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In the decades preceding the outbreak of war, El Salvador was plagued by stark and deepening socioeconomic inequality. When an opposition movement began to form in the midst of the Cold War, tensions quickly escalated, and a guerrilla army formed to respond to the indiscriminate violence of the countrys military and paramilitary forces. Twelve years of civil war ensued, costing tens of thousands of civilian lives.Background: Building to WarDrying coffee on a plantation in El Salvador, 1905. Source: History Trust of South AustraliaSince legal decrees in the late 19th century had outlawed the collective ownership of land by Indigenous communities, El Salvadors wealth had been concentrated in the hands of the land-owning minority producing coffee for export. The Great Depression further exacerbated inequality, prompting peasant uprisings against the elites, swiftly put down in a violent wave of repression called La Matanza. Since then, order had been maintained by either military dictatorships or civilian governments with the trappings of democracy upheld by the military. Land ownership became further concentrated still.It wasnt until the 1970s that any viable opposition to the status quo began to reappearin the midst of a Cold War, the United States was determined to win by eliminating any hint of communism in the Western hemisphere. As an opposition movement began to take shape, pushing a leftist agenda that included land reform and peasants rights, organizers and supporters were quickly branded communist and met with violence. In return, a guerrilla movement began to emerge to retaliate. Despite growing human rights violations and ample evidence of electoral fraud that kept reformists out of government, military and financial aid from the US poured in.Undated photo of scar Romero greeting worshippers in San Salvador, El Salvador, Octavio Duran/CNS. Source: The Catholic SunWhen a coalition government took over in 1979, there was a brief moment of hope that reformist positions and popular organizations could be incorporated into the political system. Land reform and other measures to address poverty were promised. But as aspiring politicians, organizing campesinos, and members of activist groups continued to be targeted and slaughtered, the left-leaning elements of the coalition defected. Government forces killed a number of prominent left-wing politicians who were trying to obtain reforms through legitimate avenues. Archbishop scar Romero, a popular voice for the poor who had condemned state-sponsored violence, was murdered, followed by a group of nuns providing humanitarian aid. As it became increasingly clear that no dissent would be tolerated and no one was safe, leftist organizations turned further toward guerilla warfare, meeting the states violence with violence. The country was at war.Stakeholders and CombatantsMembers of El Salvadors Atlacatl battalion cross a river during an operation in the San Miguel department in the summer of 1983, Robert Nickelsberg. Source: WLRNOften oversimplified as El Salvador vs. guerillas, there were, in fact, many factions involved in the countrys civil war; the chaos of the previous decades had sown broad distrust throughout the country, which remained even among groups fighting for the same end goals. Targeted violence was used to purposefully disrupt and fragment cooperation among the opposition, while non-combatant civilian activists were treated much the same as guerrilla fighters by the military and other right-wing operatives.The leadership of El Salvadors government changed numerous times throughout the war but remained right-leaning and heavily influenced, if not ruled outright, by the military. A relatively free hand was given to the military and national police to root out the insurgency, and despite documented human rights violations, US aidwhich included weapons, training, intelligence, and moneypoured into the country throughout the conflict.The countrys wealthiest men continued to have an outsized influence as well. Though the military targeted both individuals and organizations on the left, including politicians, organizers, human rights groups, and trade organizations, when their actions werent sufficient to appease the countrys extreme right-wing, death squads stepped in, often financed by the countrys wealthy. These paramilitary organizations were quite often made up of soldiers and police officers acting outside their official capacityand largely known to the government, which looked the other way. They were responsible for the murders of numerous politicians, journalists, clergy, union leaders, and campesinos.Salvadorans fleeing government bombing, San Salvador, El Salvador, 1989, Donna De Cesare. Source: dwherstories.comGovernment opposition included various political and labor organizations, human rights groups, and even prominent clergy of the Catholic Church, once a reliable ally of the countrys elites. With the birth of Liberation Theology after Vatican II, some Latin American clergy adopted a more active approach to social justice issues, advocating reforms that would reduce poverty and working directly to alleviate suffering. In El Salvador, this often included denouncing the indiscriminate violence of the government and its agents and seeking justice for victims.A number of underground opposition groups from the 1970s ultimately united under the banner of the Frente Farabundo Mart para la Liberacin Nacional (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front), named after a prominent leader of the 1930s peasant uprisings. First engaged primarily in protests and acts of civil disobedience, the FMLN ultimately became a well-regulated and trained guerrilla army, with support coming from both Cuba and the Soviet Union.1980-1992: Twelve Years of Civil WarTraining in a guerrilla camp in Guazapa, San Salvador, Giovanni Palazzo/Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen. Source: El FaroWhile the earliest years of the war were its most violent, death and destruction besieged the country for twelve years as the US-armed and trained military battled a guerrilla army numbering fewer than 10,000 combatants. The prolonged conflict was marked by attempts at political resolutions repeatedly derailed by one or the other side immediately ratcheting up violence in response. Various center-right politicians and parties controlled the government throughout the conflict, while targeted attacks on left-leaning political groups and politicians made it nearly impossible for any progressive political movement to gain traction. The FMLN boycotted and attempted to disrupt elections, which it perceived as illegitimate.After the rape and murder of four American churchwomen by the countrys National Guard, US President Jimmy Carter suspended aid to El Salvadors government in late 1979, but just six weeks later, it was restored and increased. Over the course of the war, the US sent over $6 billion in military and financial aid to the country. Growing concern regarding the activities of the death squads prompted a visit from then-US Vice President George Bush in 1983, during which he delivered a list of suspected military death squad members to the government, insisting they be reined in. Though they were not completely dismantled, their activities did decrease for a time, suggesting not only the influence the US had over the conflict but also the deep connection between El Salvadors government and these rogue death squads.Memorial to the victims of the El Mozote massacre. Source: TripadvisorThe true horror of the conflict was the impact on the countrys civilian population, particularly the poor. The military and paramilitary groups waged war against not only guerrilla fighters and sympathizers but, on numerous occasions, large groups of peasants who had the misfortune of living in or near places where the FMLN was operating or had wrested control. The worst of these campaigns against civilians was the El Mozote massacre, in which over 800 civilians were killed over two days in December 1981, but various other offensives throughout the conflict claimed hundreds of peasants lives at a time.In the wars early days, the FMLN largely focused its attacks on military, political, and economic targets, with the result that victims of guerrilla violence were primarily soldiers and politicians. As the war progressed, the groups indiscriminate use of landmines began to inflict civilian casualties. The group pursued a campaign of abductions and executions that at first targeted mayors and other pro-government leaders but ultimately grew to include civilians deemed to be government or military sympathizers. The death squads, similarly, continued to carry out targeted executions of journalists, clergy, and educators they accused of being anti-government.The 1992 Peace AccordsFr. Ignacio Ellacuria, killed by the Salvadoran army in November 1989. Source: The Jesuit PostThough half-hearted negotiations had been attempted on and off throughout the conflict, by the late 1980s, it had become clear that a decisive military victory was not to be had by either side, and support for a negotiated settlement grew. As the Cold War waned, so too did the US urgency to root out the communist threat in Latin America; it threw its support behind peace negotiations, and with the looming threat of decreased US military aid, the Salvadoran government had little choice but to agree.Earnest negotiations began in 1989 with the support of the United Nations but were marred by ongoing attacks against clergy, labor unions, social workers, and other civilian targets, and retaliation by the FMLN, which would continue throughout the negotiating process. Most notable among these were the bombing of the Federacin Nacional Sindical de Trabajadores Salvadoreos, a trade union federation, which led the FMLN to suspend negotiations and launch their largest and most violent offensive of the war, and the murders of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter by paramilitaries.Yet by 1990, real progress had been made. An agenda and timetable for negotiations were agreed on early in the year. In July, both parties signed the San Jose Agreement on Human Rights, which included a mechanism for UN verification, which resulted in a decrease in civilian deaths. The following year, parties reached agreements on some constitutional reforms and, significantly, decided to create a Commission on the Truth, which would investigate serious acts of violence occurring since 1980. Finally, on January 16, 1992, both parties signed the El Salvador Peace Agreement, formally ending the armed conflict.Aftermath: Death Toll, Displacement, & MS-13A refugee camp in Honduras, 1988. Source: Mdecins sans FrontiresThe UN Truth Commission that was agreed on in the peace accords began its work in July 1992; it reached its conclusions eight months later. The commission found that 85% of the instances of violence during the war were attributable to the government or its agents; just 5% were the result of FMLN activity. The commission made a series of recommendations for moving forward with peace and reconciliation, including judicial reform and reparations. The commissions report was rejected by the government, which shortly thereafter passed an amnesty law covering all crimes related to the war.An estimated 75,000 civilians were killed or disappeared during El Salvadors civil war, and because of the blanket amnesty law, ultimately overturned in 2016, almost no one has been held accountable for these deaths. Civilians who werent killed outright were often forced to flee. Over 1 million people, an estimated 25% of the countrys population, were displaced during the war. Some fled to other countries, others remained in El Salvador but were forced to abandon their homes, becoming internally displaced persons. Over the course of the war, nearly half a million Salvadorans fled to the United States.The peace agreements did little to address the root causes of the war, namely the countrys stark socioeconomic inequality, which was only deepened by the conflict. In addition, in order to secure desperately needed loans for its financial recovery, the country implemented a series of economic policies pushed by international lenders that reduced social spending and privatized public services at a time when the majority of the population was living below the poverty line. For many, the primary source of income became remittances from friends and family in the United States.Members of the Western Locos clique of the Mara Salvatrucha in the mid-80s in Los Angeles. Source: El FaroFollowing the war, however, space for an opposition political movement opened. The FMLN morphed into a legitimate political party comprised primarily of communists, socialists, and social democrats. The new party quickly began winning local and municipal elections, gaining political capital, until it won the presidency in 2009 under Mauricio Funes.Perhaps the best-known legacy of the war was the rise of MS-13 and other street gangs; its also one of the most complex. MS-13 was not actually born in El Salvador but in the United States among refugees. Navigating the streets of Los Angeles in the 1980s, young Salvadoran men formed their own gangs in a bid to protect themselves from the citys native gangs. Salvadoran refugees were rarely granted asylumas few as 2%and so were mostly undocumented. Once the conflict ended, President Bill Clinton deported thousands of refugees, including gang members, back to a country just months removed from the chaos of war, with a barely functioning economy, a largely useless police force, and replete with discarded firearms. It was a recipe for disaster. MS-13 and other street gangs began to flourish, providing the countrys poor and disaffected youth with the financial opportunities and social resources that the government continued to systematically deny them. Quickly, gangs grew into one of El Salvadors most pressing post-war issues.

The life of Mary Wollstonecraft was more than just the writing of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, although this is what has made her an enduring figure in the history of feminism. Her biography is just as exciting and ahead of its time as that short but hugely influential 18th-century text. Mary Wollstonecraft was a woman who lived out her principles, especially her passionate devotion to liberty and her belief in the power of womens genius.Mary Wollstonecraft: The Enlightenment WomanAn Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, by Joseph Wright of Derby, 1768. Source: Wikimedia Commons/National Gallery, LondonMary Wollstonecraft, born in 1759, grew up during what we now call the Age of Enlightenment. In London, where she was born, Samuel Johnson published his dictionary and would soon issue a complete edition of Shakespeares works and Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets. Adam Smith was theorizing about moral sentiments, such as sympathy.Across the Channel, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire were publishing philosophical novels and treatises. Denis Diderots Encyclopdie began to appear from 1751, and the Encyclopedia Britannica followed in 1771: a world of knowledge was opening up rapidly.But not for women, as Wollstonecraft found. The idea of co-education was still some way off, and girlseven those lucky enough to be born into wealthy familiesreceived a far less stimulating education than boys. They were merely equipped with accomplishments, things like embroidery, a little music (but not too much), and housework.Wollstonecraft was born into a family which often had to move around the country due to financial instability, and neither of her parents was especially interested in her education because (by her own account) her father was prone to violent, often drunken outbursts, during which he was physically abusive towards her mother.First page of Thoughts on the Education of Daughters, by Mary Wollstonecraft, 1787. Source: Wikimedia Commons/Eighteenth Century Collections Online; with The Governess, by Rebecca Solomon, c. 1851. Source: Wikimedia Commons/Art Renewal CenterAs a young adult, Wollstonecraft gained some educational experience, first as a ladys companion in Bath and later as co-founder of a school in Newington Green, north London. Both experiences would inform how she wrote about womens education, not just in her most famous work, but in its precursor, her first book, Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787). This was primarily an advice manual, reciting conventional wisdom around contemporary educational norms. However, it also contained seeds of her later critiques of the practice of limiting womens education to so-called feminine matters.The Young RadicalThe Nightmare, by Henry Fuseli, 1781. Source: Wikimedia Commons/Detroit Institute of ArtsAlso at this stage, Wollstonecraft showed signs of the radical behavior for which she would later become notorious. When her younger sister, Eliza, married and had a child, Mary recognized the signs of what we would now call postpartum depression, and could see that the marriage between Eliza and her husband was over. Late-18th-century divorce laws in Britain severely limited womens ability to leave a marriage for any reason whatsoever. Only with the passing of the Matrimonial Causes Act 75 years later, in 1857, did women gain the right to petition for divorce on the grounds of adultery, cruelty, or desertionand even then with difficulty.Mary, therefore, helped her sister secretly escape her husband and live apart from him, a decisive act that brought Eliza freedom at the cost of social ostracization. This was just one instance, along with setting up the Newington Green school in a Dissenting community (a separatist group who rejected the authority of the state and church in England), that showed Wollstonecraft beginning to move in radical circles.Mary Wollstonecraft, by John Opie, c. 1797. Source: Wikimedia Commons/National Portrait Gallery, LondonThese centered around the publisher Joseph Johnson, who was from a Dissenting background and applied these principles to his work, supporting and promoting thinkers who were critical of the establishment. Johnson was devoted to achieving political change through his publications, working with authors who argued in favor of religious tolerance, the American Revolution, and (even before Wollstonecraft came along, but especially once he became her publisher) womens rights.Also a legendary dinner host, Johnson would gather these liberal firebrands around his table in London, fostering a community which encouraged Wollstonecraft in her gradually awakening wish to become what she called the first of a new genus, that rare thing, a female author (Wollstonecraft, 2003, 139).Henry Fuseli, by James Northcote, date unknown. Source: Wikimedia Commons/National Portrait Gallery, LondonAt one of Johnsons dinners, Wollstonecraft met William Godwin, three years her senior, who was beginning to dip his toe into political criticism and philosophy. The meeting was not a great success. Having come to hear the exciting revolutionary Thomas Paine, who had galvanized America into finding freedom, Godwin found himself arguing with Wollstonecraft all night instead.She fared betterinitiallywith the Swiss painter Henry Fuseli, whose 1781 painting The Nightmare hung in Johnsons dining-room. The two were captivated by each others genius, and she quickly fell in love with Fuseli, despite knowing he had a wife. In a characteristically radical move, unfazed by social judgment, Wollstonecraft proposed that she live with Fuseli and his wife. Her experiences with both her parents and her sister Eliza had clouded her view of conventional marriage, and she sought arrangements that might prove more liberating. Fuselis wife, however, did not consider it liberating to share her husband with another woman, and the painter broke off contact with Wollstonecraft.Mary Wollstonecraft: The PamphleteerThe National Assembly taking the Tennis Court Oath, by Jacques-Louis David, 1791. Source: Muse National du Chteau, VersaillesDetermined to make a living as a writer, Wollstonecraft spent her late twenties contributing reviews and criticism to Johnsons Analytical Review and translating works from French and German into English. She was keenly interested in the more radical discussions among Johnsons circle, and in 1790 she found the perfect outlet for her literary and political fervor.In November, the politician and philosopher Edmund Burke published Reflections on the Revolution in France, a response to the events of 1789the storming of the Bastille and the fall of the Ancien Rgime in France. Burkes pamphlet discusses the populace as a body, extending the metaphor by asserting that it is naturallike the laws of biologyfor some parts of that social body to defer to others, that is, for civilians to worship their monarch. Contrasting France, in all its upheaval, with its neighbor, Burke celebrates Britains conservative stability, reiterating the idea of the nation as a body by claiming that the laws of succession are a healthy habit agreed upon mutually by the monarchy, the government, and the people.As radicals such as Wollstonecraft argued, Burkes idea of society as a contract was compromised by the fact that vast swathes of the populace had no means of agreeing to this contract, since the power to vote was limited to land-owning men over 21. Wollstonecraft immediately set to work on a response that would, as its title suggested, vindicate the part that all people have to play in society.Edmund Burke, by James Northcote (based on the original by Joshua Reynolds), 1770s. Source: Art UK/Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery, Exeter, DevonA Vindication of the Rights of Men, written in a matter of weeks, is a defense of liberty and equality, and a point-for-point refutation of Burkes pamphlet. (The use of men in the title, she explains, is a concession to the fact that other writers of the day referred to the rights of men even though what they really meant was, as she puts it, the rights of humanity.) Wollstonecraft undertakes a methodical deconstruction of Burkes slavish paradoxes and, engaging with some of the most crucial terms in 18th-century philosophy, claims that both our reason and our emotion ought to lead us to the conclusion that hereditary privileges are unjust.Another important dichotomy Wollstonecraft invokes is the sublime and the beautiful, concepts which Burke himself had theorized in a 1757 treatise. Like reason and emotion, these terms had gendered connotationsthe overawing sublime was aligned with masculinity, while beauty was delicate and feminine. Using Burkes own language against him, Wollstonecraft constructs an argument that she would soon expand on in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Confining women to the realm of the beautiful hindered their development in every way, but especially morally, making it impossible for them to partake in politics, and ultimately injuring a huge portion of the social body.The Slave Ship, by J.M.W. Turner, 1840. Source: The Museum of Fine Arts BostonAs Wollstonecraft proves with her own rational critique of Burkes text, this equation of women with passivity and weakness is not innate, only socially enforced. It is entirely possible for women to make rational arguments. Moreover, Wollstonecraft also challenges Burkes other claims about innatenessparticularly the idea that it is natural for people to defer to social hierarchy.The French Revolution had provided the backdrop for Wollstonecrafts first political work, which was an instant success. Although published anonymously at first, it soon catapulted her to fame when the second edition carried her name. More responses to Burke followed in 1791, including Thomas Paines Rights of Man, and Wollstonecraft kept a keen eye on events across the Channel, particularly the ongoing debates about how women might fit into libert, galit, fraternit. She would soon travel to Paris to see the revolution in action for herself, but not before she had written the text that would truly make her name.A Vindication of the Rights of WomanTitle page of the first edition of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, by Mary Wollstonecraft, 1792. Source: Wikimedia Commons/New York Public LibraryTaking Wollstonecrafts best-known work out of context, it might be easily overlooked that the Rights of Woman sprang directly from its authors response to the French Revolution. However, the text was dedicated to Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Prigord, a statesman who had presented his plan of reforms to Frances National Assembly in 1791, including the recommendation that women remain at home while men participate in the public sphere, and that their respective educations prepare them for these roles. Wollstonecraft met Talleyrand in 1792 after the publication of Rights of Woman, and reiterated its call for him to reconsider this recommendation.This second Vindication combined Wollstonecrafts ideas from the first about societys oppression with her earlier opinions on girls education. Expanding the discussion of education to cover matters such as marriage, parenting, and health (mental, emotional, and physical), Wollstonecraft proves the integral place of womens rights in establishing a just, functional society, as the revolutionaries across the Channel were supposedly trying to do.Portrait of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, by Maurice Quentin de la Tour, late 18th century. Source: Wikimedia Commons/Muse Antoine-Lcuyer, Saint-QuentinMary Wollstonecraft begins her book by reflecting on Rousseau and his concepts of nature and civilization. She then argues that the weakness commonly attributed to women is not natural but a result of their education and upbringing. Male authors, from philosophers to conduct-book writers, have perpetuated the misconception that women are innately weak, which only compounds the problem: society is predicated on this misconception, so women begin to believe it of themselves.Thus, as Wollstonecraft admits, the women she has observed are weak, frivolous, and artificial, but only because they have been told they are. They are taught that the natural way of things is for them to be beautiful, which will smooth the path towards their main aspiration: marriage. As long as they can simulate all the behaviors associated with beauty in refined societydelicacy, feigned or unfeigned weakness, a little learning but not too much (the accomplishments Wollstonecraft had described in Thoughts on the Education of Daughters)they will be able to marry. This was no small matter at a time when women could not own property and were therefore financially dependent on male relatives, either fathers or husbands.Mary Wollstonecraft, by John Opie, 1790-91. Source: Wikimedia Commons/Tate Britain, LondonHowever, basing womens capacity for marriage only on their fulfilment of beauty, as Wollstonecraft argues, creates unequal marriages in which women are akin to slaves. She is conscious that the comparison to slavery is highly charged, given the abolitionist debates taking place in Britain at this time. Still, she insists that a system which doles out a limited education to women, so that they may enter into an extremely dependent legal arrangement with their husbands, is enforcing a kind of bondage.Rights of Woman was a rallying call. Several times, Wollstonecraft proclaims the need for a revolution in female manners. From this and the emphasis throughout the text on how languishing and ineffectual many women of the time had become, it might seem like Wollstonecraft was placing the onus on women to effect change. However, she recognized that meaningful change (which, remembering the pamphlets context in revolutionary politics, meant a total reorganization of society) could only come about through the collaboration of the sexes.Since men controlled the public sphere, dictated the laws, and swayed opinion on how boys and girls ought to be educated, it was for them to generously snap our chains, and be content with rational fellowship, instead of slavish obedience. This arrangement would benefit both men and women too: marriages would be more successful, children would be better brought up, and society as a whole would be more equitable.The Eyewitness to RevolutionUne Excution capitale, place de la Rvolution by Pierre-Antoine Demachy, 1793. Source: Muse Carnavalet, ParisWhen Wollstonecraft traveled to France at the end of 1792, she had the chance to put her ideas to the test. Was it possible for a rational woman, who had fought against the limitations placed on women in her time, to meet men on their level, to nurture relationships founded on mutual recognition of intellect and morality?Wollstonecraft was among several British people (along with Paine and the then relatively unknown poet William Wordsworth) who flocked to Paris in a wave of revolutionary fervor. By the time she arrived, however, this initial promise had given way to violence, and Wollstonecraft found herself unexpectedly moved by Louis XVIs trial and execution.Now stuck in limbo as increasing hostilities between Britain and France prevented her leaving, Wollstonecraft sought security by registering at the American Embassy as the wife of an adventurer turned diplomat (and, unbeknownst to Wollstonecraft, investor in slave ships), Gilbert Imlay. She was not Imlays wife, but she had fallen deeply in love with him and they had slept together. Wollstonecrafts personal life became a testing ground for the arguments she was making publiclythat women ought to be granted the same freedoms as men, and judged by the same standards of morality.Le Dernier banquet des Girondins, by Henri Flix Emmanuel Philippoteaux, c. 1850. Source: Wikimedia Commons/Museum of the French Revolution, VizilleBy 1794, Wollstonecraft was becoming disillusioned with post-Revolution France, not least because the triumphant Jacobins were no more inclined to treat women as equal citizens than the Ancien Rgime had been. Still unable to leave, she gave birth to Imlays child in May, a daughter named Fanny. Beyond this, however, her experiment in seeking a more equitable relationship between men and women was not bearing fruit. Imlay was unwilling to set up a home with Wollstonecraft permanently, and spent long periods away from her on business. Against the backdrop of these personal difficulties, Wollstonecraft nevertheless managed to write a historical account of what she had seen during her residence in France, An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution (1794).Mary Wollstonecraft: The TravelerLandscape with Waterfall, by Allart van Everdingen, c. 1660-75. Source: The Wallace Collection, LondonA mixture of expediency and drive led to Wollstonecrafts next publication, the remarkable Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796). Finally able to leave France after the fall of the Jacobins, she sought Imlay in London, but he was unwilling to rekindle their relationship and she was left suicidal.Though increasingly aware that he would not be faithful to her, she made a final attempt to prove her loyalty by traveling to Scandinavia to aid his business interests there. To make this journey alone, without Imlay, and with just their infant daughter and a maid, was highly unusualbut Wollstonecraft was by now well used to taking the radical path. Imlay ultimately responded to her loyalty by taking up with another woman during her absence.While traveling through Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, Wollstonecraft wrote 25 letters to Imlay, eventually published together in book form. The letters are remarkable not only for the personal circumstances behind them but also for the reflections on the self, society, and nature prompted by what Wollstonecraft sees on her journey.Wollstonecrafts observations do not aim at objectivity. Everything is colored by her feelings as an observer, informed by what is happening in her life then. As such, Letters is as much of a memoir as it is a travelogue. It even resembles the epistolary novel, comprised entirely of letters, and presents a narrative of increasing despair at Imlays faithlessness.A Lake in Norway, by Francis Danby, c. 1825. Source: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon CollectionInfluenced by Rousseaus confessional writing, Wollstonecraft does not flinch from revealing how she feels at each turn to the reader. Also, returning to her reading of Burke, Wollstonecraft employs the concept of the sublime to discuss the landscapes she passes through. Her letters continually move between observations of, for instance, a roaring waterfall, with its incessant, oppressive current, and her own experience of oppression.Like her previous works, Letters contains philosophical reflections on the relationship between reason and emotion, the natural, and the imagination. In using nature as a stimulus for these thoughts, Wollstonecraft participates in the emerging Romantic movement. It was not until poets like Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge published their own work on man and nature that Romanticism was fully recognized. However, Wollstonecrafts Letters was a key influence for these poets (Holmes, 1987, p. 41), guiding a whole generation of soul-seeking wanderers.The Wife and MotherWilliam Godwin, by James Northcote, 1802. Source: Wikimedia Commons/National Portrait Gallery, LondonA turbulent test of her beliefs that women and men could form equal partnerships had left Wollstonecraft suicidal more than once. However, she was undeterred by her disappointments with Imlay. She maintained her principles and put them into practice again in 1796, when she came back into the orbit of a certain philosopher: William Godwin.Godwin later wrote that reading Letters, with its blend of keen observation and deep reflection, had made him fall in love with its author. He also fell in love with her through continued meetings in their shared literary circles. Like Wollstonecraft, Godwin had been immensely interested in the developments in France. However, the book he published as a resulthis seminal Enquiry Concerning Political Justicedid not directly refer to the events.Nevertheless, Political Justice was a critique of the same institutions that had come under fire both during the Revolution and in Wollstonecrafts writing: hereditary monarchy, property ownership, and marriage. Like Wollstonecraft, Godwin believed in the innate reason of the individual, and, therefore, the capacity of a collective to agree on the best form of government.Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, by Richard Rothwell. Source: Wikimedia Commons/National Portrait Gallery, LondonIt is debatable whether Wollstonecraft was against marriage altogether, or primarily in its contemporary form, and therefore would have been in favor had she been sure she was founding a new, equal version of it with someone who shared her views. Yet Godwin was this long-sought equal partner, and ultimately the two only married out of necessity. She became pregnant in late 1796, and to ensure the child would be legitimate, they married in March 1797. Although their more radical friends saw this as unnecessary deference to social norms, Wollstonecraft and Godwin maintained their commitment to reforming the institution of marriage by living in separate, adjoining houses in London.Tragically, however, the couples experiment did not last long. At the end of August, Wollstonecraft gave birth, and less than two weeks later, she died following a childbed infection. Godwin was inconsolable, and wrote to a friend: I firmly believe that there does not exist her equal in the world. I know from experience we were formed to make each other happy. I have not the least expectation that I can now ever know happiness again (Kegan Paul, 1876, chapter 10). Her child survived: not the son Godwin had hoped to call William, but a daughter named Mary after her mother.Mary Wollstonecraft: The Founding FeministSt Pancras Old Church, seen in 1815, engraved by Charles Pye from a drawing by John Preston Neale. Source: Wikimedia CommonsA year after Wollstonecrafts death, Godwin inadvertently damaged her reputation by publishing Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. To his mind, it was a tribute to his brilliant equal. However, to many readers, it revealed what only their friends had known before, that Wollstonecraft had pursued a married man, had had a child out of wedlock, and (as likely to cause shock as sympathy in this period) had attempted suicide more than once. It was many years before Wollstonecraft was recognized and appreciated for her writings, rather than judged for her private life.Her radical spirit lived on in her daughter, who was only 16 when she eloped with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (a hard to substantiate story claims that Mary and Percy first slept together at Wollstonecrafts grave at St. Pancras churchit is at least true that Mary visited there often and took Percy for walks in the churchyard). Two years later, during an infamous ghost story contest at the shores of Lake Geneva, Mary Shelley began writing the novel that would make her as much of a founder as her mother, but this time, the founder of the science fiction genre: Frankenstein.First pages of French translation of Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman, by Mary Wollstonecraft, 1798. Source: Rare Book Collections at Princeton University LibraryWollstonecrafts most substantial posthumous work is a good counterpart to her daughters novel. Maria: or the Wrongs of Woman was published in 1798, perhaps overlooked partly because Godwins memoirs had turned many reviewers against her, but partly also because it was so radical. Maria is an astounding tale of cross-class solidarity and dissent among women in an asylum: the servant Jemima, whose illegitimacy and precarious social position have left her open to abuse, and the upper-class woman Maria, who has fared little better despite a seemingly happy, respectable existence as wife of a prominent gentleman.The novel is remarkable not just for its horrifying portrayal of suffering, but for the way it acts as a continuation of Wollstonecrafts arguments in the non-fictional Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Neither of the female protagonists is protected from patriarchal abuse. Despite their wildly different circumstances, both fall victim to all the forms of mistreatment experienced by 18th-century wives: physical, emotional, and financial. Although unfinished, the fragments of Maria offer the greatest testament to the range of Mary Wollstonecrafts talents, as an author, a political thinker, and a galvanizing feminist philosopher.BibliographyBurke, E. (2005). The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 03. Project Gutenberg edition, https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/15679/pg15679-images.htmlKegan, P. C. (1876). William Godwin: His Friends and Contemporaries, Vol. 1 by C. Kegan Paul. Henry S. King and Co.Holmes, R. (1987). Introduction. A Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark and Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Penguin Books.Raymond, E. (2021). The Early Life of Mary Wollstonecraft. East End Womens Museum blog, https://eastendwomensmuseum.org/blog/2021/4/30/the-early-life-of-mary-wollstonecraftWollstonecraft, M. (1790). A Vindication of the Rights of Men. Printed for J. Johnson. WikiSource version, https://web.archive.org/web/20150906163640/https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Vindication_of_the_Rights_of_MenWollstonecraft, M. (2002). A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Project Gutenberg edition, https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3420/pg3420-images.htmlWollstonecraft, M. (2003). The Collected Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft. Ed. Janet Todd. Columbia University Press.

The Plague at Ashdod by Nicolas Poussin, 1631, in the Louvre Museum, ParisThe Plague of Justinian was a devastating pandemic that caused havoc across the world between the years 541 CE and 750 CE. The malady was the first recorded outbreak of the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Dubbed the First Pandemic, it inflicted immense human suffering on the Byzantine Empire and crippled it for generations.How Did the Plague Spread Initially?The Plague of Justinian. Source: General Research Division, The New York Public Library, (1843).The Plague of Justinian is believed to have originated in the port of Pelusium in Lower Egypt and then spread across the entire Mediterranean basin. In the spring of 542, its contagion peaked in Constantinople, the Byzantine capital, killing approximately 5,000 to 10,000 people per day. By 543 CE, the plague, which had begun to overwhelm resources in the capital, started to spread wildly across Europe and the Near East. It was the first deadly intercontinental wave of the two-century pandemic. By the end of the scourge, between 25 million and 60 million people had died from the disease.How Did the Plague Affect the Local Economy?Interior of the Hagia Sophia print by Louis Haghe, 1889. Source: British Museum, LondonAt the height of its devastation, the Justinian plague led to the collapse of the agricultural sector in the Byzantine Empire, leading to widespread food shortages due to the loss of farmers. The situation quickly snowballed to become one of the biggest economic crises of the empire. Unfortunately, the woes were compounded by Emperor Justinian Is fiscal policies which led to the abandonment of farms and the disruption of trade networks, which were at the time, the lifeblood of the empire. Justinian spent outlandish fortunes on military campaigns and ambitious building projects.Historically documented occurrences of the first plague pandemic. Source: The Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesHe, for example, built the grandiose Hagia Sophia, the main church of the Byzantine Empire, and funded wars. At the time, Justinians military sought to reconquer former Roman territories such as North Africa and Italy while at the same time defending its territories against the Sasanian Empire. Of course, some campaigns were successful, like the conquest of North Africa. But the prolonged war in Italy was very draining. Ultimately, the military costs associated with the campaigns, combined with the plagues impact on manpower, severely strained the empires resources.What Were the Immediate Effects on the Military Campaigns?Reconstruction of Constantinople in the year 1200. Source: Vivid MapsBefore the plague began, Emperor Justinian I, who had just ascended to power, aimed to restore the Roman Empire as part of his grand ambitions. At the beginning of his military campaigns, he won a series of early victories in North Africa and Italy. When the plague broke out, however, it quickly became the empires biggest problem, decimating ranks of soldiers within the first year. The Byzantine military was significantly affected by the plague throughout the mid-6th century. With many soldiers and generals lost, the weakened empire adapted a strategy to defend a shrinking border, albeit without sufficient manpower.The plan initially worked and enabled the empire to hold some key territories. The strategy involved supporting armies that fought Persian invaders to the East and Slavic tribesmen in the Balkans, as well as the Avars.In the late 6th century, the Byzantine hold on the West began to weaken due to conquests by some Germanic tribes such as the Lombards. The new invaders quickly resumed their attacks on the weakened nation. A few decades later, Lombard invaders had occupied most of Italy. However, major cities such as Ravenna and Rome remained under Byzantine control.What New Adversaries Took Advantage of the Weakened Byzantine Empire?Theodosian Walls of Constantinople, Byzantine 4th Century CE. Source: Wikimedia CommonsThe Byzantine Empires increasing vulnerability created a huge power vacuum, enabling new adversaries to appear. Although it defeated the Sasanian Empire in 628 CE, the empires military was greatly weakened by the conflict and the Justinian Plague. And soon afterwards, in the 630s CE, the Arab armies which were already growing in strength, began to strike.United by Islam, they launched attacks against the Byzantine Empire, leading to a long, protracted war that spanned centuries. The recurring plague, which had already taken a toll on the Byzantine Empire, caused it to lose huge swathes of its territories. By the end of the 7th century, Islamic armies had seized its richest provinces in Egypt and Syria.How Did the Plague Affect Religion in the Empire?St. Rosalie Interceding for the Plague-Stricken of Palermo by Anthony van Dyck, 1624. Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New YorkBy 750 CE, the plague had largely vanished from the Byzantine region. However, the horrifying nature of its lethality had already started to spawn religious doctrines, with many in the Byzantine Empire viewing it as an event that occurred due to divine punishment and as a consequence of sin. As such, it spurred acts of extreme religious devotion. The change caused Christianity in Byzantium to take on a more judgmental tone with greater emphasis being placed on divine judgment and salvation.

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