Past Imperfect
VOLUME 2
1993
Editors: Christopher Hackett and Philip Massolin
"Indians' Bygone Past": The Banff Indian Days, 1902-1945
Laurie Meijer Drees
Between 1902 and 1945, the Banff Indian Days and annual Indian Exhibition
promoted by local Banff entrepreneur Norman Luxton, were a success both
locally and internationally. Tourists came from around the world to attend
the week-long festivities. The Banff Indian Days could be considered the
Canadian equivalent of Buffalo Bill's Wild West show. These Banff Indian
Days form not only an undescribed part of Canada's popular culture history,
but are also an important source of information on the nature of Indian-White
relations in the province of Alberta between 1902 and 1945 - a period and
region relatively little investigated by historians interested in Native
history. In this paper the structure and function of The Banff Indian Days
are investigated using traditional historical methods as well as theoretical
concepts borrowed from the discipline of Anthropology. The article concludes
that The Banff Indian Days constituted a form of public ritual through
which participating Indians were able to invent, assert, and have sanctioned,
their separate and unique identities.
Soviet Use of Corruption Purges as a Control Mechanism: The Uzbekistan
Case
John Staples
In a series of purges between 1982 and 1988, the Soviet government sacked
many of the Uzbekistan Communist Party's élite and replaced them
with people of unquestionable loyalty to the Kremlin. These purges, which
were justified by charges of widespread corruption in the Uzbek Party,
have been widely interpreted as indicating a profound change in the policies
of the Soviet government, initiated by Yuri Andropov and continued by Mikhail
Gorbachev. In this essay it is argued that purges of the type carried out
in Uzbekistan were a standard feature of the Kremlin's policy under Brezhnev,
and that the first symptom of the Uzbekistan purges manifested themselves
well before 1982. It is therefore argued that the purges should be seen
as evidence of continuity between the nationalities policies of Brezhnev
and his successors, rather than evidence of a changed policy.
Protecting Prerogative: William III and the East India Trade Debate,
1689-1698
James Bohun
Following the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the struggle between the royal
monopoly holding East India Company and the parliament supported interlopers
for control of the East India trade had a great effect on the royal prerogative.
Historians have presented differing views on the state of the royal prerogative
for this period, and positions have remained polarized along conservative
and radical lines. Close examination of the East India trade debate sheds
much light on the issue. It presents a system of give and take, with the
King giving up certain prerogative rights in exchange for economic and
political benefits.
Swift's Switch: The Intricacies of Turning Tory
Steven Scott
Jonathan Swift is widely recognized as a major writer in English. His Gulliver's
Travels, A Tale of a Tub, and "A Modest Proposal," in particular,
are masterpieces of political satire. Swift was never a politician in his
own right, but the politics of his writing and his role as a politically
committed priest in the Irish Anglican Church made him important nonetheless
as a political and historical figure. In fact, for a time in the early
eighteenth century, Swift truly became a part of English politics, first
by negotiating with the English government on the part of the Irish Church,
and then by beginning to write political propaganda for the Tory regime
then in power. Near the end of 1710, Jonathan Swift changed his political
allegiance from Whig to Tory. This paper discusses the four major explanations
that have been advanced regarding Swift's "switch," and suggests that none
of the four is adequate, though all of them contain elements of what is
likely to have happened. It suggests, further, that Swift's switch was
at least as much a result of the changing nature of political parties and
the party system as inconsistency on Swift's part.
Edward Hallett Carr: Historical Realism and the Liberal Tradition
David Freeland Duke
The works of Edward Hallett Carr represent an important contribution to
the historiography of Soviet Russia and to the study of international relations
in general. Yet his work is often dismissed, primarily because Carr was
considered 'ideologically unsound,' that is, a Stalinist. This essay examines
the validity of that charge and concludes instead that Carr was in fact
firmly realistic in his writings on the Soviet Union and on international
relations. In the case of the Soviet Union, this paper argues that Carr's
realism produced works of balance and judgement in a period - the Cold
War - when such characteristics were anathema to the historiography of
the subject. In at least one of his works on international relations, The
Twenty Years' Crisis, this realism represented a novel and revolutionary
approach to the subject.
Popular Darwinism and Geography Textbooks in Canada, 1850-1920
Eric Gormley
Influenced by Darwin's ideas, geographers in the late nineteenth century
attempted to understand how the earth affected man. Disseminating their
ideas through textbooks, geographers established what physical and climatic
features were favourable for advancement and also defined what constituted
progress or success. A dense population, for instance, was desirable, a
sign the race was succeeding. This paper analyzes pre- and post-Darwinian
geography textbooks used in the Canadian school system, indicating that
they helped to shape culture at the turn of the century. Geography textbooks
in Canadian schools were an important mechanism for the transmission of
popular conceptions of Darwinian thought.
Mykhailo Hrushevs'kyi
Paul Pirie
Long suppressed in the Soviet Union, the works of Ukraine's most noted
historian, Mykhailo Hrushevs'kyi, have recently become the object of great
interest in Ukraine. It is therefore necessary for the scholarly world
to begin the process of re-examining Hrushevs'kyi's writing of history.
This paper rejects the common interpretation that Hrushevs'kyi's work was
a product of the 19th century Ukrainian populist tradition and was therefore
indifferent to the idea of Ukrainian statehood or nationhood. By demonstrating
the continuity of Ukraine's historical development, Hrushevs'kyi sought
to modify the traditional Russocentric interpretation and to show that
Ukraine was a distinct nation with a tradition of statehood. This paper
illustrates how Hrushevs'kyi's methodology, periodization scheme, and interpretive
framework for East-Slavic history were all adjusted to support this "national
idea;" this willingness to adapt his methods is the outstanding characteristic
of Hrushev's'kyi's historical methodology. Hrushevs'kyi's highly controversial
interpretation of the origin of the East-Slavic peoples is also examined
in this paper. Finally, Hrushevs'kyi's historical bias as well as his contribution
to the scholarly world are considered.
