A FLANGED-AXE DISCOVERED AT PETREȘTI-DEALUL NETOTU (ALBA COUNTY) AND SOME REMARQUES ABOUT THE DETECTORISTS

Author(s): Marius Mihai Ciută,Radu TOTOIANU / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2020

Starting from a recent discovery realized in the area of Petrești (Petersdorf, Sebeș, Alba County), the present study try to add new data to the bibliography of the end of Copper Age and Early Bronze Age on the Sebeș River Valley, as well as regarding the phenomenon of metal detection on the Romanian territory. The subject is not a new one, but it captures a paradigm shift in the case of the authors, in what we can define as: the management of the relations between public institutions of the Romanian State and owners of metal detectors interested of using these devices to discover archaeological artifacts. The most correct - deontological and moral - would be that the central idea to which we must refer permanently when we talk about this phenomenon, be that of the primordial attention paid to the context and the artifact i.e. the Cultural Heritage. As long as the legislation still in function, does not unequivocally define the concept of ”fortuitous (accidental) discovery”, and archaeological sites (at least those that are known officially!) are not signalized, marked and delimited, according to low (!), public representatives and archaeologists will be put frequently in the situation to find ”emergency solutions” which must have in the central plan the idea of protecting the archaeological heritage

A fly in amber? Nordic-Balkan citizen diplomacy and cultural connections then and now

Author(s): Dorijan Hajdu,Sabira Ståhlberg / Language(s): English,Romanian / Issue: 2/2020

Active citizen diplomacy and cultural connections between the Nordic countries and the Balkans date their beginnings to the eighteenth century. The contacts between ordinary people in Finland and Bulgaria, Sweden and Serbia are a little researched but important aspect of the common history of Europe, created not by states or officials, but by individuals and associations. In the first period until World War II, cultural actors such as writers and artists contributed to the dialogue, but after the change of regimes in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, cultural friendship associations maintained non-formal connections beside the official diplomatic relations. Individual contacts were scarce and exchange mainly channeled through these structures. Today, the politics have changed, but where does citizen diplomacy stand? The role of associations has been significantly reduced in comparison with the Communist era and the friendship model appears antiquated in the time of Internet, increasing individual tourism and growing possibilities for cultural exchange within the European Union framework. This historical overview and conceptual article argues that both a fresh approach and a critical review about citizen diplomacy are needed. Looking in the rear-mirror of the past and into the present and future, it becomes clear that earlier relations and today’s contacts must be mapped out to a larger extent than has ever been done before.

A főhatalomváltás „első felvonása” Érsekújvárban 1918–19191

Author(s): Dávid Bencze / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 2/2020

The historical event of “Trianon” is the most neuralgic point in the history of the Carpathian Basin. This period (1918-1920) means the disintegration of “Historic Hungary” and the separation of nationalities from Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The results of the national-aspirations of independence was the establishment of new “nation states” in the Carpathian Basin. Czechoslovakia as a multiethnic nation state was also created in 1918. The professional historians today agree that the Treaty of Trianon has many factors and different precedents. The new minority-communities had a “traumatic experience”, because they separated from Hungary and they became citizens of the new states. The paper explains this problem – the empire-changes – as a longer process. The study focuses on the progression of “Trianon” in Czechoslovakia. In the frame of our research we examine a South-Slovakian city – Érsekújvár. The aim of this paper is to present events which happened in the city during the end of 1918 and the beginning of 1919. After the empire-changes, Érsekújvár became an ethnically mixed (Slovakian-Hungarian)city. In my research I use archival sources from the Archive of District Office in Érsekújvár and press materials, more specifically, a regional newspaper Érsekújvár és Vidéke [Érsekújvár and its region] and some state newspapers. I also examine remembrances.

A FRESH LOOK AT HUNNIC CAULDRONS IN THE LIGHT OF A NEW FIND FROM HUNGARY

Author(s): Zsófia Masek / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2017

The discovery of a fragment of a Hunnic cauldron by a metal detectorist acted as the springboard of this study, in which various aspects of Hunnic cauldrons are discussed: their findspots and find contexts, their typology, their dating and their origins. Questions regarding the broader cultural context of Hunnic cauldrons in the Roman and the Hunnic Empires are also addressed, as are their functional, ritual and social dimensions. The archaeological findings are complemented by metallographic analyses that shed light not only on the composition of the cauldron, but also on its possible use.

A Fully Functional Autarky

Socialist Czechoslovakia and Drugs

Author(s): Jakub Novotný / Language(s): English / Issue: 1 (29)/2019

KOLÁŘ, Jan: O problému, který měl nebýt: Drogy v socialistickém Československu[A Problem that Should Not Have Existed: Drugs in Socialist Czechoslovakia], Brno: Doplněk 2018, 159 p.

A hálózatok diadala

Author(s): Fred Turner / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 23/2018

In the mid-1990s, as the Internet swung into public view, talk of revolution filled the air. The Internet was about to flatten organizations, globalize society, decentralize control, and help harmonize people. But only thirty years earlier, computers had been the tools and emblems of the same unfeeling industrial-era social machine whose collapse they now seemed ready to bring about. How did the cultural meaning of information technology shift so drastically? This article traces the history of an extraordinarily influential group of San Francisco Bay area journalists and entrepreneurs: Stewart Brand and the Whole Earth network. For this wing of the counterculture, the technological and intellectual output of American research culture held enormous appeal. To a generation that had grown up in a world beset by massive armies and by the threat of nuclear holocaust, the cybernetic notion of the globe as a single, interlinked pattern of information was deeply comforting. But instead of building a brave new world, their tactics have become important features of an increasingly networked mode of living, working, and deploying social and cultural power.

A High Level Political Meeting Decisive for Romania’s Neutrality

Author(s): Ștefan Radu Vergatti / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2019

Close to the outbreak of World War I, the relationships between the Kingdom of Romania and the Tsarist Empire were not warm. Tsar Nicholas II decided to pay a visit to Romania, aimed at improving relationships with King Carol I. On 1 June 1914 the tsar arrived in Constanța harbour. It was the first official visit of a Russian head of state to Romania in the 20th century. The tsar had talks with King Carol I, with Prime Minister Ion I. C. Brătianu and with the Foreign Affairs Minister Emanoil Porumbaru. The tsar was seconded by the Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Dmitryevich Sazonov. The consequence of this official visit was that Romania preserved its neutrality status from 1914 to 1916.

A historical and politico-geographical analysis of Hungarian-Polish border before 1939 in the Hungarian historical geography

Author(s): Zoltán Hajdú / Language(s): English / Issue: 08/2019

The historical development of the common borders took place in many respects simultaneously since the epoch of the two states’ establishment. The territories and borders of both states have greatly changed ever since, yet during the periods of joined kingdom the common borders always showed a high degree of stability. The first description of the common state borders can be found in the Anonymous Latin Gesta by around 1200 AD. From the 15th century on, the Hungarian Parliament on several occasions appointed and sent different committees by legal acts to the borders of neighbouring countries, including Poland, in order to delimit or adjust its state borders. Due to the threefold dissolution of the Polish State, the former common border fundamentally changed. After the First World War, the common state border between the reborn Poland and the historical Hungary completely vanished after the latter lost some two-thirds of its territory. During the Second World War the common borders were restored for a short time through which thousands of Polish escaped to Hungary. Thus, the partially shared state history and the changing (disappearing and reappearing) common state border represent an international singularity in many respects.

A HOLY BEVERAGE: ON THE HISTORY OF WINE

Author(s): Lidija Stojanovic-Lafazanovska / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2016

In this paper we shall consider several aspects in which we can investigate the occurrence, the presence, and the significance of wine in the Balkans. We will use data from ethnolinguistics and folk literature, especially the presence of giving a toast and the cult of drinking wine in epic poetry, as well the etiological legends that analyze the origins of wine. In addition to this, some accompanying ritual and cult actions will be analyzed that may explain the significance and meaning of wine in some parts of traditional folk culture

A Horthy-„fehér lovas bevonulás” 100. évfordulóján (képriport)

Author(s): / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 4/2019

A Kirkpatrick-doktrína

Author(s): Barnabás Vajda / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 4/2020

Present study analyses Jeane J. Kirkpatrick’s essay Dictatorship & Double Standards. The 1979 publication of this essay stirred up a heated debate on the necessary strategic goals of the foreign policy of the United States of America. In the key thought of her essay the author, who among others served as US Ambassador to the United Nations, recommends that the US should support any autocratic regime against apparently moderate Marxist revolutionary regimes such as in Iran or Nicaragua. Since Kirkpatrick’s thoughts have proven more actual than ever, present study focuses on the review of Kirkpatrick’s argumentation. Taking into consideration contemporaryand more recent historical events, several trends and forces that have been shaping international politics are scrutinized.

A könyv, amit nem lehet elfelejteni

Author(s): Iván Balog / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 3/2019

Borsi-Kálmán Béla: Pszeudo-fociesszék. Széljegyzetek a futball, a politika és az irodalom határvidékéről. L’Harmattan, Budapest, 2018. 226 oldal

A kultúra közjó

Author(s): Virág Buka,Kristóf Nagy / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 27/2020

This article focuses on the emergence of the paradigm of solidarity economy and of the commons in the field of professional cultural production. We unfold the possible mutual cooperation of cultural producers and commoning social movements by examining the case studies of the Resonate music streaming co-op and of the Dutch Stad in de Maak housing-initiative. The case of the Resonate exemplifies how cultural producers can reorganize their industry in a cooperative way to hinder capitalist value extraction. Another type of encounter takes place between culture and commons when cultural producers utilize their knowledge and skills in various solidarity economy projects. We demonstrate this possibility through the case of the Rotterdam-based Stad in the Maak, where the artist-architect founders launched a long-term community housing initiative.

A Lost Lady: A Narrative of Manifest Destiny and Neocolonialism

Author(s): Ammar Aqeeli / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2020

The greatly examined story of A Lost Lady usually depicts Mrs. Forrester’s success in meeting and adapting to the challenges of a changing world, a world characterized by materialism and self-fulfilment. However, the overlooked story, one far more disturbing than the privileged story in the text, is the narrative of oppressed groups of people of other races and the lower class. Drawing on some aspects of postcolonial theory, this paper explores Willa Cather’s own reactions to real changes in her society, to the waning power of imperialism, and of her nostalgic longing for the western prairies of her youth, without showing any sympathy for the dispossessed Native Americans and other oppressed races. It will also disclose the unmistakable colonial overtones, which remarkably resonate with the common discourse of “Manifest Destiny” during the time period of American expansion to the Wild West.

A Lurking City: Nicopolis ad Nestum between Mark Antony and Trajan

Author(s): Ivaylo Lozanov / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2020

Despite longstanding archaeological research in Nicopolis ad Nestum in Roman Thracia, the site still has not yielded any conclusive evidence on its foundation date. Instead, the debate has long been focused on scanty numismatic and ancient literary sources, pointing largely to city’s Trajanic origins. Latest attempts to re-evaluate the situation in favour of an earlier enterprise taken by the triumvir Mark Antony in the last years of the Roman Republic are much disputable. Along with many arguments denying Nicopolis’s Antonian foundation, the present paper discusses several neglected documents – military diplomas, issued to veteran-sailors from the Ravenna fleet in the summer of AD 142 after 26 years of service. Three copies speak of “Nicopolis ex Bessia” as sailors’ home, which is to be identified with Nicopolis ad Nestum. Peculiar expression “ex Bessia” is not to be understood strictly formulaic as “city ex province” (i.e. “ex Thracia”), as is the case with the majority of later documents, but rather as a residual practice from the 1st century in designating the tribal home of the veterans. In a larger sense it is the territory (or at least part of it) of the Thracian Bessi. The evidence is met by Pliny (NH 4.11.40), and his “Bessorumque multa nomina” inhabiting the Middle Mesta (Nestus) region. Thus “Nicopolis ex Bessia” has entered military records upon soldiers’ recruitment in AD 116, marking a new-born civic foundation and the still incipient phase of organizing the urban territory within the larger tribal area of the Bessi. Therefore, the discharge documents in question can only confirm the information from other sources and in the same time to narrow the foundation date of Nicopolis ad Nestum under Trajan somewhere between AD 107, after the Dacian wars, and the emperor’s Parthian campaign of AD 116.

A Matter of Pure Conscience? Franz Wieacker and his “Conceptual Change” [CRITIQUE]

Author(s): Tomasz Giaro / Language(s): English / Issue: 82/2020

Based on a recent biography of Franz Wieacker (1908–1994) two central questions are examined. Is it allowed to analyze a young, but already prominent German law professor of the Nazi era as a pure scholar whose identity remained unchanged from the times of Weimar to the Federal Republic of Germany? Is it plausible to treat the Nazis as progenitors of current European legal history, and in particular as founding fathers of European legal tradition?

A Mirror and Medium of Sanctity: Imitation and Internalisation in Anna Brade’s Prayer Book

Author(s): Laura Katrine Skinnebach / Language(s): English / Issue: 22/2017

A múlt mint történelem. Elmélkedések Stefan Berger könyve és a Writing the Nation sorozat kapcsán

Author(s): Vilmos Erős / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 2/2019

A new exploratory project: The ethnoarchaeology of salt in the Inner Carpathian area of Romania

Author(s): Valerii Kavruk,Roxana-Gabriela Curcă / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2017

This new ethnoarchaeological research project focuses on the inner-Carpathian area of Romania. The archaeological and ethnographic vestiges of salt exploitation in this area are among the most consistent in Europe. They are closely interconnected and reveal the continuity of salt exploitation in the same locations from prehistory to the present. From the methodological point of view, the project avail itself of the experience gained and validated by the projects carried out under the aegis of the “Al. I. Cuza” University of Iași and of the National Museum of the Eastern Carpathians in collaboration with prominent research centres from France, UK, US, and Germany. The new project will tackle a number of new issues, including the reconstruction of the prehistoric salt-exploitation techniques that employed wooden installations such as those unearthed in a number of archaeological sites from northern Transylvania and Maramureș, the transport of salt along streams with limited discharges, and others. New research methods will also be tested, such as the virtual simulation of certain salt-exploitation technological processes.

A NEW ROMAN REPUBLICAN HOARD IN PRE-ROMAN DACIA (ROMANIA). A PRELIMINARY NOTE. THE MINTING PLACE OF A HYBRID TYPE

Author(s): Cristian Găzdac,Călin Ghemiş,Lucian Barbu-Tudoran / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2020

The discovery of a new hoard consisting of Roman republican denarii has led to the re-opening of an old debate on the copying/imitation phenomenon of Republican denarii in pre-Roman Dacia. A case study is presented in this study on one piece from this hoard. At first sight, the coin looks as a genuine denarius, but at a closer look reveals not only that the piece is a hybrid but also that between the two prototypes of obverse and reverse was a period of 25 years. Despite the widespread phenomenon of copying Roman republican denarii in pre-Roman Dacia, the metal analyses of this coin revealed the absence of the lead (Pb) from its composition. A metal that is always present in the other cases of copies or imitations of Roman republican denarii found in Dacia.