Софийските мъченици от XVI в. като продължение на „плана Кантакузин“

Author(s): Ancho Kaloyanov / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 2/2021

The martyrdom feats of George the New of Sofia, George the Newest of Sofia and Nicholas of Sofia the New for the Christian faith are organised by the Athos School for New Martyrdom, established in 1500. Considering their sequence (in 1515, 1540 and 1559) and the chosen location, they appear to be a continuation of the Kantakouzenos Plan from the last three decades of the 15th century, according to which the Patriarchate of Constantinople made an unsuccessful attempt to separate the Rila Monastery from the Great Church of Tsarevgrad Tarnov. Through the Athos import of new martyrdom in Sofia in the first half of the 16th century, the Patriarchate aimed to discredit the authority of the Great Church in order to seize the diocese of the Sofia Metropolitanate. However, this attempt was not successful: with the third martyr, the Bulgarians recognised the robber and his feat remained unheard, and the Torture of Nicholas of Sofia the New became known as late as in 1879 when its only copy by the Russian Slavist Polychronios Syrku was discovered in the Sofia Metropolitan Church.

Politika identit v čínských enklávách amerických měst: muzejní narace

Author(s): Daniel Topinka,Jakub Havlíček / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2023

This text deals with ethnopolitical identities as presented to visitors to Chinese enclaves by their inhabitants themselves in museums of Chinese enclaves in the United States. We focus on three locations: San Francisco, New York, and Chicago. The text briefly introduces the history of Chinese immigration and the establishment of the Chinese as a minority within the American nation. It focuses on the content of the permanent exhibitions, it describes and analyzes the forms of representing Chinese identities in these museums. At a theoretical level, we draw on the concept of identity politics. We apply a syntagmatic approach, using a method of narrative analysis of the exhibitions, comparing the sequential development of the museum narrative in the order it is intended to be presented to museum visitors. We identify the various elements of the design of the exhibitions and the themes presented. Our research was conducted during field trips of the authors between 2013–2019. The exhibitions come with a so-called canonical narrative that is linearly conceived and introduces the “harmony” of Chinese and American identities. The canonical narrative is coherently and logically conceived, the presented themes support the whole narrative. The canonical narrative illuminates the presence of Chinese immigrants as a journey from exclusion to full emancipation and recognition of their equality, with reference to cultural specifics of Chinese sociocultural identities.

J. M. Coetzee's Age of Iron: The Odyssey of Returning Back to One's Ethical Self by Loving the Other

Author(s): Moradi Arash,Pourgiv Farideh / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2022

J. M. Coetzee’s Age of Iron depicts the apocalyptic years of racial rage and violence in South Africa. In this paper, an attempt is made to delineate Elizabeth Curren’s difficult ‘journey’ back to her ethical self by using Homi Bhabha’s theory of the nation and Emanuel Levinas’s ethical philosophy. First, it is discussed how the apartheid regime has pedagogically inculcated the white population of South Africa with the ideas of superiority and indifference over the black population. Then, Curren’s arduous journey back to her ethical self is discussed showing how by acting in a performative manner her ethical self learns not to pass judgements on the other becoming once again capable of sympathizing and empathizing with as well as loving the other. Coetzee speaks about and refers to the apartheid obliquely and indirectly since having done otherwise would have strengthened the apartheid regime by ‘reflecting’ and ‘supplementing’ history. Alluding to several other literary works enables Coetzee not only to depict the hellish conditions of South Africa indirectly but also to offer the possibility of some kind of redemption for his protagonists. Coetzee presents love and understanding for the other as the only solution for post-apartheid South African people.

"Made in Czechoslovakia" Socialism as Failed Social Experiment

Author(s): Denisa Nečasová / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2022

Recalling the Story of a Forgotten University

Author(s): Michaela Budiman / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2022

THE IMAGE OF ROMANIAN STATE IN BUKOVINA BETWEEN THE TWO WORLD WARS

Author(s): Radu Florian Bruja / Language(s): English Issue: 16/2019

For Bukovina, the inter-war period represented the administrative, economic and political connection to the Romanian national state. However, this process was very complex and involved all of Bukovina’s economical and political forces. Still, the reality of the unification disappointed many Bukovina citizens due to their status in Greater Romania and the difficult administrative unification process of the provinces in the Romanian state’s national project. In this period, the myth of the corrupt inhabitant of the Old Kingdom appeared. Even if it has no basis, this myth still exists. The enthusiastic approach to the Union gradually disappeared and was replaced by the disappointment of the administrative unification, the hurting of the local pride and the loss of a privileged status for the Northern Province. Along with this, the nostalgia for the correctitude of the Austrian regime arose. The Bukovina intelligentsia was the first one to criticize the flaws of the Romanian inter-war political system, the administrative corruption, and the vices of politicians from Bucharest. The frustrations of Bukovina inhabitants derived as a provincial complex due to the superiority and the arrogance of the Bucharest authorities in dealing with them. The nomination of the persons outside Bukovina to the management of the counties and state institutions led to numerous complaints. The image of the regatean, the inhabitant of the Old Kingdom, was a negative one, associated with corruption, demagogic politics, Balkanism, and Levantism. To this situation, a naïve sense of superiority of people from Bukovina added, which had its origins in the appurtenance to the Central European civilization, under Austrian leadership.

Онимни следи от българите в Бахчисарай (Крим)

Author(s): Mariyana Parzulova / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 1/2021

The purpose of the study is the onymy (oikonymy, ethnonymy, oronymy, toponymy, castelonymy, hydronymy, etc.) of the city of Bakhchisaray, located in the territory of the Crimean peninsula, which proves that for centuries there, lived many tribes and nations. Bulgarians who were deported in 1944 to distant parts of the former USSR moved to this territory during the Russo-Turkish wars in the 19th century, and in the 1990s began to return to Crimea. Today in Bakhchisaray our compatriots continue to live, as evidenced by some anthroponyms, eortonyms and others.

ION BREAZU, THE MAN OF THE THE TRANSYLVANIAN EARTH

Author(s): Sabina Larisa Marin (Oltean) / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 16/2019

The Romanian literary history has always reflected on the significance of Transylvania in our literature, on this region’s contribution to the development of culture, as a whole. Among the people that have brilliantly illustrated the Transylvanian region in the interbelic and postbelic period, is the teacher, publicist, literary critic and historian, Ion Breazu. That is why, for those who have knowledge of Transylvania’s literary life it was worth the effort to make the emblematic figure of Ion Breazu well-known around the country. As one of Ion Breazu’s most faithful friends, well-known critic and inspiring animator of the Romanian magazine Gând românesc demonstrated, Ion Breazu’s educational background coincides with first signs of a literature affirmation in perfect agreement with what was written over the Carpatians. With no complexes, the period after the Great Union admits some strictly artistic concessions and the emergence of L.Rebreanu, P. Dan in prose, and L. Blaga in poetry justifies same other approaching methods, filtering extra-literary factors, promoting, in full knowledge, a severe, but perfectly informed literary criticism. The history of Transylvania and the destiny of the Romanians living in Transylvania, the realities uncovered after 1918, the organic liasons between the province ruled by the Hasburgs and then, later by the AustroHungarians dualism and Romania, the normal pulse of these relationships and also the interaction of values (the migration of Transylvanian scholars to Tara Romaneasca and Moldavia)generated a reality highlighted by spiritual features by the collective psychology and by programs under the emblem of the Romanian folk ethos and of values recepted from the country. ,,Transilvanias, the spirit of the Transylvanian” was a concept justified only by historical circumstances and by the conditien of being of the Romanians from Transilvania. Ion Breazu`s lesson invites everyone to a collective research and to the revelation of the processes of literature`s internal development. Above all things, beyond the specific data of a literary Transylvania, Ion Breazu pleads for a germinely Romanian approach, without fail.

FLAPPER ON THE ROMANIAN AND AMERICAN INTERWAR SCENE

Author(s): Andreea Dinu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 16/2019

This paper aims to present the flapper, starting with the definitions of the term and continuing with the influence of the New Woman on feminism in Romania and The United States of America during interwar period. Emerged in a time of great change, the new type of woman was like a tidal wave for the conservatory society. The one who once was admired for her obedience to males, for her housekeeping or motherhood skills was ready to fight for her new roles into public sphere. Surrounded by rhythms of jazz and cigarette smoke, the bob haired flapper wore minimal clothing; a lot of make up, red lips and nails was able to win the fight against conservatism and to set her as a symbol of one of the most intense time periods.

LITERATURE AND RESISTANCE TO THE NORMS OF DOCTRINARY CANON (DIACHRONIC SIGNS)

Author(s): Mihaela Airinei / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 16/2019

Exegetes of trends of ideas from Romanian literature and culture have the merit of intervening in a space of equivoque and, with severe voluptuousness or deference, gloss over the resistance through culture in the concentrationist society. The problem- posing selection surveys the works in which the evolutions from the Romanian culture took place after the year 1945. The critical contribution of the researchers proves to be once more abundant in fertile and tantalizing suggestions, their analysis conveying the nature of the mutations that take place on the grounds of history of literature. The Great battles managed to recover, to the benefit of the language of history of literature and not only, the avatars of resistance to the norms of doctrinary canon.

MEMORY, TRAUMA AND LITERATURE

Author(s): Adrian DRAGNEA / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 16/2019

The article focuses on our current comprehension of war trauma. We try to have a good perception on how experiences of war impact on memory. Millions of people are affected by the trauma of war. The effects of traumatic war experience may be recorded through history or, particularly, through literature. This study argues that, in order to recognize the war trauma, it is critical to develop an understanding not only on the individual perspective but also on how literature influences the outcome of an individual's experience or impacts on the entire society with the special purpose to not forget the past. It is, in fact, the battle for the aesthetic recovery of a traumatized time. The analyze of diaries, memories, novels can be subordinated to the phenomenological method, that intends to cover the meaning of phenomena lived by the authors, through the description of their personal experiences. The research also discusses the construct of post-traumatic stress disorder and how this mental condition occurred in a few famous novels related to The First World War, whose authors were on the battlefield. In this regard, we mention: Camil Petrescu and Hortensia Ppadat-Bengescu, in Romanian literature and: Ernst Jünger, Erich Maria Remarque, et al., in foreign literature.

Европейската интеграция–постоянен проблем на Балканите (на примера на Гърция и нейната безкрайна "борба" с Европейския съюз)

Author(s): Mihaela Ivănescu / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

European integration was, is and will continue to be a sensitive issue for most of the candidate states, but also for many of the member states of the European Union (EU). Greece is one of the member states, which has undertaken many challenges during the integration process, but also recently. In this paper, our main hypothesis is that the difficulties that this country has had to exceed in the first years as a member state of the European Community (EC) had a big influence on its later development and on its recent delicate and problematic relations with the EU. Our paper will cover the course of Greece towards the EC and its first years as a member state, in order to analyze the main features of this country’s case, as it was presented in the last few years as possibly the first piece of the “European puzzle” to change the architecture of the European project or to undo the integration process, which has had, until nowadays, no brakes and little failures.

Националният църковен историко-археологически музей в социокултурното пространство

Author(s): Anka Ignatova / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 1/2017

The National Church Historical and Archaeological Museum is one of the biggest and oldest museums in Bulgaria and is in possession of a unique fund of movable cultural valuables belonging to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. The aim of the present paper is to present the role of the museum in the socio-cultural space accentuating on the different forms of communication within the territory of the museum as well as outside it. The analysis of the museum’s activities shows that the National Church Historical and Archaeological Museum still remains a classical type of museum failing to be in line with the notion of a modern museum institution. In this connection, concrete suggestions are offered with a view to its wider opening to the audience.

Топонимията и нейната роля за подчертаването на динамиката на ландшафта

Author(s): Cristina Mihălţeanu / Language(s): Turkish,English,Romanian Issue: 1/2017

The present work contains an analysis of the Southern Dobruja’s toponyms, proving the permanent existence in this region of an autochtonous population, dating from the times of Getae and the Romans and to this day, irrespective of the domination oppressing them. The elements of the natural environment were reflected in the toponymy, some of the localities borrowing their names from the characteristics of the relief or of the geological features of the land. Most of the toponyms in Southern Dobruja are of Turkish origin, bearing diversified meanings, sometimes being the names of the settlers, of the prevailing economic activities or human specificity.

За балканската култура през призмата на пловдивската урбанонимия

Author(s): Krasimir Koilov / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 1/2017

The city’s urbanonyms are able to trace the cultural and historical development not only of the populated area, but also of a whole nation. Urbanonyms not only have an address function but are also a mediator for the preservation of the spiritual heritage. Plovdiv’s urbanonyms are an example of the cultural ties that have existed for centuries between the peoples of the Balkan peninsula.

Поглед към имотното състояние и доходите на свещениците в Търновско през XIX век

Author(s): Gergana Georgieva / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 1/2017

The clergy was an important part of the local elite in the Balkans and performed variety of functions. The priests were not only religious leaders but also community leaders who united and lead the members of Christian communities. In some cases, they acted as mediators between the local communities and the official authorities; often they pursued teacher’s career as an additional occupation to priesthood; and they were the most educated people in a given area and formed the substantial part of the intellectual elite. Definitely, they were among those people who influenced the life of the local communities. Therefore, it is useful to develop their group portrait by exploring the financial status and everyday aspects of their life. The study explores as case studies two villages in the central part of the Balkan Mountains – Arbanassi and Lyaskovets. In the 19th c., they were villages de jure, but de facto they functioned as small prosperous towns. Those two settlements could be characterized not only by their economic activity, but also by their strong relationship with the Orthodox Church.

Бащите на Търновската конституция – духовниците между политиката и религията

Author(s): Milko Palangurski / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 1/2017

According to the 1878 Berlin Treaty, the Bulgarian state is a constitutional monarchy. The establishment of the Organic Statute was entrusted to the Constituent Assembly summoned by the Provisional Russian Administration. The leaders of the Bulgarian Orthodox Exarchate, as well as representatives of the Ecumenical Patriarch, the Muslims and the Jews, occupied a special place in this task. The forefront of the meeting was given to the priests due to their great influence in forming the Bulgarian society. Their educational background was related to two of the most conservative structures of the nineteenth century – the Russian theological educational institutions and the Patriarchate in Istanbul. Their careers in the religious institutions of the Ecumenical Patriarchate defined them as followers of century old canonical rules, thus their inability to become a part of the progress. All this, plus their important role as teachers, writers and spiritual leaders, took them to the conservative sector of the gathering. They failed to enforce their vision for the constitutional arrangements, thereby creating conditions for reducing their role in the future political life of the country. For a very short period of time, a “political secularization” took place and all of the religious communities were removed from the political scene.

Благотворителност и Църква през 30-те – 40-те години на ХХ век в Търновска епархия (по документи от Държавен архив – В. Търново)

Author(s): Lora Doncheva / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 1/2017

The article is an attempt to reveal the charity activity of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church in the Tarnovo diocese in the second half of the 1930s and the late 1940s. The chronological limits of the study are determined by the election of Znepolski bishop Sophronius for Metropolitan of Tarnovo in 1935 and the adoption of the Law of Religious Denominations in 1949, that put an end to charity activity of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. The article clarifies the relationship between the state and the Church in the sphere of charity activity before and after September 9, 1944.

Съвременни геоикономически аспекти на Балканите

Author(s): Lachezar Yordanov / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 1/2017

The Balkan economies have always been evasive in their development. That is partly because of the ravaging wars they had suffered in the last century. On the other hand, most of the countries (except Greece) were under the Communism regime for approximately half a century. Some of them were satellite states of the Soviet Union, i.e. Bulgaria and Romania, to à great extent. The western Balkan countries were part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. During that period of half a century the Balkan economies were in state of slow development. In the 1990s these countries began their economic transformation to market-based economy. The process, however, was evasive but for some of them it was economical thrive. Some of the economies were not able to catch up the development of other European countries that were also under the Communism regime. When the World Financial Crisis happened in 2007 the Balkan economies were in shock. Recession occurred. Aim of this article is to analyze how the Balkan economies are handling the effect of the financial crisis, and how they are developing. We have used typological approach in order to distinguish two groups of countries that have similarity in their economic development.

La concretezza come procedimento. Contributo per una storia di Memorial

Author(s): Simone Guagnelli / Language(s): Italian Issue: 1/2023

The present article offers a brief history of the Russian non-governmental organisation Memorial, a recent winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, from its origins in the 1980s to the present day. It also proposes an attempt to create a bibliography which could be used for a larger monographic volume, a more detailed work capable of going into more detail about the founding instances of the most important cultural movement of resistance in Russian and post-Soviet society. The nearly simultaneous invasion of Ukraine and the banning of Memorial make the publication of such a work urgent. It would not only outline the organisation’s development but also become a manifesto of concrete common action for a new Europe arising at the end of the conflict, which could thrive on the shared themes of historical memory and the defense of civil rights.