Kultura liberalna wobec wyzwań współczesności
Debates / Debaty: Prof. Piotr Bartula, Prof. Andrzej Szahaj and Prof. Janusz Majcherek.
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Debates / Debaty: Prof. Piotr Bartula, Prof. Andrzej Szahaj and Prof. Janusz Majcherek.
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The institutional organization of the American cultural diplomacy from the end of the First World War and the full engagement of the United States in the Second World War was an experimental, reactive, and unsubstantial policy. Even though the idea of using culture or arts as diplomatic tools was rejected by many governmental officials, there were many personalities like President Roosevelt, who foresaw that the power of art and culture represents an important part of states’ foreign policy. In fact, since the Cold War till now, cultural diplomacy has acquired special significance becoming an important instrument that operates among the other diplomatic methods.
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Since the onset of the Great Recession more than a decade ago, new political actors have emerged, whose platforms are predominantly based on opposition to economic austerity as well as a radical critique of traditional politics. Faced with the newness of these formations, alongside the issues they bring to the forefront of political discourse, social science scholars have produced innovative concepts to address the specificities of these new actors. Some fifteen years have now passed since the recession, and so we believe the time has come to scale back the emphasis on “newness” and rather turn our attention to the analysis of the progressive normalization of discourses, structures, and repertoires of action. Through the classic literature on political parties, this analysis aims to trace the stages of the development of the Five Star Movement, from the birth of its political project to its most recent developments. Pedersen’s concept of “thresholds” combined with the literature on the formation of political parties allow us to trace the rapid path of organisational structuring, whose first manifestations emerge as early as the first parliamentary representation. Our analysis looks at the transformation of the Five Star Movement from an outside political actor to an inside political actor in parallel with the stabilisation of its organisational structure, which increasingly has come to resemble the form of a traditional party.
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The article addresses the issue of functioning in the literary criticism of the second half of the 19th century of the category of „national spirit”, which is an expression of belief in the existence of the phenomenon of national characters in the world. For Tarnowski, the relationship between literature and the „spirit” of the nation is indisputable and remains in connection with his concept of history (as God’s domain) and the place of individuals in society. Art comes from the need for ideals, especially the ideal of beauty, which were inscribed in human nature by God. For Tarnowski, the artist is both an individual and a product of the national „spirit”. By creating, it expresses the character and moral condition of the nation at a given historical moment. Works (especially masterpieces) can, in turn, affect the shape of the socio-spiritual life of the nation, and thus to some extent and shape its character. In his thinking about the relationship between literature and literary criticism and the nation, Tarnowski remains faithful to idealistic aesthetics.
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The article presents the everyday life of occupied Wilno in 1939–1945 based on an analysis of the underground press published in the city. The problem-chronological text describes both the invaders’ terror, here the issue of mass murders in Ponary on both the Polish population and the liquidated ghetto, as well as the daily activities of the occupation authorities directed against the Polish population. The underground press devoted a lot of space to the liquidation of the Wilno ghetto, which was also reflected in the text. The difficult economic situation of the residents of Wilno and the villages of the Wilno region as a consequence of the occupation authorities’ policy was also presented. The city’s everyday life was also presented in various aspects, including activities licensed by the occupier of institutions such as the “Ali Baba” revue theater and propaganda struggle waged by underground editors in this respect. The text closes with a description of the image of Wilno occupied by the Soviet army after Operation Burza.
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The article deals with the process of the reception of the so called “Sudetengermans”, who have been expelled form Czechoslovakia in 1945 and arrived completely without means to (Lower-)Austria. This aggravated the situation in the country occupied by the Allies and scarred by war and Nazi terror, where about 1.6 million so-called "displaced persons" were staying, almost 25% of the whole population However, Austrian policy was also hostile to the persons concerned because they regarded them as "Germans" in the course of now strongly emphasising an independent Austrian identity. The article deals with the actions of politics and authorities as well as the reactions of those affected and the civilian population. Therefore the article used a combination of archival sources as well as narrative interviews with people, who were children or adolescents at the time.
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Soviet policy towards its Kurdish minority shifted from supporting their cultural development during the 1920s and early 1930s to a more repressive policy from 1937-1956 and then back again to a more favorable position. Soviet repression of its Kurdish population reached its height in November 1944 with the deportation of a significant number of them from the areas of Georgia bordering Turkey to Central Asia. Here they were placed under special settlement restrictions limiting their movement and suffered from material deprivations resulting in a significant number of deaths. This article focuses on Soviet policy towards its Kurdish minority from the time of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 until several years after the death of Stalin in 1956 when the Kurds in Central Asia were released from the special settlement restrictions.
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Soviet policy towards its Kurdish minority shifted from supporting their cultural development during the 1920s and early 1930s to a more repressive policy from 1937-1956 and then back again to a more favorable position. Soviet repression of its Kurdish population reached its height in November 1944 with the deportation of a significant number of them from the areas of Georgia bordering Turkey to Central Asia. Here they were placed under special settlement restrictions limiting their movement and suffered from material deprivations resulting in a significant number of deaths. This article focuses on Soviet policy towards its Kurdish minority from the time of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 until several years after the death of Stalin in 1956 when the Kurds in Central Asia were released from the special settlement restrictions.
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The specificity and conjugation of discursive pragmatics and classical rhetoric manifests itself when politicians are faced with the need for evasive formulations to mitigate a potential threat to their face. To substantiate the conceptual basis of discursive argumentation, the article differentiates between “topoi-integrators” and “topoi-arguments”. The topos-integrator "responsibility", actualized at the local and global discursive levels, appeal to ethos, supporting the logos-based argumentation by involving the ethos-based moral foundations of the speaker's position. Topoi-arguments "responsibility", “threat”, “reliability” and “law’ are rhetorically based on enthymeme as figures of reasoning that appeal to logos as well as on auxiliary figures of digressio, Past Fact / Future Fact, exergasia, climax, congeries, hyperbole and apagoresis, appealing to logos, ethos, and pathos. Pragmatically, the restoration of implicit premises and conclusions of enthymemes corresponds to explicatures, which become the basis for the generation of implicatures, provided that the speakers flout cooperative maxims. Disobeying the maxim of quantity of information is based on the figures of exergasia, climax, congeries, the maxim of relevance - on digressio, Past Fact / Future Fact, and the maxim of quality - on hyperbole and apagoresis. Through rhetorical figures and the corresponding pragmatics, the speakers implement the strategies of transferring and reducing responsibility, substitution of arguments, mitigation, partial distortion by exaggeration, simplification, etc.
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Among many other problems remained unsolved after the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 there is the issue of the Romanians living in north-eastern Serbia, specifically between the valleys of the rivers Morava and Timok. A large population numbered in hundreds of thousands received very little attention during the conference that aimed at solving the ethnical problems of Europe. The ambiguous result of the Paris Peace Conference regarding the Romanians of the Timok Valley had dire consequences on long term for this population, hence the origins of this situation deserve a closer evaluation.
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Contemporary media instruments that are mainly fuelled by the internet and the social media are critical in constructing robust political constructs or platforms and should they fail to achieve this undertaking, they can undoubtedly, at least, put forward a modified perception of that political element. In other words, if the media does not have enough power to construct a solid political movement, it can, at least, make it appear to be solid and imbedded with legitimacy and representativity. The generative infrastructure required to assemble and coagulate a coherent political public image draws its strength from within an interactional paradigm that creates a bond between the political communicator and the target audience for which the political message of that communicator is designated.
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The Russian-Ukrainian conflict that succeeded the Covid 19 pandemic marks the end of the winter of 2022 and continues to deepen Europe's socio-economic fragility. Whatever the causes of its outbreak, any armed conflict has immeasurable effects on combatants, allies and opponents alike. The leveraging of financial resources in support of one side and the triggering of pecuniary sanctions for the other implies an enormous consumption of resources with global economic effects. These are compounded by the social effects of war: loss of life, family segregation, refugee crisis, severe material deprivation, unemployment, crime, etc. As an EU and NATO member state, Romania has had to reinforce its responsibilities of support (as a geopolitical supporter of Ukraine) and responsibility towards war refugees. However, it is precisely Romania's geographical proximity to Ukraine that has led to an increase in the population's fear of the risks of conflict close to the country's borders, but also to a natural solidarity of citizens with its innocent victims: the civilian refugees in our country. Based on an analysis of the scientific literature, at the heart of which will be placed the theory of conflict (Marx, Weber, Lake, Woon, Sharma, etc.), the communication aims to present the results of a quantitative research carried out by means of an opinion survey based on a questionnaire administered to a nationally representative sample. The sociological study aims to identify Romanians' perceptions and fears regarding the social and economic effects of the Russian-Ukrainian war and to find out the mechanisms that determined the spontaneous cohesion that was at the basis of the mobilisation of citizens to support temporary refugee migrants or those seeking asylum in our country. of law specialization, aiming to highlight their views on the perspectives offered by migration.
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Human trafficking is a crime against humanity that was and is still being committed by one person against another person for the sake of money and achieving material benefit by making the human victim a commodity or something that can be sold, bought and traded, and the forms of this crime have varied from trading for sex purposes to selling human organs and forced labor and others one of the images that the governments of countries and the United Nations are working to reduce and combat through national laws and international conventions with the aim of criminalizing this act and punishing its perpetrators even with the consent of the victim. However, the world is now witnessing a new image that can be added to these images, which is the case of human trafficking for political purposes Which is the subject of my paper, which is based on the idea that some political parties or owners of money in the countries of the world are working to support a specific candidate or to agree with a specific person for the purpose of applying for candidacy for the parliamentary elections, and in the event of his victory, he is obligated to implement the decisions and requests that are rejected by that partisan body or a group of men the money they supported in his electoral campaign. As for the other form, it is the case of supporting a person to reach a position in the government, he may be a minister or may like that. This situation can occur in all countries of the world when its elements are met, and the most important of these elements is the presence of a party that owns money and financing. The paper also identified the seriousness of this situation for societies in general, because its damage affects the lives of members of society more than its impact on one person. The paper It proposes to address the situation by penalizing it in national laws, especially those related to elections, and also by activating popular oversight of the work of a representative in parliament or an official in the government.
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The article deals with the celebration of the sixtieth birthday of the leaders of the Polish and Hungarian communist parties – Bolesław Bierut and Mátyás Rákosi. The festivities took place almost at the same time (9 March and 18 April 1952). The study is based on the Polish and Hungarian press. The most crucial goal of the press campaign accompanying the celebrations was to build a cult of the leaders unpopular among compatriots, forcing Poles and Hungarians to participate in the socialist competition and to improve the image of Stalin and the Soviet Union.
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This article contains a multifaceted cognitive, pragmatic and verbal analysis of anti-Ukrainian discourse in the Russian media from the point of view of its eliminative features. The main argument is that the discourse-forming concepts of ‘Ukronatists’, ‘understate’ and the far peripheral concept of the ‘fraternal people’ underpins multilevel eliminative strategies and the manipulative techniques of their implementation. The article argues that the identified discourse-forming concepts correspond to the three types of the narrative modelling of events according to the scenarios ‘The Story of a Just War’ and ‘Fathers and Sons’, and based on the metaphors of ‘mental disorder’, ‘predatory, scientific abstraction’, ‘drugs/alcohol addiction’ and ‘a house for NATO’. These are used to conceptualise Ukraine and Ukraine-associated matters leading to the construction of eliminative strategies for denying Ukrainian national identity and statehood, polarisation, symbolisation based on group stigmatisation, extermination, explicit and implicit dehumanisation through animalisation, deindividualisation and impersonalisation, as well as delegitimisation and masking actions as counteraction and self-defence.
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This article seeks to answer the question what ideas formed in the field of history theory can help de-velop a new interpretation of 20th century history, people facing difficult situations, the decisions they made, and, finally, traumatic individual and collective memory. The turbulent 20th century history and the memories about it is controversial; therefore, when contemporary Lithuanian society endeavors to discuss certain events, phenomena, and personalities and tries to come to a consensus on their immortalization – disagreements inevitably arise. In the process of research, it transpired that in contemporary historiography concerning the purpose and meaning of a historian’s work, as well as the responsibility to society of researchers of the past, several points are emphasized: (1) in the 21st century, historians have to find a new way of dealing with the complex issues of history; (2) scholars must recognize a responsibility for people who lived in the past and live the present, as well as to strive to show in the present perspective the fates of those who lived in the past; (3) the study of the past should contribute to the development of “intercultural competencies” which contemporary man lacks and which help him to understand The Other (past and present man); (4) to achieve these goals, historians need to transform their discipline into a “profes-sion of understanding” that promotes inquisitiveness and openness to the world; (5) researchers of the past, when confronted with attempts to turn them into politicians or judges, have to leave the past open to new questions and interpretations; (6) those who study the past must engage in theoretical (self-)reflection that is necessary to perform the function of a critic that is so vital to society; and (7) historians need to think about the importance of the pres-ent dimension confronting complex historical issues. Historians work with collective memory to address the issues of self-awareness in time which face society. Researchers into the past also seek to initiate a dialogue between the people of the past and present. The conduct of the dialogue and its quality depend to a large extent on the level of the empathy that has been developed. Introducing empathy as a method for exploring knowledge about history and the present, this article draws on the ideas of George R. Collingwood, a British historian, archaeologist, and philosopher.
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The article is devoted to the study of the thoughts of the Soviet citizens about the structure of the state and society in the 1960s–1970s. This subject of research is considered in connection with the constitutional reform, e. g., the process of creating the third Constitution of the USSR, officially held in 1962–1977. The research revises the established approach in the historiography usually adopted by modern researchers of the late Soviet era, according to which, the Soviet society was homogeneous in its moods and views or shared some clear doctrinal, theoretical concepts. This article examines a number of sources: citizens’ letters to the Constitutional Commission considered by employees of the apparatus of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR; some certificates, reports, reviews of citizens’ letters sent to the Central Committee of the CPSU containing in-formation on proposals to the draft of the Constitution. It argues that there were different opinions among the Soviet citizens: on the basis of the analysis of letters in connection with the draft of the Constitution of the USSR, the paper highlights different attitudes towards the authorities, not only purely critical or, on the contrary, trusting. The society was comprised of both those who spoke out “for” or “against” the ruling regime, and — no less — of those who, to a certain degree, supported the authorities in their transformations or were critical of them, but who cannot be attributed to the “Soviet” or “anti-Soviet” camp of society with an absolute certainty.
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The article is aimed at presenting the connection between the science of psychology and the phenomenon of terrorism. It reveals the importance of personality socialization and the need for a sense of belonging. It also discloses the stages of susceptibility to radicalization at an individual level and at the level of a nuclear family in the stages of personality development. Moreover, it presents the reasons for the emergence of family terrorism and the inculcated belief that martyrdom is of high moral value. It presents martyrdom as a problem that must find its solution before many children become victims of a certain type of terrorism, be it on a religiously motivated basis.
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In this paper, the author examines the actions and involvement of Vatroslav Cihlar, who was a student at the Nautical School in Bakar during the student strike in 1912. The paper especially wants to look at his role in the struggle against the politics of the ban of the time Slavko Cuvaj. The student strike is placed in a historical context, and the events related to those events at the local level, its course and the consequences felt by the participants, the students, and therein Vatroslav Cihlar until it finished, are analysed with an insight at preserved archival and periodical materials.
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The paper presents the activities of enterprises established by the Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH), whose aim was to collect food surpluses from peasants. These enterprises were Central State Enterprise for Agricultural Products (Državna poslovna središnjica za zemaljske proizvode, ZEMPRO) and Central State Enterprise for Supplies (Državna opskrbna poslovna središnjica, DO-POS). NDH proclaimed a state monopoly on agricultural products and peasants were forced to sell their surpluses to the state which then distributed this food to other parts of population and to armed forces. Slavonia and Syrmia were the main agricultural regions in NDH and the activities of ZEMPRO and later DOPOS was to a large degree concentrated to those regions. With the development and strengthening of the People’s Liberation Movement and its Partisan army and constant military operations on NDH territory, collection and distribution of food became a major problem for NDH administration. Peasantry was generally disinclined to sell its surpluses to the state, because these were inadequately paid, in fact paid in NDH’s currency whose value was diminished by rising inflation. Very often peasants were not able to purchase other goods with money, while black market offered the peasants better opportunities to barter food for other goods. From 1943 NDH authorities tried to resolve this problem by offering the peasants industrial and other products for their food surpluses. The representatives of NDH authorities and its ruling Ustasha movement were aware that forced requisition had created dissatisfaction among peasantry and the regime wanted to retain its loyalty. In fact, during 1943 there were certain initiatives among NDH’s ruling circles to restructure the system of forced collection of agricultural products. Instead of state imposed requisition, this duty was to be delegated to peasants’ cooperatives, which had tradition among Croatian peasantry. But, ultimately, the NDH authorities did not accept such solution, obviously because they did not have faith that agricultural surpluses could be collected without the strong government control. The end of World War II and the establishment of the new communist regime in Croatia, now as a federal unit in the new Yugoslav state, presented a distinctive break with the NDH regime. Nevertheless, the new regime retained the system of forced requisition of food from peasants, which brought new conflicts between the peasantry and the communist regime lasting until the early 1950s.
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