While the impact of a colonising metropole on subjected territories has been widely scrutinized, the effect of empire on the colonising country has long been neglected. Recently, many studies have ...examined the repercussions of their respective empires on colonial powers such as the United Kingdom and France. Belgium and its African empire have been conspicuously absent from this discussion. This book attempts to fill this gap. Belgium and the Congo, 1885–1980 examines the effects of colonialism on the domestic politics, diplomacy and economics of Belgium, from 1880 - when King Leopold II began the country's expansionist enterprises in Africa - to the 1980s, well after the Congo's independence in June of 1960. By examining the colonial impact on its mother country Belgium, this study also contributes to a better understanding of Congo's past and present.
Belgium was a small, neutral country without a colonial tradition when King Leopold II ceded the Congo, his personal property, to the state in 1908. For the next half century, Belgium not only ruled ...an African empire but also, through widespread, enduring, and eagerly embraced propaganda, produced an imperialist-minded citizenry.
Selling the Congois a study of European pro-empire propaganda in Belgium, with particular emphasis on the period 1908-60. Matthew G. Stanard examines the nature of Belgian imperialism in the Congo and considers its case in light of literature on the French, the British, and other European overseas empires. Comparing Belgium to other imperial powers, the book finds that pro-empire propaganda was a basic part of European overseas expansion and administration during the modern period. Arguing against the long-held belief that Belgians were merely "reluctant imperialists," Stanard demonstrates that in fact many Belgians readily embraced imperialistic propaganda.
Selling the Congocontributes to our understanding of the effectiveness of twentieth-century propaganda by revealing its successes and failures in the Belgian case. Many readers familiar with more-popular histories of Belgian imperialism will find in this book a deeper examination of European involvement in central Africa during the colonial era.
La riche
histoire de la migration belge en France
«
Splendide famille. Le père, un gars flamand, simple, robuste – la mère
profondément religieuse. Les enfants tous débordants de vie. Ils ont un tel
...courage, pour braver les Français avec leur conviction religieuse. » 
Ainsi parlait le père jésuite Frans Van den Brande, l’un
des aumôniers des paysans flamands du Nord de la France dans
l’entre-deux-guerres. Son activité avait un objectif simple: s’assurer que les
émigrés belges restassent catholiques et flamands. L’initiative n’était pas
neuve. Elle s’inscrivait dans une longue tradition de l’église belge de
continuer à se préoccuper du sort de leurs paroissiens qui avaient choisi
d’émigrer en France.
Ce qui avait commencé comme un simple encadrement religieux pour les émigrés
vivant désormais à Paris ou dans la banlieue industrielle de Lille, s’étendit
après la Grande Guerre, aux régions rurales du Nord de la France. Le fondement
de cet engagement était une méfiance profonde vis-à-vis du pays d’accueil.
Rester catholique en France explore
la nature et l’effet de ces initiatives sur la toile de fond de la riche
histoire de la migration belge en France. Cette histoire sonne à la fois
étonnante et familière, révolue et pourtant pertinente dans le débat actuel sur
l’immigration. Ce travail illustre clairement comment l’étrangeté est perçue à
partir de différences minimes, mais surtout comment une identité des migrants
trouve forme à partir des interactions entre pays d’origine et pays de
destination.
The rich history of Belgian migration in France
Rester catholique en
France explores Belgian immigrants in
France in their relation with the Belgian Church. This story sounds both
astonishing and relevant in the current debate on migration and clearly
illustrates how identity is shaped by minimal perceptions of strangeness.
This publication is
GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).
Die Identitätsbildung des heutigen Belgiens ist durch ein komplexes Zusammenspiel von Regionen, Gemeinschaften und Nation geprägt. Anhand ausgewählter Erinnerungsorte untersucht der Band diese ...Prozesse, wobei das Interesse vor allem der unterschiedlichen Nutzung desselben Erinnerungsortes auf verschiedenen Ebenen des Gemeinschaftsbewusstseins gilt. Im Zentrum steht die sich im Laufe der Zeit verändernde Rolle, die bestimmte Personen im kollektiven Gedächtnis einzelner Orte, Regionen oder der belgischen Nation spielten - von Jacob van Artevelde über Peter Paul Rubens, den Prince de Ligne et Beloeil bis zu Georges Simenon und anderen. In der Zusammenschau ergibt sich so eine bisher kaum betrachtete Perspektive auf das Land und seine Geschichte.
There is a cluster of Early Iron Age (800-500 BC) elite burials in the Low Countries in which bronze vessels, weaponry, horse-gear and wagons were interred as grave goods. Mostly imports from Central ...Europe, these objects are found brought together in varying configurations in cremation burials generally known as chieftains' graves or princely burials. In terms of grave goods they resemble the _Fürstengräber_ of the Hallstatt Culture of Central Europe, with famous Dutch and Belgian examples being the Chieftain's grave of Oss, the wagon-grave of Wijchen and the elite cemetery of Court-St-Etienne. Fragmenting the Chieftain presents the results of an in-depth and practice-based archaeological analysis of the Dutch and Belgian elite graves and the burial practice through which they were created. It was established that the elite burials are embedded in the local burial practices - as reflected by the use of the cremation rite, the bending and breaking of grave goods, and the pars pro toto deposition of human remains and objects, all in accordance with the dominant local urnfield burial practice. It appears that those individuals interred with wagons and related items warranted a more elaborate funerary rite, most likely because these ceremonial and cosmologically charged vehicles marked their owners out as exceptional individuals. Furthermore, in a few graves the configuration of the grave good set, the use of textiles to wrap grave goods and the dead and the reuse of burial mounds show the influence of individuals familiar with Hallstatt Culture burial customs.
Belgijska demokracija danas epilog je brojnih pokušaja održavanja na okupu različitosti te izbjegavanja trajnih sukoba. Cilj je rada propitati dinamiku federalizacije Belgije u kontekstu društvenih ...rascijepa i upravljanja uz pomoć, naizgled nespojivih, institucionalnih kombinacija. Ispituje se i na koji je način demokracija ustrajala unatoč brojnim nepovoljnim uvjetima, političkim zastojima i dugim razdobljima pregovora. Ispostavilo se da odgovori na ova pitanja leže u preobrazbi iz većinske u konsenzusnu demokraciju te balansiranju različitih institucionalnih mehanizama koji osiguravaju društvenu i političku realizaciju svih glavnih segmenata toga podijeljenog društva. Ključne riječi: Belgija, demokracija, federalizam, autonomija, identitet.
The Croatian National Day was a manifestation organised by the emigrant Croatian Peasant Party, which began to be held in 1946 in the southern part of the Canadian province of Ontario, where it also ...represented the largest concentration of Croatian emigrants in Canada. The manifestation was launched so that Croatian emigrants could socialise and entertain each other, but also took on a political character, gathering funds for ‘Dr Vladko Maček’s Fund for the Freedom of Croatia’, which was headed by the Main Committee of the Canadian Croatian Peasant Party and at the disposal of the party’s president, Vladko Maček. Starting in 1950, manifestations also began to be held in northern Ontario and Belgium. The organisation of manifestations soon spread to the Pacific coast of North America, so that Croatian National Days were held in Portland from 1953 to 1964 and in Vancouver from 1958 to the end of the studied period. Significant Croatian National Day events were also held in Cleveland from 1962 to the mid-1980s. Croatian national consciousness was expressed at the manifestations, which was highlighted in the Peasant Party’s promotional activities before the manifestations, but also at the manifestations themselves, when holy masses were served for the June victims, Archbishop Aloysius Stepinac, and the Bleiburg victims. National consciousness was promoted by displaying flags with Croatian national symbols and promoting Croatian traditional clothing as well as a cultural-artistic programme carried out at the manifestation itself. Peasant Party members also used the manifestation for spreading their political messages, demanding a free and independent Croatia, at the same criticising the Yugoslav regime as Communist, undemocratic, and dictatorial, and claiming the people were prisoners in their own homeland. The political character of the manifestation was also apparent in the presence of guests, who were mostly Croatian émigré politicians and local politicians, who held their speeches during the official part. Apart from Croatian national consciousness, Croatian emigrants in Canada and the USA expressed their loyalty and respect towards their new homelands, holding manifestations on their respective Independence Days. As regards the number of attendees, one can presume that tens of thousands of Croatian emigrants from Canada, the USA, and Belgium participated at the manifestations in the 1945–90 period.
The compelling story of Hungarian children living with Belgian families during the interwar period. Children who migrated without their families were noteworthy participants of interwar European ...migration history. Milk Sauce and Paprika tells the story of Hungarian children who were sent to Belgium in the framework of a humanitarian project between 1923 and 1927. Based on a wide variety of sources such as official documents, contemporary newspapers, photographs, family correspondences, biographies and interviews, this book examines the history of the Belgian-Hungarian child relief project and describes its social and cultural impacts on the families involved in both countries. This compelling story of one of the first mass European child migration movements offers new insights in the dynamics of national and religious communities. Furthermore, it sheds light on intimate family life and contemporary habits and values regarding parenting and co-parenting in the interwar period. Cutting across national and cultural borders, this monograph connects individual and collective memory with the experiences of childhood and migration.
Rad se bavi medaljerskom dionicom u opusu kipara Oscara Nemona (1906. – 1985.) tijekom umjetnikova djelovanja u Bruxellesu u razdoblju od 1925. do 1936. godine. Razmatraju se tipološke, tehničke te ...stilsko-morfološke odlike Nemonovih medalja. Analizira se i vrednuje doprinos Oscara Nemona belgijskom modernom medaljerstvu u razdoblju između dvaju svjetskih ratova te se zaključuje kako je Nemon obogatio belgijsku likovnu scenu inovativnim i smjelim modernističkim rješenjima u art déco stilu koja počivaju na geometrijskoj stilizaciji forme.
The work deals with the medal works of sculptor Oscar Nemon (1906–1985) during the artist’s residence in Brussels from 1925 to 1936. Typology, technic, style and morphology of the medals are taken into consideration. The contribution of Oscar Nemon to Belgian modern medal making in the period between the two world wars is analyzed and evaluated. Author concludes that Nemon enriched the Belgian art scene with innovative and bold modernist Art Déco-style solutions based on geometric stylization of the form.
The mystical relationship between Meister Eckhart and Jan van Ruusbroec. In this thorough textual, historical, and doctrinal study the author seeks to clarify the relationship between two prominent ...mystics of the fourteenth century: Meister Eckhart, the German Dominican, and Jan van Ruusbroec, the Brabantine Augustinian. Special attention is paid to Ruusbroec’s criticism of mystical tenets circulating in Brabant at that time which were both textually and doctrinally related to Eckhart’s condemned propositions in the papal bull In agro dominico. This fact implies that Ruusbroec was confronted with the impact of the condemnation of Eckhart’s doctrines on the people in Brabant. Situating Ruusbroec’s life and works within the aftermath of Eckhart’s arrival, the author elucidates Ruusbroec’s position regarding the relevant mystical themes in the later Middle Ages, and follows a process of critical inheritance of mystical tradition from Eckhart to Ruusbroec.