The Contribution of Josip Bakić’s Research to the Study of Wild Edible Plants of the Adriatic Coast: a Military Project with Ethnobiological and Anthropological Implications

Author(s): Marija Jug-Dujaković,ŁUKASZ ŁUCZAJ / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2016

Between 1962-1986 the Yugoslav Army carried out a project in which Josip Bakić from the Institute for Naval Medicine of the Yugoslav Navy in Split took the main professional role. In the project, amongst other activities, Bakić and his team explored the possibility of soldiers’ survival on the Adriatic islands based on wild plants and marine animals. As a part of this project, wild food plants and animals from the coast that had been used by the population during World War I and II were surveyed. Some phytochemical properties of the plants were also studied. Education of soldiers and the wider public was provided based on the results of the research and experiments. The project is a unique example of combining a scientific study with a practical military experiment. Apart from scientific papers the results were also popularized as a survival handbook, a book about nutrition from nature, film documentaries, and workshops. In this paper we summarize the achievements of this project based on the review of published data and interviews with Josip Bakić.

Moral Foundations and Symbolic Pollution: What Do Midwives Say About Hospitalized Women?

Author(s): Zuzana Pešťanská / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2016

The aim of this study is to describe how the work organization of midwives is related to their moral judgements concerning pregnant women. This analysis is based on material gathered during ethnographic research undertaken at a gynaecology and maternity ward at a hospital in Slovakia. The interpretations of the research findings are informed by the work of Mary Douglas and Moral Foundations Theory. Using the analytical tools of the grid-group, this article then shows that the working environment of midwives is a type of hierarchical group. Douglas predicted that such a type of social structure would be built on values such as subordination, respect for authority, and purity. An analysis of the material confirms this assertion: midwives’ narratives of pregnant women are in fact representations of moral values of authority and purity. Explicit statements of emotions of anger, contempt, disgust, and elevation serve as indicators of either the violation or observance of moral rules.

Česko-slovenství také z druhé strany

Author(s): Stanislav Brouček / Language(s): Czech Issue: 3/2018

The essay seeks to define “Czecho-slovakianism” as a supra-national non-institutionalised“organism”, as unity with a moral dimension that eliminates nationalism –both Czech and Slovak one. From the point of view of historic development, the essay notes that Czechoslovakianism has been existing continuously, despite many misunderstandings, as permanent cultural attractiveness born in the 19th century. It analyses the Czecho-Slovak convergence at the time of preparation of the Prague ethnographic exhibition in 1895 and observes the political positions of both nations living in one Austro-Hungarian state union, but seeking “their” own path towards a decent national perspective. The article subsequently deals with the World War I period which offered, under the influence of a series of circumstances, an exceptional chance to create a common state, the Czechoslovak Republic, backed by the state-building element of Czechs and Slovaks. This element was defined as the Czechoslovak nation. The political concept of the Czechoslovak nation, however,did not work. Not only because it was a political construct of the nation built on a top-down basis (as the German nation), but assumingly also because this concept had too few power ambitions. Such ambitions were present, for example, among the Germans in the 19th century, in the period of constitution of the German nation. The situation in the 20th century was, however, very different with respect to the existence of the “Czechoslovak nation”. In 1918–1992, the Czechoslovak concept was not characterised by any war aggression or internal defence, but was significantly influenced by a series of internal conflicts, i.e. conflicts inherited from the monarchy and conflicts arising with the new constitutional arrangement. Disagreements prevailed in ethnic relations: Czech-German, Slovak-Hungarian and Czech-Slovak,including other internal problems. In terms of politics and organisation, the structure of the Czechoslovak state was fragmented and was governed by the interests of global powers. Czecho-slovakianism was repeatedly tested and verified from the point of view of the power of its values on which it was based, not only within the borders of former Czechoslovakia, but also in the relations between foreign Czechs and Slovaks and in their relationship to their homeland.

Starí realisti v novej republike

Author(s): Marcela Mikulová / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 3/2018

Before 1918, Slovaks were a nation without borders, and they would therefore assert their identity mainly through language and literature. The writers from the end of the 19th century (M. Kukučín, B. Slančíková Timrava, L. Nádaši-Jégé, J. Gregor Tajovský, J. Jesenský) had to defend their positions under the difficult conditions of harsh magyarisation. Their situation changed after 1918 and this article observe show they reacted to this complicated post-war situation in terms of genres and themes,for example, in co-existence with literary and avantgarde directions. The values that the realistic authors promoted before the war became surprisingly developed under the changed political conditions. Each of them was able not only to attract readers’attention, but also to reflect on and critically depict the deformations of the new era.

„Já tu Bratislavu miluju.“ Ze vzpomínek a dokumentů rodiny českého lékaře

Author(s): Jana Pospíšilová / Language(s): Czech Issue: 3/2018

One of the stages of the Czechoslovak history is the 1920s and 1930s period when Czechs settled with their families in Slovakia, driven by a long-term perspective and working as civil servants in state administration, or in the private sphere. MUDr.Viktor Sedlák graduated from the Charles University in Prague and worked at the Dermatology and Venerology Clinic of the Comenius University in Bratislava since 1919. He later opened a private doctor’s office for skin and venereal diseases and treated the employees of Slovak Railways. In the spring of 1939, he was forced to leave Bratislava and moved to Brno. While in Bratislava, he lived with his wife and two children in a small Czechoslovak villa colony on Lermontov Street (formerly Günther Street) in a house designed by Dušan Jurkovič, in the neighbourhood of other intellectuals. The narrated memories and documents preserved in the family archive together with other objects that were carried to Brno reflect the professional career and private life of the Czech doctor who had lived in Bratislava for twenty years, and show the daily life of his family and social contacts within the predominantly Czech population. The text depicts the family memory culture.

Hostinská zařízení v boji za státní samostatnost Československa a při jejím vyhlášení

Author(s): Karel Altman / Language(s): Czech Issue: 3/2018

Pubs have long served as places of interpersonal communication, developed not only by by-passers, but mainly by regular house guests. Such communication included political discussions and disputes, frequently on the position of the Czech nationality in Central Europe and its historical role in it. Disputes on this topic were strictly forbidden during World War I and would be conducted illegally; their content became gradually radicalised until it acquired a revolutionary character, directing the insurgent expressions of the debaters towards their active involvement in the attempts to achieve the leaving of Czech lands (together with Slovakia) from the Habsburg monarchy. This process culminated with the relatively spontaneous declaration of state independence at the end of October 1918, in which pubs played a special role as centres – though considerably restricted – of social life: from common pubs up to fancy club houses of the middle-class elite.

„Die Lubinaken kommen!“ Odhaľovanie Hurbanovho pomníka v Novom Meste nad Váhom v kontexte osláv 10. výročia vzniku Československej republiky

Author(s): Peter Macho / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 3/2018

The study describes the preparation, construction and official unveiling of Jozef Miloslav Hurban’s Memorial in Nové Mesto nad Váhom on the 10th anniversary of the birth of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1928. The construction of the memorial was initiated by the local organisation of Matica slovenská, with the involvement of Slovak and Czech intellectuals (Ľudmila Podjavorinská, Rudolf Markovič, Otokar Fleischer and others). The collective remembering of Hurban was marked by creating ideologically motivated links between the Hurban and legionary traditions. The legionary element was integrated in the rhetoric and ritual aspects of this festivity on purpose. Ján Drobný suggested using this memorial initiative to achieve definitive Slovakisation of the public life in the town, even by using violence. His proposal was targeted against the members of the so-called better society which arose mainly from the Jewish community and preferred Hungarian in public communication.The events related to Hurban’s Memorial revealed the frustration of some members of the Slovak intellectual élite. They had the feeling that the upheaval and the birth of the republic in 1918/19 did not culminate with absolute victory of the Slovak national idea. The purpose-built and positively “modelled” picture of the “Hurbanist”past was one of the factors that worked in the contemporary discourse as purported guarantee of the national reliability and loyalty of the citizens of the Nové Mesto region towards the Czechoslovak state.

K vývinu česko – slovenských vzťahov v Bratislave (1918 – 1945)

Author(s): Daniel Luther / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 3/2018

The article deals with the development of Czech and Slovak relations in Bratislava during the inter-war period, disrupted by the autonomist radicalisation of Slovak society that resulted in the establishment of the totalitarian regime of the Slovak state. The incorporation of the predominantly German and Hungarian city in the new Czecho-Slovak Republic in 1918 resulted in mass immigration of Czechs and Slovaks. The mutual relations developed under the difficult conditions of the new state and multi-ethnic city. I focus on the contribution of Czechs at the stage of Bratislava’s transformation into a Czechoslovak city and on its economic and cultural development which brought Slovak citizens to the fore, becoming the most numerous ethnic population group. It is not my ambition to provide an analysis of the entire 20-year period; my intention is to generalise the social consequences of some key events.

Správy a Recenzie

Author(s): Peter Žeňuch,Katarína Žeňuchová,Mária Košková,Peter Zubko,Daniela Konstantinovová,Paulína Šmeringaiová / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 02/2018

1. Významné životné jubileum profesora Jána Dorul'u, by: Peter Žeňuch 2. K životnému jubileu Svetlany Michajlovny Tolstej, by: Katarína Žeňuchová 3. Odišla docentka Elena Krasnovská, by: Peter Žeňuch 4. Za Zuzanou Profantovou, by: Katarína Žeňuchová 5. Obzretie sa za 16. medzinárodným zjazdom slavistov, by: Peter Žeňuch, Mária Košková, Katarína Žeňuchová and Peter Zubko 6. Medzinárodná vedecká konferencia a 40. výročie lektorátu slovakistiky na Univerzite Sv. Cyrila a Metoda vo Veľkom Trnove v Bulharsku, by: Daniela Konstantinovová 7. Lapko, R. (ed.), “Martin Luther po päťsto rokoch”, Bratislava: VEDA, vydavatel’stvo SAV, 2018, 87 pp., by: Paulína Šmeringaiová

Recenzie

Author(s): Michal Babiak,Natália Blahová,Sekeráková Búriková,Peter Salner / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 3/2019

Reviews of: 1. LADISLAV LENOVSKÝ: Naši vo svete – Slováci južne od hranice Slovenska I.–III. [Our People in the World – Slovaks South of Slovakia’s Border I–III] Vydavateľstvo – Editura Ivan Krasko, Nadlak (Rumunsko), 2016, 166 s.; 2017, 147 s. 2018, 201 s. Review by: MICHAL BABIAK; 2. JÁN BOTÍK: Slováci vo Vojvodine: premeny svojbytnosti enklávneho spoločenstva [Slovaks in Vojvodina: The Transformations of the Enclave Community’s Autonomy] Nový Sad: Ústav pre kultúru vojvodinských Slovákov, 2016, 272 s. Review by: NATÁLIA BLAHOVÁ; 3. ADÉLA SOURALOVÁ a kolektiv: Péče na prodej: Jak se práce z lásky stává placenou službou [Care for Sale: How Work out of Love Turns into Paid Service] Brno: Munipress, 2017, 249 s. Review by: ZUZANA SEKERÁKOVÁ BÚRIKOVÁ; 4. Nielen obete, aj páchatelia majú potomkov... (Úvaha inšpirovaná knihou Bolestivé mlčanie) Not Only Victims, Criminals Also Have Offspring... (An Essay Inspired by the Book Painful Silence) ALEXANDRA SENFFT: Bolestivé mlčanie [Painful Silence] Premedia, 2019, 272 s. Review by: PETER SALNER

How Roma Mayors Penetrate the Municipal Power Structures: Resisting the Non-Roma Dominance in Slovak Local Governments

Author(s): Tomáš Hrustič / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2020

This paper discusses the outcomes of power asymmetries in Slovak municipalities with Roma population and presents examples how local Roma leaders resist the non-Roma dominance by active participation in local elections. Presenting data from field research and long-term repeated observations, the paper shows successful strategies of elected Roma mayors who disrupt the usual perception of the Roma as objects of decision-making process and passive recipients of various policies. In these paternalistic beliefs Roma have never been seen as actors who can control resources, who could hold the political power and who could decide how to use the resources. Although the Roma have penetrated the power structures of many municipalities, they are not able to wipe out invisible ethnic boundaries, or, at least, to soften and disrupt them. However, as the text illustrates, it seems that the political power asymmetries in a significant number of municipalities are being balanced, nevertheless, the symbolic dominance and symbolic power of non-Roma still persists.

ETHNOLOGICAL WORKING TOOLS-THE LETTER

Author(s): Maria-Aura Lățea / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 39/2024

In folklore, a number of working tools are used, which are of significant value to folklore research, having multiple roles. Through this article, we want to make a classification of the most important work tools. Among them are the letters. Used as a working tool, the letter is a valuable indicator of the social and historical context in which important cultural figures worked. Their study allows researchers to better understand the social dynamics, beliefs, and values that define cultural identity.

ROBERT ELSIE, ALBANSKA PLEMENA: POVIJEST, DRUŠTVO I KULTURA

Author(s): Amir Džinić / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 19/2024

Review of: Robert Elsie, Albanska plemena: povijest, društvo i kultura. Društvo albanskih nakladnika – DEA, Sisak, 2022.

Sacrul și profanul în modernitatea occidentală. Ocultism, vrăjitorie și mode culturale

Author(s): Dragoș Dragoman / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 4/2024

The survival of traditional religious and cultural elements, even in the most degraded forms, tells the story of their capacity to adapt to modern cultural contexts. Moreover, it unravels the ongoing quest for a sense of being in our modern world. On the one hand, the symbolic forms that populated the universe of the tradition still survive, although their form of manifestation are today hardly recognizable. This is the outcome of an enormous process of acculturation, jointly put in place by the Roman Catholic Church and the modern bureaucratic state. Breaking down both religious superstition and the opposition to political centralization managed to offer a new image of the world, that of the absolute sovereign in Heaven and on earth. The joint collapse of the religious faith and of the supreme monarch left the room for a desecrated, hostile and absurd universe, with no sense for living. That is why new tendencies gained ground especially among young Westerners. The current interest for the occult, magic, witchcraft, astrology, Zen, and other cultural fashions is a sign for their need for a new authentic sense of being.

Demografski razvoj i kulturno-lingvistički identitet Bunjevaca u Srbiji

Author(s): Nada M. Raduški / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 27/2024

The paper presents the demographic dynamics of the Bunjevci in Serbia from 1991 to 2022, an ethnolinguistic research on their language as one of the most important components of national identity, cultural development, specific customs and traditions of this ethnic minority. The history of the Bunjevci people is characterised by the two-century effort of the Hungarian, Croatian, occasionally Serbian and, in the 20th century, Yugoslav national ideologies, to appropriate and modify the Bunjevci ethnic identity in the region of Bačka, but also by the persistent commitment of the members of this minority to preserve and develop their linguistic identity. Disagreements among ethnologists and linguists regarding the question of whether it is a minority language or a separate speech within the Croatian or Serbian languages became especially topical after the disintegration of Yugoslavia, with additional polemics about the standardisation of their ‘ikavica’ and its introduction into the official use in the city of Subotica. And, finally, a special characteristic of the Bunjevci identity are their culture, although never fully developed and exposed, and very specific and recognisable traditional customs, although insufficiently preserved in their original form. When, in 1991, in the Republic of Serbia the Bunjevci first got the opportunity to declare themselves in the population census and be registered as a separate ethnic community and when the National Council of the Bunjevci Ethnic Minority in was established in 2003, as well as other institutions and organisations in the field of culture, politics, and information (and especially with the standardisation of ‘ikavica’ and the introduction of the their language into public use, primarily in education), the Bunjevci finally awaited better socio-political conditions. For preserving their identity. Those members of the Bunjevci who consider themselves an autochthonous people in Bačka, after a century and a half of assimilation and efforts of other peoples to ethnically assimilate them, have accepted Serbia as their country in which they have the opportunity to revitalise and further develop their linguistic and cultural uniqueness and potential.

Hana Younis, Žene u sudskim spisima 1878–1914. Odbjegle, preljubnice, rentijerke, zemljovlasnice

Author(s): Alen Nuhanović / Language(s): Bosnian,English Issue: 52/2023

Review of: Hana Younis, Žene u sudskim spisima 1878–1914. Odbjegle, preljubnice, rentijerke, zemljovlasnice (Women in court records 1878–1914. Runaways, adulteresses, rentiers, landowners). Sarajevo: University of Sarajevo – Institute for History, 2023, 338 pgs.

Стефана Йорова. Самодивата в българския фолклор

Author(s): Vihra Baeva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 49/2024

Elementy starożytnych koncepcji filozoficznych tianming i tianxia w przywództwie politycznym komunistycznych Chin

Author(s): Adam Pawełczyk / Language(s): Polish Issue: 36/37/2023

Political and philosophical concepts of tianming and tianxia from around the 11th century B.C. were the most important elements of legitimizing political power in China. Tianming (‘the mandate of heaven’) assumed that the imperial authority had the permission of heaven to exercise power, while tianxia (‘everything under heaven’) meant the area over which this authority was to extend. Despite regime changes – from the empire, through democracy and dictatorships, to modern socialism – this traditional concepts are still an important value for Chinese society. Therefore, the aim of the article is to examine how the current communist authorities of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) use this concepts to exercise political leadership and legitimize it. Based on a historical analysis and a study of individual cases of the actions of the contemporary Chinese authorities, the author wants to prove that both concepts are still an important aspect of exercising power in China.

Nasze posłowie

Author(s): Sebastian Latocha,Ewa Nowina-Sroczyńska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1-2/2024

The epilogue discusses the longstanding dualism in Polish imagery, characterized by religious (altars) and political (thrones) representations. It highlights the societal difficulty in accepting dominant, oppressive images that pervade various spaces—churches, homes, schools, and public displays—prompting acts of subversion, such as altering images of notable figures like Gomułka or even the Virgin Mary. The text proposes an interpretation of cultural works that challenge dominant imagery, referencing Michel Foucault's concept of counter-history, which contrasts biblical history with Roman history. The former represents the marginalized voices of the weak, providing a narrative that opposes the justifications of power offered by the latter. Foucault argues that biblical discourse advocates for rebellion against unjust laws and the glorified status of institutions, while Roman discourse pacifies society and legitimizes authority. The radical challenge to established themes and images is portrayed as a plea for societal acceptance of subversion, rebellion, and resistance against "sacred" traditions and cultural roles.

Prikazi

Author(s): Ljubica Anđelković Džambić,Margareta Gregurović,Jelena Kulušić,Barbara Majnarić,Ivona Grgurinović,Mirela Hrovatin,Una Bauer,Željka Petrović Osmak,Janja Kovač,Ivana Štokov,Jadran Kale,Ana Gruić Parać,Silva Kalčić,Vilma Benković,Jelena Ivanišević / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 2/2024

Review of: Ozren Biti, Biti poznat. Celebrity kultura na hrvatski način, Disput, Zagreb, 2024., 196 str.; Balkanska ruta. Pojmovnik europskog režima iregulariziranih migracija na periferiji EU, ur. Marijana Hameršak, Iva Pleše i Tea Škokić, Sandorf, Zagreb, 2024., 350 str.; Jadran Kale, Vodič kroz suhozidnu baštinu Šibensko-kninske županije, Muzej grada Šibenika, Šibenik, 2023., 97 str.; Iva Nenić, Guslarke i sviračice na tradicionalnim instrumentima u Srbiji. Identifikacija zvukom, Beograd, Clio, 2019., 299 str.; Jelena Marković, Šutnje straha, Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku, Zagreb, 2024., 215 str.; Approaching Pilgrimage. Methodological Issues Involved in Researching Routes, ur. Mario Katić i John Eade, Routledge, London, New York, 2024., 198 str.; Natka Badurina, Strah od pamćenja. Književnost i sjeverni Jadran na ruševinama dvadesetog stoljeća, Zagreb, Disput, 2023., 296 str.; Katalog stalnog postava / Catalogo della mostra permanente, ur. Ivona Orlić i Mario Buletić, Etnografski muzej Istre – Museo etnografico dell´Istria, Pazin, 2024., 162 str.; Dijana Pinjuh i Anđelko Vlašić, Tragom Evlije Čelebija kroz Hercegovački sandžak, Srednja Europa, Zagreb, 2023., 290 str.; Sarah Pink, Emerging Technologies. Life at the Edge of the Future, Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon, 2023., 168 str.; Lucas Lixinski, International Heritage Law for Communities. Exclusion and Re-Imagination, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2019., 314 str.; Žarko Paić, Izgledi nadolazeće filozofije. Metafizika, kibernetika, transhumanizam, Mizantrop, Zagreb, 2023., 351 str.; Suzana Marjanić, Umjetnost performansa i kinizam. Izvedbena linija otpora, Durieux, Hrvatska sekcija AICA, Zagreb, 2022., 678 str.; White Enclosures. Racial Capitalism and Coloniality along the Balkan Route, ur. Walter D. Mignolo, Catherine E. Walsh, Duke University Press, Durham, London, 2023., 200 str.; Katharina Graf, Food and Families in the Making. Knowledge Reproduction and Political Economy of Cooking in Marocco, Bergham Books, Oxford, 2024., 234 str.;