За истината и университета днес
Рublic lecture at the Sofia University, organized by the Higher Research Institute "Balkan-Panitza".
More...We kindly inform you that, as long as the subject affiliation of our 300.000+ articles is in progress, you might get unsufficient or no results on your third level or second level search. In this case, please broaden your search criteria.
Рublic lecture at the Sofia University, organized by the Higher Research Institute "Balkan-Panitza".
More...
The article proposes an innovative approach to life chances, conceptualizing them in terms of the intricate interplay between the micro dimensions (personal resources and potentials) and macro dimensions (contextual opportunities) of sociality. This understanding of life chances is employed in a qualitative study of their transformations in four Bulgarian towns; the research was carried out first in 2005 and then repeated in 2016 by means of in-depth interviews. The article presents the main results of comparative analysis of empirical evidence, which reveal heterogeneous patterns of changes in and of life chances in the studied towns. This analysis contributes new insights to the sociological understanding of a particular form of social change.
More...
The text presents an original interpretation of informality in economic relations, systematized and described through the habituses of informality, within which individuals apply different deviant models of economic behaviour. Each of the identified behavioural patterns has a strongly recognizable specificity, both in value normative aspect and in terms of preferred means (legitimate or illegitimate) to achieve the personally significant goals. The behavioural patterns described are empirically captureable, thus making them easy to be recognized and accessible for research.
More...
The Ohrid Peace Agreement, signed between the central government in Skopje and the guerrilla army of ethnic Albanians after the armed ethnic conflict in Macedonia in 2001, has largely changed the constitutional framework of the previous political system. The so-called Westminster, or majoritarian, democracy established by the 1991 Constitution, which favoured the country’s ethnic majority (the Macedonians amount to 64% of the population), was fundamentally changed. A new model has been set up, known in political theory and practice relevant to such situations, as power-sharing. In the last 18 years, this model has demonstrated its advantages as well as its disadvantages. Under the umbrella of the so-called international community, which invested in the stabilization of this part of the Balkans (especially in Bosnia, Kosovo, Albania, Serbia and North Macedonia), this model of ethnic quotas and proportionality, decentralization, preferential policies and right of minority veto, contributed to inter-ethnic peace and a fragile balance of power. But the past 19 years has been a sufficiently long time for a critical assessment of the model, which has turned out to be largely reduced to corrupt governance. On February 9, 2015, the opposition party, Social Democratic Alliance (SDSM) publicly released a total of 36 packets of illegally made recordings of telephone conversations, including those of the Prime Minister, government ministers, holders of high public offices, mayors, deputies, the parliamentary speaker, opposition leaders, judges, the public prosecutor, civil servants, journalists, editors and media owners. These recordings had been made by the national intelligence services, at that time controlled by the ruling right-wing party VMRO-DPMNE (IMRO-Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity). As a result of this massive abuse of human rights, after the elections in December 2016, VMRO-DPMNE was unable to form a government and the mandate was handed to the party with the second largest number of votes, SDSM (Social Democratic Union of Macedonia). A new coalition government, composed of SDSM and the party of ethnic Albanians, Democratic Union for integration (DUI), was able in two years to solve the most difficult and persistent problems – the country’s disputes with neighboring Bulgaria and Greece, and to fast-track the country’s membership in NATO and the EU. For the first time, citizens were divided not along ethnic lines but along ideological and political ones. They were either pro-Western or anti-Western (which meant pro-status quo). We have yet to see whether the thesis will be confirmed that, when citizens feel more secure, they are more inclined to be tolerant toward minorities, more sensitive to ethnic diversity and ready to adapt to the situation.
More...
The new populist tendencies that characterize much of the modern globalized world have not bypassed the new democracies in the post-Communist countries. The pattern of populism tends to adjust to different societal contexts and while much research, both theoretical and empirical, on this phenomenon has been conducted in the countries of the European West, literature is scarce concerning the rise of populism in the European periphery. Additionally, populism has existed in the United States and South America, but its recent manifestation in the former Socialist states, starting from the 1990s, remains greatly under-researched. In fact, populist tendencies in national politics are especially interesting to study in post-transition countries that experienced destructive conflicts in the period following the collapse of Communism. Bosnia and Herzegovina is precisely such a country. Hence, the purpose of this article is to analyse and clarify the specificities of modern populism in the Bosnian political sphere, which is marked by ethnic divisions and ethno-nationalist tendencies rooted in the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords which ended the 1992–1995 war. More precisely, this study will explain the ways in which populism generates power for the ethno-nationalist elites and reinforces their political and economic supremacy. Applying discourse that emphasizes the permanent antagonisms between the three major ethnic groups, fear, belligerence and the “us” vs. “them” paradigm, right-wing populists rely on prosaic rhetoric which undermines the country’s re-integration and societal healing, as well as its Euro-Atlantic integration. Against the backdrop of classical works on populism, we examine the populist behavior and tendencies of major populists in terms of the following indicators: the role of language and culture; ethnicity (the “us” vs. “them” discourse) and promotion of cultural harmony through emotions and simple language (the focus here is on ethnic harmony), coupled with anti-establishment discourse. Moreover, this study will investigate how such parties construct “the people” based on ethnicity and religion, whether their organization tends to adapt to current political trends in a “chameleon-like” way in order to achieve success, be influential in politics and connect with other parties, and what is the observed level of populism. In order to do so, we have conducted twelve interviews with respondents from the general public of voting age and of mixed ethnic backgrounds (18 years and above) across Bosnia and Herzegovina, since the parties in question hold significant power across the land.
More...
The purpose of the article is to consider the issue of a set of values, on the basis of which a dialogue can be built between representatives of European cultures that have arisen on the basis of the Christian tradition and carriers of values that have developed within the cultures of the Islamic world. Common Western European memory faces the threat of extinction due to the growth in Europe of the Muslim population, which forms its own memory on the basis of other experience and other values. The methodology is to determine the fundamental categories of work - “identity” and “value” in their relationship, the method of interdisciplinary synthesis, ethical-philosophical and sociocultural analyzes. In order to identify those values that were universal in the past and could become the basis of mutual understanding in the current multicultural situation, axiological and retrospective approaches are applied. Scientific novelty lies in the consideration of value issues in the dialogue of cultures, an attempt is made to find in the processes of public life such methodological principles and techniques that can be used in studies of the processes of social interaction. Conclusions. Modern Europe seeks to preserve its value-normative identity, and at the same time it must guarantee the rights and freedoms of representatives of other cultures. Intercultural dialogue is possible on the basis of values developed in the process of communication, which can reasonably claim universal significance.
More...
The paper aims to research the necessity of the policy and legal protection of freedom of religion at the workplace, as well as to support the prevention of discrimination of the employees on grounds of religion. The sociological and legal normative method regarding the implementation of the international principle of Dignity at Work, accompanied by the integrated and holistic approach in the research, has been applied. The basic research questions are defined as follows – whether the majority, declarative guarantee of freedom of religion by the provisions of the Constitution, as well as by positive legal documents, is sufficient for the protection against religious discrimination in the domain of labour, and how to increase the scope and level of individual protection of freedom of religious expression, in a way not jeopardizing the interests of the employer in the conditions of domination of economic principles in business, as well as in the labour market, in addition establishing a balance with social goals in terms of achieving goals of the sustainable development agenda.
More...
Today in Yugoslavia (or in what was Yugoslavia) it has become painfully obvious that the standard was lost. Recriminations about the first blow are abundant. Some would single out an event of yesterday or of last week, others go far back in history searching for facts (or myths) that would explain (and justify) everything. Although very little time has been given to the teaching of national histories in the past decades in or outside of school, one of the characteristics of people belonging to embattled ethnic groups in Yugoslavia today is that they have all of a sudden become "experts" in national history, and particularly in the history of national myths. [...]
More...
National states are often justified on the principle of self-determination, but it is not always obvious what the "self' stands for and how is it to be "determined." Here I intend to develop a simple theory of self-determination failure, use the term "Balkanization" to refer to it, and look at some of the experiences of what used to be Yugoslavia. [...]
More...
Gypsies, those wanderers in various parts of the globe who still elude assimilation, have remained on the periphery of world attention. Their North Indian, Aryan origin notwithstanding, they were singled out with the Jews for Nazi genocide: an estimated one million of them perished. From occupied Bohemia and Moravia they were deported and almost all were exterminated. In the nominally independent pro-Nazi state of Slovakia, most of the Gypsies survived although they were subjected to various discriminatory measures. [...]
More...
La recherche d'un certain métier ne peut plus être menée méthodologiquement dans la perspective d'une seule discipline, aussi complète qu՚elle soit. Il s'agit d'une approche complexe et interdisciplinaire (ethnographie, ethnologie, histoire, archéologie, sociologie, esthétique, connaissance de technologies spécifiques). La volonté d'analyser autant que possible les données nous a conduit à l'idée de combiner la perspective synchrone avec la perspective diachronique, à partir d'une documentation bibliographique et de terrain approfondie pour la capitalisation des résultats, y compris avec l'aide de disciplines connexes. Les recherches de ces dernières années ont révélé des réalités insatisfaisantes, similaires à celles d'autres domaines où l'artisanat est touché, comme: la restriction du nombre d'artisans, la disparition totale des métiers dans de nombreux centres, le manque d'intérêt des jeunes pour apprendre et pratiquer la poterie, la régression quantitative due au remplacement de plus en plus accentué des objets traditionnels par les objets industriels, la diminution de la circulation des produits. L'ornementation de la poterie obogène, si l'on se réfère à des décors déjà reconnus comme des classiques, tels que: coq, aigle, poisson, feuille d՚erable, chérubin, toile d'araignée, plume de paon, chemin perdu et fer de labour, dépend d'un autre domaine de l'artisanat traditionnel, les œufs décorés. La migration de ces décorations symboliques sur des récipients en argile a commencé avec le maître Marin Diaconeasa, le grand-père du décorateur d'œufs Tudor Diaconeasa, également concerné par les deux métiers. Le chemin perdu, motif ornemental reconnu dans les deux métiers traditionnels analysés, est en fait une métaphore qui définit l'orientation actuelle de la céramique et de la décoration des oeufs.
More...
Pericolul dispariției dialectului săsesc vorbit a ajuns să fie o realitate acută. Mai mult, în contextul dispariției îndeletnicirilor și a meșteșugurilor tradiționale din lumea satului transilvănean, se pierde din memoria satelor, odată cu știința despre aceste preocupări, un foarte bogat vocabular de specialitate. Lucrarea de față face parte dintr-un proiect mai vast, care urmărește, din perspectiva istoriei culturale și etno-lingvistice, salvarea acestor informații, concentrându-se asupra satului Veseud-Agnita. Cercetările începute încă din perioada anilor 1980 vizează, sub aspect monografic, istoria așezării cu investigații de factură interdisciplinară, în cadrul căreia aspectele de limbaj și dialect ocupă un loc special. Ele vor face tema celui de-al doilea volum monografic, primul fiind deja apărut. Pe Pământul Crăiesc (Königsboden) pădurile, apele și terenul agricol au fost inițial proprietate în comun a sătenilor. Pe parcursul instituirii proprietății private (lucrarea de față citează în acest sens un document din sec. al XVI-lea, care se referă la defrișări în acest scop), acest drept comun se restrânge la proprietatea colectivă asupra pădurilor, apelor și pășunilor. Când, în anul 1754, se legiferează și se uniformizează dreptul de folosință asupra pădurilor în Transilvania, autorul documentului, baronul Martin Zacharias Wankhel von Seeberg a trebuit să ia în considerare acest drept colectiv de factură tradițională în folosirea lemnului din pădure, elaborând un decret special pentru satele de pe Pământul Crăiesc. În decursul secolelor acest drept colectiv al comunității sătenilor asupra proprietății pădurii s-a transferat asupra structurii politice a comunității – satul, comuna, orașul –, pe al cărui teritoriu se aflau pădurile. Respectând vechile tradiții, decurgând din fostul statut de proprietari ai pădurilor, țăranii au menținut până la sfârșitul sec. al XX-lea unele preocupări privind regulile tăiatului lemnelor din pădure, replantarea și îngrijirea fondului silvic. Lucrarea de față urmărește în detaliu, luând ca exemplu satul Veseud, pe al cărui teritoriu se afla o bogată vegetație silvică, toate aceste lucrări, desfășurate pe parcursul unui an, folosind atât documentația istorică, cât și cea etnografică, punând un deosebit accent pe aspectul lingvistic al unui vocabular dialectal aflat pe cale de dispariție.
More...
Homemade culture is what is born from the interaction between art and home, between artists, hosts and audience, the living product generated in and by the domestic space. The personal dwellings are used as exhibition or performative spaces by the young curators who do not own any gallery or artists who are not willing to align esthetically and politically to the mainstream culture. Although neither financial, nor (intense) self-promotional purposes are pursued, they use their personal space in order to get noticed or just to make their art to a close circle of people who share the same values. The domestic space feature has a decisive influence on the structure, frequency, type of public and, of course, the content of the event. The homemade culture activities are directly dependent on the drive, the aims, the energy fluctuations of the hosts. I became interested in this topic because in December 2008, I opened an apartment theater in my own home. In 2010, I started studying similar initiatives around the world. I set out to highlight and describe these manifestations in order to reveal the existence of a socio-cultural phenomenon not yet studied.
More...
After Mustafa Kemal Atatürk founded the new Turkish Republic in 1923, the country went through a swift and radical transformation. The ruling elite made use of all possible tools to impose the ideals of the new Republic. Their main objective was to break the bonds with the Islamic Ottoman past to establish a new secular national identity. The essence of the new Turkish nation was found in pre-Islamic Central Asia. This view was supported with the help of the Turkish History Thesis, which asserted that the Turks are a supreme race, and their origins are from Central Asia. The state tried to propagate this thesis by various means. The most effective tool that could reach the illiterate people during that period was the theatre. Accordingly, the aim of this article is to explore how the state disseminated the Turkish History Thesis and the values of the new Republic through theatre. The emergence of this new narrative coincided with the tenth anniversary of the Turkish Republic. The plays, written in 1933, especially for this occasion, will be analyzed to determine how they support the Turkish History Thesis and the values of the new nation. Two plays, Akın (The Raid) and its sequel Özyurt (Homeland), will be explored in detail to give an elaborate account of the ideology behind such plays written during that period.
More...
Vepra e shkrimtarit arbëresh, Françesk Anton Santorit, Il canzoniere albanese-Këngëtorja arbëreshe, më shumë se çdo vepër tjetër e tij, të ballafaqon me dukuri të natyrës teorike dhe të shtjellimit të veçantë shprehës poetik të tekstit. [...]
More...
The article examines Tiberius’s political rhetoric and populism in the laws against astrologists, theatrical actors and the decay of morality
More...