We are pleased to announce the publication of a new thematic issue of the scholarly journal Retrospektive (Volume VIII, Issue 2-3), dedicated to the ambivalence of progress. The Rapallo border of 1920 remains one of the defining yet underexplored fault lines of interwar European history, leaving more than 300,000 Slovenians outside the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. This issue addresses that gap through original archival research, combining diplomatic history, military geography, everyday life, and intellectual biography in an interdisciplinary approach that reflects the journal’s core commitments.
The contributions critically examine the idea of progress as a key concept of modern history, exploring its contradictions, limitations, and social consequences, ranging from economic and political structures to questions of the body, science, technology, and power.
Contents of the Issue:
Tibor Rutar, Violence, Living Standards, and Inequality in Modern Times: Empirical Notes on Historical Progress
Drawing on extensive quantitative data, the author analyses long-term trends in violence, living standards, and inequality, critically engaging with debates on the measurability of historical progress.
Robin Dolar, Historical Materialism and Progress
This article examines the relationship between historical materialism and the idea of progress, analysing various theoretical approaches to understanding historical development and social change.
Augusto Petter, Ceremonies of Civilisation: A Study on the Aesthetics of Progress in the Age of Comparisons
The article explores the aesthetics of progress in the nineteenth century and demonstrates how representations of modernity and civilisation served to legitimise political power while concealing social contradictions.
Julija Šuligoj, Scaling Boundaries: Women, Mountaineering, and the Historical Ambivalence of the Female Body
The author analyses historical representations of the female body through the case of mountaineering, showing how emancipatory advances were often accompanied by new forms of control and stereotyping.
Miroslav Vašík, Student Reading Associations During Post-Revolutionary Neoabsolutism
This article examines the activities of student reading associations during the period of neoabsolutism, revealing the interplay between modernising ambitions and repressive policies.
Sarah Lias Ceide, Technocracy, or: The Fluctuation of Western Imaginaries of Progress in the 20th Century
The author offers a conceptual history of technocracy, demonstrating how ideas of scientific and technological progress were also present within authoritarian and totalitarian systems.
The complete issue is freely available on the Retrospektive journal website.
