January - FEBRUARY 2014
KING’S WALL OF FAME Three alumni who have made their mark on history
PALESTINE PERSPECTIVES What a student discovered when he visited
PETER HEATHER
The man who knows the most on the Romans of anyone living
CULTURE REVIEW:
Our opinion on 12 Years A Slave, The Cheapside Hoard and Elizabeth I & Her People
LONDON IN 10
The best things to do in the capital in your downtime
J.F.K:
FREEDOM FIGHTER OR POLITICAL PRAGMATIST?
CONTENTS.. EDITOR’S MUSE Eyewitness 4
Editor Lauren Clark
Many thanks to this issue’s
Deputy Editor Joceline Sharman
contributors (in order of appearance)...
Marketing Director Cleo Pollard Social Media Manager Juliet Smith Follow us on Twitter: @MagazineMuse Like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/MagazineMuse
Cleo Pollard, Indigo Ellis, Oscar Davies, Sam Higson, Will Jellis, Ian Graffy, Juan Rivas, Elliot Gathercole, Elizabeth Mar-
King’s Wall Of Fame 6
A Conversation With...Peter Heather 8 Reaching Out-Reach 11
Palestine: My Perspective 12
The Hawk & The Banker 14
The War to Change All Wars? 15 Vote JFK! Vote Freedom? 16
ron, Joceline Sharman, Alice Williams,
London In 10 18
Oonagh Thompson, Emilian Gega,
Review: Elizabeth I & Her People 20
Juliet Smith and Xenia Rakovshik.
Lights, Camera...History: Argo 22 Lights, Camera...History:
12 Years a Slave 23
? 2
Want to write for us?
Style De-Update: The Cheapside Hoard 24 Style De-Update: Pearls & Downton Abbey Fashion 25
Nazi Treasure: The Lost Art Hoard 26
LETTER
Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a lovely festive break and were not too swamped with assignments. At MUSE the team have been busy working hard producing and promoting our second issue of the year. King’s gets a particular focus this time around. We have three KCL alumni who have made their mark on history in the King’s Wall of Fame . Plus, Sam Higson talks to the History department’s Peter Heather in an excellent interview. We mark both the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s death last year in Elizabeth Marron’s Vote JFK! Vote Freedom?, and the centenary this year of the start of WW1 in Elliot Gathercole’s The War to Change All Wars?. Culture-wise, Cleo Pollard and Emilian Gega review Argo and 12 Years A Slave respectively in Lights, Camera...History. However, sometimes it is just not all about history. MUSE Eyewitness documents the KCL History Society’s social exploits, while Joceline Sharman rounds up the best downtime things to do in London In 10. No January is complete without a New Year’s resolution. Why not get in touch and write for us!
LAUREN CLARK
We are always looking for writers to contribute articles on anything from bygone fashion to royal history to cold war politics. Email Joceline and Lauren at musemagazinekcl@hotmail.com
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MUSE Vieri Capretta and Amanda Debrah
Rob Prince
Eyewitness Rachel Krishna, Shereen Elm, Nathan Ladd, Bella Copleston and Will Jellis Megan Salamat and Dan Hall
Joe McGee, Henry Cross and Oren Lida
History Pub Crawl
Rachel Krishna, Fabia Lewis, Lewis Hammond, Oren Lida and Emma Bishopp
Vieri Capretta and Lauren Clark
The annual and much-loved History Society Christmas party took place at Zoo Bar this year with a strict dress code of black tie. Most of us may have not been to this patch of Leicester Square since ‘Freshers’, but Shakira blasted onto the dancefloor, there was free wine and by midnight half the party had got pretty cosy...
Shannon Coleman and Fabia Lewis
Anastasia Dimech
Sophia Samaras, Rory McMeekin, Sam Morgan, Samira Sharples, Lucia Balcazar and Christopher Mjelde Indigo Ellis and Oscar King
Charlotte Burtle and Luke Boneham
December
September
Strand and Fleet Street were transformed into something reminenscent of Night at the Museum as Egyptian pharaohs, Roman gladiators, seventies hippies, Victorian chimney sweeps and sixties models infiltrated every pub from The Lyceum to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. Beer was drunk, last orders happened, and far too many ended up at Waterfront dancing until 2am.
History Christmas Party
Nathan Ladd, Lauren Clark, Rachel Krishna, Will Jellis, Rory McMeekin, Shannon Coleman, Luke Boneham, Oren Lida, Faye Brown, Rob Prince and Charlotte Burtle
Tom Fielder and Louise Turtle Dan Hall, Ian Graffy, Emma Bishopp and Cicely Robinson-Nugent
History Goes East November
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Niccolo Aliano, Yichen Wu, Vieri Capretta, Lauren Clark and Hannah Walker
Things got trendy as KCL humanities subjects all ventured east to the Big Chill Bar off Brick Lane. The delicious range of cocktails went down like a treat!
Vieri Capretta, Niccolo Aliano, Yichen Wu, Juan Rivas and Max Ed-
Hannah Walker, Matt Wilson and Vieri Capretta
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KING’S WALL OF FAME
VIRGINIA WOOLF
It is Kingsway’s new queen, says INDIGO ELLIS.
The Strand ‘Alumni Wall’ never fails to make bypassers look twice - who knew that Florence Nightingale, Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke and author Michael Morpugo were KCL graduates of our 185 year old university. We have rounded up for you some of the wall’s most prominent prodigies who marked their place in history.
LORD CAREY
A ‘self-important and alarmist twit’? CLEO POLLARD finds out.
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hese were the words accredited to Lord Carey by Andrew Brown, writing for The Guardian in 2010. Indeed, Carey is perhaps the most controversial of King’s alumni and was even suggested to be ‘the worst archbishop we’ve ever had’ by the Daily Mail in 1999.
Remarkably, this provocative figure began his life in London’s humble East End. After failing his Eleven Plus test and leaving school at the age of 15, he discovered inspiration in the form of God and the Anglican Church. This pushed him to seek further education, studying for O-Levels and eventually graduating from King’s in 1962 with a 2:1 Bachelor of Divinity. He was subsequently ordained and, in 1991, was appointed as the first Archbishop of Canterbury since 1375 to not have graduated from Oxbridge. As Archbishop, Carey’s reputation developed against the context of improvements in gay and women’s rights. Whilst he actively supported female ordination and endeavoured to improve relations between Christianity and Islam, he opposed immigration on the basis of the threat posed to British identity and its supposed Christian heritage. What is more, he chose to align himself with the Roman Catholic Church in his stance against the legalization of gay marriage and other homosexual practices. In 2012, Carey condemned the government’s plan to legalize samesex marriage, labelling the proposals as ‘cultural vandalism’ and implying that they would remove the focus of procreation from marriage and, worse still, lead to the toleration of polygamy. It is Carey’s on-going views on homosexuality that generate the strongest opposition. This is evident none more so than amongst students of his former university. KCL’s student newspaper, Roar!, called for the immediate removal of his image at the entrance of the university’s Strand Campus in 2013. It is unsurprising, therefore, that in a society where we strive for equality and freedom, Carey’s views face such fervent criticism and render him an embarrassment, rather than a source of pride, amongst students of his former university.
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irginia Woolf was born Adeline Virginia Stephen on the 25th January 1882 at 22 Hyde Park Gate, London, into a literate and well-connected household. Her father, Sir Leslie Stephen, was a notable historian, author, and mountaineer. His eminence ensured that his children were raised in an environment filled with the influences of Victorian literary society. Henry James was among the regular visitors to the house. Home-schooled until the age of 15, Adeline Stephen then enrolled at King’s College Ladies Department in Kensington Square in 1897, and proceeded to attend classes there until 1902. King’s has been credited with providing the foundation for Woolf’s lifelong engagement with Greek literature. After the death of their father in 1904, Virginia and her brother Adrian sold 22 Hyde Park Gate and bought a house on Gordon Square, where she would become part of the influential intellectual circle of the Bloomsbury Group, instrumental, along with Adrian, in the Dreadnought hoax. The Bloomsbury Group allowed her to meet Vita SackvilleWest, her lover, and Leonard Woolf, her future husband.
After an illustrious career publishing novels, including Mrs Dalloway, To The Lighthouse and Orlando, Virginia finished her manuscript for Between the Acts, filled her coat pockets with stones,
and drowned herself in the River Ouse on the 28th March 1941. Her suicide and long history of mental illness has been attributed in modern scholarship to the sexual abuse she and her sister Vanessa suffered at the hands of their half brothers, as revealed in her memoirs, A Sketch of the Past and 22 Hyde Park Gate.
DESMOND TUTU
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OSCAR DAVIES investigates the man who christened a nightclub.
he wise words of the former Archbishop of Cape Town, Desmond Tutu when he came to speak in the Strand campus chapel for evensong on Tuesday the 19th November included “have a love affair with God”. He talked about his time at King’s, and how he used to sit in the same chapel waiting anxiously for his exam results. A man of short stature, he was dwarfed by the Dean physically, but certainly not spiritually, shown in his eccentric and impromptu speech. It can be argued that this man is perhaps King’s greatest alumnus. Having taken both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at King’s during the 1960s, Tutu is regarded as one of the greatest civil rights activists for his leadership in the fight against South African apartheid, for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984. However, what makes Tutu so exceptional in the present day is his stance on homophobia: in contrast to Lord Carey’s views, he would rather go to hell than “go to a homophobic heaven”. In fact, earlier this year, he described himself “as passionate about this campaign as [he] ever was about apartheid”. Tutu is more than just a huge metallic head, or a failed nightclub on the top floor of KCSLU: he is living proof that the differences between religion and 21st century society can be superseded by a higher ambition to campaign against inequality and to fight for the minority.
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A Conversation With...
PETER HEATHER SAM HIGSON talks to the KCL Professor of Medieval History about the Roman Empire, Simon Schama and Doctor Who’s Tardis.
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eter Heather is Professor of Medieval History at King’s College London. He is one of the leading experts on the Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages and, according to BBC Barbarian’s presenter Terry Jones, ‘knows more than any other living person what went on in the late Roman Empire’. The author of a number of best-selling books, including The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians and Empires and Barbarians: The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe, Heather has also held teaching posts at UCL and Yale University. Since 2008 he has resided in a rather nice dwelling known as K6.45. MUSE caught up with the historian between lectures and book launches. Sam Higson: Your new book, The Restoration of Rome: Barbarian Popes and Imperial Pretenders, was recently released. It will no doubt be read by a wide-ranging audience, and therefore highlights a question keeping secondyear History and Memory students awake at night. Do you see your books catering to a more popular or academic brand of history, and how do you view the distinction? Peter Heather: I think in my books I am trying to do a hybrid job, and obviously it is up to the reader whether that works or not. This is in the sense that I’m trying to write history that an academic would be entirely happy with, but would also appeal to the more general audience. I absolutely take nothing out of the argument; I do not simplify it, I do not dumb it down. The kind of people that will buy large history books are highly intelligent people who have almost certainly done some sort of degree at university, and are perfectly capable of understanding the kind of intellectual problems that are dealt with. You do have to think about presentation though, and how you are going to get your audience into the argument and make them interested. An academic audience are there for professional reasons, and they have to listen to you however dull you are! I had a really good editor for one of my first books, The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, and I asked him what the difference was between a more academic treatment and a treatment for a general audience? He said in essence you have to do it in the form of narrative; so instead of having complicated analysis you have to find the right story that allows you then to conclude with the piece of analysis that you want to make about your argument. I think television can dumb down history more, though I do not think it
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is the historian’s fault. If you want to sell any ideas to TV producers, you have to cater to their tastes or it will not be done at all. I have done a lot of interviews for TV programmes, and once got very close to selling a programme series, and have found that producers consistently patronise and underestimate their audience. I am determined to never tale anything out of an argument. SH: Even in BBC history documentaries? PH: Yes, I fear so, although they produce fewer documentaries now. Simon Schama is an interesting case; for that big BBC kings and queens series (‘A History of Britain’ in 2000) they made him order it monarch by monarch. If you look at his earlier work, that is not the way he thinks – he is a very sophisticated cultural historian. I do believe that, whatever the television company, the whole process of putting history onto television as opposed to books does dumb it down. In their defence, I suppose, they are aiming for audiences in the millions, whereas even a very successful history book will only gain a few hundred thousand in terms of audience. SH: You may be aware of Jeremy Paxman’s controversial television interview with comedian Russell Brand late last year about politics. What is your opinion of the current disillusionment with our political system? Do you believe what we have in place at the moment is the best sort of system?
going to be ambushed by a very sectional interest. Western democracy needs to take a step back. I believe the current trajectory is unsustainable. SH: Moving on to more serious issues, you have said in previous interviews that you have a soft spot for Sherlock Holmes. What do you think of the BBC’s current ‘Sherlock’ series? For that matter, are you a ‘Doctor Who’ fan? PH: I have seen some of them. I was actually really into the late 1980’s ‘Sherlock’ series on ITV. I do like Benedict Cumberbatch though. One of my teachers pointed out that the stories are always cheats in the sense that there is never enough information to actually solve them, so he always knows something else you do not. As for ‘Doctor Who’, well…I was a great fan in my youth! SH: I remember you saying in your lectures that your period of expertise is often frustrating, due to the lack of or complete absence of evidence, but nonetheless fascinating. Hypothetically, if Doctor Who were to arrive at your doorstep and give you his Tardis for a day, where and when would you go to find out some missing pieces in your ‘knowledge jigsaw’? PH: I am very sure of when about I would want to look. In the political process that leads to the unravelling of the Roman Empire there are two big bouts of frontier intrusion. One in 375-380, and the second one in 405-410. The one from 375-380 is actually pretty well covered, the second one though is not in the sense that you get plenty of information about the consequences of this bout of invasion, and there are three large groups across the frontier at different times, but you get no information on what caused it. So this is one of the most contentious things in the whole structure and an awful lot flows from it as to whether this invasion was cause or effect. It is frustrating because it looks as though there was a contemporary Roman historian, a man called Olympiodorus, and that there was originally a detailed account of the causes in his history, but the relevant bit has not survived. So I guess I would go and talk to him in the first instance. I think a lot of late Roman historians would take the same view. It is certainly a big contributory element to the answer of why the Roman Empire fell. SH: In the Woody Allen film ‘Midnight in Paris’ there is a thought-provoking theme that runs throughout: people are so nostalgic about the past that they become dis-
satisfied with the era they live in and consider a previous period to be their personal ‘Golden Age’. However, when you compare our present to the past, we live in relative privilege in terms of technology, healthcare, standard of living ect. If you could, would you ever swap your era? What would you say to this outlook in general? PH: I think more people are more privileged in the 21st century than any other period. There are still living absolutely horrible lives, but certainly if you were looking at the percentage of the world’s population in relative comfort then I would have thought it is pretty good compared to the past. There are elements of modern living I love – my power shower…my espresso machine, I cannot lie. In the past the only way to really enjoy yourself is if you were a member of the smaller elites. I think the kind of things which really grab my imagination, and in fact a period I enjoy reading for fun, is actually the great era between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries where there was a massive expansion in the understanding of the planet. Likewise there are periods in the nineteenth century too - I mean the single most extraordinary thing I have held in my hand was the covering letter that Charles Darwin sent with On the Origin of Species to his publisher. I can remember it saying something like, chapter 1 is very good though chapter 2 is a bit dull but it has to be there! It is an extraordinary intellectual moment, though I realise Darwin did not do it all by himself. SH: Reading, writing or teaching? PH: Reading bizarrely tends to be subordinated to the other two. I only read what I need to do for teaching or writing these days. Teaching and writing I would split 50/50, because I would not want just to write nor would I just want to teach. I mean basically I teach for six months, and I think and write for six months, and I love that. SH: Finally, ever got lost in King’s? PH: Yes! I arrived in January 2008, halfway through an academic year, and I think I did not confidently discover my way around until probably the next autumn…there are still bits of the Chesham Building that I would budget at least 30 minutes to find.
Thank you Professor Peter Heather for taking the time to talk to MUSE, and providing us with such an interesting insight into your work.
PH: I think that it is the best sort of system, but I believe that it is facing systematic difficulties that are bringing it close to a crisis point. With regards to the costs of the classical welfare state model - as people live longer, have fewer children and as the potential for healthcare increases exponentially - it is so much more expensive than anyone thought it was going to be back in the 1940s and 1950s when they were designing it. They were expecting people to retire at 65, live for 5 to 6 years and die peacefully and happily. However life expectancy is moving towards 80 plus as medicine improves, so people are retired for up to 15 years. I think there is a very severe problem on the expenses side, which is why national debt has gone up so drastically. At the other end of things, the taxation structure is losing the capacity, because of globalisation, to tax very rich corporations. There is a real problem that, firstly, we cannot afford in the future the kind of structure we have taken for granted so far, and that, secondly, our decision-making process is
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The Forum
REACHING OUT-REACH
KCL’s primetime informal discussion society
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WILLIAM JELLIS, founder of the KCL History Society’s Outreach programme, explains why helping secondary school pupils access History at university could be life-changing for both them and you.
he History Outreach Programme emerged as no more than an idea over the summer of 2012. This idea stemmed from a number of experiences I had had up until this point in time, including spending a year as a Learning Mentor in a local Academy, however, there is one experience in particular that stands out above the rest and which ultimately prompted me to start building the Programme upon my return to King’s in September.
“History isn’t a subject which leads to a career the pupils would cry” I was taking a group of secondary school History teachers on a tour around King’s, a tour that concluded with a discussion regarding each of their pupils. As this discussion developed it became clear that the teachers, between them, represented approximately 250 students who were taking History for A-Level. Of these 250, only three had decided to apply to study History at university. This brutal statistic shocked me. Three, out of 250! At this point the teachers, in unison, identified the main doubts plaguing their students that had subsequently led to this scenario.
Free entry for all. Come along on a Friday from 18:30 in room S3.30 and see our Facebook group, KCL Forum, for more information. Special movie screenings of the ‘Perverts Guide to Cinema and Ideology’, ‘Baraka’ and ‘Samsara’ tba. Not focusing on one cultural platform, come discuss a range of material as they were meant to be: in good, interesting and well informed company. Expect radical challenging of social norms, socially conservative tutting and discussion from the weird to the relevant.
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“History isn’t a subject which leads to a career” they’d hear them cry. “I don’t want to be a History teacher- so why would I study History at university?” was another common reason. Overall, the theme was this: their students enjoyed history enough to take it right through to the end of their school career, however, they could not take History as a serious subject to be studied at university and which would then lead to a stable career. This is when the penny truly dropped. Universities need to do something! More specifically, King’s needs to do something, and even more precisely, the King’s History department needs to do something. That something, I believed, was to provide opportunities for students studying A-level History to gain an understanding of what History is like at university, why History undergraduates choose to study History, and what they go on to do when they have completed their degree. These are all objectives the History Outreach Programme now aims to achieve.
“The fact there is such a distinct opportunity imbalance within our education system here in London is as clear as it is tragic” Opportunities. This is the word which best of all sums up the aspirations of the History Outreach Programme. Yes, the objectives I listed off above are a fundamen-
tal part of the Programme, but they are not nearly all of them. We endeavour to work with schools across London that are teaching students from backgrounds where they receive far fewer opportunities than most. The fact that there is such a distinct opportunity imbalance within our education system here in London is as clear as it is tragic. Hence, this, looking at the bigger picture, has to be our broader aim: to provide opportunities to those who currently receive the fewest opportunities, which, if they are utilized, will help them flourish. I keep on talking about opportunities, but what opportunities does the History Outreach Programme actually offer and how will they help the students that I have been speaking about? The Programme’s backbone is the fortnightly seminars that are run by pairs of King’s History Students in targeted schools across London. These seminars see approximately 15 Year 13 students engaging with our King’s History students in a topic relevant to their A-level History course. Hence, in this environment, the Year 13 students are able to exploit the assistance that the King’s History students are providing for their course, whilst also having the constant opportunity to talk to History undergraduates about university life. We also have various other events throughout the year where schools come into King’s to see, first-hand, just what going to university is like.
“Opportunities. This is the word which best sums up the aspirations of the History Outreach Programme” Since the September of 2012 the History Outreach Programme has gone from strength to strength. We have had six Library Activity Days, two IntoUniversity Buddy days, and have worked with nine different schools across London. We currently have seminars running in five schools, with more in the pipeline. All of this has been made possible by the admirable efforts of our large contingent of over 20 volunteers. What does the future hold for the Programme? Continued growth. We want to be working with ten schools on a fortnightly basis by the beginning of the 2014 academic year. This, based upon the reaction we have had from the schools we have been working with so far, looks like a very achievable target.
For more information on the History Outreach Programme and to get involved, take a look at our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/kclhistoryoutreach
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PALESTINE:
MY PERSPECTIVE IAN GRAFFY recently made a trip to the West Bank to visit a friend who is volunteering in the region. He met with abundant hospitality, lots of viewpoints and a greater understanding of the area’s political divides.
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bandoning her London life, my friend volunteered with DFID in Ramallah, the de facto capital of Palestine. I hugged her goodbye, promised to Skype and donated a tenner to her charity. I thought my connection to the conflict had ended. That was until our first Skype call, when she insisted on a trip to the West Bank. Prior to visiting, my opinions on the conflict were unqualified; what this understanding lacked, as is often the case in history, was first-hand interaction. I had never met a Palestinian or an Israeli, and our conversations had never explored international politics. This desire to connect physically prompted me to check the flight prices and swipe my credit card.
of bottomless conversations and an equally deep bottle of whisky. The PLFP were a violent left-wing group, differing from the better-known Palestinian Liberation Organisation. During the First Intifada, Moonther abandoned his life in San Francisco to return to Palestine. His view was that Yasser Arafat had egotistically appropriated the Palestinian cause and the Oslo Accords equated to a peace without justice. However this fervent politicisation was clearly a part of Moonther’s past and now he openly admitted his defeatist attitude. He did not share Ala’s hopefulness about people, but instead claimed he was weary of the actions of Palestinian and Israelis and dreamed of emigrating to Ireland.
Fast-forward three months, and I am 10 hours into my journey to Ramallah. Sitting on a bus passing through the gates of the ‘Separation Wall’, I find myself dazing existentially, amazed that my physical body can easily be a part of this space, yet my consciousness is so perplexed. Perhaps it was culture shock. This mood was no more apparent than on my second day. In a few hours I observed the exploits of Jewish boys playing within the guarded walls of an illegal West Bank settlement and Palestinians celebrating the release of a political prisoner to the Aida refugee camp after 23 years of incarceration. Aida is pressed up against the Separation Wall between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, highlighting a grim similarity between the two communities. The wall defines both of them; one side of the wall labels the Palestinians as a threat, while the other separates them from the land they once inhabited.
Engaging conversations occurred everywhere; whilst I cannot detail all them, Muhammad’s hospitality in Tubas stood out, adding credibility to Ala’s optimism about human positivity. After hearing rumours of cheese production in Tubas, Muhammad and I investigated. As we arrived, an oasis of irrigated fields greeted us; this served as an ugly reminder of a travel guide statistic that 70% of water in the West Bank is currently diverted by Israel to its settlements, industries and agriculture. Clueless as to our next move, we wandered into the local government offices and were soon escorted by a new friend. Though Arabic and English were in short supply on both sides, it didn’t prevent Muhammad from guiding us to a dairy farm and then on to his brother’s restaurant, before taking us to his family home. Here we enjoyed a feast, including the figs and oranges we had picked in the gardens surrounding their home.
The two perspectives of these communities are polar opposites, but there were an abundance of viewpoints, some of which I glimpsed by meeting two different men, Ala and Moonther. Studying Computer Engineering, Ala found me alone in their university cafeteria. I joined him and his friends for lunch and also went for a tour of the campus. While wandering, our conversation turned to politics, as it so often seems to in Palestine, and Ala reassured me that he didn’t hate ‘them’. His anger is directed towards systems, not individuals. Moonther was in his early-fifties and did not have the youthful optimism of Ala. An ex-member of the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine, he invited us for a night
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Excessive generosity continued, warmth that contrasted with the stern professionalism of the Israeli Defence Force who manned the intermittent checkpoints throughout the West Bank. Fully aware of my own bias, I found myself crawling the web for the Israeli perspective; clearly I needed to talk with ordinary Israelis but my next trip, to Hebron in the south served to deepen my attitudes. With over 600,000 people, Hebron is the largest city in Palestine, however it is also one of the poorest and most emotive regions. This becomes apparent on entering Shuhada Street, in the heart of the Israeli controlled ‘H2 region’. What used to be the bustling heart of Hebron has now been dubbed ‘Ghost Town’, following the sealing of shops and homes, and a ban on Palestinian access. Instead, a few thousand IDF soldiers guard 87 Zionist families who draw upon a religious and historical claim to occupy this part of the city. Metal bars covering windows and walkways were a precaution against the rocks and Molotov cocktails that members of the Zionist community were frequently criticized for, but not convicted of, throwing. That evening, engrossed in conversation with a British-Palestinian conducting her PhD research on collective memory, the layout of Palestinian politics became clearer. She ardently believed the current Palestinian Authority no longer represented the aspirations of the Palestinian people. Instead she saw it as an extension of the Israeli government, pacifying the people and effectively retaining the status quo. It was this absence of credibility that led to Hamas’ election victory in 2006, and this has been further entrenched by the lack of elections following Hamas’s exclusion from the West Bank. The impression she gave was that the support for Hamas was a desperate protest vote; which was supported by the fact that not once during my trip did I meet an advocate of the party. Divided into the Muslim, Jewish, Armenian and Christian quarters, the Old City generates a powerful set of emotions. Some people love Jerusalem, others detest it. Personally I adored it, revelling in the bizarre congre-
gation of divided cultures. I consider myself an atheist, however I was quite happy to stand before the Western Wall where the Divine Presence always remains, kiss the Stone of Anointing, upon which Jesus’s body was prepared and walk around The Dome of Rock where Muhammad ascended to Heaven. Incredibly, in each of these locations I found myself befriended by appropriate worshipers, and wandering for half an hour around the Western Wall with an elderly Orthodox Jew named Jacob was a highlight of the trip. Despite these wonderful interactions, visiting The Old City strengthened my beliefs and highlighted culture as being at the root of these different perspectives of spirituality. Even with a sense of spirituality to these sites, I still believe that spirituality exists exclusively within the members of that community, without interaction with any such god. However, in raising blame and forgiveness for the Holocaust, this man did have me contemplating the accountability of individuals, and despite believing that the Israeli people are equally capable of compassion and brilliance, I cannot help but deplore the current oppression they consent to. This reminded me of Ala and his view of individuals and power structures. His view was to separate them entirely, removing the blame from the people. For me this argument can only go so far, the sum of the individuals are the structure, but importantly this summation applies not just to the Israeli people but the Palestinians and international populations too. Certainly the structure of the conflict creates a unique influence for each individual. If you imagine the perspectives of two 17-year olds either side of the Separation Wall, while one may be destined to live in the refugee camp that both he and his father were born into, the other will be preparing for three years conscription into the IDF. I think this balance, of individuals being influenced and in turn influencing the power structures around them, gives the best indication as to where responsibility for the current situation sits. I am glad it was only on the plane home that I decided to complete this account, as I believe the thought of it could have been a barrier to my interaction. There are two reasons I wrote this. The first is a pragmatic desire to share and construct my perspectives for others. The second is to give clarity to my thoughts about the conflict. These are not thoughts of ‘who are responsible?’ or ‘what are the solutions?’ I have opinions on both of these questions and although my partiality is obvious, expressing these opinions is not the purpose. Instead I wanted clarity on the formation of my thoughts, understanding what factors frame and influence them. Not only have I found understanding my own perspective has been an engaging and on-going process; it has made me wonder about the key to appreciating the differing perspectives of others. Without prescribing any solutions, for I have none, I wonder if appreciating the perspectives of others is an essential part of finding justice and peace.
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THE HAWKER & THE BANKER
JUAN RIVAS investigates the powerful role of international financiars, the Rothschilds, during the Boer War, and how their influential example set a dangerous precedent for modern banking.
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he 2008 financial crisis has brought echoes of clichés that have never left us. Most important of these clichés, and one of the oldest, is the image of the hateful but powerful financier, ruling the fate of countries at will. Movements like the Spanish Revolution or ‘Occupy Wall Street’ have used this imagery and rhetoric which the doubtful actions of the high financiers – and especially their salaries – have helped feeding. But what is the origin of this concept? Where does the portrait of the manipulative banker come from?
In 1901, J.A. Hobson, a Marxist converted from Campbell-Bannerman’s New Liberalism, published an essay called Imperialism. It exposed for the first time a theory that had been winning accolades since the Egyptian crisis in 1878; Imperialism was a force that belonged to a small lobby, the alliance of politicians and bankers. This thesis coincided with Marx’s view that Imperialism was the last stage of Capitalism. But we have to understand that this neo-Marxist critique within its context, and when J.A. Hobson wrote his essay, the context was the Great Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. This war impressed England for two reasons. Firstly, the Boers stood their ground, killed 22,000 British soldiers and were close to expel the British from South Africa. Secondly, it wasn’t like any other war fought previously in the colonies. As Rudyard Kipling said in one of his tales, it was a ‘White Man’s War’. It looked like the greed of Westminster was big enough to destroy a community of peaceful and religious farmers just to get the gold of the Rand. To some people, it meant treason to English principles of freedom and self-government, and behind this madness, there were two people that were responsible for it: Cecil Rhodes and Nathanael “Natty” Rothschild. The Rothschild family had been one of the most obvious targets of Marxist ideologists. They were, of course, linked with Cecil Rhodes and the South African War. In 1882, when other financial families had failed, the Rothschilds sent their San Franciscan agent, Gansl, to South Africa, and in 1885, they financed the fusion of the two biggest mining companies; Rhode’s and Barnato’s, gaining a predominant influence in DeBeer’s&Co. The Rothschilds literally fostered Cecil Rhode’s empire, indirectly financing the creation of Rhodesia. Hobson’s union of money and power seemed obvious. But, was this actually the way it worked? Did the Rothschilds want a war with the Boer Republics? As early as 1891, the Rothschilds quarrelled with Cecil Rhodes about who was in charge. Rhodes’s plans to expand his enterprise crushed with Rothschild’s scepticism. At the same time,
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THE WAR TO CHANGE ALL WARS?
This year marks the centenary of the beginning of the First World War. ELLIOT GATHERCOLE asks whether it really was the war to change all others?
the Rothschilds were building a beneficial relationship with Rhodes’s worst enemy, the Transvaal Republic. In 1892, the financier raised a £2.5million loan for the Transvaal government (the first ever to be asked by the Boers), in order to finance the railway project to Lorenço Marques, in Portuguese West Africa. The Transvaal repaid all that money in time and without problems, and just a year later, the Rothschilds issued a new £2.5million loan. In just two years, the Transvaal rose to the second division of debtor states, where they shared their position with other European states, Japan, Egypt, Chile and China. Confidence in the Boer’s capacity to repay their loans was higher than confidence in the diamond or gold market. When the war started, Rhodes and Rothschild quarrelled again, but the first managed to get the Cape Governor, sir Alfred Milner, on his side. Milner convinced the Conservative Secretary of the Treasure, Hicks Beach, to leave the Rothschilds apart, and due to the unexpected cost of the war, the Bank of England was forced to ask for American loans. J.S. Morgan issued half of the £10million loan. This was the first step towards the end of sterling as the international currency, and the Rothschilds, who were attached to British finance, suffered the consequences, as did the government. Therefore, it is simply too obvious that Hobson’s alliance between finance and power proved to be wrong. The Rothschilds were as weak as the Boers. They were left with no influence in DeBeers&Co, with no partner in South Africa, and they lost the privileged position they had as the financiers of Westminster.
“At eleven o’clock this morning came to an end the cruellest and most terrible war that has ever scourged mankind. I hope we may say that thus, this fateful morning, came to an end all wars” - David Lloyd George, 1918
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s David Lloyd George addressed the House of Commons on 11 November 1918, there was a shared consensus throughout Great Britain that never before had any war seen such horrific consequences. Never again should war be engaged in, and certainly not on the scale that had been seen in the previous four years. Fresh in the memories of the soldiers and civilians alike were the horrors of trench warfare, the sheer number of casualties, and the tragedies of damaged and lost families. Europe set about rebuilding itself with new national boundaries drawn, plebiscites and treaties used in an attempt to restore peace. A host of memorials to the dead were erected in almost every European country. So how, if there was such a shared belief in the end of conflict, is the 20th century responsible for an estimated 187million deaths through war? How were there, less than 25 years later, even more deaths in the Second World War than had been seen in what was known at the time as ‘The Great War’ because of its scale?
“The 20th century was responsible for 187million deaths through war” Inevitably there are a huge number of potential explanations, with the development of military technology at the forefront, but the First World War can be seen as responsible for one in particular. Far from being the war to end all wars, it was in fact the war to revolutionise all wars. In 1907, the Hague Convention was signed by 15 states including the United Kingdom, Germany and France. Amongst other regulations on land warfare, Regulation 25 stated, ‘the attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended is prohibited.’ Though the regulation specifically targeted attack of places, this essentially ruled out the attack of innocent civilians on the home front. However, advances in technology and fresh ideas of warfare began to breach this. Zeppelins and aircraft, initially used for reconnaissance and aerial photography, became opportunities for the bombing of towns and cities, in an attempt to shatter not only buildings but also the morale of the innocent civilians. As Susan Grayzel
explores in her article ‘The Souls of Soldiers: Civilians under Fire in First World War France’, this led to a narrowing of the gap between the home front and the war front.
“Zeppelins and aircraft were now used for bombing towns and cities, and therefore innocent civilians” It would be foolish to say that this alone holds responsibility for the extensive military warfare throughout the twentieth century, but it certainly set a precedent. Whereas the defining image of the First World War is trench warfare and the Battle of the Somme, images of the Second World War are dominated by the Battle of Britain featuring the RAF and the Luftwaffe, while children were evacuated to the countryside. However, while in the Nuremberg Trials, Germany was tried for all manner of crimes committed during the War, the bombing of major cities including London and Warsaw was not included. The fact that Britain and France had engaged in bombing raids of their own perhaps tells us all we need to know about this missing element of the trial. While bombing was still considered an atrocity, it was a necessary one, and through the Allied failure to condemn it, there was a legitimisation of the process that had begun with aerial bombing in the First World War.
“Bombing was still an atrocity, but now it was a necessary one” It is almost impossible to imagine modern warfare without the use of aircrafts and helicopters. The implementation of them in the First World War was revolutionary not only because of the incredible opportunity they presented in terms of reconnaissance but also because the bombings of cities like Paris set a precedent for future wars. The First World War is remembered for many reasons, notably the vast number of belligerents and huge death tolls. However, what should be remembered is the ground-breaking defiance of The Hague Convention, and ensuing loss of life because of it. The First World War wasn’t the end of all warfare, but it was very much the start of modern warfare.
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VOTE JFK! VOTE FREEDOM? ELIZABETH MARRON asks if the American president, who was assasinated 50 years ago last year, was a political pragmatist or freedom fighter in the 1960’s Civil Rights Movement.
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ohn F. Kennedy [hereafter JFK] is famous for his youth, and for his death. The four bullets, the one gun that allegedly fired just three bullets, the sole marksman who was killed before his trial, have started multiple conspiracy theories. His role in setting an enduring precedent for desegregation as a strong, pragmatic policy has long since been demoted in favour of the aforementioned conspiracy theories, his role in the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War. The public obsession with the nostalgia of interrupted potential has overcome the need to reinsert Kennedy into the fight for civil rights in America. He played a crucial role in bringing the issue into the modern arena of American politics. Potential must be considered in JFK’s role in the civil rights movement; his stance interrupted by his untimely death, meant that he implemented very few policies, but created a lasting legacy. His New Frontier Civil Rights Bill of 1963 became a basis for Johnson’s Civil Rights Act of 1964. Johnson’s fight to overcome segregation in the Southern states had been preceded by JFK’s desegregation of the Southern Universities of Mississippi and Alabama, the latter of which was completed during his final year using the National Guard in the face of State opposition.
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Kennedy came into power with his 1960 acceptance of the Democratic Party’s candidate nomination speech on The New Frontier; it promised equality and civil rights ‘essential to the human dignity of all men’ as his first goal. He warned that ‘new and more terrible weapons are coming into use, one third of the world may be free bur one third is the victim of a cruel oppression [Communism] and the other third is rocked by poverty and hunger and disease’. Donald C. Lord observes that the goodwill of Kennedy in spending millions of dollars to ‘ensure that one black man could enter the University of Mississippi’ made him an unexpected ally to African-American communities, so much so that their leaders openly wept upon receiving news of his death. What JFK means to the civil rights movement, as this article has observed, is a constantly changing image, undermined by new evidence and queries about his intentions. That he pushed through desegregation in two Southern universities at the last minute, and created a precedent for future legislation in Southern states in the face of much opposition is indisputable. On the other hand, careerism dictated many of his decisions concern-
ing the movement, which makes it hard to assess his genuine aspirations. JFK may well be both the unsung hero of the movement, and the political pragmatist who allowed the movement to flourish on his own terms.
In the early stages of Kennedy’s political career, which has been studied in much more depth than his two year presidency but in less depth than his thirty second assassination, it was arguably unclear that he was going to pursue such a radical path on desegregation and equality. He voted against Eisenhower’s Civil Rights Act of 1957, a move of political pragmatism to ensure that he was a potential candidate in-keeping with Democratic Party line. This was an unsettling record for supporters of civil rights. A tape released in late January 2014 shows that, in spite of Kennedy’s infamous telephone call to Martin Luther King’s (hereafter MLK) wife, Coretta Scott King, MLK was ‘wary’ about the extent of Kennedy’s support and intentions behind his release in 1960, a call that has been widely acknowledged by historians to have aided JFK’s bid for the black community’s vote.
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LONDON... B.Y.O.C
Bring Your Own Cocktail “B.Y.O.C” is a cocktail bar hidden away in Covent Garden. The 1920s style establishment has no alcohol to buy on the premises and no drinks menu, instead bring your own alcohol and a personal mixologist will make various concoctions from the array of juices and syrups on an antique drinks trolley. The bar is very small, with only 18 places, so booking is imperative. A must visit!
Want a quirky break from assignments? Like to make your student life more cultured? JOCELINE SHARMAN brings you this issue’s lowdown.
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10 Hot Tub Cinema
Fancy watching a film in an unconventional way… The answer is Hot Tub Cinema! The explanation is simply as the name suggests, watching a film while bathing in the bubbles of a jacuzzi with drink in hand. The summer season sees hot tubs taking over picturesque city skylines, whilst the hot tubs are sheltered indoors during the winter months. If this isn’t enough for you already, there are also speeddating and kareoke nights!
For more information, visit www.byoc.co.uk
JFK (1991)
The 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination on the 22nd November 2013 has reignited the continuous interest in the conspiracies of his death, and what better way than to rewatch an old film such as JFK starring Kevin Costner. The film records the discoveries of a New Orleans DA who finds that there is more to the Kennedy assassination than the official story conveyed.
For more information, visit www. hottubcinema.com
The Cheapside Hoard: London’s Lost Jewels
Until 27 April 2014 jewels, gemstones and treasure dicovered in 1912 in a cellar on Cheapside in the City of London will be exhibited at the Museum of London; exploring the mysteries and conspiracies behind the Hoard and analysing who owned the it, when, why it was hidden and why it was never reclaimed?
Tate Britain
The £45 million refurbishment of the Tate Britain by the Londonbased architects, Caruso St John, has achieved magnificient effects. The Telegraph said, ‘despite invasive surgery, Tate Britain has never looked better’ and The Independent noted that the new Tate Britain was ‘a new twist on an old favourite’. A must see for any art lover or those architecturally curious.
Henry V
Michael Grandage and Jude Law continue their working relationship, which began with Hamlet in 2009, with Henry V at the Noel Coward Theatre – the finale of the West End season from the newly formed Michael Grandage Company. Grandage, this season, has directed all five plays himself, and if Henry V is like any of the other productions then there is a treat in store for us!
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For more information, visit www.michaelgrandagecompany.com
For more information, visit www.museumoflondon.org.uk
Hello, My Name is Paul Smith Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese
This landmark pub, rebuilt after the Great Fire of London in 1667 on Fleet Street, is full of history. Hosting masses of influential visitors – from Ambassadors, Prime Minsters, Royalty, to journalists and writers – it is a must visit for any King’s history student. For patriotic beer lovers, the brew is bought from Samuel Smith’s, and for food fanatics there is an array of historic pub dishes including ‘ye famous’ steak and kidney pudding.
Wine Office Court, 145 Fleet Street, London, EC4A 2BU
Benjamin Britten: A Life in Prufrock Coffee As students we are always in need of a Pictures Considered to be one of the greatest British composers of the twentieth century, the life and music of Benjamin Britten will be celebrated in a display of more than forty photographs – starting in November 2013, the centenary of his birth – at the National Portrait Gallery. For the music-lover, this is a must-see.
For more information, visit www.npg.co.uk
good dose of caffeine. If you are bored of Starbucks or Café Nero on the Strand why not try something different. Prufrock Coffee serves fantastic coffee! Located near the top of Chancery Lane, it is perfect as a break from the Maughan and the piles and piles of reading to get through.
23-25 Leather Lane, London EC1N 7TE
The exhibition is being hosted at The Design Museum until midMarch 2014 to celebrate the career and influences of fashion designer, Paul Smith. This internationally renowned brand began in much more humble settings in Nottingham, where he still has a flagship store today, and the exhibition portrays his knowledge of fashion and how his label grew to become a quintessentially British clothing empire.
For more information, visit www.designmuseum.org
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REVIEW: ELIZABETH I AND HER PEOPLE
From despised outsiders to sexual citizens?
Friday 7TH February 6.30pm K.6.29 (Anatomy Theatre) ALL STUDENTS WELCOME
A talk led by LUCY DELAP on the challenges and change in the lives of British homosexual men over the twentieth century.
OONAGH THOMPSON and ALICE WILLIAMS visit the National Portrait Gallery and discover a different side to Elizabethan art.
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hinking about Elizabethan art, and particularly portraits, most people imagine ornate depictions of nobility, especially of the Queen herself. What separates this exhibition from others is its inclusion of both other aspects of society and of a range of artefacts from the period, giving a broader perspective to Elizabethan culture.
What becomes apparent in the first half of the exhibition is the growth of an urban middle class, identifying themselves by their professions, and celebrating their increasing status through portraiture. Memorable inclusions were those of Gamaliel Pye, Senior Warden of the Butchers’ Guild, and Colombo’s painting of John Banister, a prominent anatomy lecturer; the way these two images depict their subjects is very different, as Pye is painted in the style of a gentleman, with little sign of his profession, whilst Banister is shown in the process of teaching, with a grisly skeleton and dissected cadaver. The artefacts featured are varied; there are some stunning pieces of period jewellery, which would at least rival any modern collection, alongside books and manuscripts, as well as items of clothing. One notable inclusion is of a well-preserved peasant outfit, displayed near a painting entitled “A Fete at Bermondsey”, showing a bustling depiction of town life. The use of artefacts allows you to imagine the portraits shown as real people, giving the exhibition a more tangible connection to our historical past. The most obviously impressive portraits are, of course, those commissioned by, and representing, the nobility. Our personal favourites were Hans Eworth’s twin portraits of Thomas Dudley and his wife, Margaret Howard, embellished with gold leaf, as well as a strikingly handsome depiction of Sir Walter Raleigh, the noted explorer, and a culturally significant picture of a Moorish Ambassador, both of which demonstrate the growing globalisation of the Elizabethan period. The portraits of Elizabeth herself are by far the most
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decadent, showing her in all stages of her reign – these images range from the famous Ermine Portrait to a cameo in onyx and gold. The representations give the impression of a queen in control of her public image, though simultaneously the subject of many myths and assumptions. Overall we found the collection catered to both artistic and historical tastes. The wide range and high quality of material shown goes some way to justify the steep price of such a brief exhibition. It is always worthwhile to explore such a culturally and politically transformative period.
Elizabeth I & Her People runs at the National Portrait Gallery until January 5th 2014. Tickets are £11.50 for students.
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LIGHTS, CAMERA... HISTORY FILM REVIEW: ARGO
CLEO POLLARD did not think she would be so gripped by a film loosely connected with the 1979 Iranian Hostage Crisis, but finds Ben Affleck’s film a real-life thriller.
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am the worst person in the world to watch a film with: I get cold, I fidget, I feel the need to comment on every scene and, once the sweets have all been eaten (usually before the film’s even started), I’ll have been distracted by something far more interesting.
What is more, when a friend suggested seeing it at the cinema, I’d already dismissed Argo as sci-fi crap on the basis of its title and was only lured along by the fact it was an Orange Wednesday. It is in the light of my cinematic pessimism, therefore, that I feel so compelled to review Argo, for it was the first film I had seen in a long time that kept me in rapture for the entire 130 minutes. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that it warranted a re-watch.
Despite revolving around the pretend creation of a sci-fi movie, Argo is anything but fictitious. Based on true events, it charts the endeavours of CIA officer, Tony Mendez, who devised and led a rescue of six American diplomats hiding in the Canadian embassy in Tehran, following the Iran Hostage Crisis of 1979. Described as the “best bad idea” they have, Mendez’s farfetched plan gets the go-ahead and the formation of a movie is staged, which sees the detained diplomats take on fake identi-
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ties as Canadian filmmakers in a bid to return home. As well as directing and producing the film, Ben Affleck plays Mendez, a role that has seen him decorated with critical acclaim. Unquestionably, his taciturn performance is not short of genius and his film is enthralling throughout. Even if only to appreciate the real-life footage or admire the seventies hairstyles, Argo is worth your time. Alternatively, you could read Mendez’s memoirs that inspired the film; they have certainly been added to my to-read list.
FILM REVIEW: 12 YEARS A SLAVE EMILIAN GEGA declares the new, highly-anticiapted film on the Deep South’s slavery a masterpiece, for its non-judgemental, cold depiction of a dark area of American history.
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he new film from the British director Steve McQueen is an adaptation of the memoirs of Solomon Northup, a freeborn black American family man from upstate New York who was kidnapped, shipped to the South and sold to the owner of a Louisiana plantation in 1841. The talented British-born Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Solomon. To reuse Woodrow Wilson’s phrase, ‘this is history with lighting’.
12 years a Slave is the best film made about the era of slavery in the United States of America. Leading critics would agree with me. Why am I unsettled by this piece of information? Why is the past not being projected more on the big screen? The last two films I can recall meaningfully depicting slavery are Gone with the Wind (1939) and Mandingo (1975). We should not include Django Unchained (2013)- another film centred on a slave’s survival in the antebellum South in this area of inquiry, for it was misguided and glorified violence conducted by a wayward man with grandiose ambitions rooted in sociopathic tendencies. The two films can’t be sensibly compared. Django’s most startling scenes come glazed with irony, and it ends with a cathartic bloodbath that allows us to leave the cinema feeling that justice, of a limited sort, has been served. McQueen is working with no such protection. This is not how history ought to be depicted. Are we too afraid to confront the past with reasonable moral judgments? In the film’s early scenes, we watch Solomon stroll
around his home town of Saratoga with his wife and children, and, Ejiofor moves with a gentle confidence that makes his later imprisonment seem not just inhuman, but illogical. Then, when we first see him in chains, hemmed in by shadows in a dingy cell and lit by a thick strip of moonlight, we are shocked for the same reason he is: we see a free man with his movement wrongly restricted. Then his captor comes in, taunts him, calls him nigger and beats him with a wooden paddle until it splits in two. Benedict Cumberbatch offers a rare friendly face as Ford the plantation owner, yet crushingly proves to be little more than an ineffectual coward. To ‘save’ him from murder by mewling overseer Tibeats (Paul Dano), Northup is sold on to the deranged Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender). As the infamous ‘nigger breaker’, Fassbender spits rabid cruelty from a snarling visage of hatred, haunting scenes with his twisted bible recitals. The justification for his sadism? “That’s scripture.” This film is not just a masterpiece; it is a milestone. It is a sober, non-judgmental and cold rendition of slavery. It therefore provides a role model to earlier films that meant well, and a corrective for Quentin Tarantino. Really, it shows slavery as if for the first time. The dead camera stare of a close cabal of Negroes in the opening scene provokes us. The subsequent teachings they receive from the aged white farmer who is obviously blasé to their condition, completely disarms us of any pretentions we may have. We really are in for an experience. In his memoir, Solomon describes all too lucidly the scene in which Epps, furious that his slave girl, and source of affection, Patsey had visited a neighbouring plantation, had her stripped naked and tied to four posts, and then made Solomon flog her more than 40 times with a whip, before taking over himself and flaying her alive. McQueen has made a tour de force of this dreadful event, filming it all in one long, unedited take, so we have no respite from it ourselves or a chance of looking away. Please watch this film.
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STYLE DE-UPDATE Jewellery Special
REVIEW:
THE CHEAPSIDE HOARD
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he entrance to ‘The Cheapside Hoard: London’s Lost Jewels’ at the Museum of London is bordering on airport security level; no bag whatsoever and ominous-looking full-height turnstile gates. On entering the exhibition, I realised that these extra cautionary measures were in order to protect the near 500 pieces of incredible jewellery that are collectively known as the Cheapside Hoard. Discovered buried in a cellar in 1912 in Cheapside, and dated to the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, this treasure includes an incredible variety of gemstones, craftsmanship, and types of jewellery that were worn. It was particularly interesting to see items that are not really used anymore such as fan holders, pomanders and jewels designed for the hair. The exhibition opens with a contextualization of the Hoard through an exploration of contemporary topics such as international trade, exchanges between the Old and New Worlds, and developments in craftsmanship and the institution of the goldsmith. This initial section successfully conveys the underlying theme of mystery, which is present throughout the exhibition. In the dim, broody lighting, the spectator anticipates the spectacular jewels and answers to who buried these jewels, and why? The collection itself is magnificent. Each item, ranging from rings to broaches, from pearls to cameos, is displayed and lit in such a way that the colours are vivid and the details visible. The curation of the exhibition is fantastic. It includes videos of zoomed in 360°views of small, intricate items, contemporary paintings exemplifying how such items were worn, and details of the symbolism the gemstones and motifs used. For example, the delicate bloodstone pendant was shaped as a strawberry-leaf for its medicinal and culinary qualities and the specks of red represented the blood of Christ. In another case, the gemstone opal is described to have been ‘very good for the head and comfortable for the sight’. The stand-out piece is a watch set in a single large Colombian emerald crystal. The vibrancy of the colour, the detail of the hinge and the beautiful dark green enamel face form an incredibly breath-taking piece.
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REVIEW: PEARLS
LAUREN CLARK visits the Victoria & Albert Museum for their exhibition on one of the most luxurious items of jewellery: pearls.
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JULIET SMITH visits the Museum of London to see their acclaimed exhibition on a hoard of rare, lost jewellery.
The exhibition is accompanied by a strong, overarching narrative that describes the story of the pieces in the context of significant events such as the Reformation, the Civil War and the Great Fire of London. However, these events are then used to try and rationalize why Elizabeth Taylor
What: Pearls Exhibition Where: Victoria & Albert Musum When: Until 19th January 2014 Ticket Price: £11.20
hat pearls induce feelings of desire is nothing new. This emotion goes back several millenia when their rarity and beauty transformed them into myths. Roll forward a few centuries and their seductiveness was attributed to purity and alleged good luck. More recently- about 1000 years ago - the high status of pearls was universally acknowledged. The V&A’s dedicated exhibition tells the story of this simple but sophisticated item of jewellery through a chronological narrative. As well as a very detailed account of pearl fishing methods, with the rather obvious conclusion that they are so covetable because they are particularly difficult to get hold of, the exhibition stresses the pearl’s consistent fashionability. While the twentieth century’s artistic movements embraced their classic beauty, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European courts vied to outshine each other with swathes of pearl adornment. Indeed, Roman Pliny the Elder, had moaned back in Antiquity about the increasing fashion for opulent pearl-wearing. Popularity during the Renaissance at the beckoning of trend-setting Paris, meant their value tripled between 1600 and 1700 . Pearls have therefore been mostly spied on those of fame and fortune, shining out of photos and portraits. Royalty naturally embraced such luxury; Mary Tudor’s single pearl and Elizabeth II’s Dagmar necklace feature in the exhibition, as do images of Charles I’s pearl earring and Elizabeth I’s pearl headresses. For their easy glamour Hollywood embraced the pearl likewise. Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe’s pearls stand testament to the fact that, though this trend has spanned thousands of seasons, it is still rather in. Warning: You have never seen more pearls in one room
DOWNTON ABBEY: 1920’s Fashion the items were buried through an unsatisfactorily short film. This conclusion to the exhibition fails to answer the questions it attempts to address and instead, presents a weak and juvenile dramatization. Despite this, I would highly recommend seeing this exhibition, if not for its historical content then for the splendour and sparkle.
The Cheapside Hoard: London’s Lost Jewels runs at the Museum of London, until April 27th 2014. Tickets are £8 for students.
The upper-class, post-Edwardian costumes of the stylish Crawley sisters have become almost as highly-anticipated as the period drama’s plot. The most recent series saw the show’s privileged females delve into flapper fashion.
Decorative headwear to secure curled tresses in a fashionable up-do like Lady Rosamund (below).
Silky fabrics were very popular for slinky flapper-esque dresses, as shown by Lady Edith (above).
Loose, drop-waist silhouettes are the defining feature of flapper clothing. Lady Mary (left) and Lady Rosamund (above) demonstrate the power of nonchalant chic.
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NAZI TREASURE:
MUSE Magazine is part of the KCL History Society.
THE LOST ART HOARD
To contact the History Society email Louise at kclhistorysociety@outlook.com Follow them on Twitter @HistoryKcl, like them on Facebook www.facebook.com/HistorySociety and check out their new website www.kclhistory.wordpress.com
XENIA RAKOVSHIK discovers that the lost Nazi-looted art, unearthed in a Munich apartment in 2012, is far from unique. The collection of 1500 works, worth £1 billion, reveals remaining relics of the Third Reich.
The History Society committee is...
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s German authorities entered the heart of a Munich apartment, they were expecting to discover evidence of tax fraud, only to find themselves face to face with a piece by Picasso, which according to experts, was far from fraudulent. Back in March of 2012, over the course of three days, an estimated 1,400 to 1,500 pieces of art, worth one billion pounds, were removed from the premises of a flat belonging to Cornelius Gurlitt. It was believed the majority of the works found had gone up in flames during the bombing of Dresden in 1954. Among the pieces were paintings by Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, Otto Dix, Max Libermann, Pablo Picasso, Toulouse Lautrec, Emil Nolde, Canalatto, Gustave Courbet, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Oskar Kokoschkaa nd Max Beckmann… to name a few. Despite being discovered in 2012, the story only broke in November 2013, resulting in resentment amongst members of the Jewish art community and others affected by Nazi confiscation practices that took place between 1936 and 1945. Rüdiger Mahlo, of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, said he was, ‘angered by the fact that it had taken German authorities so long to reveal the existence of the valuable paintings. Morally, this case amounts to the continued concealment of stolen goods. It cannot be,’ he insisted. However descendants of Jewish collectors who were blackmailed or robbed of their works by Nazis may find it difficult to claim ownership of previously hidden works.
The man responsible for concealing this particular stash of cultural treasures, Cornelius Gurlitt, had acquired the collection from his father, Hildebrand Gurlitt. He was a notable pre-war art dealer and historian who, despite his Jewish heritage, was one of only four men working for Adolf Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, as an art dealer specializing in the purchase and distribution of ‘degenerate’ paintings. In the Nazi lexicon, ‘degenerate’ was an adjective affixed to almost all modern art, on the grounds of being ‘UnGerman’ or ‘Jewish Bolshevist’. According to the Independent, ‘It is almost certain that Gurlitt senior snapped up many of the paintings from their mainly Jewish owners at knock-down prices. Many of the owners desperately needed the cash to fund their escape from the Holocaust’. Tragically, as was the case for many during that period, their circumstances were not unique. Goebbels’ Ordinance of February 1936, which denied Austrian Jews entrance into museums and placed sanctions on their involvement in a myriad of cultural
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organizations, was merely the beginning of an increasingly aggressive assault on the Jewish Art community running up to the WW2. During their reign, the Nazi regime plundered over three million works of art under the pretense that subsequent pieces were ‘impure’, and ‘not conducive to the ideology of the Third Reich’. Yet the process of ‘artistic purification’ also had undertones to suggest that the pieces were being seized for personal gain. After systematically ploughing through public collections, the Nazis turned to the mantelpieces and walls of private homes and collectors.
President Louise Turtle - Vice President Emilian Gega Social Secretaries Rob Prince and Oscar King - Treasurer Milly Napier - Academic Officer Emma Turton - Outreach Officer Will Jellis MUSE Editor Lauren Clark
One such collector, Baron Louis de Rothschild, was detained at an airport in Austria, later arrested and imprisoned at Gestapo headquarters for nine months, and held hostage in exchange for his collection of over one thousand paintings. ‘The means by which the Nazis amassed these collections is telling’, contests Jonathan Petropoulos, author of Art as Politics in the Third Reich, ‘The Jews got it from close knit families passing it down through generations. The Nazis made a mockery of this idea, acquiring this art by force and use of terror.’ However, this seemingly staggering collection of 1,400 pieces of art stashed away in a tiny Munich apartment presents a mere scrap of the collage that reportedly makes up the intricate network of confiscated Nazi art. In his book, Hitler & the Power of Aesthetics, author, Frederick Spotts, estimates that there are ‘more than 100,000 works of art that are reported to still be missing or are the object of dispute.’ Today the descendants of Jewish and anti-Nazi collectors alike who were blackmailed or robbed of their works by Nazis, continue to search for what is rightfully theirs, following a time when even the possession of property had been a luxury denied to them.
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