Notes and Comments: What If They Will Not Give Up?

Author(s): Vladimir Gligorov / Language(s): English Issue: 03/1995

The number of books, papers, articles, reports on Yugoslavia, former Yugoslavia, ex-Yugoslavia, Serbia and Montenegro, Serbia, Montenegro, Serbian republics in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo, not to mention Slovenia and Croatia, grows and grows. I too have added to that growing field. Still, understanding seems to be diminishing rather than growing. Why? There are, I think, three reasons. I shall discuss them in a somewhat balkanized way because that approach may further comprehension. [...]

The New Humanities in the ‘Post-University’: Introduction

Author(s): Arleen Ionescu / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2020

Many scholars think nowadays that the mission of the university should still be, in Mark Taylor’s words, ‘a responsibility to serve the greater social good’: to cultivate ‘informed citizens who are aware of and open to different cultural perspectives and are willing to engage in reasonable debate about critical issues. The present article is an introduction to the main problems the study of Humanities faces nowadays in Universities.

The Remediation of (Post-)Humanities

Author(s): Laurent Milesi / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2020

‘Humanity does not exist at all yet or it barely exists.’ French historical figure Jean Jaurès’s statement, famously echoed by Jacques Derrida, then by Bernard Stiegler, provides a fittingly provocative starting point for my reflections on the present condition and future of the ‘humanities’, envisaged both as the pluralization of what differentiates ‘us’ from other species and as the academic implementation of programmes (as well as the philosophical questioning) in the name of humanism.This article investigates the condition of the humanities in the digital age as always already that of the ‘posthumanities’. The impact of the Derridean deconstruction of the sign as technological ‘trace’ is recalled as an antecedent to Stiegler’s conception, from his first volume of Technics and Time onwards, of humanity as indissociable from an exteriorizing technicity which gave rise to a third kind of, or ‘epiphylogenetic’, memory. The second part looks at Stiegler’s notion of ‘pharmacology’, his diagnostic of the enslavement of contemporary homo technicus through tele-technologies and his pragmatic search for socio-political, cultural and educational remedies. Taking my cue from his approach as well as inflecting Bolter and Grusin’s notion of ‘remediation’, I conclude with a final section envisaging tomorrow’s ‘remedial’ (post)-humanities, adducing as precursor examples a couple of creative practitioners (Mark Taylor and Gregory Ulmer) and emphasizing the rich potential of videogames in such a ‘re(-)creative’ process.

Опазване и популяризиране на културно-историческото наследство в областта на фолклора през опита на СУ „Добри Чинтулов“, град Бургас

Author(s): Galina Lukanova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2020

Safeguarding cultural-historical heritage is of key importance for the preservation of national identity. The Bulgarian school has always been one of the main pillars in this process. The dynamics of changes in the resent years has led to alterations in school curricula, to shift of priorities, and construction of new school disciplines and educational profiles. This article observes the introduction of specialized classes of students of Bulgarian musical folklore at the Dobri Chintulov Secondary School in the city of Burgas, and delineates their development over the years.

Страшни истории в градските легенди в чешки и български контекст

Author(s): Rosina Kokudeva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2020

The article offers a study of horror stories in urban legends from Bulgaria and the Czech Republic in comparative aspect. It proposes a specific classification, which groups horror stories as follows: 1) mysterious events and encounters with supernatural beings, which neither harm, nor help the participants; 2) omens or encounters with supernatural beings, which cause death or other harm to the participants; 3) mysterious signs or encounters with supernatural beings, which help people; 4) evocation of spirits; 5) crime stories: murders or harm – with or without deliberate intention; 6) rumours; 7) parodic horror stories. Parallels drawn between particular stories from the two countries point to the existence of a common folkloric substratum that manifests their universal character and international distribution. Largely, the motifs in those stories result from social life and specific social practices of modern times, but some also have deeply archaic origins.

Анатол Анчев. Лудостта в българския фолклор. София: Издателство на БАН „Проф. Марин Дринов“, 2018

Author(s): Petya Bankova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2020

Book review

КЊИЖЕВНА СОЦИЈАЛИЗАЦИЈА И НАСТАВА КЊИЖЕВНОСТИ

Author(s): Marina M. Petrović Jülich / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 71/2020

Im Schulsystem sollte die Literatur nicht nur durch traditionelle Verfahren–Frontalunterricht und analytische Verfahren, die durch Frage (der/die Lehrende) und Antwort (der/die Lernende) vermittelt werden. Vielmehr musste das in unserer multimedialer Zeit auch auf andere Weise geschehen, die handlungs- und produktion- sorientiert sind und andere Medien nicht ausser Acht lassen (Film, Musik, Hörspiel, Computer). Um den Ist-Zustand im intitutionellem Literaturunterricht zu beleuchten, wurden unter einer Gruppe von 10 Germanistikstudierenden qualitative Untersu- chungen durchgeführt und die durch Interwievs gewonnenen Daten analysiert. Das Ziel der Untersuchung war es, nicht nur den Ist-Zustand zu untersuchen, sondern auch Vorschläge für die Änderung der Unterrichtspraxis zu geben.

Международна конференция „Между световете: магия, чудеса и мистика“

Author(s): Ekaterina Todorova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 41/2020

ОБРЕД И LINGUA: ФИЙ МЪРТУРИЯ? – ТРАДИЦИОНЕН СЛЕДПОГРЕБАЛЕН ОБИЧАЙ ПРИ ВЛАСИТЕ ОТ С. ХЪРЛЕЦ, ОБЩ. КОЗЛОДУЙ

Author(s): Ivalina Vassileva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 18/2020

The purpose of the following text is to show the local variant of after funeral custom “Fii marturia”, which was realized in the village of Harletz in the region of Vratza during the second half of the twentieth and the first decade of the twenty first century. The accent is on the algorithm of the custom which was discussed in two directions – outside – the stories of the local Harletz citizens and inside – the childhood memories of the author. In this research, the geographical, culture and historical, lingual and demographic sides of this occurrence are well shown and discussed. Ethnological analysis of the Hurletz’s version of this custom can also be found in this work.

FROM INVISIBILITY TO VISIBILITY. BIOGRAPHY AS A HISTORICAL SOURCE FOR THE RISE OF THE ACTOR’S PROFESSION IN GREECE (FROM THE 19th CENTURY TO THE 1930’s). THEORETICAL ASPECTS, EUROPEAN ENCOUNTERS AND BIOGRAPHICAL GENRES

Author(s): Constantina Georgiadi,Tania Neofytou,Vania Papanikolaou,Maria Sehopoulou / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

The present paper investigates the biographies of actors published in the periodical press of Greece and Greek communities abroad, from the independence of the nation state (1830) to the 1930’s. One of the main bibliographical and historiographical problems a researcher of the history of Greek Modern Theatre has to face is the insufficient –almost non-existent– information about the fleeting work of actors. The current research aims at contributing to the history of acting and finding answers to questions such as: how the profession of the actor in Greece and in Europe evolves during the 19th century and how this significant change is reflected in the Greek periodical press.

SOCIAL LIFE AND FAMILY RELATIONS IN THE TESTAMENTS OF WALLACHIAN MERCHANTS (18th C. – EARLY 19th C.)

Author(s): Gheorghe Lazăr / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

The reconstruction of family relations and of their impact on the socioeconomic activities of Wallachian merchants in the 18th and early 19th centuries is a rewarding, yet difficult, task. The difficulty results from two main factors: one is that the majority of the available primary sources have an arid, patrimonial nature, and two, the type of documents that might offer more social detail, i.e. family correspondence and chronicles, diaries, etc., are not as numerous as the historian would wish. The author of the present study therefore decided to supplement this uneven documentary base with another type of material: the last wills and testaments of individuals from this socio-professional group. It is from the examination of a documentary corpus of around 100 such texts that the author has attempted to flesh out relations between spouses as well as those between parents and their descendants. A secondary objective of this approach was to identify possible strategies used by merchants in the period under study to ensure continuity in their trade and the ‘security’ of family estates. Despite the nature of the documents, which did not have much scope for affective display, testaments often reveal feelings of love, respect, and loyalty – or a lack thereof – among family members. The fact that most testators usually named close kin (a spouse, surviving children, and siblings) as executors and main beneficiaries of their estates shows the crucial importance of family alliances, affective ties, and solidarities in the longer-term economic survival of family groups.

Constructing the Hybrid Identity of the ‘Stranger’:

Author(s): Villy Tsakona,Rania Karachaliou,Αrgiris Archakis,Angela Ralli / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2018

The aim of our study is to examine the multiple ways Greek immigrants position themselves in terms of cultural identity. Recent approaches to immigrants’ cultural identities tend to employ the concept of transnationalism to account for their hybridity and fluidity. Here, we intend to show that Georg Simmel’s ([1908] 1971) notion of the ‘stranger’ is also relevant to the analysis and interpretation of such transnational identities. In this context, and drawing on positioning theory (Davies and Harré 1990), we argue that our informants mainly construct hybrid ‘stranger’ identities as both Greeks and Canadians or as feeling Greek but not when in Greece. Our data consists of 15 semi-structured interviews exploring the immigrant experiences of Greeks who migrated to Canada from the mid-1940s until the late 1970s. The analysis focuses on (a) the discursive means the informants employ to construct the hybrid identity of the ‘stranger’, and (b) the specific purposes they fulfill. It appears that hybrid self-positionings are achieved via the use of (a) the disclaimer ‘I am/feel Greek but…’, (b) metaphors, (c) small stories, and (d) repair mechanisms. We also argue that, via constructing ‘stranger’ identities, the immigrants of our data claim Greekness, on the one hand, and legitimize themselves as Canadian citizens on the other, while also distancing themselves from the Greeks living in Greece and the respective negative stereotypes.

The Immigrant as “the Other”.

Author(s): Adam Głaz / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2017

The study looks at how the notion of the Other, understood here as an ethnically, religiously, linguistically, and/or racially “different” immigrant, is portrayed in a specific section of English-language media discourse. The data come from British, American, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand media (predominantly the press) but are limited to six articles in total, so that the proposed analysis is qualitative, rather than quantitative or statistical. It is an exercise in reconstructing a cultural model of the Other, not a presentation of a finished product, which – if and when the analysis is expanded to cover a much more extensive corpus – can yield descriptions of this heterogeneous notion in terms of differential cultural models. On the theoretical side, the study also links cultural model to the notion of cultural mindset.

Wewnątrz i na zewnątrz kultury.

Author(s): Arkadiusz Jabłoński / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2017

Badania pragmatyczne nad „grzecznością” w istotny sposób ograniczają możliwości opisu konkretnych sytuacji interakcji. Dzieje się tak głównie ze względu na to, że zdroworozsądkowe a zarazem normatywnie zorientowane pojęcie „grzeczności” uniemożliwia dostrzeżenie licznych zjawisk postrzeganych jako oczywiste przez rodzimych użytkowników kodu w rzeczywistych warunkach komunikacji. W artykule niniejszym dążono do ukazania przynajmniej kilku istotnych obszarów uzusu językowego, do opisu jakich studia „grzecznościowe” nie są w stanie dotrzeć. Postulowano rozszerzenie spektrum badań nad rzeczywistymi sytuacjami kontaktu językowego, poprzez odejście od wyłącznie „grzecznościowego” punktu widzenia, z wykorzystaniem ramy opisowej honoryfikatywności (modyfikacji honoryfikatywnej), jako zjawiska obecnego w każdym rzeczywistym przekazie, powiązanego z osiągnięciem adekwatności komunikacyjnej komunikatu. Zwrócono również uwagę na fakt, że badania nad modyfikacją honoryfikatywną, obejmujące całość aktywności językowej jednostek i grup, mogą (i powinny) dotyczyć także polityki językowej, pojmowanej jako wyposażenie użytkowników kodu choćby w podstawowy zestaw wzorców jego użycia umożliwiających efektywną komunikację. // Pragmatic studies on „politeness” limit significantly the possibilities of description of actual situations of communication. It is mainly because of the fact that a common-sense oriented normative notion of „politeness” makes it impossible to notice numerous phenomena taken for granted by the native users of a code in actual circumstances of communication. In this paper, it has been attempted to show at least some important areas of language usage that the „politeness” related approaches are unable to reach. It has been postulated to widen the range of studies over actual situations of communications, by abandoning the solely „politeness” focused point of view, with the implementation of the notion of honorific modification (HM), as a phenomenon present in any actual message, related to the achievement of communicational adequacy of a message. It has also been pointed out that the studies of HM, covering all communication related activity, may (and: should) be related also to the language policy, perceived as equipping the language users at least with basic set of its usage patterns, enabling effective communication.

Stan języka ukraińskiego po odzyskaniu przez Ukrainę niepodległości w sierpniu 1991 roku

Author(s): Bożena Zinkiewicz-Tomanek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1&2/2016

W artykule przedstawiono zmiany w języku ukraińskim po odzyskaniu przez Ukrainę niepodległości. Przed 1991 rokiem władza radziecka – prócz znanych z czasów Rosji carskiej różnego rodzaju zakazów ‒ stworzyła system ingerencji w wewnętrzne prawa językowe, zabraniając jednych wyrazów, konstrukcji syntaktycznych czy zasad ortograficznych, a propagując inne, bliższe językowi rosyjskiemu, który de facto posiadał pozycję dominującą w każdej prawie dziedzinie. Doprowadziło to do nienormalnej sytuacji językowej, nieświadomego mieszania języka ukraińskiego i rosyjskiego, do „rozchwiania” norm języka ukraińskiego zarówno fonetycznych, jak i morfologicznych, a także norm syntaktycznych oraz łączliwości leksykalnej. Dlatego też po 1991 roku ‒ prócz zmian w systemie leksykalnym, związanych z rozwojem nauki, techniki oraz przekształceniami politycznymi i ekonomicznymi ‒ obserwujemy dążenie do odejścia od form zrusyfikowanych, naruszających normy ukraińskiego języka literackiego i powrót do starych rodzimych tradycji językowych. // The article discusses changes in Ukrainian after Ukraine had regained independence. Prior to 1991, the Soviet authorities – apart from various prohibitions known from the time of Russian tsars – had created a system of interfering in internal laws of language, prohibiting certain words, syntactic constructions or orthographic rules, and propagating others, closer to Russian, which had a virtually dominating position in nearly all fields. This led to an abnormal linguistic situation, the unconscious fusing of Ukrainian and Russian, both at the level of phonetics and morphology as well as syntactic norms and collocations. That is why, after 1991 – apart from changes in the lexical system, associated with developments in science, technology and political and economic transformations – we can observe the tendency to depart from Russified forms, which violate the norms of Ukrainian literary language, and to return to old native linguistic traditions.

Twarz i inne wyznaczniki dynamiki interakcyjnej w kontekście kulturowym

Author(s): Ewa Bogdanowska-Jakubowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1&2/2016

Przedmiotem pracy jest pojęcie twarzy (wizerunku własnego jednostki) oraz jego rola wkontaktach międzyludzkich. Społeczne znaczenie twarzy uzależnione jest od kontekstukulturowego, a w szczególności od wartości dominujących w danej kulturze oraz od charakterurelacji społecznych tam występujących. Twarz uważana jest za główny wyznacznik dynamikiinterakcji społecznej w kulturach zachodnich. Nie we wszystkich kulturach, jednak, pełni onatak ważną rolę. Celem pracy jest przedstawienie głównych wyznaczników dynamikiinterakcyjnej w kulturze anglo-amerykańskiej i polskiej. // The subject of the study is the concept of face (self-image of a person) and its role in interpersonal contacts. The social meaning of face depends on a cultural context, particularly on values that dominate in a culture and on the nature of social relations which occur there.In Western cultures face is regarded as the main indicator of the dynamics of social interaction.It does not play an equally significant role in all cultures, however. The present article aims at presenting the main indicators of interactive dynamics in Anglo-American and Polish cultures.

Wina a niefortunność - o przeprosinach po polsku i japońsku

Author(s): Arkadiusz Jabłoński / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1&2/2016

Gatunki mowy mogą służyć odmiennym funkcjom pragmatycznym w rozmaitych środowiskach komunikacyjnych. Niekiedy funkcje te ujawniają zróżnicowania niezrozumiałe dla nierodzimych użytkowników języka i kultury. Stwierdzenie to pozostaje w szczególny sposób aktualne w komunikacji międzykulturowej, na granicy środowisk kulturowych. Niniejszy artykuł zawiera próbę schematycznej charakterystyki różnic między zastosowaniem gatunku mowy (procedury komunikacyjnej) przeprosin w polskim i japońskim środowisku komunikacyjnym. Postulaty badawcze weryfikowano na konkretnych przykładach aktywności komunikacyjnej w środowisku międzykulturowym. // Genres of speech may serve different pragmatic functions in various communication environments. In some cases these functions may reveal differences unintelligible for nonnative users of language and culture. This statement is especially valid in cross-cultural communication, on the verge of cultural environments. This paper brings an attempt at a schematic description of differences between the implementation of a speech genre (communication procedure) of apology in Polish and Japanese communication environments. Research postulates have been verified using actual examples of communication activity in a cross-cultural environment.

Traces of the Heroic Time: the Well of Angelush and the ‘Radetzki’ Steamship

Author(s): Nikolai Nenov / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

The article traces the regained popularity of a healing water source, promoted by the feigned healer and wonder-worker Angelush. The activities of Angelush are connected with the appearance of the Great Comet, observed in Europe in 1861. Many newspapers from this period reflect the miracles and the impressive crowds of people that visited the healing water source in Northeast Bulgaria, near the Danube River. The present-day ‘intervention’ in media background seems to result from the need of shedding light on the visible traces of the ‘heroic time, which are pertinent due to the proximity to the anniversary of the April 1876 uprising and to the exploit of Hristo Botev’s rebel band and the use of ‘Radetzki’ steamship in the same year. The text analyses a concrete case of inventing tradition, which appears necessary for present-day political and social purposes. The significance of the Well of Angelush as a sacred place is constructed entirely in media background, creating the myth that ‘Radetzki’steamship was built with the money earned from transporting visitors to the healing water source. In this case, the theme of the ‘heroic time’ and the immediate relation with the national narrative is used to testify the significance of a religious site, the belief in which should be a sufficient justification for its existence. Thus, in the 21st century, we witness how an increasing number of churches and monasteries in Bulgaria construct their past through the links they establish with nationally significant topics, characters and images. They do so by emphasizing not that much the spiritual and religious aspects – as connected with faith or with sacred scriptures, but rather – with the presence of traces of the heroic time, which inscribe the cult sites in the toponymic space of the nation.

Between Specifics, Stereotype and ‘Adoption’ of the Other’s Garment

Author(s): Miglena Ivanova / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

This article deals with a corpus of little known archival documents dating from 1888-1889, stored in the deposits of the Scientific Archives at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and concerning the population in the territory of present-day Bulgaria as well as the prevailing way of dressing of different groups towards the end of the 19th century. A number of photographs are included as illustrations in support of the textual descriptions. The author’s attention is focused on such archival units containing descriptions of women’s garb, attesting to the fact that during the period under review, part of the Gagauz women wore shalwar. The evidence presented shows that towards the late 19th century, this type of garment established a solid presence among the Gagauz community inhabiting the Black Sea coastal areas of Bulgaria. The styling, cut and manner of wearing of that garment comes as evidence that while originally the shalwar was worn exclusively by Muslim women, during the period of modernization of the Ottoman empire, they were ‘adopted’ by the Christian Orthodox Gagauz women.

Book review

Author(s): Alyona Ivanova / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2020