Conference Note The 7th International Conference on « Theoretical and Practical Aspects of Public Finance » at the Vysoká Škola ekonomická v Praze
More...Keywords: party financing in Bulgaria; political parties in Bulgaria;
This article covers the discussion on financing of political parties in Bulgaria, i.e. the abolished and the current laws, as well as the six bills introduced in the last two years by deputies from various parliamentary party groups, taking into account the opportunities afforded for preventing corruption in politics. The criteria for evaluation are a number of key questions to which contemporary democracies constantly seek adequate answers and which define the quality of every national legislation with regard to the financing of parties.
More...Keywords: Independance of Montenegro; Branko Lokovac; Milo Djukanović;
«1918», a left-wing German publication, stated recently: « The ‘nation state’ and the ‘right to self-determination’ seemed like magic spells: to each child a lantern and to each ‘nation’ its own state – with a flag, national anthem and army.» This mistaken belief promoted by the west is said to have claimed more lives since 1990/91 than the Tito regime. Therefore, the opinion of the Montenegrin foreign minister, Branko Lokovac, that all the peoples of the former Yugoslavia should normalise by remembering their national, ethnic and religious sovereignty, is seen by this publication as a potential civil war programme for the Balkans as demonstrated, in its view, by the Albanian UÇK in Macedonia.
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Keywords: information campaign; raising awareness; social economy; involvement
The article continues the description of the implementation of the “Social Economy – a real chance for a better life!” POSDRU project, started in the second volume/ no 1 – February 2012 of the “Social Economy Magazine”, and it offers information about the campaign developed in the South-West, South-East and Centre Region of Romania. The purpose of the campaign was to empower and involve the local communities in the process of social inclusion, to mobilize disadvantaged groups and to encourage collaboration and partnership between all the relevant actors in the community. The beneficiaries of the campaign were professionals from the public sector – social welfare area, the non-profit sector, representatives of the clerk who works on social work projects, as well as representatives of the business sector, interested in collaboration opportunities in the area of active social inclusion for disadvantaged people. The results of the campaign can be considered starting points in different analysis and diagnoses in the social economy and social work field.
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Keywords: career guidance; rural areas; capacity development for teachers; capacity development for students; parents’ involvement
Between 2011-2013 over 850 teachers, 30.000 students and 19.000 parents benefitted from the activities of the project “Career Guidance” (ACTIV), a regional initiative which set out to develop, in the region of Moldova (Romania), particularly in schools from rural areas, the capacity of teachers and school counsellors for organizing career guidance and counselling activities. Part of one of Alternative Sociale Association’s main fields of action, the project granted a special attention to students from underprivileged categories (students from families with a low economic status, from families affected by migration – children left behind, remigrant children, children with low school performance etc.). The backbone of the project is represented by training programs accredited by the Ministry of Education and by a manual for students and a guide for teachers distributed for free. The Study presented in this article concludes on the effects of these activities, detailing the perspective of the main parties involved: teachers, students and parents.
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Keywords: players of social economy; public sector; private sector; civil society
The study aims to bring certain clarifications regarding the nature of players involved in the social economy field, to emphasize their role and their concrete action possibilities, starting from the illustration of some initiatives that exist at national and international level. The study has been based on the use of three methods: the analysis of certain relevant documents from the perspective of social economy; secondary analysis of certain official statistics data or data coming from various researches carried out on active entities within the social economy field; quality research based on individual and group debates with the relevant players for the field of study; representatives of organizations that have applied for or are implementing projects in the field of social economy. A substantial contribution was brought by the discussions and the materials provided by the participants in the post-graduate training courses and in continuous development program ”Social economy in the field of socio-political sciences”, to whom the authors would like to give special thanks. The conclusions of the study are going towards the pro-active side of the conceptual type delimitations: a fair placement of the space and of the role that organization can have within social economy can support consistent, innovating undertakings that generate benefits for the society, community and the organization.
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Keywords: poetic inspiration; the Muses; Homer; "Illiad"; "Odyssey"
The concept of poetic inspiration — fundamental to ancient poetics, was for centuries founded on the image of a poet as an unconscious vessel for the Muses. However, no evidence of an actual possession was to be found in works of archaic poets, such as Homer, Hesiod or Pindar. The text of Iliad and Odyssey show that the relation between an artist and the goddess is of an intellectual nature, and that these two interact on many different levels. The Muse, stirs the bard to sing, supplies him with ‘divine’ knowledge, assists him whenever a need arises. But, at the same time, leaves him enough freedom when it comes to the composition of the poem.
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Keywords: Byzantium; antiquity; Cassia; poetry; language
“Cassia having lost her chance to be an empress, put on a nun’s habit and started writing many canons, stichera and other remarkable poetry” we read in a work entitled “Scriptores originum Constantionopolitanarum” about the only Byzantine female poet who wrote not only religious but also secular poetry. In this article I shortly describe Cassia’s story and her works but the main subject of the text is the issue of language and style of her secular poetry. First, I present definitions of Byzantine levels of style and their characteristics. The analysis of Cassia’s language in some of the most clear examples leads to the conclusion that we can classify Cassia’s gnomai as an example of the middle style of Byzantine literature. She usually uses Attic Greek, but she does not avoid some popular expressions; she imitates classical models as well as the Bible and contemporary writers; she is creative in “proper” Attic word formation, but she also creates a noun based on an occupation which was not known to Attic authors, which was considered as “wrong practice”. All in all there are some vernacular elements in her poetry as well as posh, classical ones but they are integrated in such a manner that Cassia’s language is coherent, understandable and pleasant. I also do a short analysis of the dodecasyllable, a metre used by Cassia in her poems and I come to the conclusion that Cassia’s gnomai are written in purely unprosodic dodecasyllable. This fact determined Cassia’s poetry to be seen as not “classical” at the very first glance. But since she used this “vernacular” metre for her sentences written in learned language we can see it as a final proof that Cassia’s gnomai are a part of the development of Byzantine literature as a link between the classical, posh, and official literature and the later, vernacular literature on which it depended.
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Keywords: Germanicus; Augustus; Aratea; stars; propaganda
Germanicus’ “Aratea”, an astronomical poem from 1st century CE is one of the earliest Latin translations of Aratus of Soli’s “Phaenomena”, a work well-known in antiquity. Germanicus brought a new value to the topic, not only translating a Greek poem, but in fact transferring it onto Roman ground by following great literary traditions. Being a favourite of the princeps, the young poet thoroughly changed the Greek model’s main theme from worshipping Zeus’ power to praising a head of state and his arrangements. “Aratea” is filled with traces of Augustus’ ideology: encouraging bringing back the “Roman virtues” (pietas, clementia, iustitia etc.), the princeps’ idea of pax and shaping a new approach to religion. The purpose of the article is to find these traces and examine their role in the poem.
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Keywords: intercultural translation; Bhagavadgita; guna; sattva; rajas; tamas; Schlegel.
Schlegel’s translation of Bhagavadgita documents a landmark attempt of assimilating and popularizing an important Indian text within the European mind. Presented in this article analysis of the translation suggests that Schlegel’s utilitarian goals overshadowed his efforts to accurately present some of Bhagavadgita’s key terms. Furthermore, by reason of an assumption in regards to the existence of factual equivalents of these terms in the Western culture, the ambition of layering the system of guna onto the Western mind resulted in an unclear representation of the underlying content found in the original Bhagavadgita; proper interpretation of the terms in accordance with their cultural heritage became impossible. In conclusion, contrary to Schlegel’s technique, modern inclinations and guidelines for sustaining philosophical terms in harmony with their original pronunciations are more likely to decrease the risk of stumbling upon copious doorways for interpretation and heading for resignation. Such approach may also help diminish the presence of excessive eruopocentrism in future processes of understanding the Indian mind and philosophy.
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Keywords: Dionysios Thrax; Apollonios Dyskolos; ancient grammar; diathesis
The aim of this paper is to attempt at conducting analysis of the meaning given to the word διάθεσιϚ in two most important grammatical texts written in ancient Greece, i.e. in the Τέχνη γραμματική attributed to Dionysios Thrax and in the treaty Περὶ συντάξεωϚ by Apollonios Dyskolos. The study leads to the conclusion that the meaning of that term occurring in both texts is quite difficult to find. Its ambiguity undoubtedly stems, at least to some extent, from real complexity of the matter it refers to. Apart from that, its vagueness results, on the one hand, from not sufficiently precise description of the criteria identifying the concepts related to that term, and from multitude and incoherence of those criteria, on the other. Due to those shortcomings, the designatum of that term, although close to the notion of the grammatical category of voice, is not quite equivalent to it. However, it reflects undoubtedly the way Alexandrian grammarians perceived the effects of the existence of that category in the grammatical system of the Greek language.
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Keywords: Seneca; providence; Deus; dialogue; “De providentia”
In the work titled “De providentia” Lucilius, the addressee of “Epistulae morales” and “Naturales quaestiones”, is given the role of Seneca’s interlocutor, although in fact the text is not a dialogue, but a monologue — the philosopher’s conversation with himself is moulded in the shape of a Cynic or Stoic diatribe. The book was probably composed when Seneca removed himself from public life in the years 62—65 A.D. The main theme of the opusculum is why good people suffer from various inconveniences. Herein the philosopher uses words providentia and deus as synonyms. Fortuna, in his opinion, submitted to providence. Fatum in this work is both the force (the synonym of providentia) which governs the world, and a determined lifetime of people. Seneca affirms that providence is a divine force, but imputes to it explicit person’s features.
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Keywords: a stylistic analysis; metre; sound instrumentation; caesuras; aliterations; enjambement; onomatopoeia; syllabic homophony; euphony
The author conducted a stylistic analysis of the last 65 poems of the Book XII of “The Aeneid” by Virgil in terms of the effects the dactylic hexameter and sound instrumentation provided the Roman poets with. The very analysis should make the readers of Virgil and other Ancient authors aware of the fact that translating words is only a preliminary activity to understanding an extremely refined art of word which astonishes us.
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Keywords: Latin literature; pastoral; Endelechius
“Carmen Bucolicum de mortibus boum” was firstly edited in 1586 and from that time it has been published many times. Despite many editions it is still hard to tell who the author was and when the poem was written. Publishers used to give many inconvenient pieces of information, in which two names are being repeated: “Severus Sanctus” and “Endelechius Rhetor”. The main problem is that we cannot tell which one was the composer so editors mixed together two names and created “Severus Sanctus” Endelechius. What’s more the main theme of this poem — attack of terrible pest — disagrees with a pastoral tradition and the question is, whether “De mortibus boum” should be called a bucolic eclogue or not. One thing is sure, this poem is the only preserved example of Christian pastoral poetry and indicates influence of Christianity on Roman literature.
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Keywords: William Whiston; history of science; cosmology; biblical exegesis
William Whiston (1667–1752) was an English divine, mathematician andastronomer. His works nicely reveal the close relationship between sci-ence and religion in the Early Modern period. The paper aims to characteriseWhiston’s way of thinking in the light of his Astronomical Principles of Religion, Natural and Reveal’d (1717).
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Keywords: rock sanctuary; Christianity; prehistoric astronomical observation; paganism; paleoastronomy; animal swallowing the sun; equinoxes; sacred places; movement of luminaries
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Keywords: Baltic tribes; Baltic languages; Estonian archaeology; Estonian fairy tales; Estonian ancient religion; Baltic Finnic tribes; Baltic Finnic languages; Taara/Tooru; Uku/Ukko; thunder god; supreme being/supergod
According to basic religious-phenomenological principles a supreme beingresides in heaven or is the heaven, an omnipotent creator, who is often as-signed the function of thunder, is called either Father or Grandfather, is sac-rificed the primal offering, and has turned into deus otiosus.Comparative linguistics has revealed that the earliest conception of a Balto-Finnic and Estonian supreme god dates back to the Finno-Volgaic etymologi-cal stratum, to the Neolithic period (3rd millennium BC), in archaeologicalterms. This is evidenced by the Estonian word juma(l) ‘god’, which had for-merly signified heaven, but also the Indo-European loan taevas ‘heaven’ inthe Estonian language. The divergence of the con-ception of thunder god Ukuor Ukko apparently took place in the 1st mil-lennium BC; this is also indi-cated by archaeological data. According to the 13th-century Henrici Chronicon Livoniae and other chronicles the thun-der god of the coastal Estonians hasalso been called Taara or Tooru, which may be a derivation of the OldScandinavian Thor.
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Keywords: skull modelling; Neolithization; Levant; symbols of funerary rituals
This paper is a postmodern critique of the theory of the impact of mortuary practices on Neolithization in the Near East. It offers a detailed theoretical consideration of secondary burials and the impact of ideology on the transformation of society from mobile hunter-gatherer to sedentary farming societies. One part of the symbolic aspect of life, the spiritual, burials and their associated rituals, forms the framework of the paper and the lens through which change and the first signs of the Neolithic can be observed. The conclusion reached is that Neolithization occurred initially in the world of symbols, and thereby of ideology, and that a key element of the new Neolithic ideology and cultural matrix was a new mortuary practice, a lengthy process involving the entire community, for which certain individuals were particularly responsible. The evolution of the mortuary practice of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic in the Levant and Anatolia at this time changed the ideological matrix of society, and constitutes one of the most important factors of Neolithization, successfully domesticating death at the symbolic level and creating cults that were crucial to the sedentary lifestyle. The domestication of death through funerary rituals proved to have initiated changes to the way of life that preceded changes to the economy.
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