bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
“All religions change and go beyond the borders laid down by their ancestors”
Authors: Michaelson Jay 
Published: August 2022

Abstract
Chapter 8 explores how late Frankism foreshadows the Haskalah, Hasidism, and “New Age” Jewish spirituality, even if it did not influence them directly. First, while Sabbateanism did not, as Scholem argued, bring about the Haskalah by destabilizing rabbinic authority, Frank’s quasi-rationalistic critique of traditional theodicy did foreshadow those of the Haskalah, and was known to the Prague Frankists who became Maskilim. Second, Frankism is referred to directly by the Baal Shem Tov and Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav, and both movements displace the messianic from the historical to the personal-experiential. Third, Frank anticipated Jewish New Age spiritualities, which extract personal-transformational elements from religious frameworks and insert them into a syncretic, feminist, “spiritual,” and universalist one. Like Frank, the New Age combines skeptical antinomianism with esoteric myth. Though he did not influence them directly, Frank anticipated trends that would become widespread in Jewish religious life.
A Boy from Pskov Province, 1747–1762
Authors: Mikaberidze Alexander 
Published: August 2022

Abstract
This chapter begins by recounting the birth of Mikhail in September 1747 into the Russian noble family of the Golenischev-Kutuzovs. The Golenischev-Kutuzovs were a junior branch of the Kutuzovs, a family that could trace its origins back to the Middle Ages. The General Armory of the Nobility of the Russian Empire, the authoritative record of Russian noble households, notes that the family’s founder was Gavriil, who migrated from Prussia to the Novgorod region in the second half of the thirteenth century. The chapter highlights how the Kutuzovs and their Golenischev-Kutuzov cousins prospered through the years, serving as diplomats, palace officials, and military commanders. They contributed to the rise of the Grand Duchy of Moscow and its transformation into the Czardom of Russia. The family fortunes were somewhat revived with the success of Ivan Savinovich Golenischev-Kutuzov, who distinguished himself in several wars waged by the newly installed Romanov czars.
“The Glorious Hero of Măcin,” 1791–1792
Authors: Mikaberidze Alexander 
Published: August 2022

Abstract
This chapter opens with Nikolai Repnin’s order for Mikhail Kutuzov to start preparing for an early campaign should Sultan Selim III refuse to negotiate. It details how the new instructions required Kutuzov to raze Izmail’s fortifications, fill in the moat, and search for as many of the cannonballs that the Russian army had fired at the fortress during the storming as possible. Due to a lack of ammunition in the army, Kutuzov was also told to strip the roofs of the local mosque and residences and melt them down to make cartridges. The chapter talks about how stripping the roofs of mosques is an order Kutuzov could not comply with fully, as he knew that local Muslims would be enraged. Sultan Selim III, dismayed as he was by the fall of Izmail, was disinclined to negotiate with the Russians in light of the fast-evolving international situation.
The Envoy of Her Imperial Majesty, 1793
Authors: Mikaberidze Alexander 
Published: August 2022

Abstract
This chapter discusses Mikhail Kutuzov’s time in the Polish-Lithuanian borderlands from 1792 to 1793. This was during a time when the commonwealth of Poland experienced another political convulsion. The first Polish Partition had demonstrated the dangers a weak Polish state was facing and helped nurture public opinion favorable to the reform movement. The chapter describes Enlightenment ideals and prospects of structural reforms that strengthened the Polish monarchy and removed the Cardinal Laws, which were imposed on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by Russia. The chapter looks at the Great Sejm and demonstrates how the Sejm created an opportunity to enact an ambitious package of reforms in the spring of 1791. The advantage of the timing of this is that Poland's neighbors were preoccupied. On May 3, the Sejm produced Europe’s first codified national constitution. This created a more effective constitutional monarchy and took steps toward reviving the Polish-Lithuanian state.
The Wrathful Czar, 1796–1801
Authors: Mikaberidze Alexander 
Published: August 2022

Abstract
This chapter describes how Empress Catherine, who had struggled with her health in preceding months, surprised her courtiers by organizing a grand luncheon, attended by Mikhail Kutuzov and others, on November 13, 1796. Three days later the empress suffered a stroke. She eventually passed away on November 17 in the sixty-eighth year of her life and the thirty-fifth year of her reign. Kutuzov found himself at the epicenter of Pauline transformations, feeling alarmed by the new emperor’s intentions. The chapter shows how Empress Catherine’s son Paul expunged his mother’s loyalists and anyone expressing reservation about the reforms. The purge involved 7 field marshals, more than 330 generals, and more than 2,000 officers, including Alexander Suvorov, who decried the introduction of Prussian-inspired uniforms and drills.
“The Glorious Retreat”
Authors: Mikaberidze Alexander 
Published: August 2022

Abstract
This chapter recounts Napoleon Bonaparte’s victory at Ulm. This was a remarkable achievement. He was able to outsmart his opponents and destroy one hostile army. He was on the point of chasing the second one into the heart of the Habsburg Empire. The first to feel the consequences of Napoleon’s triumph was Mikhail Kutuzov, whose army was less than eighty miles from Munich. The chapter examines Napoleon’s decision to postpone his advance until after October 25, which meant that Kutuzov was given an opportunity to assess the situation, weigh different options, choose a course of action, and start to execute it. The chapter looks at Kutuzov’s immediate objective, which was to avoid battle and safeguard the Russian army in the face of the French juggernaut. To ensure a safe and orderly withdrawal, Kutuzov decided to keep a sting in his tail and appointed Major General Bagration to command the rear guard.
The Eclipse of Austerlitz
Authors: Mikaberidze Alexander 
Published: August 2022

Abstract
This chapter looks toward the arrival of both the Russian and the Austrian sovereigns, who promised to boost the allied war effort. This seemed that it would ensure political and military unity. Russian emperor Alexander was able to convince Prussian king Frederick Wilhelm III to sign the Treaty of Potsdam and promise to support the coalition if Napoleon Bonaparte did not accept Prussian mediation. The chapter looks at the role of the Anglo-Swedish army, which was ready to march from Hanover into Holland. Meanwhile, an Anglo-Russian expedition was finishing its preparations for the invasion of Naples. The chapter recounts how Napoleon Bonaparte eventually found himself being threatened on all sides and on the defensive as his army weakened. This put him at the end of his logistical tether. Alexander and Francis II agreed to keep Mikhail Kutuzov in charge of the combined allied army, which could muster some 68,000 Russian and 15,000 Austrian troops at Olmutz, but they disagreed with his strategic assessments.
The Wilderness Years, 1806–1808
Authors: Mikaberidze Alexander 
Published: August 2022

Abstract
This chapter describes how Mikhail Kutuzov sought to channel the energies produced by his sense of injustice into his service to the army. It details Kutuzov’s stay in western Ukraine, shuttling between Brest-Litovsk, Dubno, and Mozyr, where he handled a myriad of tasks that reorganized a beaten army. Regiments had to be replenished, equipment accounted for and refurbished, reports on losses finalized, men rewarded and disciplined. The chapter describes the spring of 1806, which proved to be a time of reckoning for many Russian officers whose performance during the campaign left much to be desired. Kutuzov investigated dozens of cases of senior officers who were found to be mismanaging their units, embezzling funds, and abandoning their men after the battle.
The Carnage on the Danube, 1809
Authors: Mikaberidze Alexander 
Published: August 2022

Abstract
This chapter recounts Mikhail Kutuzov’s arrival at Jassy during the last days of April 1808. Prince Prozorovskii welcomed Kutuzov with a warm embrace and made him second-in-command of the Army of M``oldavia, as the Russian forces in the Danubian Principalities soon became known. The chapter describes the Armistice of Slobozia, which Alexander Meyendorff had negotiated six months earlier and which was still in effect when the Russian and Ottoman armies were divided by the Danube River. The chapter analyzes the two sides’ disagreement over the armistice, which caused them to spend the rest of the year in debate. Two years of military operations and the presence of tens of thousands of troops had taken a toll on the Danubian regions, which suffered from widespread looting; regular outbreaks of scurvy, plague, and other diseases; and a drop in agricultural production. The Russian assault on the Ottoman fortress of Brăila was repelled with heavy losses.
Call to Arms, 1810–1811
Authors: Mikaberidze Alexander 
Published: August 2022

Abstract
This chapter focuses on Mikhail Kutuzov’s assumption of his responsibilities as the governor-general of Lithuania on August 12, 1809. Formed fifteen years earlier, the Governorate-General of Lithuania encompassed an immense territory that Russia had acquired in the wake of the last Polish Partition. The chapter highlights how Kutuzov’s life revolved around the familiar routine of managing a huge province and handling the never-ending stream of supplications and administrative affairs. The chapter emphasizes how Kutuzov differed from other corrupt governors as he came into the position already possessing considerable administrative experience and having served in it almost a decade earlier. Kutuzov took his responsibilities seriously and there is no evidence that he ever abused power or enriched himself.
The Hollow Victory
Authors: Mikaberidze Alexander 
Published: August 2022

Abstract
This chapter points out how it was fortunate for the Russians that Napoleon Bonaparte was less dynamic at Borodino than he had been on previous occasions. Napoleon complained of the fickleness of fortune, which he lamented had begun to turn her back on him, until one of the staff officers came to inform him that the Russians were still in position and that the army was awaiting the order to attack. Napoleon set up his observation point east of the Shevardino Redoubt, where his Imperial Guard was drawn up. The chapter recounts how the Russians advanced as far as the village of Borodino but Mikhail Kutuzov and Barclay de Tolly ordered them to burn the bridge and return to the eastern bank of the Kolocha. The opening act of the battle ended in a stalemate, a portent of things to come.
The Turning Point
Authors: Mikaberidze Alexander 
Published: August 2022

Abstract
This chapter begins with an account of Napoleon Bonaparte’s relief after hearing Marquis de Lauriston’s retelling of his meeting with Mikhail Kutuzov. Lauriston assured Napoleon that his letter would be delivered directly to the Russian emperor and that a response should arrive within two weeks. Had Kutuzov refused to accept the letter, Napoleon might have been forced to consider other possibilities, including hastening his departure. The chapter highlights how Napoleon paid little heed to warnings of the arrival of Russian reinforcements, which could threaten the security of the Grande Armée’s rear. General Mathieu Dumas later wondered whether the emperor had been properly informed about the situation.
“The Golden Bridge”
Authors: Mikaberidze Alexander 
Published: August 2022

Abstract
This chapter discusses the news that Mikhail Kutuzov received of Napoleon Bonaparte’s departure from Moscow several days beforehand, noting that the events at Tarutino shook Napoleon out of his complacency. The Grande Armée had dwindled to 115,000 men and was accompanied by a vast baggage train that included some 15,000 wagons and carts transporting food, the wounded, and refugees. Civilians who had thrown in their lot with the French and feared repercussions followed as well. The chapter recounts Napoleon’s dispatch of Colonel Pierre Augustin Berthemy to Kutuzov, ostensibly to complain about the Russian violation of the established rules of war. In reality, Berthemy was to determine whether the Russian commander was aware of the ongoing French preparations for the departure from Moscow.
After the War
Authors: Doniger Wendy 
Published: August 2022

Abstract
This new translation of the end of the great Sanskrit epic depicts the final years of the surviving heroes, their debates about the justice of war and the meaning of life, their ultimate deaths, and their experiences of heaven and hell. The men now contemplate the ways in which they had violated the warrior code, and the women lament the conditions under which they had conceived their sons, often against their will, and the tragic and often unjust deaths of those sons. Finally, in heaven, enemies are reconciled, wounds healed, and deaths undone, as the heroes regain the divine natures that had been merely suspended during their sojourn on earth. The author, a distinguished translator of Sanskrit texts, has put the text into clear, flowing, contemporary prose, with a comprehensive but unintrusive critical apparatus. This book will delight general readers and enlighten students of Indian civilization and of great world literature.
Introduction
Authors: Doniger Wendy 
Published: August 2022

Abstract
The ancient Indian epic the Mahabharata, some 75,000 Sanskrit verses, composed in India between 300 BCE and 300 CE, tells of a great fratricidal war. The final books describe the ethical and philosophical quandary of the survivors, the victors, the five Pandava brothers, led by King Yudhishthira. We learn of the mourning of their women, their magical visions of their beloved dead, and their attempts to find peace in a life of renunciation in ashrams in the forest. Beset by curses from men and women they wronged in the past, some of them destroy one another in a drunken brawl, see their women carried off by bandits, or die in forest fires. Finally, they experience hell and heaven, where they shed the vengeful pride that has kept them from becoming reconciled with their enemies, and they reunite with the gods who had become incarnate in them at the start. The Introduction summarizes the earlier events that form the background to these final books, discusses some of the meanings of the end of the story, and explains the principles that have guided this translation.
Book Sixteen, Mausala Parvan, The Book of the Battle of the Clubs
Authors: Doniger Wendy 
Published: August 2022

Abstract
Young men of Krishna’s clan play a trick on powerful sages, who curse one of them to bring forth a monstrous club that will eventually destroy their people, in the city of Dvaraka. The king orders the club reduced to powder, and the powder is thrown into the ocean. But evil omens immediately appear, and the people seek help from Krishna. Krishna, realizing that the moment has arrived for the fulfilment of Gandhari’s curse, made thirty-six years ago, sends all the people of his clan on a pilgrimage. There the men get drunk and kill one another with blades of grass that turn into lethal clubs in their hands. Krishna watches and then joins in the killing. Later, Krishna dies when a hunter mistakes him for a deer and shoots him in the foot, his one vulnerable spot. Arjuna leads the women, now bereft of their husbands and protectors, out of the city, and the ocean floods Dvaraka. Bandits overpower Arjuna and abduct the women he has failed to protect. He seeks solace with Vyasa and Yudhishthira.
Book Seventeen, Mahaprasthanika Parvan, The Book of the Great Departure
Authors: Doniger Wendy 
Published: August 2022

Abstract
The Pandavas install two of the surviving young princes as kings and depart, to die by walking to heaven. As they circumnavigate the earth and climb the mountain at the center of the earth, one by one Draupadi and four of her five husbands—Sahadeva, Nakua, Arjuna, and Bhima—fall and die because of minor faults that they have committed: partiality, intellectual arrogance, vanity, empty boasting, and gluttony. Yudhishthira continues alone to heaven, followed by a dog. Indra, king of the gods, invites Yudhishthira into heaven, on the condition that he abandon the dog. Yudhishthira refuses—and the dog reveals himself to be Dharma incarnate, Yudhishthira’s father. Yudhishthira enters heaven.
Sea and Land
Authors: Morgan Philip J. , McNeill John R. , Mulcahy Matthew , Schwartz Stuart B. 
Published: August 2022

Abstract
Sea and Land provides an in-depth environmental history of the Caribbean to ca. 1850, comprising a close examination of some of the central forces and characteristics that defined the region, with a coda that takes the story into the modern era. It explores the mixing, movement, and displacement of peoples and the parallel ecological mixing of animals, plants, microbes from Africa, Europe, elsewhere in the Americas, and indeed Asia. It examines first the arrival of Native American to the region and the environmental transformations that followed. It then turns to the even more dramatic changes that accompanied the arrival of Europeans and Africans in the fifteenth century. Throughout it argues that the constant arrival, dispersal, and mingling of new plants and animals gave rise to a creole ecology. Particular attention is given to the emergence of black slavery, sugarcane, and the plantation system, an unholy trinity that thoroughly transformed the region’s demographic and physical landscapes and made the Caribbean a vital site in the creation of the modern western world. This volume integrates research concerning natural resources, conservation, epidemiology, and climate in a new general environmental history of the region. It makes environmental perspectives more accessible and more indispensable, to scholars and students alike, to foster both a fuller appreciation of the extent to which environmental factors shaped historical developments in the Caribbean and the extent to which human actions have transformed the biophysical environment of the region over time.
Introduction
Authors: Morgan Philip D. 
Published: August 2022

Abstract
The introduction features German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), who visited the circum-Caribbean region for a number of years at the turn of the nineteenth century and wrote about it for the rest of his life. His observations and wide-ranging interests—especially his recognition of the binaries of land and sea, humans and animals, bewitching beauty and nightmarish horrors, exuberance and menace, utopian visions and dystopian realities, health and sickness—prefigure many of the themes of this book. His view of nature, confirmed and elaborated by his tropical sojourn, was that it was a web, in which all elements were connected. It was a living whole, a unified ecosystem, always prone to the dangers of environmental destruction, deforestation, and climatic shocks. The introduction then raises and provisionally answers the four key questions that animate this book: why focus on this part of the world, specifically? Who are the pioneers of Caribbean environmental history? How is the region defined geographically? Finally, what are the important chronological markers? The introduction emphasizes the mixing, movement, and displacement of peoples that led to intense sociocultural interaction and hybridity. The term for this moving and mixing is creole, which designates any person or thing born or created in the Caribbean, with an ancestry external to the region. The rest of the book elaborates on the emergence of this creole ecology resulting from the constant arrival, dispersal, and mingling of peoples, plants, pathogens, and products.
Natural Disasters in the Caribbean to 1850
Authors: Schwartz Stuart B. , Mulcahy Matthew 
Published: August 2022

Abstract
This chapter examines various natural disasters—specifically hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, drought, flooding, and insect infestations—in the Caribbean between roughly 1500 and 1850. In doing so, it argues shifting social, political, and economic conditions across the various islands and across time shaped the impact of these events, paying particular attention to the development of the plantation complex—the combination of large-scale landholdings, a dominant export crop, and the use of enslaved labor—during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. We suggest the cumulative threat and impact of these hazards shaped everyday life in the region and, over time, gave rise to distinct social and cultural forms. Although several broadly similar understandings of, and adaptations to, various disasters emerged in the region, some significant differences existed between different European colonies, between religious groups, between Europeans and Africans, and between island geographies and their respective vulnerability to these hazards.
The Gaelic and Indian Origins of the American Revolution
Authors: Fisher Samuel K. 
Published: August 2022

Abstract
The Gaelic and Indian Origins of the American Revolution offers a new way of understanding the American Revolution and the relationship between diversity and revolution in the British empire. Drawing on little-used sources in Irish and Scottish Gaelic, the book shows how people experiencing colonization in the eighteenth-century British empire—Irish-speaking Catholics, Scottish Highlanders, and Indigenous nations of North America—fought back by building relationships with the king and imperial officials. In the process, they created a more inclusive empire and triggered conflict between the imperial state and formerly privileged provincial Britons: Irish Protestants, Scottish Whigs, and American colonists. The American Revolution was only one aspect of this larger conflict between inclusive empire and the exclusionary patriots within the British empire. By putting typically excluded Gaelic and Indian voices at the center of the story and taking a comparative approach that includes Scotland and Ireland as well as North America, the book offers a new account of how empires functioned in the eighteenth century, how they fell apart, and how questions of diversity explain both. In the process it uncovers the British, imperial origins of Americans’ racial dilemmas, showing how these were not new or uniquely American but instead the awkward legacies of a more complex imperial history.
The French Connection
Authors: Fisher Samuel K. 
Published: August 2022

Abstract
Faced with the exclusionary constitution created in the wake of the revolution, many Gaelic and Indian people turned to the French to help them redress their grievances. They aimed not to sever their relationships with England but to readjust them. Irish and Scottish Gaels did so by taking up the Jacobite cause, supporting the attempts of James II and his descendants to recapture their thrones with French help. Indigenous communities in America strengthened their own French connections, shunning exclusive alliances with the British colonies in favor of a multilateral diplomacy in which they could play competing empires against each other. These French connections were designed to resist the exclusionary constitution, enabling Gaelic and Indian people to imagine different ways of relating to Britain and its empire.