Around the Bloc: Russian Orthodox Church Goes High-Tech to Reach Believers
In addition to usual messaging features, a new app will fulfill needs for “interaction and continuous contact between parishioners and the Church."
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In addition to usual messaging features, a new app will fulfill needs for “interaction and continuous contact between parishioners and the Church."
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Uniate Church in the Republic of Poland was established as a result of the Brest Union in 1596. During the following centuries it evolved towards Latin Church. Mainly on the basis of the adopted by zamoyski synod (1720) resolutions it underwent widespread Latinizing and Polonization. It concerned the dogma, liturgy, church services, rituals, laity and clergy. The interiors of the churches were changed, iconostasis, sacrificial tables and altars equipped according to the Greek rite were removed. The main and side altars, confessionals, pulpits, organs and other Latin utensils were introduced instead. The actions of the Basilian congregation were of equal significance. As a result of those changes the Uniate Church gradually wondered off from the eastern rite bringing itself closer to the Latin one. The Polonization was in full swing. Old Slavonic was replaced by Polish. From that moment on this was the language of prayers, sermons, religious singing and communication with the priests. At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries Polonization of the Unite Church was advanced. The prestige of the clergy and of the Church as an institution didn’t raise, what was expected at the moment of introducing the union, the same could be said about its economic situation. All that was leading to the fall. The situation was worsened by the fact that the church founders, most often of the different faith weren’t interested in supporting financially the churches of their serfs. The sad picture of the Uniate Church emerges from the deans’ inspections from the end of 18th and the beginning of 19th century. In the Bialystok district constituting the religious and ethnic borderland Latinizing and Polonization of the Uniate Church were the most intensive.
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The Targums are early Jewish translations of books of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic. According to the definition, but also in practice, Aramaic translations operate at two levels: translation of the Hebrew text and its interpretation. The Pentateuch is at the centre of Jewish life, therefore more than one Aramaic versions of the Torah have been created: Targum Onqelos, Palestinian Targum (Targum Neofiti, fragments from Cairo Geniza, Fragment Targums, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan). The character of these versions depends on the date, place and dialect of at the original targumic tradition. The targumists read the Torah as the Scripture transmitted to them and their contemporaries. Their reflection on the text led to the contribution of new elements to it. The material was added to the Aramaic translations of the biblical text not for linguistic reasons, but because of current theological exegesis, formed inside Jewish religious communities. The Aramaic translators used a variety of methods and techniques of translation. Significantly, they resorted to contemporarization of the Sacred texts, which occurred at three levels: historical, cultural, and religious. The targumists tried not only to convey the text of the Pentateuch, which included the law of Moses, but also to solve problems associated with the interpretation of the meaning of the Torah. Thus the Targums can be seen as an attempt to adapt the Scripture to the official Jewish law (halakah). With regard to the liturgical context, the Aramaic translations became midrashic and exgegetical commentaries. The targumists aimed at reconciling the ancient text books of the Hebrew Bible with its later theological vision. This phenomenon is defined as the targumization or ideologization of the Biblical Hebrew text. The aim of this article is to describe the characteristics of targumic literature and present selected examples of different Aramaic “actualizations” of the Torah.
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The larger the gap between languages, cultures and religions involved in the translation process, the more challenging it becomes, as was the case with the Septuagint [LXX] rendition of the Hebrew Bible [HB], which aimed at compromising Hellenistic and Semitic entourages. Valuable insight into the translator’s work is offered by an analysis of a particular word or phrase which undergoes a linguistic and cultural transmission. The word nephilim appears just three times in the Masoretic text of the HB: once in Genesis 6:4 and twice in Numbers 13:33. In the LXX both of these instances have been rendered by the Greek gigantes, which means that the translator identified the mysterious antediluvian figures as the primeval inhabitants of one of the Canaanite valleys and, at the same time, interpreted both of them as the Semitic equivalent of the Greek giants. Given the etymological and semantic differences between nephilim and gigantes, the question arises: why was this particular decision made? This study follows the hypothetical process of interpretation and translation by reconstructing the ancient Greek mythical complex of giants and by analyzing the biblical sources (Genesis 6:1–4; Numbers 13:28–33; Ezekiel 32:22–27) where the nephilim/nophelim appear. Moreover, this article outlines the factors that have influenced the translation. Finally, by scrutinizing the issue of the nefilim–gigantes this article describes the ancient biblical translator’s workshop on the particular example. Given the limitations of every translation, it is crucial to acknowledge the ambivalent nature of this process: undoubtedly, the translator strives to find the most appropriate term being the closest semantic equivalent of the word in question at the same time, however, the particular decision reducing the semantic uncertainty blurs other interpretative options. In other words, whatever had been the initial interpretation of the mysterious nephilim in these passages, it was in a way “overwritten” and thus substituted by the Greek gigantes.
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This essay examines the rhetoric and practice of translation in the Russian Empire’s Hebrew and Yiddish cultural communities and focuses on the intriguing fact that by 1917, many of the writers, critics, intellectuals, and publishers committed to a Jewish nationalist vision of Hebrew or Yiddish cultural renaissance were convinced that a massive program of literary translation was their most essential task. The study reconstructs the guiding translation program of this divided intelligentsia, which posited a universal canon of European and even world literature that had to be incorporated whole into Hebrew and Yiddish literature systematically and rapidly, without any sort of Judaization or popularization, and with an emphasis on the expansion of the expressive capacities of the target language and its writers. The essay traces how this commitment was expressed and embodied in translation theory, practices of selection and publishing, and in several acts of translation themselves. It further demonstrates how this translation program and its practices were linked to a larger vision of programmatic ‘de-Judaization’ or ‘de-parochialization’ of Hebrew and Yiddish culture propounded by some of the most committed Hebraists and Yiddishists in Russia. Finally, it argues that this translation program expresses a more general and seemingly paradoxical variant of East European Jewish cultural nationalism which held that a modern Jewish national culture could only be truly worthwhile and compelling to modern creators and consumers if it was universal in its expressive potentials and demarcated from other national cultures by language rather than content.
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This article addresses the complex relationship of both Jews and non-Jews to Yiddish language and Jewish literature in Poland. It analyses the evolution of translators’ motivations and their approach to the original texts, as well as the reactions of readers of Jewish literature during three decades (1885–1914). The study opens with the first translations from Yiddish into Polish (and at the same time the first translations from Yiddish to foreign languages in general): Klemens Junosza-Szaniawski’s Donkiszot żydowski (The Jewish Don Quixote, 1885) and Szkapa (The Nag, 1886) by Mendele Moykher Sforim (Sholem-Yankev Abramovitsh). Their publication was a notable event in Warsaw’s intellectual circles and provoked lively polemics in the press. In his introduction, Junosza used the expression “the Great Wall of China” to define the barriers dividing the Jewish and Polish societies, which he hoped to overcome at least in part through his translations. The phrase was later adopted by critics and the following generation of translators, who regularly, albeit with different intentions, made references to the work of their predecessor. Apart from the translations of Mendele’s novels, the article also discusses the texts published by Yiddish-language writers in assimilatory periodicals in Congress Poland (Izraelita in Warsaw) and in Galicia (Ojczyzna in Lwów). They were programmatically hostile to the language of Ashkenazi Jews, but their relationship to Yiddish literature turns out to have been more complex and changing with time. The analysis also includes: the anthology Miliony! (Millions!, 1903) translated by Jerzy Ohr, a journalist close to the extreme right circles; Miasteczko (The Shtetl, 1910) by Sholem Ash, whose introduction reflected the radicalization of Polish-Jewish relations; and Safrus (1905), a collection of fiction and essays edited by Jan Kirszrot, who represented the Jewish nationalist milieu. These translations and their reception illustrate well the complex issues of identity, cultural belonging, assimilation, return to the roots, image of the Other, cultural stereotypes or fascination and rejection, characteristic of a multicultural and a multinational society.
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Existing studies on interwar Polish editions of translations of Hebrew and Yiddish literature have focused on various literary genres published in a book form (mostly prose but also poetry and drama). This article analyses Polish-Jewish cultural relations from the bibliological point of view, concentrating on the different book-forms in which translations from Jewish languages were published, such as almanacs, books for children, textbooks and series. The analysis of the editorial framework, designs, illustrations, information on covers, and book structure can not only provide insight into the editorial strategies of publishers but also give information on intended readers. Moreover, a comparison of pre-WWII and post-war editions sheds light on the changes in the reading public, its needs, expectations and knowledge about Jewish culture.
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The article discusses foreign magical incantations within the healing practices of the East-European Jewry. Indicating the importance of the category of “strangeness”, it examines several magical texts, focusing on their adaptation and translation into Yiddish culture.
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Robert Gilbert (b. Robert David Winterfeld, 1899–1978) was one of Germany’s most successful writers of popular songs, many of them made famous by operettas and movies in the late years of the Weimar Republic (Ein Freund, ein guter Freund; Liebling, mein Herz läßt Dich grüßen; Was kann der Sigismund dafür?). In 1933, Gilbert emigrated to Vienna and later moved on to Paris, 1938, and New York, 1939. After his return to Europe in 1951, Gilbert started a second, again very successful, career as translator of American Musical Comedies, from My Fair Lady (1951) via Oklahoma or Annie Get Your Gun to Cabaret (1970). During his years in New York, he had acquired the English language he needed for this new activity. Recently discovered documents – manuscripts donated to the Vienna City Library by the Leopoldi family – give an insight into the translatory workshop and into the conditions of exile: Gilbert, together with the piano artist Hermann Leopoldi (1888–1959), produced a large number of songs, many of which were written in a mixture of German and English, with language (problems) as their subject. This paper traces Gilbert’s life and work, his translations and his thoughts on translation. The discussion focuses on the role of returning exiles as mediating agents and cultural translators between American (popular) culture and post-War Germany and Austria.
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Przekład jako polityka. Biblioteczka niemiecka po hebrajsku
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This article analyses the Polish translation of Yosef Haim Brenner’s short story The Way Out, carried out by Polish Zionist Józef Szofman and published in 1925 in Warsaw. It discusses the story’s origin and its reception, especially its writer’s status and his work with the Zionist discourse and imagery. Referring to interwar Polish-Jewish press, the article points to Szofman’s role in creating a mythological narrative about Brenner in the local Jewish milieus. The analysis of Szofman’s translation strategies raises the question about the intentions of the translator and the premises of his work.
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Two cases underscore the government’s hard line approach to dealing with those it believes subscribe to foreign versions of Islam.
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Philosophical forces gathered in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Catholic Modernism have crystallized into theological views which permeate the antinomian atmosphere in the Church today, resulting in an ongoing Catholic identity problem, both within the Church and in relation to the world. In place of the perennial philosophy and its contemplative ideal, many now welcome the incoherence of broad philosophical and theological pluralism, while pastoral practice is infused with the fruits of pragmatism and the rhetoric of false dichotomies (justice/mercy, intellectual/pastoral, tradition/living faith, speculative truth/charity, for example). To reverse this anti-intellectual course, rehabilitation of Aquinas’s positions on the primacy of the speculative order and contemplative charism, his integration of natural, revealed and mystical wisdoms, and his sense of objective worship, is needed. A brief account of the robust role of philosophy in the Church’s mission and of Gilson’s nuanced position on the encounter of Thomism and Modernism supports this assertion.
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The “new atheism” and the “new evangelization” have become the buzzwords of the age. Atheism is now the fastest growing “religious” group in the United States; the new evangelization decisively shaped the conclave that elected Jorge Bergoglio to the papacy. Twenty years ago, in Crossing the Threshold of Hope, John Paul II reflected pastorally on some of the philosophical, spiritual, and cultural roots of both. His insights, embodied in Christians who live them, offer the Church a key to our times. If evangelization today is to announce the Gospel in the languages of today, what script might it use? What images might it evoke? What might its cadence be like?
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According to the data of census in 2002, national and ethnic minorities form 0,26% of the society of the Pomeranian Voivodeship. They are among others: Belarusians, the Romani, Greeks, Karaims, Lithuanians, Lemkos, Macedonians, Germans, Armenians, Russians, Turks, Ukrainians, Jews and (since lately) Vietnamese. Their position underwent a positive change after 1989. In the past decades they experienced all sorts of restrictions. The activity of the particular minorities centers around matters such as: using and teaching the languages of the minority, keeping names and surnames written in the minority language, practising their religion and organizational activity. The basis for the national and ethnic minorities living on the Gdańsk Coast form largely the newcomers from the widely understood frontier lands. The Greeks and Macedonians who came to Poland in the years 1949‒1952 form an interesting exception. People coming to the so-called recovered lands, as a rule, hid their real origin. It was the result of the two facts: 1. the policy of the Polish government, the aim of which was to create a uniform state as regards nation and ethnics. 2. fear of being recognized as the citizens of the USSR due to the risk of deportation. The first decade of the post war period was especially unfavourable for the minorities. Since 1956 the situation has loosened – organizational and religious life start to develop. Up to the present time national and ethnic minorities have been the subject of scientific research.
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In this article the author focuses on the virtue of courage in the life and works of polish XIXth century writer, Maria Rodziewiczowna. She was born in a very difficult time in the Polish history, just after the January Uprising (the Uprising of 1863) against the Russian Empire. Upbringing in the old, noble family and education in the school conducted by blessed Marcelina Darowska helped Rodziewiczowna develop a strong character and willingness to dedicate her life to the others by conscientious work and selflessness. Her moral attitude is reflected also in her novels. Her book characters are deeply attached to their father’s land, faith, tradition, honour and dignity. In the time of oppression and disrespect for human dignity Rodziewiczowna as well as her characters works to develop the ancient virtue of courage. Because of the disproportionately bigger strenghts of the enemy, the lesser-known form of courage was needed. It is endurance in the face of adversity. But this virtue has to be built by being faithful in the small works of everyday life. The author of the article is analyzing characters shown in Rodziewiczowna’s books in the light of Jacek Woroniecki’s Catholic Educational Ethics. After deeper inquiry it becomes visible, that Rodziewiczowna’s thought is deeply rooted in catholic ethics and conception of moral excellence – virtue. Because of the difficult situation of Poland and it’s citiziens in XIXth and XXth century the virtue of courage was so strongly emphasized in the works of Maria Rodziewiczowna.
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In the introduction to the article, the author cites and analyses the key assumptions of personalistic anthropology made by Karol Wojtyła/John Paul II. Based on the aforementioned philosophical analysis, the author of the article notices that in the centre of both content and message of the poetry by Karol Wojtyła/John Paul II there is a human being whose personal features may be perceived through the prism of poetic considerations given to work, fatherland and social life, over faith and prayer. It is a poetry bearing the stamp of two totalitarian systems as well as the aversion of the author to avant-garde which ‘has forgotten about a human being’. The exemplary anthropological threads specified above are intertwined and become prominent when one assumes the perspective of reference to God and to the miracle, which consists in discovering His Existence and the miracle of trying to penetrate His Mystery.
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The author is deeply convinced of the impossibility of imagining the Church deprived of a certain poetic style of life. It was also the belief of the Pope John Paul II, the one nostalgically awaited by the Romantic generation who dreamed about “the throne opened for the Slavic pope” according to the prophetic intuition of Juliusz Słowacki in his well known poem The Slavic Pope, published in late 1848. When Karol Wojtyła was elected the Vicar of Christ, the Poles immediately recalled this visionary text of their celebrated poet – a kind of aftermath of the political and religious background at the time. What is more, the St. Paul’s successor turned out to be a man of artistic vision which he often took advantage of in his pastoral work. For this reason a question arises in the further part of this article as to the role poetry can play in people’s lives: can it have a real influence on their decisions or does it remain a mere expression of their personal sovereignty? To give an answer to this question it is necessary to ponder over the nature of creativity as such, especially the lyrical creative output. It seems that the ability to choose poetic forms from the endless language resources combined with a certain state of mind – kind of poetic frenzy, inspiration, mysterious concentration – can produce poetry that constantly suggests the content hard to express. While our daily language is usually informative and meaningful, the language of poetry goes much further. A poet, while building a certain semantic structure makes use of it to create a phenomenon. It should be regarded as an experienced abundance of meanings held together by structural order. This is the reason why faith open to poetic word and, more generally, to art constituted for Karol Wojtyła-John Paul II an effective tool of strengthening the relationship with God and other people. Aesthetic beauty paired with moral beauty, noticeable subtlety, sensitivity to the voice of consciousness and other people’s internal and external sovereignty made him able to draw individual people and entire communities to Christ. To quote the words of Osip Mandelstam, the tragic poet sentenced to death by the soviet communists, whose body was placed in a common grave – the words he threw back in face of his persecutors: “Don’t take from me the movements of my lips.”
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