Keywords: Centre for Advanced Study; CAS; CAS-Sofia; Newsletter; CAS Newsletter; CAS Newsletter 2007
Articles, pictures and interviews can be reprinted only with the consent of Centre for Advanced Study Sofia (CAS - Sofia). Any citations should be duly acknowledged.
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Recent accession to the European Union means a speedy and dramatic shift in economic culture and practices toward a common market economy and behavior. How will Romania, with about half of its population leaving in villages and about one third of its active population involved in agriculture f t into this emerging post-peasant society? What will be the main tensions and the short term adjustments of this emerging social context? Without aiming to advocate for one scenario or another, the present essay intends to explore the role households and household centered economy actually play and will play in this context.
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Keywords: Serbia; memorandum; responsibility; SANU; regime; Serb question; political history; Slobodan Milošević; national program;
(English edition) The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) came to the political forefront some 10 years ago. Criticized by the “old regime” for the manner in which it raised the Serb question and its project of national homogenization (1986), and then encouraged by the “new regime” to continue its efforts, the Academy as an institution consented in the most critical years which determined the future of the common Yugoslav state (1987-1991) to act as a “collective mind” in judging and positively evaluating the execution of the “project” by Slobodan Milošević. It was this moment in the Academy’s political activity that caused internal turmoil and led to the crystallization of several groupings within its politically active membership. If the primary rift in 1992 was marked by being for or against Milošević personally, with both sides on the whole approving his “national project,” the breach is now much deeper at all levels. Nowadays the opinions of the members of the Academy differ on virtually all issues: the evaluation of Milošević’s rule, the point at which it became “bad” or “less bad,” the role of the Academy in society, the Memorandum, the nature of the wars in Yugoslavia, what constitutes victory or defeat, the importance and responsibility of intellectuals, population problems, and even election of their own officers. The Academy no longer comes out with common political stands, its present and former presidents deny that it is a “collective mind” and often cite ignorance of the situation as the reason why they cannot make public statements. Members even react to addresses delivered by officers at the Academy’s assemblies and meetings. It is therefore impossible today to reply to questions regarding the political orientation of the Academy, whether or not it at present has a “national program,” how it envisages Serbia’s future, since one would inevitably have to ascribe the views of a particular group of politically active academicians to the institution as a whole. Just as there was no doubt that such a group existed up to 1991 and encountered little overt opposition within the Academy, it is now certain that there are no more undisputed (national-political) authorities in the institution; only individuals remain with their personal opinions which are binding on no one but themselves. After a long series of failures, erroneous prognoses and an impermissibly uncivilized public settling of accounts, their personal authority as the “minds of the nation” has at best been seriously shaken, if it exists at all. For the reasons cited above, this paper is an overview of the stands predominating among the leading members of the Academy, its former and current presidents, and the stands of the politically active academicians. These academicians were in what used to be the dominant current in the Academy and are now only individuals who have closed their political circle – from their former belief that the generation which was nearing its allotted span had been called upon to reveal to the nation the road it should take, to the realization that the responsibility for all the defeats that have occurred in the meantime lies either on one man or is “collective.” Of their once staunch support for Slobodan Milošević, all that remains are their confused replies to the question: “Why do I protest?”
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Keywords: Serbia; social awareness; social crisis; demography; generations; regression; egalitarism; ethnicity; mind-set; history; interpretation; west; manipulation; transition; political crisis; recession; NATO; Kosovo; civic alliance;
(English edition) This report contains the analysis of data collected during the month of October 1999. One should have in mind this time frame-when considering the findings, drawing different generalizations or setting guidelines for possible actions. Sets of values of members of the observed generation, their social awareness, perception of the past and present, their stance on the West, and above all their potential to bring about changes are essentially determined by some long-standing and less intensive structural factors. To put it simply a generation of people who today have between 25 and 35 years, and who represent the future of the country, was to a large extent formed under the influence of structural features of the society eroded by constant wars and war threats, protracted economic crisis, internal conflicts and strife and total confusion in the sphere of social awareness and public moral. The generation which in the last decade came of age in such a society per force had to reflect its essential characteristics, despite a relative autonomy which each age groups had as its inherent characteristic. Young people and even relatively young people, to which the respondents of this survey belong, have a determined biological and psychological potential which can help them partially overcome the given moment of time and which usually indicates some of their future contents and values in the present day. In that sense one could expect that the mind-set of the observed generation substantially differs from so-called social conscience. But in conditions of an ever-deepening social crisis, in which the process of coming-of-age unfolded under pressure of retrograde, rather than progressive social factors, the aforementioned advantages of such a generation are less manifest, since their potential crumbles under pressure of a regressive society. One must bear in mind the aforementioned and thus avoid to treat unjustly the observed age group: they are expected to be the creators of the Serbian society at the beginning of the Twenty-first century, but it is pretty obvious that their social actions will be affected by a sorry legacy of the social and moral collapse. In fact they were not less predestined than the earlier generations to be unequipped for the contemporary world. They simply developed under much less favorable conditions. But this should not minimize their responsibility for the future development of society in Serbia. On the other hand such adverse development factors should be borne in mind if one truly wishes to understand the traits of this generation, instead of bluntly condemning them. My intention is not to prejudge results evidenced by this survey, but it bears mentioning that it is easier to reject the middle generation in Serbia, like Serbia proper, than to try to understand and render assistance to both.
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Keywords: Serbia;rights and freedoms; minorities; round-table; multicultural; cohabitation; autonomy;
In view of the key importance of inter-ethnic relations and status of national minorities in Serbia for development of democracy, Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, Centre for Regionalism, the Vojvodina Club and Centre for Multiculturality have organised the round-table "National Minorities in Serbia" on 8 and 9 September 2000 in Novi Sad. Participants in this round-table were representatives of several dozen NGOs from Vojvodina and Serbia, representatives of political parties, prominent public personalities and experts for minority rights and ethnic relations. In a two-day debate participants in the round-table underscored that peace, tolerance and democratization of the society represent the basic prerequisite of the exercise of individual and collective rights and freedoms in the Republic of Serbia. Considering that a social community in the Republic of Serbia has a markedly heterogeneous cultural character and the fact that it is faced with pronounced ethnification of politics and intolerant nationalism, our discussion confirmed that the majority nation, that is, the ruling political establishment, were to be blamed for such a poor status of inter-ethnic relations. Hence the current political authorities cannot be relieved of responsibility from catastrophic consequences of internal conflicts and external and internal isolation. After analysing institutions and real social and political processes and actions of the most influential political protagonists, it was established that we all must insist on comprehensive implementation of ideas and legal-constitutional norms determining the Republic of Serbia as a state of equitable citizens, and the one guaranteeing corresponding standards in attainment and exercise of collective rights of national minorities in Serbia. Unfortunately during our discussion we identified through a host of examples a pronounced gulf between proclaimed norms and concrete reality in the sphere of protection of national minorities rights, notably in development and expression of their cultural identity. After the SFRY disintegration, the problem of "new minorities", notably Croats, Bosniaks, and Macedonians, emerged in Serbia. This problem entails official recognition of those minorities and concrete legal regulation of their status and rights. During preparations for the 2001 census scientific and cultural institutions and representative bodies should lay the groundwork for facilitating the free declaration of nationality by citizens. This particularly applies to Bosniaks, who have been deprived of that right to date. It is also expected that the democratic opposition of Serbia shall take a clear public stand on manner of resolution of minority problems, and incorporate pertinent proposals into their program of changes, offered as an alternative to the current regime. We brought into prominence the need to revive earlier initiatives for adoption of the Act on National Minorities in the Republic of Serbia, aimed at removing current shortcomings and imprecise points, and boosting harmonisation of domestic legal and political practice with the European standards on the Protection of Minorities. Our discussion indicated that the Republic Serbia in its relations with almost all neighbouring countries disregards the issue of minorities, and that this negligence is in turn reflected in the status of minorities and has a negative impact on relations between the majority and minorities. The role of ecological issues was discussed in the context of good-neighbourly relations, for they alike the minority issue clear the way for establishment of broad and efficient communications. Considering regional trends within the context of Europe those two issues can play an important role in the inclusion of Serbia in the project of European regions. Participants think that the Stability Pact is a conceptual framework for analysis of the most important problems and devising models of their resolution.
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Keywords: Stalin;Poetry
In so far as biographers are willing to bring up Stalin’s humble beginnings as a poet it is usually for the purpose of demonstrating that even in his early years the future dictator was characterized by romanticism and passion for almost Nietzschean fantasies.
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Keywords: antiquity; lighting; lamps; Egypt; Middle East
The Bouvier Collection presents a corpus of almost 800 clay oil lamps from Egypt and the Near East, collected by the Swiss Maurice Bouvier in Alexandria in the first half of the 20th century. Far from collections reflecting their owner’s aesthetic taste or iconographic predilection, the series of lamps published in this volume builds a true panoply of almost all the typologies attested in Egypt from the Phoenician period to the Mamluk sultanate, with a large appendix on Near Eastern types, acquired during trips to Lebanon and Syria. This Swiss collection today is second only to the holdings of the Benaki Museum in Athens. The volume is a milestone of Egyptian, Syrian and Lebanese lychnological studies. The presentation of the material offers in effect a long awaited synthesis of a field that is both difficult and still understudied. The corpus of lamps in the catalog covers all the major historical periods, bringing to the fore many local specificities of Egypt and the Near East, from Phoenician times through the Mamluk period. Complementing the catalog are reviews of the producer’s marks on the bases of the lamps and of the iconographic motifs decorating the discuses of Roman lamps. These will be a ready aid for studies of the actual lamps, both produced locally in Egypt and imports, as well as of the dissemination of decorative motifs. This synthetic and diachronic approach is illustrated by a set of exceptional photographs taken by the collector’s grandson, Marc Bouvier. Students of this category of objects from Egypt and the Near East are also given an exhaustive bibliography on the subject collected by the author, an expert lychnologist, who has dedicated the past twenty years to research on lighting devices and ancient oil lamps in particular. He has given voice to his interests, including the anthropological, social, religious and macro-economic aspects of lighting in antiquity, in an extensive introduction preceding the catalog. The volume is prefaced by Tomasz Waliszewski and introduced by Jolanta Młynarczyk.
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Keywords: migration; Bildungsroman; hybrid identity; postcolonial context; Monica Ali; Brick Lane;
Focusing on Monica Ali’s novel Brick Lane, and with regard to its major protagonists Nazneen, Chanu, and Karim, the present study reveals the ways in which the author creates characters who face difficulties and are subjected to crises caused by their alienation from their native country, culture and identity, which would lead in turn to their cultural ambiguity, transformation into hybrid individuals, and eventually to experiences of identity crisis in an environment represented by the Bangladeshi community in east London. Monica Ali reveals that identity is under threat within the East End immigrant community; in this respect, she appears to materialize in her fictional discourse various concepts and concerns – such as identity, identity crisis, identity formation, individual subject, developing consciousness, hybridity, ambiguity, mimicry, individual and society – just as Wordsworth would reify in his literary practice his own principles of poetic composition, or as Lawrence would express in his novels the Freudian principles.
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for more detailed information regarding the content of this issue please download the Table of Content, which you find in the "Contents"-Tab as "Information"
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Keywords: film;festival;catalogue;
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Keywords: festival;catalogue;film;
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Keywords: cultureme;culturemes;connotation;allusion;translation unit;neologism;monoculturality;
The purpose of this article is to give further details about the concept of cultureme (the culture-bound term or phrase), its definition and semantic field. The significance of this term in the theory of the cultureme and in the theory of linguistic transfer, in the sociology of culture and in sociolinguistics offers the opportunity to set the semantic limits of cultureme and to identify its significance in translation studies. The binary opposition cultureme-translation unit, cultureme-connotation, cultureme-neologism etc. is thought to be a powerful tool to elucidate the fundamental characteristic of the cultureme: monoculturality and its relative autonomy of translation. A classification of the culturemes is suggested to facilitate the translation process and to choose the most appropriate method of translation.
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POLITICAL CULTURE AND PARLIAMENTARISM IN UKRAINE: CURRENT STATE AND MAIN PROBLEMS // POLITICAL CULTURE OF UKRAINIAN CITIZENS: SPECIAL ASPECTS AND TRENDS // MAIN PROBLEMS OF PARLIAMENTARISM IN UKRAINE // FEATURES AND TRENDS IN BUILDING A UKRAINIAN POLITICAL CULTURE: EXPERT OPINIONS // PROBLEMS OF FORMATION AND FUNCTIONING OF UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENTARISM // STUDY “UKRAINIAN POLITICAL CULTURE AND PARLIAMENTARISM TODAY: PROBLEMS AND DEVELOPMENT TRENDS, WAYS OF IMPROVEMENT” // CHANGING MOTIVATION TO PROTEST TO MOTIVATION FOR INVOLVEMENT // POLITICAL PARTICIPATION AS AN INDICATOR OF DEVELOPING PARLIAMENTARISM: UKRAINE’S CHARACTERISTICS
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CHURCH-RELIGIOUS SITUATION AND STATE-CONFESSIONAL RELATIONS IN UKRAINE: DECADES OF THE DECADE, TRENDS AND PROBLEMS // SECTION 1. RELIGIOUS NETWORK IN UKRAINE: STATE AND TRENDS OF DEVELOPMENT // SECTION 2. LEVEL AND NATURE OF RELIGION OF UKRAINIAN SOCIETY // SECTION 3. STATE-CONFESSIONAL RELATIONS: TRENDS AND PROBLEMS // ADDRESS OF THE PARTICIPANTS OF THE PERMANENT ROUND TABLE "RELIGION AND GOVERNMENT IN UKRAINE: PROBLEMS OF RELATIONSHIP" TO THE PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE, THE VERKHOVNA RADA OF UKRAINE, THE CABINET OF MINISTERS OF UKRAINE // RELIGION AND GLOBAL POLICY: THE WORLD AND UKRAINE // MEMORANDUM OF CHRISTIAN CONFESSIONS OF UKRAINE ON NON-RESPONSE TO FORCES ININTER-RELIGIOUS RELATIONS // CONCEPT OF STATE-CONFESSIONAL RELATIONS IN UKRAINE
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BASIC PRINCIPLES AND MEANS OF THE FORMATION OF A COMMON IDENTITY OF UKRAINIAN CITIZENS // 1. IDENTITY OF UKRAINIAN CITIZENS: VALUE ORIENTATIONS // Socio-Psychological Climate in Ukrainian Society as a Factor in Forming the Value System // Ethnic and Language Identity // Identity as Identification with a Certain Community // Ethnic Stereotypes // Value Orientations of Ukrainian Citizens // Social and Political Values // Conclusions // Public Opinion Survey (Tables and Diagrams) // 2. INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT OF A NATIONAL IDENTITY POLICY // 3. NATIONAL IDENTITY FORMATION: INFLUENTIAL FACTORS, BASIC PRINCIPLES AND AREAS OF FOCUS // National Identity Formation: Influential Factors, Basic Principles and Areas of Focus // Language Policy // Cultural Policy // Policy of Collective Memory, De-communisation // Factors that Unite or Divide the Society // 4. THE CONCEPTUAL APPROACH TO THE FORMATION OF A COMMON NATIONAL IDENTITY OF UKRAINIAN CITIZENS // BASIC PRINCIPLES AND MEANS OF A COMMON UKRAINIAN IDENTITY FORMATION
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If something about anti-Americanism has really changed since 2001, popular culture can hardly be blamed. But if the attitudes expressed and the policies enacted by the US population and government synchronize with the methods and messages of popular culture, then a proportion of anti-American feeling can be attributed to its influence. The rich vein of anti-US sentiment relates to four issues, each of which is given considerable attention in most parts of the world: • economics; • militarism; • politics; and • culture. This report is principally concerned with the last category, though as we shall see, it is inseparable from the others. The bulk of the report examines points of continuity since 2001 rather than rupture, since most of the infrastructure and impact of US popular culture on export were in place before that time. There is some consideration of new diplomatic attempts to influence the country’s image abroad. The report discusses the following topics: • key terms; • US cultural dominance; • opposition; • role of the state; and • conclusion and recommendations.
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