Around the Bloc: US-Soviet Relations on ‘Hair-Trigger’ Alert in 1983
Britain wants to bar the release of papers showing a close call between the Cold War superpowers.
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Britain wants to bar the release of papers showing a close call between the Cold War superpowers.
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(A polemics with Michael Stewart’s article Remembering without commemoration:the mnemonics and politics of Holocaust memories among European Roma, “Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute” nr 10, 2004) In the recent years the traditional approach to Roma as „people without history and memory” has been challenged, among others, by a new perspective that assumes that even if Roma do not consciously reflect upon their past, the past is „remembered”for them due to the fact that it is in a way „stored” or „embedded” in the nature of the relations between Roma and non-Roma. Such an „implicit memory” approach, represented by Michael Stewart, means a step forward since it has assumed a more sophisticated concept of social memory. Nevertheless, it shares with the older approach the essentialized concept of Roma identity. With a help of Lech Mroz’s conception of Romani „non-memory that does not mean forgetting”, I am developing mycriticism of Stewart’s argument as (1) treating the Roma as a passive and static group formed by external determinants; (2) homogenizing the diversity of Romani life; (3) presenting a monolithic picture of the non-Roma world; (4) seeing a firm borderline between Roma and non-Roma while we should rather speak here of a liminal frontier zone; (5) neglecting the actual cases of active remembrance among Roma, supported by Romani commemorative ceremonies. In the end, I am suggesting that in contemporary „postmodern condition” the Romani practices of memory and identity do not radically differ from the non-Romani ones, especially those influenced by traumatic historical experience.
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Some diplomats see the trip as part of Moscow’s search for friends within the EU to undermine sanctions over the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
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Four people were charged for arresting and abusing Gheorghe Ursu, a writer and dissident who died in police custody in 1985.
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Nāgārjuna’s Middle Way (madhyamaka) doctrine met with the objection that it is a mere verbal attack (vitaṇḍā) against other philosophical positions. As one of the Madhyamaka critics pointed out: because Nāgārjuna does not hold own position, he is not able to justify his criticism of the essence (svabhāva). The article is an answer to the question whether, in the context of Indian philosophy, it is possible to know things devoid of essences. Theory of knowledge of this kind, i.e. the concept of omniscience (sarvajña) was presented in Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā sutra. Associations between Nāgārjuna’s texts and the sutra suggest that omni- science could be a substrate for epistemological position of the Middle Way.
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The area in the bend of the Brda in Bydgoszcz, which is the portion of the district Okole, now occupies the campus of the University of Economy in Bydgoszcz, food company Colian Sp. with o.o. Bydgoszcz (formerly “Jutrzenka” Colian, Division No. 3) and the newly arising Nordic Haven (residential and commercial property). These are inner city brown elds located at the con uence of the so-called Old Bydgoszcz Canal and the River Brda, the stretch of Solidarity Bridges towards the Bridge of Queen Jadwiga. History of the district Okole is directly related to the economic development of Bydgoszcz, which occurred in connection with the construction of the Bydgoszcz Canal and later a major rail line and the location of large industrial plants. These projects were aimed by the German authorities to improve the Bydgoszcz junction of water-rail-road, as an internal communications center. Based on the conversion of functions of this area will be illustrated the conversion of industrial space in academic and recreational space. The idea and the main assumptions adopted revitalization activities are based on a holistic, integrated approach to the revitalization process. The objective of the planned work and regeneration was the restoration and development of the center-functions, including the continuity of the historical heritage associated with this area. Because degraded shoe factory buildings were taken over and revitalized by a college, it can be concluded that these areas still function as productive. But whereas previously, in the industrial economy and in accordance with the standards of industrial society, it was the production and distribution of products, now in the knowledge society it is making knowledge, or rather the enrichment and development of human capital and also its distribution in the minds and activities of graduates.
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The article presents the reformatory ideas of King John Casimir in the years 1655–1658. They are worth mentioning, although they had no chance of being realized. Due to the danger of war the King proposed that the military obligation should be exceeded not only on noblemen, but the Sejm should impose it on representatives of lower estates. The towns should have been transformed into “fortresses of the Commonwealth”, well prepared for effective defence. Also peasants would have to bear new military obligation, by serving in the re-modelled “Lands’ infantry”. In his oath on April 1st, 1656 the King pronounced a considerable limitation of feudal obligations over peasants, such as serfdom. After the war with Sweden he didn’t return to these ideas. In the field of the Commonwealth’s political system, the King proposed limitation of the “liberum veto” system in the Sejm and the reform of free election of the King. These proposals, especially the idea of the election “vivente rege”, i.e. the election of the King during the reign of the previous monarch, were strongly contested by noblemen. King John Casimir decided to abdicate.
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The text presents a few reflections on the Roman criminal law in the Institutions of Marcianus. During the analysis it has been established that the Justinianic compilers drew heavily on this jurist’s work. This was applied not only to individual institutions of criminal law (e.g. intentional and unintentional fault or crimen maiestatis), but also Marcianus’s fragments repeatedly pointed to titles of the books in librii terribiles (books 47 to 48 in the Digest of Justinian). Marcianus knew well the imperial constitutions (in particular rescripts), which was probably related to the work in the imperial office (scrinium libellorum). The imperial constitutions suit, primarily, the shape of criminal law in the imperial period, should be noted. One cannot exclude that the hypothetical work in the imperial office and a good knowledge of the imperial rescripts determined the frequent reaching for the Institutiones by the compilers of Justinian.
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Białystok received city rights in 1692, known privileges had been passed in the years 1749 and 1760. In spite of the fact that these acts granted basic principles of the urban system, the owners of Bialystok were able to freely decide changes that could have violated the existing order. An important change was the establishment of the landwójt office in 1769. The landwójt (mayor) was a position appointed for life by the Branicki family. The landw´ojt was able to subdue the municipal authorities and the city judiciary. Białystok was an extremely diverse city in terms of its organization. In this article I was able to isolate four loosely interconnected authority structures: city – suburbs – the Jewish community – military garrison. This, diverse in form, urban organization was supervised by courtly suzerainty. Until the 1st half of XVIII century owners could have made necessary steps independently (to a great extent). With the development of Białystok they handed over their powers (including judicial power) to the General Commissioner of the Podlasie Estates. Izabela Branicka decided in 1772 to appoint a special official – a governor. His sole task was to manage the city. An important arrangement was the division of Białystok into two areas: the left-bank, where the city “proper” was located, and the right-bank, which, despite frequently naming it a “new city”, was not a distinct urban structure. Unification was made under the reign of War and Domain Chamber and the whole process ended with the lease of Białystok by Izabela Branicka to the King of Prussia in 1802.
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After the annexation of Crimea in Russia, irrevocable changes occurred. The space for dialogue grew smaller, politics waded into our daily lives, leaving untouched neither culture nor scientific discourse, and sparing neither our small talk nor the idle stories we swap at bus stops, in cafes, and during breaks at work. It has become harder to avoid confrontation, and more difficult to keep our ears tuned to a reality that is becoming unbearably homogeneous and saturated with war propaganda. Can we therefore talk about a new symbolic conflict in Russia? About a split, about two societies, two kinds of people – as some would like? These questions have been asked repeatedly for months by those involved in Russian culture. Intellectuals trying to understand these dynamics talk about a crash or a turn, about the end of illusions, or about the beginning of a new world, a new Russia which “has risen from its knees”. The present text considers the attitudes of Russian intellectuals during the annexation of the Crimea and the war in Donbas in the autumn of 2014.
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Based on the example of the wartime texts of Witold Hulewicz, the article shows how this author, an eminent figure in (Great) Poland’s culture, and, at the same time, a participant in two world wars, struggled with his experiences with the conflicts of his day. Hulewicz uses his texts as a weapon, and is able to appreciate and make use of their potential. While fighting on the front as a young soldier during the First World War, he wrote poems as a form of confession, a way of discharging emotions. Hulewicz works through his experience of the Second World War differently, meticulously constructing elaborate propaganda texts and thereby confronting the demons of war. By reading Hulewicz’s texts through the category of trauma, it is possible to show a new side to the relationship between culture and conflict. In Witold Hulewicz’s biography, conflicts give culture a new dimension, and culture gives conflicts meaning, while trauma acts as a bridge connecting culture and conflict.
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Harriet Low Hilliard’s memories were written in the first half of the 19th century during her four year stay in the Portuguese Macau, on the southern coast of China. She was twenty years old when her aunt Abigail Low and uncle William Henry Low invited her to travel to Macau. It was time when women were not allowed to enter Canton which she visited thanks to the position of her uncle. In her memories, Harriet Low Hilliard describes everyday life of foreigners in Macau, bringing up such subjects as accommodation, food, fashion and customs of Europeans in that small Portuguese colony, as well as customs of the local people working and living in Macau and its suburbs.
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The main aim of the paper is to analyze the ground-breaking imperial edict issued in the Middle Kingdom in 1906, which introduced a package of reforms aimed to establish a constitutional monarchy. The edict is an important part of the process of selective adaptation of not only certain Western institutions, but also the fundamental principles relating to the core organization of the political community. This process was neither mechanical nor one-dimensional. „Translation” of the Western object was involved in a number of dilemmas and challenges (the relationship between the tradition of the „new”; instrumentality or autotelicity of copying foreign institutions; selection of native counterparts of the copied objects). The main theoretical perspective employed in the paper is the “legal transplant” theory. It enables to point out a broader set of conclusions about the process of copying foreign laws and institutions basing on the particular example from China at the beginning of the 20th century.
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South Slavic scholars jump all over Polish-American professor’s claim of an inborn East European tendency to cheat.
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The subject matter of this document is the formation of the concept of supplementary penalties in the criminal law in the period of the Second Polish Republic. The article presents the birth of the concept of supplementary penalties in Polish criminal law science, which was formed in the early 20th century against a background of criticism regarding the institution of legal consequences of conviction and efforts to grant judges more discretion with regard to sentencing. The article contains a broad presentation of the views on criminal law doctrine concerning the need to break-away from the automatic consequences of conviction and to introduce supplementary penalties. The article also presents discussion on the final model of supplementary penalties that took place during the works of the Codification Committee and describes the normative form of supplementary penalties in the Penal Code of 1932. It was concluded that the replacement of legal consequences of conviction with supplementary penalties was an expression of the idea of progress in Polish criminal law.
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Witchcraft cases in Poland (before partitions) have been examined by historians since olden times. Among the issues discussed in this matter there was the Act of the Polish Sejm of 1543, according to which witchcraft cases should be in the competence of ecclesiastical courts. Researchers have been interpreting the meaning of this Act in a very different way. According to one group, the Act excluded the competence of lay courts in witchcraft cases totally. Another group claimed that the lay court could examine a case if there was evidence of damage caused by a witch. In practice these cases were examined by the lay courts (especially town courts). It has been pointed out recently that the 1543 Act was only supposed to remain in force for one year, so there was no legal ground to undermine the competence of lay courts in witchcraft cases. It seems that one cannot agree with such a simple solution. Research on practice of the old courts and the works of the 17th century lawyer Adam Żydowski, presents a viewpoint contrary to this. Żydowski, among other issues, discusses the competence of lay and ecclesiastical courts in witchcraft cases and illustrates their respective abilities. The author himself – according to his concept of research – does not present clear opinion. Notwithstanding, his work reveals that the 1543 Act was included in 17th century treatises as still being in power. Probably the clause which limited the act to only one year had been forgotten.
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On 24 Oct. 1934 the President of Poland issued an ordinance concerning the Territorial Government Auditing Union (Związek Rewizyjny Samorządu Terytorialnego – ZRST). It was assumed that reasonable control would make it possible to prevent wasteful and ineffective economic undertakings of local governments. The Union’s operations were supervised by the Minister of Internal Affairs. ZRST was responsible for inspecting financial and economic operations of local governments, as well as municipal plants, enterprises, institutions and companies in terms of their formal compliance and usefulness (in particular from the viewpoint of cost-effectiveness required from the public economy sector). In connection with its surveillance duties ZRST carried out large-scale activities focusing on providing instruction, advice and guidance related to the financial and economic operation of local governments.
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Kuzman A. Shapkarev has left very interesting records of traditions, beliefs and mythological stories for the antiquity in Macedonia in the huge collected folk material funds. For the earliest history of the Macedonian spaces he recorded the tradition of the old ethnic population Ezerci which inhabited the coastal area of the Ohrid Lake. Attached to it are also the folk beliefs for the giants as very tall and mighty heroes and for the Emperor Alexander III of Macedon as the inventor of the wars, which is actually a small fragment of the well known motif for the quest of live (immortal) water in the Alexander Romance. Shapkarev announces that he heard the stories for Alexander III of Macedon from his father Anastas which he certainly learned from someone older in his family. The traditions of the Ohrid settlement Hermeleia, where the Christian saint St. Erasmus preached as well as the tradition of the Prespa villages Istok and German as ostensible birthplaces of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian and his regiment commander Velizarius, are particularly interesting.
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