Българската държава и кризата във ВМОРО в следилинденския период
The failure of the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising of 1903 inflicted serious damage on the conceptual and organizational state of IMARO.
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The failure of the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising of 1903 inflicted serious damage on the conceptual and organizational state of IMARO.
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This article includes information about the currently edited collection of wartime recollective accounts of the Holocaust. It is an authentic record of field research conducted in the southern part of the Świętokrzyskie Province. The author presents the subject matter of these narratives, emphasizing their folkloristic character. He lays most stress on the largely unnoticed though still important current of folk reckoning with the war and occupation.
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In this paper, I shall be following Jagić’s study on the legends about the grabancijaš dijak, which was published in German in 1877. The paper in question discussed the legends about the grabancijaš dijak, a shabby itinerant cleric, wanderer and light-hearted adventurer, a travelling student (fahrender Schüler), a former student of the 13th School, part-priest, part-wizard. Besides folklore notations, the personage appears in Croatian literature of the 18th century and is usually linked with the Zagreb Seminary. The echoes of the study in the works of Oskar Asbóth and Moses Gaster are also looked into; prompted by Jagić’s work they published in the same journal – the Archiv für slavische Philologie – the results of their own research into the grabancijaš in Hungarian and Romanian tradition. The morphological designations and functional connections between similar mythic personages in Croatian oral-literary tradition – such as the dragon, basilisk, serpent, krsnik, táltos, mogut, and warlock – are analysed in considerable detail. The grabancijaš is also observed as a mythic personage who deviated most from functionally similar personages, and was fully adapted to Christianisation. This is also shown in the relatively numerous Croatian written notations from Zagreb and the Zagreb area.
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Based on written and oral evidence, the present study focuses on Romanian Herodias’ various hypostases: biblical queen, queen of the fairies, sovereign of the căluşari. The canonic, apocryphal and magical writings referring to Herodias are considered as some of the most significant testimonies about this character. Such texts present the image of Herodias as biblical queen who provoked the decapitation of John the Baptist, as it was promoted in 17th–18th-century Romanian literature; they also represent an important document for deciding whether a certain apocryphal tradition influenced Romanian folk beliefs related to the malevolent fairies. The study of the oral evidence investigates how Romanian folk beliefs assimilated the story of St John’s decapitation and transformed it into traditional legends and inquires whether these new compositions had an effect on Herodias’ traditional roles, those of queen of the fairies and patroness of the căluşari. Finally, the research attempts to describe how Herodias’ beneficial functions are put into the shade by a powerful Christian opponent.
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The article is a case study illustrating the process of Stalinization and de-Stalinization of Polish historiography. The issue in question is placed in the context of tradition understood in terms of one’s relation towards historical heritage. An analysis of Stefan Kieniewicz’s historical thought, one of the most distinguished experts on the history of the national uprisings of the post-partitioned era, is hoped to provide significant insights into the process of ideologization and de-ideologization of the Polish historiography of the communist era. While in the Stalinist account of Polish history national uprisings, having been included under the category of ‘progressive traditions’, tended to be equated with Lenin’s idea of agrarian revolution, Kieniewicz’s interpretation – the evolution of which marked the successive stages of the process of de-Stalinization – tended first to replace the Leninist concept with the nineteenth-century idea of social revolution and then to abandon the ‘progressive traditions’ in favour of the ‘reactionary ones’ (the role of Catholicism and the Polish presence in the East). Thus, the Stalinist account of the uprisings understood as the anti-feudal revolutions fostering the rise of ‘capitalism’ and ‘bourgeois nation’ was giving way to an interpretation in which the nineteenth-century armed movements were seen as a national struggle for freedom resulting in the development of Polish national consciousness in the ethnically Polish territories, and in the regression of this consciousness in the eastern lands of the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. When approached from the perspective of tradition, these interpretations appear to have aimed at inventing tradition (Stalinism) on one hand and at transforming heritage in a way which preserves its historical meaning on the other.
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With roots in the Old World and fertile ground in the New World, the tall tale flourished in America, especially within the boasting, expansive atmosphere of the American frontier (BURRISON 1991: 6–7). Hunting, fishing, weather, domestic life, and agriculture were popular topics, and opportunities for artful exaggeration were numerous. This paper examines the tall tale as artistic folk humor in which the narrative is carefully constructed and performed for best effect. Field recordings, printed texts, and folklore-archive texts will provide examples for analysis. Finally, examples of tall-tale postcards add a visual dimension to the genre.
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The main purpose of the paper is to present and discuss some Keckermann’s thoughts on history and the art of historiography, expressed in the treatise De natura et proprietatibus historiae commentarius (Hanovie 1610), published posthumously by his student, David Schumann. According to the humanist from Gdańsk, history is not art, science, or discipline, because it does not have own commonplaces (loci communes), regarded as the basis for method. Nevertheless, history plays an important role in teaching of the practical arts such as politics or economy, because it is an inexhaustible source of examples, taken from narratives about the past events to illustrate general rules related to human life and actions. An excellent historian would be only someone who is able to combine searching for the truth with frankness in its telling. Therefore, he is obliged to use a simple style without almost any rhetorical devices. In relation to single events history serves as a tool of description and explication. Thus it provides the necessary illustrative material in the form of examples for the practical disciplines.
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In his Satyr, or The Wild Man Jan Kochanowski refers to two old-time customs: first that, during the mass, at the reading of the Gospel, old Poles were to half draw their swords in token of their readiness to defend the Christian faith (vv. 185–200), and the second that infamists were punished upon their honour in such a way that when they sat at table with other people, the host cut the tablecloth to indicate that he did not want to share a meal with them (vv. 231–236). The article analyses numerous references to those customs in the old-Polish literature (unanimously attesting to the lack of these rituals in the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries), to indicate that both were literary legends.
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The article is devoted to the subject of health and diseases in Silesia in 1945–1949 seen through the eyes of people. It was written on the basis of a seldom used historical source in the form of small advertisements published in the three Silesian dailies: Pionier, Słowo Polskie, and Dziennik Zachodni, which had the largest number of small advertisements and were the most popular source of information. This type of historical source makes it possible to gain valuable additional information about physicians, places of their practice, ways in which people dealt with diseases in the first extremely difficult years after the war. At the same time it gives the possibility to answer many questions and offers information that cannot be found anywhere in documents issued by the local or state administration.
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There search is based on eight chronicles written down in five Grodno (Hrodna) monasteries in the second half of the seventeenth and in the eighteenth century. The content of the chronicles and the ways of its presentation allow the author to analyse the texts and find out topics and points missed. These omissions indicate chronicles as a literary genre, tell us about the goals of writing them down and about the specifics of the authors, give special value to any information included in the chronicles as an exception.
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The great seal of the city of Sandomierz is known from the preserved impressions of 1343 and 1422, and the preserved matrix. Its analysis makes it possible to assume that originally the field of the seal displayed a heraldic shied crowned with a helmet with the crest showing the Bohemian lion, while the inscription around it read: S’ REGIS BOEMIE ET CIVITATIS SANDOMIRIE. The matrix was made between 1297 and 1300 (or maybe 1292-1300), when Sandomierz was in the hands of the Czech ruler Wenceslaus II. During the years 1320-1343 (the times of Władysław the Short and Kazimierz the Great) the matrix was redesigned. The lion in the heraldic shield was replaced with the royal eagle (White Eagle) and the word BOEMIE in the inscription was replaced with the word POLOnIE. Over the heraldic shield with the eagle, however, the crest from the Czech coat-of-arms was retained (an eagle’s wing).
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The narration of the Master Vincentius dedicated to Alexander of Malonne (Chronica Polonorum, bk. III, chaps. 8–9), the bishop of Płock (1129–1156) is undoubtedly the most intriguing evidence addressing the commitment of the Polish medieval bishop in military action. Although such information goes well with other evidence indicating the aristocratic style of this bishop’s ministry resembling those of “courtier” Reichsbischof, Michał Tomaszek has already pointed out that motives as well as the entire construction of Vincentius’s story are the evidence of the chronicler’s reference to some early medieval literary patterns. This analysis makes it even clearer, highlighting however, that the chronicler while creating the portrait of Alexander of Malonne entered the more contemporary discourse on the admissibility limits of bishop’s military activity.The analysis shows that the starting point for the chronicler’s writing were the views of Bernard of Clairvaux stigmatizing all the possibilities of combining the attitudes appropriate for a warrior and a cleric. Vincentius, however, benefited from the “loophole” left by Clairvaux abbot and some canonists, which granted the permission to combine these two responsibilities with the restriction that actions taken by bishop would not cause the destruction of his spiritual perfection or pastoral function, and hence they would not change him into a chimera-monster. Being influenced by the idea of bishop as a persona mixta or gemina persona, the theory assuming the possibility of using two kinds of weapon (two swords) by the Church or even some views of St Bernard stated in his Liber ad Milites Templi de laude novae militiae, Vincentius advocated clearly for the possibility of getting the diocesan involved in the military sphere. The applied strategy aiming at the legitimization of Alexander’s actions, reveals Vincentius’s broad knowledge of arguments defending military prerogatives attributed to episcopacy, and says a lot about the chronicler itself, who did not have to be so ardent supporter of the Church reform as it is quite commonly believed.
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From the end of the fourteenth century dukes of Legnica and Brzeg used different, and often changeable intitulation, as they were named as the rules of Oława, Lubin, Niemcza, Kluczborg etc., which – according to historians – meant changes in territorial structure of the duchy and political transformations.The purpose of the present text is to indicate the relationship between the intitulation of Silesian rulers and the legal aspect of a document, and to point out that conclusions drawn on the basis of titles written in documents as to the political divisions are often unjustified.Such are the conclusions drawn from the analysis of the Codex Vindobonensis Palatinus, containing the fifteenth-century cartulary of documents related to Saint Hedwig collegiate church at Brzeg, systematised mainly on a geographical basis. From among 722 documents I have analysed the titles in 200 documents issued by the dukes of Brzeg from the period between 1352 and 1479. An analysis of those titles suggests that they were related to the content of the charters, and precisely to the provincial district (Weichbild) of the village or town of the relevant transaction, which – in turn – confirms the duke’s jurisdiction over the area. It was called Weichbild titles, while the titles related to the whole duchy were ducal titles.The titles related to the Weichbild were used increasingly often in the 1370s (see the table in the text), mainly in the chancellery of Duke Louis I of Brzeg, after the imposition in the principality the joint family ownership (niedział). The relation between the intitulation of the duke and the document content revealed in the text indicates the need for greater caution in interpreting the existence of smaller “principalities” within the Duchy of Legnica and Brzeg only on this basis, for it is almost certain that those “principalities” were in fact the Weichbild districts administered by the members of the Piasts of Legnica and Brzeg.
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The Rokosz gliniański (The rebellion of Gliniany) is one of the most popular political texts of the noble Commonwealth of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as is evidenced by the number of 189 copies I have established, including 177 that have still been preserved. The text describes a fictitious rebellion of the nobles that allegedly took place in 1379 near Gliniany, where the nobility was supposed to punish with death several or a dozen or so senators who had acted against the interests of Poland and the Polish nobility. Popularity of this text was caused by its ideological message, justifying the legal basis of the noble “Golden Freedom” and suggesting to the nobility the way to solve conflicts with the king and senators supporting him. Neither the actual circumstances of its composition nor its authorship are known. Since the eighteenth century on, it has been assumed in the literature on the subject that the text was written during the so-called Zebrzydowski’s Rebellion of 1606–1608. An analysis of political writings circulating at that time reveals that the myth of the old rebellion of Gliniany was very popular in the period, but no copy has been found that could be dated to the early seventeenth century without reservations. The oldest preserved copies of the Rokosz gliniański could be dated to the 1630s and 1640s at the earliest. An analysis of the occurrence of this text in various collections of public life material from the seventeenth and eighteenth century (manuscripts of the miscellanea and silva rerum types) made it possible to present trends in its popularisation – the apogee of its popularity was in the time of King August II (1697–1733), and its twilight – in the final years of the Commonwealth (1772–1795). An analysis of its textual variations revealed also a dominant importance of the text circulation in handwritten copies. And although under the Saxon kings (1707–1763) the Rokosz gliniański was printed four times, from among ca. 65 analysed eighteenth-century copies only five were made from the printed version. Despite the handwritten copying, the text of the Rokosz gliniański preserved its integrity for 150 years, with changes introduced only to its style and proper names.
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The article presents a report written by the Polish diplomat Zygmunt Mostowski on the death of Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia Ambrosius and its consequences for the future of the Georgian Orthodox Church. Ambrosius died in March 1927, when Mostowski was the head of the Polish consulate in Tbilisi (1926–1931). The report, prepared for the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is kept in the archives of the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum in London. Mostowski focused mainly on the infiltration of the Georgian Orthodox Church by the Soviet special services; he warned against a possibility of conversion to Catholicism of several of the Georgian Church hierarchs (including few bishops), as well as of a large part of Georgian intellectuals. But the Polish diplomat’s predictions did not come true and there were only some individual cases of conversion.The presented document evidences the fact that in the 1920s the Polish diplomacy was interested in processes occurring within the Georgian Orthodox Church. In a large part it resulted from perceiving the Soviet Union as a major threat to the security of the Polish state. And for this reason Polish diplomats paid special attention to those factors that could block the increasing influence of the communist power in individual republics of the Soviet Union. And the Georgian Orthodox Church was regarded as one of such factors, opposing the central authorities in Moscow.
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Lajos Kossuth Letters written for The New York Times in the years 1853-1856 are short essays commenting on current political, social, ethnic and military events associated with the ongoing Crimean War. Originally entitled Democratic Letters on European Matters and American Policy and then Letters from L. Kossuth, written in exile in England during the Crimean War in Europe, create a very specific series of more than 40 numbered texts in which the Hungarian patriot and the independence activist lectured his point of view, made his reflections, often not without sharp criticism of the great superpowers and the United States, sometimes tinged with a hint of bitter irony and black humor. The primary aim of those Letters, as it seems to be, was not only to bring distant events taking place across the ocean closer to the Americans but also to move consciences, to shake out of indifference, to encourage to more active attitudes and actions towards the Old Continent. Kossuth hoped at the same time that the memory of him, sympathy, enthusiasm and kindness showed to him during his stay in the USA in the years 1851-1852 did not expire and would help him in his arduous educational actions of American society
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The insurrectionary struggles of 1768‑1772,1794,1830‑1831 and 1863‑1864, aimed at liberating Poland from Russian domination, were accompanied by propaganda campaigns which sought to implant specific images of Russia and the Russians in the public mind. This analysis seeks to recreate those images which are extant in select appeals, manifestos, declarations and miscellaneous pronouncements of those times. In doing so, an attempt is made to answer the question how perceptions of Moscow changed in the views of the Bar Confederates, Kościuszko’s insurgents, and those of the forces of the November and January Uprisings, and to identify their fixed and constant elements. The picture was not always absolutely clear‑cut because, apart from the predominance of recurring anti‑Russian themes, there were also calls for reconciliation addressed to the Russian people.
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The Polish population of Volhynia and Eastern Galicia was gripped by fear of ethnic cleansing at the hands of Ukrainian nationalists in the years 1943‑1944. This fear varied in form and intensity depending on the perceived aims which ranged from their physical extermination to simple eviction. This article attempts to analyse the fundamental determinants of Polish defensive actions in response to those fears.
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After the Liberation and the revival of the third Bulgarian state most of the Bulgarian lands undergo a great economic progress. The governments in the Bulgarian Principality realized an agrarian reforms in result of which the Bulgarian farmer became owners of э of the overall farming land of Bulgaria
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