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The paper presents changes in the language that is used in the definition of minority groups, especially women, non-binary and black people. It also analyzes the challenges faced in the translation of this literature and in that which is written in Polish. Drawing both on official sources, such as the expertise of the Polish Language Council of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and on the bottom-up language guides developed by people belonging to minority groups, the situations requiring negotiation and also the search for appropriate language (new grammar, pronouns, performativity of forms) is illustrated, indicating ways to minimize the inequalities linguistic hierarchy.
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The article concerns homosexuality as a social phenomenon, constructed and regulated by cultural definitions and norms. Historical changes of these definitions go hand in hand with the evolution of social sciences’ approach to non-normative sexualities. These transformations are reflected in language, which in turn heavily influences the processes of constructing sexual identities. This article presents excerpts from research which illustrates the aforementioned phenomena. The research consisted of biographic-narrative interviews with gay men who built the core of their sexual identity in times of Polish People’s Republic, where available language resources were more of a barrier than aid in such processes.
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In this article, we analyse the conditions behind the formation of the tenant initiative Moje Písnice, which existed in Prague between 2016 and 2020. In the theoretical part, we explain the concepts of urban movements and tenant movements in Central and Eastern Europe and emphasise the role of everyday life and emotions in the genesis of a collective actor. We use qualitative methodology based on an analysis of 12 in-depth semi-structured interviews with members and one supporter of the Moje Pisnice Initiative. This initiative provides an illustration of the formation of collective actors in the urban space in Central and Eastern Europe. We focus specifically on the historical and social conditions behind the initiative's development and the emergence of a shared identity and shared housing expectations and the disappointment resulting from unfulfilled hopes. Other important factors that we discuss are the intersubjectivity of emotions and the emancipatory potential of the initiative's organisational structure, which enabled the participation of people with no prior experience with activism. We also focus on the public's sense of disillusionment with civic engagement and with the political system in general since 1989. This research contributes to the study of tenant movements in postsocialist countries, which are often an overlooked actor in one of the most important processes in the post-1989 transformation - privatisation. In contrast to previous research, we focus on the role of shared emotions and the subjective experience of historical processes.
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In this study, human rights violations and discrimination policies in East Turkestan, focusing on human rights violations in question-discrimination policies of the causes and consequences will be briefly discussed. As is known, it is completely prohibited by international law for a person to encounter preventive and restrictive behaviors due to his nationality and national origin, to be subjected to practices that involve discrimination. However, as is clearly seen in the practices of East Turkestan, the human rights violations and discrimination policies applied to the people of East Turkestan have become a regular method of assimilation. Ignoring and ignoring the basic human rights of the people of East Turkestan irreversibly deeply injures the national identity and dignity of the people of East Turkestan. In this study, a literature review was conducted using previously written scientific articles, books, journals, reports prepared by research organizations related to the region, news that have appeared in the media.
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The former German Bohemian minority that lived in the city of Pilsen (in Czech: Plzeň) and the West Bohemian district of Mies (Stříbro) until the forced resettlement in 1945/46, remains an almost blank spot in the context of research on Germans in the Bohemian lands. In this article, contributions from the journal „Mies-Pilsner Heimatbrief“ from 1950 are analysed and considered for the first time as a source type for the topic mentioned. The following questions were investigated: Which language varieties did the German residents of the city of Pilsen and the rural Mieser area use? Which language attitudes towards dialect and standard language did they represent? And what was the significance of dialect for their identity? These questions are dealt with by way of example using a dialect debate in the aforementioned monthly. In the second year of the magazine, a letter to the editor called for the publication of dialect stories to be stopped. In the following three editions, five other readers speak up, who vehemently contradict this demand and explain why dialect texts and dialect as such are valuable in their opinion. A native Pilsener even partially phrased his letter to the editor in his native dialect. In a brief analysis, this text turns out to be in northern Bavarian dialect, or in Egerland dialect, as he calls it. In addition to these structural linguistic investigations, the arguments used in letters to the editor to reject or approve dialect (texts) are considered from a sociolinguistic point of view. In this way we also learn something about the identity of the West Bohemian expellees. On the one hand, the arguments are of a general nature, such as that the dialect represents the “actual mother tongue”. On the other hand, the specific situation after the expulsion is discussed, in which the dialect represents „a piece of home“ in the foreign country for the Sudeten Germans. This intangible cultural heritage of the homeland should therefore continue to be cultivated and passed on to the next generation. At the end of the last letter to the editor, the editor of the magazine finally announced that texts in the dialect of Western Bohemia should continue to be printed in the future.
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The article presents the results of a pilot study conducted at the end of 2019 among Poles living in France. The study concerned the issue of communication of religious and national identification among emigrants from Poland and the transmission of Polish culture, national and religious values by Polish parishes. This publication, however, concerns a fragment of this research – a sense of national belonging, pride and shame from its origin, manifestations of patriotism among the Polish emigrants surveyed in France and to what extent Polish parishes in France maintain their sense of national and religious identity, as well as their attitude to of this message carried out by parishes. The results indicate that the surveyed Polish respondents in France feel Poles, are proud of their Polishness, actively express their patriotism, which, however, is not necessarily connected, e.g., with raising children in the Catholic spirit. They are also recipients of the message of national- patriotic values that is carried out through the parish (e.g. participation in masses for the homeland), but they are of the opinion that this is not the parish's main task in exile. The study was of a pilot nature, so the article also presents a commentary on the correctness of the formulated research tool and research procedure.
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Review of Katarzyna Marcol, Tautowie. Jezyk i pamiec w ustanawianiu wspólnoty Wislan w Banacie, Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Slaskiego, 2020, 346 s.
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Volunteering as a sustained prosocial activity is considered a noble act that one can achieve in order for the prosocial behaviour to improve. It is at the base of a good character a person can form. It also emphasises altruism, empathy, sympathy, pride, altruistic values. Prosocial moral reasoning leads to a constant attachment to the act of volunteerism the society is in such a dire need of. The history of volunteering focuses on YMCA organisations in the USA and other European countries that led to a continuous growth of this prosocial behaviour so much needed in the current turbulent society. Although always present, the volunteering act simply calls more and more people to get involved in the altruistic approach to societal problems. When dealing with volunteering work, people witness a sense of accomplishment rendered by the constant interaction with other people. In the present paper, a sense of awareness is provided on the communication methods (nonverbal, metacommunication, language) one would need to be aware of the interactions with people. Our research is based on using qualitative method, focusing on volunteering perceptions of their roles, responsibilities, the drivers for becoming a volunteer and the skills achieved. We focus solely on the qualitative data and observation. The results led to identifying 3 thematic main categories with regards to the volunteering act. Our eighteen interviews provide an insight on the drive they have when practicing volunteerism, personal, social and professional benefits as well.
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This paper focuses on the concept of feminism with a stress on the novelistic trends of feminist fiction in the Middle East. We will discuss representative feminist literary works during the contemporary feminist movement. Feminist literature is considered to be creative work because it advocates for women’s causes and because they defend their freedom and rights. We will focus on the idea that critical feminist works impacted societies throughout history and helped women get their freedom and independence, even though feminist literature is considered to be focused on the different shapes of sexuality. We analyze the Feminist Movement of the Middle East through Muslim culture influenced by the West. They consider that the Arab world is experiencing a global crisis with a series of underlying structural problems extending to cultural conflict. The condition and position of women in the Islamic world are one of the most controversial and studied issues in the last decades.
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The text aims to draw attention to the language policy involved in the processes of constructing the cultural identity of minorities. Discussion focuses on the two basic dichotomies of assimilationism-isolationism and empowerment-objectification and indicates selected aspects of language policy and educational practices in France, China and Israel.
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Rusyns. They claim they are not Ukrainian, but a distinct nation. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, there has been a revival of the Rusyn people in several countries, where they managed to be recognized as a distinct minority. As a consequence, this raised the question of their true identity, but so far there are relatively few studies dealing with this topic, and they are generally presenting either a pro-Ukrainian point of view, or a pro-Rusyn point of view. This paper presents an overview of the most relevant arguments taken into consideration, when discussing the origin and the historical path of the Rusyn people, as well as a few aspects in terms of ethnic features. The paper is part of a more extensive study regarding the Rusyn community, in the context of presenting the status and condition of the Ukrainian national minority in Romania.
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The present paper seeks to present the life and works of the famous composer of Armenian nationality – but often mentioned as a Soviet composer – Aram Khachaturian (1903–1978). Starting from this duality, from this interesting parallelism, the article investigates in part – next to the life and works of the composer – the historical motives and issues of this “double identity” and the presence of Armenian national elements in the compositions of Aram Khachaturian. In order to understand this dilemma, and the entire creation of the composer, we must be aware of the fact that since the beginning of the twentieth century, more precisely since 1920, when the Russian army occupied the territory of Armenia and the country became a member of the Soviet Union, Armenian culture was deeply influenced by its cultural policy. The article therefore deals with the life of the composer, his musical career, as well as the historical context of the period, while analysing the way in which Aram Khachaturian’s work is perceived in the history of music, as a result of which this remarkable personality is considered an Armenian and Soviet composer, European and Oriental at the same time.
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Without a proper culture we cannot understand what is going on around us and we are willing to repeat many mistakes of the past and to be easily influenced in our decisions of populist, demagogic discourses that are trying to create a society with no personality, a society whose identity is dictated by well-established patterns. Such things are possible even if the identity represents something that people do not choose, but recognize and accept it as a personal good. But in this context, identity discourse appears, a discourse that is unknown to the community, a discourse of political leaders, elites and others who are involved in a process of building, negotiating, manipulating certain collective images, to create identities. This leads to a question "who are we?"
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The article’s goal is to reflect on the history of the regional identity of the Upper Silesian region of Poland. Although historical, political, and cultural aspects are considered, the focus is on the linguistic dimension, since language is one of the most important elements of collective identity. The article opens with a short historical overview, starting with the period of the Industrial Revolution, which was the crucial moment for the formation of the so-called Upper Silesian mixed code which is the subject of reflection in this article. Next, we analyse the status of the Silesian ethnolect and the possibility of raising it to the rank of a regional language. The investigation is conducted from the point of view of Polish linguistics, but based on a wider perspective of European minority language politics.
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The consequence of establishing new Polish state borders after the Second World War was the mass resettlement of citizens of the pre-war Second Polish Republic (II Rzeczpospolita) from the so-called Kresy – now newly established Lithuanian, Belarusian and Ukrainian republics of the Soviet Union – to the Polish People’s Republic (Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa). The 240,000 Poles, who left the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic as part of the post-war resettlement, were only part of a group of over 1.4 million people resettled to ‘new Poland’. With extraordinary strength, they revived the 19th century myth of the Polish Kresy – one of the most important Polish national myths – which soon became an inseparable part of the Polish national discourse and the main element of Polish identity policy towards Poles who stayed in Kresy. This article is an attempt to answer the following question: What is the meaning of and role played by Kresy myth/discourse in constructing the identity of contemporary Poles living in South-eastern Lithuania – on the territory of these mythical Polish Kresy? The article is based on a series of interviews with Poles from Lithuania and representatives of governmental and non-governmental organisations operating for the Kresy, as well as an analysis of the content of these organisations websites with a project offer addressed to Poles in Lithuania.
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The growth of global environmental problems and the strengthening of environmental rhetoric in the world have led to the awareness of the environmental issues among ordinary citizens. In many societies, the growing interest in environmental issues coincided with the reincarnation of nationally charged discourses. This led to the emergence of such a political hybrid as green nationalism. Green nationalism is understood as a movement focused on environmental demands related to the advancement of national or subnational interests, as well as the protection of minority interests. It is based on rhetoric that addresses national attributes such as territorial identity and cultural cohesion, as well as environmental issues. Its development can take place according to different scenarios: “from the top down” due to the efforts of political elites to form civic nationalism based on ideas about the nation’s contribution to solving global environmental problems, or “from the bottom up” through the actualization and protection of the interests of the minority. However, the study of the phenomenon of green nationalism entails the need to comprehend several important paradoxes. The first paradox is based on the clash of global and local interests. On the one hand, environmentalism is a global movement focused on solving such global environmental problems as climate change, pollution of seas and oceans, and deforestation. On the other hand, environmental issues create opportunities for strengthening national or local identity. The second paradox is determined by the influence of the political regime on the importance of environmental concerns for societies. Traditionally, it is believed that environmental values are successfully formed and maintained in societies with a democratic regime. However, environmental issues are also discussed under hybrid or authoritarian political regimes. In the situation where open political protest is impossible, subnational movements for political autonomy and national independence can take the form of environmental protests. The third paradox is associated with the peculiarities of the perception of natural resources in states that are dependent on their extraction. On the one hand, natural resources are the basis of economic well-being in such societies, which legitimizes the consumer logic of dealing with nature. On the other hand, in such states, the importance of nature as a national treasure is emphasized, which contributes to the development of environmental activities. Our article provides answers to the following research questions: How does the global environmental agenda lead to an intensification of nationalist discourses? Why does green nationalism emerge and successfully develop in a resource-based state? Why is environmentalism, usually oriented toward democratic values, in demand in authoritarian states? These issues will be considered in the article on the examples of environmental conflicts and protests in Russian regions, which are closely related to the maintenance of national or subnational identity. The main cases for the analysis were protests against the development of the Shikhan Kushtau in Bashkiria (2020) and conflicts of the Indigenous peoples of the North with the oil company in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug (2017). The research was carried out on the basis of qualitative methodology. The main research methods were semistructured interviews with protesters. The results of the study show that environmental issues are becoming a serious tool for mobilizing society as they entwine with issues of national/subnational identity, as well as ideas about social justice.
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The progressive heterogenization and fragmentation of the identity problem with the same meaning of the same made downright surprising that in his book written in 2018 Francis Fukuyama placed in focus the identity problem so directly and unequivocally. From a purely theoretical-historical point of view, this attempt was late, the far-reaching differentiation of identities transcended the former earlier stage for which this approach would have been adequate. Fukuyama's understandable mistake, however, was not fundamental theoretical matter, it was also a belated political step, the intense and ever more widespread dissatisfaction of the individual States and Societies, Practical US International Politics in its logic, i.e. the intellectuals behind it to understand apparatus. For this reason we must consider this approach as one that is characteristic of the 2020s.
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The Ethnographic Park of Kujawy and Dobrzyń Land in Kłóbka confirms the importance of regional museums in building social bonds in small localities. Talking about the contribution of museology to social and economic development of the country, we usually think about big urban centres and huge projects. However, thanks to cultural investments, in the “provinces” there have been deep changes in the mindset of people, which result in building new deep identity which empowered those small local communities.
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Throughout the long history of British theatre, the image of Turk has frequently emerged in the works of famous playwrights. Since the beginning of the Crusades, Western perceptions of Turks have centred upon stereotypical images. These negative stereotypes generated by English literature are still present. However, with the acclaimed playwright Richard Bean, a new and positive Turkish image has emerged in British theatre since the turn of the twenty-first century. In his 2007 play, In the Club, Richard Bean explores the relationship between Turkey and the European Union and draws attention to the great power of Turkish culture. The play discusses Turkey’s accession process to the European Club, stressing its benefits while addressing stereotypes and biases against Turks. In this context, In the Club emphasizes that Turkey will strengthen the European Union as a model state with its culture and traditions, with its geographical location and secular structure, and by reminding members that Turks are people who work hard to improve their country. This study aims to examine the new Turkish image in Richard Bean's In the Club.
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