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Review of: Radosław Sztyber, „Skądże to zbłaźnienie świata?” Wojciecha Dembołęckiego „Wywód jedynowłasnego państwa świata” (studium monograficzne i edycja krytyczna), Oficyna Wydawnicza Uniwersytetu Zielonogórskiego, Zielona Góra 2012, ss. 487. ISBN 978-83-7481-453-9. Review by: Piotr Świercz
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Jacques Derrida’s spectre, as defined in Spectres of Marx (1993) is a figure that vacillates between presence and absence. It is something that both defines and disrupts the present by its absence and subsequent return. Indeed, it acts as a container of memory. What Martha and Bruce Lincoln define as secondary haunting is aimed at “broader forms of repair”, such as creation of social consciousness about historical events and ensuring the “remembrance of atrocities” committed or traumas suffered. This type of secondary haunting is to be found in the works of Albanian nationalist writer Ismail Kadare. Not only does he make use of spectral figures like that of Sultan Murad I in Three Elegies for Kosovo (1998) but he also uses symbols such as the three-arched bridge in The Palace of Dreams (1981). Indeed, in The General of the Dead Army (1963), Kadare presses into action an entire army of dead soldiers. These spectres serve to keep alive the memories of atrocities and suffering, as well as those of ethnic origin among future generations. Additionally, the spectre of the Ottoman Empire, often as an allegory for Communism, also haunts the fictional world of Kadare’s characters. Indeed, through these spectres Kadare is attempting to establish the European origins of his native Albania, while placing the burden of Balkan suffering on its Eastern oppressors.
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This article presents the problem of immigrant integration in Poland, which was investigated in a 2022 diagnostic survey of 56 immigrants living in Krakow. The respondents were asked about their opinions on participating in Polish holidays and traditions, introducing their Polish friends to the customs and traditions of their culture and participating in Polish cultural life (Polish cinema, theatre, exhibitions and concerts). The analysis revealed that the vast majority of the respondents (approx. 70%–80%) integrate with the host society to a high degree. The vast majority of the respondents (nearly 90%) claimed that they familiarize their Polish friends with their national culture. Sixty-five percent of the respondents claimed that they participate in Polish cultural life very often or often. However, it is still necessary to support this group of immigrants, who have problems with integration, so there is a need to modify integration policies and introduce intercultural education in schools and universities to a greater degree.
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A primary goal of education, especially higher education, is to provide students with the tools to think for themselves—that is, how to think, not what to think. The authors demonstrate that many theories have not stood the test of time. This includes views and beliefs such as rational choice theory, maximizing shareholder value, greed is good, what it takes to be a great leader, and many more. Therefore, it is essential to teach students not to accept what they are taught without deliberation. Questioning so-called facts is a good trait, and higher education should not be about blind acceptance or indoctrination.
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Between the two World Wars Danzig (Gdańsk) was very much a multilingual society. Different levels of German (High German, different varieties of the urbanolect Missingsch and Lower German) coexisted with the Slavic languages of Polish and Cashubian, as well as with Yiddish. An important source that is not featured by historic linguistic research, are the reportages written in the 1920s and in the first years of the 1930s by the journalist Richard Teclaw. The paper focuses on selected examples of Missingsch- lexis, situations and contexts of using the different varieties of German in Danzig. We argue that it is important to look in a differentiated manner at those situations in cities which, like Danzig, were torn between many dynamics.
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Review of: Frederik H. Bissinger (2021). Family Language Policies and Immigrant Language Maintenance. Lithuanian in Sweden, Stockholm Studies in Baltic Languages 13. Stockholm: Stockholm University. PhD Thesis.
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The text presents and analyses the traumatic history of forcible ownership deprivation of the so-called “former people “conducted by the communist Bulgarian rulers.Urban properties, houses and industrial sites were nationalised or partially taken “in the name of the people“; village landowners were forced to give their land to cooperatives.The state policy of “squeezing the city population” ensured homes for thousands of people coming from the countryside. Through in-depth interviews and biographical methods, the victims’ emotions are reconstructed; their ways of coping with trauma and this specific type of personal crisis are shown. Effects on individual identity formation are also traced.The second part of the text examines changes in objects and possessions that occurred after forcible appropriation. Following Appadurai’s concept of the social life of things, the biographical trajectories of these objects and the physical transformations they underwent due to the forcible transfer from their original owners - city dwellers to the former villagers new urban settlers, members of the Communist party are analysed.
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The article deals with the unique phenomenon of Protestant churches of the Peace, as well as «articular churches» of the middle of the 17th–18th centuries, built after the end of the Thirty Years’ War (1648) and the Sopron Seim (1681) in the Slavic lands of the Holy Roman Empire. Relative religious tolerance, on the one hand, and the harsh conditions in which the Protestant communities were placed among the Catholic majority, dictated the special specifics of the architecture of the wooden Protestant churches of the 1650–1770s in Swidnica, Jawor, Kežmarok, Hronsek, Leštiny, Istebne, Svätý Kríž. The main result of the study is the conclusion that the fundamental difference between «churches of the world» and «particular churches» from Catholic wooden churches lies not only in the cross-planned solution dictated by the well-known differences in the order of worship, but also in the very technique of wooden construction, which is unusual for the local East Slavic tradition. and more characteristic of North German wooden architecture. As a result, «articular» churches became a prominent phenomenon in the colorful and diverse cultural landscape of Eastern Europe. Having largely broken with local building traditions, these outstanding buildings significantly enriched the panorama of monuments of Protestant architecture of the 17th–18th centuries, which became a noticeable alternative to Catholic and Greek Catholic wooden construction. At the same time, they served the purposes of self-identification, when ethnic Poles or Slovaks who professed Protestantism and were in a minority, in every possible way through a different «architectural language», expressed in German or Scandinavian building technologies, tried to present their temple as a grandiose wooden «Noah’s Ark», on which members of the community together make their voyage among the storms, anxieties and upheavals that filled the history of modern Europe.
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The history of the creation and veneration of the image of Our Lady of Ostrobram is studied as a reflection of the processes of the forming Lithuanian national identity in its dynamics over several centuries. The author analyzes how the icon reflects the main ethnic markers, which include: territory, confessional affiliation, language, historical memory, ideas about the past and the future. Theories of the origin of the image and disputes about its confessional affiliation led to the idea of the formation of interconfessional dialogue and unity in diversity as a marker of the border and frontier zone. Within the framework of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which united the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland, the Ostra Brama was perceived as «Strażniczką Kresów», or the guardian of the eastern borders. The preserved historical songs, psalms and hymns dedicated to the Virgin Mary in Vilna emphasize the regional identity. However, at the same time, powerful integration processes in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth led to the assertion of Polishness, which was reflected in fiction, where until the 1920s and 1930s the Ostrobram image was perceived as an integral symbol not only of Polish culture, but also of Polish history and statehood. As the conducted research has shown, the intensified aspirations of the local population for the rooting, the use of the national language and the political processes of the Lithuanian national revival led to the transformation of ideas about the image, which in the 20th century gradually becomes a symbol of Lithuanian rather than Polish. Nevertheless, it is still uncertain whether the Ostrobram Mother of God has become the state symbol of Lithuania as a nation or it remains the guardian of the local original culture and traditions.
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This article describes an educational attempt to overcome an ongoing divide in Israel society. The Jewish - Arab or Israeli Palestinian divide in Israel is harsh and influences Israeli society in various realm such as social, political and economic. Israel's educational system reinforces this divide by separating Jewish and Arab schools. The Jewish Arab bilingual schools (JABS) in Israel attempt to change this segregation reality and create a shared and educational space for both Jews and Arabs. This article presents JABS principals, goals and model and a review of relevant recent research. It will suggest a new stream of study for the future.
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As is known, the Cyprus Peace Negotiation have been continuing for more than fifty years. For more than forty years, people in Cyprus have been spending a conflict-free and peaceful life. In this study, the fifty-year process of Cyprus Peace Negotiation will be summarized and explained at large within the framework of public policy analysis, analysis phases, policy preparation/implementation methods and the role of institutions in the process. The voting of the 2004 Annan Plan between the Turkish Cypriots and the Greek Cypriots during this process and the effect of the voting outcome on the negotiation process will be discussed. With the opening of the border gates that provided controlled passage to northern and southern Cyprus shortly before the Annan Plan was put to a vote, the effects of the new conditions created by the collective and free contact of two populations on the negotiation process and the future apprehension of Turkish Cypriots will be analysed. Since the study involved theoretical approaches, indirect research method was adopted as a method and domestic and foreign sources were scanned within this framework. In parallel with this method, content analysis technique was used. According to the findings, such multilateral conflicts Generals and 22 UN Special Representative behind, there is the danger of the means to turn into a goal. This possibility should not be ignored and the content of the talks and the subject of negotiation in question must be preoccupied on. It is also cumbersome to maintain the peace and the human duty to endure this hardship. It is only possible to conclude the negotiations by agreeing on the acceptance and ingestion of these facts, and perhaps by agreeing on a number of boundary regulations and similar requirements. This means that all parties agree that the actual situation is the best solution.
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The purpose of this study is to identify the Ukrainian-Lithuanian core of the Biedermeier lines of F. Chopin's heritage with a focus on his Songs, which objectively represented a significant component of the achievements of his compositional genius. The research methodology is based on the intonation approach of the Asafiev school in Ukraine and China, which focuses on the common genesis of human musical and speech culture and has been developed in the works of leading Ukrainian scholars, including those of D. Androsova, L. Horelik, O. Markova, O. Muravska, Chinese scholars Liu Binqiang, Ma Wei and many other specialists. The scientific novelty of the work is manifested in the originality of the perspective of cognition of F. Chopin's heritage in the organic reliance of the latter on Ukrainian and Lithuanian sources in the line of A. Mickiewicz's "Lithuanianness", as well as in the fact that for the first time a musicological analysis of the symbolism and semantics of the composer's songs, which he wrote from 1829 to 1847, that is, throughout his creative life, is presented. Conclusions. F. Chopin’s songs declare an essential aspect of the embodiment of the "thoughtfulness" (according to I. Belza) of Chopin's heritage, since they implement the highly artistic European "provincialism" that leads, through the discoveries of J. Lenz and M. Gogol, to verism as a powerful trend in European and world art. The Lithuanian-Ukrainian components of "Sarmatism", which nourished the creative discoveries of F. Chopin's entourage in the persons of A. Mickiewicz, S. Witwizki, B. Zalesski and other artists, promoted independent lines of the composer's artistic development. They differed from his Biedermeier performance and Mazurka culture, as well as from the romantic and protosymbolist achievements that dominate the composer's major forms. F. Chopin's songs constitute a line of creative searches, undervalued by both the author himself and art historians of pro-romantic inclination, which are in the direction of realistic and verist principles – the latter were, apparently, unexpected for the author himself, who did not dare to publish miniatures during his lifetime, which he wrote throughout his life.
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Human creativity has always generated new cultures, both material and non-material, such as ideas, objects, beliefs, traditions, customs, behavior, language, culture, institutions, etc. These diverse dimensions, often associated with spirituality, through which man manifested his presence in the cosmos, are real testimonies to his desire to find himself in a matrix that enables him to express himself to eternity. A kind of pattern with which to quantify and authenticate the diversity of expressions that define it. In other words, to analyze and measure his existence everywhere and always with the same measure. An act to univocally unify and universalize the specifics of all the parts that make it up in being. From the perspective of religion, however, it is definitely about something much deeper than the diversity of presence and creation through which man defines and measures the dimensions of his own worlds, because regardless of whether they are grounded in the sacred, the transcendent or the spirit, religion remains indisputably the unmistakable testimony of God’s presence and, at the same time, of the multiple and diverse forms of manifestations through which the divine reveals its Being. These global human diversities reflect the way in which the identity of faith, founded on the conviction that God has revealed himself and on the dogmatic truths that testify to this fact, such as: the teaching about the creation of the world, the continuous presence of God in creation, the struggle of the Church to defend religious convictions, of the emblematic saints and martyrs who contributed to the foundation of the common memory in the great spiritual community of the Kingdom of God, highlights the image of a history based on the diversity of epiphanies and theophanies. In order to perpetuate these virtues and values of faith, this study is addressed to the generations in search of and building their own paradise, from the perspective of the relationship between the globalized world, which proposes a revalued life, and the dissemination of the Christian message that the Church of Christ addresses to all nations (Matthew 28: 19).
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Milorad Dodik uporno poriče bosanstvo srpskog naroda koji živi zajedno s drugim u Bosni te baštini i dijeli svu njenu sudbinu. Cilj takvog poricanja je daljnje razaranje povjerenja u bosanskohercegovačkom društvu i njegovoj državi. A manjkanje tog povjerenja ugrožava i bosanske Srbe u njihovoj egzistencijalnoj potrebi za boljom budućnošću. Brojne su implikacije ideologijskih sadržaja tog poricanja u bosanskohercegovačkoj politici, kulturi i ekonomiji. Jedna od važnih su i njegova nastojanja da izmašta političkog i teološkog neprijatelja koji će pravdati njegove ideologijske slike.
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The article observes the different stages of the gradual process by which Olev Mikiver became a refugee, following the formation and interweaving of his professional (artist’s) identity, his identity as a soldier and as a refugee, based on his private letters. The study mainly focuses on four letters written by Mikiver during the Finnish Continuation War, in which he participated as a volunteer in 1943–1944; these volunteers later became known as the Finnish Boys. The analysis of the letters focuses on the topics discussed in the letters and on Mikiver’s word usage. In addition to verbal means of expression, visual means have also been observed to gain additional information about the changes in identity, attitudes, and mood of the letter-writer. The analysis showed that despite Mikiver remaining a devoted artist, he adopted the soldier identity in a relatively short time and no conflict arose between the two identities. In 1944, Mikiver fled to Sweden. Based on the letters he sent to his friend Ilmar Laaban between 1948 and 1993, some observations have also been made about how he coped with refugee life in Sweden. In the post-war period, the opportunity to continue as an artist in exile, on the one hand, and the sense of solidarity with other Finnish Continuation War veterans on the other hand, helped Mikiver overcome his depression as a refugee.
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Language, as the linguistic manifestation of extralinguistic experiences, often functions as a means for the creation and expression of societal inequality. In addition to the fact that the participants of social reality are almost never socially equal, which means that someone has power over others, the linguistic reflection of those relationships always derives from the author, who has the power to control the context; his practical instrumentation comes from his own lexical and grammatical choices, as well as their conscious and targeted combination. In this paper, the focus is on noticing and distinguishing, and analyzing and interpreting the choices of V. Paterculus as an author within the framework of collective agency and the topoi with which the Roman national identity is first built, and then positioned as superior to the identities of the peoples with whom the Romans came into contact. While for authors from the 1st century A.D. the language strategies touched on in this paper were not available, since they were neither described nor defined before the 20th century, ancient writers used them completely unconsciously in their spontaneous writing; therefore, these texts, as well as modern ones, are subject to linguistic analysis, interpretation and criticism precisely according to the guidelines of modern language criteria. In this paper one of the possible methods of analysis of the construction of the national and supranational identity of a nation in the historiographical discourse will be offered; the analysis will be based on discursive strategies and macro-strategies offered by the discursive-historical approach and based on empirical data gathered in tabular reviews. An indispensable part of the analysis will be the analyst’s criticism, which derives from democratic norms, human rights and the criteria of rational argumentation from today’s temporal, cultural and political context, because the purpose of critical discourse studies is to expose and point out how domination, i.e., the abuse of social power and inequality, are realized and reproduced in text and speech, but also on how to oppose them in a social and political context (van Dijk 2001, 352).
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A key element for the survival of any nation, for preserving its culture, faith, and identity, regardless of whether the territory where that nation lives is organized as an independent state or as an administrative unit within some state or a part of some empire, as Bosnia was in the period from the year 1463 to 1918, lies in the capacity of that nation, in this particular case Bosniaks, to survive any challenge brought about the by the transition of the rule from one political system to another. These are, at the same time, the most subtle and most crucial moments for the preservation of the spirit of a nation, and for the continuity of their national awareness. Such was the case for Bosnia and Herzegovina in the period from the year 1463 to November the 3rd 1918 when the National government for Bosnia and Herzegovina was formed within the state of Slovenians, Croats, and Serbs. It was in this period of transition that an intellectual, Bosniak reformer and Muslim scholar Muhamed Seid-ef. Serdarević was born in Zenica. This article presents the socio-economic, political, and cultural challenges that Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Bosniaks were facing at that time and it gives the outlines of a relentless endeavor of this scholar in countering these challenges, and in finding adequate answers to problems and deviations.
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Research on religiosity in Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) and former Yugoslavia during the socialist period consistently shows that the majority of inhabitants (70–80%) identify as not religious. In the 1990s, many things changed in B&H, the most important definitely being the fall of the socialist system, expansion of ethnic awareness among all three dominant peoples (Bosniaks, Serbs, Croats), and ethnic war. These social circumstances were followed by changes in the relationship towards religion. Religion has become a very important and socially desirable ideology. In this survey, we review psychological surveys and investigate to what extent young people in the post-socialist context of B&H are religious, and we examine the relationship between religiosity and other social, psychological, and demographic variables. The results of close to 50 empirical surveys have been analysed. Papers were written in the period from 2000 to 2022. All papers included samples from B&H. The paper with the smallest sample had 163 respondents, while the biggest sample amounted to 7,000 respondents. The majority of papers had 300–550 respondents. All surveys encompassed young people between 15 and 25 years of age. The instruments used in most of the cases were the religiosity scales that rely on Allport’s concept of religious orientation, and they imply the existence of intrinsic and extrinsic dimensions (subscales) of religiosity. The results of most of the research show that around 70–90% of participants identify as religious. People in Bosnia and Herzegovina are keen on identifying as religious, but that is much less accompanied by adequate and concrete religious attitudes and behaviours. Socio-demographic variables can be important for expressing religiosity, but those correlations are not consistent. Religiosity almost regularly correlates with conformity, authoritarianism, and conservatism. There is a tendency that religiosity can be a determinant of personal well-being. Correlation is found with better family relations, altruism, lower anti-social behaviours, and, in some research, greater satisfaction with life and optimism. In contrast to that, religiosity can be connected with certain realistically or potentially problematic constructs such as social and ethnic distances, authoritarianism, dogmatism, and ethnocentrism. In the future, it is necessary to work on the development of religiosity, which is a factor of internal and social well-being, and not of intergroup disputes.
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This article presents the results of research that allowed us to outline the profile of a modern farmer and assess whether their defining characteristics translate into a willingness to implement biological innovations in their farm. For individual farming in Poland, biological innovations are of paramount importance for several reasons. However, larger, more extensive farms are primarily interested in adopting these innovations due to economic pressure. Medium-sized farms (5–50 hectares) do not face the same economic pressures, often having diverse sources of income. Therefore, it is essential to identify the factors that may promote innovation and those that are significant barriers to their adoption. As the research results show, these factors are associated with the realization of the modern farmer profile. The article is based on research conducted as part of the NCN Miniatura grant titled “The Profile of a Modern Farmer and the Implementation of Biological Innovations in Individual Farms.”
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