Browsing by Subject "Peasants"
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
- Results Per Page
- Sort Options
Item ¿Nosotros? Sandinistas : recuerdos de revolución en la frontera agrícola de Nicaragua(2009-08) Soto Joya, Maria Fernanda; Gordon, Edmund Tayloe; Hale, Charles R., 1957-In 1990, ten years after the Sandinista revolution's triumph, came its end. What followed were anti-Sandinistas' attempts to erase Nicaragua's revolutionary past and Sandinistas' defense of that project and the party that represents it, the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN). For most Sandinistas, to publicly remember the revolution was a form of defense. Their memories were considered counter-hegemonic ones that reminded people that the past and the revolution's propositions still had value. However, Sandinistas' revolutionary narratives of the past are not free of problems and contradictions. The FSLN has popularized a Sandinista collective memory that idealizes the revolution. This is an indulgent memory that avoids talking about mistakes and problems. It is also a sentimental memory that links sandinismo to high morals and goodness and, in doing so, inhibits questioning the past and the present. This collective memory hinders discussions about other Sandinista memories, but, most importantly, it legitimizes problematic continuities in the way power is exerted; continuities which are not unique to sandinismo. This dissertation analyses how Sandinista peasants from a region in the old agrarian frontier of the country remember the revolution. In analyzing their memories one can see the ways in which the revolution is felt, the meaning of sandinismo among that population, and the kinds of political compromises they have to make today. Their memories show that the strength of the FSLN lies not only in economical or political interests, but also in the way the narratives of the past reaffirm attachments built over thirty years or more. While remembering the revolution's political ideals continues to be an important political statement and source of inspiration, constant critiques should be part of any memory work. To start with, memory work needs to acknowledge the constructed character of any memory, be those personal or collective, and the omissions that constitute them. To do so entail recognizing that memories are made of exclusions, repetitions, and forgetting and that the political work of memory not only never ends but involves the difficult task of questioning itself.Item Picturing the peasant : nation and modernity in 20th century Bulgaria(2013-05) Hillhouse, Emily Anne; Neuburger, Mary, 1966-This dissertation examines representations of the Bulgarian peasant in order to explore how nationalist, agrarian and ultimately communist governments attempted to negotiate the meaning of "modernity" in predominantly rural Bulgaria. This work is not intended as a survey of displays of folk culture in the 20th century, but instead focuses each chapter on an important person, movement or organization which best seems to articulate Bulgaria's evolving sense of itself and its place on the edge of Europe. Beginning with a background chapter on the 1878-1917 period, I trace the foundation and development of ethnographic display, representations of peasants in the interwar educational press, campaigns to improve village hygiene and culture, alpine tourism, and the ever-changing image of peasants in propaganda from the years of agrarian rule in the 1920s through the early decades of communism. My dissertation explores the contested meanings of peasant images in Bulgaria's changing political and social milieu. Bulgaria's acceptance into first Europe and later the Soviet sphere of influence was for many nation-builders predicated upon her ability to attain European and later Soviet-style modernity. However, these modernities were based upon ideas of industrialization and urbanization. In the middle of the 20th century, however, Bulgaria's economy was still overwhelmingly agricultural. This represented a problem for Bulgaria's nation builders. Confronted with these seeming contradictions, different regimes attempted to incorporate the rural population into their visions of a modern Bulgaria. The changing nature of this imagined Bulgaria can be best elucidated through images of the Bulgarian peasantry. At one moment incorporated and at another excluded, modern and backward, embraced and reviled, the imagined peasantry reveals the anxieties and aspirations of Bulgarian state builders in the 20th century.