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In a traditional sense, people must pass through the three rites categories: birth, wedding and funeral. From all the above, death is the only unscheduled rite, but in traditional thinking, it can be speeded up by certain practices that facilitated the passage of the soul of the dying in ,,the world beyondˮ. These release practices of death are found in the villages of Băsești and Oarța de Sus, where I have conducted my field research. In the interviews, I have seen through this practice a popular religiosity combined with a dogmatic religiosity. This study analyzes the fact that Greek Catholic communities have preserved popular rites sometimes incorporated with dogmatic practices.
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Dieser Aufsatz wird Almási István, einem der bedeutendsten Wissenschaftlern in der musikalischen Folklore Siebenbürgens, zum 80. Geburtstag zugeeignet. Minister Anatole de Monzie beauftragte 1934 Lucien Febvre, eine Encyclopédie française zustande zu bringen. Febvre plante 21 Bände. Sein Wunsch war es, eine „Enzyklopädie der Elite“ zu leisten, doch nicht im Wörterbuchsystem, wie die Encyclopedia Britannica oder die Enciclopedia Italiana, sondern sie soll nach Fächern strukturiert werden, d.h. ein Band soll der Philosophie und Religion, ein anderer dem Himmel und der Erde, zwei weitere der Kunst und Literatur in der gegenwärtigen Gesellschaft usw. gewidmet. Uns interessiert der XIV. Band, ursprünglich Bien-Être et loisir, später La Civilisation quotidienne betitelt. Febvre meinte, das vorhandene Folklorematerial genügte nicht. Um diesen Mangel an Information zu beheben rief er eine Commission des recherches collectives ins Leben, die er unter die Leitung von André Varagnac setzte. Varagnac entschied sich, das Material durch die Methode der Fragebogen zu sammeln. Er bereitete thematische Fragebogen (Erntebräuche, Karneval, Feuer in der Fastenzeit vor Ostern, Dorfschmiede, Ernährung usw.) vor, die von Dorfintellektuellen (Lehrer, Priester usw.) ausgefüllt werden sollen. Das auf diese Weise gesammelte Material stand der Redaktion des XIV. Bandes der Enzyklopädie zur Verfügung. Gleichzeitig wurde es im Musée nationale des arts et traditions populaires in Paris deponiert und archiviert. Ebenso wurde es in mehreren Studien von L. Febvre, A. Varagnac, M. Maget, M. Bloch u.a. verwertet.
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Dem Aufsatz mit dem oben genannten Titel liegt ein Referat zugrunde, das der Autor im Juli d. J. im Rahmen der „Sommerschule Hermannstadt 2014“ gehalten hat, eine Veranstaltung, die von der Klausenburger „Babeş-Bolyai“- Universität in Kooperation mit der Hermannstädter „Lucian Blaga“ Universität veranstaltet wurde. Von der Überzeugung ausgehend, dass die Grundlage der hohen Kultur die Volkskultur ist, plädiert der Autor für die Einführung des Gegenstandes Ethnologie in das gesamte Schulsystem. Im Kontext der Globalisierung und der Integration in die euroatlantischen Strukturen ist das Studium dieses Gegenstandes für die junge Generation eines der wenigen Mittel der Wahrung der eigenen Identität. Der Autor meint, dass nur dann von einem vereinten Europa gesprochen werden kann, wenn sich die nationalen Entitäten harmonisieren und gegenseitig bereichern.
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In communist Czechoslovakia, “governance expertise” became an important component of the post-Stalinist elites’ policy. The Communist Party’s policy in the 1960s was significantly influenced by the idea that socialism with targeted support for science and technology would develop better and the economy would be more efficient. During the period of so-called normalization, the reforms of the Prague Spring were condemned, but expert knowledge was still highly valued. Science played a special role in the prison system, where the decreasing importance of the class concept of punishment led to the re‑emergence of the demand for a solution to the issue of recidivism. The study points out that scientists from various disciplines came to work in the prison system during the 1960s, analysing statistical materials, carrying out new surveys and research, and proposing how to transform the prison environment and correctional means and organize post‑penitentiary care to prevent recidivism. The aim of the present paper is to answer the questions of how the requirements for the application of science in the prison system were implemented and who supported the changes, to what extent these proposals were (not) implemented in individual prison facilities and how they were adopted by ordinary prison staff, as well as how the technocratic narrative was transformed during the 1970s and 1980s, and how these changes impacted on convicts.
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The study presents the basic principles, methodology and the previous course of the oral-historical part of the interdisciplinary research project Transformations of the Prison System in the Czech Lands in 1965–1992. Systemic and Individual Adaptations. The author uses, in particular, the memoir books written by former prisoners and narrative interviews with witnesses from the ranks of both prisoners and prison staff. Several major approaches (master narratives) to the operation of the prison system (Marxist-Leninist, technocratic and humanistic), as well their main attributes and transformations in their influence, are identified. Prison is primarily viewed as an environment permeated by constant threat. The largest space is therefore devoted to the analysis of the different types of such threat to which both prisoners and prison staff were exposed to different extents. The study thus forms the basis for follow‑up research into adaptation strategies using the attachment theory.
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Die Lektüre der verschiedenen Konstruktionen und symbolischen Elemente aus einem Friedhof erlaubt uns, im Falle der pluriethnischen Ortschaften, die hier lebenden Einwohner, ihre Religion, ihre definitorischen, ethnischen Merkmale, einige Aspekte ihrer traditionellen Kultur, sowie ihre esthetische Entwicklung näher kennenzulernen.Das Unternehmen einer solchen Analyse anhand der 16 Friedhofe der 4 Dörfer aus der Secusigiu Gemeinde (Arad Kreis) bringt uns zur Entdeckung, dass 4 der 5 hier lebenden Ethnien (Rumäner, Ungarn, Deutschen, Serben, Roma) heute noch 15 Friedhofe verwalten. Diese Ethnien weisen verschiedene Konfessionen auf (Orthodoxen, Katholiker, Reformierten, Pfingstkirchlern und Reformiert Adventisten). Die verschidenen Konfessionen können im Friedhof „gelesen“ werden und kommen zum Vorschein dank der jeweiligen Kultstrukturen, die hier erbaut worden sind (Kapellen, Grifte, Wegekreuze, Kreuze oder Grabensteine, u.a.). Die geschichtlichen, ethnischen und ethnografischen Untersuchungseinheiten befinden auf die Eingangsplakaten oder auf die Wegekreuze, innerhalb der Texte auf den Fotos der Grabsteine. Das Material, die Größe und der Grundriss erlauben uns die Wiederentdeckung des Geschmacks derjenigen, die sie bestellt haben, ihr Bildungsniveau und die städtlichen Einflüsse.
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Several interpretations of the term „hero” are possible, depending on the context of reference. Nevertheless, it is common place that heroism implies as its first trait violent death embraced by the hero for the benefit of the community. Violent death is fertile and connected to sacrifice in archaic mentality. As battles or wars are the most frequent opportunity for a person to meet violent death, war culture should also be taken into consideration for understanding the substance of heroism.The two World Wars are the last modern wars associated to violent death, as postmodern wars are allegedly ”zero dead” confrontations. The term ”unknown hero” or ”unknown soldier” was coined to depict the anonymous dead in the modern wars, who are usually common people remembered for their sacrifice to defend an idea (most of the times the national idea). ”Unknown heroes” do not choose or are not chosen to die, in fact, they fall in battle while trying to survive it. Their heroism consists in the power to preserve their humanity under atrocious circumstances and is documented by their front line diaries, correspondence and other written materials. Their attributed heroic quality points more to a compensatory function for the loss of so many lives than to a creative function for the society they belonged to. In Romanian rural communities, war heroes are honoured on the Ascension Day (40 days after Easter) together with all ancestors of the place, irrespective of the circumstances of their death.An ethnological approach of the issue, aiming to identify and explain rationally the rules that people abide by, although unaware of that, would regard ”unknown heroes” as result of a process of acculturation between inherited oral culture and informal war culture. I analyse as such a representative ethnological document, a front line diary belonging to Ioan Dicu, a Romanian householder in a Transylvanian village. Dicu died in a prisoner camp in Russia in 1945. His notebook was transmitted by his wife to ethnologist Ilie Moise in the 1970s and Mr. Moise had it published in 2010.Dicu’s discourse displays elements of his inherited rural agricultural background interwoven with recurrent motifs in the mass culture of his time, School and Church being the most important references alongside with his fondness for family and home. The author of the diary is able to cope with the draining war journey toward the Eastern front line by preserving his core values, which are love for home, faith and solidarity. The identity of the ”unknown hero” is centered around those values which assert him as an exemplary human being. He is not a revolutionary but a conservative whose greatness is the power to bear his ”village” with him in order not to get lost in an anomic world. We can speak of a category of ”unknown hero” including people who could survive the horrors of war life, even if they didn’t survive the war. The accounts of such front liners are documents to an extremely alien reality but also to a liminal state of mind of those experiencing war close up.
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Die Studie ist eine umfangreiche Analyse eines für die rumänische Volkskunde ausschlaggebenden Textes – das 1885 unter dem Titel Toader Diaconul in dem Sammelband rumänischer Volkslieder „Poezii populare române” (bearb. von Dem. Teodorescu) herausgegebene Weihnachtlied (colind). Das Gedicht Toader Diaconul wurde dem Typus der volkstümlichen Weihnachtslieder zugeordnet, die einen „Gründungscharakter haben undeinen moralisierenden Gehalt“ aufweisen. Es handelt sich um einen Text, der sowohl durch seinen kryptischen, initiatischen Gehalt von Interesse ist, handelt es sich dabei doch um eine heroische Gründungshandlung, als auch durch den Zusammenhang, unter dem dieser Text immer wieder genutzt wird (zu Weihnachten, in den Häusern, in denen Männer leben, die diesen Namen tragen oder in den Familien von Geistlichen).
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The oral history in Belarus has become an important line of enquiry in the humanities and a significant field of interdisciplinary dialogue. It also functions as an important research practice. Nevertheless, under the conditions of the current Belarusian historical policy, imbued with Soviet ideological dogmas, there is no prospect of transforming it into an academic discipline. At present, prospects for the development of oral history in Belarus are connected with the activity of scholarly and community NGOs. The most important of them is an online project called The Belarusian Archives of Oral History, active since 2011.
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This article is devoted to the tradition of research using the method of oral history which has developed in the Lithuanian humanities since the country’s independence. It attempts to explain how Lithuanian scholars have employed the method and what challenges they face using it; what research problems they have resolved as a result and what they still hope to achieve in the near future; what studies based on the method of oral history should be considered the most important and display the highest potential in the context of developments in the Lithuanian humanities. The first part of the article discusses various challenges faced by Lithuanian scholars who rely on oral history as their main research tool. In the second part the focus is on the presentation of particular cases of successful studies employing the interview method; it also shows how scholars working on these projects addressed different problems which they encountered.
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This article is about Montenegrin ruler Visarion Borilovic,his attitude towards enemies and allies. A topic about this period of history is not cover by historians and it is very important for better understanding of relations between Montenegro and Venetian Republic. After this period its coming era of Petrović-Njegoš dinasty and destiny of Montenegro is changing.
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Formulaity as the basement for transfer of the oral prose tradition can be discovered in novelettes, as well. One can recognize the talent of a story-teller in examples of formula in individual performances. As a model, one can make use of novelettes from the manuscript collection of oral-literature kinds of a teacher, etnographer and writer for children, Hamdija Mulić, which were developed during his teaching period in Hrasnica at the beginning of 20th century.
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In former studies Bosniak oral literature, oral literature for children has not been treated as a separate area. She was covered in fragments, as a cultural formation, and remained in its own hermetism, inferior to literature for adults. Due to centuries of ignoring such a fact of the existence of oral literature for children, the fundamental issues within this area, remained unlighted. It is not surprising, given the fact that the literature for children in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as a corpus separatum, has long been ignored and minimized. Systematic study of literature for children in B&H was approached only in the middle of last century and many questions are still left open. Oral literature for children, incorporated in the entire oral art, subject to generally accepted literary theory classification of genders and types, and was not considered and studied as a separate segment. It is therefore necessary to conduct the revalorization of oral literary texts in order to isolate the corpus for children and determined it terminologically as “oral literature for children.”
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The purpose of this paper is to understand the message of a seventeenth century Romanian book, „Barlaam and Josaphat”, that has been written in India. This literary production is an excellent instrument for a spiritual journey from India to Europe, via the Persian Manichaeism and the Arab Islamic framework. A journey through which the Buddha's teaching reach the Christian world, the link between Buddhism and Christianity being the moral-ascetic landmarks.
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The Serbo-Croatian Moslems also have the Oriental Moslem tradition of Dadjdjal the Moslem Antichrist, as well as the tradition of the Biblical Gog and Magog, According to a Bosnian folk belief. Dadjdjal, Gog and Magog are in a citadel, surrounded by a wall and called "Ćin i Maćin”, as Bosnian Moslems pronounce the names China and Manchou, used both for the two nations and their countries. In the author’s opinion the motif of the Chinese Wall came independently of the myth of Dadjdjal into Bosnia, where it became a part of that myth. By the way and as an argument the author presents the fact that several motifs from the medieval novel of Alexander the Great, have penetrated even into the folk tradition of the Bosnian Serb; this tradition now contains a motif of Russia as a far distant country having built a great wall in order to defend itself from the Cynocephals.
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The article deals with an outstanding Czech poet Jan Zahradníček (1905–60), who was arrested in 1951 and sentenced for 13 years of prison in a show trial. He was released during the general amnesty in 1960 and died in the same year. His tragic fate is depicted in several collections of poems written in prisons (Pankrác, Brno, Mírov, Leopoldov). The collections were saved and published and his poetic diary was found in Leopoldov prison 55 years after his death. Zahradníček’s poems in combination with the memories of contemporary witnesses and published interpretations of his work (Zdeněk Rotrekl, Rio Preisner, Radovan Zejda, Martin Putna) allow an exceptional view of the inner life of a person who was unjustly imprisoned in the times of communist purges in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s.
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This article seeks to reconstruct the victimisation of so-called ‘criminal’ prisoners at penitentiary facilities during the last decade of what was the People’s Republic of Poland (i.e. communist Poland). The introductory section outlines the context of the implemented and evolving penitentiary policy of the past years and the importance of the political system transformation for the organisation of the penitentiary system. The proposed analysis focuses on the violence experience in the relations of the convicted with the prison officers. The article describes the methods of building and reinforcing (inter)dependence relations founded upon various forms of violence – primarily, direct physical actions and the managing by the officers of poor social conditions that led to degrade and symbolically depersonalise the prisoners. The description, moreover, includes the strategies the inmates resorted to in dealing with the oppression they experienced. The analysis is based on interviews with multiple recidivists and autobiographical letters of prisoners who served time in the 1980s decade.
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