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Left-handers have always been surrounded by stigma and controversy, and attitudes toward this group have always been rooted in the ideas and traditions of power relations existing in a given society. Thus, the goal of this study is to describe the retraining of left-handers as it was conducted in Soviet education. The impact of political power on an individual’s body-mind interaction is a significant problem in research on the creation of the “New Soviet Man.” The teaching of left-handed children in the Soviet Union is a noteworthy example of the totalitarian regime’s illusionary endeavors to change human nature. The Soviet education envisaged neither a special attitude nor any particular pedagogical strategies for the work with left-handed children. The Soviet science was based on the anthropological understanding of man as a tabula rasa, which made it possible to explain the omnipotence of Soviet pedagogy as well as the unswerving belief that it was possible to educate every child into a true member of the socialist society. The present study provides insight into the disciplining of the left-handed children’s bodies and minds using pedagogical tools that was being conducted in Soviet Latvia.
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Of all the chant lyrics that were collected during the German Aksum-Expedition (1905/06) by Erich Kaschke a.o. and which are held in the Pho-nogramm-Archiv of the Ethnologisches Museum (former Museum für Völkerkunde) in Berlin, no more than two have so far been published: an Amharic song of praise for the German Kaiser (Voigt 2004) and a War-Song on Yoḥannəs IV (Smidt 2007). The last-mentioned text is however in its transcription so idiosyncratic and in its translation so free that a revised edition and a new translation seem necessary.It becomes apparent that the text is even more strongly influenced by Tigrinya. I have also been able to show that further rhyme structures exist: in the first part there is initially an -s rhyme and then an -a rhyme, and in the second part at first an -i/e rhyme followed by an -ot/ut(t) rhyme.
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Oral and written storytelling traditions in Africa developed at the same time and influenced each other in many ways. In the twentieth century, the relation between the deeply rooted oral tradition and literary traditions intensified. We aim to reveal literary analysis tools that help to trace ways how oral narrative genres found reflection in African short fiction under analysis. A case study is based on two short stories by women writers, The Rain Came by Grace Ogot and The Lovers by Bessie Head. Images and symbols both, in oral and written traditions in Africa, as well as the way they evolved and extended in a literary genre of short fiction are considered within the framework of hermeneutics, reader reception theory and feminist literary criticism. The results obtained in the study prove that oral narrative genres interact with literary genres, though most importantly, women’s writing as a literary category and images embodied in the short stories play a decisive role and deviation from the images embodied in African oral tradition.
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This paper analyses the reception of Latin language and culture in the research of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It focuses on the works of various disciplines – social and cultural history, literary research, art criticism, etc. – and seeks to identify the recurring themes, symbols and topics that comprise homogenous narratives and interpretations. They consolidate the findings of different fields of study and thus allow to analyse the Latinitas of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as an integral part of the political community’s identity. The symbols of Latin language and culture can be identified as a basis for a Shift from oral to written culture. It conveys the ideas of order and organisation, as it transforms customary law into a codified one, a natural religion into that based on Scripture, etc. It alters the society as well, mainly because writing and written culture marks a shift in identity and behaviour. Also, by focusing on social and educational aspects, the Shift marks an institutional change, which permeates the developments of the state and society as a whole. The multipolar cultural field of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania is described by four cultural models – Polish, Lithuanian, Ruthenian, and Latin. The metaphor of Interaction shows how Latin culture and language is seen as one of the four ideological alternatives that legitimize the state, dynasty and sovereignty. Thirdly, the metaphor of Tension depicts Latinitas as part of the dichotomy between Eastern and Western civilizations by expressing the symbolical content of the latter. This narrative also emphasizes the internal confessional disputes inside the Western Church, and by exploiting the specific understanding of the Renaissance humanism, it becomes a means to understand sociocultural conflicts of the Early Modern state. The interpretation of Latinitas as a communication channel is nested under the metaphor of Medium. Works in this category usually portray Latin language as an expression of a social, economic, political, etc. status quo, which differs in each European state. Latin culture thus helps to articulate national interests and identity, and enables the cultural exchange among the Western countries as well. Finally, by emphasizing the poor literacy of the society and only limited possibilities to learn Latin and acknowledge its cultural code, researchers portray Latinitas as a Secret. The speakers and writers of Latin form a hermetic group, possessing the knowledge of a cultural matrix inaccessible to others. The dignity of Latin language also strengthens the status of vernacular languages, and thus accumulates the process of identity formation. These five narratives exemplify how Latinitas is embedded within the economic, political, and cultural activities of the society. It also depicts the different ways by which it becomes an integrating principle of the identity of the intellectual and political classes in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It provides an account of Roman descent, sustains the claim for political sovereignty, and indicates the civilizing process. By adopting those five different narratives, researchers may further analyse Latinitas not only as a separate cultural layer, but as a part of social identity as well.
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Using open historical sources and archival documents, this article attempts to clarify the role which the young generation played in the long-term economic plans of the communist regime. From this perspective, the education of the young generation in the cult of labor became a priority for the regime’s ideologues. This was achieved through amending the labor laws, imposing the obligation of patriotic labor, ideological pressures, and administrative constraints. Work-to-work education has become the central theme of official narratives relating to the youth. Reopening the youth national building sites and the revival of the mythology of the brigadier movement responded to the economic needs of the regime which was used for free the youth workforce.At the beginning of the 70s, the youth building sites were the constitutive part of the systematization program which involved the participation of youth in the construction of irrigations system, railways, schools, sports fields, and last but not least the Danube-Black Sea Canal. In the regime’s rhetoric, voluntary labor has become synonymous with patriotic duty. Behind the voluntary labor was actually hidden a whole system of constraints and punishments. The refusal to fulfill the patriotic duties, which multiplied alongside the economic crises of the regime, was sanctioned as a disciplinary violation and disrespect for socialist norms. The entire country, from the youngest to the oldest, was forced to participate in various works for the benefit of the communist state. The propagandistic revival of the spirit of the brigadier movement from the 50s aimed to cultivate the socialist austerity and the uniforming norms, both contained in the empty formula of patriotic duty.
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Kilis is a city located on Turkey's Syrian border and 10 km away from the border. Here are some events that have been believed by the people and have survived to the present day. These events are both interesting and extraordinary. Some people claim that these events are completely real. These events also appear in verbal narrative types transmitted from the old generation to the new generation. The deceased doctor who treats the patient, the shrine whose walls are leaning, people who travel in the place and change places at once, mysterious structures and magical events are part of Kilis culture. Cultural values that have been going on for centuries in Kilis combine with legends and emerge as a new system of values. These beliefs are interconnected and consistent. It is understood from people who say they are not imaginary. It is seen that the people living these things do not engage in any gain. For this reason, the credibility of the narratives seems to be quite high. A serious research on these events and places may perhaps solve the mystery of these places.
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The article is devoted to the representations in the modern Eastern Slavic peasant autobiographical narratives about 20th century history. Peasant biographies, diaries, oral peasant tales about the life are the materials of this work. Eastern Slavic autobiographical texts are based on traumatic interpretation of history. The main composition of cultural indices in such narratives about the past coincides with the collection of personal and collective disasters including revolution, Civil War, collectivization, dekulakization, repressions, Great Domestic War and postwar hunger. The article analyzes traumatic memory as such type of memory which interprets the past as a set of personal and general traumas and failures.
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The article explores the content of an operational file in the CNSAS archive from the perspective of social history. Topics without major political or historiographical implications, such as, mismanagement of collective farms or relations with foreign nationals are assembled into a narrative that provides the reader of the Securitate (Romanian political police) file with a window into the various characteristics of everyday life of a township in Dobrudja during the 1980s. Critical issues for the work of the Securitate – the categories of people under surveillance, the social tensions in the community and their causes – are presented briefly and fragmentarily. The article takes a bottom-up historiographical approach to the study of the communist regime in Romania. The emerging image is complex, blurred and incomplete, mirroring two general features of the last decade of communist rule: the dissatisfaction of ordinary people and the scarcity of resources, ubiquitous including in the activity of the Securitate.
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This article identifies a number of trends over the last two decades in the evolution of feminism in academia, with a focus on the significance of cultural studies, the experience of socialism and post-socialism for women, and new forms of feminist activism to suggest both points of tension and also necessary departures in order to render feminism still relevant.
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This article broadly surveys the role of water in Croatian ethnic tradition. Beginning with pre-Christian perceptions of healing (babas or hags) and fairies associated with watery sites, the essay offers a summary of previous works on Croatian water lore. Moving into the present, this article considers water traditions of the Slavic folklore, how these have endured and been renegotiated over time and how they now find expression in contemporary water and river art.
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The article presents preliminary research results on the 71st transport with the deportees from France to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Statistical analysis was conducted on a sample of 1502 people. The paper analyses the criterion of age of deportees and the survival rate of women and men. For the research consistency, the situation in Auschwitz-Birkenau at that time and the attitude of the camp authorities towards prisoners in 1944 were outlined. The article also contains biographies of two deportees who managed to survive.
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The article’s primary purpose is to analyse reactions of West German diplomacy and media towards strikes and protests in towns and cities of the Polish coast in December 1970. The article was prepared based on documents issued by Polish and West German authorities, particularly the diplomatic service of these two countries and the daily press. The text focuses on a wide range of reactions of press correspondents and diplomats from West Germany faced with crisis and bloodshed in Poland.
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This article explores the interplay between knowledge and agency in early modern diplomacy. Focusing on the power dynamics of early modern empire through a case study of a Swedish embassy to the Ottoman Empire in 1657–58, the article shows how agency and knowledge interlinked throughout the diplomatic mission. At the centre of the study is Claes Rålamb, a Swedish nobleman who was sent to Istanbul to secure an alliance between Sweden and the Ottoman vassal state Transylvania. Rålamb’s journey to, and stay in, Istanbul was framed by global political developments, yet, it was also directly influenced by local customs and personal connections. In particular, Rålamb’s ability to act as an agent of the Swedish Empire was shaped by the difficulties of attaining reliable information. Moreover, the framework within which he was able to act changed between different stages of the journey. This makes the intersection between knowledge and agency a fruitful focal point for examining early modern empire, going beyond traditional national frameworks and categories of actors. Rålamb was sent out as an envoy of the Swedish empire, yet the meaning of that position changed constantly.
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The Spanish editions of Dantiscus’ minor work Hymni aliquot ecclesiastici (Cracow, 1548), submitted for publication many years after the author’s death by his son-in-law Diego Gracián de Alderete, in fact, are not a reprint of the Cracow edition but a compilation of three prints: Hymni aliquot ecclesiastici (1548), Dantiscus’ poem De nostrorum temporum calamitatibus (1530), and the Genethliacon for Dantiscus penned by Caspar Ursinus (1522). Gracián uses them to build a monument to his father-in-law’s outstanding achievements and a testimony to his impeccable morals, supplementing them with a panegyrical preface and making significant changes to the poem by Ursinus and to introductory texts taken from the original editions.
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The article discusses the attitudes of the authors of the so-called landowning poetry towards the military obligations of the noble estate, which have rarely been studied recently. The birth of this trend in the second half of the sixteenth century meant both an approval for the agricultural lifestyle and the appearance in Old Polish literature of a model competing with the knightly one. The author of the study, following in chronological order the statements of the most important sixteenthand seventeenth-century writers of this genre (Jan Kochanowski, Andrzej Zbylitowski, Józef Domaniewski, Stanisław Słupski, Władysław Stanisław Jeżowski, Zbigniew Morsztyn, Marcin Borzymowski, Wacław Potocki, Wespazjan Kochowski), intends to indicate how the eulogists of the rural noble arcadia referred to the military ethos. Until now, this issue has been treated in the literature only perfunctory.
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The article discusses selected aspects of the life of young people in interwar Tarnów as described in the local press. The principal source used in the paper are selected periodicals published in the city in the years 1918–1939. Their selection reflects the social and ethnic structure of Tarnów in the discussed period. The analysis of their contents has helped reconstruct the nature of the expectations towards the youth and how they were expressed in the press.
More...Orszak weselny towarzyszący królewnie Zofii Jagiellonce do Brandenburgii
On 14 February 1479 in Frankfurt on the Oder, Zofia, the second of five daughters of the Polish king Kazimierz the Jagiellon and Elisabeth of Austria, and the margrave of Brandenburg Frederic Hohenzollern, the younger son of the elector Albrecht Achilles, got married and their wedding was celebrated. The Frankfurt wedding of Zofia was the result of the king’s dynastic policy, which was intended to gain favour of potential allies in German countries during his rivalry with Martin Corvinus, the king of Hungary, for the Bohemian crown after the death of George of Podiebrady (1471). The register of state dignitaries and royal courtiers, who accompanied the princess in her wedding entourage, discovered in the Crown Treasury Archive, helps to enrich the knowledge on political, organisational and financial aspects of marriages of royal daughters. The paper contains its critical edition.
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