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The article analyzes the events which took place in a small Karelian town of Kondopoga in 2006 and are known as the first ethnic pogrom in the post-Soviet Russia. The town’s name became entrenched in the Russian language as a symbol of intolerance towards Caucasian nations. The analysis of today’s ethnic relations has been conducted on the basis of the press and internet forums from the perspective of an anthropologist of culture. With the example of the history and contemporary life of a small Karelian town, the author described the process of the local identity of its inhabitants being replaced by the ethnic identity (Kondopoga --- a Russian town) and analyzes the causes of the process. He shows, among others, how a clash of what is regional with the ethnically “foreign” leads to ideological justification for racist ideas, which in the official idiom of the authorities are interpreted as “ethnic conflicts”, “natural” in a multi-ethnic state, such as Russia.
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The article deals with the situation which arose after the democratic changes in the community of Romanian Old Believers (i.e. Lipowanie), where apart from traditional organizations a whole range of lay institutions also became active. In effect, the process of the revival of this ethnic minority is two-directional. The competition between new, nationalistically-minded Old Believers and traditional religious leaders results in the US --- THEM opposition being manifested as juxtapositions of the concepts of sin and piety, education and old dogmas, the literary variety of Russian and the dialect of Lipowanie etc.The new economic and social situation results in closer relations between the religious and secular culture of Lipowanie. At the same time, the traditional mechanisms upholding the religious culture, of which the most significant one is migration, allows for the emergence of new places inhabited by US: Old Believers in the united Europe.
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In light of the contemporary paradigm of quantum reality with research on unified quantum field and energy communication in the Humanities, it is essential to ponder Pavel Florensky’s considerations on the energy effects and energy activity of language, words and space, pertaining both to arts and physics. The Russian language contains the word ènergiynost’ – a much broader notion than ènergiya (energy). In Florensky’s writings this relates to the author’s perception and sensibility for language, art and the space of culture within the integrative tendencies of Russian Cosmism, a subject that has not yet been thoroughly studied. In this essay, we focus on Florensky’s interpretation of the magicity of energy communication, as well as on the energy cognition of its participants. A sensitivity to ènergjynost’ in any dimension of consciousness in communication is being gradually recognised today by both scholars and “non-scholars” who integrate psychological and physiological aspects of cognition. The tendency is to relate ènergjynost’ to an emerging quantum model of reality.
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Потпирајќи се на антрополошки пристап што ги поврзува социјалистичкиот, раниот постсоцијалистички и современиот потрошувачки капиталистички период во Бугарија, овој труд ги анализира транзициите на едно урбано место. Женскиот пазар е централен пазар во Софија, обележје на едновековно постоење, каде што активностите во 1990-тите процветаа заедно со падот на социјалистичката економија. Следејќи ги траекториите на неговите трансформации од 1970-тите до 2014 година, создадена е слика за еден комплексен општествен свет, длабоко испреплетен со динамичните политички, општествени, економски, како и дискурзивни контексти на постсоцијалистичкото општество. Паралелно следам како овие значителни динамики прават некои урбани политики да изгледаат разумни, а други не. Од крајот на 1970-тите беа планирани голем број проекти за реконструкција на Женскиот пазар. Разгледувањето на овие планови ни овозможува да видиме како во текот на кус временски период доминантните урбани вредности и идеалите за пазарот се менуваат многупати. Проектите за урбаното обновување се условени одговори на недостатоците од урбан простор, како што субјективно се перципираат од технократските елити и хегемонистичкото јавно мислење. Опишувам дека, како резултат на ова, во 21 век во Софија нема повеќе место за урбан простор што се грижи за потребите на најсиромашните и маргинализираните.
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Drawing on an anthropological approach that binds the socialist, the early post-socialist and the contemporary consumer capitalist period in Bulgaria this article analyses transitions at a single urban site. Zhenski Pazar (Women’s Market) is the central marketplace in Sofia, a landmark of a century-long existence, where activities in the 1990s boomed alongside the collapse of socialist economy. By tracing the trajectories of its transformations from the 1970s to 2014 a portrait is constructed of a complex social world, deeply entangled in the dynamic political, social, economic, as well as discursive contexts of a post-socialist society. In a parallel stream, I track how those larger dynamics make some urban policies seem reasonable and others not. Since the late 1970s, a number of redevelopment projects for the Women’s Market were planned. Reviewing those plans allows us to see how over a short period of time dominant urban values and the ideals for a marketplace have changed many times over. Urban regeneration projects are contingent responses to the deficiencies of urban space, as subjectively perceived by the technocratic elites and hegemonic public opinion. I outline how as a result of this in the 21st century Sofia there is no place anymore for an urban space that caters to the needs of the poorest and the marginalised.
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The article discusses the methodological problems of the interaction of cultures and their influence on the understanding of the formation of modern national culture. Moreover, this approach does not deny the uniqueness and originality of cultures; it helps to understand the philosophy of their analysis and development. The concrete experience of Azerbaijan and some other countries is an example that leads to the comprehension of some generalizations in the formation of modern cultures.In the context of globalization, everything related to the interaction of cultures, in our opinion, has become one of the most pressing problems. Its relevance does not negate the fact that after the famous work of S. Huntington, the problem of the clash of cultures and civilizations has also become the focus of debate and discussion among scientists. There are many clashes and wars in the world, the end and edge of which are not visible. However, there is a desire to cooperate, develop interaction, and strive for integration. One such project is the New Silk Road. But much in its implementation, in our opinion, depends on how culture will be understood. If previously it was believed that interests lead to wars, now everything is not unambiguous with a culture that, as a soft, or even “sharp” force, also leads to misunderstanding, exacerbating conflicts. In our opinion, the point is not in culture, but in its interpretation and peculiar use in cultural practice, education and upbringing.
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The analysis focuses on one of the most important issues of today's global age - cultural differences. Due to the ever-growing role of mobility cultural difference has increasingly come to the fore and began to define the relationships between individuals, peoples and cultures. While in the past when it came to cultural differences, the focus was on dialogue between cultures, and relations between the global and the local were seen as enriching humanity, today globalization is increasingly challenged in the name of cultural uniqueness. Even wars and killings are done in the name of it. In this regard, here, based on empirical data from conducted quantitative and qualitative sociological studies, the analysis is focused on the differences in attitude towards the „other“ and its cultural difference and hence the distances shown to it when „the other“ is „one’s own „ (i.e. part of the main ethnic communities in the contemporary Bulgarian society) and when the „other“ is „foreign/stranger“ (i.e., foreigners who come to live and work in Bulgaria, refugees). The main conclusion is that the knowledge of the “other”, which is achieved in the process of close and constant daily contact with him, leads to a shorter distance. Therefore, the distances that Bulgarian citizens demonstrate towards “foreigners” are many times greater than the distances that different ethnic communities in Bulgarian society demonstrate towards each other.
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The last decades of the 20th century are saturated with events transforming socio-cultural reality. We have to analyze ongoing processes and new trends; therefore, this report is focusing on the mutual linking within the two concepts – philosophy and multiculturalism in Azerbaijan. One of the aims is to explore the advantages of the country – its key geographic location, traditions, philosophical thoughts and the ideology of the so-called Azerbaijanism. In the present report, the attitudes and ideas of Azerbaijan philosophers on the western failed policy of multiculturalism and the reasons for its opposition to the Islamic world are traced. It is analyzed how, against the background of this failure, Azerbaijan sets its own multiculturalism as an effective and working model in the context of the specific discourse of the post-modern, which, together with the Islamic solidarity and tolerance, is among the main principles of the ideology of Azerbaijanism. In Azerbaijan the model of multiculturalism offers the opportunity to consider an all-human, universal context, which, in turn, allows us to perceive the modern, dynamically developing Azerbaijan society in its completeness and unity. Multiculturalism is immanently characteristic for modernity. In the Azerbaijan philosophy, it is viewed as a way of a non-violent, peaceful sublation of contradictions and conflicts between separate nations and countries.The report aims to distribute a philosophical concept or a specific type of worldview, which is less known for the West, requiring the philosophical consideration of the problems, which are emblematic for this epoch. In conclusion the idea for the establishment of collaborative research networks is developed.
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The article discusses the problem of constructing the identity of the modern subject that appears at the intersection of lived experience and the description of it. It is treated as instrumental, a sphere of Master/master–disciple relationship, framed by the author as “existing in a Master/master universe.” The results of the author’s own research on scientific (academic) auto/biographies, as well as other resources revealing different aspects of the Master/master–disciple relationship, serve as the main point of reference for creating the descriptive, interpretive, and analytical layers of the article. They are presented in a mode of anthropologically-oriented text analysis supported by—located in the context of Polish educational sciences—Michel Foucault’s concept of “the hermeneutics of the subject.”
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The polish family is gradually changing the interpretation of traditional culture of family life, especially in the family life sphere, social norms, role models, traditions as well as customs. The modification of these cultural elements may, on the one hand, have a positive effects: enriching the system of customs, traditions, behaviours and values. On the other hand, however, it may lead to limitations or eliminations of cultures brought by previous generations.
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The Japanese have long regarded the nezumi – rats and mice – as vermin that plague agrarian and urban communities. In folk tradition, however, the characterization of the nezumi as amiable, efficacious, and auspicious has formed a powerful motif. As rodenticides and rat traps advertised widely and sold well, nezumi-motif toys such as Daikokuten nezumi (a protector deity of wealth riding on a white nezumi), neko to nezumi (a cat and a nezumi), and komekui nezumi (a rice-eating nezumi) enjoyed great popularity, particularly in eighteenth-century Japan. These toys substantiate the way people favored nezumi-motif items even as actual nezumi caused tremendous damage to Japanese cities and towns through their behavior. This article analyzes the motivation behind playing with nezumi-motif toys by examining the reasons why people accepted the more fanciful idea of nezumi expressed by toys in the face of a very different reality on the ground. The results of this investigation will provide an opportunity to understand the folk narrative embodied within the toy in order to reconsider the purpose such animal-motif toys and mascots have served in Japanese culture. Indeed, the nezumi have provided people with a vehicle they could use to play out elaborate fantasies of the kind of utopia of abundance and wealth that usually contrasted with their real lives. This unique portrayal of human-animal relationship can still be observed today, not only in toys but also in the animal characters found in media today.
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Frogs have always been related to the mythical origin of life. In mythologies throughout the world, frogs were associated with the primeval waters out of which life arose. The author looks at the rich symbolic language of this amphibian, with a special focus on its clear female symbolism – fertility, fecundity, female genitals, abundance, regeneration, renewal of life, pregnancy, eroticism, wetness/life, etc., as well as divine symbolism as revealed in the Polish and Croatian words for frog – boginka and bogińa (goddess). The author identifies and discusses past and contemporary imagery, legends, narratives, and fairy-tales, and the folkloristic, mythical, ethnological, archaeological, and linguistic aspects of frogs and their symbolism. The folkloristic triplet toads – babas – mushrooms identified during the research is presented as additional proof of the analogous linguistic triplet with bau or bo roots in some European languages. All three of the items, with the aspect of wetness as a precondition for fertility, as shown in the paper, are symbols of female sexual organs, fertility, and renewal. In the end, the author points to the longevity of the image of the frog presented next to the Virgin Mary in an interesting syncretism of the pre-Christian and Christian worlds.
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The paper focuses on a particular legend about a wrestling match between a human and a dead werewolf, which I recorded during my fieldwork in the Croat (i.e. Catholic) community in Herzegovina in 2017. Based on the analysis of a legend about a wrestling match between a human of Catholic faith and a Muslim werewolf, I aim to show how latent inter-ethnic and inter-religious tensions in multi-ethnic and multi-religious Bosnia and Herzegovina are reflected in this legend about the restless dead. I pay particular attention to how the ethnic and religious Other is constructed in the legend, and demonstrate the prejudices against the religious and ethnic Others that are reflected in it. I argue that its main function was, and still is, first and foremost to emphasise the superiority of the narrator’s religion, i.e. Catholicism, over Islam, and to serve as a warning to Catholics against abandoning their faith and converting to another religion.
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This paper focuses on the images, communication modes, and belief narratives connected with spirit-animals in Estonian folklore. Firstly, the older (pre-twentieth-century) concept of the spirit-animal is described. Secondly, contemporary beliefs and experiences related to spirit-animals are highlighted. The paper desribes to what extent the old local soul concepts have intermingled with the imported ideas of the spirit-animal and how narratives describing the verbal or non-verbal communication with a spirit-animal sometimes become part of life history narrating, supporting psychological coping with life stress. The author describes repeated elements in the manifestation forms (e.g. bears, wolves) and the behaviour of spirit-animals, contexts where they occur (in the course of rural sweat-lodge rituals as well as in urban settings, experienced and narrated by esoteric practicioners as well as schoolchildren), and tries to find out about their sources.
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This article, developed on the meeting point of ethnozoology and critical animal studies, is an overview of the role of cockroaches (of which there are around 3500 species) in customs and beliefs of certain ethno-traditions, with a special emphasis on Russian and Croatian, i.e. South Slavic, ethno-traditions in terms of context. In the first part of the paper, I have chosen to present the two aforementioned Slavic examples, considering that they are contradictory in the ethics of their relationship towards cockroaches: while cockroaches, particularly the black ones, were respected in Russian ethno-tradition, almost as pets that bring happiness and prosperity to a household (we could call them pet amulets of sorts) (cf. Gura 2005), they were treated merely as pests in Croatian ethno-tradition, as is the case today. In the second part of the paper, I supplement the aforementioned folklorist and ethnologic perspective (zoofolkloristics and ethnozoology) with animal studies. This includes the question of animal rights from a contemporary perspective, whereby I concentrate on aggressive insecticides and exterminators of cockroaches today, as well as on the research of the advertising strategies that contain militant killing performatives (e.g. Raid commercials). I conclude with the discussion on the ethic and aesthetic in the visual art of Catherine Chalmers, who kills cockroaches in the name of art, for the purposes of some of her works, albeit simultaneously demonstrating that even the “lowly” cockroach can be a subject of so-called high art.
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Contrasting with much of Western discourse, Native American myths frequently ascribe world-creating deeds to non-human animals. Further, Native American stories display a remarkable slippage between the worlds of the human and non-human animals, a slippage that continues into worldview, rituals, and everyday life. Using these stories as a starting point, this article seeks to connect the current theoretical movements in posthumanism with those in mythology, in line with Graham Harvey’s call for “academic animism”, a re-appraisal of the role of non-human agency and culture. New developments in animal studies have revolutionized the way scholars perceive of non-hominid mental lives and abilities, which has led to challenges to traditional Western beliefs and practices. Many of these new concepts would be old news to Native Americans, whose traditions fundamentally and categorically posit radically different relationships than the non-native. In short, this paper will present a mytho-evolutionary blueprint for broadening our understanding of culture and narrative far beyond the human, yet including the human as well, as part and parcel of cultural life on earth.
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The article examines the attitudes towards wolves reflected in Estonian folklore and their etiological and religious motifs: the emergence of wolves, wolf incantations, wolves’ food from heaven / from the ruler, pieces of clouds, and taboo names of wolves as expressions of mythological and religious relations. The number of grey wolves (Canis lupus), whose habitat once covered the entire Northern Eurasia including India, Japan, and Arabian Peninsula, has declined in most of central and southern North America, as well as almost all of Western Europe, and they are no longer known in Scandinavia, India, the United Kingdom, and Japan. The article demonstrates the parallels between Slavic and Finno-Ugric traditions.
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Since time immemorial, humans have lived in a mutual relationship with animals, and have, indeed, been dependent on them, that is, their help with domestic work, protection, the food and clothing they provide. The close link between animals and humans throughout history has been reflected in various forms of expressive culture such as ritual, dance, religious practices, art, and so forth, as well as in material culture and other everyday practices. Folklore around the world also reflects the close interrelation between humans and animals in various ways. In cosmogonic myths, animals are sometimes ascribed the role of the creators of the universe; in tales of magic they often figure as supernatural helpers to heroes and heroines on their journey towards a happy ending; they can mimic and mock human characters in animal tales; animals are sometimes addressed with requests in incantations, etc. This issue of Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore therefore features seven papers that were presented at the BNN conference in Ragusa. They approach the topic of human-animal relationships from very different perspectives and angles, and within various genres of folklore.
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At the beginning of September, the Estonian Literary Museum held the 9th annual conference of the Centre of Excellence in Estonian Studies (CEES) under the heading “Perception and Performativity in Arts and Culture in the Age of Technological Change”. During the conference we had a great chance to listen to a presentation by a famous cultural analyst Mieke Bal, who is also well-known for her visual artistic approaches. Mieke Bal works at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA) and gives lectures all around the world. Her interventions in visual art have been influential.
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