Dějiny obětí

Author(s): Vít Strobach / Language(s): Czech Issue: 3/2016

After the Changes of 1989 a change also took place in normative points of articulation of social conflict in eastern Europe. The paradigm of the social sciences, including historiography, changed as well. It is on the whole fair to call this the ‘identity turn’. The meaning of the term ‘identity’ was inspired by history but changed into up-to-date forms. The article analyses points of friction where contact took place between majority Czech society and cultural identity, historical memory, and historiographical self-reflections of Czech Jews after the Changes of 1989 to 2012.In this article, the author seeks to analyse the basic structure of statements about Jewish history in the Bohemian Lands in this period, and to determine what role the narrative of the victim plays in them. The author presents his hypothesis of the considerable influence of the ‘lachrymose conception of Jewish history’ in Czech historiography after the Changes of 1989. In this, he distinguishes between three paradigms, which he then further defines and assesses according to their functions: methodological nationalism, methodological totalitarianism, and methodological culturalism. He then identifies the constellations in which they appear both in academic and in public discourses, especially those influencing the politics of identity of the Czech Jews. At the same time, he seeks to explain why the schemes make it difficult to understand the modern history of the Jews of the Bohemian Lands.The history of the Jews, according to the author, became locked in an interpretation based solely on the idea of ‘eternal antisemitism and its victims’. This is therefore a good example of history/memory as an inherent component of ideology. As such, it has been operating in the undifferentiated space between scholarship and politics, and has been constructing the ethnocentric identity of the Jewish nation. This has led to a schematizing division of social relationships into adverse national and cultural (racial) camps, which have seemed to exist ‘since time immemorial’ and ‘naturally’, and to the gradual seclusion of the Jewish community and its defining itself or being defined against other groups. This is evident not only in the approach of Czech Jews towards the Arabs (Muslims) but also in the assertion of the security discourse in their politics of identity in fields as specialized as architecture and social care.

Lühikroonika

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 06/2018

Chronicle of events.

Blízký východ v komparativní perspektivě

Author(s): Adam Coman / Language(s): Czech Issue: 4/2019

Černý, Karel. Velká blízkovýchodní nestabilita: Arabské jaro, porevoluční chaos a nerovnoměrná modernizace 1950–2015. Prague: Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, 2017, 577 pp., ISBN 978-80-7422-595-6; English edition: Instability in the Middle East: Structural changes and uneven modernisation 1950–2015. Prague: Charles University – Karolinum Press, 2017, 476 pp., ISBN 978-80-246-3427-2. An abridged English version of this review has been published in the online version of the British Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 46, No. 3 (2019). The book by Karel Černý, published simultaneously in English and Czech (with the title "The great Middle Eastern instability: The Arab Spring, post-revolution chaos, and uneven modernization 1950–2015"), offers, in the reviewer’s opinion, a unique and original analysis of a broad spectrum of issues which the Middle East region has had to face roughly since the end of WW2. The author analyses modernization processes in local politics, economies, education, and media, as well as demographical changes and urbanization, finding the roots of the regional instability in a disharmony of the above spheres. He sets his studies of these regions into several macrohistoric-sociological comparative frameworks illustrating both specific and general aspect of the modernization process in the Middle East. In doing so, he evaluates the roles of Islam and post-colonialism as two indispensable factors of the situation in the Middle East in responsive and unconventional manner. Černý backs his analysis and conclusions by a broad selection of secondary published sources and a firm theoretical anchoring, but also by original and detailed empirical research and his own productive theoretical model. Thanks to the above, the author is able to present to us an accurate and convincing picture of the processes and events leading to the tumultuous Arabian Spring and subsequent events.

Emanuel Famíra – muž, který netoužil po Jaru

Author(s): Ondřej Holub / Language(s): Czech Issue: 2/2020

The case study deals with the Czechoslovak artist Emanuel Famíra (1900–1970), an autodidact who was active in multiple areas of art and who closely associated his lifeand work with the Communist movement. In the early 1920s, Famíra started performing as a solo dancer of the ballet troupe of the National Theatre in Prague and also became a relatively successful painter and sculptor. In the 1930s, he was also involvedin political theatre and these activities earned him several months of imprisonment. He established Proletscéna, an avant-garde theatre, of which he was a playwright, director and actor, and also the puppet Theatre of Pioneers, for which he was creating remarkable puppets. He joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and was participating in its promotional events. After the liberation in 1945, he was the director of the ballet troupe of the National Theatre in Prague for a short time, and then hewas making his living as a graphic artist and pedagogue. His graphic work drew from impressionist-realistic traditions and subsequently identified itself with templates of socialist realism. In the 1950s, he was officially recognized, but he was finding himself increasingly on the periphery of artistic and social life in the 1960s. He could not identify himself with the advancing liberalization, he was openly opposing the reform movement during the Prague Spring, and joined an informal group of “old” orthodox Communist led by Josef Jodas (1905–1970) after the Soviet occupation. The presented study aims to examine the reasons and personal motives which caused Famíra to radically oppose ideas of the “socialism with a human face”. Methodologically inspired by works of German historian Jochen Hellbeck, the author attempts to look into Famíra’s intellectual, worldview and political development through the optics of his autobiography, diary entries, correspondence, and theoretical reflections of art work, and to set it into a historical context. Using the above as a basis, he attempts to define a certain type of revolutionary narrative shared by the group of Czechoslovak Communist “dogmatists” referred to above in the end of the 1960s. The author hypothesizes that the original source and also the keystone of the “Stalinist” political mentality was the intransigent strategy of the international Communist movement inthe first half of the 1930s, which was declared by the Communist International under the banner of fight against the so-called social fascism and of “class against class”. In his opinion, the profoundly adversarial perception of the world became a part of the identity of individuals such as Emanuel Famíra, surviving as an “undercurrent” in the Communist movement and activating itself in emergencies such as the Prague Spring.

Cristina Feneșan, Convertiri la islam în spațiul carpato-dunărean (secolele XV-XIX)

Author(s): Ligia Boldea / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 1/2021

Review of: Cristina Feneșan, Convertiri la islam în spațiul carpato-dunărean (secolele XV-XIX), Editura Militară, București, 2020, 466 pag.

book reviews

Author(s): Václav Bůžek,Ivo Cerman,Kateřina Pražáková,Josef Hrdlička,Rostislav Smíšek / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2022

Наблюдения върху войнушкото стопанство в казите Филибе и Татар Пазарджик през XVI – началото на XVII век

Author(s): Krastyo Yordanov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 5/2022

On the basis of several unpublished registers, the article examines the real practice of official Voynuk land ownership. The historical-legal analysis is applied in the research work. According to law, Voynuk farms were exempt from land taxes, but were part of the state land fund. However, the Voynuk baştina differed from the Rayet çiftlik and baştina not only in that it also included vineyards, gardens and even houses, but the sizes of the fields were often smaller than the legal norms for a pair of arable land. This can be explained by the fact that these areas were sufficient for the sustenance of a Voynuk household, since the considered category of population was exempt from land taxes and jizyah. However, as early as the 16th century, a property differentiation was gradually created between the Voynuks and a thin layer of wealthy owners of service lands stood out. They expanded their arable lands both by unregulated means, entering in the timar land, and through perhaps perfectly legal transactions for the transfer of shares of arable land between the Voynuks themselves.

Учителят по история – между педагога и историка

Author(s): Kostadin Paev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 5/2022

As soon as the methodological thought of teaching history emerged, complex relationships arose between the special and pedagogical training of teachers in the subject. In the historical development of these relationships, one direction or another has prevailed. Between the two world wars, the so-called “didactic universalismˮ was imposed in our country, in which priority was given to pedagogical, at the expense of specializing training. In recent years, through the regulations issued by the Ministry of Education, there is a tendency to return to didactic universalism, which has a negative impact on the preparation of students– future teachers.

Повествование за изгряването на модерния българин

Author(s): Rositsa Stoyanova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 5/2022

В НОВИТЕ БРОЕВЕ НА СПИСАНИЯТА НА ,,АЗ-БУКИ“ ЧЕТЕТЕ

Author(s): Albena Simova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 5/2022

Българската преса в периода 1919-1944 г. и средиземноморският медиен модел

Author(s): Ivo Indzhov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 12/2022

The study establishes significant similarities between the Bulgarian print media in the period 1919-1944 and leading characteristics of the Mediterranean polarized-pluralistic media model formulated by Hallin and Mancini (2004). This observation is also confirmed at the regional level, following the example of the newspaper landscape in Plovdiv. Until 1934, despite the shortcomings of post-liberation democracy, the Bulgarian political system was polarized and pluralistic. There is also a high degree of parallelism between the parties and their newspapers, resp. there are politically biased ‘independent’ newspapers. Opinion journalism has strong positions. The mass press is also developing, but it is not becoming a real corrective to the authorities. The authoritarian sub-period and the years of censorship confirm the closeness of the Bulgarian media system to the Mediterranean media model

BULGARIAN-GREEK DISPUTES ON THE PAGES OF PERIODICALS DURING THE 19th CENTURY (FROM THE POLEMICS BETWEEN ‘TSARIGRADSKI VESTNIK’ AND ‘BOSPHORUS TELEGRAPH’)

Author(s): Andriana Spasova / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2022

The present article is focused on separate aspects of the political skirmish between two prominent representatives of the Bulgarian and Greek communities – Nayden Gerov (1823 – 1900) and Georgios Tsoukalas / Γεώργιος Τσουκαλάς (1804 – 1872). At the beginning of the 50s of the XIX century, the establishment of the Bulgarian school in Plovdiv gave rise to one of the first public disputes between the two ideologists in the context of the development of nationalisms. The article depicts some moments from the Bulgarian-Greek arguments on the pages of periodicals – ‘Tsarigradski vestnik’ and ‘Bosphorus Telegraph’. In a word duel, the two intellectuals resort to the specific pejorative rhetoric of subversion and slander. This strategic rhetoric is characterized by an intensified ideological load and lavish figurative argumentation, often accompanied by expressive ideologies, with a multitude of offensive words, provocations and critical comments. Through the use of such rhetorical techniques, the prominent socio-political figures aim not simply at the personal undermining of their opponent, but above all, at defending their own ideology and contestation of the alternative opinion. In the confrontation between the text strategies (some of them deliberately anonymous, allowing the identification of the people with the text) of N. Gerov and G. Tsoukalas, the two political programs are revealed in their contrast and convergence to the own / foreign ideological code.

Кооперацията – партийната надежда за успешна стопанска модернизация в България (края на XIX – началото на ХХ век)

Author(s): Milko Palangurski / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2022

The restored in 1879 modern Bulgarian state found itself in a difficult economic situation. With its economic backwardness, the political parties in the country were persistently looking for models who could allow them to accelerate and catch up with the other European countries. One of the ideas was to use the cooperative as a tool to catch up with the century's lag. However, the situation in the economic sector was such that practical actions were mainly in the area of “Raiffeisen cash registers” and "popular banks", while other types of cooperatives were practically invisible in real economic exchange. In their documents, all organizations gradually accepted the need for a policy of "patronage", which must be carried out with the mechanisms of state policy, especially through the financial sector and ensuring access to cheap credit from the cooperators. Some parties, especially those from the leftist and populist sector, accepted that the cooperative idea can be useful only with direct political intervention in the sector and even through organizational connection between parties and active cooperatives. This early model of authoritarian impulses was extremely persistent in Bulgarian politics and survived even the entire twentieth century. This leads to a distortion of economic relations and a steady increase in state intervention and control over cooperative networks.

Смесените търговски камари в България. Създаване и стопански инициативи (1920–1940)

Author(s): Liliana Veleva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2022

In the period between the two World Wars, the development of international trade is determined by the general conditions of the world economy, the profound geopolitical changes and the specificities of the individual national economies. In a complex and dynamic situation, the different countries and their governments are moving towards the implementation of effective approaches and forms to solve their foreign trade problems. In this context the possibilities of creating mixed chambers of commerce are also discussed. The emphasis is placed on: the prerequisites for their creation, the internal organization and membership, the main directions of their activity etc. Institutions are also viewed through the lens of bilateral economic relations and political interests.

NEGATIVE INFLUENCE MARKERS OF RELIGIOUS FANATICS IN SOCIETY

Author(s): Iulian Dinulescu / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2022

Religious fanaticism is a ubiquitous phenomenon in society, shaping and generating complex individual and collective behaviors and duplications both in relation to members of the community they belong to and those outside them. An important role in determining such behaviors has the religious precepts adopted by fanatics. They definitely influence the behavior of the followers as well as the way those with extreme and intolerant religiosity relate, ie the religious fanatics to themselves and to those with whom they interact. For some fanatics, their behavior has a component represented by that of violence committed in the name of their divinity. What is worse is that they think they are right and the rest of the members of society are not, which is why the latter are guilty before the supreme being for not following the sacred precepts and consequently not adapting their behavior to those precepts. For these reasons, the article will analyze the common landmarks of all the entities that fanaticize their followers, as well as the uniqueness of the repercussions on the other members of society.

ЗА ЕДНА МАКЕДОНСКА ШУРОБАДЖАНАЩИНА

Author(s): Ivanka Ivanova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 21/2022

Doubtless the citizen of Ohrid Kuzman Shapkarev had a substantial merit to keeping from oblivion the memory of the Miladinov brothers from Struga and to forming an adequate appraisal of their capital work BULGARIAN FOLKLORE SONGS. Due to ill fate he was a member of the family only from September 1863 till March 1870 being the husband of Elisaveta – Dimitar’s eldest daughter. Though, as he wrote in the preface to the first edition of his “Materials about the life description of the Hr. Miladinov brothers”: “…. I am flattered by the confidence that, I will be able to provide our grateful people with evidence about their lives, deeds and martyr’s deaths, which although being not the most true and precise, will be at least incomparably much more true, precise and complete than all those which might have been produced by anybody in any amount till now.” The research presents how Kuzman Shapkarev succeeded in overcoming the cronyism in this work of his and how he through the vicissitudes 58 in the lives of his in-laws and collaborators managed to give an insight of the national liberation movement in Macedonia during the second half of the 19th century. Though closely related to the Miladinov brothers, he did not save his criticism regarding the shortcomings of the presentation of the songs they had collected. Moreover, his disapproval of the publication aimed at evoking true philological preparation of a new critical edition, which took 80 years to appear.

Głos ze świata. „Wersy o koniecznym oporze” Szczepana Kopyta

Author(s): Patryk Szaj / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2 (20)/2022

Patryk Szaj attempts to inscribe Szczepan Kopyt’s Wersy o koniecznym oporze [Verses about the Necessary Resistance] into the theoretical framework of the Capitalocene. The starting point is the reconstruction of the conditio of criticism in the Anthropocene. He opposes the beliefs expressed by some representatives of the Anthropocene discourse that criticism is ineffective in the face of the planetary challenges of this epoch. He argues that we criticism is till needed, as is also emphasized by the concept of the Capitalocene as an alternative to the Anthropocene. Next, Szaj moves on to a dialogue with Kopyt’s work. Using both the findings of critical theory and (new)materialistic concepts, Szaj points to Kopyt’s debt to both these traditions. He shows that Kopyt has managed to avoid the “speaking out of nowhere” that is associated with criticism. Kopyt speaks “from the world,” and his voice is that of a participant. This perspective, reconstructed in the article on the basis of Kopyt’s Wersy o koniecznym oporze, allows the poet to diagnose the anachronism of some Marxist heterodox practices (autonomism), as well as to note and creatively develop the positive and negative entanglements of human and inhuman actors in the era of Capitalocene.

За самоковския зограф Костадин Вальов

Author(s): Nadya Manolova-Nikolova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2023

The article published a letter from the Metropolitan of the Diocese of Nisava Antim I, dated August 26, 1854, which refers to the Samokov painter Kostadin Petrovich Valoiv. The content of the letter allows to formulate the hypothesis that the artist worked in the interior decoration of the church “St. Petka” in the town of Trun, probably in 1853 or in the first half of 1854. The document provides information that K. Valiov resided in the town of Pirot in 1854, supplementing his biography, in which there was no information about the period from 1845 to 1856.

Пенчо Радов, или още няколко щрихи в образа на българския възрожденски пътуващ книжар

Author(s): Vasil Zagorov,Gabriela Angelova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2023

The article aims to create a profile of the traveling bookseller in Bulgaria in the 19th century based on existing scientific publications, archival documents, memoirs, and the notes in their books. The portrait is built on a comparative analysis of the traveling booksellers Hadji Nayden Jovanovich and Pencho Radov, popular during the Bulgarian Revival. Their activity and biography have been studied individually up until now. In this article, we compare their trading methods to those Revival booksellers who started as traveling booksellers butexpanded their activity into actual business as publishers and editors – Hristodul Sichan-Nikolov, Hristo G. Danov, Dragan Manchov, and Petko Slaveikov. The purpose is to outline the patterns in the Revival book trading, which build two distinct Revival types – the unfortunate, dusty and wretched retailer (Jovanovic,Penchov) and the sagacious, organized, and modern publisher.

Съюзът на артистите в България в първите месеци след преврата от 9 септември 1944 година

Author(s): Hristiyan Danchev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2023

The aim of this article is to examine the relations between the government and the theater in the first months after the coup of 9 September 1944.The main focus is on the conduct of the “purge” in the Union of the Artists in Bulgaria, which is part of the transformations in the cultural organizations after the Fatherland Front came to power. For this purpose, the method of historical analysis is applied. The study reveals that the leadership of the Union of the Artists take the initiative to “eradicate fascism in culture” by carrying out a “purge” in its rows, thus fulfilling the task set by the new government of the Fatherland Front. Data is presented on the number of members “purged”, along with information on the charges against them and the fate of some of them in the following years.