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The article deals with the emergence and spread of clock towers in the Bulgarian lands during the Ottoman period. The following important conclusions are drown: 1. The clock towers, which appeared in the second half of the 16th c. in the western Balkans, spread until the late 19th c. in the Bulgarian lands, as well. The earliest account of such a clock tower is about the Plovdiv town clock and is dated from 1611. 2. Until the early 18th c. the clock towers built in the Bulgarian lands were multifunctional. They served as observation, signal, fire, and defense towers. In the 18th and especially in the 19th c., however, these towers served to keep the working time of the craftsmen and mer- chants, thus being an instrument in restricting the competition between and exploitation amongst them. 3. The spread of clock towers in the Balkans was influenced by the west European tradition in building of such architectural forms. Initially the Balkan patterns followed the local building traditions, but in the course of time and mainly in the 19th c. some modern western architectural styles were also applied. As a result a common Balkan architectural type of clock towers was developed in the Ottoman Empire.
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The article presents the results of the study and restoration of the murals in the naos and narthex of the Church of the Assumption in Arbanasi. A comparison is made between the techniques of painting in these premises and in the chapel of the Holy Trinity. But the study and restoration of the church shed light not only on the technology of building and painting but also on its history. The observations offer a possibility to present a well-grounded thesis regarding the three con- struction periods of the temple. Initially the building covered the present naos and it is possible that there was an outside narthex. This was an building covered by a semicylindrical vault and with two conchs which were within the thickness of the walls. Later, in the 17th c. the narthex was added. Data shows that possibly the height of the church was raised. This might be the reason for the two premises to be painted anew. Finally, in 1704 the chapel was built which can be proved by the joint on the western side of the façade between the old narthex and the narthex of the chapel. In a future restoration of the altar space and the chapel some new evi- dence about the construction history of the temple might be discovered.
More...Keywords: Literary history; History of childhood; History of reading; History of books; Croatian children's literature; 19th century
Following the advocacy of Roger Chartier and Robert Darnton for a dual historiographical and literary approach to the history of reading, in this article the author discusses the dominant supra-individual signifiers in children’s literature and the notions of childhood which are ascribed to them in the period from the end of the 18th century to the final decades of the 19th century, that is, from the beginning of the systemic production of books directed toward children in the Croatian language to the more increased production of specific and exclusively children’s literature. Selecting, documenting, and interpreting autobiographical texts and popular narratives, as well as para-textual (subheadings, epilogues, and so on) representations of children’s literature in this period, demonstrates the linguistic and class stratifications of the time, as well as fluidity in genre, media, and time period in Croatian literature in the 19th century, likewise in the multiple and always entangled (sometimes recurrent, and sometimes misplaced) relations between readers and books, praxis and perception and finally between past and present
More...Keywords: Bay of Kotor; Neoabsolutism; Maritime sailing
Following the unrest of 1848/1849 the inhabitants of the hill country around the Bay of Kotor gradually accepted the duty of paying taxes on the land that was registered to them as well as the obligation of military service duty similar to the other inhabitants of the Kingdom of Dalmatia. In conditions of relative peace and forced silence in the Bay a process of modernization was carried out which can be traced through administrative reforms, judicial reforms, and reforms of the police and military. The previous Territorial Guards were replaced by the Gendarmerie, which had the duty of keeping law and order in the villages of the Bay that had earlier been in a state of unrest. At the end of the 1850s, the Bay along with the rest of Dalmatia was integrated in the customs apparatus of Austria, and new lower rates of customs duty stimulated maritime and inland trade, the foundation of shareholder corporations, the first forms of capitalist enterprise. During these years a telephone line was established through the Bay of Kotor, post offices were opened and telephones and telegraphs were put in place. Two naval academies were established, one in Kotor, the other in Herceg Novi. During the Crimean War and the Austrian war with Piedmont, fortifications were constructed in the Bay and the Bay became transformed into a military base. Along with traditional ways of life, there was an attempt to try new modes, so, for example, the Bay led Dalmatia in the production of silkworms. In the new political climate cultural life was impoverished though it continued to develop quietly in the towns of the Bay of Kotor
More...Keywords: Ante Starčević; National ideology
The author analyzes social theories in the works of the Croatian politician and ideologue Ante Starčević (1823-1896). In his works, Starčević developed a system of national ideology in which he addressed many significant political, economic, and cultural issues. He proposed the cooperation of the various social classes in order to more easily realize his key political objective: the creation of an independent Croatian state. He represented an idealistic view of the state as a moral community which had to ensure a good life for its members and the concept of civic nationalism by which all members of the nation were citizens without regard to their ethnic and religious origins. In terms of political views, Starčević was a typical 19th century liberal, because he argued for the principle of national sovereignty, but with a strong bent toward elitism, so that women and the lower (peasantry) social classes were not directly to participate in political life. On the question of religion, he was a supporter of laicization, though he was not an atheist. Starčević sought the economic and cultural modernization of Croatian society, though he did not believe that great strides could be made toward this goal while Croatia remained politically suppressed within the framework of Austria. He believed that the peasant communes, in which the bulk of Croats still lived, should be preserved after certain reforms were carried out and that they should only be dismantled if it was a matter of great duress. Starčević had faith in historical progress, considering the societies of Western Europe, particularly France, the pinnacle of progressive development. Starčević ignored current theories of evolution and retained the traditional humanistic notion of humanity’s exceptionality.
More...Keywords: Spanish Civil War; Croatian press; Alcázar; Siget; Sites of memory
During the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), the propaganda battle waged in Spain and abroad between General Francisco Franco’s Nationalists and the Republicans, supported mainly by the Soviet Union, was nearly as imporatant as the fighting in the front lines. This article examines how the Croatian press depicted the siege of the Alcázar, one of the key battles during the first year of the conflict. The Croatian sympathizers of Franco tapped into the imagery, tropes, and collective memory of the Battle of Siget (1566) to depict the siege of the Alcázar as a modern version of that epic event. By blurring the lines between Croatia’s own past and the struggle in Spain, they ultimately sought to generate support for a more radical solution to Croatia’s national question that existed under the royal dictatorship during interwar Yugoslavia. Franco’s Nationalists, openly aided by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, increasingly served as a favorable model for certain circles of Croatian intellectuals. Comparisons between the Alcázar and Siget enabled the Croatian right to draw upon symbols and myths of the past to warn of a new danger to Western civilization – that is, both in Spain and Croatia – which took the form not of Turkish hordes, but of communists, socialists, and other political opponents on the left
More...Keywords: Yugoslav Moslem Organization; Yugoslav Radical Community; Sarajevo; Mehmed Spaho; Uzeir Hadžihasanović; Šefkija Behmen
The article, based on the archival sources and contemporary press presents the roots of political split within the Yugoslav Moslem Organization (YMO) that started immediatly after the parilamentary elections in May 1935 and after Mehmed Spaho, the head of the YMO, joined the government of Milan Stojadinović and included YMO into the newly founded ruling Yugoslav Radical Community. The split developed around the communal affairs in the town of Sarajevo and the question of the Islamic Religious Community and these two issues had a long reaching effect that resulted in the wider political split among Moslems after Spaho died in 1939. After his death the split led to a definite division into two factions which had mutually opposed views concerning the key political and national issues.
More...Keywords: Yugoslav exhibitions; Yugoslavism; Yugoslav artistic space
The theme of this article is Yugoslav exhibitions which were held in the period from 1904 to 1940 and played a great role in the process of bringing together Yugoslav artists in the creation of a unified cultural space in the first decades of the 20th century. Political conflicts in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia led, nevertheless, to a decrease in enthusiasm of artists as far as the Yugoslav idea was concerned, leading to the demise of the idea of a unified artistic space not unlike the fate which overtook the Yugoslavian state itself.
More...Keywords: Istria; First World War; Andrija Karlin; Trifun Pederzolli; Antun Mahnić; Croatian Catholic Movement; Italian Catholic Movement
Even though Pope Benedict XV, after failed attempts to end its outbreak, judged the First World War as such, without attempting to cast blame to either side or to support one of the two warring camps, the episcopates of particular countries, starting from the Catholic teaching of just war, attempted to justify the war measures of their governments. During the war, Papal peace initiatives were rejected within Catholic circles due to their de-motivating effect on soldiers at the front. Andrija Karlin, the bishop of Trieste-Kopar, a Slovene, considered Austria’s entry into the war as justified, because those who attacked the Monarchy and intended to destroy it also intended to destroy the Church itself, since the Monarchy was its most devoted defender. Karlin remained a stalwart defender of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy even after it became clear that the Monarchy was an obstacle to the realization of “Slavic” national aims. The attitude of the bishop of Poreč-Pula, Trifun Pederzolli, an Italian, was in exact line with the general attitude of the Austrian episcopate – enemies had befallen “our Empire” which had to be defended against the attack of destructive forces. In declarations of support for Austrian policies and Austrian war aims Pederzolli was moderately conventional, which is why he was not decried by Italian irredentist circles. Antun Mahnić, a Slovene by birth, joined the Croat national corpus upon taking the see at Krk, and in short order moved from adherence to the ideas of the Party of Right to integral Yugoslavism. Thus, the collapse of the Dual Monarchy, whose entrance into the war he proclaimed a justifiable defense of embattled state interests, was not unwelcome to him, because a unified Yugoslav state was created out of its ruins, which for Mahnić was an act of divine providence. The Croatian and Italian Catholic movements, as the outgrowth of organic Catholic movements immediately prior to the outbreak of the First World War and during that war, following the ever greater concentration of organized political Catholicism with the national question, became great supporters of Yugoslavism, an irredentist political concept
More...Keywords: Eastern Herzegovina; Dubrovnik; Homeland War; Croatian; Army operations
From 1992 to 1995, the Herzegovinian Corps of the Army of the Serb Republic (VRS) continuously carried out artillery attacks upon the Dubrovnik Riviera and along the valley of the Neretva which led to many civilian casualties and extensive material damage, paralyzing the normal life of its citizens. Likewise, the forces of the VRS attempted to breakthrough toward the Dubrovnik Riviera, aiming at obtaining an outlet to the Adriatic Sea for the Serb Republic. In an effort to end these attacks, the Chief of Staff of the Croatian Army (HV) prepared a plan under the code name “Burin” in the autumn of 1995 to liberate a part of eastern Herzegovina. In this operation, units under the Southern Front Command, assisted by the Guard Brigades, were to make a three pronged attack to liberate the Herzegovinian counties of Trebinje and Ljubinje as well as the ring of mountains in central Herzegovina from which the artillery of the VRS was firing its salvos. A military operation to liberate territory from which artillery fire is being directed at civilians is not unheard of, and is an acceptable motive by international standards. A good example of this is the Golan Heights, from which the Syrian army directed artillery attacks against Israeli settlements around the Sea of Galilee, which motivated the Israeli Army to take the Heights in 1967, and hold them to today. Though preparations for Operation “Burin” were carried out in August and September of 1995, the operation was not executed. The main reason for this was the assessment of American diplomatic representatives that the action of the HV in eastern Herzegovina, a borderland with Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), would draw the Yugoslav Army into fight. With this the war would be prolonged, instead of ending sooner, which was contrary to the peace plan of the US. Thus the Croatian leadership was asked to suspend this offensive, which it did. After peace negotiations in Dayton in November 1995 achieved a comprehensive peace agreement for Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, Operation “Burin” was entirely quashed. Because the operation was not carried out, it is difficult to speak about what could have potentially been achieved, but it certainly would have significantly changed the geostrategic relations in Bosnia-Herzegovina and southern Croatia. The suspension of “Burin” is an important indication of the influence of the US on the overall result of the conclusion of the Homeland War.
More...Keywords: Yugoslavia; Armed forces; Presidium of Yugoslavia; Supreme command; Chief of Supreme Command; Homeland War
For the command of the Yugoslavian armed forces from the 1960s onward, the concept of leadership and command is used. Command is a well-established concept, while leadership presupposes the existence of a collective body which makes political decisions that are carried out by command structures. Since Yugoslavia was neither a democratic state nor one that respected the rule of law, the leadership and command structure was established to organize and preserve communist hegemony in the state. Secondly, since Josip Broz Tito was the leader of Yugoslavia from 1945 until 1980, this created a peculiarly Yugoslavian distinction in that the leadership and command of the armed forces was in his hands, and no one else could interfere in this direct relationship. This meant that after his death the Yugoslavian Army could become politically independent, while the Presidium of Yugoslavia remained only formally the constitutionally established body with responsibility for the leadership and command of the Yugoslav armed forces. In the 1980s the Yugoslavian Army succeeded in forming a Supreme Command in which the post of Chief of Staff was filled by the federal secretary for national defense. On the basis of later developments it can be concluded that the purpose of the Supreme Command was to shift the power of command from the Presidium of Yugoslavia to the federal secretary of national defense on the principle that in the absence or impediment Presidium, the secretary of national defense would be able to carry out command. This is the manner by which the units functioned, from the regimental level upward to the military districts. In the last phase of the Yugoslav crisis and following the division of the Presidium into two parts which could no longer function as a whole, the Yugoslav Army through the Supreme Command began to act independently. Until October 1991, the secretary of national defense was the real, if unlawful, supreme commander of the Yugoslavian Army. At the beginning of October, when the remaining members of the Presidium of Yugoslavia consisted only of Serbia with its regions and Montenegro, the Presidium began to function again, though the other republics and the international community did not recognize its legitimacy. From then onward the Yugoslav Army became de facto the armed force of Serbia and the Serbs in the remainder of Yugoslavia, which in May 1992 it became de jure.
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Keywords: statutory pension age; social security; ageing of population; good governance; interactive governance methods
In many European countries, the well-diagnosed population ageing tendency leads to gradual raising of the minimum statutory pension age. Such a reform is socially unpopular and requires social partners’ dialogue, political debate, public opinion surveys, and other participatory governance measures. We assume that if more interactive instruments were used in the legislative process and in shaping social policy in general, people would more easily accept otherwise unpopular reforms. Th e hypothesis is tested on the case of the legislature raising minimum statutory pension age in Poland. Th e conclusions go beyond the social security system. Raising statutory pension age is only a means to lengthen the economic activity period by postponing real labour exit age. From that point of view, in the paper, the lawmaking process is questioned as the most powerful tool to achieve social policy outcomes. We suggest the development of silver economy and active-age management on a micro scale should be complementary good governance tools leading to social inclusion in the old age, and to sustainability of the pension system.
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Keywords: functional urban area; integrated territorial investments; metropolitan governance; urban policy
In the paper, we assume the conclusions of the analysis of cross-border cooperation apply to the design of new initiatives for cooperation and to proposals regarding urban functional areas. Th e analysis leads to the conclusion that external fi nancial intervention could jeopardize existing bottom-up structures of cooperation, and that forcing the creation of new organizations can reduce the stability of existing patterns of cooperation. The author argues in favour of using strategic planning tools to stimulate voluntary cooperation in functional areas.
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Keywords: knowledge-based/knowledge-driven economy; innovative economy or information society; critical discourse analysis; word-system theory; dominant ideology
Th e paper presents an analysis of the genesis and functions of a wide range of modernization discourses on knowledge-based/knowledge-driven economy, innovative economy, or information society. Relying on the methods of critical discourse analysis (of what we call “discourses of the new society”, given their strong component of the vision of socio-cultural changes), it shows the basic mechanisms of legitimization of social inequalities and reproduction of hierarchies in the contemporary world. Th e paper uses the Wallerstein notions of the world system theory to focus on the role of the discourses in legitimization of the dependence of the peripheral and semi-peripheral countries.
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Keywords: theory of planning; wicked problems; tame problems; social problems; professionals; solutions; postindustrial society
Th e search for scientifi c bases for confronting problems of social policy is bound to fail, because of the naturę of these problems. Th ey are “wicked” problems, whereas science has developed to deal with “tame” problems. Policy problems cannot be defmitively described. Moreover, in a pluralistic society there is nothing like the undisputable public good; there is no objective defi nition of eąuity; policies that respond to social problems cannot be meaningfully correct or false; and it makes no sense to talk about “optimal solutions” to social problems unless severe ąualifi cations are imposed fi rst. Even worse, there are no „solutions” in the sense of defłnitive and objective answers.
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