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Transitions Online_Around the Bloc-24 FebruaryIn the news: Serbia buys Russian weapons; Slovaks commemorate death of journalist; migrants in North Macedonia; Hollywood on the Danube; and a Transdniestrian oligarch.
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The article seeks, first and foremost, to identify and present the motifs coming mainly from the Islamic art developed within the Ottoman Empire, which occur in the decorative metalwork of church objects such as the metal overlay of communion-table gospels and crosses, ciboria, communion cups and censers, made in cultural hubs within what is now Bulgaria. The reason is in that there is a lack of clarity as to the definitions and provenance of these motifs in Bulgarian scholarly literature. The first part of the paper deals with the characteristics of two groups of silver church plate: hemispherical chalices and cruets decorated with a combination of Christological iconographic elements and motifs of the earliest stylistic royal trend of the Ottoman decorative style. Used in a Christian and a Islamic contexts, these testify to the mutual exchange of goldsmith practices in the Balkans and have probably brought about the spread of Ottoman motifs in the decoration of church objects. A centre of the manufacture of hemispherical chalices was Chiprovtsi. The second part of the text describes the characteristics of the three main groups of motifs (Rumi-Khatai patterns, palmettes and saz leaves, floral patterns), illustrating by examples of their occurrence on Bulgarian monuments. Using a comparative analysis, an attempt is made to compare this phenomenon with the production of other Orthodox ethnic communities, mostly Serbs and Greeks. At the end, attention is drawn to cloisonné enamelwork technique, a singularity of a group of monuments associated with a workshop in the region of Plovdiv and the Monastery of Bachkovo. In conclusion, Ottoman motifs are found in the ornamental repertoire of the metal church objects of the seventeenth through the mid-eighteenth centuries, reflecting a trend typical of all forms of Christian art of the age.
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Poet and playwright, Aimé Césaire occupies a prominent place in the history of Caribbean literature generally, and postcolonial Shakespeare adaptation scholarship in particular. His adaptation of Shakespeare‘s The Tempest, entitled A Tempest, described by PeterDickinson as a ―classic of postcolonial drama,‖ has continually been examined by scholarsin light of how the play engages, and consequently exposes, Shakespeare‘s text as a―foundational allegory of the experience of colonization and the expression of culturalimperialism‖ (Dickinson 2002: 194-5). Most commentators have however neglected toexplore the play‘s cultural content, while those who did merely acknowledged without detailing how, and to what extent, Césaire has deployed African rituals both incharacterisation and in the area of theatricality. This essays re-examines the text withparticular attention on the ritual aesthetics under which the political metaphor issubsumed. The paper argues that the ritual aesthetics in question derives from the Yorubaepistemology, and then links diaspora theatre and Césaire‘s dramaturgy in the play to bothThe Tragedy of King Christophe (1963) and A Season in the Congo (1967), and to the same Yoruba ritual source
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These remarks are intended as to recall testimonies of the contact of people of the West with art called primordial or primitive in its natural cultural environment. The goal is here also to “refresh” thinking about art, as well as to look at the ways of recognition of primor- dial art at the turn of the twentieth century, the representation of which are the classic texts by the field researchers referred to in the title of these remarks. The selection of the texts is not accidental here, because they are connected primarily by the thread of the art of Indig- enous communities of North America.
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The phenomenon of a city rest upon the fact that it is a multi-layered structure. When we take into consideration European city, we have its specific fabric in front of our eyes – its arrangement of buildings, streets and squares. Distinctive border between private area and public one, interaction between buildings which are always open to communal area- all these things create unique atmosphere of perfectly designed structure. Camillo Sitte perceived a city as the work of art. He claimed that the art of the city development rests upon artistic competence of framing such elements as squares, streets and buildings. Gordon Cullen, who in his delineations expressed artistic advantage of urban landscape, stated that the art of architecture is all about searching for individual components. Cities should be both attractive and human-friendly. In public urban areas individuals can indulge their aspirations and needs connected with physical and mental comfort. What is more, presence among other people gives a man invaluable chance to establish different social contacts, and also guarantees sense of acceptance and safety. City means not only the specific structure but mainly the people and their needs changing in time. To answer inhabitants’ needs it is crucial to treat city organism as a system of complicated urban and structural setups, which are human-friendly. The knowledge of designing, including designing methodology and related to this bottom-up knowledge can help in solving the problems with special arrangement of the contemporary cities. It is crucial then to remember that cities should function as perfectly-designed body.
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When did Bible enter the realm of opera? Is there a specific biblical dramatism that inspires operatic authors and which stories and characters are welcome on stage? How does musical interpretation revamp Biblical characters when they appear in opera? This article is an attempt to answer some of these questions.
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Book review: Spaces of Longing and Belonging: Territoriality, Ideology and Creative Identity in Literature and Film. Еds. Brigitte Le Juez and Bill Richardson, Brill Rodopi, 2019.
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The period from the mid1940s until the late 1950s is a stage in the development of Bulgarian cultural history which is most difficult to explain. The social life at the time was severely controlled, organised and governed in the mould of a strong ideological propaganda. Publications of that time define mass songs as an essential and significant genre, as an ‘untested tool in the fight against formalism’. The question is to what extent the very phenomenon of ‘musical thought’ was subject to direct manipulation. Mass songs were largely marching music and their musical language was tonal. Yet, an analysis of tens of mass songs shows that the natural minor mode permeated the marching and hymnal songs. This is usually explained as an endeavour to lend such songs a folk ring, which is consistent with the requirements of ingraining them into the folk tradition. Throughout the history of Bulgarian musical culture though, a certain specific is identified: major and harmonic minor modes have not, ever since the Late National Revival period, functioned in the sense of the term ‘major-minor system’, which has been mechanically ascribed to them. In this country, the major mode is naturally in alignment with the other diatonic modes, due to which its partner is in fact the minor-permeated Aeolian mode. It has bearing on the semantic field of the tonal system: minor is not a qualitatively defined in opposition to major, but rather in terms of its semantic variation and complementary contrast, lending mass songs majestic epic and heroic pathos. That was the reason why even songs containing the keyword ‘joy’ often sounded in a natural minor mode, symbolising the ‘wise’ joy which stems from an age-long family tradition. Therefore, the authorities in fact guided an already existing state of musical thought, while the genre spontaneously utilised the opportunities provided by this specific musical code, forming a natural musical environment for posterity. The frequent minormode re-conceptualization helped alleviate and humanise the overdosed ideological pressure.
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In this paper 20 Greek inscriptions, preserved on a mural painting, icons and grave plaques, which originate from the church of Dormition of Virgin (1845) in Plovdiv (Philippopolis) are presented. They date back from the last quarter of the 17th to the third quarter of the 19th cc. and give valuable information about persons from the ecclesiastical and social circles of Plovdiv (Philippopolis). The mentioned in the inscriptions persons from the ecclesiastical circles refer to a Metropolitan of Philippopolis, Neophytos (last quarter of the 17th c. – 1711), during whose archbishopric the old church of the Virgin was build, in the place of which nowadays the church of Dormition of Virgin (1845) is erected. The other one is the rhetor of the same Metropolis, Andronikos (last quarter of the 17th c.), who gave the money for the mural painting of the above mentioned church of the Virgin. The persons from the social circle, mentioned in the inscriptions, refer to Greeks and Bulgarians donnor’s and all of them were in a direct or indirect relation with the powerful Čalukov (Čaloglou or Čalukoglou) family in Plovdiv (Philippopolis). These persons sponsored the execution of different icons for the church, as Dimitris Tsaharlis – st Demetrios on a horseback (1812), Lucia and her children – st Menas (1846), Salčo Ioannou (Čomakov), together with his wife and children – st Stylianos (1846), Iakov Kendindenoglou – st Jacob (1846), Georgi Stoianovič (Čalukoglou) – st George (1846), Ioannis Dimitriou Sitsianis – st John the Forerunner (1846), Dimitrakis Kyriakou Mitsouras – st Demetrios (1846), Eustathios Ioannou Tsironis – st Spyridon enthroned (1846), Iskro Iskrov Kesak (Kesiakov) – st Nicholas enthroned (1846) and Teodor Vulko Čaloglou – Dormition of the Virgin (1848). The provided from the inscriptions information about persons from the artistic circle refers to the painter Nicholaos, who could be identified as Nicholaos Adrinaoupolitis, the author of the above mentioned icons. The inscriptions give also information about the desceeded persons in Plovdiv (Philippoplis) from the second to the third quarter of the 19th century, mostely Greeks, among which are Panagiotis Dimitriadis (†1838), Eleni (Politoglou) Čalukova (†1848), Anastasia Konstantinou Noutsi (†1852), Konstantinos Andreou Garginos (†1854), Teodoraki Stoian Teodorou (†1856), Ioanis Dimitriou Sitsianis (†1857) and S. Tsikerdekis (†1865).
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Contemporary culture presents many challenges to the traditional role of music education. Subjects such as solfeggio, music theory, and harmony are under intense scrutiny. The purpose of this article is to underscore the importance of solfeggio for professional musical development. Solfeggio instruction must reject mundane scholasticism, and more actively cultivate musical development: memory, harmonic and rhythmic sense, and improvisation. Interdisciplinary approaches to solfeggio and related subjects (e.g., the Orff Orchestra) in place at the Gnessin Special Music School are especially important at this time. General problems encountered in solfeggio instruction are in the balancing of two poles: theory and practice vs. knowledge and ability. Possible responses to the challenges of solfeggio instruction are: attention to the comprehension of all aural components. It is important to emphasize aural comprehension by listening and to actively engage them in practice, not just to know the terminology. This applies equally to classical and contemporary music. One of the most important elements of a musical education is the coordination of all the components of solfeggio through special classes. It is essential to know and understand the function of the fundamental chords as early as possible; intelligent hearing breeds intelligent performance, i.e., real musicality. This also concerns non-professional, general musical education (depending on the type of school). In contrast to earlier times, musical amateurs do not have active contact with music, and as a rule cannot play any instrument. This increase in the number of passive amateurs and decrease of active ones can lead to a reduction of classical music listeners. Lessons learned from the Orff Orchestra (also useful in professional musical education) can actively stimulate musicality in children, who may never become professional musicians. Solfeggio then (though not necessarily ‘music’ or ‘singing’) is also necessary for a general musical education.
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The present study does not approach digital games per se and in accordance with the, so to speak, matter-of-course habitus, i. e. within the frame of game studies discourse (regardless of the ludology-narratology debate and probably even continuing tension), but rather in a wider cultural context and that by following essentially their relations to other cultural contents and phenomena, cinema in particular. Hence the intermediality discourse is within the pursued reflection applied as, from the point of view of the author, a fruitful framework. Intermediality can be legitimately approached as such a relation between media which, as Petr Szczepanik puts it, 'creates indivisible fusions'. If we accept this thesis and utilize it as a starting point, film – connecting image, word and sound – appears to be intermedial apriori. On the basis of this and in connection with digital games (which, by the way, can be in terms of the aforementioned understood as intermedial a priori, too), such cinematic works of art – naturally, pars pro toto – are in the centre of interest here in which the a priori intermedial character of film is in a sense amplified or rather brought to a square (film as 'intermedium") – in this case and context by evincing ties, implicit and/or explicit, to digital games.
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This study deals with a handle of a bronze hydria, found in a grave beneath the burial mound near Staro Selo village, Sliven district. The article considers its decorative programme, focusing on the images playing an important role in specifying the date and provenance of the object with their specifics, iconography and style. The analysis of the images and the overall appearance of the handle put it in a frame of reference for dating it between 500 and 480 BC. The observations show that the Thracian object under consideration blends together different art traditions combining probably certain elements that have lost their distinctive style. Some parallels and analogies can be drawn to every motif, but it is their combination, which recent studies have identified as typical of the bronze production of the Attic workshops, that makes the artefact interesting. Accordingly, it is suggested that the hydria from Staro Selo might have been made at an Attic workshop.
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Tough arousing researchers’ interest for decades now, the Catholicon of the Assumption, Monastery of Cherepish, is an understudied Bulgarian monument. This study seeks to summarise and complement the already existing ones. Fieldwork and an analysis of all the information (historical data, archival items, photographs, earlier publications) provide an opportunity for a more comprehensive overview of the history of the Cherepish catholicon. Among the sources adduced are records from manuscripts and incunabula such as the Cherepish typicon (Church-Historical and Archival Institute, no. 44), Cherepish Gospel (inv. no. 33), A bead-roll of church donors (Sts Cyril and Methodius National Library 292), etc., as well as various artefacts of applied arts from reliquaries to silver paftas (female belt buckles). Initially, the church was dedicated to the Annunciation, and after the 1830s, was renamed the Church of the Assumption. Built at the turn of the seventeenth century, the main church was refurbished on more than one occasion: shortly before 1834, in 1888 and between the late nineteenth century and the 1940s. For the first time, were identified in their entirety the extant scenes and images of the four paint layers: of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, of the 1830s, 1908 and the 1940s. The history of the iconostasis at the catholicon has been traced since the 1830s by using archival photographs.
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The demands of educational practice are changing alongside our dynamically changing society. It is, therefore, necessary to purposefully and systematically seek ways to motivate, teach, and develop independent thinking among learners. This theoretical study aims to identify and characterize the essential assumptions and reasons for the implementation of digital games into ethical education classes. The fundamental premise is the thematic variability of game narratives, and a fulfillment of the experience attributes through the interactivity both in terms of the direct interactivity of the learner and the medium and in the subsequent discussion as a part of value reflection. Attention is focused on the process of ethical decision-making, ethical dilemmas, and problems that can be identified in many digital games containing at least a basic narrative structure. Interactive narration includes, besides the story itself, the influence of the participant on the further direction of the storyline, allowing players to see the consequences of their individual decisions within simulated situations. The study explores a game principle – the butterfly effect – in the context of ethical decision-making in particular through the game Detroit: Become Human, as well as demonstrates its usability within ethical education classes.
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This paper concerns some paradoxes of the creative process outlined in the novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes and Terry Giliam’s movie The Man Who Killed Don Quixote: driven by constructive and destructive impetuses, the author’s personality strengthens and destroys itself in a duel between the imagination and the flattings made by reality. Terry Giliam’s surrealistic film grotesque turns Cervantes’ plot into a mythical text of self-construction as an everlasting tilt at windmills of time and obsessive extant models; a tilt at windmills of Holy Inquisition of censorship and self-censorship.
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The purpose of the article is to present the process of the evolution of telecommunication networks across the years and are developing at a very rapid pace, with a tendency towards convergence of services. Voice over IP is the preferred method for more and more telecommunications operators, replacing standard telephony and networking. As a result, it can be noted that VoIP technology allows much more information to be transmitted over the network to serve and improve communication needs than traditional telephony. The authors' contribution is the analysis of voice over IP protocols, which clarifies the concepts and rules in this type of communication and presents the functionalities and components of these communications.
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In this study the technical and pattern characteristics of 41 comb weavings were investigated belonging to Karaman region in the Karaman Museum. Weaving, materials used in weaving, coloring of yarns used, techniques used in weaving, quality, color, motif and composition properties were examined, analyzed and results were added to the study in Karaman province. Each feature of the woven fabrics in the museum has been examined in detail by the experts living in the area and motif drawings were made. It is aimed to be an important reference in terms of being a source for the studies conducted in this field.
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An overview and analysis of Berliner Theater Treffen 2020. Existing already for 56 years,this major European theatre festival and the most representative one for the Germanspeakingworld ventured on its first online edition. COVID-19 situation has not onlyactivated the ongoing discussions on the influence of digital technologies on theatre,but has made it a most urgent topic. It has become central because of the isolation,the sudden flood of streamings of concerts, performances, films, etc. Two topics seemespecially important in the festival context. First, how to make theatre in a digitalformat and what kind of theatre phenomena are produced in consequence of suchexperiments. Second, what are the possibilities when streaming theatre productions.
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A dystopian play representing a world based entirely on the number of assets peoplehave. (Assets - points equal to the cash owned by each person.) People accumulateassets since childhood; the number of their assets determines their education, accessto food, medicines, work. The main conflict is between the material represented bythe Branch Managers who direct the assets flow, and the spiritual, represented bythose who oppose them.The play is set in a city recently taken by the Branch. The new government promisesprogress and better life and most people support it. But there are others who disagreebecause they cannot stand the prohibition of music, books, parties.
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