s petty-bourgeois utopian outlook is also reflected in anarchist circles in their opposition to centralised working-class power and support for decentralised, small-scale local communities or collectives linked up only by loose and voluntary federation. It is not simply lifestyle anarchists who adhere to this Proudhon-derived orientation. Bakunin was a strident supporter of federalism, as was Peter Kropotkin, who savaged the 1871 Paris Commune for setting up a system of representative democracy. In their virulent opposition to centralisation An Anarchist FAQ and van der Walt and Schmidt are definitely representative of current anarchist opinion.
An Anarchist FAQ opposes “any form of organisation based on the delegation of power” and argues that only on the basis of decentralisation “both structurally and territorially can individual liberty be fostered and encouraged”. Some modern day anarchists go even further, arguing for an almost total decentralisation of production and the creation of self-sufficient autonomous local economies. This is an absolute impossibility for any modern society. You can’t confine the operations of the internet or the phone system or the roads, railways, airlines or shipping industry or the health system to one local village or even to one large city.
In Proudhon’s case, support for decentralisation reflected the hostility of peasants, small shopkeepers and other small business owners to the growth of large-scale industry employing masses of workers. But there is nothing inherently progressive about decentralisation and small scale industry. It is simply looking back to a highly idealised image of an earlier form of class society (and a very brutal one at that) which is long gone. Such a society could only be re-established following some cataclysmic collapse of human civilisation brought on by nuclear war or climate change.
Against this reactionary utopianism, Marxists argue that it is precisely the bringing together of workers on a mass scale in large-scale industry and huge cities that laid the basis for working class power and for genuine democratic control over society. Workers in, for example, large hospitals, supermarkets, schools or warehouses have much greater potential power than the tiny number of staff at your local GP clinic, cafe or corner store. And consequently they have a much greater capacity to establish democratic forms of organisation. It is no accident that workers in large workplaces have been, for well over a hundred years, the key driving force of all the major workers’ uprisings and were the initiators of mass democratic organisations such as workers’ councils.
Centralism is inherently more democratic than federalism and decentralised localised decision-making. It is impossible to hold governments, party leaders or trade union officials to account simply by passing motions or taking action at the local level. Moreover, centralised decision-making is vital for resolving the key challenges facing working-class people, whether it be climate change, the COVID crisis, living standards, food distribution, the refugee question or imperialist war.
In contrast, federalism, as Proudhon was very explicit about, was aimed at frustrating the popular will and democratic rights of the great mass of workers and the oppressed. Subsequent generations of anarchists endorsed Proudhon’s anti-democratic approach. As An Anarchist FAQ puts it, “Malatesta speaks for all anarchists when he argued that ‘anarchists deny the right of the majority to govern human society in general’”.
Consensus decision-making, a fad which most autonomists and anarchists have embraced, can play a similar role in frustrating the democratic rights of the majority. And as for the idea that decentralisation is a means to prevent top-down bureaucratic control and reformist degeneration of working-class organisations, experience has shown that decentralised anarcho-syndicalist trade unions have proven to be just as prone to such degeneration as more centralised unions.
Furthermore, when it comes to the central question for revolutionaries of how to successfully challenge the power of the capitalist class, small decentralised federated groups are simply not fit for the task. The capitalist class and its state are organised centrally; if they are to be defeated they need to be challenged by democratically organised and centralised working-class power.
The continuing influence of Proudhon’s ideas, even on anarchists who proclaim themselves to be class-struggle anarchists, is most pronounced around the question of the state. Like Proudhon their theoretical starting point is hostility to all forms of authority and hierarchy. For them the central problem is not the class nature of society and the exploitation of the working class by the capitalist ruling class, but states in general. This leads anarchists to oppose the working class imposing its own rule on society via a workers’ state, even the most democratic one imaginable. Their thoroughly abstract anti-statism leads anarchists to make no distinction between the capitalist state and a democratic workers’ state. Both are equally bad as far as anarchists are concerned and must be resolutely opposed. This means that in a revolutionary struggle, when the working class is striving for power, anarchists end up either being paralysed politically and hence irrelevant, or it leads them to argue to workers that they should not take power. But as Trotsky famously argued: “To renounce the conquest of power is voluntarily to leave the power with those who wield it, the exploiters”.
This is precisely what happened in the course of the 1936 revolution in Spain, when the Spanish anarcho-syndicalists of the CNT (National Confederation of Labour) refused to take power, even though they were the overwhelmingly dominant force in Catalonia and the surrounding region. The Spanish anarchists argued that taking power was corrupting, and against their libertarian principles. But this just strengthened the hand of the counter-revolutionary Stalinist and reformist forces, enabling them to rebuild the crippled bourgeois state and eventually crush the revolution. Even worse, the anarcho-syndicalists, while refusing to support the establishment of a workers’ state, then took positions as cabinet ministers in the capitalist republican government. Their refusal to make a distinction between a workers’ state and a capitalist state in the context of a revolutionary upheaval ended up leading the anarchist leaders to act simply as reformist politicians propping up the bourgeois state.
A few genuinely revolutionary-inclined anarchists have recognised some of the problems with the whole anarchist approach to the question of workers taking state power. They have seriously tried to confront the question of how society is to be organised in the immediate aftermath of a revolution, and in particular how to defend the revolution from a pro-capitalist counter-revolution. While they still say they are not for a workers’ state, proposals from the more honest and level-headed of them look very similar to what Marxists would consider to be a democratic workers’ state. But the failure of even these more left-wing anarchists to fully clarify their approach to working-class political power severely limits their ability to play a positive leading role in any revolutionary upheaval.
Well short of a revolutionary situation, the anarchist shibboleth of opposition to all authority undermines their ability to advance working-class interests in immediate day-to-day struggles and to combat the influence of reformism. As Anthony Arblaster wrote: “It is absurdly ahistorical to suggest that at all times and in all places it is the state which is ‘the main enemy of the free individual.’” We have seen this very clearly in the COVID crisis. The left could not abstain from placing political demands on governments to provide better state health services; to roll out an effective vaccination program, to safely quarantine infected people, to use control measures to help prevent the spread of the disease, and so on. It was important to demand more state intervention into the economy: to provide support for workers unable to work and stricter state regulation of employers to ensure workplaces were safe.
The same general approach applies on issue after issue. On climate change, the left needs to be campaigning for governments to shut down polluting industries. Socialists should vigorously oppose the privatisation of state-run services that are vital for working-class people. We need state provision of free and safe public transport, public education, major increases in pensions and unemployment benefits, and so on. But the placing of such demands on the state goes very much against the grain of anarchism and autonomism.
Proudhon’s abstract anti-statism has had a long-lasting influence on the approach of anarchists. Anarchists opposed to or were at least extremely sceptical about reforms for workers delivered by the state, whether it be legislation for the eight-hour working day, the nationalisation of core public services, a government-run health service or even age pensions or unemployment benefits. Peter Kropotkin argued that all “legislation made within the state has to be repudiated because it has always been made with regard to the interests of the privileged classes”. Anarchist opposition to the nationalising of the banks contributed to the defeat of the 1871 Paris Commune and the 1936 Spanish revolution. In their heyday prior to World War I, many syndicalists opposed state welfare measures which they believed “inculcated loyalty to the state machinery, sapped the fighting spirit of workers, and were reforms provided from above, rather than won from below”. In the 1920s some anarchist unions went as far as organising strikes against the introduction of welfare measures. Even modern day anarchists such as van der Walt and Schmidt argue the absurd proposition that: “Only laws forced on the state from without, by the direct action of the popular masses, could benefit the masses”. So a regular pension rise or the building of a new hospital or free child care does not benefit the masses?
Similarly, as noted previously, Proudhon opposed campaigns for the right to vote. This approach was maintained by considerable sections of the anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist movement for many decades after Proudhon’s death. Prominent US Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) leaders like Elizabeth Gurley Flynn opposed the campaign for the right for women to vote, arguing that it was absolutely irrelevant for working-class women and a setback to the cause of working class liberation. This approach simply abandoned the leadership of the US women’s suffrage movement to bourgeois and middle-class forces who opposed militant working-class action and who sought to limit the campaign to demanding a restricted franchise – banning African Americans and poorer working-class women from voting.
Similarly, anarchist opposition to demanding the expansion of state health and welfare services only served to isolate them from the mass of workers who were vitally dependent on such reforms. This approach severely limited the ability of anarchists to challenge the hold of the reformist parties, which by way of contrast appeared to be delivering for workers.
In practice anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists had no serious operational strategy for undermining the hold of reformism politically. They had no transitional approach. They essentially just stood on the sidelines denouncing the reformist leaders and were ignored by the bulk of working-class militants. Most anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists, for example, rejected as a point of principle the tactic of placing demands on reformists to deliver major reforms for workers, whereas for Marxists this was an important tactic for putting reformists to the test and exposing their shortcomings, if and when they fail to deliver.
The abstract anarchist shibboleth of opposition to every form of authority and hierarchy and all states ties in with a broader anti-politicism in anarchism. It leads to political abstentionism that abandons the field of struggle on vital political terrains to the liberals, populists and reformists. It just means that the reformist leaders go unchallenged by revolutionaries.
There is a general hostility by anarchists to standing in parliamentary elections, whereas Marxists see this as a vital arena for a mass socialist party to engage in political agitation, recruit to its ranks, gauge the level of support it has among workers and pose an alternative to the reformists. Then there is the anarchist hostility to anything approaching a united front, ie revolutionaries making demands on reformist leaders to engage in joint day-to-day struggle in defence of working-class living standards and democratic rights. For Marxists the united front is a vital means to advance working-class struggle and to show in practice the difference between a reformist and revolutionary approach to the defence of working-class interests and democratic rights. Then there is the example of Occupy Wall Street where the autonomist/anarchist leaders opposed the idea of raising any demands at all, which just let the ruling class off the hook, and led participants instead towards utopian ideas about building prefigurative communes.
Finally there is the hostility of anarchists to the whole idea of workers having their own political party, which for Marxists of course is a central question. The anarchist approach in reality involves a massive historical fudge. The fact that Bakunin formed his own political organisation/party – the Alliance – is conveniently denied by most anarchists. The Alliance was a secret conspiratorial and highly authoritarian organisation subject to Bakunin’s personal dictatorial control. As Bakunin put it, the Alliance was a “powerful but always invisible revolutionary association” that will “prepare and direct the revolution”, “the invisible pilots guiding the Revolution…the collective dictatorship of all our allies”. Bakunin glorified the “secret organisation” that his friend and collaborator, the appalling murderer Nechaev supposedly led in Russia, as “a kind of general staff of the revolutionary army”, “strong in the discipline, the passionate dedication, and the self-sacrifice of its members and unconditionally obedient to all the orders and directives of a single Committee that knew everyone, but was known to no one”. This is precisely the opposite of the sort of democratic mass working-class revolutionary party that Marxists aspire to build.
The starting point for Marxists is a concrete class analysis of society. Marxists recognise that the only force that has the power to overthrow capitalist rule and establish a genuinely democratic collective society is the working class. Marxists, unlike anarchists, do not start from some abstract principle of “individual autonomy”. Human beings are not isolated discrete individuals but “social individuals” that engage in collective social labour and collective struggle. As Paul Blackledge writes:
Marx does not deny the concept of human freedom… Indeed, the concept of human freedom is a major theme of both his early and mature work. Thus in the Grundrisse he defined freedom as a process through which “social individuals” come to realise themselves through their labours.
Similarly, in Capital Marx argued:
Freedom…can consist only in this, that socialised man, the associated producers, govern the human metabolism with nature in a rational way, bringing it under their common control instead of being dominated by it as a blind power.
To move down that road the working class must utilise its organised collective power to establish its own class rule. So socialists don’t aim to “abolish authority” but rather to win the battle for democracy. Socialists fight to smash the undemocratic form of authority that currently exists under capitalism and replace it with a democratic alternative. As Marx and Engels put it:
The abolition of the state has only one meaning for the Communists: it is the necessary result of the abolition of classes, whereupon of itself the need for the organised power of one class to suppress another ceases to exist.
Socialists recognise that there is no reformist road to genuine democracy and human liberation. A working-class revolution is necessary both to break the power of the capitalist class and its state but also because it is in the course of collective revolutionary struggle that mass consciousness is fundamentally transformed and workers make themselves fit to rule a new socialist society.
Workers need to smash the existing state apparatus and establish their own state power based on their democratic organs of power – workers’ councils. To lead that struggle and to have any hope of victory, the most politically advanced and class-conscious workers need to be organised in a disciplined, democratic revolutionary socialist party: a party that argues for a clear political direction, strategy and tactics to take the revolution forward; and that combats the reformist forces that will relentlessly attempt to derail mass revolts that challenge capitalism.
An Anarchist FAQ. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-editorial-collective-an-anarchist-faq
Arblaster, Anthony 1971, “The Relevance of Anarchism”, Socialist Register 1971, Merlin. http://socialistregister.com/index.php/srv/article/view/5336
Armstrong, Mick 2016, “Nestor Makhno: the failure of anarchism”, Marxist Left Review, 12, Winter. https://marxistleftreview.org/articles/nestor-makhno-the-failure-of-anarchism/
Blackledge, Paul 2008, “Marxism and ethics”, International Socialism, 120, Autumn. http://isj.org.uk/marxism-and-ethics/
Blackledge, Paul 2010, “Marxism and anarchism”, International Socialism, 125, Winter. http://isj.org.uk/marxism-and-anarchism/
Brogan, DW 1934, Proudhon, Hamish Hamilton.
Carr, EH 1961, Michael Bakunin, Vintage.
Carter, April 1971, The Political Theory of Anarchism, Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Draper, Hal 1969, “A Note on the Father of Anarchism”, New Politics, Vol. 8, No. 1, Winter. https://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1969/father-anarchism.htm
Draper, Hal 1978, Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution, Vol. II. The politics of social classes, Monthly Review Press.
Draper, Hal 1990, Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution, Vol. IV. Critique of other socialisms, Monthly Review Press.
Garnham, Sarah 2021, “The failure of identity politics: A Marxist analysis”, Marxist Left Review, 22, Winter. https://marxistleftreview.org/articles/the-failure-of-identity-politics-a-marxist-analysis/
Goldman, Emma et al 1907, “Anarchy and Organization: The Debate at the 1907 International Anarchist Congress”. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/various-authors-anarchy-and-organization-the-debate-at-the-1907-international-anarchist-congres
Goldman, Emma 2017, A Nearly Complete Collection of Emma Goldman’s Writings, compiled by DH Lewis. https://anarcho-copy.org/free/emma-goldman-nearly-complete.pdf
Graham, Robert n.d., The General Idea of Proudhon’s Revolution. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/robert-graham-the-general-idea-of-proudhon-s-revolution
Guerin, Daniel 1970, Anarchism, Monthly Review Press.
Hyams, Edward 1979, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. His Revolutionary Life, Mind and Works, Taplinger Publishing Company.
Kropotkin, Peter 1970, “Modern Science and Anarchism”, Kropotkin’s Revolutionary Pamphlets: A Collection of Writings by Peter Kropotkin, Roger Baldwin (ed.), Dover.
Marx, Karl 1976, “The Poverty of Philosophy. An Answer to the Philosophy of Poverty by M. Proudhon”, Collected Works, Vol. 6, Lawrence and Wishart. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/poverty-philosophy/
Marx, Karl and Frederick Engels 1978, Collected Works, Vol. 10, International Publishers.
Marx, Karl 1981, Capital, Vol. 3, Penguin.
McKay, Iain 2009, Review: Proudhon’s General Idea of the Revolution. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anarcho-review-proudhon-s-general-idea-of-the-revolution
Mendel, Arthur P 1981, Michael Bakunin. Roots of Apocalypse, Praeger.
Proudhon, Pierre Joseph 1847, On the Jews. https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/proudhon/1847/jews.htm
Pyziur, Eugene 1955, The Doctrine of Anarchism of Michael A. Bakunin, Gateway.
Skirda, Alexandre 2002, Facing the Enemy. A History of Anarchist Organization from Proudhon to May 1968, AK Press.
Stirner, Max 1844, The Ego and His Own. https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stirner/ego-and-its-own.htm
Tax, Meredith 1980, The Rising of the Women, Monthly Review Press.
Trotsky, Leon, 1973, The Spanish Revolution, Pathfinder. www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/spain/index.htm
Van der Walt, Lucien and Michael Schmidt 2009, Black Flame – The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism, AK Press.
Walter, Nicolas 1969, “About Anarchism”, Anarchy, Vol. 9, No. 6. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/nicolas-walter-about-anarchism
Woodcock, George 1962, Anarchism, Penguin Books.
Woodcock, George 1987, Proudhon, Black Rose Books.
“Who are the major anarchist thinkers?”, An Anarchist FAQ.
“Who are the major anarchist thinkers?”, An Anarchist FAQ.
Woodcock 1962, p.88.
Carter 1971, p.1.
Draper 1990, p.114.
“Who are the major anarchist thinkers?”, An Anarchist FAQ.
Blackledge 2008, p.134.
Stirner 1844.
Stirner 1844.
Woodcock 1962, pp.88-9.
Woodcock 1962, p.88.
Stirner 1844.
“Are anarchists individualists or collectivists?”, An Anarchist FAQ.
“Are anarchists individualists or collectivists?”, An Anarchist FAQ.
Woodcock 1962, p.30.
Skirda 2002, pp.5-6.
Woodcock 1962, p.91.
Walter 1969.
Goldman 2017, p.1134.
Goldman et al 1907.
For a critique of identity politics see Garnham 2021.
“Who are the major anarchist thinkers?”, An Anarchist FAQ.
Woodcock 1987, p.xix.
“Who are the major anarchist thinkers?”, An Anarchist FAQ.
Skirda 2002, p.7.
van der Walt and Schmidt 2009, p.84.
McKay 2009.
Carr 1961, p.137.
Pyziur 1955, p.32.
Hyams 1979, p.97.
van der Walt and Schmidt 2009, p.84.
Hyams 1979, p.126.
Quoted in Brogan 1934, p.82.
Blackledge 2010, p.144.
Hyams 1979, p.286.
Proudhon 1847. Bakunin was arguably a more vile racist and anti-Semite than Proudhon. See Mendel 1981, pp.330-31, 354, 381-87.
Carter 1971, p.48.
Quoted in Hyams 1979, p.271.
Brogan 1934, p.75.
Hyams 1979, p.58.
Marx 1976, pp.206-12.
A classic case being George Woodcock’s 1969 Encounter article celebrating Proudhon’s Notebooks, quoted in Draper 1969.
Quoted in Hyams 1979, p.122.
Quoted in Brogan 1934, p.60.
Draper 1990, p.120.
Hyams 1979, p.183.
Quoted in Hyams 1979, pp.252-53.
Carter 1971, p.72.
Hyams 1979, p.6. For the classic demolition of Proudhon’s economic theories see Marx 1976.
Quoted in Skirda 2002, p.7.
Quoted in Woodcock 1987, p.246.
Carter 1971, p.73.
Carter 1971, p.2.
Woodcock 1962, p.102.
Hyams 1979, p.176.
Quoted in Draper 1978, pp.293-94.
Hyams 1979, p.281.
Brogan 1934, p.27.
Hyams pp.281-85.
Quoted in Draper 1978, p.295.
Hyams 1979, p.280.
Guerin, pp.52-3.
Graham, n.d.
Woodcock 1987, p.143.
Draper 1969.
van der Walt and Schmidt 2009, p.97.
Mendel 1981, p.346.
For a Marxist critique of Makhno see Armstrong 2016.
van der Walt and Schmidt 2009, pp.97-8.
Blackledge 2010, p.148.
“Why do anarchists emphasise liberty?”, An Anarchist FAQ.
“What sort of society do anarchists want?”, An Anarchist FAQ.
“Why are most anarchists in favour of direct democracy?”, An Anarchist FAQ.
Trotsky 1973, p.316.
Arblaster 1971.
Kropotkin 1970, p.165.
van der Walt and Schmidt 2009, p.223.
van der Walt and Schmidt 2009, p.53.
Tax, pp.181-82.
Mendel 1981.
van der Walt and Schmidt 2009, p.249.
Mendel 1981, p.335.
Blackledge 2008, p.135.
Marx 1981, p.959.
Marx and Engels 1978, p.333. | https://marxistleftreview.org/articles/property-is-sacred-how-proudhon-moulded-anarchism/ |
By Daniel Guerin,Paul Sharkey
The first English translation of Guérin’s huge anthology of anarchism, released the following in a single quantity. It information an unlimited array of unpublished records, letters, debates, manifestos, experiences, impassioned calls-to-arms and reasoned research; the historical past, association and perform of the movementits theorists, advocates and activists; the nice names and the vague, towering legends and unsung heroes.
This definitive anthology portrays anarchism as a cosmopolitan ideology whose nuances and complexities spotlight the usual hope for freedom in we all. The classical texts will re-establish anarchism as either an highbrow and useful strength to be reckoned with. contains writings by way of Emma Goldman, Kropotkin, Berkman, Bakunin, Proudhon, and Malatesta.
Daniel Guérin used to be the writer of Anarchism: From concept to Practice. | http://cielbrightonlesands.com.au/epub/category/ideologies/page/2 |
Our Lost Continent and the Journey Back:
I. — Sources (1837–1865)
Project Page:
RELATED:
- P.-J. Proudhon, “Determination of the Third Social Form” (What is Property? 1840)
- “Our Lost Continent” (April 4, 2015)
- “The ‘Benthamite’ anarchism and the origins of anarchist history” (April 5, 1015)
- “New Uncertainties and Opportunities” (April 6, 2015)
- “Looking Forward—Mapping Our Lost Continent” (April, 2018)
- “What Mutualism Was: Coming to Terms with Our Anarchist Past” (January 4, 2019)
- “Our Lost Continent” [tag stream]
- “Extrications” [tag stream] — notes on synthesis, anarchist development, etc.
MAPPINGS: Notes for an Introduction
- Extrications: History, Tradition, Theory
- Anarchism as a Fundamentally Unfinished Project
- Anarchist History: A Mutualist’s-Eye-View
- Anarchist History: The Metaphor of the Main Stream
- Anarchist History: Maps and Overland Guides
- Anarchist History: Streamside Reflections and Preparations for the Journey
- Anarchist History: No End of Beginnings
- The Uses of a Lost Continent
- Positive Anarchy, Profusion, Uncertainty and the Uses of History
SOURCES: The First Leg of the Journey
- Sources: Before the Beginning
- Sources: Seeking the Source
- Sources: Over the Roofs of the World
- Sources: The Era of Proudhon
- Sources: The End of an Era
- Sources: Note on Critics and Collaborators
DISTRIBUTARIES: The Second Leg
- Distributaries: The Problem of Proudhon
- Distributaries: Proudhonism and the International
- Distributaries: Anti-Authoritarian Collectivism
- Distributaries: Atercracy
- Distributaries: The Reform Leagues and Anarchist Individualism
- Distributaries: “Modern Anarchism”
A BRAIDED STREAM: The Third Leg
CONFLUENCES: The Final Leg of the Journey
So far, we have been focused on beginnings and endings, on looking forward and looking backward along trails already traveled or retraveled. But, of course, the bulk of this exploration will involve a matters much more close at hand—if I can put it that way—as we work our way, year by year, toward the present.
Having divided our journey into long segments, corresponding to the various volumes, and having identified a few key figures whose careers it will be useful to explore in more depth, it becomes a question of the more painstaking task of exploring, in each of the years we will traverse, various incidents in the development of “the anarchist idea.” In each leg of the journey, we will consult the appropriate chapters of various histories—starting with the work of Max Nettlau—and select some texts that seem to illuminate the moment. And we will engage in one or more close studies of texts published or events that occurred in that span.
In the first volume, P.-J. Proudhon will occupy center stage and we will attempt to tease out the outlines of the “Proudhonian anarchism” that might have emerged from his thought, had subsequent chapters of anarchist history played out a bit differently. Joseph Déjacque will feature as his anarchistic adversary—and as the first figure explicitly associated with an “anarchism.” Various other figures will be the subject of those close examinations, with the goal of demonstrating just how rich this early period was in a variety of anarchistic ideas.
Each long leg of our journey will require certain reassessments and perhaps the most pleasant of those will involve this earliest era, which is so often marked on our maps with “Here be Precursors,” but is rather astonishingly well stocked with a wide range of anarchistic theories. And those theories, like the theorists behind them, tend to have a delightful larger-than-life air about them. They are entertaining and provocative, but also sufficiently distinct from the more familiar staples of anarchist theory to force us to wrestle with them a bit before they give up all of their secrets.
This earliest era is really the wild heart of “Our Lost Continent.” And it is here that the fantastical framing of this historical exploration seems most obviously useful.
So we will undoubtedly make the most of that frame in this first volume, in the first place purely for the fun of it, but secondarily because there is a skill to be practiced, a way of seeing “the anarchist tradition” as still wild and unexplored, that it will be necessary to apply in less obvious contexts, later in our journey, if we are to really complete the task we’ve set ourselves.
Among the figures to be examined in this portion of the project are:
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, L’Humanitaire, Sylvain Maréchal, Pierre Leroux, William B. Greene, Charles Fourier, Etienne de la Boetie, Anselme Bellegarrigue, Ernest Cœurderoy, Joseph Déjacque, Eliphalet Kimball, Henriette (artiste), Jenny P. d’Héricourt, Calvin Blanchard, Henry Edger, Le Proletaire, Stephen Pearl Andrews, Josiah Warren, Mikhail Bakunin, Adin Ballou, Félix Pignal, César de Paepe, Flora Tristan, Jeanne Deroin, Ganneau (The Mapah), Walt Whitman
The episodes already treated here—to one degree or another—that might become the subjects of more extensive studies include:
- 1838: Property is theft (Jules Leroux)
- Adin Ballou, “Non-Resistance in Relation to Human Governments” (1839)
- Property? It’s just a phase… (Proudhon to the Academy of Besançon, 1840)
- Josiah Warren, “Manifesto” (1841)
- The Emancipation of Woman, or, The Testament of the Pariah (1846)
- Gabriel-Desire Laverdant, “Of Property” (1846)
- Bakunin, “I believe neither in constitutions, nor in laws” (1848)
- Bakunin, Letter to Proudhon (1848)
- Etienne Cabet, “Down with the Communists!” (by a communist) (1848/49)
- Jeanne Deroin to Proudhon, January 1849
- Henriette, artiste, “Letter to Proudhon” (1849)
- C.-F. Chevé, “Fundamental Principles of Socialism” (1849)
- Anselme Bellegarrigue, “Anarchy is Order” (1850)
- The Feuding Brothers (1850)
- Elisée Reclus, “The Development of Liberty in the World” (c. 1850)
- Pauline Roland, “Have Women the Right to Labor?” (1851)
- Jeanne Deroin, “Letter to the Associations on the Organization of Credit” (1851)
- The trial of Joseph Déjacque, October 23, 1851
- Notes on “Le Commanditaire” (Anselme Bellegarrigue, 1852)
- Coeurderoy and Vauthier, “The Barrier of the Combat” (1852)
- Félix Pignal, “The Philosophy of Defiance” (1854)
- Suzanne Voilquin, “Suicide of Claire Démar and Perret Desessarts” (1855)
- Carlo Pisacane, “Testamento politico” (1857)
- Joseph Déjacque, “The Humanisphere” (1858)
- Proudhon on “libertarians” (1858)
- Proudhon, Comment les affaires vont en France, et pourquoi nous aurons la guerre, si nous l’avons : à propos des nouveaux projets de traités entre les compagnies de chemin de fer et l’Etat (1859)
- Constitutions and Organic Bases of the Pantarchy and New Catholic Church (1860)
- Paul Emile De Puydt, Panarchy (1860)
- Hector Morel, “Nationalities Considered from the Point of View of Liberty” (1862)
- “The Working Man” of London greets Bakunin (1862)
- A Counsellor (Josiah Warren), “Modern Government and its True Mission” (1862)
- Eliphalet Kimball, “Law, Commerce and Religion” (1862)
- César de Paepe, “Anarchy” (1863)
- Manifesto of the Sixty Workers of the Seine (1864)
- Proudhon, “My Testament, or Society of Avengers“
But, of course, a year-by-year exploration of these particularly under-explored years is likely to turn up all sorts of new material as well—and to suggest new ways of thinking about elements first examined “on the trip out” and often through lenses that it has been necessary to refine or discard along the way. | https://www.libertarian-labyrinth.org/featured-articles/sources-the-era-of-proudhon/ |
The following is the rest of the Britannica article on Anarchism whose initial comments were used for the page entitled Anarchism and other Bad Words". It is offered as a supplement for those readers interested in the topic of anarchism as an alternative form of Social Reformist thinking.
Anarchism in China
Shortly after 1900, as part of the reforms that followed the unsuccessful Boxer Rebellion, the Ch'ing Dynasty began to send many young Chinese to study abroad, especially in France, Japan, and the United States. In these places and elsewhere, Chinese students established nationalist and revolutionary organizations dedicated to overthrowing the imperial regime. Two of the most important of these groups—the World Association, founded in Paris in 1906, and the Society for the Study of Socialism, founded in Tokyo in 1907—adopted explicitly anarchist programs.
Between 1907 and 1910 the World Association published a journal, The New Century, that was a major source of information in Chinese on anarchist theory and the European anarchist movement. The journal promoted an individualistic and "futuristic" anarchism and was among the first Chinese-language publications to openly attack native traditions, in particular Confucianism. The Society for the Study of Socialism, on the other hand, favoured an anti-modern anarchism influenced by the pacifist radicalism of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, and it stressed the affinity between anarchism and philosophical currents in the Chinese past, especially Taoism. Through its publications, Natural Justice and Balance, the Society advocated Kropotkin's programs for combining agriculture with industry and mental with manual labour, ideas that were to have a lasting influence on Chinese radicalism.
Significant anarchist activity in China itself did not begin until after the Chinese Revolution (1911-12). Chinese anarchists educated in Paris (the so-called "Paris anarchists") returned to Beijing and immediately became involved in the reform of education and culture. Convinced of the need for social revolution, the Paris anarchists argued in favour of Western science against religion and superstition, called for the emancipation of women and youth, rejected the traditional family and the Confucian values on which it was based, and organized experimental work-study communities as alternatives to traditional forms of family and working life. These ideas and practices were extremely influential in the New Culture movement of the late 1910s and early 1920s. Led by the generation of intellectuals sent to study abroad, the movement was critical of all aspects of traditional Chinese culture and ethics and called for sweeping reforms in existing political and social institutions.
Anarchists were also active in South China. In Canton, a native school of anarchism emerged around the charismatic revolutionary Liu Shifu, better known by his adopted name Shifu. In 1912 Shifu founded the Cock-Crow Society, whose journal, People's Voice, was the leading organ of Chinese anarchism in the 1910s. Although not a particularly original thinker, Shifu was a skilled expositor of anarchist doctrine. His polemical exchanges with the socialist leader Jiang Khangu helped to popularize anarchism as a "pure socialism" and to distinguish it from other currents in socialist thought.
Anarchism in Vietnam and Korea
Anarchist ideas entered Vietnam through the activities of the early Vietnamese nationalist leader Phan Boi Chau. Phan, who led the struggle against French colonial rule during the first two decades of the 20th century, was introduced to anarchism by Chinese intellectuals in Tokyo in 1905-09. Although Phan was not an anarchist himself, his thinking reflected certain distinctly anarchist themes, notably anti-imperialism and "direct action." After the Chinese Revolution in 1911, Phan moved to South China, where he joined a number of organizations that espoused or were influenced by anarchism, including the Worldwide League for Humanity. He also received advice and financial support from Shifu. In 1912, with Shifu's help, he founded the League of the Restoration of Vietnam and the League for the Prosperity of China and Asia, which aimed to build links between revolutionary movements in China and those in colonized countries such as Vietnam, Burma (Myanmar), India, and Korea.
In the early 1920s Korean radicals established anarchist societies in Tokyo and in various locations in China. Like their counterparts in Vietnam, they were drawn to anarchism mostly for its anti-imperialism and its emphasis on direct action, which offered a justification for violent resistance to the Japanese colonial government. For leaders such as Shin Chaoe-ho, anarchism was an attractive democratic alternative to Bolshevik communism, which by this time was threatening to take control of the radical movement in Korea.
Decline of anarchism in East Asia
By the early 1920s anarchism in most parts of East Asia had entered a decline from which it would not recover. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Bolshevik communists in Japan, China, Vietnam, and Korea established their own revolutionary societies, which were eventually transformed into clandestine political parties, and began to compete with anarchists for influence in the labour movements. Faced with the Bolsheviks' superior organizational abilities and the financial support they received from the newly constituted Soviet Union, the anarchists could offer only weak resistance and were soon eclipsed. By 1927, Chinese anarchists were devoting most of their energies to this losing struggle, sometimes in collusion with reactionary elements in the loosely structured Kuomintang (Nationalist Party). In Japan anarchist activity enjoyed a brief resurgence in the mid-1920s under Hatta Shuzo, who formulated a doctrine of "pure" anarchism in opposition to Marxist influences. A period of conflict between such pure and Marxist-oriented anarchists ended in the early 1930s, when all forms of radicalism were crushed by the military government.
Although politically irrelevant after the early 1920s, anarchists in China continued to work toward social revolution in education and culture. The author Ba Jin wrote novels and short stories on anarchist themes that were widely popular in China in the 1930s and '40s, and Ba was elected to important literary and cultural organizations after the communist victory in the Chinese Civil War (1945-49). In 1927, a group of Paris anarchists helped to establish a short-lived Labour University in Shanghai, which put into practice the anarchist belief in combining mental and manual labour. This belief lingered long after the anarchist movement itself was gone, influencing debates on economic policy in the communist government in the decades after 1949.
Arif Dirlik Ed.
Anarchism in the arts
The central ideals of anarchism—freedom, equality, and mutual aid-have inspired writers and artists throughout history. When anarchism became an organized movement in the mid-19th century, its adherents hailed an impressive number of renowned literary and artistic figures as precursors and allies. In an influential essay, "Anarchism in Literature" (published posthumously in 1914), the American anarchist poet Voltairine de Cleyre identified anarchist sensibilities in writers and philosophers as diverse as François Rabelais, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Émile Zola in France; Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman in the United States; Friedrich Nietzsche in Germany; and Leo Tolstoy in Russia.
Many of the central figures of early 20th-century anarchism were passionately interested in the arts. Several of them wrote extensively on artistic themes, including Peter Kropotkin, Emma Goldman, Gustav Landauer, and Camillo Berneri. Most anarchist periodicals published original poetry and art, and many of them made culture and the arts their primary focus. The most widely circulated English-language anarchist magazine of the 1960s, Anarchy, devoted entire issues to poetry, science fiction, blues, theatre, and film.
From the time of Proudhon through the 1950s, most anarchists favoured a propagandistic style of art that treated themes of social protest, and they generally avoided art that was self-consciously abstract, inward looking, fantastic, or nihilistic, as was much of Modernist art during this period. Nevertheless, many Modernist artists participated in anarchist groups or aided anarchist causes. Emma Goldman's Mother Earth, for example, published two political cartoons by the American painter and photographer Man Ray, though it did not publish any of his post-Cubist or Dadaist art.
Poetry and prose
Anarchist presses published an enormous quantity of verse—indeed, before 1960 they published more poetry than all other forms of creative writing put together. Among the finest poets of anarchism was Voltairine de Cleyre, whom Emma Goldman considered the "most gifted and brilliant anarchist woman America ever produced." Although the anarchist themes of de Cleyre's work were typical of her generation—tributes to revolutionary martyrs, hymns to anarchist anniversaries, and songs of workers rising against tyranny—her powerful imagery and passionate lyricism distinguished her from all her contemporaries. Other notable American poets of anarchy in the 1910s and '20s were Irish-born Lola Ridge; Japanese-born Sadakichi Hartmann, reputed to be the first writer of haiku in English; IWW organizer Covington Hall; and IWW songwriter and humorist T-Bone Slim (Matt Valentine Huhta), who was renowned for his anarchist aphorisms ("Wherever you find injustice, the proper form of politeness is attack").
Sicilian-American Surrealist poet Philip Lamantia belonged to an Italian-language anarchist group in San Francisco in the 1940s and later became a leading member of the Beat movement. Kenneth Rexroth, mentor to many Beats, identified himself as an anarchist from his involvement in the 1920s in Chicago's Dil Pickle Club, a popular forum for lectures and debates on revolutionary topics. Other anarchist-oriented Beat poets included Diane di Prima and Gary Snyder, whose manifesto "Buddhist Anarchism" (1961) proved to be one of that decade's most influential anarchist writings. The humorous Abomunist Manifesto (1959), by African American Beat poet Bob Kaufman, also had a markedly anarchist flavour. (According to Kaufman, "Abomunists vote against everyone by not voting for anyone.") Both the Journal and Kaufman's Manifesto were published by City Lights press, founded with the City Lights bookshop in San Francisco in the early 1950s by the poet and anarchist sympathizer Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
Major anarchist poets writing in other languages included Pietro Gori in Italian; Ernst Toller and the Scottish-born John Henry Mackay in German; the Jewish worker-poet David Edelstadt in Yiddish; and Laurent Tailhade in French. Poetic anarchy was also the hallmark of French Surrealist poets such as Benjamin Péret, who fought in an anarchist brigade in the Spanish Civil War.
Anarchism's creative writers also produced significant works of fiction. Under the influence of Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (1888), the best-selling socialist utopian novel by the American writer Edward Bellamy, many anarchists devised utopias of their own—notably Lois Waisbrooker, whose A Sex Revolution (1892) blended anarchism and feminism, and J. William Lloyd, whose The Natural Man: A Romance of the Golden Age (1902) prefigured the counterculture of the 1960s. Largely owing to criticism by Kropotkin and other anarchists, Bellamy's Equality (1897), the sequel to Looking Backward, contained almost none of the earlier story's statist elements.
The mysterious German-language writer known as B. Traven, author of The Cotton Pickers (1926) and many other novels, may well be the most widely read anarchist storyteller of the 20th century. His tales excoriate statist intrusions upon individual existence, from passports and other bureaucratic paperwork to mass mobilization for war. The Good Soldier Schweik (1920-23), by the Czech author Jaroslav Hašek, is a hilarious satire of military life and bureaucracy and a classic of world literature, as is The Family (1931), by the Chinese anarchist Ba Jin.
Basic anarchist ideas, such as mistrust of state power, also have appeared in works by more mainstream American authors, such as Nelson Algren (who described himself as "basically against government"), Joseph Heller, Ursula Le Guin, and Edward Abbey, whose comic novel The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975) inspired Earth First!, the anarchist-oriented environmental movement.
Theatre, film, and music
Emma Goldman's The Social Significance of the Modern Drama (1914) popularized the work of Henrik Ibsen and other European playwrights for American readers and helped to inspire the experimental little theatre movement in the United States. The Studio Players, an anarchist theatre company led by Lillian Udell, performed worker-oriented plays at the Radical Bookshop in Chicago throughout the 1920s. More avant-garde was The Living Theatre, founded in New York City in 1947 by Julian Beck and Judith Malina, which spearheaded a resurgence of anarchist theatre in the 1960s. Anarchist street theatre, replete with costumes, giant puppets, and dramatic stunts, became a mainstay of large protest demonstrations, such as those against the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle in 1999.
An anarchist sensibility, characterized by ridicule of politicians, police, landlords, and other figures of authority, was evident early on in film in the work of Georges Méliès in France and in many American silent comedies of the 1910s and '20s, such as Cops, by Buster Keaton. More explicitly revolutionary were The Golden Age (1930), by the Surrealist Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel—which provoked a riot and was promptly banned—and works by the French director Jean Vigo, especially Zero for Conduct (1933). In the 1930s and '40s the film comedies of the French poet and screenwriter Jacques Pr&eacture;vert ridiculed all authoritarian values. In the 1950s and '60s the Greek filmmaker Adonis Kyrou, a collaborator on the Paris anarchist newspaper Libertaire, evoked the misery of war. Argentine-born Nelly Kaplan's A Very Curious Girl (1969 (1969)—which Pablo Picasso described as "insolence considered as one of the fine arts"—and Néa (1976) are classics of feminist anarchism.
Anarchists also made music. In the 1910s and '20s Rudolf von Liebich, music director of the Dil Pickle Club, composed songs and other music for the IWW. Avant-garde composer John Cage was an avowed anarchist. From the late 1970s many punk rock bands identified themselves with anarchy, and some—notably Crass and Chumbawumba in England and Fugazi in the United States—were actual anarchist collectives. Revolt and disrespect for authority were among their favourite themes. Anarchist critics and music historians also recognized a strong anti-authoritarian tradition in African American blues.
Painting, graphic art, and cartooning
Many major 20th-century painters, at one time or another, were active in the anarchist movement or acknowledged anarchism as a significant influence, including Pablo Picasso, Francis Picabia, and the Czech-born Marie Cermíínová, known as Toyen, in France; Robert Henri, George Wesley Bellows, the Russian-born Max Weber, and Man Ray in the United States; Max Ernst in Germany; and Enrico Baj in Italy. Anarchist ideas affected all the major movements in painting—from the Ashcan School in the 1910s to Abstract Expressionism in the 1950s.
In the 1960s a new anarchist agitprop art began to flourish, largely inspired by Expressionism, Surrealism, and the work of the Mexican printmaker José Guadalupe Posada. The Italian painter Flavio Costantini's dramatic portrayals of anarchist history and the graphic art of Carlos Cortez, Eric Drooker, and Josh MacPhee in the United States and Clifford Harper in England were widely reproduced in anarchist magazines and as posters. Also striking are the imaginative collages of American artists Freddie Baer and James Koehnline.
Cartoons, always major weapons in the anarchist arsenal, were more prominent than ever in the movement's press at the end of the 20th century. Satirical sketches by Roberto Ambrosoli in Italy and Tuli Kupferberg in the United States appeared throughout the world. England's Freedom Press attracted many comic-strip artists, including Philip Sansom and German-born John Olday in the 1940s and later, from the 1960s through the 1990s, Arthur Moyse. Donald Rooum's inventive series Wildcat was collected in several volumes.
Franklin Rosemont Ed.
Contemporary anarchism
After World War II, anarchist groups and federations reemerged in almost all countries where they had formerly flourished—he notable exceptions being Spain and the Soviet Union—but these organizations wielded little influence compared to that of the broader movement inspired by earlier ideas. This development is not surprising, since anarchists never stressed the need for organizational continuity, and the cluster of social and moral ideas that are identifiable as anarchism always spread beyond any clearly definable movement.
Anarchist ideas emerged in a wider frame of reference beginning with the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s, which aimed to resist injustice through the tactic of civil disobedience. In the 1960s and '70s a new radicalism took root among students and the left in general in the United States, Europe, and Japan, embracing a general criticism of "elitist" power structures and the materialist values of modern industrial societies—both capitalist and communist. For these radicals, who rejected the traditional parties of the left as strongly as they did the existing political structure, the appeal of anarchism was strong. The general anarchist outlook—with its emphasis on spontaneity, theoretical flexibility, simplicity of life, and the importance of love and anger as complementary and necessary components in both social and individual action—attracted those who opposed impersonal political institutions and the calculations of older parties. The anarchist rejection of the state, and the insistence on decentralism and local autonomy, found strong echoes among those who advocated participatory democracy. The anarchist insistence on direct action was reflected in calls for extra-parliamentary action and violent confrontation by some student groups in France, the United States, and Japan. And the recurrence of the theme of workers' control of industry in so many manifestos of the 1960s—especially during the student uprisings in Paris in May 1968—showed the enduring relevance of anarcho-syndicalist ideas.
Beginning in the 1970s, anarchism became a significant factor in the radical ecology movement in the United States and Europe. Anarchist ideas in works by the American novelist Edward Abbey, for example, inspired a generation of eco-anarchists in the United States, including the radical Earth First! organization, to protest urban sprawl and the destruction of old-growth forests. Much influential work in anarchist theory during this period and afterward, such as that of Murray Bookchin, was noteworthy for its argument that statism and capitalism were incompatible with environmental preservation.
Anarchists also took up issues related to feminism and developed a rich body of work, known as anarcha-feminism, that applied anarchist principles to the analysis of women's oppression, arguing that the state is inherently patriarchal and that women's experience as nurturers and care-givers reflects the anarchist ideals of mutuality and the rejection of hierarchy and authority.
The most prevalent current in anarchist thinking during the last two decades of the 20th century (at least in the United States) was an eclectic, countercultural mixture of theories reflecting a wide range of artistic, literary, political, and philosophical influences, including Dada, Surrealism, and Situationism; the writers of the Beat movement; the Frankfurt School of Marxist-oriented social and political philosophers—especially Herbert Marcuse—and post-structuralist and postmodern philosophy and literary theory, in particular the work of the French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault. Other influential figures were the American linguist and political writer Noam Chomsky, the Czech-born American writer and activist Fredy Perlman, and Hakim Bey and other writers associated with the anarchist publisher Autonomedia in New York City. African American anarchism, as represented in the writings of former Black Panther Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin in the late 1970s, was a major influence in the United States and in many other parts of the world.
Although some older varieties of anarchism, such as Proudhonian mutualism, had faded away by the end of the 20th century, others persisted, including the anarchist individualism of Warren, Spooner, and others in the United States and anarchist communism in Europe and Latin America. Anarcho-syndicalism remained a significant movement in Spain, France, Sweden, and parts of Africa and Latin America. As in the 1960s, anarchism continued to exert a strong appeal among students and young people, and a large percentage of those who considered themselves anarchists were in their teens and twenties. From the early 1970s the anarchist emblem consisting of a circled A was an established part of the iconography of global youth culture.
In 1999 anarchist-led demonstrations against the WTO in Seattle provoked wide media attention, as did later related protests against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The unprecedented publicity given to the anarchists' explicitly revolutionary viewpoint inspired a proliferation of new anarchist groups, periodicals, and Internet sites. Anarchists were also a significant—and in some cases a predominating—influence in many other political movements, including campaigns against police brutality and capital punishment, the gay rights movement, and diverse movements promoting animal rights, vegetarianism, abortion rights, the abolition of prisons, the legalization of marijuana, and the abolition of automobiles.(See also: Wikipedia: 1999 Seattle WTO protests
At the beginning of the 21st century, no anarchist movement posed a serious threat to state power, and anarchists were no closer to achieving their dream of a society without government than they were a century before. Nevertheless, the perceived failure of governments to solve enduring social problems such as racial and gender inequality, poverty, environmental destruction, political corruption, and war increased the appeal of anarchist ideas among many groups. Young people in particular were attracted to the anarchist priorities of creativity and spontaneity—the importance of living the "new society" here and now rather than postponing it indefinitely until "after the Revolution." For these people and many others around the world, anarchism remained an active and vibrant ferment of criticism, protest, and direct action.
George Woodcock
Martin A. Miller
Franklin Rosemont Ed.
Additional ReadingGeneral
The best general accounts of anarchism are Peter Marshall, Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism (1992); James Joll, The Anarchists, 2nd ed. (1980); Paul Avrich, Anarchist Portraits (1988); George Woodcock, Anarchism, new ed. (1986); Harold Barclay, People Without Government, completely rev. ed. (1990); Daniel Guérin, Anarchism: From Theory to Practice (1970; originally published in French, 1965); Paul Eltzbacher, Anarchism (1960, reprinted 1972; originally published in German, 1900); and Richard D. Sonn, Anarchism (1992).
Good anthologies of anarchist theory include Irving Louis Horowitz (ed.), The Anarchists (1964); Leonard I. Krimerman and Lewis Perry(eds.), Patterns of Anarchy (1966); and David E. Apter and James Joll (eds.), Anarchism Today (1971).
For a comprehensive bibliography of anarchist literature from different countries over the last two centuries, see Denise Fauvel-Rouif (ed.), Anarchism (1982); and Helene Strub (ed.), Anarchism, vol. 2 (1993). There are also useful selected bibliographies in all the books listed above.
Classic authors
The earliest formulations of modern anarchist thought can be found in William Godwin, An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and Its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness, 2 vol. (1792). Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's key anarchist work is Qu'est-ce que la propriété? (1840; What Is Property?, trans. by Benjamin R. Tucker, 1876). Of Peter Kropotkin's many writings, his Memoirs of a Revolutionist (1899) is essential. See also his La conquête du pain (1892; The Conquest of Bread, 1906), Fields, Factories, and Workshops (1899), and Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902). Leo Tolstoy's Christian anarchist concepts can be found in many of his later works, including T Sarstvo Bozhie vnutri nas (1894; The Kingdom of God Is Within You, trans. by Constance Garnett, 1894), and V chem moîa vera (1884; What I Believe, trans. by Constantine Popoff, 1885). Emma Goldman's voluminous writings include her autobiography, Living My Life, 2 vol. (1931, reissued 1988); see also the autobiography of Goldman's comrade Alexander Berkman, Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist (1912, reprinted 1970).
For an analysis of Godwin's work, see Isaac Kramnick, The Politics of Political Philosophy, A Case Study: Godwin's Anarchism and Radical England (1970). For information on Proudhon's life and thought, see Stewart Edwards (ed.), Selected Writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1969); K. Steven Vincent, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and the Rise of French Republican Socialism (1984); Alan Ritter, The Political Thought of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1969, reprinted 1980); and Robert L. Hoffman, Revolutionary Justice: The Social and Political Theory of P.-J. Proudhon (1972). For an anthology of Kropotkin's writings, see Martin A. Miller (ed.), Peter Kropotkin: Selected Writings on Anarchism and Revolution (1970). On Kropotkin's life, consult Martin A. Miller, Kropotkin (1976); Caroline Cahm, Kropotkin and the Rise of Revolutionary Anarchism, 1872-1886 (1989); and George Woodcock and Ivan Avakumovic, The Anarchist Prince: A Biographical Study of Peter Kropotkin (1950, reissued 1970). Two convenient volumes that explore the anarchist ideas of Michael Bakunin are Arthur Lehning (ed.), Selected Writings [of] Michael Bakunin (1973); and Sam Dolgoff (ed.), Bakunin on Anarchism, 2nd rev. ed. (1980; originally published as Bakunin on Anarchy, 1972). For biographies of Bakunin, see Edward H. Carr, Michael Bakunin (1937, reissued 1975); Arthur P. Mendel, Michael Bakunin: Roots of Apocalypse (1981); and Eugene Pyziur, The Doctrine of Anarchism of Michael A. Bakunin (1955, reissued 1968).
Articles by Emma Goldman are collected in her Anarchism and Other Essays, 3rd rev. ed. (1917, reprinted 1967); and in Alix Kates Shulman (ed.), Red Emma Speaks, 3rd ed. (1996). For a sympathetic biography of Goldman, see Richard Drinnon, Rebel in Paradise (1961, reissued 1982). The correspondence of Goldman and Berkman can be found in Richard Drinnon and Anna Maria Drinnon (eds.), Nowhere at Home (1975). The life of Johann Most is studied in Frederic Trautmann, The Voice of Terror: A Biography of Johann Most (1980).
Russian anarchist thought
The best general account of the anarchist movement in Russia remains Paul Avrich, The Russian Anarchists (1967, reprinted 1980). For documents on the anarchist critique of Lenin and bolshevism, see Paul Avrich (ed.), Anarchists in the Russian Revolution (1973). Voline, The Unknown Revolution, 1917-1921 (1955; originally published in French, 1947), is a good anarchist memoir of the Russian Revolution.
Anarchism in the United States
On the origins and history of American individualist anarchism, see Carlotta R. Anderson, All-American Anarchist: Joseph A. Labadie and the Labor Movement (1998); James J. Martin, Men Against the State: The Expositors of Individualist Anarchism in America, 1827-1908 (1953, reissued 1970); and Rudolf Rocker, Pioneers of American Freedom, trans. from German (1949). An excellent collection of historical source material can be found in Paul Avrich, Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America (1995). There is a large literature on Haymarket. Especially useful are Paul Avrich, The Haymarket Tragedy (1984); and David Roediger and Franklin Rosemont (eds.), Haymarket Scrapbook (1986). Anarchist influences in the Industrial Workers of the World are discussed in Salvatore Salerno, Red November, Black November: Culture and Community in the Industrial Workers of the World (1989).
Anarchism in Europe
P. Holgate, Malatesta (1956), is a study of the leading Italian anarchist. See also Vernon Richards (ed.), Errico Malatesta: His Life & Ideas, 3rd ed. (1984). On France, see Marie Fleming, The Anarchist Way to Socialism: Elisée Reclus and Nineteenth-Century European Anarchism (1979). On Germany, the best book is Andrew R. Carlson, Anarchism in Germany (1972). See also Eugene Lunn, Prophet of Community: The Romantic Socialism of Gustav Landauer (1973). On Spain, see Temma Kaplan, Anarchists of Andalusia (1977); and Robert W. Kern, Red Years/Black Years: A Political History of Spanish Anarchism, 1911-1937 (1978). For developments in England, see Hermia Oliver, The International Anarchist Movement in Late Victorian London (1983).
Anarchism in East Asia
Arif Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution (1991), is a comprehensive analysis of anarchism in China during the first three decades of the 20th century. Ming K. Chan and Arif Dirlik, Schools into Fields and Factories: Anarchists, the Guomindang, and the National Labor University in Shanghai, 1927-1932 (1991), is a wide-ranging study of an educational experiment in which anarchists played a leading role. Edward S. Krebs, Shifu: Soul of Chinese Anarchism (1998), is a detailed if somewhat hagiographic biography of the most revered of Chinese anarchists. Olga Lang, Pa Chin and His Writings: Chinese Youth Between the Two Revolutions (1967), is a thorough treatment of the anarchist writer. Peter Zarrow, Anarchism and Chinese Political Culture (1990), which focuses on anarchist activity in the 1910s, is especially strong on anarchist contributions to feminist issues.
English-language studies of anarchism in Japan have concentrated largely on individuals. Major works are John Crump, Hatta Shuzo and Pure Anarchism in Interwar Japan (1993); F.G. Notehelfer, Kotoku Shusui: Portrait of a Japanese Radical (1971); and Thomas A. Stanley, Osugi Sakae, Anarchist in Taisho Japan: The Creativity of the Ego (1982). A translation of Osugi's autobiography is available in English as The Autobiography of Osugi Sakae, trans. with annotations by Byron K. Marshall (1992).
A good discussion of anarchism in Vietnam is Hue-tam Ho Tai, Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese Revolution (1992).
Anarchism in the arts
Anarchist influences in early 20th-century American art are discussed in Alan Antliff, Anarchist Modernism: Art, Politics, and the First American Avant-Garde (2001). Richard Porton, Film and the Anarchist Imagination (1999), examines anarchist films as well as anarchist elements in mainstream films. Ron Sakolsky and Fred Wei-han Ho (eds.), Sounding Off! Music as Subversion/Resistance/Revolution (1995), includes much anarchist material. Ron Sakolsky (ed.), Surrealist Subversions (2001), focuses on anarchist elements in Surrealism.
Contemporary anarchism
Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Gabriel Cohn-Bendit, Obsolete Communism (1968; originally published in French, 1968), by two participants in the 1968 student uprisings in Paris, effectively describes anarchist involvement in the protests; its critique of the contemporary French Communist Party is richly informed by a historical analysis of early anarchist resistance to bolshevism in Russia. David Apter and James Joll (eds.), Anarchism Today (1971), is a very good summation of the influence of anarchism around the world in the aftermath of the student uprisings of the 1960s. Noam Chomsky, Radical Priorities, 2nd rev. ed., edited by Carlos P. Otero (1984), includes a good sample of Chomsky's anarchism-related writings. Margaret S. Marsh, Anarchist Women, 1870-1920 (1981), treats the early development of feminist anarchism. Essays on contemporary anarcha-feminism by Elaine Leeder, Susan Brown, Peggy Kornegger, and Carol Erlich appear in Howard J. Ehrlich (ed.), Reinventing Anarchy, Again (1996). The most influential thinking in contemporary anarchism can be found in the work of Murray Bookchin, Post-Scarcity Anarchism, 2nd ed. (1986), and The Modern Crisis, 2nd rev. ed. (1987).
George Woodcock
Arif Dirlik
Franklin Rosemont
Martin A. Miller
Source: "Anarchism." Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite, 2013. | https://www.cenocracy.org/anarchism-supplement-2.php |
# History of anarchism
The history of anarchism is as ambiguous as anarchism itself. Scholars find it hard to define or agree on what anarchism means, which makes outlining its history difficult. There is a range of views on anarchism and its history. Some feel anarchism is a distinct, well-defined 19th and 20th century movement while others identify anarchist traits long before first civilisations existed.
Prehistoric society existed without formal hierarchies, which some anthropologists have described as similar to anarchism. The first traces of formal anarchist thought can be found in ancient Greece and China, where numerous philosophers questioned the necessity of the state and declared the moral right of the individual to live free from coercion. During the Middle Ages, some religious sects espoused libertarian thought, and the Age of Enlightenment, and the attendant rise of rationalism and science signalled the birth of the modern anarchist movement.
Modern anarchism was a significant part of the workers' movement, alongside Marxism at the end of the 19th century. Modernism, industrialisation, reaction to capitalism and mass migration helped anarchism to flourish and to spread around the globe. Major anarchist schools of thought sprouted up as anarchism grew as a social movement, particularly anarcho-collectivism, anarcho-communism, anarcho-syndicalism, and individualist anarchism. As the workers' movement grew, the divide between anarchists and Marxists grew as well. The two currents formally split at the fifth congress of the First International in 1872, and the events that followed did not help to heal the gap. Anarchists participated enthusiastically in the Russian Revolution, but as soon as the Bolsheviks established their authority, anarchists were harshly suppressed, most notably in Kronstadt and in Ukraine.
Anarchism played a historically prominent role during the Spanish Civil War, when anarchists established an anarchist territory in Catalonia. Revolutionary Catalonia was organised along anarcho-syndicalist lines, with powerful labor unions in the cities and collectivised agriculture in the country, but the war ended in the defeat of the anarchists and their allies and the solidification of fascism in Spain.
In the 1960s, anarchism re-emerged as a global political and cultural force, particularly in association with the New Left. Since then, anarchism has influenced social movements that espouse personal autonomy and direct democracy. It has also played major roles in the anti-globalization movement, Zapatista revolution, and Rojava revolution.
## Background
Τhere has been some controversy over the definition of anarchism and hence its history. One group of scholars considers anarchism strictly associated with class struggle. Others feel this perspective is far too narrow. While the former group examines anarchism as a phenomenon that occurred during the 19th century, the latter group looks to ancient history to trace anarchism's roots. Anarchist philosopher Murray Bookchin describes the continuation of the "legacy of freedom" of humankind (i.e. the revolutionary moments) that existed throughout history, in contrast with the "legacy of domination" which consists of states, capitalism and other organisational forms.
The three most common forms of defining anarchism are the "etymological" (an-archei, without a ruler, but anarchism is not merely a negation); the "anti-statism" (while this seems to be pivotal, it certainly does not describe the essence of anarchism); and the "anti-authoritarian" definition (denial of every kind of authority, which over-simplifies anarchism). Along with the definition debates, the question of whether it is a philosophy, a theory or a series of actions complicates the issue. Philosophy professor Alejandro de Agosta proposes that anarchism is "a decentralized federation of philosophies as well as practices and ways of life, forged in different communities and affirming diverse geohistories".
## Precursors
### Prehistoric and ancient era
Many scholars of anarchism, including anthropologists Harold Barclay and David Graeber, claim that some form of anarchy dates back to prehistory. The longest period of human existence, that before the recorded history of human society, was without a separate class of established authority or formal political institutions. Long before anarchism emerged as a distinct perspective, humans lived for thousands of years in self-governing societies without a special ruling or political class. It was only after the rise of hierarchical societies that anarchist ideas were formulated as a critical response to, and a rejection of, coercive political institutions and hierarchical social relationships.
Taoism, which developed in ancient China, has been linked to anarchist thought by some scholars. Taoist sages Lao Tzu and Zhuang Zhou, whose principles were grounded in an "anti-polity" stance and a rejection of any kind of involvement in political movements or organisations, developed a philosophy of "non-rule" in the Tao Te Ching and the Zhuangzi. Taoists were trying to live in harmony with the nature. There is an ongoing debate whether exhorting rulers not to rule is somehow an anarchist objective. A new generation of Taoist thinkers with anarchic leanings appeared during the chaotic Wei-Jin period. Taoism and neo-Taoism had principles more akin to a philosophical anarchism—an attempt to delegitimise the state and question its morality—and were pacifist schools of thought, in contrast with their Western counterparts some centuries later.
Some convictions and ideas deeply held by modern anarchists were first expressed in ancient Greece. The first known political usage of the word anarchy (Ancient Greek: ἀναρχία) appeared in plays by Aeschylus and Sophocles in the fifth century BC. Ancient Greece also saw the first Western instance of anarchy as a philosophical ideal mainly, but not only, by the Cynics and Stoics. The Cynics Diogenes of Sinope and Crates of Thebes are both supposed to have advocated for anarchistic forms of society, although little remains of their writings. Their most significant contribution was the radical approach of nomos (law) and physis (nature). Contrary to the rest of Greek philosophy, aiming to blend nomos and physis in harmony, Cynics dismissed nomos (and in consequence: the authorities, hierarchies, establishments and moral code of polis) while promoting a way of life, based solely on physis. Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism, who was much influenced by the Cynics, described his vision of an egalitarian utopian society around 300 BC. Zeno's Republic advocates a form of anarchic society where there is no need for state structures. He argued that although the necessary instinct of self-preservation leads humans to egotism, nature has supplied a corrective to it by providing man with another instinct, namely sociability. Like many modern anarchists, he believed that if people follow their instincts, they will have no need of law courts or police, no temples and no public worship, and use no money—free gifts taking the place of monetary exchanges.
Socrates expressed some views appropriate to anarchism. He constantly questioned authority and at the centre of his philosophy stood every man's right to freedom of consciousness. Aristippus, a pupil of Socrates and founder of the Hedonistic school, claimed that he did not wish either to rule or be ruled. He saw the State as a danger to personal autonomy. Not all ancient Greeks had anarchic tendencies. Other philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle used the term anarchy negatively in association with democracy which they mistrusted as inherently vulnerable and prone to deteriorate into tyranny.
Among the ancient precursors of anarchism are often ignored movements within ancient Judaism and Early Christianity. As more contemporary literature shows, anti-state and anti-hierarchy positions can be found in the Tanakh as well as in New Testament texts.
### Middle Ages
In Persia during the Middle Ages a Zoroastrian prophet named Mazdak, now considered a proto-socialist, called for the abolition of private property, free love and overthrowing the king. He and his thousands of followers were massacred in 582 CE, but his teaching influenced Islamic sects in the following centuries. A theological predecessor to anarchism developed in Basra and Baghdad among Mu'tazilite ascetics and Najdiyya Khirijites. This form of revolutionary Islam was not communist or egalitarian. It did not resemble current concepts of anarchism, but preached the State was harmful, illegitimate, immoral and unnecessary.
In Europe, Christianity was overshadowing all aspects of life. The Brethren of the Free Spirit was the most notable example of heretic belief that had some vague anarchistic tendencies. They held anticleric sentiments and believed in total freedom. Even though most of their ideas were individualistic, the movement had a social impact, instigating riots and rebellions in Europe for many years. Other anarchistic religious movements in Europe during the Middle Ages included the Hussites and Adamites.
20th-century historian James Joll described anarchism as two opposing sides. In the Middle Ages, zealotic and ascetic religious movements emerged, which rejected institutions, laws and the established order. In the 18th century another anarchist stream emerged based on rationalism and logic. These two currents of anarchism later blended to form a contradictory movement that resonated with a very broad audience.
### Renaissance and early modern era
With the spread of the Renaissance across Europe, anti-authoritarian and secular ideas re-emerged. The most prominent thinkers advocating for liberty, mainly French, were employing utopia in their works to bypass strict state censorship. In Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532–1552), François Rabelais wrote of the Abby of Thelema (from Koinē Greek: θέλημα; meaning "will" or "wish"), an imaginary utopia whose motto was "Do as Thou Will". Around the same time, French law student Etienne de la Boetie wrote his Discourse on Voluntary Servitude where he argued that tyranny resulted from voluntary submission and could be abolished by the people refusing to obey the authorities above them. Later still in France, Gabriel de Foigny perceived a utopia with freedom-loving people without government and no need of religion, as he wrote in The Southern Land, Known. For this, Geneva authorities jailed de Foigny. François Fénelon also used utopia to project his political views in the book Les Aventures de Télémaque that infuriated Louis XIV.
Some Reformation currents (like the radical reformist movement of Anabaptists) are sometimes credited as the religious forerunners of modern anarchism. Even though the Reformation was a religious movement and strengthened the state, it also opened the way for the humanistic values of the French Revolution. During the English Civil War, Christian anarchism found one of its most articulate exponents in Gerrard Winstanley, who was part of the Diggers movement. He published a pamphlet, The New Law of Righteousness, calling for communal ownership and social and economic organisation in small agrarian communities. Drawing on the Bible, he argued that "the blessings of the earth" should "be common to all" and "none Lord over others". William Blake has also been said to have espoused an anarchistic political position.
In the New World, the first to use the term "anarchy" to mean something other than chaos was Louis-Armand, Baron de Lahontan in his Nouveaux voyages dans l'Amérique septentrionale, 1703 (New Voyages in Northern America). He described indigenous American society as having no state, laws, prisons, priests or private property as being in anarchy.
The Quaker sect, mostly because of their aheirarchical governance and social relations, based on their beliefs of the divine spirit universally within all people and humanity's absolute equality, had some anarchistic tendencies; such values must have influenced Benjamin Tucker the editor and publisher of the individualist anarchist periodical Liberty.
## Early anarchism
### Developments of the 18th century
Modern anarchism grew from the secular and humanistic thought of the Enlightenment. The scientific discoveries that preceded the Enlightenment gave thinkers of the time confidence that humans can reason for themselves. When nature was tamed through science, society could be set free. The development of anarchism was strongly influenced by the works of Jean Meslier, Baron d'Holbach, whose materialistic worldview later resonated with anarchists, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, especially in his Discourse on Inequality and arguments for the moral centrality of freedom. Rousseau affirmed the goodness in the nature of men and viewed the state as fundamentally oppressive. Denis Diderot's Supplément au voyage de Bougainville (The Supplement to the Voyage of Bougainville) was also influential.
The French Revolution stands as a landmark in the history of anarchism. The use of revolutionary violence by masses would captivate anarchists of later centuries, with such events as the Women's March on Versailles, the Storming of the Bastille and the Réveillon riots seen as the revolutionary archetype. Anarchists came to identify with the Enragés (lit. '"enraged ones"') who expressed the demands of the sans-culottes (lit. '"without breeches"'; commoners) who opposed revolutionary government as a contradiction in terms. Denouncing the Jacobin dictatorship, Jean Varlet wrote in 1794 that "government and revolution are incompatible, unless the people wish to set its constituted authorities in permanent insurrection against itself". In his Manifeste des Égaux (Manifesto of the Equals) of 1801, Sylvain Maréchal looked forward to the disappearance, once and for all, of "the revolting distinction between rich and poor, of great and small, of masters and valets, of governors and governed". The French Revolution came to depict in the minds of anarchists that as soon as rebels seize power they become the new tyrants, as evidenced by the state-orchestrated violence of the Reign of Terror. The proto-anarchist groups of Enragés and sans-culottes were ultimately executed by guillotine.
The debate over the effects of the French Revolution on the anarchist cause continues to this day. To anarchist historian Max Nettlau, French revolutions did nothing more than re-shape and modernise the militaristic state. Russian revolutionary and anarchist thinker Peter Kropotkin, however, traced the origins of the anarchist movement to the struggle of the revolutionaries. In a more moderate approach, independent scholar Sean Sheehan points out that the French Revolution proved that even the strongest political establishments can be overthrown.
William Godwin in England was the first to develop an expression of modern anarchist thought. He is generally regarded as the founder of the school of thought known as philosophical anarchism. He argued in Political Justice (1793) that government has an inherently malevolent influence on society, and that it perpetuates dependency and ignorance. He thought the spread of the use of reason to the masses would eventually cause the government to wither away as an unnecessary force. Although he did not accord the state with moral legitimacy, he was against the use of revolutionary tactics for removing a government from power. Rather, he advocated for its replacement through a process of peaceful evolution. His aversion to the imposition of a rules-based society led him to denounce, as a manifestation of the people's "mental enslavement", the foundations of law, property rights and even the institution of marriage. He considered the basic foundations of society as constraining the natural development of individuals to use their powers of reasoning to arrive at a mutually beneficial method of social organisation. In each case, government and its institutions are shown to constrain the development of one's capacity to live wholly in accordance with the full and free exercise of private judgement.
### Proudhon and Stirner
Frenchman Pierre-Joseph Proudhon is regarded as the founder of modern anarchism, a label he adopted in his groundbreaking work What is Property? Or, an Inquiry into the Principle of Right and Government (French: Qu'est-ce que la propriété? Recherche sur le principe du droit et du gouvernement) published in 1840. In it he asks "What is property?", a question that he answers with the famous accusation "Property is theft". Proudhon's theory of mutualism rejects the state, capitalism, and communism. It calls for a co-operative society in which the free associations of individuals are linked in a decentralised federation based on a "Bank of the People" that supplies workers with free credit. He contrasted this with what he called "possession", or limited ownership of resources and goods only while in more or less continuous use. Later, Proudhon also added that "Property is liberty" and argued that it was a bulwark against state power.
Mutualists would later play an important role in the First International, especially at the first two Congresses held in Geneva and Lausanne, but diminished in European influence with the rise of anarcho-communism. Instead, Mutualism would find fertile ground among American individualists in the late 19th century.
In Spain, Ramón de la Sagra established the anarchist journal El Porvenir in La Coruña in 1845 which was inspired by Proudhon's ideas. Catalan politician Francesc Pi i Margall became the principal translator of Proudhon's works into Spanish. He would later briefly become president of Spain in 1873 while leader of the Democratic Republican Federal Party, where he tried to implement some of Proudhon's ideas.
An influential form of individualist anarchism called egoism or egoist anarchism, was expounded by one of the earliest and best-known proponents of individualist anarchism, German philosopher Max Stirner. Stirner's The Ego and Its Own (German: Der Einzige und sein Eigentum; also translated as The Individual and his Property or The Unique and His Property), published in 1844, is a founding text of the philosophy. Stirner was critical of capitalism as it creates class warfare where the rich will exploit the poor, using the state as its tool. He also rejected religions, communism and liberalism, as all of them subordinate individuals to God, a collective, or the state. According to Stirner the only limitation on the rights of the individual is their power to obtain what they desire, without regard for God, state, or morality. He held that society does not exist, but "the individuals are its reality". Stirner advocated self-assertion and foresaw unions of egoists, non-systematic associations continually renewed by all parties' support through an act of will, which proposed as a form of organisation in place of the state. Egoist anarchists claimed that egoism will foster genuine and spontaneous union between individuals. Stirner was proposing an individual rebellion, which would not seek to establish new institutions nor anything resembling a state.
### Revolutions of 1848
Europe was shocked by another revolutionary wave in 1848 which started once again in Paris. The new government, consisting mostly of Jacobins, was backed by the working class but failed to implement meaningful reforms. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Russian revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin were involved in the events of 1848. The failure of the revolution shaped Proudhon's views. He became convinced that a revolution should aim to destroy authority, not grasp power. He saw capitalism as the root of social problems and government, using political tools only, as incapable of confronting the real issues. The course of events of 1848, radicalised Bakunin who, due to the failure of the revolutions, lost his confidence in any kind of reform.
Other anarchists active in the 1848 Revolution in France include Anselme Bellegarrigue, Ernest Coeurderoy and the early anarcho-communist Joseph Déjacque, who was the first person to call himself a libertarian. Unlike Proudhon, Déjacque argued that "it is not the product of his or her labour that the worker has a right to, but to the satisfaction of his or her needs, whatever may be their nature". Déjacque was also a critic of Proudhon's mutualist theory and anti-feminist views. Returning to New York, he was able to serialise his book in his periodical Le Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement social. The French anarchist movement, though self-described as "mutualists", started gaining pace during 1860s as workers' associations began to form.
## Classical anarchism
The decades of the late 19th and the early 20th centuries constitute the belle époque of anarchist history. In this "classical" era, roughly defined the period between the Paris Commune and the Spanish Civil War (or the 1840s/1860s through 1939), anarchism played a prominent role in working class struggles (alongside Marxism) in Europe as well as the Americas, Asia, and Oceania. Modernism, mass migration, railroads and access to printing all helped anarchists to advance their causes.
### First International and Paris Commune
In 1864, the creation of the International Workingmen's Association (IWA, also called the "First International") united diverse revolutionary currents including socialist Marxists, trade unionists, communists and anarchists. Karl Marx was a leading figure of the International and a member of its General Council.
Four years later, in 1868, Mikhail Bakunin joined the First International with his collectivist anarchist associates who advocated for the collectivisation of property and revolutionary overthrow of the state. Bakunin corresponded with other members of the International seeking to establish a loose brotherhood of revolutionaries who would ensure that the coming revolution would not take an authoritative course, in sharp contrast with other currents that were seeking to get a firm grasp on state power. Bakunin's energy and writings about a great variety of subjects, such as education and gender equality, helped to increase his influence within the IWA. His main line was that the International should try to promote a revolution without aiming to create a mere government of "experts". Workers should seek to emancipate their class with direct actions, using cooperatives, mutual credit, and strikes but avoid participation in bourgeois politics. At first, the collectivists worked with the Marxists to push the First International in a more revolutionary socialist direction. Subsequently, the International became polarised into two camps, with Marx and Bakunin as their respective figureheads. Bakunin characterised Marx's ideas as centralist. Because of this, he predicted if a Marxist party came to power, its leaders would simply take the place of the ruling class they had fought against. Followers of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the mutualists, also opposed Marx's state socialism, advocating political abstentionism and small property holdings.
Meanwhile, an uprising after the Franco-Prussian War led to the creation of the Paris Commune in March 1871. Anarchists had a prominent role in the Commune, next to Blanquists and to a lesser extent Marxists. The uprising was greatly influenced by anarchists and had a great impact on anarchist history. Radical socialist views, like Proudhonian federalism, were implemented to a small extent. Most importantly the workers proved they could run their own services and factories. After the defeat of the Commune, anarchists like Eugène Varlin, Louise Michel, and Élisée Reclus were shot or imprisoned. Socialist ideas were persecuted in France for a decade. Leading members of the International who survived the bloody suppression of the Commune fled to Switzerland where the Anarchist St. Imier International would later be formed.
In 1872, the conflict between Marxists and anarchists climaxed. Marx had, since 1871, proposed the creation of a political party, which anarchists found to be an appalling and unacceptable prospect. Various groups (including Italian sections, the Belgian Federation and the Jura Federation) rejected Marx's proposition at the 1872 Hague Congress. They saw it as an attempt to create state socialism that would ultimately fail to emancipate humanity. In contrast, they proposed political struggle through social revolution. Finally, anarchists were expelled from the First International. In response, the federalist sections formed their own International at the St. Imier Congress, adopting a revolutionary anarchist programme.
### Emergence of anarcho-communism
Anarcho-communism developed out of radical socialist currents after the French Revolution but was first formulated as such in the Italian section of the First International. It was the convincing critique of Carlo Cafiero and Errico Malatesta that paved the way for anarcho-communism to surpass collectivism, arguing that collectivism would inevitably end in competition and inequality. Essayist Alain Pengam comments that between 1880 and 1890 the perspective of a revolution was thought to be closed. Anarcho-communists had anti-organisational tendencies, opposed political and trade union struggles (such as the eight-hour day) as being overly reformist, and in some cases favoured acts of terrorism. Finding themselves increasingly isolated, they opted to join the workers' movements after 1890.
With the aid of Peter Kropotkin's optimism and persuasive writing, anarcho-communism became the major anarchist current in Europe and abroad—except Spain where anarcho-syndicalism prevailed. The theoretical work of Kropotkin and Errico Malatesta grew in importance later as it expanded and developed pro-organisationalist and insurrectionary anti-organisationalist sections. Kropotkin elaborated on the theory behind the revolution of anarcho-communism saying, "it is the risen people who are the real agent and not the working class organised in the enterprise (the cells of the capitalist mode of production) and seeking to assert itself as labour power, as a more 'rational' industrial body or social brain (manager) than the employers".
### Organised labour and syndicalism
Due to a high influx of European immigrants, Chicago was the centre of the American anarchist movement during the 19th century. On 1 May 1886, a general strike was called in several United States cities with the demand of an eight-hour work day, and anarchists allied themselves with the workers' movement despite seeing the objective as reformist. On May 3, a fight broke out in Chicago when strikebreakers attempted to cross the picket line. Two workers died when police opened fire on the crowd. The next day anarchists staged a rally at Chicago's Haymarket Square. A bomb was thrown from a side alley. In the ensuing panic, police opened fire on the crowd and each other. Seven police officers and at least four workers were killed. Eight anarchists, directly and indirectly related to the organisers of the rally, were arrested and charged with the murder of the deceased officers. They became international political celebrities in the labour movement. Four of the men were executed and a fifth committed suicide before his execution. The incident became known as the Haymarket affair and was a setback for the movement and the struggle for the eight-hour day. In 1890 a second attempt, this time international in scope, to organise for the eight-hour day was made. It had the secondary purpose of memorialising those workers killed as a result of the Haymarket affair. Although it had initially been conceived as a one-off event, by the following year the commemoration of International Workers' Day on May Day had become firmly established as an international workers' holiday.
Syndicalism saw its heights from 1894 to 1914, with roots reaching back to 19th century labour movements and the trade unionists of the First International. Subsequently, anarcho-syndicalism's main tenet that economic struggles come before political ones can be traced back to Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, and was the same issue that led to the schism of the First International. Anarcho-syndicalists advocated that labour syndicates should focus not only on the conditions and wages of workers but also on revolutionary objectives.
The French Confédération Générale du Travail (General Confederation of Labour) was one of Europe's most prominent syndicalist organisations and, while rejecting illegalism, was heavily influenced by anarchism. As a grassroots organisation and lab for revolutionary ideas, its structure was exported to other like-minded European organisations. The organisation would later take a reformist path after 1914.
In 1907, the International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam gathered delegates from most European countries, the United States, Japan and Latin America. A central debate concerned the relation between anarchism and trade unionism. Errico Malatesta and Pierre Monatte strongly disagreed on this issue. Monatte thought that syndicalism was revolutionary and would create the conditions for a social revolution, while Malatesta did not consider syndicalism by itself sufficient. He thought the trade-union movement was reformist and even conservative, citing the phenomenon of professional union officials as essentially bourgeois and anti-worker. Malatesta warned that the syndicalist aims were of perpetuating syndicalism itself, whereas anarchists must always have anarchy as their end goal and consequently must refrain from committing to any particular method of achieving it.
In Spain, syndicalism had grown significantly during the 1880s but the first anarchist related organisations didn't flourish. In 1910 however, the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (National Confederation of Labour or CNT) was founded and gradually became entwined with anarchism. The CNT was affiliated with the International Workers' Association, a federation of anarcho-syndicalist trade unions founded in 1922. The success of the CNT stimulated the spread of anarcho-syndicalism in Latin America. The Federación Obrera Regional Argentina (Argentine Regional Workers' Federation) reached a quarter of a million members, surpassing social democratic unions.
By the early 20th century, revolutionary syndicalism had spread across the world, from Latin America to Eastern Europe and Asia, with most of its activity then taking place outside of Western Europe.
### Propaganda of the deed
The use of revolutionary political violence, known as propaganda of the deed, was employed by a small but influential part of the anarchist movement over a roughly four decade period, beginning in the 1880s. It was conceived as a form of insurrectionary action used to provoke and inspire the masses to revolution. This was at a time when anarchists were persecuted and revolutionaries were becoming more isolated. The dismemberment of the French socialist movement and, following the suppression of the 1871 Paris Commune, the execution or the exile of many communards to penal colonies favoured individualist political expression and acts. But the prime factor in the rise of propaganda of the deed, as historian Constance Bantman outlines, was the writings of Russian revolutionaries between 1869 and 1891, namely of Mikhail Bakunin and Sergei Nechaev who developed significant insurrectionary strategies.
Paul Brousse, a medical doctor and active militant of violent insurrection, popularised the actions of propaganda of the deed. In the United States, Johann Most advocated publicising violent acts of retaliation against counter-revolutionaries because "we preach not only action in and for itself, but also action as propaganda". Russian anarchist-communists employed terrorism and illegal acts in their struggle.'''_(IWMA)_131-0" class="reference"> Numerous heads of state were assassinated or attacked by members of the anarchist movement. In 1901, the Polish-American anarchist Leon Czolgosz assassinated the president of the United States, William McKinley. Emma Goldman, who was erroneously suspected of being involved, expressed some sympathy for Czolgosz and incurred a great deal of negative publicity. Goldman also supported Alexander Berkman in his failed assassination attempt of steel industrialist Henry Frick in the wake of the Homestead Strike, and she wrote about how these small acts of violence were incomparable to the deluge of violence regularly committed by the state and capital. In Europe, a wave of illegalism (the embracement of a criminal way of life) spread throughout the anarchist movement, with Marius Jacob, Ravachol, intellectual Émile Henry and the Bonnot Gang being notable examples. The Bonnot Gang in particular justified illegal and violent behavior by claiming that they were "taking back" property that did not rightfully belong to capitalists. In Russia, Narodnaya Volya ("People's Will" which was not an anarchist organisation but nevertheless drew inspiration from Bakunin's work), assassinated Tsar Alexander II in 1881 and gained some popular support. However, for the most part, the anarchist movement in Russia remained marginal in the following years.
As early as 1887, important figures in the anarchist movement distanced themselves from both illegalism and propaganda of the deed. Peter Kropotkin, for example, wrote in Le Révolté that "a structure based on centuries of history cannot be destroyed with a few kilos of dynamite". State repression of the anarchist and labour movements, including the infamous 1894 French lois scélérates ("villainous laws"), following a number of successful bombings and assassinations may have contributed to the abandonment of these kinds of tactics, although state repression may have played an equal role in their adoption. Early proponents of propaganda of the deed, like Alexander Berkman, started to question the legitimacy of violence as a tactic. A variety of anarchists advocated the abandonment of these sorts of tactics in favour of collective revolutionary action through the trade union movement.
By the end of the 19th century, it became clear that propaganda of the deed was not going to spark a revolution. Though it was employed by only a minority of anarchists, it gave anarchism a violent reputation and it isolated anarchists from broader social movements. It was abandoned by the majority of the anarchist movement in the early 20th century.
### Revolutionary wave
The revolutionary wave of 1917–23 saw varying degrees of active participation by anarchists. Following the failed 1905 Russian Revolution, anarchists participated again in both the February and October revolutions of 1917 and were initially enthusiastic about the Bolshevik cause. Prior to the revolution, Lenin had won over anarchists and syndicalists with high praises in his 1917 work The State and Revolution. However, anarchist objections quickly arose. They opposed, for example, the slogan, "All power to the Soviet". The dictatorship of the proletariat was incompatible with the libertarian views of the anarchists, and co-operation shortly ended as the Bolsheviks soon turned against anarchists and other left-wing opposition. After their grasp on power was stabilized, the Bolsheviks crushed the anarchists. Anarchists in central Russia were either imprisoned, driven underground, or joined the victorious Bolsheviks. Anarchists from Petrograd and Moscow fled to Ukraine. There, the Makhnovshchina established an autonomous region of four hundred square miles with a population of approximately seven million. Anarchists who had fought in the Russian Civil War at first against the anti-Bolshevik White Army now also fought the Red Army, Ukrainian People's Army, and the German and Austrian forces who fought under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. This conflict culminated in the 1921 Kronstadt rebellion, a garrison in Kronstadt where Baltic Fleet sailors and citizens made demands for reforms. The new government suppressed the rebellion. The Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine, led by Nestor Makhno, continued to fight until August 1921 when it was crushed by the state only months after the Kronstadt rebellion.
Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, who had been deported from the U.S. in 1917, were amongst those agitating in response to Bolshevik policy and the suppression of the Kronstadt uprising. Both wrote accounts of their experiences in Russia, criticising the amount of state control the Bolsheviks exercised. For them, Mikhail Bakunin's predictions on the consequences of Marxist rule, that the leaders of the new socialist state would become the new ruling class, had proven true. In 1920, Peter Kropotkin published a Message to the Workers of the West explaining the false path of state socialism was doomed to fail. Disappointed with the course of events, Goldman and Berkman fled the USSR in 1921, the same year Kropotkin died. By 1925, anarchism was banned under the Bolshevik regime. The victory of the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution and the resulting Russian Civil War did serious damage to anarchist movements internationally. Many workers and activists saw the Bolsheviks' success as setting an example, and communist parties grew at the expense of anarchism and other socialist movements. In France and the United States, for example, members of the major syndicalist movements of the Confédération Générale du Travail (General Confederation of Labour) and Industrial Workers of the World left these organisations to join the Communist International.
From the collapse of anarchism in the newly formed Soviet Union, two anarchist trends arose. The first, platformism, was propagated in the anarchist journal Dielo Truda by a group of Russian exiles, including Nestor Makhno. Their main objective, as proponent Piotr Arsinov wrote, was to create a non-hierarchical party that would offer "common organisation of our forces on a basis of collective responsibility and collective methods of action". They considered that a lack of organisation was a basic reason of why anarchism had failed. Platformism had the purpose of providing a strategy for class struggle, as Bakunin and Kropotkin had suggested before. The other trend emerged as an organisational alternative to platformism, since it had similarities to party structure. Anarchist intellectual Voline was one of the most notable opponents of platformism, and he pointed toward to what is today known as synthesis anarchism.
During the German Revolution of 1918–1919, anarchists Gustav Landauer and Erich Mühsam took important leadership positions within the revolutionary councilist structures of the Bavarian Soviet Republic. In Italy, the syndicalist trade union Unione Sindacale Italiana (Italian Syndicalist Union), had half a million members. It played a prominent role in events known as the Biennio Rosso ("Two Red Years") and Settimana Rossa ("Red Week"). In the latter, the monarchy was almost overthrown.
In Mexico, the Mexican Liberal Party was established and during the early 1910s it conducted a series of military offensives, leading to the conquest and occupation of certain towns and districts in Baja California. Under the leadership of anarcho-communist Ricardo Flores Magón, its slogan was Tierra y Libertad ('Land and Liberty'). Magón's journal Regeneración ('Regeneration') had a significant circulation, and he helped urban workers turn to anarcho-syndicalism. He also influenced the Zapata movement.
Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two insurrectionary anarchists and Italian migrants to the United States, were convicted of involvement in an armed robbery and the murders of two people in 1920. After a controversial trial and a series of appeals they were sentenced to death and executed on 23 August 1927. Following their deaths, critical opinion overwhelmingly held that the two men were convicted largely because of their anarchist political beliefs and were unjustly executed. After the Sacco and Vanzetti case, and despite worldwide protests and mainstream media headlines, the anarchist movement faded in the United States.
### Rise of fascism
Italy saw the first struggles between anarchists and fascists. Italian anarchists played a key role in the anti-fascist organisation Arditi del Popolo (The People's Daring Ones or AdP), which was strongest in areas with anarchist traditions. They achieved some success in their activism, such as repelling Blackshirts in the anarchist stronghold of Parma in August 1922. AdP saw growth after the Socialist Party signed the pacification pact with the fascists. AdP consisted of militant proletarians, anarchists, communists and even socialists. It numbered twenty-thousand members in 144 sections. The veteran Italian anarchist, Luigi Fabbri, was one of the first critical theorists of fascism, describing it as "the preventive counter-revolution". Italian anarchists Gino Lucetti and Anteo Zamboni narrowly failed an assassination attempt against Benito Mussolini. Italian anarchists formed various partisan groups during World War II.
In France, where the far-right leagues came close to insurrection in the February 1934 riots, anarchists divided over a united front policy. One tendency was for the creation of a pack with political parties while others objected. In Spain, the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (National Confederation of Labour or CNT) initially refused to join a popular front electoral alliance. Abstention by their supporters led to a right-wing election victory. In 1936, the CNT changed its policy and anarchist votes helped bring the popular front back to power. Months later, the former ruling class responded with an attempted coup causing the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). In response to the army rebellion, an anarchist-inspired movement of peasants and workers, supported by armed militias, took control of Barcelona and large areas of rural Spain where they collectivised the land. However, even before the fascist victory in 1939, the anarchists were losing ground in a bitter struggle with the Stalinists, who controlled the distribution of military aid to the Republican cause from the Soviet Union. Stalinist-led troops suppressed the collectives and persecuted both dissident Marxists and anarchists.
In Germany, the Nazis crushed anarchism upon seizing power. Apart from Spain, nowhere else could the anarchist movement provide a solid resistance to various fascist regimes throughout Europe.
### Spanish Revolution
The Spanish Revolution of 1936 was the first and only time that libertarian socialism became an imminent reality. It stood on the ground of a strong anarchist movement in Spain that dated back to the 19th century. Anarchist groups enjoyed broad social support particularly in Barcelona, Aragon, Andalusia, Levante. Anarchism in Spain leaned towards syndicalism and this yielded to the formation of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) in 1910. The CNT declared that its aim was a libertarian communist society and was organising strikes all over Spain. The Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI) was founded later to keep CNT on a pure anarchist path amidst dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera's crackdown on labour movements. The Second Spanish Republic was pronounced in 1931 and brought to power a Republican–Socialist alliance. But instead of the high hopes of the CNT (mostly among gradualists) and others, the repression of the labour movement continued. FAI gained more control of CNT.
In 1936, the Popular Front (an electoral alliance dominated by left-wingers) won the elections and months later the former ruling class responded with an attempted coup causing the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). In response to the army rebellion, an anarchist-inspired movement of peasants and workers, supported by armed militias, took control of urban and large areas of rural Spain where they collectivised the land. Barcelona was the site of the most dramatic change, as workers broke bourgeois habits and even gender hierarchies. Newly formed anarcho-feminist group Mujeres Libres (Free Women) had an active role in the social transformation in Barcelona. This rebellious culture impressed visitors such as George Orwell. Enterprises and farms were collectivised, and working conditions improved drastically. In rural Aragon money was abolished and the economy was collectivised. Villages were run by popular assemblies in a direct democratic fashion, without coercing individuals to join. Anarchist militia columns, fighting without martial discipline or military rank, despite shortages in military materials, made significant gains at the war front.
Anarchists of CNT-FAI faced a major dilemma after the coup had failed in July 1936: either continue their fight against the state or join the anti-fascist left-wing parties and form a government. They opted for the latter and by November 1936, four members of CNT-FAI became ministers in the government of the former trade unionist Francisco Largo Caballero. This was justified by CNT-FAI as a historical necessity since war was being waged, but other prominent anarchists disagreed, both on principle and as a tactical move. In November 1936 the prominent anarcho-feminist Federica Montseny was installed as minister of Health—the first woman in Spanish history to become a cabinet minister.
During the course of the events of the Spanish Revolution, anarchists were losing ground in a bitter struggle with the Stalinists of the Spanish Communist Party, who controlled the distribution of military aid to the Republicans received from the Soviet Union. Stalinist-led troops suppressed the collectives and persecuted both dissident Marxists and anarchists. The fight among anarchists and communists escalated during the May Days, as the Soviet Union sought to control the Republicans.
The 1939 defeat of Republican Spain marked the end of anarchism's classical period. In light of continual anarchist defeats, one can argue about the naivety of 19th-century anarchist thinking—the establishment of state and capitalism was too strong to be destroyed. According to political philosophy professor Ruth Kinna and lecturer Alex Prichard, it is uncertain whether these defeats were the result of a functional error within the anarchist theories, as New Left intellectuals suggested some decades later, or the social context that prevented the anarchists from fulfilling their ambitions. What is certain, though, is that their critique of state and capitalism ultimately proved right, as the world was marching towards totalitarianism and fascism.
### Anarchism in the colonial world
As empires and capitalism were expanding at the turn of the century, so was anarchism which soon flourished in Latin America, East Asia, South Africa and Australia.
Anarchism found fertile ground in Asia and was the most vibrant ideology among other socialist currents during the first decades of 20th century. The works of European philosophers, especially Kropotkin's, were popular among revolutionary youth. Intellectuals tried to link anarchism to earlier philosophical currents in Asia, like Taoism, Buddhism and neo-Confucianism. But the factor that contributed most to the rise of anarchism was industrialisation and the new capitalistic era that eastern Asia was entering. Young Chinese anarchists in the early days of the 20th century voiced the cause of revolutionary anarcho-communism along with humanism, belief in science and universalism in the journal Hsin Shih-chi. Anarchism was growing in influence until the mid-1920s when Bolshevik successes seemed to indicate the way to communism. Likewise in Japan, anarcho-communists such as Kōtoku Shūsui, Osugi Sakae and Hatta Shuzo were inspired by the works of westerners philosophers and opposed capitalism and the state. Shuzo created the school of "pure anarchism". Because of the industrial growth, anarcho-syndicalism also arose for a brief period, before communists prevailed among workers. Tokyo had been a hotspot for anarchist and revolutionary ideas which were circulating among Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese students who travelled to Japan to study. Socialists by then were enthusiastically supporting the idea of "social revolution" and anarchists were in full support of it. In Korea, anarchism took a different course. Korea was under Japanese rule from 1910 to 1945 and in the early phases of that period, anarchists took part in national resistance, forming an anarchist zone in Shinmin Manchuria from 1928 to 1931. Kim Chwa-chin was a prominent figure of the movement. In India, anarchism did not thrive, partly because of its reputation for being violent. The fragile anarchist movement developed in India was more non-statist, rather than anti-statist.
Anarchism travelled to the Eastern Mediterranean along with other radical secular ideas in the cosmopolitan Ottoman Empire. Under the spell of Errico Malatesta, a group of Egyptian anarchists imported anarchism to Alexandria. It was in a transitional stage during that era, as industrialisation and urbanisation were transforming Egypt. Anarchist activity was spread along with other radical secular ideas within the Islamic Empire. In Africa, anarchism appeared from within the continent. A large part of African society, mainly rural, was founded on African communalism which was mostly egalitarian. It had some anarchist elements, without class divisions, formal hierarchies and access to the means of production by all members of the localities. African Communalism was far from being an ideal anarchist society. Gender privileges were apparent, feudalism and slavery did exist in a few areas but not on a mass scale.
Anarchism travelled to Latin America through European immigrants. The most impressive presence was in Buenos Aires, but Havana, Lima, Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro, Santos, Sao Paulo as well saw the growth of anarchist pockets. Anarchists had a much larger impact on trade unions than their authoritarian left counterparts. In Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, a strong anarcho-syndicalist current was formed—partly because of the rapid industrialisation of these countries. In 1905, anarchists took control of the Argentine Regional Workers' Federation (FORA) in Argentina, overshadowing social democrats. Likewise, in Uruguay, FORU was created by anarchists in 1905. These syndicates organised a series of general strikes in the following years. After this the success of the Bolsheviks, anarchism gradually declined in these three countries which had been the strongholds of anarchism in Latin America. It is worth noting that the notion of imported anarchism in Latin America has been challenged, as slave rebellions appeared in Latin America before the arrival of European anarchists.
Anarchists became involved in the anti-colonial national-independence struggles of the early 20th century. Anarchism inspired anti-authoritarian and egalitarian ideals among national independence movements, challenging the nationalistic tendencies of many national liberation movements.
## Individualist anarchism
### In the United States
American anarchism has its roots in religious groups that fled Europe to escape religious persecution during the 17th century. It sprouted towards individual anarchism as distrust of government was widespread in North America during the next centuries. In sharp contrast with their European counterparts, American anarchism was leaning towards individualism and was mainly pro-capitalist, hence described as right wing libertarianism. American anarchist justified private property as the safeguard of personal autonomy. Henry David Thoreau was an important early influence on individualist anarchist thought in the United States in the mid 19th century. He was skeptical towards government—in his work Civil Disobedience he declared that "That government is best which governs least". He has frequently been cited as an anarcho-individualist, even though he was never rebellious. Josiah Warren was, at the late 19th century, a prominent advocate of a variant of mutualism called equitable commerce, a fair trade system where the price of a product is based on labor effort instead of the cost of manufacturing. Benjamin Tucker, also influenced by Proudhon, was the editor of the prominent anarchist journal Liberty and a proponent of individualism.
In the shade of individualism, there was also anarcho-Christianism as well as some socialist pockets, especially in Chicago. It was after Chicago's bloody protests in 1886 when the anarchist movement became known nationwide. But anarchism quickly declined when it was associated with terrorist violence.
An important concern for American individualist anarchism was free love. Free love particularly stressed women's rights since most sexual laws discriminated against women, for example, marriage laws and anti-birth control measures. Openly bisexual radical Edna St. Vincent Millay and lesbian anarchist Margaret Anderson were prominent among them. Discussion groups organised by the Villagers were frequented by Emma Goldman, among others.
A heated debate among American individualist anarchists of that era was the natural rights versus egoistic approaches. Proponents of naturals rights claimed that without them brutality would prevail, while egoists were proposing that there is no such right, it only restricted the individual. Benjamin Tucker, who tried to determine a scientific base for moral right or wrong, ultimately sided with the latter.
The Modern Schools, also called Ferrer Schools, were schools established in the United States in the early 20th century. They were modelled after the Escuela Moderna of Francisco Ferrer, the Catalan educator and anarchist. They were an important part of the anarchist, free schooling, socialist, and labour movements in the United States intending to educate the working classes from a secular, class-conscious perspective. The Modern Schools imparted daytime academic classes for children and nighttime continuing-education lectures for adults. The first and most notable of the Modern Schools was opened in New York City in 1911. Commonly called the Ferrer Center, it was founded by notable anarchists—including Leonard Abbott, Alexander Berkman, Voltairine de Cleyre and Emma Goldman. The school used Montessori methods and equipment, and emphasised academic freedom rather than fixed subjects, such as spelling and arithmetic.
### In Europe and the arts
European individualist anarchism proceeded from the roots laid by William Godwin and Max Stirner. Many artists, poets and writers interested in freedom were exploring different aspects of anarchism. Anarcho-individualists were more interested in personal development, challenging the social norms and demanding sexual freedom rather than engaging in social struggles.
In France, an artistic and individualist trend in anarchism was shaping a new cultural movement at the turn of the century, with less of a social component and more of a personal rebellion against norms. Impressionists and neo-Impressionist painters were attracted by anarchism, most notably French Camille Pissarro. Modernist writers having anarchist tendencies, such as Henrik Ibsen and James Joyce, led to the impression that "modernism itself can be understood as the aesthetic realisation of anarchist politics". Dadaism arose from individualists aiming to use art to achieve total freedom. It influenced other currents such as surrealism, and proponents played a significant role in the Berlin rising of 1918. One of the main individualist anarchist journals in France, L'Anarchie, was established in 1905. A notable individualist was Stirnerist Émile Armand who was a defender of polyamory and homosexuality.
## Post-war
Following the end of the Spanish Revolution and World War II, the anarchist movement was a "ghost" of its former self, as proclaimed by anarchist historian George Woodcock. In his work Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements published 1962, he wrote that after 1936 it was "a ghost that inspires neither fear among governments nor hope among peoples nor even interest among newspapermen". Capitalism continued to grow throughout the post-war period despite predictions from Marxist scholars that it would soon collapse under its own contradictions, yet anarchism gained a surprising surge in popular interest during the 1960s. Reasons for this were believed to be the gradual demystification of the Soviet Union and tensions at the climax of the Cold War. The New Left, which arose in the 1950s, was a libertarian socialist movement that was closer to anarchism. Prominent thinkers such as Herbert Marcuse and Wright Mills were critical of United States and Soviet Marxism.
In France, a wave of protests and demonstrations confronted the right-wing government of Charles de Gaulle in May 1968. Even though the anarchists had a minimal role, the events of May had a significant impact on anarchism. There were huge demonstrations with crowds in some places reaching one million participants. Strikes were called in many major cities and towns involving seven million workers—all grassroots, bottom-up and spontaneously organised. Various committees were formed at universities, lyceums, and in neighbourhoods, mostly having anti-authoritarian tendencies. Slogans that resonated with libertarian ideas were prominent such as: "I take my desires for reality, because I believe in the reality of my desires." Even though the spirit of the events leaned mostly towards libertarian communism, some authors draw a connection to anarchism. The wave of protests eased when a 10% pay raise was granted and national elections were proclaimed. The paving stones of Paris were only covering some reformist victories. Nevertheless, the 1968 events inspired a new confidence in anarchism as workers' management, self-determination, grassroots democracy, antiauthoritarianism, and spontaneity became relevant once more. After decades of pessimism 1968 marked the revival of anarchism, either as a distinct ideology or as a part of other social movements.
Originally founded in 1957, The Situationist International rose to prominence during events of 1968 with the principal argument that life had turned into a "spectacle" because of the corrosive effect of capitalism. They later dissolved in 1972. The late 1960s saw the flourish of anarcha-feminism. It attacked the state, capitalism and patriarchy and was organized in a decentralised manner. As the ecological crisis was becoming a greater threat to the planet, Murray Bookchin developed the next generation of anarchist thought. In his social ecology theory, he claims that certain social practises, and priorities threaten life on Earth. He goes further to identify the cause of such practises as social oppressions. Libertarian municipalism was his major advancement of anarchist thought—a proposal for the involvement of people in political struggles in decentralized federated villages or towns.
### Contemporary anarchism
The anthropology of anarchism has changed in the contemporary era as the traditional lines or ideas of the 19th century have been abandoned. Most anarchists are now younger activists informed with feminist and ecological concerns. They are involved in counterculture, Black Power, creating temporary autonomous zones, and events such as Carnival Against Capital. These movements are not anarchist, but rather anarchistic.
Mexico saw another uprising at the turn of the 21st century. Zapatistas took control of a large area in Chiapas. They were organised in an autonomous, self-governing model that has many parallels to anarchism, inspiring many young anarchists in the West. Another stateless region that has been associated with anarchism is the Kurdish area of Rojava in northern Syria. The conflict there emerged during the Syrian Civil War and Rojava's decentralized model is founded upon Bookchin's ideas of libertarian municipalism and social ecology within a secular framework and ethnic diversity. Chiapas and Rojava share the same goal, to create a libertarian community despite being surrounded by state apparatus.
Anarchism grew in popularity and influence as part of the anti-war, anti-capitalist, and anti-globalisation movements. Maia Ramnath described those social movements that employ the anarchist framework (leaderless, direct democracy) but do not call themselves anarchists as anarchists with a lowercase a while describing more traditional forms of anarchism with a capital A. Anarchists became known for their involvement in protests against meetings such as the World Trade Organization in Seattle in 1999, Group of Eight in 2001 and the World Economic Forum, as part of anti-globalisation movement. Some anarchist factions at these protests engaged in rioting, property destruction, and violent confrontations with police. These actions were precipitated by ad hoc, leaderless, anonymous cadres known as black blocs. Other organisational tactics pioneered during this period include security culture, affinity groups and the use of decentralised technologies such as the Internet. Occupy Wall Street movement had roots in anarchist philosophy.
According to anarchist scholar Simon Critchley, "contemporary anarchism can be seen as a powerful critique of the pseudo-libertarianism of contemporary neo-liberalism One might say that contemporary anarchism is about responsibility, whether sexual, ecological, or socio-economic; it flows from an experience of conscience about the manifold ways in which the West ravages the rest; it is an ethical outrage at the yawning inequality, impoverishment, and disenfranchisement that is so palpable locally and globally". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_anarchism |
The Paris Commune was the main insurrectionary commune of France in 1870-1871, based on direct democracy and established in Paris from 18 March to 28 May 1871. The Commune governed Paris for two months, establishing policies that tended toward a progressive, anti-religious system of social democracy, including the separation of church and state, self-policing, the remission of rent during the siege, the abolition of child labor, and the right of employees to take over an enterprise deserted by its owner. Feminist, socialist, and anarchist currents played important roles in the Commune. However, they had very little time to achieve their respective goals. Debates over the policies a… Read more
T-shirts featuring quotes by famous writers, historical figures, famous unionists, anarchist philosophers, and famous feminists.
Louise Michel was a french anarchist and important figure in the Paris Commune. Her use of a black flag at a demonstration in Paris in March 1883 was also the earliest known of what would become known as the anarchy black flag. Louise Michel is regarded as a founder of anarcho-feminism. Despite the anti-authoritarian rhetoric, early anarchist thinkers maintained cultural orthodoxy when it came to the division of domestic labor and their personal relationships with women. The founder of French anarchism, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was notorious for his sexist views. Michel, Teresa Claramunt, Lucy Parsons, Voltairine de Cleyre, and Emma Goldman became prominent figures in the late 19th-c… Read more
Inspiring quotes by political activists, anarchist philosophers, and famous writers. | https://www.no-gods-no-masters.com/tshirt-le-pouvoir-est-maudit-cest-pour-cela-que-je-suis-anarchiste-louise-michel-D01001197543P0210/ |
The historical conditions at the origin of the Latin American social polarisation between the wealthy and the wider population are generally unknown. This wider population saw its living and working conditions worsen during the pandemic.
Anarchism was anti-capitalist by definition. In its early days, William Godwin proposed eliminating the state as it was in the grip of the interests of the dominant class. For Charles Fourier, the state defended the interests of capitalists and he sought a free and fair community life through “phalansteries”. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon denounced private property as a theft from society.
The shared thinking of Mikhail Bakunin, Piotr Kropotkin, Errico Malatesta and so many other founders of anarchism was directed, in essence, at the defence of liberty against all types of power. They dreamt of a society of equals and condemned the exploitation of the workers.
For this reason anarchism spread to several countries, gaining particular strength in Germany, Italy, France, Russia and especially in Spain, where it was one of the foundations of the republic until the end of the civil war (1939) and the establishment of Francoism ended its influence.
In the USA, the ringleaders of the Haymarket Affair in Chicago (1886) were anarchists who demanded the eight-hour working day. Its leaders were put on trial and several received the death sentence. The 1st May is celebrated internationally as Labour Day in remembrance of that struggle.
In Latin America, anarchism of European origin was cultivated from the beginning of the twentieth century.
Its followers joined the struggles of the workers. It became strong in Argentina (the Argentine Regional Workers’ Federation was created), Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Mexico (where the Flores Magon brothers were prominent), Uruguay and even Ecuador, where the Regional Federation of Workers of Ecuador (FTRE) led the strike that ended with the massacre of workers on 15th November 1922 in Guayaquil.
However, Latin American anarchism was weakened by the development of Marxist parties.
Contradicting this historical trajectory linked to the workers’ struggle for freedom from the yoke of capitalism, from the middle of the twentieth century thinkers began to emerge, distorting the original libertarian spirit and that of the movements that followed it, dedicated themselves to the task of making the “struggle” in favour of neoliberalism using supposedly anarchist ideas.
Their provenance included the Austrian school of economics, outstanding among whom was Friedrich von Hayek (1899-1992), contradictor of J. M. Keynes (1883-1946) and winner of the Nobel prize for economics in 1974, who was a staunch defender of economic liberalism, attacking socialism, planning and state interventionism in his early book “The Road to Serfdom” (1944), a mediocre work that identified nazism as a fruit of socialism – an unsustainable thesis questioned at the time by economists such as Franklin H. Knight.
It was not the only occasion as Keynes also criticised Hayek for his book “Prices and Production”, calling it “one of the most frightful muddles I have ever read”.
More recently there was the North American economist and historian Murray Rothbard (1926-1995), father of “anarcho-capitalism”, enemy of all state participation and absolute defender of the privatisation of public goods and services; while in Europe the German “paleolibertarian” Hans-Hermann Hoppe (1949) took centre stage.
“Libertarian Parties” were created in Europe and the USA as well.
With regard to economics, “neoliberal libertarians” want to reduce the state to the minimum or make it disappear; they reject any type of “socialism”.
In addition, they aim to privatise all goods and services in state hands (including social security, medicine, education and even justice and defence); they defend an absolutely free market as well as private enterprise; they consider any type of taxation to be confiscatory and “theft” and -obviously- they maintain that private property is part of the free essence of human beings.
The currents of “anarchist-neoliberalism” are ontological anarchism, ‘propertarianism’, ‘neo-anarcho-individualism’, libertarianism or simply “libertarian”. The ideologies are not only economic but also political and even cultural, as in the case of the historical right-wing neo-hispanism (Spain’s Vox party is the prime mover and there is now an “International Right” that shares its vision) which wants to turn the conquistadors into “liberators” of peoples and the Latin American colonial era into an idyll of coexistence of a sui generis “hispanic supracommunity” of nations.
In Latin America “neoliberal libertarianism” and “anarcho-neoliberalism” used to be little known but they have started to gain adherents.
One of its leading lights at present is the Argentinian Javier Milei, a teacher and far-right parliamentarian, whose libertarianist eccentricities have spread quickly. | https://theprisma.co.uk/2022/03/21/the-anarcho-neoliberalism/ |
Revolt Library >> People >> Mikhail Bakunin >> Browsing By Tag "great masses"
Theory and Practice[Originally published in 1938 by Martin Secker and Warburg Ltd] Anarchism: Its Aims and Purposes; The Proletariat and the Beginning of the Modern Labor Movement; The Forerunners of Syndicalism; The Objectives of Anarcho-Syndicalism; The Methods of Anarcho-Syndicalism; The Evolution of Anarcho-Syndicalism. 1. Anarchism: Its Aims and Purposes Anarchism versus economic monopoly and state power; Forerunners of modern Anarchism; William Godwin and his work on Political Justice; P.J. Proudhon and his ideas of political and economic decentralization; Max Stirner's work, The Ego and Its Own; M. Bakunin the Collectivist and founder of the Anarchist movement; P. Kropotkin the exponent of Anarchist Communism and the philosophy of Mutual Aid; Anarchism and revolution; Anarchism a synthesis of Socialism and Liberalism; Anarchism versus economic materialism and Dictatorship; Anarchism and the state; Anarchism a tendency of his...
Founding of the Worker's International by Mikhail Bakunin 1814-1876 From "The Political Philosophy of Bakunin" by G.P. Maximoff 1953, The Free Press, NY Awakening of Labor on the Eve of the International. In 1863 and 1864, the years of the founding of the International, in nearly all of the countries of Europe, and especially those where modern industry had reached its highest development - in England, France, Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland - two facts made themselves manifest, facts which facilitated and practically made mandatory the creation of the International. The first was the simultaneous awakening in all the countries of the consciousness, courage, and spirit of the workers, following twelve or even fifteen years of a state of d... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
1. The Insufficiency of Economic Materialism THE WILL TO POWER AS A HISTORICAL FACTOR. SCIENCE AND HISTORICAL CONCEPTS. THE INSUFFICIENCY OF ECONOMIC MATERIALISM. THE LAWS OF PHYSICAL LIFE AND "THE PHYSICS OF SOCIETY." THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CONDITIONS OF PRODUCTION. THE EXPEDITIONS OF ALEXANDER. THE CRUSADES. PAPISM AND HERESY. POWER AS A HINDRANCE AND OBSTRUCTION TO ECONOMIC EVOLUTION. THE FATALISM OF "HISTORIC NECESSITIES" AND OF THE "HISTORIC MISSION." ECONOMIC POSITION AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY OF THE BOURGEOISIE. SOCIALISM AND SOCIALISTS. PSYCHIC PRESUPPOSITIONS OF ALL CHANGES IN HISTORY. WAR AND ECONOMY. MONOPOLY AND AUTOCRACY. STATE CAPITALISM. THE DEEPER we trace the political influences in history, the more are we convinced that the "will to power" has up to now been one of the strongest motives in the development of human social forms. The idea that all political and social events are but the result of given economic conditio... | https://www.revoltlib.com/people/mikhail-bakunin/view.php?action=browseByTag&tag=great+masses |
The political and economic ideology that favors the abolition of government and the construction of a society in which people voluntarily organize themselves. Anarchism is one of the most vague and open-ended political ideologies, since its single organizing principle is a hatred for strong government. In the 19th century, some anarchist groups favored the use of violence to galvanize American society into revolution. Other anarchist groups have favored peaceful means of bringing about the abolition of government and centralized authority, and creating a society in which people socialized and cooperated voluntarily. In one of the final chapters of A People’s History, Howard Zinn characterizes an ideal society as one that lacks centralized authority or bureaucracy—suggesting that, even if he’s not a true anarchist, Zinn respects some anarchist ideas. Notable anarchist thinkers include Mikhail Bakunin, Alexander Berkman, and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.
Anarchism Quotes in A People’s History of the United States
The A People’s History of the United States quotes below are all either spoken by Anarchism or refer to Anarchism. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one: Note: all page numbers and citation info for the quotes below refer to the Harper Perennial edition of A People’s History of the United States published in 2015.).
Chapter 23 Quotes
The great problem would be to work out a way of accomplishing this without a centralized bureaucracy, using not the incentives of prison and punishment, but those incentives of cooperation which spring from natural human desires, which in the past have been used by the state in times of war, but also by social movements that gave hints of how people might behave in different conditions. Decisions would be made by small groups of people in their workplaces, their neighborhoods—a network of cooperatives, in communication with one another, a neighborly socialism avoiding the class hierarchies of capitalism and the harsh dictatorships that have taken the name "socialist."
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Anarchism Term Timeline in A People’s History of the United States
The timeline below shows where the term Anarchism appears in A People’s History of the United States. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance. | https://www.litcharts.com/lit/a-people-s-history-of-the-united-states/terms/90d35846-a5e7-4714-971f-7c9e20f56dc7 |
- Editorial.
- 'Nothing is permitted anymore': postanarchism, Gnosticism, and the end of production.
- Building 'another politics': the contemporary anti-authoritarian current in the US and Canada.
- Interpersonal ethics in Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed.
- Louisa Sarah Bevington's letters to Ethel Rolt Wheeler: a catechism in communist anarchy.
- Another view: syndicalism, anarchism and Marxism.
- Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870-1940. The Praxis of National Liberation, Internationalism, and Social Revolution.
- Beating the Fascists: the Untold Story of Anti-Fascist Action.
- Christian Anarchism: A Political Commentary On The Gospel.
- Max Stirner.
- Emma Goldman: Political Thinking in the Streets.
- The Practical Anarchist: Writings of Josiah Warren.
- Anarchism and the Advent of Paris Dada: Art and Criticsm, 1914-1924.
- Remains to be Seen: Tracing Joe Hill's Ashes in New Zealand.
- Rosa Luxemburg: Ideas in action.
- Property is Theft! A Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Anthology.
- New Perspectives on Anarchism, Labour and Syndicalism: the Individual, the National and the Transnational.
- Antifascistas alemanes en Barcelona (1933-1939). El Grupo DAS: sus actividades contra la red nazi y en el frente de Aragon.
- Subverting the Present, Imagining the Future. | https://books-journals.vlex.co.uk/source/anarchist-studies-3123/issue_nbr/%2320%231 |
Part of the series of biographies of Mikhail Bakunin.
From the scattered writings of Bakunin, G.P. Maximoff has selected those pertinent theoretical sections that give the reader a complete statement of Bakunin's politics in Bakunin's own words. In addition to Bakunin's text, the book contains a definitive biographical sketch of Bakunin written by Max Nettlau, an introduction by Rudolph Rocker, and a preface by Bert F. Hoselitz.
After Six Years of Authoritarian Revolution - Max Nettlau
In this short essay written during the 1920s, Max Nettlau discusses the psychological and political impacts of the success of the Soviet dictatorship and the eclipse of libertarian socialism on the workers of Europe, claims that the “taste for freedom” is “almost dead”, predicts that any European revolution in the circumstances of his time would be an authoritarian revolution, and calls for a worldwide libertarian initiative to “create a new mentality” that should embrace all those “movements that still have a basis in voluntarism, free association, federation, the coexistence of various opinions, free experimentation, abstention from the state, and real internationalism”.
Authoritarian Communism and Libertarian Communism - Max Nettlau
This brief survey of the historical and philosophical differences between authoritarian and libertarian communism, written by the anarchist historian Max Nettlau in 1928, exemplifies the “anarchism without adjectives” which, confronted by the Bolshevik experience, reacted by reasserting the particularly liberal and pluralistic roots of the anarchist tradition and denouncing the “doctrinaire rigidity” that hinders the formation of “the great union of all men of good will” that is the only force that can successfully oppose the worldwide trend towards barbarism and fascism.
Fernand Pelloutier and syndicalism - Max Nettlau
A short intellectual biography of one of the founders of French revolutionary syndicalism, Fernand Pelloutier, written in 1932 by the “Herodotus of anarchism”, Max Nettlau, featuring extensive quotations from Pelloutier’s dialogue, What Is the General Strike? (Qu’est-ce que la Grève générale?) (written in collaboration with Henri Girard in 1894) and The Corporative Organization and Anarchy (L'Organisation corporative et l'Anarchie) (1896). | https://libcom.org/tags/max-nettlau |
So says a commie critic of anarchism.
ANOTHER RADICAL doctrine developed during the period of the 1830s– anarchism. Anarchism is often considered to represent current of radical thought that is truly democratic and libertarian. It is hailed in some quarters as the only true political philosophy freedom. The reality is quite different. From its inception anarchism has been a profoundly anti-democratic doctrine. Indeed the two most important founders of anarchism, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Michael Bakunin, developed theories that were elitist and authoritarian to the core. While later anarchists may have abandoned some of the excesses’ of their founding fathers their philosophy remains hostile to ideas of mass democracy and workers’ power.
It is certainly true that anarchism developed in opposition to the growth of capitalist society. What’s more, anarchist hostility to capitalism centered on defence of the liberty of the individual. But the liberty defended by the anarchists was not the freedom of the working class to make collectively a new society. Rather, anarchism defended the freedom of the small property owner–the shopkeeper, artisan and tradesman–against the encroachments of large-scale capitalist enterprise. Anarchism represented the anguished cry of the small property owner against the inevitable advance of capitalism. For that reason, it glorified values from the past: individual property, the patriarchal family, racism. | https://attackthesystem.com/2017/01/20/pierre-joseph-proudhon-neo-confederate-michael-bakunin-right-wing-populist/ |
Intersecting and overlapping between varied colleges of thought, sure topics of interest and inside disputes have proven perennial within anarchist concept. Lawrence Jarach (left) and John Zerzan (right), two prominent up to date anarchist authors. Zerzan is named a main theorist of anarcho-primitivism, while Jarach is a noted advocate of submit-left anarchy. Related to individualist anarchism however distinct from it, is anarcho-capitalism.
The French anarchist journalist Sébastien Faure, later founder and editor of the four-volume Anarchist Encyclopedia, began the weekly paper Le Libertaire (The Libertarian) in 1895. Sylvain Maréchal was personally involved with the Conspiracy of the Equals, a failed attempt at overthrowing the monarchy of France and establishing a stateless, agrarian socialist utopia. He worked with Gracchus Babeuf in not only writing about what an anarchist country would possibly look like, but how will probably be achieved. The two of them had been associates, though did not all the time see eye to eye, significantly with Maréchal’s statement on equality being extra necessary than the arts.
In 1872, the conflict climaxed with a last cut up between the 2 teams at the Hague Congress, the place Bakunin and James Guillaume had been expelled from the International and its headquarters were transferred to New York. In response, the federalist sections formed their very own International at the St. Imier Congress, adopting a revolutionary anarchist program. Anarchism as a social movement has regularly endured fluctuations in recognition. Its classical period, which students demarcate as from 1860 to 1939, is associated with the working-class actions of the nineteenth century and the Spanish Civil War-era struggles in opposition to fascism.
In Denmark, the Freetown Christiania was created in downtown Copenhagen. The housing and employment crisis in most of Western Europe led to the formation of communes and squatter actions like the one still thriving in Barcelona, in Catalonia. Although not always explicitly anarchist, militant resistance to neo-Nazi teams in locations like Germany, and the uprisings of autonomous Marxism, situationist, and Autonomist groups in France and Italy also helped to offer recognition to anti-authoritarian, non-capitalist ideas. In the late 1800’s the Ghadar movement in India (see Har Dayal), influenced by Buddhist thought and by Swami Dayananda Saraswati (founder of Arya Samaj), noticed anarchism as a way of propagating the traditional culture of the Arya. (Not to be confused with the a lot later appropriation of “Aryan” identification by German Fascists).
He proposed the concept of la camaraderie amoureuse to talk of free love as the potential for voluntary sexual encounter between consenting adults. In Germany the stirnerists Adolf Brand and John Henry Mackay have been pioneering campaigners for the acceptance of male bisexuality and homosexuality.
The housing and employment crisis in most of Western Europe led to the formation of communes and squatter actions like that of Barcelona, Spain. In Denmark, squatters occupied a disused military base and declared the Freetown Christiania, an autonomous haven in central Copenhagen. The famous okupas squat close to Parc Güell, overlooking Barcelona. Squatting was a prominent a part of the emergence of renewed anarchist movement from the counterculture of the Nineteen Sixties and Seventies.
Wayne Gabardi, evaluate of Anarchism by David Miller, revealed in American Political Science Review Vol. The Blackwell Dictionary of Modern Social Thought (2nd Edition, p. 12). David Graeber and Andrej Grubacic, “Anarchism, Or The Revolutionary Movement Of The Twenty-first Century”, ZNet. “The Anarchist Tradition of Political Thought.” The Western Political Quarterly, Vol.
19th century philosopher Max Stirner, often thought-about a prominent early individualist anarchist (sketch by Friedrich Engels). Portrait of thinker Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) by Gustave Courbet. Proudhon was the primary proponent of anarchist mutualism, and influenced many later individualist anarchist thinkers. A surge of well-liked interest in anarchism occurred during the Nineteen Sixties and 1970s. In the United Kingdom this was associated with the punk rock motion, as exemplified by bands corresponding to Crass and the Sex Pistols.
- During the upsurge within the revolutionary struggle of the working class, anarchism also deteriorated in other nations.
- The only country in which anarchism continued to exert perceptible affect was Spain, the place in 1926 an anarchist political group, the Federation of Anarchists of Iberia (FAI), was established.
- During the National Revolutionary War in Spain of 1936–39 (Spanish Civil War), some anarchists and their leaders (B. Durruti and others) entered into organized struggle in opposition to fascism.
An early anarchist communist was Joseph Déjacque, the primary particular person to describe himself as “libertarian”. Unlike Proudhon, he argued that, “it’s not the product of his or her labor that the employee has a right to, however to the satisfaction of his or her wants, no matter could also be their nature”. According to the anarchist historian Max Nettlau, the primary use of the time period libertarian communism was in November 1880, when a French anarchist congress employed it to extra clearly establish its doctrines.
Types Of Anarchism
They sprung up by means of employees’ self-management after the autumn of Charles I. Anarcho-communist currents appeared in the course of the English Civil War and the French Revolution of the seventeenth and 18th centuries, respectively. Lahontan’s 1703 novel documented the writer’s experiences with varied indigenous American tribes and cultures.
The novel explores varied agrarian socialist societies and how they were able to present property for all their inhabitants by way of collective possession. The recurring theme of these many cultures had been their non-hierarchical construction, early egalitarian types of living and how mutual aid played a significant function in maintaining well being. Berry, David, A History of the French Anarchist Movement, 1917–1945 p. 134. “What my might reaches is my property; and let me claim as property every thing I feel myself sturdy enough to achieve, and let me extend my precise property as fas as I entitle, that is, empower myself to take…” In Ossar, Michael.
During the French Revolution, Sylvain Maréchal, in his Manifesto of the Equals , demanded “the communal enjoyment of the fruits of the earth” and appeared forward to the disappearance of “the revolting distinction of wealthy and poor, of great and small, of masters and valets, of governors and ruled”. Maréchal was important not only of the unequal distribution of property, but how religion would usually be used to justify evangelical immorality. He seen the hyperlink between faith and what later got here to be generally known as capitalism (although not in his time) as two sides of the same corrupted coin. He had once stated, “Do not be afraid of your God – be afraid of your self. You are the creator of your personal troubles and joys. Heaven and hell are in your own soul”. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, widespread possession of land and property was rather more prevalent throughout the European continent, but the Diggers were set apart by their struggle against monarchical rule.
The usage of violence is a subject of a lot dispute in anarchism. In Europe the main propagandist of free love inside individualist anarchism was Emile Armand.
Video: People In Denmark Are A Lot Happier Than People In The United States. Here’s Why.
Expelled American anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman were amongst those agitating in response to Bolshevik coverage and the suppression of the Kronstadt uprising, before they left Russia. Both wrote accounts of their experiences in Russia, criticizing the quantity of control the Bolsheviks exercised. For them, Bakunin’s predictions in regards to the consequences of Marxist rule that the rulers of the new “socialist” Marxist state would become a new elite had proved all too true. Anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman opposed Bolshevik consolidation of power following the Russian Revolution . | https://www.ffs-dz.com/anarchism-and-the-united-states-4.html |
Before the professionalisation of academia the distinctions between disciplines were not clear. As such, much of the classical canon of anarchism can in many ways be seen to be crossing disciplines. The following is a rudimentary list of classic and contemporary statements of anarchist philosophy.
Bakunin, M. (1970). God and the State New York, Dover Publications.
Bookchin, Murray (1990) The Philosophy of Social Ecology. Essays on Dialectical Naturalism, Black Rose Books
Call, L. (2002). Postmodern anarchism. Lanham ; Oxford, Lexington.
Carter, A. (2000). Analytical Anarchism: Some Conceptual Foundations Political Theory 28(2): 230-253.
Clark, J. P. (1977). The philosophical anarchism of William Godwin Princeton ; Guildford, Princeton University Press.
Clark, S. (2007). Living without domination: the possibility of an anarchist utopia Aldershot, Ashgate.
Cohn, J. S. (2006). Anarchism and the crisis of representation: hermeneutics, aesthetics, politics. Selinsgrove,[Pa.], Susquehanna University Press.
Colson, D. (2001). Petit lexique philosophique de l'anarchisme: De Proudhon à Deluze. Paris, Librairie Général Française.
Critchley, S. (2007). Infinitely demanding: ethics of commitment, politics of resistance. London, Verso.
Day, R. J. F. (2005). Gramsci is dead: anarchist currents in the newest social movements. London, Pluto Press
Feyerabend, P. (1975). Against Method: Outline of an anarchistic theory of knowledge. London, NLB.
Franks, B. (2006). Rebel alliances: the means and ends of contemporary British anarchisms. Edinburgh, AK.
Koch, A. M. (1993). Poststructuralism and the Epistemological Basis of Anarchism. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 23(3): 327-351.
May, T. (1994). The Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism. Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania State University Press.
McLaughlin, P. (2002). Mikhail Bakunin: the philosophical basis of his theory of anarchism. New York, Algora Pub.
McLaughlin, P. (2007). Anarchism and authority: a philosophical introduction to classical anarchism. Aldershot, Ashgate.
Morland, D. (1997). Demanding the Impossible? Human Nature and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Social Anarchism, London, Cassell.
Moore, J. and S. Sunshine (2004). I am not a man, I am dynamite!: Friedrich Nietzsche and the anarchist tradition. New York, Autonomedia ; [London : Pluto].
Newman, S. (2001). From Bakunin to Lacan: Anti-Authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power. London, Lexington.
Proudhon, P.-J. (1846). Système des Contradictions Économiques, ou la philosophie de la misère. Paris, Guillaumin.
Proudhon, P.-J. (1849). De la Creation de l'Ordre dans l'Humanité, ou principes d'organisation politique. Paris, Garnier.
Proudhon, P.-J. (1988). De la Justice dans la Révolution et dans l'Église: Études de philosophie pratique (1860). Paris, Fayard.
Robinson, A. (2004). John Rawls and oppressive discourse. Nottingham, University of Nottingham University of Nottingham: 1 v. (PhD Dissertation)
Riviale, P. (2003). Proudhon: La Justice, contre le souverain. Tentative d'examen d'une théorie de la justice fondée sur l'équilibre économique. Paris, L'Harmattan.
Stirner, M. (1995). The ego and its own. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Tormey, S. (2001). Agnes Heller: socialism, autonomy and the postmodern. Manchester, Manchester University Press.
Vernon, Richard (2007) 'Obligation by Association? A Reply to John Horton' Political Studies 55:4, 865-879
Wolff, R. P. (1998). In Defence of Anarchism. Berkeley, Calif., University of California Press.
Weiss, T. G. (1975). "The Tradition of Philosophical Anarchism and Future Directions in World Policy." Journal of Peace Research 12: 1-17. | http://anarchist-studies-network.org.uk/ReadingLists_Philosophy |
An anarchist (Anarquista in Spanish) is that individual who believes in freedom and individual autonomy, he shields himself in the revolt of man of all classes and all hierarchical positions.
He considers institutions as repressive, unnatural, anti-human and therefore unnecessary.
SYNONYMS FOR Anarquista
- An anarchist
- Revolutionary
- Libertarian
- Agitator
- Disruptive
ORIGIN OF Anarquista
Anarchism is a philosophical and political doctrine that was born in the nineteenth century and advocates the abolition of the state, as well as any organization and any form of claim to exercise any form of domination and control over society.
The pioneer of this idelogy was the Englishman William Godwin and it was later widely defended by authors such as Mikhail Bakunin, Max Stirner, Joseph Proudhon, Leo Tolstoy and Piotr Kropotkin.
The general idea of an anarchist is to consider the State as something unnecessary and also directly a monstrous and harmful entity insofar as it goes against the freedom of the individual as well as collective freedom.
This movement has its emergence in the framework of the 19th century socialism and communist doctrine, both representatives of the movements of the political left.
Although all these disciplines are manifested from a critical perspective towards the capitalist model, anarchism possesses autonomous characteristics that make it considerably and widely different from traditional communism.
This idea is one of the inspirational sources of anarchism.
The thesis was expounded for the first time in the 18th century by the Frenchman Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who held the idea that man is good by nature, but that society, i.e. the State or social institutions, corrupts him.
CURIOSITIES OF Anarquista
Given its autonomous discursive characteristics, anarchism is not a unitary movement, but there are different classes, types and tendencies. The main ones are: individualism anarchism and collectivist anarchism. | https://www.que-quiere-decir.com/en/anarquista/ |
This article is about the Russian anarchist. For the television character, see Characters of Lost.
Mikhail Bakunin Born Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin
May 30, 1814
Pryamukhino (near Torzhok), Russian Empire
Died July 1, 1876(aged 62)
Bern, Switzerland
Organization League of Peace and Freedom, International Working Men's Association Influenced by Hegel, Proudhon, Feuerbach, Herzen, Ogarev, Marx, Tschaadaev, Akstantin Influenced Belinsky, Nechayev, Kropotkin, Goldman, Makhno, Most, Malatesta, Chomsky, Situationist International Political movement Anarchism (Collectivist anarchism)
Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin (Russian: Михаи́л Алекса́ндрович Баку́нин, IPA: [mʲɪxɐˈil ˌbaˈkunʲin]; 30 May [O.S. 18 May] 1814 – 1 July 1876) was a well-known Russian revolutionary and theorist of collectivist anarchism. He has also often been called the father of anarchist theory in general. Bakunin grew up near Moscow, where he moved to study philosophy and began to read the French Encyclopedists, leading to enthusiasm for the philosophy of Fichte. From Fichte, Bakunin went on to immerse himself in the works of Hegel, the most influential thinker among German intellectuals at the time. That led to his wholehearted embrace of Hegelianism, as he became bedazzled by Hegel's famous maxim; "Everything that exists is rational". In 1840 Bakunin traveled to St. Petersburgh and Berlin, preparing himself for a professorship in philosophy or history at the University of Moscow.
Bakunin moved from Berlin, in 1842, to Dresden. Eventually he arrived in Paris, where he met George Sand, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Karl Marx. He was eventually deported from France for speaking against Russia's oppression of Poland. In 1849 he was apprehended in Dresden for his participation in the Czech rebellion of 1848. He was turned over to Russia where he was imprisoned in Peter-Paul Fortress in Saint Petersburg. He remained there until 1857, when he was exiled to a work camp in Siberia. Escaping to Japan, the USA and finally ending up in London for a short time, he worked with Herzen on the journal Kolokol ("The Bell"). In 1863, he left to join the insurrection in Poland, but he failed to reach his destination and spent some time in Switzerland and Italy. Despite his criminal status, Bakunin gained great influence with the youth in Russia, and all of Europe. In 1870, he was involved in the insurrection in Lyon, which foreshadowed the Paris Commune.
In 1868, Bakunin joined the International Working Men's Association, a federation of trade union organizations with sections in most European countries. The 1872 Congress was dominated by a struggle between Marx and his followers who argued for parliamentary electoral participation and a faction around Bakunin who opposed it. Bakunin's faction lost the vote, and he was eventually expelled for supposedly maintaining a secret organisation within the international. The anarchists insisted the congress was rigged, and so held their own conference of the International at Saint-Imier in Switzerland in 1872. From 1870 to 1876, he wrote much of his seminal work such as Statism and Anarchy and God and the State. Despite his declining health, he tried to take part in an insurrection in Bologna, but was forced to return to Switzerland in disguise, and settled in Lugano. He remained active in the worker's movement of Europe until further health problems caused him to be moved to a hospital in Bern, where he died in 1876.
Contents
- 1 Early years
- 2 Career
- 3 Political beliefs
- 4 Influence
- 5 Criticism
- 6 Works about Bakunin
- 7 See also
- 8 References
- 9 Further reading
- 10 External links
Early years
In the spring of 1814, Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin "was born to a noble family of only modest means", the family owned only 500 serfs, in the village of Pryamukhino (Прямухино) between Torzhok (Торжок) and Kuvshinovo (Кувшиново), in Tver guberniya, northwest of Moscow. His father was a career diplomat who, as a young attache, had lived for years in Florence and Naples. Upon his return to Russia, he settled down on his paternal estate where at the age of forty, he married an eighteen-year-old girl from the prominent Muraviev family. Given to liberal ideas, he was for a while platonically involved with one of the Decembrist clubs. After Nicolas I became Tsar , however, Bakunin senior gave up politics and devoted himself to the care of his estate and the education of his children, five girls and five boys, the oldest of whom was Michael.
At the age of 14 Michael left for Saint Petersburg, receiving military training at the Artillery University, "a rigid, anti-Western military school, where he chafed at the arbitrary discipline and the narrow curriculum—much less encompassing than the homeschooling he had experienced before." He was "expelled from school in 1834 for poor grades and assigned to barracks on the Polish frontier." He was commissioned a junior officer in the Russian Imperial Guard and sent to Minsk and Gardinas in Lithuania (now Belarus). That summer, Bakunin became embroiled in a family row, taking his sister’s side in rebellion to an unhappy marriage. Though his father wished him to continue in either the military or the civil service, Bakunin abandoned both in 1835, and made his way to Moscow, hoping to study philosophy.
Career
Interest in philosophy
In Moscow, Bakunin soon became friends with a group of former university students, and engaged in the systematic study of Idealist philosophy, grouped around the poet Nikolay Stankevich, “the bold pioneer who opened to Russian thought the vast and fertile continent of German metaphysics” (E. H. Carr). The philosophy of Kant initially was central to their study, but then progressed to Schelling, Fichte, and Hegel. By autumn of 1835, Bakunin had conceived of forming a philosophical circle in his home town of Pryamukhino; a passionate environment for the young people involved. For example, Vissarion Belinsky fell in love with one of Bakunin’s sisters. Moreover, by early 1836, Bakunin was back in Moscow, where he published translations of Fichte’s Some Lectures Concerning the Scholar's Vocation and The Way to a Blessed Life, which became his favorite book. With Stankevich he also read Goethe, Schiller, and E.T.A. Hoffmann.
He became increasingly influenced by Hegel and provided the first Russian translation of his work. During this period he met slavophile Konstantin Aksakov, Piotr Tschaadaev and the socialists Alexander Herzen and Nikolay Ogarev. In this period he began to develop his panslavic views. After long wrangles with his father, Bakunin went to Berlin in 1840. His stated plan at the time was still to become a university professor (a “priest of truth,” as he and his friends imagined it), but he soon encountered and joined students of the "Young Hegelians" and the socialist movement in Berlin. In his 1842 essay The Reaction in Germany, he argued in favor of the revolutionary role of negation, summed up in the phrase "the passion for destruction is a creative passion."
After three semesters in Berlin, Bakunin went to Dresden where he became friends with Arnold Ruge. Here he also read Lorenz von Stein's Der Sozialismus und Kommunismus des heutigen Frankreich and developed a passion for socialism. He abandoned his interest in an academic career, devoting more and more of his time to promoting revolution. The Russian government, becoming aware of this activity ,ordered him to return to Russia. On his refusal his property was confiscated. Instead he went with Georg Herwegh to Zürich, Switzerland.
Switzerland, Brussels, Prague, Dresden and Paris
During his six month stay in Zürich, he became closely associated with German communist Wilhelm Weitling. Until 1848 he remained on friendly terms with the German communists, occasionally calling himself a communist and writing articles on communism in the Schweitzerische Republikaner. He moved to Geneva in western Switzerland shortly before Weitling's arrest. His name had appeared frequently in Weitling's correspondence seized by the police. This led to reports being circulated to the imperial police. The Russian ambassador in Bern ordered Bakunin to return to Russia, but instead he went to Brussels, where he met many leading Polish nationalists, such as Joachim Lelewel, co-member with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels at Brussels. Lelewel greatly influenced him, however he clashed with the Polish nationalists over their demand for a historic Poland based on the borders of 1776 (before the Partitions of Poland) as he defended the right of autonomy for the non-Polish peoples in these territories. He also did not support their clericalism and they did not support his calls for the emancipation of the peasantry.
In 1844 Bakunin went to Paris, then a centre of the European political current. He established contacts with Karl Marx and the anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who greatly impressed him and with whom he formed a personal bond. In December 1844, Emperor Nicholas issued a decree stripping Bakunin of his privileges as a noble, denying him civil rights, confiscating his land in Russia, and condemning him to life long exile in Siberia should the Russian authorities ever get their hands on him. He responded with a long letter to La Réforme, denouncing the Emperor as a despot and calling for democracy in Russia and Poland (Carr, p. 139). In March 1846 in another letter to the Constitutionel he defended Poland, following the repression of Catholics there. Some Polish refugees from Kraków, following the defeat of the uprising there, invited him to speak at the meeting in November 1847 commemorating the Polish November Uprising of 1830.
In his speech, Bakunin called for an alliance between the Polish and Russian peoples against the Emperor, and looked forward to "the definitive collapse of despotism in Russia." As a result, he was expelled from France and went to Brussels. Bakunin's attempt to draw Alexander Herzen and Vissarion Belinsky into conspiratorial action for revolution in Russia fell on deaf ears. In Brussels, Bakunin renewed his contacts with revolutionary Poles and Karl Marx. He spoke at a meeting organised by Lelewel in February 1848 about a great future for the slavs, whose destiny was to rejuvenate the Western world. Around this time the Russian embassy circulated rumours that Bakunin was a Russian agent who had exceeded his orders.
As the revolutionary movement of 1848 broke out, Bakunin was ecstatic, despite disappointment that little was happening in Russia. Bakunin obtained funding from some socialists in the Provisional Government, Ferdinand Flocon, Louis Blanc, Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin and Albert L'Ouvrier, for a project for a Slav federation liberating those under the rule of Prussia, Austro-Hungary and Turkey. He left for Germany travelling through Baden to Frankfurt and Köln.
Bakunin supported the German Democratic Legion led by Herwegh in an abortive attempt to join Friedrich Hecker's insurrection in Baden. He broke with Marx over the latter's criticism of Herwegh. Much later in 1871 Bakunin was to write: “I must openly admit that in this controversy Marx and Engels were in the right. With characteristic insolence, they attacked Herwegh personally when he was not there to defend himself. In a face-to-face confrontation with them, I heatedly defended Herwegh, and our mutual dislike began then.”
Bakunin went on to Berlin, but was stopped from going to Posen by the police, which was part of Polish territories gained by Prussia in the Partitions of Poland, where a nationalist insurrection was taking place. Instead Bakunin went to Leipzig and Breslau, then to Prague where he participated in the First Pan Slav Congress. The Congress was followed by an abortive insurrection that Bakunin had sought to promote and intensify but which was violently suppressed. He returned to Breslau, where Marx republished the allegation that Bakunin was an imperial agent, claiming that George Sand had proof. Marx retracted the statement after George Sand came to Bakunin's defense.
Bakunin published his Appeal to the Slavs in the fall of 1848, in which he proposed that Slav revolutionaries unite with Hungarian, Italian and German revolutionaries to overthrow the three major European autocracies, the Russian Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Kingdom of Prussia.
Bakunin played a leading role in the May Uprising in Dresden in 1849, helping to organize the defense of the barricades against Prussian troops with Richard Wagner and Wilhelm Heine. He was captured in Chemnitz and held for thirteen months before being condemned to death by the government of Saxony. As the governments of Russia and Austria were also after him, his sentence was commuted to life. In June 1850, he was handed over to the Austrian authorities. Eleven months later he received a further death sentence, but this too was commuted to life imprisonment. Finally, in May 1851, Bakunin was handed over to the Russian authorities.
Richard Wagner wrote in his diary about Bakunin's visit:
“ First of all, however, with the view of adapting himself to the most Philistine culture, he had to submit his huge beard and bushy hair to the tender mercies of the razor and shears. As no barber was available, Rockel had to undertake the task. A small group of friends watched the operation, which had to be executed with a dull razor, causing no little pain, under which none but the victim himself remained passive. We bade farewell to Bakunin with the firm conviction that we should never see him again alive. But in a week he was back once more, as he had realised immediately what a distorted account he had received as to the state of things in Prague, where all he found ready for him was a mere handful of childish students. These admissions made him the butt of Rockel's good-humoured chaff, and after this he won the reputation among us of being a mere revolutionary, who was content with theoretical conspiracy. Very similar to his expectations from the Prague students were his presumptions with regard to the Russian people. ”
Imprisonment, "confession", and exile
Bakunin was taken to the notorious Peter and Paul Fortress. At the beginning of his captivity, Count Orlov, an emissary of the Emperor, visited Bakunin and told him that the Emperor requested a written confession hoping that the confession would place Bakunin spiritually as well as physically in the power of the Russian state. Since all his acts were known, he had no secrets to reveal, and so he decided to write to the Emperor:
“ You want my confession; but you must know that a penitent sinner is not obliged to implicate or reveal the misdeeds of others. I have only the honor and the conscience that I have never betrayed anyone who has confided in me, and this is why I will not give you any names. ”
After three years in the underground dungeons of the Fortress of St Peter and St Paul, he spent another four years in the castle of Shlisselburg. It was here that he suffered from scurvy and all his teeth fell out as a result of the appalling diet. He later recounted that he found some relief in mentally re-enacting the legend of Prometheus. His continuing imprisonment in these awful conditions led him to entreat his brother to supply him with poison.
Following the death of Nicholas I, the new Emperor Alexander II personally struck Bakunin's name off the amnesty list. In February 1857 his mother's pleas to the Emperor were finally heeded and he was allowed to go into permanent exile in the western Siberian city of Tomsk. Within a year of arriving in Tomsk, Bakunin married Antonia Kwiatkowska, the daughter of a Polish merchant. He had been teaching her French. In August 1858 Bakunin received a visit from his second cousin, General Count Nikolay Muravyov-Amursky, who had been governor of Eastern Siberia for ten years.
Muravyov was a liberal and Bakunin, as his relative, became a particular favourite. In the spring of 1859 Muravyov helped Bakunin with a job for Amur Development Agency which enabled him to move with his wife to Irkutsk, the capital of Eastern Siberia. This enabled Bakunin to be part of the circle involved in political discussions centred on Muravyov's colonial headquarters. Resenting the treatment of the colony by the Saint Petersburg bureaucracy, including its use as a dumping ground for malcontents, a proposal for a United States of Siberia emerged, independent of Russia and federated into a new United States of Siberia and America, following the example of the United States of America. The circle included Muravyov's young Chief of Staff, Kukel – who Kropotkin related had the complete works of Alexander Herzen – the civil governor Izvolsky, who allowed Bakunin to use his address for correspondence, and Muravyov's deputy and eventual successor, General Alexander Dondukov-Korsakov.
When Herzen criticised Muravyov in The Bell, Bakunin wrote vigorously in his patron's defence. Bakunin tired of his job as a commercial traveller, but thanks to Muravyov's influence, was able to keep his sinecure (worth 2,000 roubles a year) without having to perform any duties. Muravyov was forced to retire from his post as governor general, partly because of his liberal views and partly due to fears he might take Siberia towards independence. He was replaced by Korsakov, who perhaps was even more sympathetic to the plight of the Siberian exiles. Korsakov was also related to Bakunin, Bakunin's brother Paul having married his cousin. Taking Bakunin's word, Korsakov issued him with a letter giving him passage on all ships on the Amur River and its tributaries as long as he was back in Irkutsk when the ice came.
Escape from exile and return to Europe
On June 5, 1861, Bakunin left Irkutsk under cover of company business, ostensibly employed by a Siberian merchant to make a trip to Nikolaevsk[disambiguation needed ]. By July 17 he was on board the Russian warship Strelok bound for Kastri[disambiguation needed ]. However, in the port of Olga, Bakunin managed to persuade the American captain of the SS Vickery to take him on board. Despite bumping into the Russian Consul on board, Bakunin was able to sail away under the nose of the Russian Imperial Navy. By August 6 he had reached Hakodate in the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaidō and was soon in Yokohama. In Japan Bakunin met by chance Wilhelm Heine, one of his comrades-in arms from Dresden. He also met the German botanist Philipp Franz von Siebold who had been involved in opening up Japan to Europeans (particularly Russians and the Dutch) and was a friend of Bakunin's patron Muraviev. Von Siebold's son wrote some 40 years later:
“ In that Yokohama boarding-house we encountered an outlaw from the Wild West Heine, presumably as well as many other interesting guests. The presence of the Russian revolutionist Michael Bakunin, in flight from Siberia, was as far as one could see being winked at by the authorities. He was well-endowed with money, and none who came to know him could fail to pay their respects. ”
He left Japan from Kanagawa on the SS Carrington, as one of nineteen passengers including Heine, Rev. P. F. Koe and Joseph Heco. Heco was a Japanese American, who eight years later played a significant role giving political advice to Kido Takayoshi and Itō Hirobumi during the revolutionary overthrow of the feudal Tokugawa shogunate. They arrived in San Francisco on October 15. In the period before the transcontinental railroads had been completed, the quickest way to New York was via Panama. Bakunin boarded the Orizaba for Panama, where after waiting for two weeks he boarded the Champion for New York.
In Boston, Bakunin visited Karol Forster, a partisan of Ludwik Mieroslawski during the 1848 Revolution in Paris, and caught up with other "Forty-Eighters", veterans of the 1848 revolutions in Europe, such as Friedrich Kapp. He then sailed for Liverpool arriving on December 27. Bakunin immediately went to London to see Herzen. That evening he burst into the drawing-room where the family was having supper. "What! Are you sitting down eating oysters! Well! Tell me the news. What is happening, and where?!"
Relocation to Italy
Having re-entered Western Europe, Bakunin immediately immersed himself in the revolutionary movement. In 1860, while still in Irkutsk Bakunin and his political associates had been greatly impressed by Giuseppe Garibaldi and his expedition to Sicily, during which he declared himself dictator in the name of Victor Emmanuel II. Following his return to London, he wrote to Garibaldi on 31 January 1862:
- If you could have seen as I did the passionate enthusiasm of the whole town of Irkutsk, the capital of Eastern Siberia, at the news of your triumphal march across the possession of the mad king of Naples, you would have said as I did that there is no longer space or frontiers.
Bakunin asked Garibaldi to participate in a movement encompassing Italians, Hungarians and South Slavs against both Austria and Turkey. Garibaldi was then engaged in preparations for the Expedition against Rome. By May Bakunin's correspondence was focussing on Italian-slavic unity and the developments in Poland. By June, he had resolved to move to Italy, but was waiting for his wife to join him. When he left for Italy in August, Mazzini wrote to Maurizio Quadrio, one of his key supporters that Bakunin was a good and dependable person. However, with the news of the failure at Aspromonte Bakunin paused in Paris where he was briefly involved with Ludwik Mierosławski. However Bakunin rejected Mieroslawski's chauvinism and refusal to grant any concessions to the peasants. Bakunin returned to England in September and focussed on Polish affairs. When the Polish insurrection broke out in January 1863, he sailed to Copenhagen where he hoped to join the Polish Legion[disambiguation needed ]. They planned to sail across the Baltic in the SS Ward Jackson to join the insurrection. This attempt failed, and Bakunin met his wife in Stockholm before returning to London. Now he focussed again on going to Italy and his friend Aurelio Saffi wrote him letters of introduction for Florence, Turin and Milan. Mazzini wrote letters of commendation to Frederico Campanella in Genoa and Giuseppe Dolfi in Florence. Bakunin left London in November 1863 travelling by way of Brussels, Paris and Vevey (Switzerland) arriving in Italy on 11 January 1864. It was here that he first began to develop his anarchist ideas.
He conceived the plan of forming a secret organization of revolutionaries to carry on propaganda work and prepare for direct action. He recruited Italians, Frenchmen, Scandinavians, and Slavs into the International Brotherhood, also called the Alliance of Revolutionary Socialists.
By July 1866 Bakunin was informing Herzen and Ogarev about the fruits of his work over the previous two years. His secret society then had members in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, England, France, Spain, and Italy, as well as Polish and Russian members. In his Catechism of a Revolutionary of 1866, he opposed religion and the state, advocating the "absolute rejection of every authority including that which sacrifices freedom for the convenience of the state."
During the 1867–1868 period, Bakunin responded to Emile Acollas's call and became involved in the League of Peace and Freedom (LPF), for which he wrote a lengthy essay Federalism, Socialism, and Anti-Theologism Here he advocated a federalist socialism, drawing on the work of Proudhon. He supported freedom of association and the right of secession for each unit of the federation, but emphasized that this freedom must be joined with socialism for: "Liberty without socialism is privilege, injustice; socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality."
Bakunin played a prominent role in the Geneva Conference (September 1867), and joined the Central Committee. The founding conference was attended by 6,000 people. As Bakunin rose to speak:the cry passed from mouth to mouth: 'Bakunin!' Garibaldi, who was in the chair, stood up, advanced a few steps and embraced him. This solemn meeting of two old and tried warriors of the revolution produced an astonishing impression... Everyone rose and there was a prolonged and enthusiastic clapping of hands.
At the Bern Congress of the League (1868) he and other socialists (Élisée Reclus, Aristide Rey, Jaclard, Giuseppe Fanelli, N. Joukovsky, V. Mratchkovsky and others) found themselves in a minority. They seceded from the League establishing their own International Alliance of Socialist Democracy which adopted a revolutionary socialist program.
The First International and the rise of the anarchist movement
In 1868, Bakunin joined the Geneva section of the First International, in which he remained very active until he was expelled from the International by Karl Marx and his followers at the Hague Congress in 1872. Bakunin was instrumental in establishing branches of the International in Italy and Spain.
In 1869, the Social Democratic Alliance was refused entry to the First International, on the grounds that it was an international organisation in itself, and only national organisations were permitted membership in the International. The Alliance dissolved and the various groups which it comprised joined the International separately.
Between 1869 and 1870, Bakunin became involved with the Russian revolutionary Sergey Nechayev in a number of clandestine projects. However, Bakunin broke with Nechaev over what he described as the latter’s “Jesuit” methods, by which all means were justified to achieve revolutionary ends.
In 1870 Bakunin led a failed uprising in Lyon on the principles later exemplified by the Paris Commune, calling for a general uprising in response to the collapse of the French government during the Franco-Prussian War, seeking to transform an imperialist conflict into social revolution. In his Letters to A Frenchman on the Present Crisis, he argued for a revolutionary alliance between the working class and the peasantry and set forth his formulation of what was later to become known as propaganda of the deed:
“ we must spread our principles, not with words but with deeds, for this is the most popular, the most potent, and the most irresistible form of propaganda. ”
Bakunin was a strong supporter of the Paris Commune of 1871, which was brutally suppressed by the French government. He saw the Commune as above all a “rebellion against the State,” and commended the Communards for rejecting not only the State but also revolutionary dictatorship. In a series of powerful pamphlets, he defended the Commune and the First International against the Italian nationalist Giuseppe Mazzini, thereby winning over many Italian republicans to the International and the cause of revolutionary socialism.
Bakunin’s disagreements with Marx, which led to Bakunin’s expulsion from the International in 1872 after being outvoted by the Marx party at the Hague Congress, illustrated the growing divergence between the "anti-authoritarian" sections of the International, which advocated the direct revolutionary action and organization of the workers in order to abolish the state and capitalism, and the social democratic sections allied with Marx, which advocated the conquest of political power by the working class. Bakunin was "Marx’s flamboyant chief opponent" at the Hague meeting, and "presciently warned against the emergence of a communist authoritarianism that would take power over working people."
The anti-authoritarian sections created their own International at the St. Imier Congress and adopted a revolutionary anarchist program. Although Bakunin accepted Marx’s class analysis and economic theories regarding capitalism, acknowledging "Marx’s genius", he thought Marx was arrogant, and that his methods would compromise the social revolution. More importantly, Bakunin criticized "authoritarian socialism" (which he associated with Marxism) and the concept of dictatorship of the proletariat which he adamantly refused.
“ If you took the most ardent revolutionary, vested him in absolute power, within a year he would be worse than the Tsar himself. ”
Bakunin retired to Lugano in 1873 and died in Bern on July 1, 1876.
Political beliefs
Bakunin’s political beliefs rejected governing systems in every name and shape, from the idea of God downwards, and every form of external authority, whether emanating from the will of a sovereign or from universal suffrage. He wrote in Dieu et l’Etat (God and the State), published posthumously in 1882:
“ The liberty of man consists solely in this, that he obeys the laws of nature because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been imposed upon him externally by any foreign will whatsoever, human or divine, collective or individual. ”
Bakunin similarly rejected the notion of any privileged position or class, since
“ it is the peculiarity of privilege and of every privileged position to kill the intellect and heart of man. The privileged man, whether he be privileged politically or economically, is a man depraved in intellect and heart. ”
Bakunin's political beliefs were based on several interrelated concepts: (1) liberty; (2) socialism; (3) federalism; (4) anti-theism; and (5) materialism. He also developed a (resultantly prescient) critique of Marxism, predicting that if the Marxists were successful in seizing power, they would create a party dictatorship "all the more dangerous because it appears as a sham expression of the people's will."
Liberty
By "liberty", Bakunin did not mean an abstract ideal but a concrete reality based on the equal liberty of others. In a positive sense, liberty consists of "the fullest development of all the faculties and powers of every human being, by education, by scientific training, and by material prosperity." Such a conception of liberty is "eminently social, because it can only be realized in society," not in isolation. In a negative sense, liberty is "the revolt of the individual against all divine, collective, and individual authority."
Collectivist anarchism
Bakunin's socialism was known as "collectivist anarchism", in which the workers would directly manage the means of production through their own productive associations. There would be "equal means of subsistence, support, education, and opportunity for every child, boy or girl, until maturity, and equal resources and facilities in adulthood to create his own well-being by his own labor."
Federalism
By federalism Bakunin meant the organization of society "from the base to the summit—from the circumference to the center—according to the principles of free association and federation." Consequently, society would be organized "on the basis of the absolute freedom of individuals, of the productive associations, and of the communes," with "every individual, every association, every commune, every region, every nation" having "the absolute right to self-determination, to associate or not to associate, to ally themselves with whomever they wish."
Anti-theologism
Bakunin argued that "the idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive negation of human liberty, and necessarily ends in the enslavement of mankind, in theory and practice." Consequently, Bakunin reversed Voltaire's famous aphorism that if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him, writing instead that "if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish Him."
Materialism
Bakunin denied religious concepts of "free will" and advocated a materialist explanation of natural phenomena: "the manifestations of organic life, chemical properties and reactions, electricity, light, warmth and the natural attraction of physical bodies, constitute in our view so many different but no less closely interdependent variants of that totality of real beings which we call matter" (Selected Writings, page 219). The "mission of science is, by observation of the general relations of passing and real facts, to establish the general laws inherent in the development of the phenomena of the physical and social world." However, Bakunin rejected the notion of "scientific socialism," writing in God and the State that a "scientific body to which had been confided the government of society would soon end by devoting itself no longer to science at all, but to quite another affair... its own eternal perpetuation by rendering the society confided to its care ever more stupid and consequently more in need of its government and direction."
Bakunin’s methods of realizing his revolutionary program were consistent with his principles. The workers and peasants were to organize on a federalist basis, "creating not only the ideas, but also the facts of the future itself." The worker's trade union associations would "take possession of all the tools of production as well as buildings and capital." The peasants were to "take the land and throw out those landlords who live by the labor of others." Bakunin looked to "the rabble," the great masses of the poor and exploited, the so-called "lumpenproletariat," to "inaugurate and bring to triumph the Social Revolution," as they were "almost unpolluted by bourgeois civilization."
Critique of Marxism
The dispute between Mikhail Bakunin and Karl Marx highlighted the differences between anarchism and Marxism. Bakunin argued—against certain ideas of a number of Marxists—that not all revolutions need be violent. He also strongly rejected Marx's concept of the "dictatorship of the proletariat", a concept that Marx's modern adherents use to interpret to mean what would be described as a "workers democracy", but which also maintains the state in existence during the transition to the Marxist economical system of "communism". Bakunin, "who had now abandoned his ideas of revolutionary dictatorship", insisted that revolutions must be led by the people directly while any "enlightened elite" must only exert influence by remaining "invisible...not imposed on anyone...[and] deprived of all official rights and significance". He held that the state should be immediately abolished because all forms of government eventually lead to oppression.
“ They [the Marxists] maintain that only a dictatorship—their dictatorship, of course—can create the will of the people, while our answer to this is: No dictatorship can have any other aim but that of self-perpetuation, and it can beget only slavery in the people tolerating it; freedom can be created only by freedom, that is, by a universal rebellion on the part of the people and free organization of the toiling masses from the bottom up. ”
While both social anarchists and Marxists share the same final goal, the creation of a free, egalitarian society without social classes and government, they strongly disagree on how to achieve this goal. Anarchists believe that the classless, stateless society should be established by the direct action of the masses, culminating in social revolution, and refuse any intermediate stage such as the dictatorship of the proletariat, on the basis that such a dictatorship will become a self-perpetuating fundament. For Bakunin, the fundamental contradiction is that for the Marxists, "anarchism or freedom is the aim, while the state and dictatorship is the means, and so, in order to free the masses, they have first to be enslaved."
However, Bakunin also wrote of meeting Marx in 1844 thatAs far as learning was concerned, Marx was, and still is, incomparably more advanced than I. I knew nothing at that time of political economy, I had not yet rid myself of my metaphysical observations... He called me a sentimental idealist and he was right; I called him a vain man, perfidious and crafty, and I also was right.
Bakunin found Marx's economic analysis very useful and began the job of translating Das Kapital into Russian. In turn Marx wrote of the rebels in the Dresden insurrection of 1848 that "In the Russian refugee Michael Bakunin they found a capable and cool headed leader." Marx wrote to Engels of meeting Bakunin in 1864 after his escape to Siberia saying "On the whole he is one of the few people whom I find not to have retrogressed after 16 years, but to have developed further."
Bakunin was perhaps the first theorist of the "new class", the intellectuals and administrators forming the bureaucratic apparatus of the state. Bakunin argued that the "State has always been the patrimony of some privileged class: a priestly class, an aristocratic class, a bourgeois class. And finally, when all the other classes have exhausted themselves, the State then becomes the patrimony of the bureaucratic class and then falls—or, if you will, rises—to the position of a machine."
The revolutionary potential of the proletariat and the lumpenproletariat
Bakunin had a view almost opposite of Marx's on the revolutionary potential of the lumpenproletariat and the proletariat Bakunin "considers workers' integration in capital as destructive of more primary revolutionary forces. For Bakunin, the revolutionary archetype is found in a peasant milieu (which is presented as having longstanding insurrectionary traditions, as well as a communist archetype in its current social form—the peasant commune) and amongst educated unemployed youth, assorted marginals from all classes, brigands, robbers, the impoverished masses, and those on the margins of society who have escaped, been excluded from, or not yet subsumed in the discipline of emerging industrial work...in short, all those whom Marx sought to include in the category of the lumpenproletariat."
Influence
Bakunin is remembered as a major figure in the history of anarchism and an opponent of Marxism, especially of Marx's idea of dictatorship of the proletariat. He continues to be an influence on modern-day anarchists, such as Noam Chomsky. Bakunin biographer Mark Leier has asserted that "Bakunin had a significant influence on later thinkers, ranging from Peter Kropotkin and Enrico Malatesta to the Wobblies and Spanish anarchists in the Civil War to Herbert Marcuse, E.P. Thompson, Neil Postman, and A.S. Neill, down to the anarchists gathered these days under the banner of 'anti-globalization.'"
Criticism
Violence, revolution and "Invisible dictatorship"Main article: Invisible dictatorship
Bakunin has been accused of being a closet authoritarian. In his letter to Albert Richard, he wrote that
“ [t]here is only one power and one dictatorship whose organisation is salutary and feasible: it is that collective, invisible dictatorship of those who are allied in the name of our principle. ”
However, Bakunin's supporters argue that this "invisible dictatorship" is not a dictatorship in any conventional sense of the word, as Bakunin was careful to point out that its members would not exercise any official political power:
“ this dictatorship will be all the more salutary and effective for not being dressed up in any official power or extrinsic character. ”
Charles A. Madison claimed that
“ He [Bakunin] rejected political action as a means of abolishing the state and developed the doctrine of revolutionary conspiracy under autocratic leadership– disregarding the conflict of this principle with his philosophy of anarchism. Madison contended that it was Bakunin's scheming for control of the First International that brought about his rivalry with Karl Marx and his expulsion from it in 1872. His approval of violence as a weapon against the agents of oppression led to nihilism in Russia and to individual acts of terrorism elsewhere– with the result that anarchism became generally synonymous with assassination and chaos. ”
Others point out, however, that Bakunin never sought to take personal control of the International, that his secret organisations were not subject to his autocratic power, and that he condemned terrorism as counter-revolutionary. Robert M. Cutler goes further, pointing out that it is impossible fully to understand either Bakunin's participation in the League of Peace and Freedom or the International Alliance of Socialist Democracy, or his idea of a secret revolutionary organisation that is immanent in the people, without seeing that they derive from his interpretation of Hegel's dialectic from the 1840s. The script of Bakunin's dialectic, Cutler argues, gave the Alliance the purpose of providing the International with a real revolutionary organisation.
“ Marx's advocacy of participation in bourgeois politics, including parliamentary suffrage, would have been proof of [his being a "compromising Negative" in the language of the 1842 "Reaction in Germany" article]. It would have been Bakunin's duty, following the script defined by his dialectic, to bring the [International Working-Men's Association] to a recognition of its true role. [Bakunin's] desire to merge first the League and then the Alliance with the International derived from a conviction that the revolutionaries in the International should never cease to be penetrated to every extremity by the spirit of Revolution. Just as, in Bakunin's dialectic, the consistent Negatives needed the compromisers in order to vanquish them and thereby realize the Negative's true essence, so Bakunin, in the 1860s, needed the International in order to transform its activity into uncompromising Revolution. ”
Anti-semitism
Bakunin was an outspoken anti-semite and has been severely criticized for this part of his writing. Bakunin used anti-Jewish sentiments during his argument with Karl Marx; he claimed that Marxian communism, along with international banking cartels associated with Rothschild, was part of Jewish system of global exploitation;
“ This whole Jewish world, comprising a single exploiting sect, a kind of blood sucking people, a kind of organic destructive collective parasite, going beyond not only the frontiers of states, but of political opinion, this world is now, at least for the most part, at the disposal of Marx on the one hand, and of Rothschild on the other... This may seem strange. What can there be in common between socialism and a leading bank? The point is that authoritarian socialism, Marxist communism, demands a strong centralisation of the state. And where there is centralisation of the state, there must necessarily be a central bank, and where such a bank exists, the parasitic Jewish nation, speculating with the Labour of the people, will be found. ”
Eurocentrism
His Eurocentrism manifested itself in his call for a United States of Europe, his support for Russian Colonialism, particularly as practised by his relative and patron Count Nikolay Muravyov-Amursky and his indifference to Japan and Japanese peasants during and after his brief stay in Yokohama. (Japan was regarded as the most prominent revolutionary country in Asia following the Meiji Restoration of 1866–1869.) All these aspects of his thought however date from before he became an anarchist. Bakunin's conversion to anarchism came in 1865, towards the end of his life, and four years after his time in Japan.
Works about Bakunin
- God and the State, ISBN 0-486-22483-X
- Bakunin on anarchism / edited, translated and with an introduction by Sam Dolgoff; preface by Paul Avrich.—New York : Knopf, originally published in 1971 as Bakunin on anarchy. Includes James Guillaume’s Bakunin—A Biographical Sketch.
- Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, ed. A. Lehning. New York: Grove Press, 1974
- Statism and Anarchy, Cambridge University Press 1991
- No Gods No Masters: An Anthology of Anarchism by Daniel Guérin
- Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, Volume 1: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300CE-1939), ed. Robert Graham
- The Political Philosophy of Bakunin edited by G. P. Maximoff, including "Mikhail Bakunin—a Biographical Sketch" by Max Nettlau
- The Basic Bakunin: Writings 1869-1871, ed. Robert M. Cutler (New York: Prometheus Books, 1992)
- Mikhail Bakunin: The Philosophical Basis of his Anarchism, by Paul McLaughlin (New York: Algora Publishing, 2002, Paperback Edition ISBN 1-892941-84-8)
- Michała Bakunina filozofia negacji, by Jacek Uglik (Warsaw: Aletheia, 2007)
English translations of Bakunin are generally rare when compared to the comprehensive editions in French (by Arthur Lehning), Spanish and German. Madelaine Grawitz’s biography (Paris: Calmann Lévy 2000) remains to be translated.
The standard English-language biography is by E. H. Carr. A new biography, Bakunin: The Creative Passion, by Mark Leier, was published by St. Martin’s Press August 22, 2006, hardcover, 320 pages, ISBN 0-312-30538-9
An eight-volume complete works of Bakunin is to be published at some point in the future by AK Press; according to Ramsey Kanaan these will likely be published yearly for eight years in hardcover format.
See also
References
Footnotes
- ^ Masters, Anthony (1974), Bakunin, the Father of Anarchism, Saturday Review Press, ISBN 0-8415-0295-1
- ^ a b c d Sale, Kirkpatrick (2006-11-06) An Enemy of the State, The American Conservative
- ^ Bakunin, Michael (1990), "Introduction", in Marshall Shatz (Translation into English with introduction by the editor), Statism and Anarchy, Cambridge University Press, pp. x, ISBN 9780521369732, http://books.google.com/books?id=ffXU01KzRNQC
- ^ Bakunin, Mikhail (1842). "The Reaction in Germany". In: Sam Dolgoff (1971, 1980), Bakunin on Anarchy.
- ^ On the 17th Anniversary of the Polish Insurrection of 1830, Mikhail Bakunin, La Réforme, December 14, 1847
- ^ Michael Bakunin A Biographical Sketch by James Guillaume
- ^ Appeal to the Slavs, Mikhail Bakunin, 1848, Bakunin on Anarchy, translated and edited by Sam Dolgoff, 1971.
- ^ Richard Wagner, My Life — Volume 1, http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/wglf110.txt, retrieved 2009-09-08
- ^ Confession to Tsar Nicholas I, Mikhail Bakunin, 1851
- ^ Bakunin, Yokohama and the Dawning of the Pacific by Peter Billingsley
- ^ Edgar Franz, Philipp Franz von Siebold and Russian Policy and Action on Opening Japan to the West in the Middle of the Nineteenth Century, Munich: Iudicum 2005
- ^ Joseph Heco (Narrative Writer) James Murdoch (Editor), The Narrative of a Japanese: What He Has Seen and the People He Has Met in the Course of the Last 40 Years, Yokohama, Yokohama Publishing Company (Tokyo, Maruzen), 1895, Vol II, pp 90–98
- ^ An Unpublished Letter of M.A. Bakunin to R. Solger, Robert M. Cutler, International Review of Social History 33, no. 2 (1988): 212–217
- ^ "Bakunin, Garibaldi e gli affari slavi 1862 - 1863" by Pier Carlo Massini and Gianni Bosio, Movimento Operaio year 4, No. 1 (Jan-Feb, 1952), p81
- ^ Revolutionary Catechism, Mikhail Bakunin, 1866, Bakunin on Anarchy, translated and edited by Sam Dolgoff, 1971.
- ^ Federalism, Socialism, Anti-Theologism, Mikhail Bakunin, September 1867.
- ^ Bakunin's idea of revolution & revolutionary organisation published by Workers Solidarity Movement in Red and Black Revolution No.6, Winter 2002
- ^ Bakunin to Nechayev on the role of secret revolutionary societies, Mikhail Bakunin, June 2, 1870 letter to Sergey Nechayev
- ^ a b Letters to a Frenchman on the Present Crisis, Mikhail Bakunin, 1870
- ^ The Paris Commune and the Idea of the State, Mikhail Bakunin, 1871
- ^ Verslius, Arthur (2005-06-20) Death of the Left?, The American Conservative
- ^ Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas Volume One: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300CE to 1939), Robert Graham, Black Rose Books, March 2005
- ^ Quoted in Daniel Guerin, Anarchism: From Theory to Practice (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970), pp.25-26.
- ^ a b c God and the State, Michael Bakunin, 1882
- ^ Noam Chomsky, The Soviet Union Versus Socialism, Our Generation, http://www.chomsky.info/articles/1986----.htm, retrieved 2009-09-25
- ^ Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, ed. A. Lehning (New York: Grove Press, 1974), page 268
- ^ Man, Society, and Freedom, Mikhail Bakunin, 1871
- ^ a b c Revolutionary Catechism, Mikhail Bakunin, 1866
- ^ Mikhail Bakunin, Works of Mikhail Bakunin 1871, Marxists.org, http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/1871/program.htm#s2, retrieved 2009-09-08
- ^ Mikhail Bakunin, Works of Mikhail Bakunin 1870, Marxists.org, http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/1870/albert-richard.htm, retrieved 2009-09-08
- ^ a b On the International Workingmen's Association and Karl Marx, Mikhail Bakunin, 1872
- ^ a b c Woodcock, George (1962, 1975). Anarchism, 158. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-020622-1.
- ^ a b Was Bakunin a secret authoritarian?, Struggle.ws, http://struggle.ws/anarchism/writers/anarcho/anarchism/bakunindictator.html, retrieved 2009-09-08
- ^ Anarchist Theory FAQ Version 5.2, Gmu.edu, http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/anarfaq.htm, retrieved 2009-09-08
- ^ Mikhail Bakunin, Works of Mikhail Bakunin 1873, Marxists.org, http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/1873/statism-anarchy.htm, retrieved 2009-09-08
- ^ Quoted in Brian Morris, Bakunin: The Philosophy of Freedom, 1993, p14
- ^ New York Daily Tribune (October 2, 1852) on 'Revolution and Counter Revolution in Germany'
- ^ Quoted in Brian Morris, Bakunin: The Philosophy of Freedom, 1993, p29
- ^ "Both agreed that the proletariat would play a key role, but for Marx the proletariat was the exclusive, leading revolutionary agent while Bakunin entertained the possibility that the peasants and even the lumpenproletariat (the unemployed, common criminals, etc.) could rise to the occasion."Marxism and Anarchism: The Philosophical Roots of the Marx-Bakunin Conflict -- Part Two" by Ann Robertson.
- ^ Nicholas Thoburn. "The lumpenproletariat and the proletarian unnameable" in Deleuze, Marx and Politics
- ^ Chomsky, Noam (1970). For Reasons of State. New York: Pantheon Books. (See especially title page and "Notes on Anarchism".)
- ^ McLaughlin, P Anarchism and authority: a philosophical introduction to classical anarchism, page 19, Ashgate Publishing, 2007, says that David Morland makes such a claim in Morland, D Demanding the Impossible? Human Nature and Politics in Nineteenth Century Anarchism, p.78, London, 1997. Was Bakunin a secret authoritarian?, Struggle.ws, http://struggle.ws/anarchism/writers/anarcho/anarchism/bakunindictator.html, retrieved 2010-9-11 states that the accusation that Bakunin was a secret authoritarian is raised by "Leninists and other Marxists."
- ^ Madison, Charles A. (1945), "Anarchism in the United States", Journal of the History of Ideas (University of Pennsylvania Press) 6 (1): 46–66, doi:10.2307/2707055, JSTOR 2707055
- ^ Bakunin, "Program of the International Brotherhood"(1868), reprinted in Bakunin on Anarchism, ed. S. Dolgoff
- ^ Cutler, Robert M., "Introduction" to The Basic Bakunin: Writings, 1869-1871 (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1992), p. 27, http://www.robertcutler.org/bakunin/basic/intro.html, retrieved 2010-12-29. Cutler also cites Bakunin's "Letter to Pablo," reproduced in Max Nettlau, Michael Bakunin: Eine Biographie (London: By the Author, 1896–1900), p. 284, where Bakunin maintains that the "powerful but always invisible revolutionary collectivity" leaves the "full development [of the revolution] to the revolutionary movement of the masses and the most absolute liberty to their social organization,... but always seeing to it that this movement and this organization should never be able to reconstitute any authorities, governments, or States and always combatting all ambitions collective (such as Marx's) [sic in the original] as well as individual, by the natural, never official, influence of every member of our [International] Alliance [of Socialist-Democracy]."
- ^ Paul McLaughlin. Mikhail Bakunin: The Philosophical Basis of His Theory of Anarchism. 2002. ISBN 1-892941-41-4 p. 4
- ^ Judaica 1950, p. 101
- ^ Wheen 1999, p. 340
- ^ Library, libcom.org, http://libcom.org/library/osugi-sakae, retrieved 2009-09-08
- ^ Bakunin's idea of revolution and anarchist revolutionary organisation, Struggle.ws, http://struggle.ws/rbr/rbr6/bakunin.html, retrieved 2009-09-08
- ^ Mikhail Bakunin Reference Archive, Marxists.org, http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/bakunin-on-anarchism.htm, retrieved 2009-09-08
- ^ Karl Marx, Michael Bakunin by James Guillaume, Marxists.org, http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/guillaume/works/bakunin.htm, retrieved 2009-09-08
Bibliography
- Judaica (1950), Historia judaica, Volumes 12-14, Verlag von Julius Kittls Nachfolger
- Wheen, Francis (1999), Karl Marx, Fourth Estate, ISBN 1857026373
Further reading
- Leier, Mark. Bakunin: The Creative Passion: A Biography. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2006 (hardcover, ISBN 0-312-30538-9).
- Tom Stoppard. The Coast of Utopia. New York: Grove Press, 2002 (paperback, ISBN 0-8021-4005-X).
- Daniel Guerin, Anarchism: From Theory to Practice (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970) (paperback, ISBN 0-8534-5175-3).
External links
Categories:
- Bakunin archive at (The) Anarchist Library
- Bakunin archive at Anarchy Archives
- Bakunin Biography at Flag Blackened
- Writings of Bakunin at Marxist Internet Archive
- Works by Mikhail Bakunin at Project Gutenberg
- A biography by James Guillaume
- Libcom.org/library Mikhail Bakunin archive
- Mikhail Bakunin Page at the Antiauthoritarian Encyclopedia
- Bakunin and the historians
- The Coast of Utopia
- Bakunin's idea of revolution & revolutionary organisation from Red & Black Revolution 6
- Audiobook of God and the State by Mikhail Bakunin, from LibriVox
- German Mikhail Bakunin Page
- Bakunin Texts at Anarchy is Order
- Mikhail Bakunin, What is Authority?
- Mikhail Bakunin, Trois Conférences faites aux ouvriers du Val de Saint-Imier
- 1814 births
- 1876 deaths
- Mikhail Bakunin
- 19th-century philosophers
- Anarchism theorists
- Atheist philosophers
- Atheism activists
- Collectivist anarchism
- Escapees from Russian detention
- Former Eastern Orthodox Christians
- Libertarian socialists
- Materialists
- Members of the International Workingmen's Association
- People of the Revolutions of 1848
- Russian anarchists
- Russian atheists
- Russian escapees
- Russian nobility
- Russian philosophers
- Russian political writers
- Russian revolutionaries
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010. | https://en-academic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/36778 |
Eugene V. Debs
By:
November 5, 2012
On the afternoon of June 16, 1918, labor organizer and political activist EUGENE V. DEBS (1855–1926) addressed the Ohio Socialist Party convention in Nimisilla Park, Canton. Debs’ speech included both the rousing affirmations (“I would be ashamed to admit that I had risen from the ranks. When I rise it will be with the ranks, and not from the ranks”) and lucid criticism (of “these very gentry, who today are wrapped up in the American flag… who are scanning the country for some evidence of disloyalty”) that made him a revered figure of the left since the great Pullman Strike of 1894. In 1905, Debs co-founded the Industrial Workers of the World, a.k.a. the Wobblies, many of whom, by late 1916, would strongly oppose America’s likely entry into Europe’s — and, they believed, capitalism’s — Great War. Two weeks after his Canton speech, Debs was indicted in Cleveland Federal Court for violating the 1917 Espionage Act criminalizing much anti-war activity. “Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings,” Debs told Judge D.C. Westenhaver at his September 14, 1918 sentencing. “And I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth.” Unyielding, Westenhaver gave Debs ten years and disenfranchised him for life. Thus Atlanta Federal Penitentiary Convict #9653 couldn’t vote for himself — but come Election Day 1920, nearly one million others (3.4% of the popular vote) did chose Debs, Socialist Party candidate for President of the United States.
MORE ACTIVISTS: Mother Jones | Alexander Berkman | Eugene V. Debs | Tina Modotti | Big Bill Haywood | Lucy Stone | Antônio Conselheiro | Emmeline Pankhurst | Félix Fénéon | Meridel Le Sueur | Pierre-Joseph Proudhon | Zo d’Axa | Mikhail Bakunin | Voltairine de Cleyre | Emma Goldman | Will Allen | Rosa Luxemburg | Simone de Beauvoir | Émile Henry | Pancho Villa | Joe Hill | Margaret Sanger | Aldo Leopold | Screaming Lord Sutch | Nestor Makhno | Dorothy Day | Garry Kasparov | Adriano Olivetti | Mildred Harnack | Frederick Douglass | Murray Bookchin | George Orwell | Bayard Rustin | Abbie Hoffman | Ti-Grace Atkinson | Gloria Steinem | Rudolf Rocker | Stokely Carmichael | Angela Davis
***
On his or her birthday, HiLobrow irregularly pays tribute to one of our high-, low-, no-, or hilobrow heroes. Also born this date: Sam Shepard and Jim Steranko.
READ MORE about members of the Plutonian Generation (1854-63). | https://www.hilobrow.com/2012/11/05/eugene-v-debs/ |
After viewing a brilliant video about free will with Daniel Dennett (a must see!) I decided to check out the man and I discovered he is a member of the Brights network. Looks like an interesting organization. Their vision is as follows:
Persons who have a naturalistic worldview should be...
In the spring of 2023, a Dutch translation of one of the most important books of my life will be published: The Ten Thousand Things by Robert Saltzman. De Tienduizend Dingen will be published by Samsara Publishing House and has been translated by yours truly, together...
Long, long ago, in my adolescence, I discovered the early writers of the anarchist ideal: Michael Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin, Max Stirner, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Emma Goldman and many others. They propose a society without rulers and domination, without authority. It is the set...
Like "love", "consciousness" and so many other concepts, "spirituality" is a concept that has a different meaning for everyone. For some it is synonymous with "religion", for others it is burning incense and sitting cross-legged on a pillow. The word usually gives me the creeps....
In the early eighties I came into contact with disciples and books of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (later called 'Osho') and decided some time later to take 'sannyas' as well, that is, to become a follower of Rajneesh. In the Dutch vernacular at the time they said tha...
I read this book when I was a sannyasin of Rajneesh for some time, well on my way to 'enlightenment'. So I thought. It was written by a namesake of the famous spiritual teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti, namely Uppaluri Gopala Krishnamurti, better known by the abbreviation '... | https://wideopenwindows.be/messages2 |
France in the belle époque was undergoing a time of change and flux by virtue of increasing industrialization, improved communications, and new technology. Because the haute bourgeoisie of France were unwilling to make the concessions necessary to ease the hardships of displaced artisans and exploited workers, new political and economic theories supportive of political and social reforms were bandied about by conflicting interests. The frustration of some also brought about new, antitheological moralities that negated the moralities of church and state. Some of the new moralities were individualistic, others were cooperative and collective; but principally they were anti-God, antichurch, antistate, and antibourgeois. They issued from such thinkers as William Godwin, Max Stirner, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Alexander Herzen, Karl Marx, Mikhail Bakunin, Pyotr Kropotkin, Friedrich Nietzsche, Georges Sorel, Emma Goldman, and Émile Armand.
In his treatise Qu’est-ce que la propriété? (1840; What Is Property?, 1876), French socialist Proudhon answered: “La propriété, c’est la vol” (property is theft). The anarchists of the so-called Bonnot Gang (c. 1911) defined theft as “individual reprisals against the bourgeoisie.” The French word bourgeois (or bourgeoisie) has no English equivalent. Rather than meaning simply “a member of the middle class” or “any person owning property,” it implies a certain attitude assumed by a property owner or by one ambitious to own property—namely, that material possessions and money are to that person the most important thing in life. To socialists and anarchists, all bourgeois were criminals. Nevertheless, in France not all men of property were regarded as necessarily bourgeois; those who carried their wealth lightly and were not cesspools of cupidity were not bourgeois. The view that all bourgeois were by definition criminals was not confined to any particular social class. Although laborers and artisans were most likely to hold such a view, it ran the gamut of the social hierarchy.
During the belle époque and later, thousands of Frenchmen could respond favorably to the sort of criminal-hero represented by Lebanc’s creation, Arsène Lupin. Lupin, born Raoul d’Andrésy, never knew his father, who died in prison in the United States before Lupin was born. Lupin’s mother, Henriette, supported herself and Lupin as maid to a countess. When the precocious Lupin, at the age of six, stole the famous “queen’s necklace” from the countess’s husband to arrange lifetime financial stability for Henriette, the countess accused Henriette of the robbery and dismissed her. Henriette died six years later, leaving her twelve-year-old son to fend for himself. Lupin prepared himself for a career as a professional burglar, eventually becoming known as “the man of a thousand disguises,” operating in châteaux, grands salons, and transatlantic liners.
Lupin’s motivation, aside from the delight he takes in baffling the police and executing complex robberies, is to avenge himself on the money-grubbing bourgeoisie. Lupin eschews violence and murder, but he considers all bourgeois thieves. His aplomb, debonairness, snobbery, dandyism, and finesse are designed to demonstrate to the bourgeois that he is inherently an aristocrat. In L’Aiguille creuse (1909; The Hollow Needle, 1910), it is hinted that he is descended from royalty. From the standpoint of the philosophy of morals, however, Lupin is a casuist, a François Villon, who seeks to convince the noble old warrior, the seigneur of Brisetout, that he is no better than the poet-thief. Lupin, too, is an artist who practices robbery as a fine art.
Arsène in Prison
Tourteau has pointed out that the Lupinian stories and novels are not constructed around a murder but around an “enigma” of the planning and execution of a crime. From Lupin’s point of view, the enigma consists of a problem that he must solve: how to execute a seemingly impossible robbery. To solve this problem, Lupin must devise a plan, adopt the role of detective to test it, and perform as an artist in its execution. Part of the execution will involve the manipulation of the victim. Such a manipulation occurs in “Arsène in Prison” in The Exploits of Arsène Lupin. To rob the wealthy retired financier and art collector Baron “Satan” Cahorn, Lupin must manipulate his victim if he is ever to gain admittance to the baron’s impenetrable stronghold, located in the middle of the Lower Seine. Knowing well the cupidity of the baron, Lupin devises a plan that will play on this weakness.
With the strategy of gaining entrance to the fort, Lupin plots a sequence of tactical moves, each of which will advance the progress toward this end by a predictable action on the part of the baron according to Lupin’s own calculus of probabilities. It is all very much like... | https://www.enotes.com/topics/maurice-leblanc/critical-essays |
Newest Information, Breaking Stories And Remark
Its fundamental idea is the rejection of all state energy and the doctrine of the totally limitless freedom of each particular person person. Anarchism turned clearly outlined as an unbiased movement with the 1872 split in the First Worldwide between the employees’ representatives who adopted Karl Marx, and those who followed Proudhon and the Russian revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin. Far from a dogmatic manifesto, Two Cheers for Anarchism celebrates the anarchist confidence in the inventiveness and judgment of people who are free to train their artistic and moral capacities. However, I deny that that form of individualists could be included amongst anarchists, despite their liking for calling themselves so. Lately anarchists are everywhere in the news, oddly positioned at both ends of the political spectrum.
Anarchism is a principle of the good society, in which justice and social order are maintained without the State (or government). Anarchist rejection of authority has application in epistemology and in philosophical and literary principle. Although Proudhon was principally distinguished in France, it was Mikhail Bakunin who formulated the basic social philosophy of anarchism in Russia in the course of the nineteenth-century. Their writings evidence that previous to World Conflict I and into the Twenties, German anarchists-particularly when compared with the Social Democrats-intervened constantly on behalf of particular person self-willpower extending into the sexual sphere, although an undercurrent of hostility towards homosexuals continued inside the leftist motion as a whole.
One important philosophical and ethical problem for politically engaged anarchists is the question of the way to avoid ongoing cycles of power and violence that are likely to erupt in the absence of centralized political power. Direct motion, of their view, meant the creation of a polity, the formation of standard establishments, and the formulation and enactment of laws, regulations, and the like—which authentic anarchists thought to be an abridgment of particular person will or autonomy. In contrast to the politician, he does not regard dishonesty, brutality and avariciousness as natural characteristics of human nature, however because the inevitable consequences of coercion and frustration engendered by synthetic regulation, he believes that these social evils are finest eradicated not by higher penalties and additional legislation, but by the free development of the latent forces of solidarity and sympathetic understanding which government and law so ruthlessly suppress.
The stress between individualist and socialist anarchism involves a head when considering the question of the degree to which a person should be subordinated to the neighborhood. 2 Trendy anarchists argue that each one governments exist solely to perpetuate their power, and apply this maxim equally to each democracies and dictatorships. The political concept that all governments oppress the people and needs to be abolished. The authors write out of the movement any anarchists who didn’t put the class struggle on the heart of their politics, together with Pierre Joseph Proudhon (thought of by many to be the father of anarchism), as well as the acute individualists Max Stirner and Benjamin Tucker.
Classical anarchists targeted more closely on the opposition to state management and capitalist society. Roy San Filippo, A World in Our Hearts—Eight Years of Writings from the Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation, 44-45. It’s a synthesis of the 2 chief goals pursued by humanity because the daybreak of its history—economic freedom and political freedom. It played a pivotal position during the Spanish Revolution of 1936-37, a history that even has profound implications for the future of left libertarian idea and observe. | https://folderaccess.com/newest-information-breaking-stories-and-remark.html |
We have an extensive collection of spoken voice recordings that can be used for a variety of linguistic research purposes and for exploring English accents, dialects, and language variation and change.
About the collectionThe British Library holds sound recordings that document spoken English over a period of more than 100 years. The recordings range from ‘performance’, such as speeches, literary productions, audio books, public talks and lectures to more ‘naturalistic’ speech data contained in linguistic surveys, oral history interviews and radio and television broadcasts. These recordings capture prestigious and vernacular varieties of spoken English and are a useful resource for academic linguists, school teachers and students, learners of English as a foreign language and creative audiences, including authors, actors, journalists and script writers.
We hold unique unpublished sound recordings relating to several significant nationwide surveys of regional speech in the UK; most notably the prestigious Survey of English Dialects recorded in the 1950s, the audio component of the British National Corpus (1990s), BBC Voices Recordings (2004/5) and the Evolving English VoiceBank, created in 2010/11 by visitors to our Evolving English exhibition. In addition, the Library’s Oral History collections represent a rich source of spontaneous speech data recorded with speakers from a wide variety of backgrounds. Historic and contemporary recordings in our Drama and Literature and Radio collections provide evidence of performance and broadcast voices across time.
What is available online?
Several dialect collections are presented on our Sounds website. Most recordings are freely available for listening online though some are restricted to users in accredited higher education establishments.
Sounds Familiar? is a dedicated educational resource that celebrates and explores varieties of English in the UK.
You can also use the online Sound and Moving Image Catalogue to search for recordings.
What is available in our Reading Rooms?
The Listening and Viewing Service provides free public access to our collections of recorded sound and video in St Pancras.
The Sound Archive Information Service is based in Humanities - floor 2 in St Pancras, where books, discographies, periodicals and magazines are available on open access. | https://www.bl.uk/collection-guides/english-accents-and-dialects |
What language features are found where, when, why?
Research in comparative linguistics requires large amounts of first-hand data from a varied sample of languages around the world. The ideal way to collect natural data is by involving the speech communities in as many ways as possible.
Comparative linguists study the distribution of linguistic features in the world‘s language. Researchers strive to find explanations why certain linguistic features are found where, how these features change across time, and what they tell us about the evolution and development of human language.
The raw material of comparative linguistics research is data collected in a large number of different languages from all corners of the world.
The raw material of typological linguistic research is data collected in a large number of different languages from all corners of the world. Of the roughly 7000 languages spoken today, some 50% are in danger of becoming extinct in the next 100 years. This makes the task of collecting language data an urgent first priority in linguistic fieldwork. As language is always part and medium of a specific culture, it is important to record as much of the cultural, social, and environmental setting of the speech community as possible. This makes the active participation of the native speakers crucial. Besides collaborating as language consultants, members of the speech community are actively involved in collecting and recording narratives, conversations, rituals, activities of daily life, songs, species, and so on. They assist in transcribing and analyzing the recordings, as well as in adding complementary information such as illustrations, missing words and definitions, and sociological background data which the outsider wouldn't be able to access.
The linguistic researcher in turn can assist the speech community in preserving their native language in many ways. The collected data can be made available in a format that is useful to the speech community, for example as a dictionary, grammatical descriptions, and collections of stories, which can be used in local education to pass on the language to the next generation. This in many cases involves the development of a suitable orthography for formerly unwritten languages. Online resources such as illustrated encyclopedias can be easily compiled and published at low cost, and actively involving the native speakers. Working on their language together with outsider researchers in many cases leads to a greater appreciation and understanding of the mother tongue, helping in the long-term preservation of endangered languages.
The collection of natural linguistic data necessarily actively involves the collaboration of the speech community in data collection and analysis. Grammar analyses can typically only succeed thanks to repeated discussions with speakers on which expressions and sentences are well formed, and native speaker intuitions are an important guide for hypothesis formation on specific analyses. Speakers also play a key role in the preparation of the material for use in the community. This often leads to a greater appreciation of the value of their native tongue.
Example finding:
Project members:
Department of Comparative Linguistics, UZH
Balthasar Bickel, Rik van Gijn, Steven Moran, Manuel Widmer, Mathias Jenny, Sebastian Sauppe, André Müller, Rachel Weymuth
Graphic artists: | https://www.grc.uzh.ch/en/focus/Exhibitions/CitizenScience/languagedocumentation.html |
ISTROX is a two-year interdisciplinary project (2018-2020) developed in the Faculty of Linguistics, Philology, and Phonetics at the University of Oxford. Based on a body of sound recordings donated to the Taylor Institution Library in Oxford, the project combines linguistic research and community-sourcing to explore a significant portion of the history of a severely endangered language: Istro-Romanian. Fifty years after these recordings were made by the Oxford linguist Tony Hurren, we plan to engage the remaining speakers of the language, through an online platform, to transcribe, translate, and open up this material to specialist linguists and the Istro-Romanian community alike.
The material donated to the Taylor Institution Library has never been published, and its existence is still virtually unknown to the wider world. Although Tony Hurren drew on it for his doctoral thesis, for his outline grammar of the language, and for some published research articles on the Istro-Romanian aspectual system, the recordings constitute an exceptional, and almost wholly untapped, repository of information about the language. In fact, they represent a significant portion of the attested history of the language and of its speakers.
Hurren gathered recordings from about 40 informants, covering nearly all the villages in which Istro-Romanian was spoken, and thereby capturing material for a description of the major linguistic subdivisions (there are two major dialects). He also worked with a large representative sample of speakers, of all ages. The recordings are not just of crucial interest to linguists, but also contain unique documentation of the history of the community that spoke, and still speaks, the language. They are not merely responses to a linguistic questionnaire, but also include folktales, accounts of local traditions, and autobiographical remarks and stories. An unusual feature of Hurren’s approach is that he sometime asks informants to read out published texts in the language, and then invites his informants to re-narrate these in their own words.
The materials present an unusual problem. Linguists are used to facing written records of earlier stages in the history of a language, and then applying their philological skills to discern the spoken reality which those written texts reflect. The present case is the other way around: our historical material is almost exclusively aural, and an essential preliminary task is to fix it in written form. Without this it will be substantially inaccessible to potential users. The Hurren donation includes field notebooks with written material corresponding to the recordings, but these are not a complete written description of them. Much was initially unclear, and essential preliminary cataloguing work has been done in matching narrations on the tapes to the transcribed material, and identifying which informant is speaking, and which dialect is represented. Nearly all of this information has been pieced together, but it has required painstaking matching of notebooks with tapes, and with information contained on the covers of the original reel-to-reel and cassette recordings with the contents of those recordings.
It is essential to provide an account of the content of the recordings, in the form of fairly literal translations, tagged to the relevant portions of the recordings (probably sentence by sentence). The tapes are unlikely to be easily intelligible to anybody other than a native speaker of the language. Even for many of Istro-Romanian descent, the recordings will present problems of comprehension without the aid of a basic translation, and therefore a significant portion of their linguistic heritage will be inaccessible to them.
The effort of translating this material has to be made if the recordings are to come alive and be of utility both for the wider scholarly community and for the Istro-Romanian community at large. Istro-Romanian is possibly the least-known of the surviving Romance languages and its phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon are of enormous interest to linguists generally, and to Romance linguists in particular: for some examples of the kind of linguistic novelties that have already been identified in it, see for example Kovačec (1968), Hurren (1969), Sala (2013), Maiden (2016). A written representation will be an indispensable tool in engaging with, and analysing the structure of the linguistic material. Of course, that representation will be open to criticism and correction as other linguists explore the material, and refine the interpretation, but the transcription we aim to provide will be an essential vademecum in the linguistic analysis of the material.
There are three particularly well-known published accounts of Istro-Romanian: Popovici (1909-1914), Pușcariu (1906-1929), and Kovačec (1971, 1998). Hurren himself produced an outline grammar, unpublished, on the basis of his research, in 1999. Of these, by far the most valuable and detailed description is Pușcariu's, based on texts collected at the turn of the last century. For direct illustration of the language linguists have had to turn to the collections of texts provided Pușcariu or by Popovici. Various other collections of texts exist, some from as early as the mid nineteenth century, but these are unaccompanied by in-depth linguistic analysis, e.g., Cantemir (1959), containing materials collected in the early 1930s. Other important contributions in recent years have been the linguistic atlases by Filipi (2002) and Flora (2003), and the dictionary by Neiescu (2011). The Hurren collection gives a relatively recent detailed and extensive illustration of the language, for the Istro-Romanian villages, is sound-recorded, rather than written, and includes spontaneous discourse and narration. In short, the Hurren collection is a major repository of information about the language in all its varieties, from a period in the second half of the twentieth century when the community still numbered about a thousand, just before the major decline in the population brought about by emigration, and it is material to which Romance linguists and others should have access.
Beyond opening up the holdings of the Taylorian Library and producing new linguistic analyses based on previously unknown material, ISTROX has remarkable potential to tap the linguistic and cultural knowledge of the remaining pockets of Istro-Romanian speakers worldwide. By the end of the project, all data from the research, and all other materials currently part of the Hurren bequest, will be made available online to the scholarly community and the public.
In the longer term, our project will be an important foundational element for a History of the Istro-Romanian Language. This work will seek to cover, drawing on all available published and unpublished material, not only the structural history of the language, but also the language's 'external' history, dealing with its historical origins, the migrations of Istro-Romanian speakers through the Balkans, and especially the history of its speakers in what are, probably, its dying decades.
Project Timeline
ISTROX has two phases which correspond roughly to the two years of the project.
Achieving the goals of the first phase of the project is an essential prerequisite to proceeding to the second stage.
The first phase of the project, which started in September 2018, involves the following tasks:
- the production of a detailed description and index of the contents of the sound recordings
- the segmentation the recordings into coherent 'snippets' to be further used for linguistic analysis
- the production of a detailed description and index of the contents of Hurren's field notebooks, and of the other written materials contained in the Hurren Donation
- the correlation of the written materials with the sound recordings (e.g., we have identified the linguistic questionnaires to which the recordings contain responses, and the passages in the audio recordings which are transcribed or translated in the notebooks)
- fieldwork conducted in Croatia, to trace Hurren’s original subjects, or their surviving relatives, and obtain their consent to use the photographs and recordings for our research, and to make them publicly accessible online
- The selection and editing of the ambiguous or obscure passages in the recordings whose interpretation will benefit the help of the wider Istro-Romanian community.
The second phase of the project, to start in spring 2020, involves crowdsourcing and interpreting linguistic data. On a customized crowdsourcing platform, we will upload selected audio samples whose linguistic meaning or structure is in doubt or otherwise problematic, and we will invite the Istro-Romanian speakers worldwide to help us interpret them by listening to the audio clips, commenting on them, and responding to our questions. To learn more about this see Community Sourcing.
- Cantemir, T. (1959). Texte istroromâne. Bucharest: Editura Academiei.
- Filipi, G. (2002). Istrorumunjski lingvistički atlas. Atlasul lingvistic istroromân. Atlante linguistico istrorumeno. Pula: Znanstvena udruga Mediteran.
- Flora, R. (2003). Micul atlas lingvistic al graiurilor istroromâne (MALGI). Bucharest: Editura Academiei.
- Hurren, A. (1969). ‘Verbal aspect and archi-aspect in Istro-Romanian’. La Linguistique 2:59-90.
- Kovačec, A. (1968). ‘Observations sur les influences croates dans la grammaire istroroumaine’. La Linguistique 1:79-115.
- Kovačec, A. (1971). Descrierea istroromânei actuale. Bucharest: Editura Academiei.
- Kovačec, A. (1998). Istrorumunjsko-hrvatski rječnik (s gramatikom i tekstovima). Pula: Znanstvena udruga Mediteran.
- Maiden, M. (2016). 'Romanian, Istro-Romanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Aromanian'. In Ledgeway, A. and Maiden, M. (eds), The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages. Oxford: OUP, 91-125.
- Neiescu, P. (2011-). Dicționarul dialectului istroromân. I. A–C (2011), II. Č–K (2015), III. L– Pința (2016). Bucharest: Editura Academiei.
- Popovici, I. (1909-1914). Dialectele române din Istria. I. Referinţele sociale şi gramatica (1914), II Texte şi glosar (1909). Halle a.d. S.
- Pușcariu, S. (1906-1929). Studii istroromâne (with M. Bartoli, A. Belulovici, A. Byhan). I. Texte (1906), II. Introducere – Gramatică – Caracterizarea dialectului istroromân (1926), III. Bibliografie critică – Listele lui Bartoli – Texte inedite – Note – Glosare (1929). Bucharest: Cultura Națională
- Sârbu, R. and Frațilă, V. (1998). Dialectul istroromân. Texte şi glosar. Timişoara: Editura Amarcord. | https://istrox.ling-phil.ox.ac.uk/istrox-project |
The term transcription is becoming more popular, keeps growing, and is more widely used in today’s world. In this article, we will explore exactly what transcription is and the different types of transcription that exist.
The Definition of Transcription
Transcription is the process of converting spoken language into written form. This can be done manually or with help from technology like speech-to-text software. Manual transcription is done by a person who listens to the audio and writes it out in text form. In contrast, automated transcription uses speech recognition technology to convert speech into text. There are 4 mains types of transcription and each one has its purpose and application.
Types of Transcription
There are a number of different types of transcription, depending on the purpose and context.
1. Verbatim Transcription
Verbatim transcription is the written form of spoken language converted from video and audio files. This type of transcription includes captures of every sound made- even throat clearing and verbal pauses such as “ah,” “um,” and “uh.” Verbatim transcriptions also indicate when laughter or other noises occur in the recording, like a phone ringing or door slamming. They can be invaluable when translating a video or an audio recording produced for specific legal settings.
Verbatim transcription includes everything said, including laughter, noises in the background, verbal pauses, and throat clearing. In contrast, non-verbatim transcriptions only include the essentials without any of the aforementioned extras. Which style do you think should be used? It likely depends on your perspective; for example, a defense attorney might prefer verbatim transcription.
2. Edited Transcription
Edited transcription is the process of taking an accurate transcript and making changes to improve readability, conciseness, and clarity. This includes things like addressing grammatical mistakes, slang, and incomplete sentences.
When you transcribe from written materials, an edited transcription can also fix spelling and punctuation errors and make the spoken words sound more polished.
Edited transcriptions aren’t suitable for every project. For instance, if you’re transcribing an autobiography recorded by the author, using edited transcription would change the author’s voice. See the example below to get a better understanding.
3. Intelligent Transcription
Intelligent verbatim transcription eliminates unimportant fillers and repetitions from the spoken word. The goal is to provide a more concise, readable transcript that still captures the participants’ voices and intended meaning. Examples of adjustments made with intelligent verbatim transcription include:
-Combining multiple utterances into one sentence
-Removing excessive use of “like” and other filler words
-Replacing incomplete phrases with the full phrase
-Correcting mispronunciations and minor mistakes
4. Phonetic Transcription
The phonetic transcription of a spoken word is the way that it is pronounced using phonetic symbols. Although the English language has 26 letters in its alphabet, there are around 44 unique sounds called phonemes.
A phoneme is the fundamental, distinguishing unit of sound in speech. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a written standard used to represent all sounds of spoken languages. The word ‘dish’ is four letters long, but only three distinct sounds are present: diʃ, with ʃ signifying the “sh” sound.
Transcriptions Are Also Common in the Following Industries
Legal Transcription
This type of transcription is used in court proceedings and other legal proceedings, including depositions and hearings. Legal transcription is used to convert audio recordings of legal proceedings into text documents.
Medical Transcription
This type of transcription is used to document medical records and treatment details, in addition to patient conversations with their doctor. Medical transcription is used to convert recordings of conversations between physicians and their patients into written documents.
Clinical Transcription
This type of transcription is used in clinical research studies to document the data collected from a study. Clinical transcription is used to convert audio recordings of conversations between researchers and participants into written documents.
Business Transcription
This type of transcription is used to document business meetings, conference calls, and other conversations between staff members. Business transcription is used to convert audio recordings of conversations between business partners, colleagues, and customers into written documents.
Educational Transcription
This type of transcription is used in educational settings to document lectures and classroom discussions. Educational transcription is used to convert audio recordings of conversations between instructors, students, and administrators into written documents.
Journalistic Transcription
This type of transcription is used to document interviews and other conversations in journalism. Journalistic transcription is used to convert audio recordings of interviews and conversations between reporters, editors, and other news personnel into written documents. Katie Couric, for example, uses transcription to document her interviews, with one of her most famous transcribed interviews being with Sarah Palin.
Conclusion
A transcription is an important tool for accurately capturing spoken language in written form. As technology continues to make great strides in the field of speech recognition and automated transcription, it’s becoming easier than ever to convert spoken language into written form quickly and accurately. Whether you need a verbatim transcript of an interview or a legal document transcribed for court proceedings, there is a type of transcription to suit your needs. | https://californiaexaminer.net/what-is-transcription-and-what-types-are-there/ |
Social Media and Language Documentation – a MLIP recap
Jonathon Lum recaps the June Linguistics in the Pub (LIP), a monthly informal gathering of linguists in Melbourne to discuss topical areas in our field.
Despite the cold Melbourne weather, June’s LIP attracted a good number of linguists who came together to discuss the topic ‘Social media and language documentation’, led by Peter Schuelke of the University of Hawaii. Under discussion was the potential for social media to play a role in language documentation, maintenance and revitalization. While social media is a largely untapped resource in these fields, it also presents certain logistical and ethical issues, many of which were considered throughout the discussion.
Peter began by speaking about his own experience with Roviana, an Oceanic language of the Solomon Islands. Roviana has 6 000 – 10 000 speakers, many of whom participate in a Facebook community called ‘Roviana Language – Communicate, Learn & Teach’ (www.facebook.com/groups/roviana/). This is an online space for Roviana speakers (including second language speakers) to use Roviana and to ask questions about the language. Similar groups exist for other languages, and are likely becoming more popular as the internet and social media continue to spread around the world.
Participating in these groups can be extremely valuable for linguists documenting the language, since they allow a researcher to get quick responses to linguistic enquiries without having to be with a consultant at a field site. Another advantage is that the researcher can get responses from several native speakers in an efficient manner, rather than just one at a time. This may reveal linguistic variation and disagreements between native speakers in a way that traditional, face-to-face elicitation does not, though the latter is obviously still important and will not be replaced by online elicitation. Social media can also be a source of naturalistic language data, where native speakers post messages for each other on public pages. The use of such data in language documentation and description projects may be highly valuable in that it suffers much less from the observer effect than many other methods of data collection.
The discussion also covered social media’s potential role in language preservation and revitalization. Social media brings together speakers who may now be geographically dispersed, providing a new domain in which use of the language to continue. As for revitalization, social media can bring together people interested in learning their heritage language. An example is Klallam, a Straits Salishan language of British Columbia. A Facebook community, ‘Klallam Word of the Day’ (www.facebook.com/KlallamWOTD/?fref=ts) attracts considerable interest from second language speakers and helps to bestow prestige on the Klallam language.
There is also great potential for such online communities to expand from Facebook groups to other online spaces such as Youtube and other video (or vine) sharing sites, which would potentially allow researchers to access spoken language data instead of just written texts. The discussion briefly turned to the use of apps and websites in various language documentation projects. In particular, one participant spoke about his involvement with Phonemica (www.phonemica.net), a platform for crowd-sourced stories from around China told in local languages and dialects. Anybody can log in and upload recordings or work on transcribing or translating stories. It was agreed that this could only be successful for languages that have reasonably large numbers of literate, technologically capable speakers, but that such a platform is invaluable for documenting such languages.
A number of challenges and limitations were discussed. Aside from being of little use in communities with low levels of literacy, or where electricity and the internet are limited (or absent entirely), there are issues to do with what one is documenting in the first place. As we all know, speech and writing are very different things, and social media mostly involves written languages (though as mentioned earlier, there is also potential for more video sharing in the future). And in many languages, some elements of the phonology, such as tone, may not be expressed in the Romanized scripts that tend to be used on social media. One participant in the discussion also raised the point that speakers may be using different varieties of the same language when communicating on social media.
Ethical issues were also raised and given some consideration. One concern was that social media sites such as Facebook may technically own the data that researchers wish to use. Another related to consent, and in particular the point that there is ‘consent’ as a technical/legal notion vs. ‘informed consent’ as required by ethics committees. Many Facebook users post publically, but probably do not anticipate that their messages may be used by linguists for academic purposes. It was pointed out that consent forms can be sent online too, though there is still an issue that without meeting a person face-to-face, we cannot truly know if they are who they say they are, if their data is suitable to use or if they are capable of giving informed consent (e.g. they may be underage). Despite these issues, one participant pointed out that not using any data from social media is also a decision with consequences: it means overlooking a domain of language use that is increasingly important in many languages, and may cause the researcher to miss out on valuable data ‒ this impinges on the quality of a grammatical description. | http://www.paradisec.org.au/blog/2016/07/social-media-and-language-documentation-a-mlip-recap/ |
Corpus linguistics definition History methods
Corpora were not just used for linguistic research, they were also used to compile dictionaries (beginning with the American Heritage Dictionary of English Language in 1969) and grammar guides such as A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language , published in 1985 .
Experts in the field have different opinions about annotating a corpus. These views range from John McHardy Sinclair , who advocates minimal annotation so that texts speak for themselves, to the Survey of English Usage team ( University College, London ), who advocates annotation as enabling greater linguistic understanding through rigorous records.
Explanation
A corpus is a database in which everything written and spoken in a language is stored. Scientists who study a language ( corpus linguists ) take everything that is published in a language ( English, for example ) and put it on a computer: texts from newspapers, books, magazines, pamphlets, newsletters, medicine leaflets… can take everything possible and save it on a super computer. All this information gathered in one place is called a written corpus ( after all, we only have written texts there ).
As for the spoken corpus , the thing is much more interesting. Linguists record ( with people’s permission ) conversations at work, in the supermarket, at home, on the phone, on the streets, park benches, buses, etc. They also record TV shows, interviews, radio shows, news, etc. Afterwards, they transcribe everything and transfer it to the computer, thus obtaining the spoken corpus ( the data of the spoken language ).
With these two sets of data – written corpus and spoken corpus -, we – linguist researchers – can verify everything with the help of a program developed to search the information in the corpus . So we can discover interesting things. Corpus linguistics definition
For example, did you know that the most used word in the English language is the article “the”? This in the written corpus ! However, if we evaluate only the spoken corpus , we will find that the most used word is the pronoun “I”! If we put the two corpus together, “the” wins out over everything that is a word.
Another curiosity: did you know that the passive voice in English is used much more often in scientific and journalistic texts? In other words, if you want to learn English, just to travel and make friends, you don’t need to memorize the rules of passive voice in English. But if you want to be a good journalist or write good scientific texts then the conversation will be different.
With the corpus we also discover which words are most used with other words ( collocations ). We found that the present perfect is used more often than the past simple . And we also found that the present simple is by far the most used tense in the English language.
Anyway, with this wonderful science English teachers can have an idea of what to teach their students. Book authors can write more accurate information about one grammatical structure or another, they can also tell readers and students how words are used in conjunction with other words. | https://englopedia.com/corpus-linguistics-with-its-details/ |
Since 2012 the BBC have been working with the British Library to build a collection of intimate conversations from across the UK in the BBC Listening Project. Through its network of local radio stations, and with the help of a travelling recording booth the BBC has captured many conversations of people, who are well known to one another, on a range of topics in high quality audio.
For the past two years we have been discussing with the BBC and the British Library the possibility of using these recordings as the basis of a large scale extension of our spoken BNC corpus. The Spoken BNC2014 has been built so far to reflect language in intimate settings – with recordings made in the home. This has led to a large and very useful collection of data but, without the resources of an organization such as the BBC, we were not able to roam the country with a sound recording booth to sample language from John o’Groats to Land’s End! By teaming up with the BBC and British Library we can supplement this very useful corpus of data, which is strongly focused on a ‘hard to capture’ context, intimate conversations in the home, with another type of data, intimate conversations in a public situation sampled from across the UK.
Another way in which the Listening data should prove helpful to linguists is that the data itself was captured in a recording studio as high quality audio recordings. Our hope is that a corpus based on this material will be of direct interest and use to phoneticians.
We have recently concluded our discussion with the British Library, which is archiving this material, and signed an agreement which will see CASS undertake orthographic transcription of the data. Our goal is to provide a high quality transcription of the data which will be of use to linguists and members of the public, who may wish to browse the collection, alike. In doing this we will be building on our experience of producing the Trinity Lancaster Corpus of Spoken Learner English and the Spoken BNC2014.
We take our first delivery of recordings at the beginning of March and are very excited at the prospect of lifting the veil a little further on the fascinating topic of everyday conversation and language use. The plan is to transcribe up to 1000 of the recordings archived at the British Library. We will be working to time align the transcriptions with the sound recordings also and are working closely with our strong phonetics team in the Department of Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster University to begin to assess the extent to which this new dataset could facilitate new work, for example, on the accents of the British Isles.
Our partners in the British Library are just as excited as we are – Jonnie Robinson, lead Curator for Spoken English at the British Library says ‘The British Library is delighted to enable Lancaster to make such innovative use of the Listening Project conversations and we look forward to working with them to make the collection more accessible and to enhance its potential to support linguistic and other research enquiries’.
Keep an eye on the CASS website and Twitter feed over the next couple of years for further updates on this new project! | http://cass.lancs.ac.uk/introducing-a-new-project-with-the-bbc-and-the-british-library/ |
African American Vernacular English is a form of American English which is used by mostly African American. It was originally known as the Black English. In non academic circles it is referred as Ebonics. This form of English shares a common pronunciation with the South American English which is mostly spoken by the African Americans and other non African American living in United States of America. African American vernacular English is a variation of English which has some unique characteristics which are not shared by any other variant of English.
The language has several similar vocabularies with other forms of English that are spoken in America including the Standard English. ( Allyene, M 56 1980) It is almost hard to estimate the number of people who use this dialect. Scholars have put forward that there are people who may be using the AAVE pronunciation and vocabulary but they do not use the grammatical characteristics of the dialect. There are others who may only be using only a typical aspect of the variant.
For along time linguists have been using the term African American vernacular English to refer to all those variants which portray particular grammatical characteristics such as copula removal, omitting of letter- s in third person or generally double negation. These features do happen in a variable manner, this means that the Standard English has been altered in one way or another. This point makes it hard to specifically state the number of people who speak this language.
The variation experienced in this dialect has been argued to portray the intricate collective attitudes that revolve around the AAVE. This may be one of the reasons why it had attracted the type of interest from various sociolinguists and also the focus it has generated from the general public. (Allyene, M 87 1980) There have been arguments that the African American English may have contributed some words that are used in Standard English.
There are regional variations as far as this form of language is concerned; this variation is described as little by linguists. Proponents of Creole hypothesis argue that this form of American English has some of similarity with the languages that are spoken in West Africa. (Winford, D 234 2000) There have been suggestions that African American vernacular English (AAVE) is an African language. The origin of the AAVE remains a controversial issue where scholars have never agreed on the various aspects concerning this dialect.
Debate over the origin and development of the language has been alive and the scholars argue that the history of the speakers of this form of English make it a unique and special case. There have been two main hypotheses which have dominated the discussion about the basis of the African American vernacular English. These hypotheses are the Creole and Anglicist. Anglicist theory is also referred to as the dialectal hypotheses. The Anglicist hypothesis was set by its proponents during the twentieth century.
They argued that the AAVE origin is traceable in the same way that the European English dialects were developed. The proponents of Anglicist hypothesis are of the assumption that the Africans who were taken to America as slaves learned a new language out of need to communicate. The proponents of this hypothesis belief that the Africans slaves learned English that was being spoken by the native English but in the course of learning it they made several mistakes which have been passed through generations. To Anglicist AAVE is bad English, a belief that has been greatly challenged by many linguists.
The Africans who had different languages simply learned English and as time went on their languages gradually disappeared, only a few traces of the ancestral languages that were spoken by the African slaves remained. This hypothesis is based on the observation that when a given group of people who speak the same language are separated or diverged they tend to have variation in their speech. Language has been said to be a static and dynamic system a language spoken by a certain community will change since the groups have to continue communicating even when they are drawn apart due to various reasons.
One notable example which has been used to explain this hypothesis is the variation which exists between American and the British English, the dialectical variation between these two forms of English has been said to have resulted due to the geographical distance that exist between the users of the two dialects. Isolation of the African Americans in the United States of America during the slavery period is of great importance as far as this hypothesis is concerned. Dialectal or the Anglicist clearly gives the facts on the origin of non Standard English through their unique explanations.
Double and multiple negations are some of the examples through which the proponents of the theory state that were taken directly from the traditional forms of speech as the language developed. AAVE is known to have inherited some forms from the ancient traditions while at the same time making some modifications through innovations. To angilict this is what happens when two dialects move apart. Old characteristics feature are kept while at the same time the new ones are brought to the picture. A good example is a point where the AAVE lost the third person singular.
Several dialectologists of the twentieth century claimed that AAVE roots can be traced back to the earliest form of the American English dialects. (Bailey, G. 46 1993) Supporters of this hypothesis made an assumption that the Africans Americans slaves learned the different forms of English which were spoken by their masters who were mostly European whites. The Anglicist theory was later challenged by the creolist who noted that the early language circumstances for the descendants from Africa who were subjected to the slavery as totally different from the one experienced by the European immigrants.
The creolist focus on the origins of AAVE through assuming that it came from a creole language for example Gullah. They base their argument on the fact that it has the same features as the creoles that are spoken in the Caribbean. To the Creolist the segregation and subordination experienced by the African slaves only Yielded to development of a language which came to be referred to as Creole. This refers to a language that is formed by the groups which do not share a common language. Formation of a Creole is for purely communication purposes.
African slaves having come from different language groups needed to communicate among themselves and also had to communicate with their masters. The Creole hypothesis states that AAVE is an outcome of a Creole which is derived from languages spoken in western part of Africa combined with English. African Slaves who mainly spoke different Western African languages were usually put together when they were being taken to their destination. For these people to communicate in some way they came up with a pidgin which was as a result of using English and West African words.
This pidgin later passed on to through generations, and as soon as the pidgin became the main language it came to be described as a Creole. Over the years it has come to undergo a process which is known decreolization making it sound like the Standard English. Later it became the primary language of it’s speakers making it to be classified as a Creole. Over the years AAVE has gone through the process of decreolization and is beginning to sound more like Standard English (Bailey, G. 67 1993) Arguments over the early development of AAVE are just as contentious as the debate over its origin.
This is partly due to the unavailability of data concerning the language. The one which has been there has been insufficient and unreliable at the same time though there may have been some written information which dates back in the colonial era its reliability is usually doubted therefore linguists being unable to gather much about the development of this dialect. The actual speech of the spoken African American language is not available since recordings were not there until the early years of the twentieth century.
Peharps the lack of evidence coupled with the emergence of different schools of thought and hypothesis has made the dialect to be such unique making to attract too much public attention. (Rickford, J. Mufwene, S and Bailey, G, 254 1998) The creolist have continued to argue that the speech of the African Americans has continued to change significantly over the years but the characteristics of the creole language still exist in many other related dialects. African American vernacular English has developed up to the point where it is influencing other dialects.
Its growth can be linked to many factors such as the unique position in which the language came about. It has become extremely hard to say exactly which side holds water as far as the origin a development of African American vernacular English is concerned. It has been influenced by the regional context as well as the heritage situation of the language. The debate on the African American Vernacular English will always be an ongoing phenomenon. It will keep on experiencing changes as far as the grammar is concerned.
The current findings indicate that as the time goes by the distinctive characteristics of the language will continue to be stronger (Rickford, J. Mufwene, S and Bailey, G, 234 1998) African American vernacular English continue to be popular though at first was regarded as inferior English dialectal due to the historical background it is associated with. The dialect will continue to draw more debates in the years to come as it develops more closely to the Standard English.
Perhaps in some years to come it will be the dialect that most of the Americans will be using. The dialect may not get the necessary support to be used in school but the very nature that it touches on a very sensitive issue of race will make many linguists to continue doing more research on it so that they can be able to solve so many questions that have been left unanswered for such a long period. The two theories may have attempted to answer some pertinent issues that have arose but still gaps remain as far as the development of the language is concerned. | https://grandpaperwriters.com/origin-of-african-american-vernacular-english-essay/ |
This book focuses on aspects of variation and change in language use in spoken and written discourse on the basis of corpus analyses, providing new descriptive insights, and new methods of utilising small specialized corpora for the description of language variation and change. The sixteen contributions included in this volume represent a variety of diverse views and approaches, but all share the common goal of throwing light on a crucial dimension of discourse: the dialogic interactivity between the spoken and written. Their foci range from papers addressing general issues related to corpus analysis of spoken dialogue to papers focusing on specific cases employing a variety of analytical tools, including qualitative and quantitative analysis of small and large corpora. The present volume constitutes a highly valuable tool for applied linguists and discourse analysts as well as for students, instructors and language teachers. | https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/books/9789027271211 |
Present-day linguistics is primarily oriented towards written language. This practice is deeply rooted in the traditions of Western civilization. However, any unprejudiced person must recognize that spoken language is the primary and fundamental kind of language use – in phylogeny, in ontogeny, and quantitatively in the experience of any individual. When one looks at spoken language, with its prosody, pauses, hesitations, false starts, and very different grammar, one feels that linguistics must be significantly recast if it wants to reflect what language is in reality. Interplay of grammar and prosody, as well as the principles of discourse transcription, have been considered in the framework of the Night Dream Stories project Night Dream Stories and discourse transcription; see Kibrik and Podlesskaya 2006 [ppt]. I attempted to apply the principles of discourse transcription – developed on Russian data – to a less known language Pulaar (Atlantic, West Africa), see Kibrik and Koval 2006 [pdf]. Also, not just verbal and prosodic material, but visual component as well must be taken into account in realistic models of discourse, see the project on multimodality Multimodal approach to discourse and grammar.
Linguistic typology
Nowadays, there are at least two understandings of what linguistic typology is. The first understanding suggests that it is necessarily a cross-linguistic study based on language samples representing a variety of languages comparable to that of the whole world. The second understanding is less rigid and recognizes that in addition to such large-scale typology, there exists a small-scale, in-depth typological work. I am personally interested in the latter kind of research since I prefer to use first-hand knowledge rather that crucially rely on how other people interpret languages (or still other people’s writings). So my approach to the languages I am familiar is is to look at the data from a typological perspective. This is contrasted to a variety of language- (or language family-) internal approaches analyzing particular languages only within the tradition associated with it historically. My studies in grammatical typology, such as the studies of propositional derivation (see Kibrik in press [pdf]) and of role marking (Kibrik 2006 [pdf]), are primarily based on first-hand knowledge of languages and a typologically-oriented view of their data. Much of my typological work was devoted to referential devices, see the project on reference in discourse Reference in discourse: Cognitive and typological aspects.
Linguistic diversity
I am very interested in this fascinating emerging discipline combining three more traditional linguistic fields: linguistic typology, genealogical (historical-comparative) linguistics, and areal linguistics. I have not done research in the latter two fields but I teach a course in linguistic diversity [link] and am preparing a textbook “Languages of the world and language areas”. I am particularly interested in native North American languages, some West African languages, Turkic languages, and Caucasian languages.
Athabaskan languages
Athabaskan languages constitute one of the largest native families of North America. They are spread through much of western North America, from Alaska and Canada to the Mexican border. These languages are typically North American in being highly polysynthetic and verb-centered; see Kibrik 2001 [pdf], 2002 [pdf]; Kibrik 2004 [link]. In other ways they are very special. In particular, they are extraordinarily prefixal, and the ordering of prefixes goes counter to cross-linguistics tendencies. I have done field work on Navajo, an Athabaskan language of the American Southwest, and, at a more limited scale, on a Californian language Hupa. Since 1997, I have been studying Upper Kuskokwim (Kibrik 1998 [pdf1], [pdf2]), a language of central Alaska.
Linguistic study of Russian Sign Language
I have done very limited research in sign linguistics myself, but I encourage my students to investigate the Russian Sign Language. This is one of the major languages of Russia spoken by dozens of thousands of people. However, this language is not officially recognized and is not listed as one of the languages of Russia, for example, in censuses. I find it very important to promote linguistic studies of RSL, following comparable studies of other sign languages. So far, most success was achieved by my graduate student Evgenija V. Prozorova (the title of her 2006 M.A., or dipoma, thesis, was: “Referential properties of the noun phrase in Russian Sign Language”); also see Kibrik and Prozorova 2007 [pdf].
Languages of Moscow
Moscow, as other metropolitan cities, is a site of incredible linguistic diversity. And this diversity is largely unknown both to linguists and to a broader public. The reasons for this lack of information are various, including legal and political. But the main reason is absence of curiosity on the part of the linguistic community. Many languages spoken in Moscow for decades go unnoticed by linguists. It is very important to uncover the actual status of linguistic diversity in this city, for the benefit of linguists and other researchers and for information of the public. This area of research is still at its infancy. Just several surveys have been done by students. | http://www.philol.msu.ru/~otipl/new/main/people/kibrik-aa/research_interests.html |
This workshop aims at investigating the relations between the properties of Universal Grammar, the various theories of variation and language acquisition, and the different methodologies we have to collect and use data. This includes (but is not limited to) big data, machine learning, interviews, on-line questionnaires, and other strategies that, step by step, are becoming more and more used in our (and adjacent) fields.
JANUARY 13 (WEDNESDAY)
16:15 – PRESENTATION
16:30 – Roberta D’Alessandro, Utrecth University
Tackling change in contact: the microcontact perspective.
17:30 – BREAK
18:00 – Lauren Ackerman, University of Newcastle
Exploring syntactic microvariation with hierarchical cluster analysis.
19:00 END OF DAY ONE
JANUARY 14 (THURSDAY)
10:30 – Inés Fernández-Ordóñez, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Investigating grammar variation in dialectics of rural Spanish.
11:30 – Irantzu Epelde, IKER – CNRS
Collecting and analysing written & spoken Basque for investigating language variation.
12:30 – LUNCH BREAK
15:00 – Laura Domínguez, University of Southampton
A model for investigating syntactic attrition: insights from the ‘Vulnerable Native Grammars Project’. | https://clt.uab.cat/activitats_clt/workshop-parametric-networks-of-language-variation-theories-and-methodologies/ |
Round table discussion with Aaron Ecay (Unversity of York), Seth Mehl (University of Sheffield), Nick Zair (Univeristy of Cambridge), chaired by Cécile De Cat (University of Leeds)
Is linguistics an empirical science? How reliable are the data on which linguistic analyses and theories are based? These questions are not new, but in light of the disturbing findings of the Reproducibility Project in psychological sciences, the need to revisit them has become more pressing. This round table discussion will start with presentations from three postdoctoral researchers, who will discuss the question of data collection and analysis and the interpretation of linguistic evidence.
This panel will be held on 11 November 2016 at 4.15pm in the Great Woodhouse Room, University House, University of Leeds, LS2 9JS.
For more information about the individual panelists’ presentations, see their abstracts below. The presentations have been live-tweeted under the hashtag
#SoEiLA, and George Walkden has kindly provided a storified version of the tweets.
Big and small data in ancient languages
by Nicholas Zair (University of Cambridge)
Ancient linguists often have to deal with ‘bad’ data; in practice, this often means ‘small’ data, and a particularly fruitful approach has been to view the data through the lens of sociolinguistic theory, especially with regard to multilingualism, language as a marker of identity, and language death. However, there are dangers in using theory to ‘fill in the gaps’ in our data; for example, we might wonder how relevant modern cases of language death are to ancient linguistic situations, and to what extent disparate pieces of evidence can reasonably be made to fit into a narrative (pre)defined by ‘what we expect’. On the other hand, in recent years there has been a great increase in digital resources for ancient languages. These often allow much faster collection and analysis of large amounts of data, but can also pose challenges – not least the danger of making ‘bad’ data worse. I will discuss issues surrounding sources for and use of ancient linguistic data, providing case studies from ancient Italy.
Corpus semantics: From texts to data to meaning
by Seth Mehl (University of Sheffield)
Corpus semantics applies quantitative data science techniques to questions of meaning in language. In order to be successful, such research must account for the nature of corpus data and the nature of semantic meaning, and connect the two. In this talk, I explore the nature of linguistic data, the processes for collecting and structuring it, and the possible relationships between corpus data, semantic meaning, and quantitative calculations. Can computers count words to find meaning? In addressing this question, I present examples from my own research on the Linguistic DNA project, which employs computational methods and close reading to model semantic and conceptual change across tens of thousands of texts, and over a billion words, of Early Modern English.
Bridge to nowhere? – Progress and problems in relating syntactic variation and change to syntactic theory
by Aaron Ecay (University of York)
Modern formal syntactic theories rely on a crucial methodological assumption: that speakers’ mental representations can be accessed and interrogated by way of acceptability judgments of test sentences created by the investigator. When studying extinct language varieties, however, native speakers are not available to provide judgments. And when variable phenomena are studied judgments are no help, since speakers (by and large) accept all variants equally. Corpora, and the quantitative data they provide, are one methodology for studying syntactic variation and change. But how can the data yielded by corpora connect with theoretical analyses?
In order to bridge the gap between the theoretical and quantitative-empirical domains, linguists have developed linking hypotheses. In this talk, I will review several of these, such as:
- The constant rate hypothesis (Kroch 1989)
- The exponential model of morphophonological rules (Guy 1991)
- The variational model of syntactic acquisition (Yang 2000)
After reviewing the models and how they serve as effective linking hypotheses, I’ll go on to consider the work that has followed from them. These models, I will argue, have all encountered challenges arising from the increase in available data and quantitative sophistication brought about in recent decades by the computer revolution.
What, then, will happen next at the interface between syntactic theory and quantitative data? Several developments are on the horizon. Firstly, traditional syntactic acceptability judgments have taken a recent quantitative turn (see e.g. Sprouse et al. 2013). Secondly, newly available sources of data, larger by orders of magnitude than what was previously available, have in the past several years been brought to bear on questions of both historical and contemporary variation, uncovering finer variation than was previously assumed to exist (see e.g. Grieve 2012). Finally, new quantitative linking hypotheses are being developed to augment those listed above (see e.g. Kauhanen 2016). These point to a future where the gap between syntactic theory and syntactic variation is narrower, and will be bridged by a common understanding of the processes that produce and regulate variation.
Grieve, J. (2012) “A statistical analysis of regional variation in adverb position in a corpus of written Standard American English.” Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 8, pp. 39-72.
Guy, G. (1991) “An exponential model of morphological constraints.” Language Variation and Change 3, pp. 1-22.
Kauhanen, H. (2016) “Neutral change.” Journal of Linguistics. (Accepted to appear; available online).
Kroch, A. (1989) “Reflexes of grammar in patterns of language change.” Language Variation and Chance 1, pp. 199-244.
Sprouse, J., Schütze, C., Almeida, D. (2013) “A comparison of informal and formal acceptability judgments using a random sample from Linguistic Inquiry 2001–2010.” Lingua 134, 219-248.
Yang, C. (2001) “Internal and external forces in language change.” Language Variation and Change 12, 231-250. | https://blog.philsoc.org.uk/2016/11/08/sources-of-evidence-for-linguistic-analysis/?replytocom=4 |
Date:
20-Mar-2013
From:
Mariette Bonenkamp <LOT
uu.nl>
Subject:
Pragmatics, Semantics: PhD Student, Uil-OTS, Netherlands
E-mail this message to a friend
Level: PhD
Duties: Research,Project Work
Specialty Areas: Pragmatics; Semantics
Description:
The projects are part of the ERC funded programme 'Restriction and Obviation in Scalar Expressions: The semantics and pragmatics of range markers across and throughout languages” awarded to Rick Nouwen. This programme investigates the division of labour between semantic and pragmatic mechanisms in creating scalar meanings. It aims to derive a linguistically informed theory of the semantic-pragmatics interface.
The PhD projects study the distribution of epistemic inferences triggered by scalar expressions across different domains of language and different languages.
PhD Project 1 will examine cross-linguistic variation in numeral constructions. The tasks in this project are: (1) to conduct large-scale language surveys and elicitation interviews resulting in a database of cross-linguistic variation in numerical constructions; (2) to extract from these data a theory of quantification and scalarity.
PhD Project 2 will examine variation between scalar constructions in different domains of natural language (e.g. numeral, spatial, temporal). The tasks in this project are: (1) to compare and extend existing analyses of scalar expressions throughout language; (2) to translate insights from various domains of language to a comprehensive theory of quantification and scalarity.
Both PhD students' duties will include teaching. The traineeship culminates in the writing of a dissertation, potentially on the basis of published articles.
Requirements
• An MA degree (or equivalent) in linguistics or a related field in hand by October 1, 2013;
• Demonstrable knowledge in at least one (preferably two) of the following areas: (formal) semantics, (formal) pragmatics, syntax, logic, philosophy of language;
• Excellent spoken and written English;
• The willingness to work in a team;
• The ambition to pursue a career in an internationally oriented scientific community.
About 130 researchers are affiliated to UiL OTS, including 50 PhD-researchers. The goal of UiL OTS is to develop scientific expertise in the area of language and communication. UiL OTS features a stimulating and internationally oriented research environment. Both projects include research visits to experts outside of Utrecht University, as well as ample opportunity for conference visits. This AiO traineeship involves graduate courses offered by LOT and the Humanities Graduate School (transferable skills).
Conditions based on the Collective Employment Agreement of the Dutch Universities
• a (AiO) PhD position with a gross monthly salary from €2083,- to €2664,- in year 4.
• an18 month contract, extended by 2.5 years upon positive evaluation.
• a pension scheme, an 8% holiday allowance and flexible employment conditions.
Applications should include
• CV (including contact and education details);
• a letter of motivation;
• an academic transcript of courses and grades;
• a sample of written work, e.g. MA thesis, term paper, or an (un-)published article;
• full contact details of two referees;
• two reference letters (optional).
If you apply for both positions please indicate your preference.Apply through the Utrecht University vacancy site (search 'academic' + ' Humanities', open the relevant ad and click on the application link), live or Skype interviews are expected to take place in the second week of June 2013.
Interviewees will be invited to submit a two-page written response to the project description one week in advance of the interview.
Applications Deadline: 01-May-2013
Web Address for Applications: | https://linguistlist.org/issues/24/24-1356/ |
Over half of the world's estimated 7,000 languages are tonal, and most are spoken by small populations, threatened by globalization and changing socioeconomic landscapes. This project will advance scientific understanding of tone and tonal languages more generally. This project will answer some of the many questions remaining about tone by focusing on a language displaying exceptional tonal complexity. The investigation of a language with four tones, a relatively uncommon cross-linguistic pattern, will better inform linguists about the upper bounds on the number of distinct tones and the types of grammatical information represented solely through tone. The project will provide new insights into many questions remaining about tone and phonological reduction, and on the behavior of a complex tonal system in morphology and syntax. The results will be disseminated via a reference grammar that includes and fully documents tone in its grammatical context, as well as by archived, annotated language data. Broader impacts include fostering international scientific cooperation and training undergraduate students in methods of language documentation and analysis. This contributes to the national interest by enabling soft diplomacy through scientific and technological training of international partners and by producing language scientists for the twenty-first century with expertise in cutting-edge techniques. This award is co-funded by the Office of International Science and Engineering.
This project focuses on documenting the grammatical structure of Seenku, an endangered Mande language of Burkina Faso. Even in the African context, Seenku is exceptional for its tonal complexity, both in the number of contrasting pitch levels and the range of uses of tone in the grammar. Special attention is paid to documenting and analyzing the tone system using a variety of innovative methods. First, the research team will develop a novel computational tool ATLAS (Automated Tone Level Annotation System) to automate the tonal annotation of documentary materials. Tone can be notoriously difficult and time-consuming to transcribe, and the development of this tool will help other researchers and linguistic communities working on tonal languages. Second, tone will be studied through a culturally unique tradition in which Seenku words are encoded on the xylophone through their tone and rhythm. Mechanisms like this produce tones without the segmental and other features, which interact with surface tone realizations. This mechanism provides a rare window into speakers' subconscious knowledge of their language, addressing questions of cognitive representations of tone. The main products of this project include a comprehensive reference grammar, a trilingual Seenku-English-French dictionary, and an archive of audio and video recordings of various speech genres, with time-aligned transcriptions and translations. These products are of use to linguists, anthropologists, ethnomusicologists, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). | https://linguistics.dartmouth.edu/prof-mcpherson-awarded-3-year-nsf-grant |
Linguistics, the review of language and languages, traces its origins to Ancient Greece in the fifth century B.C., for the duration of which time speech earning, named rhetoric, was deemed an artwork and in which the Sophists have been keenly fascinated.
The to start with official thesis relating to the matter, entitled “Cratylus” and composed in four hundred B.C., targeted on equally all-natural and traditional which means, and explored no matter whether guy named items because of the way they appeared or irrespective of whether the conditions have been the final result of consensus and collective use.
Tracia-born Dionysius Thrax, turning into the 1st to analyze the subject in his published e-book, “The Artwork of Grammar,” discussed the eight parts of speech in the Greek language, inclusive of the noun, the verb, the participle, the report, the pronoun, the preposition, the adverb, and the conjunction, classifying phrases according to gender, selection, scenario, tense, mood, sort, and sort. He in addition invented a “metalanguage,” or a language about a language, and the exercise of assessment primarily based on published types.
Land and wealth had been not the only commodities to result from conquest. Certainly, when the Romans did so of Greece, they collected linguistic info, and Marcus Terentius Varro wrote “De Lingua Latina,” discussing the dissimilarities in between language in basic and language in follow.
Donatus and Priscian, two other famed Romans, manufactured linguistic contributions by respectively creating grammars in the fourth and sixth generations A.D., by which time rhetoric had progressed into philology, or the research of written texts.
In the course of the Center Ages, which ran from the sixth to the seventh centuries A.D., European languages, as we know them these days arose, though they were barely connected with prestige. Since they were being spoken by typical folks and experienced no distinct buildings or grammars, they had been viewed as “vulgar” in comparison to Latin, which was then the formal tongue.
Penning “De Vulgari Eloquentia,” Dante supported this premise by pointing out that their changeability rendered them inferior, although Latin, the language of the literati, was fastened.
Major linguistic improvement did not happen until eventually the Renaissance, in about 1450 A. D., on the other hand, when scholars, viewing monastery libraries, unearthed Latin manuscripts that had been gathered by monks for ages and had apparently offered no use.
Immediately after the drop of the Jap Roman Empire in 1485, when Arabs invaded Constantinople, scholars fled to Europe, introducing Greek by indicates of the guides they introduced, and prompting the training of equally it and Latin. Roman numerals grew to become ordinal numbers, although Arabic types turned cardinal quantities.
Finding out philology and Sanskrit, Sir William Jones, a British formal who labored in India, famous that it was very similar to Greek and Latin, significantly in the roots of its verbs, and concluded that European languages should have originated from it, designating his target Indo-European philology. Comparative linguistics was thus born.
Jacob Grimm, of fairy tale fame, gathered tales from quite a few international locations and recognized that most of their plots ended up identical, with the exception of their options, and deduced that they all ought to have emanated from a widespread Indo-European origin. “The Arabian Evenings,” first translated all through these time, equally incorporated many equivalent themes.
Because they all experienced a prevalent origin, so, far too, it was thought, did languages, and investigation of phrases more supported this. “Guest” in English, for instance, was “gasts” in Gothic, “gestr” in Previous Norse, “giest” in Aged English, “iest” in Previous Frisian, “gast” in Outdated Saxon, and “gastiz” in Proto Germanic.
If you have any concerns pertaining to where and ways to use linguists, you can call us at our web-site.
This phenomenon could be defined by Grimm’s Legislation, derived from his historic and comparative analyze of the sounds of quite a few European languages, which indicated that modifications systematically transpired and were connected to the other languages in the exact loved ones.
The review furthermore discovered that words, inflections, and syntax also underwent systematic modify. By doing work backwards, he was ready to establish developmental designs that had been projected into distant time intervals, in the course of which no written language existed, specifically that of Indo-European.
Mainly because Latin was considered the model tongue, languages belonging to this group ended up hugely influenced by its grammatical and syntactical buildings. German, for example, a non-Romance language, acquired its individual structure from it when it very first took composed sort, resulting in its circumstance procedure.
Simply because the Inkhornists, who spoke English, gained the battle versus the Latin-talking Purists in 1601, the King James Bible was translated into the medieval edition of the former language.
As a result, English words and phrases can be traced back to Sanskrit, by way of Latin, thus outlining why seems in genetically associated languages, in accordance to Grimm’s Law, frequently altered, as the “p” in Latin did to the “f” in English, ensuing in the modify of the phrase “pater” to “father.”
Term origins, principally traced by groundbreaking linguist, Sir William Jones, revealed that there were numerous similarities. “I am,” for example, is translated as “asmi,” or “I breathe,” in Sanskrit, while its other conjugations include “asti”-“he is”–and “dhavi,”–“they are. With the exception of Afrikaans and Swedish, all verbs meaning “to be” that ended up derived from Indo-European languages are resultantly irregular.
Through the 1800s, linguistic investigate was principally based mostly upon composed texts. Deviating from this observe, Ferdinand de Saussure utilized what he known as a “structural strategy”-that is, he appeared at the spoken language and any changes he could detect inside it.
Nicholas Trubetskoy, one particular of the users of the Prague School of Linguistics, wrote and printed “Grundzuege der Phonologie” in 1939, which marked the initial time that the systematic principle of phonemes was documented. It was just after this time that the concentration of language examination shifted from the prepared to the spoken variation of it.
Quite a few factors prompted the analyze of language alone. Involving 1700 and 1870, for case in point, anatomy and healthcare developments in Europe served as springboards to it, and subsequent innovations, which include people of the loud speaker, the document, and the microphone, facilitated the 1st recordings of the human voice. Seem spectrograph and speech synthesizer procedures after the nineteen thirties opened new linguistic fields. | https://www.beanwoodfaverolles.com/2019/04/15/the-historical-past-of-linguistics/ |
Jessica Coon is Associate Professor of Linguistics at McGill University and holds the Canada Research Chair in Syntax and Indigenous Languages. Her research focuses on topics in syntactic theory, with a special focus on languages of the Mayan family. In addition to theoretical work, she is involved in collaborative language documentation and revitalization projects with Indigenous communities in Canada and Latin America.
In the summer of 2015 she worked as the scientific consultant for the film Arrival, which stars Amy Adams as a linguistic fieldworker who is recruited by the military to decipher the language of the recently-arrived Heptapods. Since the film, Dr. Coon has helped create a public dialogue about linguistics and endangered languages through interviews and written work in outlets including Wired Magazine, The Washington Post, and CBC's The Current.
Martin Neef is professor for German Linguistics at the TU Braunschweig (Germany). His research focuses on theories of the language system (phonology, morphology, syntax) and the writing system as well as on the general conceptions of linguistic theories in the paradigm of Linguistic Realism. In his habilitation thesis Die Graphematik des Deutschen (published in 2005), he developed an original approach to analyze the relation of written forms to spoken forms, an approach he further developed in the project Die Systematische Orthographie des Deutschen (2011-2014; funded by the German National Science Foundation DFG) to capture the direction from spoken forms to written forms as well. He is author of four monographs and 45 research articles and co-editor of 12 volumes. Furthermore, he is co-editor (together with Said Sahel and Rüdiger Weingarten) of the terminological lexicon Schriftlinguistik which is currently in preparation (parts of it are already electronically pre-published). From 2008 to 2015, he was General Editor of the journal Written Language and Literacy.
The Linguistics of Arrival: What an alien writing system can teach us about human language
If aliens arrived, could we communicate with them? How would we do it? What are the tools linguists use to decipher unknown languages? How different can languages be from one another? Do these differences have bigger consequences for how we see the world? And how might difference in writing systems reflect or influence cognition?
The 2016 science-fiction film Arrival—based on the short story Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang—touches on these and other real questions in the field of linguistics. In Arrival, linguistics professor Dr. Louise Banks is recruited by the military to translate the language of the newly-arrived heptapods. Her job is to find the answer to the question everyone wants to know: why are they here? Language is a crucial piece of the answer, but the answer isn’t simple. Heptapods, it turns out, have two completely distinct languages: a spoken language (Heptapod A), and a written language (Heptapod B). This talk explores these themes in Arrival, and discusses what the fictious Heptapod B can tell us about human language.
What is it that ends with a full stop?
In the analysis of written language, the distribution of the punctuation marks full stop, question mark, and exclamation mark is usually explained with reference to the concept of sentence. Consequently, these marks are termed Satzschlusszeichen (‘sentence closing mark’) in German linguistics. However, if the term sentence is understood as in syntax, e.g. as a phrase with a finite verb as its head, it turns out that (in English, as an example) while in some cases the marks in question actually follow what can be regarded as a sentence (Where are you now?), in many other cases the marks follow less than one sentence (Here!) or more than one sentence (I am here and you are there.) or they are interspersed into a sentence (Stop! Being! Stupid!). In order to arrive at a proper analysis of such data, it is necessary to distinguish between two different structural concepts, the sentence as a strictly syntactic notion on the one hand and a different concept belonging to the field of grapholinguistics on the other hand. There are numerous suggestions how to conceive of this other concept. In the approach to be presented, it is termed written utterance and regarded as what a writer conceives of as a coherent thought. What is important is that the concepts of sentence and written utterance are completely independent of each other as they belong to different fields of linguistics. A grapholinguistic analysis has to explain the wellformedness conditions of written utterances. In the grapholinguistic model that is used as background for this analysis, the language system is regarded as being part of the writing system so that analyses of written forms can make use of all concepts that are established for the analysis of the language system. This model gives a peculiar answer to the pertinent question of the relation of written language to spoken language. | https://grafematik2020.sciencesconf.org/resource/page/id/3 |
When most ESL teachers think of discourse analysis, they think of impractical and non-applicable information for their language classroom, which, not incidentally, is difficult to read because it is so technical. With Discourse Analysis in the Language Classroom, Heidi Riggenbach presents a comprehensive rationale and a sound procedure for integrating basic discourse analysis techniques into a language classroom in an eminently readable form.
The book is divided into two parts, overview and activities. In the overview (the first two chapters), this discourse analysis approach is situated in the literature. In the activities section (the second two chapters), examples and templates of activities which can be done or adapted to language classrooms are given. There are also four appendices and a very good table of contents for general topics.
Each of the four chapters has a short annotated bibliography of suggested readings and a longer bibliography of references. These offer a wealth of reading for those who want to pursue a topic further. Each chapter ends with a series of questions meant for discussion by in-service or pre-service teachers. These questions guide content review and offer opportunities for thoughtful discussion of principles introduced in each chapter.
Chapter 1 relates the development of discourse analysis activities to the four components of communicative competence: sociolinguistic, linguistic, discourse, and strategic competence. Riggenbach then proceeds to link discourse analysis activities to current trends in ESL instruction, from Brown's (1991) learner motivation, focus on the learner, and content/task-based subject matter themes to the experiential learning/learner as researcher model. She also describes materials design and teachers' preference parameters, such as student populations, course and syllabus design, and teacher styles. Then she shows how a discourse analysis activity can enhance classrooms as students take on the various roles of discourse analysts and teachers assume the roles of co-researchers and facilitators. One important feature introduced in this chapter and reoccurring throughout the text for each sample activity is a continuum of macro-level structures (e.g., the social milieu influencing language) and micro-level structures (e.g., the linguistic constituents of language). This reminds readers that any specific piece of language can be located on a continuum of linguistic instance affected by social situation. [-1-]
Chapter 2 situates Riggenbach's classroom approach to discourse analysis firmly in the qualitative tradition and states her belief that use of structured tasks with a focused research question can set up conditions in which "even a novice language researcher can undertake a discourse analysis project" (p. 37). Data collection issues in qualitative research (such as interviewing, structuring and standardization of the interviews) and role relations in interviewing are discussed. Issues dealing with spoken language, such as the "perfect" native speaker, video- and audio-taping, the limitations of observation skills with spoken language, and use of transcripts of spoken language are then discussed competently.
The final section of chapter 2 unveils Riggenbach's six-step, data-driven approach for conducting discourse analysis activities: predict, plan, collect data, analyze, generate, review. In the first step learners make predictions about the target structure. In the second step they set up a research plan that will lend itself to yielding the target structure. Step three has the learners "observing and/or recording the target structure in its discourse environment" (p. 45). In step four, the learners analyze results and form conclusions. In step five, they discuss the target structure and practice it in an appropriate environment. The final step is a review in which learners summarize their findings and ask if the data conforms to the conclusions from step four. These steps can then be written out in four- to six-page chapters. This is an excellent activity template that will help language learners use authentic language in an authentic context.
Chapter 3 begins with a discussion of spoken discourse and conversation in particular and describes how researchers and language educators have analyzed them, both at a micro and macro level. In this chapter the activities are more at an oral skill, macro level. Suggestions for developing original activities are then discussed. The roles which students will assume during the first 14 example discourse analysis projects are given and defined. They are: conversational analysts, sociolinguists, speech event analysts, ethnographers, and stylisticians. Having students take on these roles means that novices are taking over the roles of experts without background experience, a somewhat risky enterprise, and one which would require a lot of teacher facilitating. Also, an activity of the register analysis type (activities 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12) must always be seen as only a sliver of what the registers may in fact be. This is because comprehensive register analysis requires a quantitative approach with a massive corpus because register distinctions "are based on differences in the relative distribution of linguistic features, which in turn reflect differences in their communicative purposes and situations" (Biber, 1994, p. 35). The activities themselves are clearly outlined through all six stages. Additionally, the activities are representative and transparent enough to allow for many other similar investigations to be done with only a slight change of discourse focus.
The last chapter of the book follows the previous chapter's format of a discussion of the skills to be used in discourse analysis projects, suggestions for developing original activities, and sample activities. In this chapter the more traditionally taught skill areas of pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary are discussed. Each micro skill has four activities exemplifying the application of Riggenbach's approach. These micro skill discourse analysis techniques are probably the most accessible and adaptable for language teachers and students. [-2-]
The four appendices offer a) a sample handout for one of the activities discussed earlier, b) samples of student data with transcript conventions, c) excerpts from student-made chapters, and d) a sample of the learner/teacher feedback section. These are useful in order to see the accuracy level of the student's transcription and the depth of the analysis done by the students.
The book has two major omissions. One is the lack of an index for cross-referencing specific topics. This is a surprising omission for a teacher resource book because language teachers often need quick access to specific ideas and activities appropriate for use with an imposed syllabus or textbook.
The other serious omission is the curious absence, from both the annotated suggested readings and the bibliographies, of the large body of work in corpus linguistics from both sides of the Atlantic. Relevant research which should have been included could start with Douglas Biber's (1994) seminal yet sometimes difficult body of research on register studies and language variation, Tottie's (1991) complete but highly focused Negation in English Speech and Writing: A Study in Variation, and other research using corpus-based techniques. Another highly relevant, unmentioned work based on corpora is Stenstrom's (1994) An Introduction to Spoken Interaction. This exclusion of extensive research based on principled corpora is regrettable.
This book is a welcome addition to an in-service or pre-service teacher's bookshelf. Its major strength is the flexibility of the approach and sample activities, which can be used as part of a course or as a basis for designing a whole course. In conclusion, both the approach and the sample activities are sound for wading in the tide pools of spoken language analysis.
Biber, D. (1994). An analytical framework for register studies. In Biber, D. and Finegan, E. (Eds.). Sociolinguistic perspectives on register (pp. 31-56). New York: Oxford University Press.
Brown, H. D. (1991). TESOL at twenty-five: What are the issues? TESOL Quarterly, 25, 245-260.
Stenstrom, A.-B. (1994). An introduction to spoken interaction. London: Longman.
Tottie, G. (1991). Negation in English speech and writing: A study in variation. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Jim Bame
Utah State University
<[email protected]>
|
© Copyright rests with authors. Please cite TESL-EJ appropriately.
|
Editor's Note: Dashed numbers in square brackets indicate the end of each page for purposes of citation.. | http://www.tesl-ej.org/ej14/r11.html |
Terms and conditions are loading...
We are processing your monitoring request...
Total number of topics in this forum: 225
Question from
I have this in my new garden in London, growing beside and into an old apple tree. I've just noticed a few yellow flowers (in mid September, about 2cm across) and can't figure out what it is. My husband's desperate to chop it all back hard, but I'd like to know what it is, and how/when best to do it first. Any ideas anyone? My best thought so far is some kind of crab apple.
Question from
If I cut my large deciduous fushia Maiden's Blush, back hard now will I kill it?
Question from
I have a Buddleia (see photos) that has gone on a mental growth spurt. This is its second year i have had it and last year it was about 0.7m high and i pruned it back quite hard. Its now shoot up and out but the flowers on it dont seem to have any colour. it didnt flower last year so i dont know if this is how it should be. All the other buddleia in the local area have colour - white purple red and two others in my garden have colour. is this just an unusual variant or is there something amiss.
Question from
I am looking for a peach or nectarine tree/shurb that I can grow against a very sunny south facing wall in a very large container. Can anyone recommend a variety and nursery?
Question from
I garden for a friend, and she has a beautiful 'Wiri Mist' Hebe. It is over 4' across and approx. 1 1/2' tall, however, today I have noticed it seems to be dying from the base up . Any ideasThank You.
Question from
We planted oval leaf privet earlier this year and I want to make sure it turns into a nice, dense, bushy hedge which won't get too leggy.
Should I prune it now it's about two feet tall?
What would be the best method to prune it?thanks
Question from
We have a big hollybush growing just 5cm from our house, how worried do I need to be about it damaging foundations?
Internet research suggests that this is not ideal, but there's a house nearby which has a well groomed hollybush as high as it is right up against it's wall also.
Any advice would be helpful, do we just need to keep it below a certain height, or would it be best to remove it? There's a well established climbing rose growing about 15cm from it and I'd hate to damage that with any tinkering.
Question from
Could you advise when to cut back or prune large shrubs and a cherry tree.
Wish to gain space taken up by overgrown shrubs but do not wish to encourage strong growth. Can I cut back in July or do Inwait until Autunm or Winter? Many thanks
Question from
Hi,
I am unsure if I have a sucker or not. The leaves appear to be identical but the shoots are green rather than woody.
Can anyone confirm?
Thanks
Comment from
I've had this tree fern for about 4 years and last year I noticed that the fronds seemed stunted. I thought it might be different a season on but sadly it looks as though the same is happening again! I have two of these and wrap them both up over winter in a fleece. The other one is fine but I wondered if there is anything I can do to help it?
Get expert info and easy to follow monthly care reminders for the plants in your garden by signing up for a free Shoot account. | https://www.shootgardening.co.uk/forum/topic/listing/forumid/10?offset=40 |
Loam soil is considered an ideal ground for growing a large variety of plants. Clay soil has poor water drainage and can frequently be challenging to manage, while sandy soils cannot store enough water and nutrients needed to grow. Loam soil is considered a relatively similar mixture of three soils: clay, silt, and sand. It drains well but retains moisture and nutrients necessary for healthy plant growth.
Moreover, loam soil allows air to flow around plant roots and protects against diseases frequently caused by different types of compacted and poorly drained soils. It has good drainage to let air reach plant roots while retaining lots of humidity for plant health. These properties make it ideal for many garden plants. Although it is possible to buy bags of loam, it is good to know how much loam do I need.
How Much Loam Do I Need?
To know how much loam you need need to follow these steps.
Step 1
Determine the quantity of loam needed to cover the available space in the garden. Measure the area of the yard using a tape measure. Suppose the room is 15 feet long and 8 feet wide. Multiply by 15 feet by 8 feet to find 120 square feet.
Step 2
Divide the desired depth of loam in inches by 12 inches in every foot. This example assumes the 4-inch depth as the prior section. Then divide 4 inches with 12 inches to get 0.333 feet.
Step 3
In this step, multiply a depth by square footage obtainable in feet. For instance, multiply 0.333 feet with 120 square feet to get 40 cubic feet of loam needed to shroud the available 4-inch deep space.
Step 4
Decide the number of yards for loam needed to cover the area. Divide the required 40 cubic feet of loam by 27 cubic feet in every cubic yard. You will be required to get 1.48 yards of loam to fill the space to the expected depth of 4 inches.
Loam Soil Properties
- Texture
The loam soil has three components of texture that include sand, clay, and silt. These elements mix with water, air, and organic matter to form loam soil. This loam soil comprises 7 to 27% clay, 28 to 50% silt, and 52% or less sand. When there is more sand in the mix, farmers consider loam soil. If it has more clay, it is called a clay loam. Provided the area of each texture that remains at the correct percentage, the ground is termed loam soil.
- Compaction resistance
Loam soil with more sand can resist compaction. Typically, sandy loam soil provides the required surface in areas subject to compression caused by traffic or other circumstances.
- Drainage
The proportion of sand in the loam allows good drainage. These soils drain freely, especially when the content of organic matter is low. Loam soils retain water best than sandy soils due to the level of particles. According to World of Soil, a lack of enough organic matter in loam soil can cause the soil to dry out very quickly.
- Aeration
Loam soil has not only good drainage but also excellent aeration. Adequate aeration for the soil organism survival is beneficial for the absorption of nutrients from plants. Loam soil with large amounts of clay provides less ventilation for vegetation, soil organisms, as well as insects. It is more difficult for gardeners to handle loam soil at the clay end.
- Nutrients
Gardeners consider that loam soil has little capacity to retain nutrients. Free-draining sandy loam soil contains fewer nutrients than loam soils with more organic matter.
Use of Loam Soil
1. Raising crops
In loam soil, it provides the soil conditions necessary for plants to produce bountiful crops throughout the growing season. You need to choose a vegetable growing area that receives 6-8 hours of sunlight a day before planting vegetables, alternate loam or sand soils with soil conditioners such as compost, sawdust, manure, coarse sand, or peat.
Add 3-4 inches of natural matter and 1-2 inches of coarse soil with the soil surface. Then mix into the earth with a spade or tiller 8-10 inches in the ground. Avoid nutrient deficiencies that are caused by the breakdown of organic matter by adding nitrogen as needed.
2. Planting trees
Young trees are preferably planted with loam soil, as its soil texture allows the roots to spread fast, stores moisture, and receive nutrients necessary for their growth. Choose the planting location that meets your tree’s daily light needs. Dig the hole 2-3 times the size of the tree root, and then mix conditioner into the extracted soil used to amend sand or clay soil into loam.
Fill in a new soil mix and keep the trees at their actual planting depth. If the amended sandy soils don’t hold the newly planted trees well, a heavier layer of soil should be added.
3. Growing flowers
Different types of flowers grow rapidly and flourish in a loamy soil. Choose garden areas that offer partial shade or full sun, depending on plant conditions. Correct heavy sand or clay soil with conditioners, using a hoe or a garden tiller as needed.
Plant yearly or perennial flowering plants in modified soil and put a 2-inch organic mulch layer around the plants. In the hot spring and summer months, fertilize with a universal water-soluble fertilizer for the most colorful flowers every seven to ten days.
4. Ornamental plants
Drought-tolerant ornamental plants are adapted to periods of low humidity once they’re established. You want an open, loose soil texture that the roots can penetrate quickly, like good drainage and sandy loam soil, so that the roots do not get wet, which contributes to root rot. The extensive root system permits them to collect nutrients and water.
Conclusion
Typically, loam soil is a mixture of sand, clay, and silt that contains valuable properties for plants. It is fine-textured soil that breaks up into hard lumps or lumps as it dries. First, it can retain nutrients and moisture, which makes it best suited for agriculture. It has a high level of pH and calcium because of its inorganic sources. This soil is fertile, easy to use, and well-drained. With the above steps, you will know how much loam you will need. | https://www.growgardener.com/how-much-loam-do-i-need/ |
[This is part II of a travelogue of a journey that connected everything: human and nature, culture and agriculture, individual and community, arts and science, reality and utopia.] see part I
We all were in the small village of Castiglione in the south of Italy. A group of farmers, artists, scientists, writers and me, all asking ourselves one question: how do we want to live? This question wouldn’t be easy to answer, especially because of the other questions that it triggered. It became clear that to some of them there were no answers (e.g. why we were (here)), and that it was all the more important to engage in a dialogue.
The park we worked in saw a lot happen that week. Among other things, two gardens were set out. They both led us to one question, which could be considered from two angles.
Orto sinergico (synergetic garden)
The synergetic garden, a horseshoe-shaped parapet covered in straw, is half a meter in height and about one meter in diameter. The concept: soil and plants create one whole organism. The target: organizing the garden in a way that allows the ground to function naturally, like in nature. The ‘going back to nature’ idea behind it is practical, not esoteric. The less one disrupts the soil, the more diversity and interaction there is in its mass. Or in other words: the healthier the plants, the less problems there are.
Synergies are created between the ground and the plants, as well as among the plants themselves. For example, onions or garlic protect the heads of lettuce from pests, which is why they are planted next to each other. In return, the roots of the lettuce (which remain below the earth after harvesting) help the onions after the next seeds are sown. Tomatoes work well next to coriander and basil, as the herbs already aromatize the tomatoes while in the bed. Orange calendula flowers lure bees to the spot. The parapet itself – or a whole field of parapets, if we think bigger – protects the garden from erosion while the straw on the parapets will do the same on a smaller scale. Parapets like these are full of natural organisms, which will make chemical fertilizers totally obsolete and not even survive them.
Wild Garden
The wild garden is neither wild, nor cultivated. We removed some of the more dominant thorny tendrils from the strip next to the road, collected pieces of wood from the grass, cleared away some bigger rocks and pulled cling-wrap out of the soil. Both the old and newly dug pits were filled up with fertile soil. There we planted some herbs and flowers we found next to the abandoned fields. Even a ‘sculpture’ arose from a heap of stones that seemed to come floating out of a broken wall. We put some soil and lupine seeds between its stones. At the end of summer, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between what was planted and what was growing wildly yet still it was all arranged. The wild garden showcases a pure expression of beauty. It doesn’t need to do to anything else, yet it does more, questioning the boundary between nature and culture. This question doesn’t even need to be articulated. You can feel it and smell it when you walk through the garden and let your nose guide you from planted herbs to wild herbs, weeds, and fruits. And when you taste all of it.
Where is the line between nature and culture? This is the question both gardens address. The synergetic garden was developed on the initiative of the farmers of the group. It asks the question from a productivity-focused perspective. How can we best fulfill the needs of nature, imitating it in order to have a similarly rich harvest in the end? The wild garden that emerged from the group of artists asked aimlessly. And yet it possessed a productivity of its own, an artistic one. Art always produces, creating moments that are impossible to measure, buy, or put into words – just like the wild garden.
Regardless from which point of view you consider the relationship between nature and culture, however, it raises other questions with it: Is there really a border between the two? Does nature actually still exist, and what is our part in all of this? It was because of these questions that it was important to start a dialogue and to create synergies. Synergies between us and earth, and between art and agriculture. And that is how we would find out in the end: That’s how we want to live. | http://contemporaryfoodlab.com/hungry-world/2014/06/travelogue-ii-two-gardens/ |
Spring has sprung!
I know spring does not start until the 20th March, but we can forgive a day or two…. …
We start the path…
With the waste wood off Freecycle we started laying the new wooden path. Taking up the paving I…
Free wood leads to new project
I plan to make a start on this over the weekend. The other week we managed to pick…
Slow slow start to 2011
Lots of promise for 2011 but yet any to be lived out. So far work in the garden…
Square Foot Garden in the Snow
Not a lot going in here, infact the winter had seen the beds being used as a cat…
Wet and Damp – and some Fails
It has been very wet and damp these last weeks and now the sun is much lower during…
Spooky Spiders
September means it is spider month, in the garden and in the house you bump into spiders all…
September 2010
Probably the first and last chance to cut the grass before winter sets in. By this time only…
Garage Doors Finally Painted
All the constant August rain has been my fault. At the beginning of the month we started work…
Courgette Flowers -but no courgettes yet
We have two plants, one taking up four squares in the beds and the other on its own…
Blackberry Picking
Around the back of the house we have a small track which runs along the back of everyone’s…
Work starts on garage door
You get used to looking at the same thing every day and it is only when you look…
Broad Beans and Onions
I have never tried growing during the winter period, so thought now would be a good time while…
Spring Onion Cats!
I took good precautions when starting out with the Square Foot Garden as I knew normally a cat…
Decking Renewed
Due to this and that, I never treated the decking with anything last year, something which is normally…
Pulling out grass
A long long term project all this, to tart up the side at the front. It started a…
Berries in the front garden
Hidden behind the planks of wood (a future project… one day) are the wild strawberries and the tayberry…
Wild Flowers
The wild flowers in the front garden grass have all come out once again and made the front…
Found some sunflowers
A bit late, like everything else… but I found some old sunflower seed and thought I would give…
Sweetcorn come out for the sun
It is planned to have all these planted out this weekend and so all this week I have…
Potato Growth
These are actually looking quite good and with the rain and the sun these last days they are…
Loads of planting been going on
No time to “do the paperwork” but planting has been going on loads since the weekend. Yet to…
Snapshot June 2010
June has come rather fast! We have had a lot of sun this last week while we have…
Seedlings in the Utility Room
From our cookery book for pumpkin tart we had four seeds to make a start (long term cooking!) …
Pre-Sprouting Seeds
A tale of two seeds, or infact two lots of seeds. Two different squares were planted with the…
Garden Planning
This is where it all happens and one day I might even finish the spreadsheet! Currently it is…
Back from the Dead
I thought we had seen the last of our passion flower when after the winter it just stayed…
Potato Sacks Now Full
They just grow and grow, the sacks are now completely full, all that is left is to water…
Onion Sets starting off
On time… the late planted onion sets are starting to show signs of sprouting. The weather has been…
Sprouting Seeds
I have never thought of doing this before until I read about it and really it makes a…
Sweetcorn planted in two different ways
Do not be alarmed, I know too well that it is cutting it a bit fine to start…
14 Days Later… We Have a Carrot!
For this Square Foot Gardening I am keep plans up-to-date on a spreadsheet, something I may share at…
Red Onions Planted 2010
A bit late for doing this, but I saw red onion sets for sale at Wilkinsons and so…
Square Foot Bed Two Mixed
It was been mostly cold and wet these last days which has meant we had not been out…
Topping up Potatoes
The cats have kept off the potato bags and green shoots are starting to be seen. Tonight we…
Square foot bed one mixed
After a week of sunny days we seem to have started a phase of cold and rain, which…
Pumpkin Tarts – the start…
Tom and Jack have a cooking book which is quite clever (given to them from their Aunty Christine…
Mel’s Mix – The Ingredients
Vermiculite it seems is hard to get hold of in the States from what I read on the…
Square Foot Garden ready to be filled
Another weekend working on the square foot garden and this time building and putting in place the second…
April 2010 Snapshot
We have started to make changes to the back garden with the square foot garden starting to take…
Potatoes planted at last!
Whoops, we are a bit late with our potato project, about a month late really as these were…
Pumpin seeds planted
We have never done this before, but after reading about pumpkins to Tom and Jack the other night…
First Square Foot Bed in Place
After the fun of the bashing the concrete then followed a week of clearing the debris. It did…
Square foot gardening to start? Goodbye concrete! | http://sunflower.moleville.co.uk/category/uncategorized/ |
Now that spring is back garden tasks increase and depending on your geographical location, type of soil in your garden and native flowers you can start making arrangements landscaping, so we give you 10 tips that you should take into account to fix your garden and enjoy the spring.
1. Know your climate: Before you get too excited, question the type of weather that dominates the region. This allows you to ask suppliers of suitable plants for the amount of sun you have in the garden.
2. Research phase: As with any project of ‘Do it yourself’, you need to have all the necessary tools. Plan and schedule your activities, ask for help at your local nursery or your neighbors with more experience.
3. Pests: as part of your research question what are the plagues that have been reported in the neighborhood since these are potential enemies in a beautiful landscape. You may need fences, wire mesh or planting proper plants to combat these pests and disease.
4. In time: While you may be eager to plant flowers and grass you should also consult the appropriate time to plant in your climate and soil type. Many plants and trees grow best if planted at specific times of the year.
5. Growth plan: Estimate the growth that your plants will have in six weeks, six months, or one year. This allows you to make a proper distribution of them in your garden to have a balanced design later.
Read full article here. | http://naturalgardenideas.com/how-to-create-a-beautiful-spring-landscape-in-10-easy-steps/ |
Ogden is co-founder of The Cook's Garden (www.cooksgarden.com), a mail-order business specializing in salad greens. Her catalog and garden both offer much more than just lettuce; she has strawberries, flowers and lots of fresh herbs.
A neat garden, planted with straight rows of vegetables, is a thing of beauty, Ogden says, but for her own home, in Manchester, Vt., she wanted something fancier.
''I'm planning this as a work of art,'' she said in June when she planted 60 types of herbs and greens in her four-square garden. The space is divided into four 10- by 10-foot beds, each outlined by low boxwood hedges.
In the center of the space is a tree-form verbena. In a formal garden like this, she says, ''everything has to be neat and straight and orderly. I have to plant with an eye for what it's going to look like. Each square is my palette.''
Ornamental vegetable gardening is not a new idea. The Egyptians are said to have cultivated leeks and lettuce in checkerboard patterns as early as 2300 BC.
The potager, or kitchen garden, at Villandry, a chateau in France's Loire Valley, consists of nine large squares filled with vegetables planted in geometric patterns. The design was drawn from 16th-century engravings, but the ideas remain fresh for 21st-century gardeners.
Sheila Sanford, a gardener in Chadds Ford, Delaware County, turned to the great British plantswoman Rosemary Verey for ideas for her kitchen garden. Verey, who died in 2001, was famous for her four-acre garden at Barnsley House in the Cotswolds.
The potager she designed for Sanford relies on a geometric grid dividing the space into a number of smaller gardens. The whole plot is about 30 feet by 50 feet, which might seem intimidating, but Sanford says the space is perfectly manageable.
''It's very easy to garden when you have beds that are divided into small sections,'' she says.
Verey would have liked to plant figs, oranges and lemons as ornamental accents in Sanford's garden. But such plants are too tender for Pennsylvania, and Sanford instead grows artichokes in pots at the corners. She erected handsome arches and trellises to support beans, sweet peas and morning glories, all of which give the garden height and dimension.
''The whole garden is very much about order and beauty,'' Sanford says. ''The structure of it is so beautiful.''
Strong design does not appear to have any effect on productivity. Sanford grows two vigorous tomato plants in each bed and still has room for peppers, cucumbers, beans, lettuce and spinach.
''We get a huge harvest,'' she says. She also raises onions, garlic, cabbage, squash and gourds. An asparagus bed produces fresh spears for her family for six weeks every spring.
To keep the design sharp, Sanford pinches and prunes regularly. Around each bed, she grows annual and perennial edging crops. Where Ogden has boxwood hedges, Sanford plants low-growing marigolds or ribbons of basil or parsley. About half of her edges are perennial herbs, such as marjoram and chives, and the rest are annual flowers or herbs.
''It gives me a nice opportunity to experiment,'' says Sanford, who also allows a few surprises in her garden.
''There are wonderful things that volunteer,'' she says. Sunflowers have self-seeded, and she planted around them this spring.
''Beauty and order are in the eye of the beholder,'' she says. ''Sometimes there is a little disorder that makes it beautiful.''
Ogden doesn't grow tomatoes in her vegetable garden.
''They take up so much room, and they grow so well in containers, why give them garden space?'' she asks. She uses her precious space for colorful greens with contrasting colors and textures.
For her fall garden, she'll plant a mixture of fancy-leaf kale varieties, and more lettuce. Deep red Rouge d'Hiver and ruffled Winter Density Romaine are both crops that can be planted around Labor Day in Vermont. Calendulas, nasturtiums and other edible summer flowers will continue to bloom until frost and can be tossed into the salad bowl with the lettuce.
Sanford always plants a few rows of sunflowers, zinnias and other cutting flowers in her vegetable garden. In the fall, she rips out the annuals and replaces them with hundreds of tulip bulbs.
''Rosemary always said, 'Make it your own, do something fun,'''she recalls.
Marty Ross is a garden writer in Kansas City, Mo. | https://www.mcall.com/entertainment/all-prettyveggiegardenaug11-story.html |
Flowers open to shining scarlet stars with black hearts. Makes quite a splash in the rock garden. Also excellent along the edge of a path or a well-drained flower bed. This species tulip is native to Central Asia.
Sorry, Linifolia is NO LONGER LISTED
|Item #||1022|
|Botanical Name||Tulipa linifolia|
|Bulb Size||5–6cm|
|Flower Color||Red|
|Height||8-10 inches|
|Sunlight||Full (6+ hours sun per day)|
|Soil||Well-drained|
|Good for the South||✓|
|Depth of Planting Hole||4 inches|
|Spacing||3 inches apart|
|Density||11-12 per sq. ft.|
Bulb Calculator
To find the number of bulbs you need, determine the square footage of the planting area and enter it in the box.
Need help figuring square footage? See our Bed Area Calculator.
Area
Square Feet
Density
Bulbs/sq ft
Bulbs Needed
Planting Instructions
Tulips perform best in full sun but will tolerate a bit of shade (some afternoon shade will prolong flower life, especially in the South). They require well-drained soil. Treat tulips as annuals if you want a perfect display: After they flower, lift and discard the bulbs and replant fresh ones in the fall. In a less formal situation, you can leave the bulbs in place. The flowers will be uneven in size and height and generally much fewer in number, but that can have its own charm.
To encourage tulips to bloom again in future years we recommend that you:
- Fertilize the bulbs when the foliage pushes through the soil in early spring. Don’t overdo it. A light scattering of a low-nitrogen fertilizer, preferably organic, is enough.
- Remove the spent flowers as soon as the bulbs finish blooming. Snapping off the top 3 inches of the flower stem prevents seed formation and focuses energy instead on bulb growth.
- Allow the foliage to wither completely before you remove it.
- Avoid summer irrigation. Tulips prefer to be dry during their dormancy.
Spring-flowering bulbs must be planted in the fall. They need cool soil to make roots before the onset of winter. Cool fall weather arrives at different times from north to south and from high elevations to low.
Please note that the temperature of the soil lags behind the air temperature. You can generally plant later than the windows provided in this map. As long as the ground is not frozen, you can still plant. | https://www.colorblends.com/wholesale/tulips/linifolia/?refer=all-tulips |
I more or less decided to buy our house, after seeing pictures of it online: it had 9 of the 10 things I was praying for. And one of these was a massive garden.
Much to my husband’s annoyance, when we viewed the house, I asked to see the garden first. I fell fast in love, and then only showed (and felt) a cursory interest in the house. The realtor never had an easier sale!
The house I could change–as I have (putting in huge windows in the kitchen and Zoe’s room; building a new 30 sq. m conservatory; knocking down walls between the kitchen and utility room, creating one big sunny room) but the garden!! What luck to find a 1.5 acre garden in Oxford!
I grew up with a one acre garden surrounding our house, a mass of fruit trees, vegetables, and flowers, so many flowers. We gave everyone bouquets, and could not spot the loss.
But when I bought this house and garden what I had overlooked was that we had a gardener who lived on the premises. We also had a live-in maid and a live-in cook, who all helped in that intensively planted garden. My mother spent hours there, dead-heading, grafting, pruning, gathering bouquets of flowers for the house.
The largest garden I had personally worked in was our half acre garden in Williamsburg, which we intensively planted, and which always got the better of us, and earned us frowns from our neighbours, and occasional letters from the home-owner’s association!
* * *
So….we bought our house 9 summers ago, and the dream garden. But it has always overwhelmed me. England is a gardener’s paradise—the soil is fertile, but it does not have Virginia’s scorching summers or freezing winters, nor deer who feast on hostas and roses.
But we’ve done relatively little compared to the size of the garden. I get overwhelmed when everything turns muddy in winter, or feral in the summer. Then the grass in the orchard grows taller than my children; Queen Anne’s lace and cowslips take over; and I work in the garden more and more infrequently, since it makes me feel cross with myself, and with Roy for letting it go.
* * *
I was exploring these feelings with a therapist as we were exploring ways to have a more balanced life. (Blogs tend to colonize!).
I feel a bit manic in my garden, I confessed. My mind races on to the next project—I want a second greenhouse, a four season one; a patio, since we removed ours for a conservatory; more fruit trees, lots of flower beds, and to replace the grass with perennial vegetables and flowers and fruit bushes. I want to convert my garden to a permaculture garden.
I used to get cross, and stressed about imperfections—weeds, plants that need pruning, and shaggy hedges.
“Why don’t you just thank God for the beauty you do have?” she suggested. “Just praise him in and for your garden.”
And so, slowly, I began gardening peacefully, seeing the beauty I have rather then the beauty I do not have. Looking at and praising each beloved plant, rather than hankering for the perfect combination and arrangement of plants. (Well, most of the time. When I see a perfect garden, I hanker!)
* * *
Being in the garden is a mystical experience for me: the sounds of the wind and birdsong, the fragrance of buddleia, and fresh-cut grass, the earth on my fingers which triggers the release of serotonin in my brain, flowers in their Solomonic glory, the taste of just-picked cherries, strawberries or asparagus.
And gardening fills my life with hope.
We’ve planted 45 hostas this year. I am looking forward to seeing them larger and luxuriant next summer, and then dividing them, as well as the other 20 hostas we have. And dividing our hellebores, and heuchera. Basically getting free plants, my gleeful soul claps. And buying new perennials. And planting more fruit trees (we have apples, cherries, mulberries, pears, plums, quinces, medlars, figs, grapes and hazelnuts which came with the orchard attached to the property). Yeah, I am still driven, (let me say purpose-driven and sound a bit more spiritual)
I feel my garden is anchoring me to the earth, filling my life with hope and anticipation. My garden is a deep joy in the centre of my life.
* * *
I know the only sure foundation for hope is the goodness of God, and the love of God.
But the hope my garden gives me, and the optimism it fills me with is somehow tied up with my faith in a good God–and so shall I shall rejoice in autumn’s blazing palette, winter’s austere one, spring’s rainbowed one, and all the mature and variegated greens of summer.
* * *
We have 10 raised vegetables bed in our vegetable garden, and grow our own asparagus, courgettes (zucchini), beans, tomatoes, pumpkins, potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, strawberries, and armfuls of herbs.
I garden using Ruth Stout’s No Work Gardening method, using thick mulchs of grass clippings, garden shreddings, and shredded paper, so that there is no need for weeding, the soul is never exposed, and there is a minimal need for watering.
We shred all waste paper in our paper shredders (£35 each), and I have bought a £149 wood chipper to turn all overgrown shrubbery and hedges and volunteer plants into mulch. When I run out, Roy cuts the grass, and prunes, then chips the prunings. It’s a closed eco-system, all waste becoming soil.
Roy sometimes just wants to go and buy £20 bags of mulch rather than make our own with the wood-chipper, but I think it’s more cost-effective in terms of money and time to just convert all garden waste and untidiness to mulch rather than haul it to the compost heaps, where twigs and branches which can take years to break down.
I chat to God, explaining the financial and practical brilliance of my plan, and explaining to him why he should definitely endorse my ideas, and not Roy’s. (“Thus said the Lord:” it’s a great trump card!!)
* * *
The clay soil is dry. I can see fissures. But underneath, life teems. There are hundreds of flower bulbs which will flower in season, guinea hen orchids and arum italicum which will delight us.
What is essential is invisible to the eye. For nothing is as it seems.
* * *
And there’s a niggle at the back of my mind. “Oh God, will I become the writer I want to be, the blogger I want to be?”
I ask God this question in the silence of my vegetable garden.
He asks me a question in return.
“Anita, will it be okay if you never become the blogger you want to be, the writer you so want to be?”
“Hmm,” I say, suspiciously. My heart beats faster. I sort of hyperventilate.
It is better not to give pat answers when the Lord God asks you a question, “What do you mean by okay?” I ask.
“Will you be okay? Will you still be happy? Will you and I be okay?”
I think a long time, and come back to him the next day, as I work in the vegetable garden.
“Yes, if I never become a successful blogger, I will be okay. And if I never become a successful writer, I will be okay.
“I will learn to thank you for what I do have as a writer, not what I don’t have. I will be happy about all the lovely things in this world so full of richness. My heart will still be full of joy, because you will pour your Holy Spirit into it. I will still be overflowing with thanksgiving.
And yes, of course, you and I will be okay.”
And he says, “Thank you. That’s all I wanted to know.”
* * *
And somehow the niggle most writers have at the back of their heads, the yearning for a crystal ball to tell them if they’ll make it or not just lifts.
I turn the worry about my writing over to him. It’s now his worry.
We will be okay, my Lord and I.
I rather wish he’d speak lovely prophetic words about my blog or my writing into the silence of my heart and garden, but he does not. He has spoken to me about them before, and God is as economical as the closed eco-system in my garden. What he has spoken before, he will not repeat, for he knows I have hidden it in my heart–though when I am tired, I often doubt it. | https://anitamathias.com/tag/hope/ |
Sod is essentially a sheet of pre-grown grass that, when planted in your yard, immediately covers the dirt with pristine lawn. Sod is beneficial for those who don't have the time to grow grass from seed. Fortunately, measuring your lawn for sod is a very easy process that only requires a few basic calculations. Sod is typically sold by the square foot and therefore, you must calculate how many square feet of lawn you have to cover.
1
Measure the length and width of your lawn in feet. Make note of both numbers.
2
Multiply the length and width of your lawn to determine the square footage. For example, if your lawn is 20 feet long by 20 feet wide, the area is 400 square feet.
3
Convert square feet into yards if your garden store sells sod by the square yard. Divide the square footage by 9. For example, 400 square feet divided by 9 equals 44.44, so buy 45 square yards, rounding your number up to make sure you get enough sod.
4
Calculate the square footage of a triangular lawn, if needed, by multiplying the height by the base and divide by two. To calculate the square footage of a circular lawn, multiply the squared radius of the lawn by 3.14.
Things You Will Need
- Measuring tape
- Calculator (optional)
Tip
- If your lawn is not entirely flat it is best to purchase a little extra sod to compensate. If you're dealing with a bumpy or sloped lawn, purchase an extra 5 percent of sod to ensure that you have enough to fully cover the yard. To calculate the extra 5 percent, multiply your square footage by 0.05 and add this number to the original square footage. | https://homeguides.sfgate.com/measure-sod-48227.html |
You know I rant about McMansions and their owners all the time. How much space do people actually need? Well for one man 96 square feet is his entire need.
We’re all unpacked at the new place and one of the things that surfaced was the ultrasonic measuring system I got for Keyron a few Christmases ago. So I went room to room and then included for example half the basement. Our total square footage here is 1520 square feet.
But here’s the thing, I kept track of square footage in the places we’ve lived in over the last 14 years.
Interesting part is the per square foot rent. For a short period it actually increased by 7%, but then decreased by a whopping 48%. More interestingly total space increase by double. Better bang for the buck I suppose. And it’s only going to get more interesting since there’s an abundance of apartments for rent which is putting serious downward pressure on rental prices.
ultimately, it’s STUFF that people accumulate that dictates need. i think that if i didn’t live with brian, i’d totally be happy living in my old apartment, smaller than this one. | https://truthspew.com/2007/04/29/living-space/ |
Join us on May 4 to Celebrate Baltimore’s First Preserved Community Forest!
Join us on May 4 to celebrate Baltimore’s first preserved community forest! Fairwood Forest is a beautiful 4-acre forest with more than 20 species of native trees, and a strong community that has rallied around it. We’re so excited to celebrate the preservation of 3 acres of this woods. For years, residents in northeast Baltimore […]
Fairwood Forest
Fairwood Forest is a biologically diverse 4-acre forest patch along the 5800 – 5900 blocks of Fairwood Avenue in Glenham-Belhar, a strong inspiring neighborhood in northeastern Baltimore City. It’s home to 23 species of trees and is part of an important hawk flyway where thousands of hawks are sighted each year. It is a unique place in an urban neighborhood where […]
Ash Street Garden
3509 Ash Street Ash Street Garden is located at 3509 Ash Street. This community garden was begun in 2010 on three lots in the west edge of Hampden, where workers of the Jones Falls mills once lived. The garden includes twelve plots and a perennial food and native pollinator garden that supports plants, animals, fungi, people, and […]
The Secret Garden
Behind the 2000 block of Mt Royal Terrace The Secret Garden is a pocket park in a quiet corner of Reservoir Hill. Roughly 20 row houses back onto this area, which is invisible from any street. Since 1911, residents have made sure this space is clean, flowers are planted, trees are pruned, grass is lovingly cared for. It is […]
Oakenshawe Green Space
3400 block of Barclay Street Oakenshawe Greenspace is a half-acre neighborhood green space fronting on the 3400 block of Barclay Street. It was originally a parking lotfor the former BellAtlantic building that was located on the site of the Waverly Library. In 1975, shortly after the library opened, Oakenshawe neighbors added soil and planted trees and grass. It […]
McAllister Park
1811 Townsend Ct McAllister Park (1811 Townsend Ct.) is a fully fenced pocket park that features a swing set for big kids and tots. Its one-third acre is home to flowers and shade trees, providing an urban oasis in which to unwind. For more information contact McAllisterParkBaltimore [at] gmail.com.
Victorine Q. Adams Memorial Garden
3200 block of Vickers Road The Victorine Q. Adams Memorial Garden is a vegetable garden and community gathering space located on the 3200 block of Vickers Road. The garden is named for Victorine Q. Adams, a beloved community member and civic leader, and the first African American woman on Baltimore’s City Council. The garden was founded in 2008 by members of the 3200 […]
Mount Clare Street Community Garden
1017 Boyd Street Mount Clare Street Community Garden, half a block from the Hollins Street Market at 1017 Boyd Street, was established in 1999. The garden grew out of a neighbor’s desire to be self-reliant, attract wildlife, beautify the neighborhood and eat organic food. Over the years, residents of the Hollins Roundhouse and Union Square […]
The Remington Village Green
2812-2822 Fox Street Founded in 2008, the Remington Village Green (2812-2822 Fox Street) is a space for growing fruit, vegetables, herbs, native plants, and flowers, to promote community participation, wellness, and sustainable food practices. A rotating cast of about 25 gardeners cultivate and beautify the garden, and host events such as cookouts, art days, and Easter egg hunts. Community plantings such as fruit trees […]
Charles M. Halcott Square
104 South Duncan Street Charles M. Halcott Square is a sitting garden at 104 South Duncan Street in Butchers Hill. It’s also known as “The Miracle in the Middle,” so named by a neighborhood grandmother. Established in the 1970s, the park was officially named in honor and memory of local activist and Recreation and Parks employee Charles M. Halcott. Along with decorative brick work, […]
500 North Duncan Street Community Garden
500 North Duncan Street The 500 North Duncan Street Community Garden is a beautiful oasis in the midst of blocks of vacant housing and an environment dominated by concrete. This community food garden features artistic elements such as a colorful mural and a collection of bird houses. This exuberant garden extends down the street, with […]
Duncan Street Miracle Garden
1800 block of Duncan Street The Duncan Street Miracle Garden is a half-acre food garden, covering the 1800 block of Duncan Street. The garden grows a large variety of fruits and vegetables, and gardeners from various Baltimore neighborhoods come here to tend their plots. The food is often donated to churches and soup kitchens. Picnic […]
Brentwood Commons
1816 Brentwood Avenue Brentwood Commons is a lovely gathering space for the community, with plantings of trees, flowers, shrubs, and ornamental grasses. This open space is used by neighbors year round: picnics, cook-outs and play in the spring, summer and fall; building snowmen in the winter – and for contemplating the beauty of nature any […]
Upper Fells Point
1827 E. Pratt Street The Upper Fell’s Point Community Garden (1827 E. Pratt Street) is a real gem to neighborhood residents as it is the only green space in their community. The entrance is bordered by a mosaic sidewalk with pervious stone and mosaic insets created by local children. The main pathway is lined with 19 […]
Pigtown Horseshoe Pit
1217 Bayard Street The Pigtown Horseshoe Pit sits at 1217 Bayard Street. For about 30 years, neighborhood residents have held horseshoe tournaments, played games, and hosted barbecues on this narrow lot. A colorful mural on the bordering wall depicts three neighborhood residents playing horseshoes. | https://baltimoregreenspace.org/who-we-are/blog/ |
Cognitive & Behavioral Consultants (CBC) partnered with Westchester County Parks and the Westchester Parks Foundation to preserve the natural beauty of our parks. The CBC team weeded, cleared dead leaves and branches, picked up garbage, and planted flowers at Hartsdale’s Ridge Road Park for the annual CBC Gives Back event last Friday.
One of the areas the CBC team cleared was the future site of the Westchester Garden of Remembrance, a space that NAMI Westchester, Westchester Suicide Prevention Task Force and the Dept. of Community Mental Health are creating for people in the county to visit and to reflect on loved ones who have been lost to suicide.
“It was an especially meaningful experience for all involved as the future Garden of Remembrance is dedicated in honor of those lost to suicide and highlights the need for stronger mental health care around the world, which CBC is dedicated to,” said Adam Lippman, Westchester Park Foundation Volunteer Coordinator.
The CBC team was able to complete one week’s worth of work in just 30 minutes, according to Mary Benjamin, manager of WPF’s Volunteer Programs. Collectively, the team removed 2,850 square feet of invasive plants, including knotweed, porcelain berry, multiflora rose and burning bush, according to Lippman. This helped restore access to a popular hiking trail, prevent encroachment on park recreation areas and make room for new native plantings. Volunteers also weeded 360 square feet of flower beds at the Miracle Field and planted 27 flowers to enhance the front entrance.
“We are grateful that we had the opportunity to contribute to the work being done by Westchester Parks Foundation and Westchester County Parks. Helping our local communities and preserving our natural parks is aligned with our team’s values,” said Dr. McGinn, co-founder and co-director of CBC. ”Clearing the site for the future Garden of Remembrance for those lost to suicide, and learning about initiatives such as Camp Morty, which provides a summer refuge for underserved communities many of whom have mental health problems, were particular highlights for our team.”
Each year, CBC Gives Back dedicates a day of service to volunteer for a local cause. Previous CBC Give Back events have included beautifying Swindler Cove in Inwood through NYRP, packing lunch bags for the homeless through JoyJ, cleaning up and gardening with Lifting Up Westchester and collecting litter along the Bronx River Parkway.
Westchester Parks Foundation aims to keep Westchester County Parks beautiful, open, and accessible to all who need them. For more information on volunteer opportunities, they can be reached at [email protected]. | https://cbc-psychology.com/news/cbc-gave-back-with-westchester-county-parks |
Answers to the 5 top spring gardening questions
Here are answers to the 5 most common spring gardening questions.
I prefer not to specify a month, because the trouble with ‘Gardening tips for April (or whatever month)’ is that your April and my April may be very different, even if we are both in the UK. I live quite near to the North Kent coast and my daffodils are over by the beginning of April. Yet just an hour away, in Dan Cooper’s garden (of The Frustrated Gardener blog), the bulbs are just coming into their full glory.
I’m hoping to photograph them for next week’s blog post, and am panicking that they will be over. Dan, however, says they haven’t quite got to their best yet.
And that’s only an hour away. It will be different still in Wales, Cornwall, the north of Scotland, the Lake District and more.
But if we are temperate gardeners (in North America, Northern Europe, the southern tip of Australia and New Zealand…), we grow bulbs and have fruit tree blossom in spring. And we have many of the same spring gardening questions.
Note that links to Amazon are affiliate, see disclosure. Other links are not affiliate.
What to do after daffodils and tulips have flowered
Snip off the dead heads of the flowers as they go over. That means they will concentrate all their efforts on creating next years flowers in the bulb.
Many gardeners also recommend adding a liquid feed at this point. If you mulch your soil regularly it should be quite fertile already, but extra fertiliser does lead to more flowers, so I think this is a question of personal preference. I’ve used Envii and Maxicrop in the past. Both are good.
If you have a very dry spring, then water your bulbs from about three weeks before flowering to a few weeks afterwards. That will help next year’s flowers.
The other thing you should do – every 3-4 years – is to dig up over-crowded clumps of daffodils. Divide them up and replant some of them where they were and some elsewhere.
This means more daffodils for free and it also helps stop daffodils going ‘blind’ or not flowering.
We all now know that tie-ing up daffodil foliage is damaging and means fewer flowers next year. Leave the leaves to go brown and die back naturally.
Which tulips can be left in the ground?
This must be one of the most common spring gardening questions. Daffodils and snowdrops often spread and multiply.
But tulips are much more variable. Often you’ll plant a clump of tulips, but three years later, there is just a single bloom waving at you.
The trouble with this, in my garden anyway, is that there are single tulips in different colours dotted apparently randomly around the garden. They are leftovers from previous colour-coordinated clumps.
There are two factors. One is the variety of tulip. It’s generally agreed that a few tulips, such as ‘Ballerina’ and ‘Spring Green’, are good at coming back year after year.
The other tip is to plant your tulips very deep. When I attended a Sarah Raven workshop, she advised us to plant our tulips 12″ deep, which is far deeper than you would ever see on the packet.
I did this with ‘Ballerina’ and she has been coming back for 15 years.
I put this on my Instagram feed recently and several other gardeners agreed that this tip works for them.
There are more good bulb planting tips here in Where to Plant Spring Bulbs.
Tulip planting mistakes
Now that the tulips are out, I can see that I’ve made that number one tulip planting mistake. That’s failing to remember the heights of different varieties when you plant tulip bulbs.
I bought some Tulip ‘Princess Irene’ and they’re supposed to be 30cm high. But I’ve planted them in the middle of the border, and the taller tulips on the outside.
The other major tulip planting mistake is to plant too early. While it’s fine to plant daffodils in autumn, tulips are better planted in winter, provided that you don’t have snow and ice. (If you do, just plant as late into autumn as you can).
Why are my tulips so short?
This is one of the most asked spring gardening questions this year. And that’s because we’ve had another really dry spring.
Generally my tulips are shorter this year than in the past and princess Irene is definitely supposed to be taller. If you want your tulips to have maximum size and performance, then water them about 3 weeks before they’re about to flower.
I actually tested this out (unintentionally). I watered my tulips in pots this year, but I didn’t water any of the tulips I’d planted in the border.
Last winter, I planted groups of Princess Irene both in pots and in the borders. The Princess Irene in the pot was watered weekly from about one month before flowering. She has grown to her full height, ranging from 25cm-30cm.
But Princess Irene in the border is short and stubby. The heights range from 15cm-23cm. They’re exactly the same tulip, bought and planted at the same time, from the same supplier.
It’s also noticeable that the tulips I planted deeply – the Ballerina tulips – are full height too. It may be that they’ve been able to access moisture in the soil deep down.
When should I dig my garden in spring?
If you are a regular reader, you will know that I don’t ever dig my garden – in spring or at any other time.
The traditional advice – and you will still find it on many sites – is to dig over your garden in spring, incorporating lots of organic matter.
However, like an increasing number of people today, I am a no dig/no till gardener, so I suggest you don’t dig your garden at all, not even in spring.
Instead of digging in the organic matter (garden or local authority compost, well rotted manure, Strulch), lay it on top. The worms and the micro-organisms will work it in naturally.
Sometimes people say that they have to dig, because they have very heavy clay soil. However, the method also works for heavier and lighter soils. If you are in doubt, why not set aside one border as ‘no dig/no till’ and see how it goes.
There’s more about no dig for flowers in my interview with Charles Dowding here.
How do I prevent weeds in spring?
You can’t abolish weeds entirely, even if you have weed suppressant membrane, artificial grass, concrete or the fiercest weed-killing sprays.
Weed seeds float in on the wind. Their roots smuggle themselves in on other plants or under fences and walls. Weeds are amazing survivors.
But if you add a layer of mulch on top of your borders, you will prevent some annual weed seeds from germinating, so mulching is your number one way of preventing weeds. Last year, I bought a straw-based mulch product called Strulch, which I found effective on my veg beds. Several friends have also found it good.
Your number one strategy is to do lots of weeding in spring, because if you weed early on, there will be fewer weeds later on in the year.
There’s a round up of the best weeding techniques in this no nonsense guide to weeding your garden easily.
When should I fertilise my garden in spring?
This question also relates back to the issue of mulching. If you mulch your borders with something biodegradable, such as garden compost, then you are feeding your soil. It will help all your plants grow better.
But fertiliser only helps specific plants. It doesn’t improve the soil. You will see advice to scatter an all-purpose fertiliser over your borders in spring, and that will help fertilise the plants near it.
However, if you mulch your soil regularly, you only need to fertilise the plants that really need extra.
And number one amongst those is roses. If your roses aren’t flowering or have yellowing leaves, they need more nutrition. Neil Miller, head gardener at Hever Castle, where they have 4000 roses suggests feeding roses with a slow release fertiliser. Feed once in early spring and once in late summer.
If you haven’t fed your roses yet, feed them now. There’s more of Neil’s rose growing advice here.
In the past, I’ve bought David Austin Organic Rose Feed and have also used Vitax Organic Rose Feed and Toprose. They’re all slow release fertilisers, so you only need the two applications a year. If you use a liquid seaweed feed or some other fertilisers, you will need to feed weekly or fortnightly (check the instructions.)
If you don’t have a specific rose fertiliser, it’s better to use an all purpose fertiliser rather than not to fertilise at all.
If you grow vegetables, they also need fertilising, but that is usually done as they are coming up to harvest rather than in spring when they are just beginning to grow.
See more of the garden in video
You can see more of my garden in spring, plus some other questions discussed in this video here:
Pin to remember answers to the most common spring gardening questions
And do join us – see here for a free weekly email with more gardening tips, ideas and inspiration.
6 comments on "Answers to the 5 top spring gardening questions"
Can I ask if its worth replanting my potted tulips into the garden for next year? I have apricot fox and charming lady tulips planted in containers at my front door and rather than compost them after flowering, I was thinking of moving them into the flowerbeds to die back and hopefully some might appear next year. Would this be a total waste of time and effort?
This info came at the perfect time, as I have been planting more tulips the past couple of years. Many thanks! | https://www.themiddlesizedgarden.co.uk/answers-to-the-5-top-spring-gardening-questions/?shared=email&msg=fail |
Q. Who is Mr. Smarty Plants?
A: There are those who suspect Wildflower Center volunteers are the culpable and capable culprits. Yet, others think staff members play some, albeit small, role. You can torture us with your plant questions, but we will never reveal the Green Guru's secret identity.
Did you know you can access the Native Plant Information Network with your web-enabled smartphone?
Ask Mr. Smarty Plants is a free service provided by the staff and volunteers at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
rate this answer
Tuesday - February 09, 2010
From: Austin, TX
Region: Southwest
Topic: Non-Natives, Herbs/Forbs
Title: Dietes bicolor(Bicolor Iris) winter-hardiness in Austin
Answered by: Jackie OKeefe
QUESTION:I have many bi-color irises (dietes bicolor), the freeze in Austin turned them brown. Can I trim them back without harming the plants? If trimming is acceptable, can you give me tips?
ANSWER:
Dietes bicolor(Bicolor Iris) , an African native which is rated to zone 8B (15 to 20F), isn't wintering so well this year in Austin and yours are among many that have frozen to the ground. This answer was recently given to a similar query. In my central-Austin neighborhood they are sprouting new greenery already, but I would either wait to cut them back, or mulch after doing so to protect the tender new growth until we are past danger of another hard freeze.
More Herbs/Forbs Questions
Plants that smell like chocolate from Coral Gables FL
July 12, 2012 - I am looking for plants that smell like chocolate. I live in south Florida. We are currently growing and testing Berlandiera lyrata. Do you know of other plants whose flowers smell like chocolate?
view the full question and answer
Plants under oak trees
April 21, 2009 - I have a large live oak (actually several) in my front yard, which basically puts the beds at the foundation of my house in full shade. I tore out the builder-boxwoods and privets, hoping to plant so...
view the full question and answer
Indian paintbrush wedding
October 20, 2004 - I live in western Montana and have become quite fond of the flower known as indian paintbrush. I will be getting married this next July, and would like to incorporate the flower into my wedding; Howe...
view the full question and answer
Specimen evergreen for sun in Central Texas
August 28, 2010 - I'm soliciting suggestions for a specimen plant for a new garden we're building. It will be planted in a 3' square raised (18") Limestone bed. It will be full sun, Western exposure, and relative...
view the full question and answer
Dying blackeyed Susans in new garden in Pennsylvania
August 26, 2008 - Hi Mr. Smarty Plants! I have recently planted black eyed susans in a newly dug garden along with some cone flowers. The other flowers are doing fine but the black eyed susans have all dried up and are... | http://www.wildflower.org/expert/show.php?id=5111&frontpage=true |
The Japan Foundation, in collaboration with the City of Kanazawa, presents an exhibition “Kanazawa-The Origin of Another Samurai Culture” from October 2 to December 14 in the Japan Cultural Institute in Paris (Maison de la culture du Japon à Paris).
The city of Kanazawa has a long tradition of arts and crafts since Edo period, when the Maeda family, the powerful ruler of the region Kaga-han (Kaga Domain), invested their wealth intensively in cultivation and promotion of the local culture. The Maeda clan collected a wide range of excellent artworks and promoted Chanoyu (tea-ceremony)and Noh, which later became regarded as accomplishments of samurais. They also invited prominent craftsmen and cultural figures from the capital Kyoto and Edo (Tokyo) and strived to develop Kanazawa’s unique craftsmanship through a workshop for local craftsmen, Osaiku-sho. As a result of these efforts, there flourished a unique samurai culture, which was created out of two mainstreams of Japanese culture -- the aristocratic culture of Kyoto and the samurai culture of Edo -- but at the same time differed from both of them.
Even after the modernization in Meiji period, when traditional culture declined and even disappeared in large part of Japan, the tradition has steadily remained in Kanazawa, being succeeded from generation to generation. Today the city is well known as one of the centers of traditional culture of Japan, especially in the field of crafts such as lacquer, metal art and textiles.
This exhibition shows about 120 selected works related to Kanazawa, including precious art and craft works, armors, tea ceremony equipment, costumes and masks for Noh performances. Through exhibiting these objects, the exhibition presents the audience in Paris another aspect of the “Japanese samurai culture,” which had been developed as an essential part of people’s life in Kanazawa, and aims to enhance their understanding of variety and depth of the Japanese culture.
Exhibition Outline
|Dates||October 2 - December 14, 2013|
|Venue||Maison de la culture du Japon à Paris (Exhibition hall)|
|Organizers||The Japan Foundation, Maison de la culture du Japon à Paris|
|Co-Organizer||The City of Kanazawa|
|Supported by||Ishikawa Prefecture|
|Cooperation||JAPAN AIRLINES|
|Curator||Morito Sueyoshi (Art historian)|
Armor of Murai Nagayori
16th century
Ishikawa-ken History Museum
Portrait of Toshiie Maeda
Edo period, 17th century
Oyama-jinja Shrine
Noh Mask Fushikizo
Edo period
Kanazawa Noh Museum
Tea Bowl Goshomaru
Yi Dynasty, 17C
Kanazawa Nakamura Memorial Museum
[Contact Us]
The Japan Foundation
Europe, Middle East and Africa Section, Arts and Culture Dept. | http://www.jpf.go.jp/e/project/culture/archive/information/1308/08-02.html |
- The Samurai Museum is a small but popular museum located in Shinjuku’s Kabukicho area. The museum offers a glimpse into the armor and weaponry used by the samurai through tours Read more...
- Gion in Kyoto is a great place to catch a glimpse of a geisha and see traditional architecture. While the streets and many shops are accessible, the majority of tea Read more...
- Kenninji is one of the five great Zen temples of Kyoto but does not have much to offer for wheelchair users or others with mobility difficulties. BACKGROUND INFORMATION Located just Read more...
- More than one hundred years ago in Japan may have been the last time you could see traditional Samurai armor in any abundance. Today, about the only place you can Read more...
- Kiyosumi Garden (or Kiyosumi Teien) is a traditional Japanese garden located in Tokyo. While beautiful, less than half of the garden is wheelchair accessible. Background Information Kiyosumi Garden is a Read more...
- While Nagoya is well-known as the industrial center of Japan, it also has a number of cultural attractions. The traditional Shirotori Garden is wheelchair accessible and offers some picturesque views Read more...
All Places in Japan
Place post type. | https://www.accessible-japan.com/places/japan/page/3/ |
Few figures are as admired, feared, and respected in Japanese culture as the samurai warrior, a symbol of the nation's history, strength, and honor codes. Samurai culture in Japan has long been an endless object of fascination. Countless books, films, and artworks have been dedicated to these proud warriors. These men traversed the line of a political icon and fearless fighter, dedicating their lives to their clans' success and shaping the country’s culture.
Although they no longer exist today as they did between the twelfth century and the 1870s, there are still plenty of opportunities to learn about these legends while exploring Kyushu. If you're looking to dive deeper into the craftsmanship and artistic flair that went into creating the armor that made the men — and perhaps even do a little role-play yourself — then hop on your trusty samurai steed and journey to Marutake Sangyo in the city of Satsumasendai.
Marutake Sangyo is part immersive samurai-period village and museum, part workshop, and part amusement park. This accessible gateway to Japan's history has something to entertain everyone, no matter how much or how little you may already know about samurai. It also offers peace of mind at a time when COVID prevention and safety are still a concern, with plenty of space to wander about, both inside and outside, as well as clear pathways and windowed walls between the workers and visitors. Formerly known as Sendai Sengoku Mura, which translates as 'Sendai Village of the Sengoku Period' (1467–1600), Marutake Sangyo is faithfully modeled after a 16th-century Japanese castle town.
Around 90% of traditional samurai armor and props destined for Japanese TV dramas and movies are made in Marutake Sangyo’s workshops. Many of the works crafted here featured in Akira Kurosawa's classic period films. You can wander through the workshops and watch the local artisans at work, carefully handcrafting true-to-original pieces that will one day end up on the silver screen and be exhibited across Japan.
If you don't know much about samurai culture, it may help to have some context. Samurai are legendary ancient warriors, whose existence can be traced back to the Heian period (710-1185). They rose in ranks over the years to become the highest social caste in Japan by the Edo period (1603-1867), considered to be the peak of samurai culture.
As warriors, many samurai carried weapons, swords, bow and arrows, spears, and sometimes guns. Japanese craftsmanship flourished during this time. By the Edo period, Japan was relatively peaceful. Many samurai shifted from being warriors to men of high cultural standing: teachers, bureaucrats, poets, and artists, shaping the nation we see today.
For generations, clothing was an essential element of samurai culture. It was important for its utility and fashion, as well as showcasing artisans’ work and talent. Marutake Sangyo’s workshops exhibit their exquisite craftsmanship. Every room has windows, so that you can leisurely watch the staff weaving, hammering, and sculpting armor that is true to the historical designs.
Each room is dedicated to a particular craft, with displays explaining its purpose and role in the creation of replica armor. The Foil Room centers around a desk where artisans carefully lay gold and silver leaf onto the armor to give it a regal touch. Other rooms are dedicated to braiding and weaving the robust fabric pieces, and there's even an Era Room in which experts treat, paint and age the armor pieces to ensure their consistency with the style of a certain era.
After watching the masters at work, you can also examine armor pieces up close, embrace your theatrical inclinations and register for a dress-up photo session. You can select your outfit from a seemingly endless selection before heading out into the samurai garden for a casual photoshoot. By wearing the handcrafted armor directly on your own body, you can truly feel and imagine what it might have been like to live as a samurai. It’s also a whole lot of fun.
There's more opportunity to marvel at the art and history of Marutake Sangyo following your dress-up session, but take some time to visit the expansive Warring States exhibition hall, which features recreations of samurai armor worn throughout history. It spans almost 50 samurai domains, from the 15th century through the end of the Edo period. A handful of exhibits also showcase pieces used in Kurosawa’s 1985 epic film Ran (乱), which is a samurai retelling of Shakespeare's King Lear.
Just behind the exhibition hall, the Marutake Shooting Field is a sideshow alley-style shooting gallery. This is where you can try your hand at winning a few nifty samurai (and not-so-samurai) prizes by knocking down metal plates with cork bullets. The plates were all crafted on-site, made with the same intricate detail as the armor. One little insider tip from Marutake Sangyo's manager, Tomotaka Tanoue, is to try to hit the top of the plates — you’ll have a better chance of knocking them over and winning more prizes.
After browsing the souvenir shop, which is stacked with one-of-a-kind samurai merchandise, you can relax at the café, or at least savor a soft ice cream. The café serves a range of sweet selections, but Tanoue recommends the pastel orange satsuma-imo. Satsuma-imo is a much-loved local variation of sweet potato, and the most delightful touch to a day exploring the samurai world of Marutake Sangyo. | https://www.visit-kyushu.com/en/discover/blogs/history-culture-of-japans-Warriors-Marutake/ |
Shot mostly around Wapanocca Lake in the Wapanocca National Wildlife Refuge near the town of Turrell, Arkansas, Saj Crone's exhibition of photographs, "Sylvan Joy," examines the mystical essence of Southern swamplands. The show is dedicated to Crone's friend Lewis Guest, who introduced her to the area's arresting landscapes. The opening shot of Guest walking out into nature with his back to the camera is a thoughtful touch.
Crone is capable of defining innumerable thin layers in thick swamps of bald cypress and water tupelo. She deftly explores the significance of the surrounding waters, particularly in photos of Greenbelt Park, the very front yard of Memphis. The proud trees on the banks of the Mississippi stand immovable, looming over flood waters and crisp, white snow alike. Her use of reflective lines is well thought out, adding clarity to each circumstance in either soft ripples or crystal-clear parallels.
There is a profound understanding and respect for the order of undisturbed nature in "Sylvan Joy." One shot of Wapanocca in particular captures large tree bases and dry undergrowth that form to closely resemble a small village of cozy huts, reminding viewers of nature's role in the affirmation of all humanity.
The last two lines of David Wagoner's poem "Lost" are especially poignant as a source of inspiration to the exhibition: "You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows where you are. You must let it find you."
Through December 9th at the Beverly and Sam Ross Gallery,
Christian Brothers University
Cara Tomlinson's exhibition "One to Other" at Rhodes College blends carefully strewn sculptural pieces with paintings to transform the Clough-Hanson Gallery into a subtly altered reality.
"I see my work as being in the tradition of abstraction. I generally call it 'symbolic abstraction,'" Tomlinson says.
Her paintings possess a sense of building and blossoming that carries over to her sculptures — messy paint palettes that grow organically to form little blocks and gentle mounds, almost resembling stools. The effect is altogether unique, as though unseen guests are meant to occupy this space, further drawing the viewer in.
Tomlinson displays a mastery of color and absolute expertise in the realm of oil on linen, mixing bits of brightness with the greater muted content that takes up the majority of each canvas. Tomlinson's sundry influences include Braque, the Surrealists, Paul Klee, and Philip Guston, as well as the studies of cognitive science, psychology, and anthropology.
Through December 7th at Clough-Hanson Gallery
From the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, "Armed and Dangerous: Art of the Arsenal," now showing at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, pulls together weaponry from around the globe to demonstrate how even some of the world's most menacing objects can also be dramatic works of art.
An important historical concept behind the exhibition is to look at how human weapons reference nature and animals.
"We wanted to give our visitors a full concept of armor as something that was invented by nature long before humans came along," says Marina Pacini, chief curator at the Brooks.
In some cases, this involves actual animal parts integrated into the overall design of weaponry. In other cases, elaborate depictions and even figurines looped into the base of a samurai sword demonstrate the presence of natural influences. Impeccable craftsmanship and delicate decoration of every lethal crossbow, sword, and pistol are impossible to overlook and differ vastly according to the weapon's origin.
The suits of armor are especially noteworthy as they draw distinctions between different cultural traditions. While Western armor was remarkably restrictive, the battle gear suited to Japanese samurai was substantially lighter with a much greater range of mobility, due primarily to the island's warmer climate.
"It makes a really interesting contrast. Apparently, the Japanese developed full-body armor before Europe did, because originally, the Europeans thought anything other than a shield was the sign of a lack of bravery," Pacini says.
Much of the exhibition conveys an attempt to intimidate opponents. One central characteristic of classic combat helmets throughout history was to mask every part of the face except for the eyes.
"It's a sense of erasing your humanity to make yourself look more threatening, more terrifying to your opponent," Pacini says.
The Brooks hopes to draw new blood with such unintentionally artistic endeavors. An audio tour of the exhibit is available for visitors to use on iPhones by downloading the Brooks app or on one of several iPod touches the museum has handy. An interactive room for all ages — complete with a wearable samurai suit and camouflage wall — will be open for the duration of the exhibition.
Through March 11th at the Brooks
One last thing ... the Flyer's longtime art reviewer Carol Knowles has moved to Portland, Oregon. We thank her for all her hard work and wish her well on her new adventure.
Always independent, always free (never a paywall),
the Memphis Flyer is your source for the best in local news and information.
Now we want to expand and enhance our work.
That's why we're asking you to join us as a Frequent Flyer member.
You'll get membership perks (find out more about those here) and help us continue to deliver the independent journalism you've come to expect. | https://www.memphisflyer.com/memphis/into-the-wild/Content?oid=3079542 |
K.P.G.and the three Cities of Kamakura, Yokohama and Zushi had been making efforts toward the World Heritage registration of “Kamakura, Home of the Samurai” in June 2013. But unfortunately, it couldn't be inscribed on the List.
K.P.G.and the three Cities will further make efforts for early registration of Kamakura as a World Heritage site by rebuilding the concept and reselecting the nomination sites.This page provides the summary of “Kamakura, Home of the Samurai”.
One of the most distinctive features of “Kamakura, Home of the Samurai” is that cultural properties constructed by samurai, such as shrines/temples, temple/shrine sites, a residence site, Kiridoshi passes, and a port site, remain in unity with thedefensive topography enclosed by mountains on three sides and one side open to the sea.
This indicates the existence of the first national government of samurai in Japan (the Kamakura Shogunate), which was established by Minamoto-no-Yoritomo at the end ofthe 12thcentury. It opened the way to the samurai society and era that lasted over 700 years.At the same time, these properties also illustrate that the place is where the samurai culture was born that greatly influenced the following Japanese culture.
In addition, the remains in these mountain ridges show that the samurai constructed the taking advantage of the defensive topograpy using the civil engineering techniques of the time, and that “Kamakura, Home of the Samurai” was the national government seat completely different from those of the past governments of Japan, such as Nara and Kyoto, which had been built on the model of Changan, the capital of Tang dynasty in China.
Because of this background, “Kamakura, Home of the Samurai” is considered to have the outstanding universal value (*) to be inscribed on the World Heritage List.
(*) Outstanding universal value means cultural and/or natural significance which is so exceptional and of common importance for present and future generations of all humanity transcending national boundaries.
Properties of “Kamakura, Home of the Samurai” that were candidates for inscription on the World Heritage Listhad been constructed in the defensive topography which crucially influenced the establishment of the samurai government and the maintenance of the government seat. These properties constructed in the main area surrounded by mountain ridges on three sides, on the foot of these mountains and in the valleys consisted of cultural assets designated by the national government as historic sites, important cultural properties, and national treasures as follows; (1) the compounds of shrines/temples such as Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine, Kenchoji Temple, Daibutsu (Great Buddha) of Kamakura; (2) the buildings in the compounds; (3) temple sites such as Yofukuji Temple site; (4) Hojo Tokiwa residence site; (5) passes such as Asaina and Nagoe Kiridoshi passes; and (6) Wakaenoshima port site.
These cultural properties were constructed in about 150 years from the end of the 12thcentury to the early 14thcentury, anddeeply related to “the establishment of the samurai government” and “the creation of the samurai culture”.The historical documents, materials, such as old maps and the results of excavation surveys confirm that these cultural properties remain their basic features unchanged from the time of construction keeping the original geographical locations since the Kamakura period.
Cultural properties that constituted “Kamakura, Home of the Samurai”
Cultural properties of “Kamakura, Home of the Samurai”are explained with the photos, maps and access information.
Access and recommended routes to tourthrough "Kamakura, Home of the Samurai"
Recommended routes to visit the World Heritage candidates in “Kamakura, Home of the Samurai” and its highlights are provided with access information.
The buffer zone is the area set around the World Heritage site. The zone is not inscribed as World Heritage butrestrictions must be set on the height of buildings, etc. in the area so as not to damage the outstanding universal value and the environment of the World Heritage site. Setting the buffer zone is one of the requirements for inscription on the World Heritage List.
As shown in this map, the properties of “Kamakura, Home of the Samurai” were surrounded by the buffer zone and met the requirements of the UNESCO's "Operational Guidelines".
Specially, it was one of Kamakura’s characteristics that it's historic scenic zone (2*) protected by the Ancient Capitals Preservation Law (1*) was utilized as the candidates for the inscription and as the buffer zone.
Kamakura was the key stage for the establishment of the Ancient Capitals Preservation Law, and the greenery in Kamakura has been protected by efforts of the citizens of Kamakura starting from “Oyatsu disturbance” in 1964.The historic scenic zone in Kamakura united with the properties such as Daibutsu (Great Buddha) or compounds of shrines/temples, gives richness and calmness to people who appreciated the zone.
One of Kamakura's big features is that, in addition to its historic heritage, the taste of the ancient capital has been kept in harmony with the historic sites and its greenery although Kamakura is in the suburbs of Tokyo.
1* Formal name: “Law Concerning Special Measures for Preservation of Historic Natural Features in Ancient Cities” (Law No.1 of 1966)
2* Good environment which has been formed in unity with people’s activities reflecting history and tradition specific to the area, and with historic monuments of value and their surroundings where the activities are conducted. | http://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/docs/ar3/cnt/f417246/p442631.html |
Japanese Tea Ceremony: a Critique for Screens and Scrolls
Students demonstrate knowledge of the ancient practice of the Japanese Tea Ceremony and discuss the merits of their work and their classmates' work.
3 Views 2 Downloads
Resource Details
Start Your Free Trial
Save time and discover engaging curriculum for your classroom. Reviewed and rated by trusted, credentialed teachers.Try It Free
Describing Japanese Screens and Scrolls through Images
Students develop reading comprehension skills needed to illustrate someone else's description without looking at the image and study and experiment with ancient Japanese ink painting techniques in order to illustrate these descriptions.
9th - 12th Visual & Performing Arts
Lesson: More Than Meets the Eye
Older learners analyze a controversial painting entitled The Cutting Scene, Mandan O-kee-pa Ceremony 1832. They use the issues raised in the image to construct debate arguments questioning if the artist's painting exploits Native...
6th - 12th Visual & Performing Arts
Lesson: Creativity on Parade
Parades, ceremonies, and rituals are common to most traditional cultures. Kids analyze a carved piece entitled, Death Cart to understand the significance of these events. They then create floats, carts, and costumes for a class parade...
7th - 12th Visual & Performing Arts
Lesson Plan: The Tour Starts at Noon
The Eleven-Headed Bodhisattva is a piece that represents characteristics, meanings, and ideals common to those who practice Buddhism in Japan. Learners fully analyze this piece, then take a virtual trip to examine the Buddhist temples...
6th - 12th Visual & Performing Arts
Describing Japanese Screens and Scrolls through Words
Students demonstrate understanding of the art and culture of Japan through class discussion, practice observational skills in studying the subtleties of Japanese art, and write a 2-page descriptive piece about a Japanese screen painting...
9th - 12th Visual & Performing Arts
Concepts of Beauty Put Into Words
Studying haiku poetry with your English class? Delving into Japanese history with your world history class? Here is an authentic and creative way to explore Japanese culture more deeply. Pupils will compare and contrast two tea caddies...
6th - 12th Social Studies & History
Lesson: The Significance of Symbols in Japan
A fabulous Samurai suit of armor is the inspiratoin for a creative reseach project and presentation. Kids research the symbols found on the Samurai armor, describing the symbols meaning or significance in Japanses culture.
7th - 12th Visual & Performing Arts
Life in the Floating World: Ukiyo-e Prints And the Rise of the Merchant Class in Edo Period Japan
Students examine famous woodblock prints of artists such as Hiroshige and Hokusai as primary documents to help them gain insight on Japanese history. They relate the woodblock images to the social hierarchy of the period.
9th - 12th Visual & Performing Arts
Lesson: Communication, What's Valued, and the Written Word
Upper graders compare their cell phones to a lacquer box from the Japanese Edo Period. They consider how each is a form of communication and how the very nature of each object communicates social norms, ideology, and beliefs. A really... | https://www.lessonplanet.com/teachers/japanese-tea-ceremony-a-critique-for-screens-and-scrolls |
From April 18 through September 6, 2015, the Worcester Art Museum will feature a diverse array of artistic interpretations of samurai in contemporary culture. Samurai! draws inspiration from the recently-acquired Japanese arms and armor in the John Woodman Higgins Collection to examine contemporary perceptions of this centuries-old tradition. Spanning a variety of media, from painting, and drawings, to paper sculpture and digital and woodblock prints, the exhibition spotlights recent works by Japanese and American artists and illustrators, among them Miya Ando, James Jean, kozyndan, Mu Pan, Ferris Plock, Masakatsu Sashie, Rob Sato, Yuko Shimizu, and Kent Williams. Their works will be interspersed with finely crafted samurai objects from the 1500s–1800s as a historic counterpoint to the fantastical depictions of samurai found throughout the galleries.
From May 4 through May 9, 2015, visitors will also have the opportunity to witness the installation of site-specific murals being created for the exhibition by artists Andrew Hem, Audrey Kawasaki, and Mari Inukai. These large-scale paintings will also draw on themes and symbols related to samurai and will extend the exhibition into other areas of the Museum.
As we continue to integrate the Higgins collection into our own, we are creating transformative spaces within the Museum that immerse visitors in ideas emanating from a distant time period but continue to feed the imaginations of today’s most creative minds,” said WAM Director Matthias Waschek. “With the opening of Samurai!, the Museum encourages viewers to draw connections between fine art and popular culture, while sparking a dialogue on how western perceptions of eastern customs are manifested through these mediums.
Highlights from the exhibition include:
- The Loyal 47 Ronin (2011) by Mu Pan is characteristic of the artist’s blending of historical and popular culture. In this work, Pan renders the legendary band of rōnin (a samurai with no lord or master) defeating Godzilla in his own contemporary illustrative painting style that references the Ukiyo-e Japanese tradition.
- Recent work by San-Francisco-based artist Ferris Plock draws on the artist’s childhood experience growing-up a block from a Buddhist temple. Often using golden backgrounds, Plock painstakingly creates intricate patterns in the attire (from yukata to samurai armor) of his subjects which are often animals or ball-cap sporting traditional Japanese Ukiyo-e faces.
- Mother and Daughter (2009) by Kent Williams showcases the artist’s expressionist approach to painting in his depiction of a mother and daughter wearing traditional samurai armor, a contemporary departure from the traditional approach of showcasing men as samurai.
As a complement to the contemporary works on view, Samurai! reveals the craftsmanship and highly skilled metalwork applied to the creation of historic Japanese arms and armor. From a complex armor suit from Japan’s Edo period crafted from thousands of strips of lacquered leather assembled with colorful silk laces, to a 19th-century sword-guard adorned with a lonely deer bellowing at the autumn moon, the objects on view are embedded with a rich variety of embellishments that express Japanese values and are representative of the owner’s persona.
This historic material speaks to the evolution of samurai during the Tokugawa era from military warriors to bureaucrats, administrators, and other government officials. Lasting from 1603 to 1868, this period of peace in Japan diminished samurai’s military function and transformed their swords into symbols of power rather than weapons intended to inflict harm. The Tokugawa era also brought about a shift from creating tools of warfare towards decorative objects for samurai. Examples of these works will be on view in the exhibition, including a fully-articulated lobster and dragon (1850–1900), which have been fully conserved by the Museum to reveal the objects’ finely crafted metalwork.
Samurai! has been a highly collaborative process with the Museum’s curatorial, education, and conservation departments,” said guest curator Eric Nakamura, founder of the Los Angeles-based Giant Robot Store and GR2 Gallery. “I am used to working with contemporary artists and illustrators, but looking at historical materials through a contemporary lens has produced truly unique work. A number of surprising parallels can be made—both time periods have flourishing art production, including work in traditional media but also unexpected places, from armor of the past to the streets of the present. As someone at the intersection of Asian and Asian American popular culture, it’s rewarding to introduce visitors to Japanese customs and contemporary art simultaneously.
A special installation in Helmutt’s House will invite family participation and introduce visitors to the world of Usagi Yojimbo, Stan Sakai’s renowned comic book series featuring a rabbit rōnin. Taking place at the beginning of the Edo period, Usagi Yojimbo is largely influenced by Japanese history, folklore, and cinema, including the work of Akira Kurosawa, another figure greatly influenced by the samurai legacy.
In the lead-up to the opening of Samurai!, WAM will host a day-long celebration of Japanese culture on Sunday, March 22 from 11 am – 5 pm. WAM’s Japanese Cherry Blossom Festival invites visitors to enjoy music, games, art making, and performances, and to explore the Museum’s Japanese holdings and special exhibition Uncanny Japan: The Art of Yoshitoshi.
To launch Samurai!, the Museum will host an opening party on Friday, April 17 (7–8 pm for Members; 8–11 pm for the public), with Japanese taiko drummers setting the tone for an evening packed with performances, theatrics, and more. Tickets are $10 for Members, $20 for nonmembers.
On Sunday, May 17 from 11 am to 5 pm, the Museum will host a Star Wars Community Day. Star Wars fans of all ages are invited to dress as their favorite Star Wars character and join Jedi Knights and Imperial Stormtroopers at WAM for a day of “Force-full” fun! The event is free with Museum admission.
Additionally, Festival of Lanterns, the Museum’s Corporators Ball, will be held on Saturday, June 13, a new annual black-tie gala inspired by Samurai, featuring a Japanese-themed menu, silent and live auctions, and dancing. | https://massfoodies.com/food-feed/social/exhibits/contemporary-artists-explore-samurai-in-popular-culture/ |
Create your own brush-painted masterpiece.
Create your own brush-painted masterpiece.
Students will learn how to paint a lotus flower using Chinese brushpainting techniques.
Students analyze objects from South Asia, West Asia, and China to connect to the travel experiences of ancient merchants and traders, develop an understanding of the breadth of the land and sea trade, and explore how art and ideas travel and change over time and place.
Students will be able to identify, compare and contrast images of traditional Japanese woodblock prints. They will then create their own simulated woodblock prints.
Students will use map resources to label a map of Afghanistan with its current bordering countries, current key cities, and ancient sites/cities: Students will learn the geographical placement of Afghanistan in Asia and its neighboring countries. This knowledge will bring a heightened awareness of the influence and exchange among nearby countries with Afghanistan—culturally, politically, and militarily. They will also become familiar with the names of ancient sites and their location in present-day Afghanistan.
Students will view representations of literary epics, read related excerpts, and discuss how those scenes exemplify the code of the samurai.
Students will complete a map of Japan, identify how its proximity to China and Korea influenced samurai culture, and discuss how its geography informed governing policies.
Students will discuss the ways in which spiritual belief supported and enhanced the military function and cultural values of the samurai. They will experience this practice through an ink painting activity.
Create your own hanging scroll and name seal.
This selection of resources introduces students to the vocabulary, techniques, and values of East Asian ink painting. Lessons and background information compliment the Brushpainting: Nature in Art school program at the Asian Art Museum.
Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry made of three lines (5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables) that is commonly a meditation on nature. Make an image using colorful paper and ink, and then write a haiku inspired by your creation.
Students will use images of samurai armor and weaponry to learn related vocabulary. They will describe the functional and aesthetic aspects of armor through focused viewing and reading, and they will draw conclusions about the changing code of the samurai over the course of 800 years.
Students use visual evidence to convey character by constructing a visual identity for their shadow puppet, and demonstrate principles of shadow-casting and puppet-making by performing their shadow play.
Students will: 1.) Learn that Buddhism is a religion founded by an enlightened young Indian prince who became the Buddha. 2.) Learn how the Buddha’s birthday, a national holiday, is celebrated in Korea. 3.) Discuss how the lotus flower is symbol of purity and wisdom. 3.) Construct a lotus blossom lantern.
Students brainstorm the qualities of good and evil and draw conclusions about the Balinese concept of “dynamic” or balanced opposites. Then, students will relate the idea of “dynamic opposites” in the Ramayana (Story of Rama) to present-day situations by identifying a current problem, creating a visual identify for their own pair of opposing characters, and scripting a dialogue.
Students will become members of the “literati/scholar” class by demonstrating their understanding of Chinese history, philosophy, and poetry. They will also display high achievement in the “Three Perfections”: calligraphy, painting, and poetry. This project is designed to be a creative alternative to daily or weekly assignments which might otherwise be assembled in a notebook or binder at the end of the 7th-grade Medieval China unit.
Students will summarize and illustrate the main events of a folktale from Japan in the format of kamishibai slides and retell their stories using their kamishibai slides.
Included are interdisciplinary suggested activities and downloadable handouts for approaching this subject through skill sets applied across world history studies.
Students create a murakkaalar (calligraphy album) of their name and adjectives that describe their personality written in Arabic. They will make a calligraphy reed and learn to write with it. A kit’alar is a calligraphic work written on a rectangular piece of paper pasted onto a cardboard backing. Equal margins are left around the calligraphy in which the artist decorates with marbled paper (ebru) or illumination. A murrakkalar is a series of kit’alar attached together in an album that resembles an accordion.
Create Balinese shadow puppets with these downloadable templates.
Make a (katazome) kimono using this template.
Students will learn the significance of balancing the military and cultural arts and write their own waka poem.
The term, bushido, is often used to describe the samurai warrior code during medieval and modern times. The definition refers to a late 19th century description and was actually quite different than codes from earlier times. Compare warrior codes from different times with the modern definition of bushido. Then, choose which code you think matches the samurai in the screen painting, the Battles at Ichi-no-tani and Yashima, from The Tale of the Heike.
Students demonstrate mastery of narrative content and develop vocabulary by supplying words deleted from a text of "The Monkey King" story and through an expository writing activity summarizing the "Monkey King" story. Includes a shadow puppet extension activity.
In this project-based unit, students examine the questions, legends, and facts surrounding the Terracotta Army of China’s First Emperor (Qin Shihuang). The goal of this unit is to guide students through the process of inquiry using art objects to explore history, science, and art.
In groups, students will research and present information about the First Emperor’s accomplishments and legacy.
Students will: 1.) create a pocket size version of kamishibai and illustrate a Japanese folktale; 2.) learn the history of kamishibai; 3.) use oral, written, and visual language in presenting Japanese folktales; 4.) discuss the similarities and differences in American and Japanese storytelling traditions; 4.) gain an awareness of Japanese culture and Japanese society in early to mid-20th century.
Create a helmet out of folded paper, called origami. Decorate it with added embellishments and markings to simulate the patterns of lacing and other details.
Students express the Balinese concept of working together to create a community by applying the kecak musical pattern of interlocking parts to "Mary Had a Little Lamb," and design their own chant using words or sounds to represent their characters.
Students are introduced to the Ramayana (Story of Rama) and recall events by sequencing related art objects on a Story Hill. Then students make connections between artistic and literary depictions of character by comparing Vishnu and Ravana.
Students will research objects from the Asian Art Museum’s collection and choose one that they think will earn the most money in the marketplace. Then, they will create a commercial to try to sell their object to the class using evidence as to why the object/idea was considered valuable at the time.
Students will create their own books and stamps, and can inscribe poetry or good wishes on each others books. They will then take their books with them on a pilgrimage to the Asian Art Museum, the Japanese tea garden, or the beach, and record their impressions.
Turkish calligraphers were masters of transforming words and phrases into the shapes of animals. Artists achieved these effects by elongating, wrapping, and rotating letters to create the contour (outline) as well as details of the animal. Students will create a zoomorphic drawing composed of an adjective that describes the animal.
Turkish calligraphers were skillful at transforming words and phrases into the shapes of animals. This was done by elongating, wrapping, and rotating letters to create the contour (outline) as well as details of the animal. Favorite animal shapes include the lion, peacock, and stork. Students will write a descriptive sentence about an animal that they believe has virtuous qualities. They will create a zoomorphic pen and ink drawing composed of this sentence.
Students will: 1.) examine the Hindu tradition of pookolam—a three-dimensional threshold art using flowers; 2.) research the harvest festival of Onam celebrated in the southwestern state of Kerala, India; 3.) create an auspicious flower decoration in celebration of Onam
Students gain an appreciation and understanding of art and culture, and build language skills by reading; developing scripts; making choices about gesture, voice, and expression; and performing traditional stories alongside art objects in the Asian Art Museum’s collection galleries.
A kit’alar is a calligraphic work written on a rectangular piece of paper pasted onto a cardboard backing. In this lesson, students create a kit’alar composed of the initials of their first and last name in Arabic.
Shadow puppet performances were popular forms of entertainment in Thailand. Create your own shadow puppet and perform a scene from the the Ramayana.
Sword making is a refined and highly scientific art that is revered in Japan. A sword guard (tsuba) is a metal guard on a samurai sword between the handgrip and the blade. It protects the hand from sliding onto the sharp edge of the blade. Sword guards vary in shape and design and were carved or molded. Use the templates or create your own shape and design a sword guard.
Students will: 1.) examine the Hindu tradition of threshold art; 2.) research how Diwali (Festival of Lights) is commemorated in India; 3. draw traditional labyrinth threshold patterns; 4.) work in teams to create a large labyrinth floor painting in celebration of Diwali
In this activity, children will make a paper carp which may be flown at their own homes on May 5th. Skills reinforced through this activity include: greater understanding of traditions, aesthetic awareness, symbolism, fine motor skills, visual discrimination and awareness, measurement and following directions.
Learn to fold a paper lotus flower using simple origami techniques.
Learn how to paint a sparrow in the Lingnan tradition.
Students will: 1.) analyze the role of the puppet master (dalang) in Indonesian rod puppet theater (wayang golek). 2.) Read a summary of the Ramayana or a scene from this Hindu epic. 3.) Identify the different puppet character types. 4.) construct a rod puppet of a character from the Ramayana or the Mahabharata.
Students compare and contrast the different ways in which people commemorate the passing of a year by interviewing their families, creating a tablescape, and sharing their traditions with their classmates.
Observe and discuss how artist Santiago Bose uses cultural symbols and artistic methods as post-colonial critique.
This selection of resources unpacks main ideas, stories, and practices of Buddhism and Hinduism in South and Southeast Asia and the Himalayas, both historically and today. All selections compliment the Buddhism and Hinduism in Art: Gods, Demons, and Avatars school tour at the Asian Art Museum.
To teach a responsibility for self-advocacy while celebrating diversity, students will generate ideas about what will make their lives better, will create placards based on their ideas, and share their ideas in a "protest" march.
In this lesson students will be introduced to the Japanese tradition of Chanoyu (referred to by practitioners as “tea gathering”).
Compare the famous excerpt of the Battle at Yashima (1185) from The Tale of the Heike with the painting of the Battles at Ichi-no-tani and Yashima, from The Tale of the Heike to analyze how artists and writers have portrayed the life and experiences of a samurai warrior.
Students will: 1.) Examine the history and stories told in Indonesian rod puppet theater (wayang golek). 2.) Discuss how storytelling reflects the religious, cultural, and moral values of a people. 3.) Discuss how the jester characters express the political and social concerns of the common people. 4.) Read a summary of the Ramayana or the Mahabarata, or scenes from these Hindu epics. 5.) Reenact a scene from the Ramayana or the Mahabharata using the puppet master (dalang) performance outlines written by Kathy Foley.
This selection of resources explores the history and stories of Japan's warrior class. Materials support the Samurai: Real and Imagined school program at the Asian Art Museum.
This collection of resources explores movement of goods, people, and ideas along the Silk Roads. Activities support the Silk and Spice Roads school tour at the Asian Art Museum.
In Thailand, people build small spirit houses in front of their homes and businesses to bring good luck to the people living and working inside. Spirit houses can be found nearly everywhere in Thailand, from the busy city to the remote villages in the north. Create your own spirit house with these easy to follow instructions and template.
Create a finger puppet inspired by China's terracotta warriors.
Explore images and stories of animals from across Asia. This selection of resources support the Animal Tales storytelling school program at the Asian Art Museum.
Create a storyboard and narrative using artist Xu Bing's Character of Characters (2012) as an inspiration.
Students identify the characteristics of Mithila paintings and create their own Mithila-style paintings.
Students will be able to identify the characteristics of Krishna as a child.
Students will learn about the culture and government of China during the Qin dynasty through role playing. | https://education.asianart.org/explore-resources/no-keys/26?display=60&sort=popular |
SAN FRANCISCO — The Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival, now celebrating its 45th year, is one of California’s most prominent celebrations of Asian traditions. Each year, over 200,000 people attend this dazzling display showcasing the color and grace of the Japanese culture and the diversity of the Japanese American community.
The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held on Saturday and Sunday, April 14-15 and 21-22, on Post Street between Laguna and Fillmore streets in San Francisco.
The 2012 festival will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C. and will pay tribute to the Japanese American soldiers of the 100th Infantry Battalion, 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the Military Intelligence Service, who received the Congressional Gold Medal last year. The one-year anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that struck northeastern Japan will also be commemorated.
The Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival is said to be the second-largest festival outside of Washington, D.C. to celebrate the blooming of cherry blossoms. It also draws attention to one of three remaining Japantowns in the United States (the others are in San Jose and Los Angeles).
The five-acre Japan Center, at Post and Buchanan, and the adjacent blocks of Japantown will be filled with costumed performers and will echo with thunderous rhythms of huge taiko drums, ethereal strains of koto music, crackling of boards being splintered by martial artists, and the gentle sounds of tea ceremonies. And, wafting through and above this cultural banquet will be the delicious aromas emanating from the festival’s community-sponsored food bazaar.
Thousands of Japanese American performers and behind-the-scenes coordinators will take part in the celebration along with scores of participants who will be coming from Japan to join in staging the exhibits, demonstrations, and entertainments. Classical and folk dancers will perform both weekends. Experts in karate, kendo, aikido, and judo will demonstrate their skills, and collectors of samurai swords and armor will display their treasures.
There will be exhibits and demonstrations of ikebana, sumi-e, calligraphy, bonsai, origami, and doll-making. Also on the agenda are an arts and crafts fair featuring works with a Japanese theme, as well as activities planned especially for youngsters.
Traditional Japanese music will fill the air at recitals spotlighting koto, shakuhachi and shamisen. There will be taiko and karaoke concerts, too, plus performances by several of the Bay Area’s most popular bands, which will add a contemporary “East meets West” dimension.
A two-hour parade will bring the festival to a close on April 22. Colorfully costumed dancers and musicians by the hundreds, modern-day samurai, floats, ladies in exquisite kimonos, taiko drummers, and scores of young men and women carrying mikoshi (portable shrines) will take part in this unique procession, which begins at City Hall, Polk and McAllister streets, at 1 p.m. and winds its way along a 15-block route to Japantown.
This year’s co-grand marshals are sisters Tomoye Takahashi and Martha Suzuki of the Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Charitable Foundation, who have provided generous financial support for many Japanese American community organizations in the Bay Area. Suzuki, who passed away in February, will be recognized posthumously.
Reigning over the entire celebration will be the 2012 Cherry Blossom Queen, who will be chosen at a gala on April 14 at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas. Queen Jeddie Kawahatsu will crown her successor.
Throughout the festival, the timeless significance of sakura will be in mind. The blossoms, which stay on the trees for only a few days before the spring breezes carry them away, evoke the unsurpassed beauty of nature and the transience of life.
Everyone is invited to join in the festivities, which will be in full swing by 11 a.m. each day of the two-weekend celebration. Most events are free.
For a complete schedule, visit www.nccbf.org. | https://rafu.com/2012/04/norcal-cherry-blossom-festival-starts-this-weekend/ |
Weaving Traditions - Activity 1
This Weaving Traditions - Activity 1 lesson plan also includes:
Learners practice the techniques of weaving and braiding in this introductory lesson on family traditions and visual art. The lesson includes a video and other resource links.
13 Views 17 Downloads
Resource Details
Dia de los Muertos Educator Resource Guide
What are the origins of el Dia de los Muertos, and how is this tradition observed in contemporary celebrations? With a variety of lesson plans and suggested hands-on activities, here is an excellent resource to reference as you prepare...
4th - 7th Social Studies & History CCSS: Adaptable
Fritz Scholder: A Study Guide
In this engaging activity involving close analysis of abstract expressionist art, your class members will not only discover more about artist Friz Scholder's Native American art, but they will also have the opportunity to consider...
5th - 8th Social Studies & History CCSS: Adaptable
The Key Holder (Tahilwidar) Tradition in Afghanistan
The fifth in a series of six lessons focusing on Afghan history and art Here's the amazing story of the Tahilwidar, or Key Holder Tradition in Afghanistan. Class groups are assigned roles and then act out the process, developed to keep...
4th - 12th Social Studies & History
History and Traditions of the Samurai
The history and tradition of the samurai are analyzed as cultural norms that changed to reflect the times. The class will examine sets of samurai armor and clothing to describe how their role changed over an eight-hundred year period.... | https://www.lessonplanet.com/teachers/weaving-traditions-activity-1 |
This exhibition introduces Japanese samurai culture and arts from the 16th–19th centuries. The 130 warrior-related objects are selected from the collections of the Cincinnati Art Museum and Gary Grose, a local collector. In addition to 11 full suits of armor and a wide variety of arms, this exhibition will also feature the museum’s related Japanese art works, including battle prints, paintings, metal crafts, banners and costumes – many will be on display for the first time.
Ticketed – free for members!
In Depth: Conserving Samurai Suits with Kelly Rectenwald
SAT. FEB. 11, 2017
Evenings for Educators: Dressed to Kill
THURS. FEB. 16, 2017
Picture This! Teen Book Club: Ichiro by Ryan Inzana
SAT. FEB. 18, 2017
Art in the Making: Ink Painting
SUN. FEB. 19, 2017
Wee Wednesday: Travel the World
WED. FEB. 22, 2017
Art After Dark: Dressed to Kill
FRI. FEB. 24, 2017
Connect: Wearing Armor
SAT. FEB. 25, 2017
MUSE: In the Far East
SUN. MARCH 12, 2017
See the Story Book Club: Cloud of Sparrows by Takashi Matsuoka
SAT. MARCH 18, 2017
Art in the Making: Samurai Helmets
SAT. MARCH 18, 2017
Ancient Meets Contemporary: Glory and Honor
SAT. MARCH. 18, 2017
Asian Art Society Lecture: Samurai Culture: Three Perspectives
SUN. APR. 2, 2017
InDepth: Dressed to Kill with Curator of Asian Art Hou-mei Sung
SAT. APR. 8, 2017
Family First Saturday Japanamania
SAT. MAY 6, 2017
Public Tours: Dressed to Kill
THURSDAYS, FEB. 23–MAY 4, 2017, 6:30 P.M.
Excluding April 13th and April 27th.
Public Tour with ASL Interpretation: Dressed to Kill
SAT. APR. 15, 2017
Click on the links below to view and download gallery guides for Dressed to Kill: Japanese Arms & Armor.
Dressed to Kill: Educator Information
by Design and Installation
1/31/2017
(Video) Watch as one of the Dressed to Kill swords is prepared and installed.
by Conservation
12/22/2016
Posted by: Conservation
With the opening of Dressed to Kill: Japanese Arms and Armor coming soon, our paper conservator has almost finished repairs to a Japanese folding book for the exhibition. Read more...
The Wall Street Journal | The Samurai Way
Cincinnati Enquirer | Discover the samurai at Cincinnati Art Museum
Cincinnati Business Courier | Cincinnati Art Museum acquires one of its largest collections
WCPO Cincinnati | Discover the Japanese Samurai at the Cincinnati Art Museum
Art Daily | Cincinnati Art Museum celebrates transformative Weisman gift of Japanese prints
Antiques and the Arts | Survey Japan's Samurai Culture
Polly Magazine | Dressed to Kill - Cincinnati Art Museum
91.7 WVXU Cincinnati | Japanese History And Culture On Display At Cincinnati Art Museum
Movers & Makers | What's new at the museums
Want to know more about the Samurai?
Check out this video from Artrageous with Nate, featuring Cincinnati Art Museum’s collection of Samurai armor!
Supported by the generosity of tens of thousands of contributors to the ArtsWave Community Campaign.
General operating support provided by: | https://cincinnatiartmuseum.org/art/exhibitions/exhibition-archive/2017-exhibitions/dressed-to-kill/ |
cerca...
25 November 2020
Tsuba - History of the sword Guard
Contrary to popular assumptions, the tsuba is designed to protect the samurai’s hands by preventing them to from slipping down the hilt onto the...
22 October 2020
History of the samurai armor: an abstract.
The word samurai means “one who serves” and refers to military groups which evolved in Japan around the 10th century to protect and expand their...
14 October 2020
Kabuto from the Saika school of armorers
Haruta school members who moved to the Kii region in the early Edo Period didn't just do some occasionale works; in fact they obtained permission to...
28 September 2020
Kirigane: Iron Applications on Japanese Armor
Developed in Nara in the early Muromachi period (1333-1573), the Haruta school was certainly one of the most important centres for the construction...
03 September 2020
Koshirae - A Frame for the Japanese Sword
Those who approaches the world of the Japanese sword as a neophyte are immediately attracted by the charm of the "katana" as an object; an icon that...
25 June 2020
Kozane: the Scales of the Samurai Armor
The Japanese armor has undergone numerous transformations over the centuries. Despite this, there are constant distinctive characteristics, despite...
1 of 11
seguente ›
Latest Acquisitions
Follow us on social
Giuseppe PIVA - Arte giapponese
Via San Damiano, 2 - 20122 - Milano
phone.: +39.02.36564455 | email:
[email protected]
Our business hours are: | https://giuseppepiva.com/en/news |
Samurai wore a colorful robe called a Hitatare kamishimo underneath all of their armor, though most sources say kimono.
Every Samurai needs armor and weapons. A senior general, he was awarded lordship of Kumamoto castle in Higo at the age of Being immeasurable, money, the ostensible measure of value, is of inadequate use.
Writing and literature was important to their culture. In the s, Lord Redesdale lived in a house within sight of Sengaku-ji where the 47 Ronin were buried. It can be said that one will be in conformity with the feelings of the gods and Buddhas if he will simply make his heart straightforward and calm, respect honestly and wholeheartedly those above him and have pity on those below, consider that which exists to exist and that which does not exist to not exist, and recognize things just as they are.
Historian Stephen Turnbull describes the horror and destruction of the Korean Invasions in several of his books as seen through the eyes of the Priest Keinen who accompanied the samurai during the campaign .
Japanese poem, invented by the Samurai, three lines of 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables Seppuku: You would eat you last meal after bathing, and changing into white clothing.
The original religion of Japan was Shinto, the belief or nature spirits and sacred power. Why might this story have been popular on screens in the home of a daimyo or samurai?
Consider themes such as group loyalty versus the lone hero. Samurai swords were sharp enough to cut off a persons head. Takeda Shingen — [ edit ] The great Warlord Takeda Shingen — wrote in his house codes: And if one would rid himself of bad karma in this round of existence, he should treat well those who are not so kind to him.
Samurai must be honest, fair, and they had to be fearless in the face of death. Research how traditional characters such as the trickster found in a variety of cultures past and present are represented in illustrations.
Its tone is a combination of a manly Confucian approach reflecting honesty and fairness, and a Buddhist sympathy for others.
The ronin endured incredible humiliation. The same knife was used to kill lord Kira. Rather, I will stand off the forces of the entire country here, and, without even one one-hundredth of the men necessary to do so, will throw up a defense and die a resplendent death.
The word came to mean a samurai who was no longer in the service of a lord for some reason or another.
Kira refused to teach Asano the correct manners and so he made embarrassing mistakes during the ceremony.By the more peaceful 17th century, samurai had to be students of culture, as well as fierce warriors. They were expected to be educated in both writing and literature.
Samurai practiced calligraphy, the art of beautiful writing. A calligrapher’s main tools were a brush, a block of ink, and paper or silk.
Cultural Training Samurai culture was influenced by Zen Buddhism Training in Literature Mastuo Basho invented Haiku's Haiku's Swords were a big part of the Samurai culture and training Rock Gardens, Flower Arranging, Theater, Painting, and Tea Ceremonies.
Haiku's consisted of 3 lines. Code of the Samurai in Art and Literature (lesson) The first man across the Uji River and the battle of Awazugahara, from The Tale of the Heike, one of a pair, – Japan. Edo period (–). Pair of six-panel screens, ink, colors, and gold on paper.
Samurai. Samurai Training in Writing and Literature and Cultural Training Noh Noh was often retellings of legends and folktales.
Actors would wear wooden masks to show various emotions, elaborate costumes, gestures, and music to tell these ancient stories. Most of the actors were men and they performed for both upper classes and common places for common people.
The rise of the samurai class in japan. Share. Copy. Download.
0. Published on Nov 18, learning the skills used very long training samurai practiced until they could shoot accurately without thinking; training in writing and literature. Feb 25, · Training: Usually a Samurai would begin their training at ages Since you reading this you must be older than that, or you have someone reading this to you, or your just a really good reader. | http://xahywizaqubid.fresh-air-purifiers.com/samurai-training-in-writing-and-literature-38523qav1865.html |
Yasuke, the African samurai, is a topic previously discussed on Black Tokyo. For a little background on the the children’s book, Kurosuke, which is based on the tales of Yasuke, the following is provided:
“Historical stories for children as a genre was established after 1960s. Kuro-suke, by Kurusu Yoshio (1916 – 2001), is masterpiece about a black young man and the Honnôji Revolt, and is one of the works that contributed to the development of the historical genre.
In the late sixteenth century, when Oda Nobunaga is holding sway over Japan, a black young man is sent to Nobunaga as a gift from a missionary. Japanese people at that time do not know about black people, and they are very surprised. The young man is named Kurusan Yasuke, or Kuro-suke, and is made an attendant of Nobunaga and the household members come to be fond of him.”
Contemporary accounts report that Yasuke arrived in Japan in 1579 in the service of the Italian Jesuit Alessandro Valignano, who had been appointed the Visitor (inspector) of the Jesuit missions in the Indies, meaning East Africa, South and East Asia. He accompanied Valignano when the latter came to the capital area in March 1581 and caused something of a sensation.
“However, a year after Yasuke’s arrival in Nobunaga’s court, disaster struck. In June 1582 Nobunaga was betrayed by one of his closest generals, Akechi Mitsuhide. Akechi’s betrayal is still the subject of debate but it is likely that he acted out of the fear that Nobunaga was going to give his (Akechi’s) lands to Mori Ranmaru, with whom Nobunaga was engaged in a ritual homosexual relationship (common among the samurai classes and part of system of patronage). Nobunaga and his small retinue, including Yasuke, were besieged in Honno-Ji temple in Kyoto by Akechi’s army. Whilst the temple burned Nobunaga committed ritual suicide. Yasuke managed to fight his way out and fled to the nearby Azuchi castle with Nobunaga’s eldest son, Oda Nobutada.
With Nobunaga out of the way Akechi attacked the castle and Yasuke is reported to have personally committed himself to the fighting. However, the defenders were soon overwhelmed. Yasuke survived the battle but, rather than commit suicide (the samurai tradition when facing defeat) he handed his sword to Akechi’s men (the Western tradition). Unsure of how to proceed the soldiers deferred to their lord. Akechi proved somewhat more bigoted than Nobunaga when he replied that Yasuke was merely a beast and not true samurai and, therefore, could not be expected to know the honour of seppuku (ritual suicide). Akechi handed Yasuke back to the Jesuits in Kyoto who were reportedly relieved to see him still in one piece.”
The idea of a black man working for Nobunaga is quite unique. Kuro-suke’s effort as a man of Nobunaga is a bit odd and humorous, and his fate is painful. The mind of a young man in a foreign country is well described. Lively characters and the setting in Azuchi, where European culture could be seen, are attractive, too. Illustrations by Minoda Genjirô enrich the world of this story.
Kuro-suke was praised for its originality and high quality when it received the Japanese Association of Writers for Children Prize in 1969.”
The Daily Beagle’s story on “YASUKE: THE AFRICAN SAMURAI” provides the following:
Japan is not a place one would usually associate with immigrants from Africa or the Caribbean. Yet in the late 16th century Japan’s most powerful warlord, Oda Nobunaga, had a black page who was not only a cultural curiosity but also served as Nobunaga’s bodyguard and was granted the prestigious rank of Samurai. We do not know this slave’s actual name but the Japanese called him Yasuke (彌介), the reason for this name is unknown as it does not have a clear meaning and that it is most likely a “Japanization” of his actual name.
“He was apparently 6ft 2in and would have towered over the Japanese of the day. Nobunaga first heard of Yasuke when the news reached him in 1581 of the great crush that had occurred when Valignano had brought him to Kyoto where his skin colour and height attracted a huge crowd. Nobunaga ordered the Jesuit to bring Yasuke to his court so that he could see this sensation in the flesh.
Upon seeing Yasuke Nobunaga allegedly ordered his stripped to the waist and scrubbed believing that his skin was painted. Japanese sources described Yasuke as “looking between the age of 24 or 25, black like an ox, healthy and good looking, and possessing the strength of 10 men. Nobunaga was further intrigued by the fact that Yasuke could speak Japanese (albeit not perfectly) and ordered Valignano to leave Yasuke in his care when the Jesuit prepared to leave again. Yasuke became a permanent fixture in Nobunaga’s retinue, his size and strength acting as a deterrent to assassination not to mention a flavour of exoticism to accompany the warlord’s other Western possessions. Apparently Nobunaga became so fond of Yasuke that rumours abounded that the slave was going to be made a Daimyo (a Japanese land-owning lord). These rumours were proven wrong, however, Yasuke was given the honour of being made a member of the samurai class, a rare honour among foreigners. ”
Read more here.
Additional information can be found here.
Black Tokyo recommends the following scholarly papers if you are interested in learning about Japan from a different perspective:
- The Critical Reception of James Baldwin in Japan: An Annotated Bibliography by Yoshinobu Hakutani and Toru Kiuchi (1991)
- The Significance of Afrocentricity for Non-Africans: Examination of the Relationship between African Americans and the Japanese by Suzuko Morikawa (2001)
- The Convenient Scapegoating of Blacks in Postwar Japan: Shaping the Black Experience Abroad by Sherick A. Hughes (2003)
- Lighter than Yellow, but not Enough: Western Discourse on the Japanese Race, 1854-1904 by Rotem Kowner (2000)
- Race and Reflexivity: The Black Other in Contemporary Japanese Mass Culture by John Russell (1991)
- Black Scholars Who Make a Specialty of Asian Studies by Robert Fikes, Jr. (2002) (ref. source of info.)
Read additional information on Black scholars the focus on Asian studies here. | https://www.blacktokyo.com/2013/07/22/black-samurai/ |
The samurai culture and code of conduct, bushido, have long captivated the imaginations and aspirations of young and old in the Western world. More than just professional warriors, Japanese samurai of the highest rank were also visionaries who strove to master artistic, cultural, and spiritual pursuits.
Lords of the Samurai takes an intimate look at the daimyo, or provincial lords of the warrior class in feudal Japan. The Hosokawa clan, powerful military nobles with a 600-year-old lineage, embodied this duality of fierce warrior and refined gentleman.
The exhibition features more than 160 works from the Hosokawa family collection housed in the Eisei-Bunko Museum in Tokyo, and from Kumamoto Castle and the Kumamoto Municipal Museum in Kyushu. Objects on view include suits of armor, armaments (including swords and guns), formal attire, calligraphy, paintings, tea wares, lacquerware, masks, and musical instruments.
The Asian Art Museum is the only U.S. venue for this exhibition.
Visit http://www.asianart.org/Samurai.htm for more information
ylkawashima . Last modified Jul 09 2010 12:12 p.m. | http://www.discovernikkei.org/en/events/2009/06/12/1937/ |
# Anthony J. Bryant
Anthony J. Bryant (February 14, 1961 – December 25, 2013) was an American author and editor.
## Biography
Bryant was born in Franklin, Indiana, and was adopted at age 5 by Robert M. and Margaret Bryant.
After Robert M. Bryant's death in 1967, Tony and his mother moved to Miami Shores, Florida, where he spent his youth and attended Pinecrest Preparatory School. After graduating from Florida State University in 1983 with a bachelor's degree in Japanese studies, he completed his graduate studies in Japanese studies (history, language, and armor) at Takushoku University in Tokyo, graduating in 1986. Bryant lived in Japan from 1986 to 1992. He also earned an M.A. in Japanese from Indiana University Bloomington in 2003.
An authority on the making of Japanese armor, he joined the Nihon Katchū Bugu Kenkyū Hozon Kai ("Japan Association for Arms and Armor Preservation"), and was one of four non-Asian members. While living in Japan, he also worked as a features editor for the Mainichi Daily News, and as editor for the Tokyo Journal, an English language monthly magazine.
Bryant wrote four books for Osprey Publishing on samurai history, and co-authored, with Mark T. Arsenault, the core rulebook for the role-playing game Sengoku: Chanbara Roleplaying in Feudal Japan. He was a historian of Japan specializing in Kamakura, Muromachi, and Momoyama period warrior culture. His areas of interest also included Heian-period court structure and society and Japanese literature.
After returning from Japan, in 1995 he became the editor of Dragon Magazine, the flagship publication of TSR, Inc., the creators of the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. He was the editor for eight issues, before Dave Gross took over.
Bryant died on December 25, 2013, at St. Francis Health in Indianapolis.
## Books
The Samurai, (Elite), Osprey Publishing, London (1989) ISBN 0-850-45897-8 OCLC 20221896 Early Samurai AD 200–1500, Osprey Publishing, London (1991) ISBN 1-855-32131-9 OCLC 24696248 Samurai 1550–1600, Osprey Publishing, London (1994) ISBN 1-855-32345-1 OCLC 31011021 Sekigahara 1600: The Final Struggle for Power, Osprey Publishing, London (1995) ISBN 1-855-32395-8 OCLC 33355511 Sengoku: Chanbara Roleplaying in Feudal Japan, Gold Rush Games; Revised edition (May 1, 2002) Iwaya no sōshi ("The Tale of the Cave House"): A Translation and Commentary, Indiana University (2003) Sekigahara 1600: The Final Struggle for Power, Praeger Publishers (September 2005) ISBN 0-275-98869-4
## Other works
Nihon Katchu Seisakuben, a Japanese armor manual The Estates of Heian Nobility (essay) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_J._Bryant |
The samurai were the legendary armored swordsmen of Japan, known to many Westerners only as a warrior class, depicted in countless martial arts movies. While being a warrior was central to a samurai's life, they were also poets, politicians, fathers and farmers. Samurai played a pivotal role in the last 1,500 years of Japanese history. In fact, samurai were instrumental in Japan's history from the 12th to the mid-19th centuries. The samurai (the word is the same whether singular or plural) served many functions in Japan. However, the role in which they are best known is that of warrior. But what is it that makes a samurai different from other warriors in other parts of the world? Wearing armor and using a sword is not enough to make someone into a samurai. The samurai was a well-trained, highly skilled warrior. The samurai served his daimyo or master, with absolute loyalty, even to the death. The samurai was a member of an elite class, considered superior to common citizens and ordinary foot soldiers. The samurai's life was ruled by bushido, a strict warrior code emphasizing honor. In this article, we'll examine the strict warrior code of the samurai, the honor system that shaped their lives, the weapons and armor they used, and the history of the samurai, from their murky origins in the fifth century to the abolition of the samurai class in 1868. We'll also find out how much of what we know about samurai is truth or myth. Children of samurai families were taught to serve different roles in samurai societies.
Some archers practiced on targets tethered to a pole, which could be swung to make a moving target.
Part of their education may have been formal, but they also learned social values from their families and others in their tight-knit communities. Girls were taught to run samurai households as future samurai wives, while boys were trained to take over as heads of families and as warriors. Rather than a simple question of age, a boy's readiness to be a samurai depends on rites of passage he had to undergo to advance. Training in martial arts began at a young age. Sons of wealthier families were sent to special academies, where they were tutored in literature, the arts and military skills. It should be noted that there were some female samurai, who also participated in combat, but most of the samurai were men. The image of the samurai that is probably most familiar is that of a sword master wielding his curved katana with deadly skill. However, for the first few centuries of their existence, samurai were better known as horse-riding archers. Firing a bow while riding a horse was a difficult task, and mastering it required years of constant practice. Some archers practiced on targets tethered to a pole, which could be swung to make a moving target. For a time, living dogs were used as moving archery targets, until the shogun abolished the cruel practice. Swordsmanship was taught in a similarly relentless manner.
One story tells of a master who would strike his students with a wooden sword at random times throughout the day and night, until the students learned to never relax their guard. In addition to warrior skills, samurai were expected to be well-educated in other areas, such as literature and history. During the Tokugawa period, a peaceful era, the samurai were not needed much as warriors, so these academic skills were especially useful. However, some samurai masters warned their students not to dwell on words and paintings too much, fearing their minds would become weak. A samurai was instantly recognizable due to his distinctive armor and helmet. Although early samurai armor (fifth and sixth century CE) exhibited a solid-plate construction, it was the lamellar armor that came next that continued to represent the samurai image today. Lamellar armor was made by binding together metal scales into a small plate, which was then covered with lacquer to make it waterproof. These small, light plates were fastened together with cords of leather, each plate slightly overlapping the other. Yoroi: Worn by mounted samurai, this heavy armor included heavy helmets and imposing shoulder guards.
Do-Maru: Originally worn by foot soldiers, this armor was more closely fitted and lighter in weight. Much later, as samurai dismounted their horses and hand-to-hand combat became more prevalent, the do-maru style armor became more popular among all samurai. The Do-maru were modified to include heavy helmets and lightweight shoulders and shin guards. Helmets, called Kabuto, were made from metal plates riveted together. In many designs, the rivets formed rows of ridges along the outside of the helmet, adding to their distinctive look. Higher-ranking samurai added clan symbols and other decorative flourishes to their helmets. Some helmets included metal masks bearing intimidating devil faces, sometimes with mustaches and beards made from horsehair. During peaceful periods, these helmet ornaments grew very elaborate, and today are considered works of art. Before donning his armor, a samurai would wear a one-piece undergarment covered by a kimono and a pair of loose-fitting pants called hakama. A padded cap would help ease the weight of the heavy iron helmet. The most famous weapon associated with the samurai is the katana, a curved sword. A katana was never worn without its companion sword - the wakizashi, a shorter weapon with a broader blade.
Together the two swords were referred to as daisho, meaning "large and small." The word dai (large) represented the katana and the word sho (small) represented the wakizashi. The smiths who created katana for the samurai are widely regarded as some of the finest sword makers in history. One of the biggest problems in making a sword is keeping it sharp. A weapon made with a hard metal will keep its edge but will be brittle and more prone to breaking. Japanese smiths solved this problem by controlling the amount of carbon in the tamahagane steel very carefully. As they heated and cooled the metal during the process, they folded it back on itself many times to create multiple layers. The result is renowned the world over for its strength and sharpness. In addition to swords and bows, samurai used a variety of pole arms (bladed weapons attached to long poles).
One of the more common Japanese pole arms was the naginata, which consisted of a sharp blade 2 to 4 feet (0.6 to 1.2 meters) in length mounted on a wooden shaft that was 4 to 5 feet (1.2 to 1.5 meters) long. The extra reach afforded by these weapons allowed infantry to hold attackers at bay or make a first strike before an attacker with a sword could reach them. They were also very effective against mounted opponents. In the 16th century, European traders arrived in Japan for the first time. The Japanese paid large sums for Portuguese arquebuses, a type of matchlock gun, quickly learning to mass-produce the weapons themselves. Although the gun is not traditionally associated with samurai, it was a major influence on Japanese warfare from that point on. Ranged attacks became more common, and samurai were encouraged to carry the unreliable weapons. The more trustworthy sword was only needed for close combat. The samurai were not mercenary warriors, roaming Japan and fighting for whatever warlord would pay them. They were bound to a specific lord or daimyo, and bound to their communities by duty and honor. This code of honor is known as bushido, and comes from the word bushi, which means "warrior." The Japanese word do means "the way." So bushido means, "the way of the warrior." This code evolved from an earlier period when samurai were archers and horsemen. Although bushido is referred to as a code, it was not a formal set of rules that all samurai followed.
39;s castle or commit suicide if they felt they had disgraced their lord.
In fact, bushido changed greatly throughout Japanese history and even from one clan to the next. Bushido wasn't written down at all until the 17th century, after samurai had been in existence for centuries. The first duty of a samurai was loyalty to his lord. Japan had a feudal system in which a lord expected obedience from his vassals, who in turn received economic and military protection from the lord. If a lord couldn't count on absolute loyalty from his vassals, the entire system would collapse. This sense of loyalty and honor was often carried to extremes by the samurai, who would fight to the death in a hopeless battle to protect their master's castle or commit suicide if they felt they had disgraced their lord. Samurai also had a duty of vengeance. Should his master be killed, a samurai was justified to seek out and kill those responsible, although he was required to tell the authorities of his plans before he acted. One of the most famous samurai stories, "The 47 Ronin," or masterless samurai, is a tale of traditional samurai vengeance. During a period of peace, their lord was ordered to commit seppuku (ritual suicide) because of an altercation with another lord. Two years later, the 47 samurai invaded the lord's castle and killed him. After that they surrendered to the authorities. Although they had fulfilled their duty of vengeance (as was expected), they had been forbidden to do so beforehand by the shogunate.
Because the public was on their side, the samurai were allowed the honor of committing seppuku, rather than being executed for their crime. The native religion of Japan was Shintoism, but after Buddhism reached Japan in the fifth century, CE, it attracted many followers. There was no conflict between the two. In fact, Buddhist and Shinto beliefs coexist easily. One school of Buddhist teaching, Zen Buddhism, encourages followers to attain enlightenment through intense meditation and contemplation of seemingly nonsensical questions. This discipline was popular with samurai, who understood the need to train and practice until their combat skills became like breathing; something they did naturally, without having to think about it. Honor was so important to the samurai that they would take their own lives in the face of failure, or if they had violated Bushido. This honor-bound suicide became very ritualized, taking the form of seppuku. Also known by the more vulgar phrase hara-kiri, seppuku was a way for a samurai to restore honor to his lord and family, and to fulfill his obligation of loyalty even if he had failed as a samurai. Ritualized seppuku involved the samurai wearing the proper garments while he was presented with the ritual sword, wrapped in paper.
The samurai would then take the sword and cut open his own stomach, from left to right, with a final upward cut at the end. However, seppuku was not a solitary act, and few samurai were left to die a slow and excruciating death from disembowelment. Another samurai acting as an assistant or kaishaku, would typically stand behind the one committing seppuku, and behead him with a sharp sword shortly after the seppuku cut was made. The kaishaku was charged with making sure the ceremony proceeded smoothly, and a samurai should consider it an honor to be called to serve as kaishaku. In later years, the act became even more ritualized, in some cases using paper fans to signal the kaishaku he was ready for decapitation. Often, the kaishaku would perform the beheading as soon as the ritual sword was touched, well before any pain was experienced. No one is quite sure who the first samurai was. Historians do have some idea of when regular warriors began taking on the characteristics of the samurai. In the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries, CE, there were rivalries in Japan between princes and clans, as well as succession wars when an emperor died. However, most of the fighting was done against those people who were native to islands of Japan, which imperial Japanese referred to as emishi or barbarians. | https://novelfullweb.com/post/how-did-the-samurai-fall |
Samurai: An Illustrated History brings the violent, tumultuous, and, at the same time, elegant world of the medieval Japanese samurai to life.
This book of Japanese history traces the story of a unique historical phenomenon: a period of 700 years—equivalent to the entire stretch of Western history between the reigns of the Crusader king Richard the Lionhearted and of Queen Victoria at the height of the British Empire—during which an enclosed civilization was dominated by a single warrior caste.
The historical narrative of samurai history is supported by explanations of samurai armor, weapons, fortifications, tactics, and customs, and illustrated with nearly 800 fascinating color photographs, maps, and sketches, including ancient scroll paintings and surviving suits of armor preserved for centuries in Japanese shrines.
From the 12th to the 19th centuries the history of Japan was effectively the history of the samurai—the class of professional fighting men. At first, they were no more than lowly soldiery employed by the court aristocracy of Kyoto, but the growing power of the provincial warrior clans soon enabled them to brush aside the executive power of the imperial court and to form their own parallel military government. Though individual dynasties came and went in cycles of vigor and decadence, the dominance of the samurai as a class proved uniquely resilient. | https://thegalaxybookshop.mymustreads.com/id004631177/Samurai |
Chadwick Boseman is set to play the role of Yasuke, a legendary figure who was said to be the first and only African samurai in Japanese history.
“The legend of Yasuke is one of history’s best-kept secrets,” Boseman recently said to Deadline, “the only person of non-Asian origin to become a Samurai. The actor then spoke to its historical significance by adding: “that’s not just an action movie, that’s a cultural event, an exchange, and I am excited to be part of it.”
According to the biography African Samurai: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan, the real Yasuke landed in Japan in 1579 after originally being taken from his village near the Nile River to India where he was under Portuguese servitude. Once there, Yasuke became an indentured bodyguard to a powerful Portuguese Jesuit missionary, who then turned Yasuke over to the Japanese warlord Oda Nobunaga in a diplomatic effort to appease him. At that point it’s believed Nobunaga awarded Yasuke the coveted title of samurai, making him the first and only non-Asian to earn such a distinction. | http://www.ballerzmixtape.com/2019/05/14/chadwick-boseman-to-play-first-african-samurai-in-new-film-yasuke/ |
Talpa(redirected from Talpe)
Also found in: Dictionary, Wikipedia.
Talpa(pop culture)
Talpa is the main villain of the 1995 anime Ronin Warriors, the English-language adaptation of the Japanese series Yoroiden Samurai Troopers (which aired in Japan in 1988). In Samurai Troopers, his name is Arago. Talpa was introduced in the first episode “Shadowland,” but he was shown as a ghostly visage. Only in later episodes was his true form revealed—a tall figure in a stylized samurai armor with spikes, claws, and a skull-like helmet with white hair (strangely enough, it was never revealed if there was anything under that armor!). His exact age is unknown, but it is estimated to be several thousand years. He is also capable of manipulating dark magic and can bend others' minds to his will. Talpa was the lord of the evil Dynasty, which existed in another dimension. Over several centuries, he made several attempts to bring his realm to Earth. One thousand years ago, his attempt was foiled by the Ancient One, who represented the forces of good. Not only did the Ancient One prevent Talpa's assault on Earth, he also broke the dark lord's armor into nine pieces. These were later forged into nine mystical suits of armor of great power. One thousand years later, in modern times, Talpa made another attempt to attack Earth's dimension, with the city of Tokyo as his target— and he actually succeeded. While not at full power, he had regained four of the mystical suits of armor and gave them to four warlords: Anubis, Cale, Sekhmet, and Dais. These four would aid Talpa in his quest to gain the remaining five mystical armors. However, the Ancient One had given these armors to five teen boys; these five—the Ronin Warriors—would oppose Talpa and his warlords. At the conclusion of the series, the five warriors, with the help of Anubis, defeated Talpa, ending the Dynasty's attempt to rule Earth.
The Supervillain Book: The Evil Side of Comics and Hollywood © 2006 Visible Ink Press®. All rights reserved. | https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Talpe |
Samurai Museum is located in Tokyo, Japan, exhibiting antique artifacts related to the Samurai history. Samurai Museum Shop is the good place for those who are interested in Samurai culture and Japanese craftsmanship. We deal with antique/replica Samurai swords, armor, sword mounting, traditional Japanese crafts and so on. | https://www.samuraimuseum.jp/shop/product/sword-stand-2/ |
Added: Jermine Stetson - Date: 07.08.2021 07:54 - Views: 48830 - Clicks: 9826
Lions have captured our imagination for centuries. Stars of movies and characters in books, lions are at the top of the food chain. The Swahili word for lion, simba, also means "king," "strong," and "aggressive. If you lionize someone, you treat that person with great interest or importance.
Prime habitat for lions is open woodlands, thick grassland, and brush habitat, where there is enough cover for hunting and denning. These areas of grassland habitat also provide food for the herbivores that lions prey upon. Lions differ from the other members of the large cat genus, Panthera —tigers, leopards, and jaguars. Adult male lions are much larger than females and usually have an impressive mane of hair around the neck. The color, size, and abundance of the mane all vary among individuals and with age. The pride has a close bond and is not likely to accept a stranger.
The unrelated males stay a few months or a few years, but the older lionesses stay together for life. In dry areas with less food, prides are smaller, with two lionesses in charge. In habitats with more food and water, prides can have four to six adult lionesses. Both males and females scent mark to define their territory.
Living in a pride makes life easier. Hunting as a group means there is a better chance that the lions have food when they need it, and it is less likely that they will get injured while hunting. If one lion yawns, grooms itself, or roars, it sets off a wave of yawning, grooming, or roaring! Lions and lionesses play different roles in the life of the pride. The lionesses work together to hunt and help rear the cubs.
This allows them to get the most from their hard work, keeping them healthier and safer. Being smaller and lighter than males, lionesses are more agile and faster. During hunting, smaller females chase the prey toward the center of the hunting group. The larger and heavier lionesses ambush or capture the prey. Lionesses are versatile and can switch hunting jobs depending on which females are hunting that day and what kind of prey it is.
While it may look like the lionesses do all the work in the pride, the males play an important role. Males also guard the cubs while the lionesses are hunting, and they make sure the cubs get enough food. When a new male tries to a pride, he has to fight the males already there. The new male is either driven off or succeeds in pushing out the existing males. Over the course of 24 hours, lions have short bursts of intense activity, followed by long bouts of lying around that total up to 21 hours!
Lions are good climbers and often rest in trees, perhaps to catch a cool breeze or to get away from flies. Lions sometimes lie around in crazy poses, such as on their backs with their feet in the air, or legs spread wide apart! Lions are famous for their sonorous roar. Males are able to roar when they are about one year old, and females can roar a few months later.
Lions use their roar as one form of communication.
Other sounds lions produce include growls, snarls, hisses, meows, grunts, and puffs, which sound like a stifled sneeze and is used in friendly situations. Lions have other forms of communication as well, mostly used to mark territory. They spread their scent by rubbing their muzzle on tufts of grass or shrubs, and they rake the earth with their hind paws, as the paws have scent glands, too. Adult males also spray urine—stand back! Save Save. Prime habitat for lions is open woodlands, thick grassland, and brush habitat where there is enough cover for hunting and denning. These areas of grassland habitat also provide food for the herbivores lions prey upon.
Lions usually hunt at night, particularly at dusk and dawn, with lionesses doing most of the work. A lion chasing down prey can run the length of a football field in six seconds.
Their eyes have a horizontal streak of nerve cells, which improves their vision following prey across a plain. Lions have been spotted taking down prey as large as buffalo and giraffes! They may even drag this heavy prey into thickets of brush to keep other wildlife from getting to it. Lions hunt antelope and other ungulates, baby elephants or rhinos, rodents, reptiles, insects, and even crocodiles. They also scavenge or steal prey from leopards, cheetahs, hyenas, or African hunting dogs also called painted dogseven eating food that has spoiled.
Lions digest their food quickly, which allows them to return soon for a second helping after gorging themselves the first time. At the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, the lions get lean ground meat made for zoo carnivores as well as an occasional large bone, thawed rabbit, or sheep carcass. A lioness gives birth to her cubs in a secluded location away from the pride.
Cubs remain hidden for four to six weeks as they gain strength, learn to walk, and play with one another and their mother. When they return to the pride, they can nurse from any adult lioness in the pride, not just their own mother. In fact, the females in a pride often give birth around the same time, which makes for lots of playmates! Cubs born in a pride are twice as likely to survive as those born to a lioness that is on her own. However, if a new adult male takes over the pride, he may kill cubs under one year old so that he can father new ones. Under favorable conditions, a lioness can produce cubs roughly every other year.
From the time they are born, cubs have a lot to learn!
At three months old, cubs are able to follow their mother wherever she goes, and they are weaned by the age of six months. At about one year old, males start to get fuzz around their neck that grows into the long mane adult male lions are famous for. How long a lion cub stays with Mom depends on the sex of the cub. Mothers generally raise males until they are just about two. Once they hit that stage in life, the mother usually runs them out of the group, and they are on their own.
Sometimes the sub-adult males form bachelor groups and run together until they are big enough to start challenging older males in an attempt to take over a pride. If the cubs are female, Mom cares for them until about two years of age and they usually stay with the pride they were born into. A mother and daughter may live together for life.
Lions that do not live in prides are called nom, and they range far and wide while following migrating herds of large game. Nom are generally young males, roaming in pairs or small groups and often related to one another. Females are occasionally nomadic, too. For reason not clearly understood, young females are sometimes driven from their pride just as are young males. As they gain in age and experience, nomadic males may challenge established pride males for dominance of a given territory and its pride of lionesses, or they may nomadic females and form a new pride.
We began with a roar! It was soon after the Exposition ended that Harry Wegeforth, M. Although there is no record of what happened to Rex and Rena, Cleopatra moved into the then state-of-the-art habitat along with another female named Queen and a new male named Prince. The trio enjoyed the sun and fresh breezes blowing through the canyon. Lots of lion cubs were born in those early years—Cleopatra had 33 babies over an 8-year period! In our more than year history, lions have been born at the Zoo. Lion Camp looks like a bit of African habitat, so guests get to see lots of natural lion behaviors, watching the cats as they A lion looking for his lioness in the grass, explore the logs and rocks, or sit and watch the antelope, giraffes, and rhinos in the nearby African Plains savanna habitat.
Guests can come right up to the large glass panels for some eye-to-eye moments with the beasts. Lion Camp is currently home to three of those original six cubs: male Izu and two females, Oshana and Mina. Many of their 18 surviving cubs from over the years are now residing in other zoos. Our lions survey territory that includes a foothill environment with rocky slopes, trees, grasses, and a stream. Specially heated rocks make the perfect lounging spot for the king of beasts. The lions at both the Zoo and the Safari Park have learned behaviors that help our wildlife care specialists take care of them.
The lions know their names, so when lion care specialists need to look at a particular lion, they can call that cat. Wildlife care specialists teach the cats to stand up against the glass, so the lion care specialist can examine their paws and belly. If a lion has an injury, they can spot it right away. Life for our lions is filled with new and unexpected experiences.
It's up to their care team to provide the big cats with those experiences by offering them a variety of A lion looking for his lioness to sniff, taste, or play with. We call this enrichment. Lion care specialists often place interesting scents in their habitat, found in such items as wood shavings from wildlife bedding, herbs like cloves or cinnamon rubbed on a rock, or fox urine sprayed on a wall.
Cardboard boxes, palm fronds, and feed sacks make great toys, too. And the lions love to play with large, heavy-duty plastic balls, rolling, tossing, and even pouncing on them, all in good fun. Thanks to their wildlife care specialists, there is never a dull day.
A foot-tall bronze sculpture of Rex, the lion whose roar inspired the creation of the San Diego Zoo instands at the Zoo entrance. It honors the iconic status of lions in San Diego Zoo history and makes for a memorable photo opportunity for guests. Long may they reign! Are lions in trouble? Due to many issues such as disease, hunting by humans, and loss of habitat, the population of lions in Africa is becoming very concerning to conservationists. Natural habitat for lions is now found only in protected reserves, and lion movement between prides is becoming more limited. | https://nuevos-medios.com/bozeman-montana-at-best-looking-puss-usq/a-lion-looking-for-his-lioness.php |
September has been a wonderful month with some welcome early rainfall. The wildlife on the property has been incredible with thousands of topi and their newly born calves dotted across the grasslands. We have observed dazzling zebra numbers this month, and many giraffe, eland, gazelle and wildebeest too.
The Grumeti River has begun to flow steadily once again and, as always, the river provides excitement and adventure whilst on the quest for the ultimate nature experience! Crocodiles and hippos begin their movements further upstream and crossings for the plains wildlife can become a little more hazardous. Towards the end of the month, however, we have seen the river levels drop once again.
Here’s a sightings snapshot for September:
Lions:
There has been good viewing of the Nyasirori, Butamtam and West prides this month.
Many guest observations have included prides of up to 24 strong, making for some excellent viewing.
Lion activity on Sasakwa Hill has been intermittent with individuals reluctant to relax after last month’s raid. Two large male lions moved in from a neighbouring territory and took lionesses and youngsters by surprise, ultimately killing a young individual and wounding others before heading back south and disappearing into the Ridge Hills. Lionesses were hunting zebra once again on Sasakwa Hill towards the end of the month which was great to see, and confidence in their range has strengthened once more.
The Butamtam Pride have been spending much of their time in the central areas, predominantly hunting topi and zebras.
Leopards:
Great leopard interactions this month with some lovely sightings of a mother with cubs in the Faru Faru region and leopards hunting impala on the Grumeti River Road.
An incredible battle was witnessed by a handful of guests as our Grumeti North female gave it her all in an effort to bring down a large, powerful impala ram. She was successful in the end but what an incredible fight for survival!
Leopard sightings have been good in the Sasakwa Hill region with fleeting sightings in the valleys close to the RISE facility.
Regular sightings of the Sabora Drainage male this month as this individual begins to relax a little around the vehicles, which is lovely to see.
Cheetahs:
Fantastic sightings this month of the Sasakwa Plains male. A wonderfully powerful cheetah who is always impressive to observe. He has been hunting the plains in the central areas this month. A number of hunts were successful where he was able to bring down young wildebeest and impala.
Across the rest of the concession, sightings of cheetahs are here and there as there is much movement amongst the individuals with the ever growing lion population.
The Sabora mother and four youngsters were sighted again this month, however, much further west, on the Kawanga Plains. This highlights the distances this mother covers with her four young cubs. She utilizes a considerable range in order to feed herself and her young, always having to be vigilant of the larger, ever threatening lion and hyena populations.
Elephants:
The elephant herds have been steady this month with very good numbers on the property.
With the beginning of some reasonable rain, we have seen them dispersing widely as alternative food sources become readily available.
At the beginning of the month we observed incredible elephant activity on the Grumeti River during the dryer days.
There have been some great bull sightings out on the open grasslands. Such a pleasure watching them slowly breeze by over the green flush, in amongst great numbers of zebra, eland and Thomson’s gazelle.
Buffalos:
The buffalos on the property continue to do very well, with large herds observed throughout the Grumeti Reserve.
A herd of close to 800 was seen during our last wildlife survey, out on the western plains.
Rhinos:
All rhinos are in good condition and accounted for. There have been good sightings on the eastern boundary of the boma this month. | https://singita.com/2022/09/singita-grumeti-sep-2022/ |
Table of Contents
Can A Lion Beat A Elephant? Aside from humans, lions are the only predators powerful enough to kill an elephant. The males, being 50% heavier than the females, are especially suited to the task. It typically takes seven lionesses to kill an elephant, but just two males could do the same. Even a single male can overpower a young elephant.
Are lions afraid of elephants? Lion will usually avoid adult elephant, and attack youngsters only if they have become separated from the herd. However, some prides have learned how to take down full-grown adults under dire circumstances when other food sources are scarce.
What animal can beat a lion? #1: Elephant — Big Body and a Big Brain
The elephant is the largest land mammal, a characteristic that ensures a pride will need all lions on deck to have a chance of bringing one down with claws and teeth. It’s no surprise that these animals can kill a lion.
Can lions take down a full grown elephant? Lions have been known to work together to hunt full-sized adult elephants, but sightings of the kills are uncommon. The King of the Jungle is the only animal, apart from humans, that is able to take down an elephant. If a lion were to try and take down an elephant, it would normally go for a younger animal.
Can A Lion Beat A Elephant – Related Questions
What are lions afraid of?
“They’re the least afraid of anything of all the predators,” says Craig Packer, an ecologist with the University of Minnesota and one of the world’s foremost lion experts. Though female lions hunt gazelles and zebras, male lions are in charge of hunting large prey that must be taken down with brute force.
Which animal is tiger afraid of?
Tigers are afraid of animals that are larger in size, like elephants, bears, hyenas, and leopards. Crocodiles may even kill a tiger with the help of its sharp jaw. They are also afraid of dholes, which are wild Asiatic dogs, as these dogs are fierce and roam around in a group.
Can anything beat an elephant?
Aside from humans, lions are the only predators powerful enough to kill an elephant. The males, being 50% heavier than the females, are especially suited to the task. It typically takes seven lionesses to kill an elephant, but just two males could do the same. Even a single male can overpower a young elephant.
Can a hippo beat an elephant?
A male elephant’s tusks average 6 feet in length and are a formidable weapon. Combine them with a massive weight of over 8 tons, it can beat all comers of the 4-legged variety, one on one. Yes, even the hippo, which kills an average of 500 people a year, will succumb in a battle with a full-grown bull elephant.
Will a Tiger beat a lion?
If there’s a fight, the tiger will win, every time.” Lions hunt in prides, so it would be in a group and the tiger as a solitary creature so it would be on its own. A tiger is generally physically larger than a lion. Most experts would favour a Siberian and Bengal Tiger over an African Lion.”
Which animal can defeat elephant?
Lions are the number one natural enemy of elephants. Lions are elephants’ number one natural enemy and another member of the Big Five. They move and hunt in packs. It is the lionesses that do most of the hunting for everyone, while the lions protect the pride.
Can a man defeat a lion?
If you change the question to: “Can a single, average-sized, athletic man armed with a primitive spear and minimal training defeat a lion, tiger, or bear in a fight?” the answer would be yes. He can, but it’s certainly not assured. A tremendous amount of luck would be required. It’s unlikely.
What is an elephant’s natural enemy?
Elephants have no natural enemies, but hyenas and lions are classified as elephant predators. They prey on young elephants when there is nothing else to eat. The entire herd protects the babies.
Do lions eat lions?
Lions eat other lions in certain circumstances. Through a desperate need for food, rivalry, or to remove lion cubs by a previous male from a newly acquired pride of lions. They mostly kill but do not eat them. So there are indeed occasions when lions do eat other lions, or at least will kill them.
Can a Tiger take down an elephant?
Can a Tiger kill an elephant? Hunting alone, a tiger can take down prey four to five times its own size. Tiger’s generally avoid adult elephants, but will sometimes kill baby elephants. we now also have confirmed recent evidence with pictures of a tiger killing adult rhinos.
Are Tigers afraid of elephants?
Are Tigers Afraid Of Elephants? No, they do not. Tigers and elephants are frequently found living side by side in southern India. While tigers are not often attracted to elephants because of their size, they have been observed killing elephant babies.
Do lions fear humans?
And being predominantly nocturnal, lions lose their inherent fear of humans at night and become much more dangerous and prone to attack. Be more cautious at night. Avoid camping in areas of high lion density – maintain a watch throughout the night if worried.
Are Tigers afraid of fire?
Tigers are naturally, instinctively, terrified of fire and resist jumping through flaming rings. In order for a trainer to get a tiger through a flaming hoop, that animal must be more afraid of physical punishment by the trainer than the fire itself.
Are Lions afraid of fire?
Lions are not afraid of campfires and will often walk round them and see what’s happening. However, keeping a fire between you and a lion is probably better than nothing!
Why are cheetahs scared of hyenas?
Cheetahs are scared of hyenas because cheetahs know how strong the bite of hyenas is. A hyena can easily bite and crush the bones of other animals, including the cheetahs. So the cheetah will not choose to fight against the hyena and rely on its speed to get away from the hyena to avoid severe injury.
What are tigers weaknesses?
Neither one will back down; power and aggressiveness can often escalate quickly. The strength of the tiger can also be its greatest weakness. Often the tiger becomes frustrated with more calculating styles and can be forced into making critical errors, or evasive techniques can be used to attack the tiger’s endurance.
What can beat a hippo?
33. What predators are there for a hippo? While many carnivores (even birds) can eat a hippo’s meat, very few can actually kill a hippo on their own. Since a single bite from a hippo can crush a lion as if it is nothing, lions can only hunt a hippo in a bigger group.
Do hyenas eat lions?
Yes, hyenas eat lions. The power of the hyenas’ clan is off the charts. However, it is rarely the case that hyenas hunt a lion, but if a lion is left alone, hyenas would try to kill and eat it. Yet, hyenas tend to avoid adult male lions and attack only weak lionesses and young lions.
Would a rhino beat a hippo?
It would be a fairly close thing, which is probably why they almost never clash head to head in the wild. Both animals are highly territorial, but the hippo is much more aggressive. Fights between two male rhinos normally don’t amount to more than some horn clashing and a little urine spraying.
What can beat a rhino?
Lions, tigers and crocodiles have all successfully hunted rhinoceros, but it is rare because of the size, strength, aggression, armor, and weapons of the rhinoceros.
Who is faster lion or tiger?
According to that page, the average top speed of the Jaguar is 80 kilometres per hour / 50 miles per hour, while the average top speed of the Lion is 81 kilometres per hour / 50 miles per hour. According to this page, the average top speed of the Tiger is faster than the average top speed of the Leopard. | https://neeness.com/can-a-lion-beat-a-elephant/ |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.