Blízký východ v komparativní perspektivě

Author(s): Adam Coman / Language(s): Czech Issue: 4/2019

Černý, Karel. Velká blízkovýchodní nestabilita: Arabské jaro, porevoluční chaos a nerovnoměrná modernizace 1950–2015. Prague: Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, 2017, 577 pp., ISBN 978-80-7422-595-6; English edition: Instability in the Middle East: Structural changes and uneven modernisation 1950–2015. Prague: Charles University – Karolinum Press, 2017, 476 pp., ISBN 978-80-246-3427-2. An abridged English version of this review has been published in the online version of the British Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 46, No. 3 (2019). The book by Karel Černý, published simultaneously in English and Czech (with the title "The great Middle Eastern instability: The Arab Spring, post-revolution chaos, and uneven modernization 1950–2015"), offers, in the reviewer’s opinion, a unique and original analysis of a broad spectrum of issues which the Middle East region has had to face roughly since the end of WW2. The author analyses modernization processes in local politics, economies, education, and media, as well as demographical changes and urbanization, finding the roots of the regional instability in a disharmony of the above spheres. He sets his studies of these regions into several macrohistoric-sociological comparative frameworks illustrating both specific and general aspect of the modernization process in the Middle East. In doing so, he evaluates the roles of Islam and post-colonialism as two indispensable factors of the situation in the Middle East in responsive and unconventional manner. Černý backs his analysis and conclusions by a broad selection of secondary published sources and a firm theoretical anchoring, but also by original and detailed empirical research and his own productive theoretical model. Thanks to the above, the author is able to present to us an accurate and convincing picture of the processes and events leading to the tumultuous Arabian Spring and subsequent events.

Кримската война в дневниците на кралица Виктория

Author(s): Lubomir Krustev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2022

This paper is investigating how the Crimean War (1853 – 1856) was depicted in the Journals of Queen Victoria. The Queen's Journals are a valuable source of information about this phase of the Eastern Question. They can provide an important perspective on the conflict between the West and Russia.

Нова книга на български език за занаята на историците от проф. Марк Бооне

Author(s): Ivan Biliarsky / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2022

Елеонора Наксиду. Европейското в българското балканско. Любен Каравелов, федерализмът и гърците. Атина: Александрия, 2021

Author(s): Yura Konstantinova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2021

Book Review

Историята като мъдрост

Author(s): Pencho D. Penchev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3/2022

Hegemónia, munkáskultúra, paternalizmus. A társadalmi kérdés múzeumi reprezentációja Budapesten és Bécsben a 20. század elején

Author(s): Eszter Őze / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 30/2022

In my article, I deal with museums of health and education founded at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Social Museum and later Museum of Public Health and the Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum in Vienna. My main question concerns how two social museums could operate so differently in two closely connected cities of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In my analysis, I examine what economic and ideological changes led to the formation of the concept of culture, which provided an ideological medium for presenting workers’ bodies of industrial capitalism and their living conditions and for the education of the working class. To answer this question, I interpret the cultural practices of the labor movement of the early 20th century in the economic and aesthetic framework of modernity. Social museums sprung up in several large cities beginning in the 1890s (Paris, Budapest, Vienna, Harvard-Cambridge, etc.), and their establishment was largely connected to the representation of the social question. These museums dealt with education, healthcare, housing, leisure activities, and eugenics. In Budapest, in 1901, the Minister of Commerce founded the museum with the aim of "serving the moral, political and health education of the workers" through exhibitions on public health and the workers' interests. Almost 25 years after the Budapest one, the Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum (GeWiMu) was founded in 1924 by Otto Neurath, a sociologist and philosopher from the left-wing of the Vienna CircleThe institution, like the one in Budapest, was state-maintained and operated with the support of the Red Vienna City Council (1919–1934) and the trade unions. The target audience was also the working class; however, both the goals and the means were vastly different. My analysis compares the two institutions, and I argue that the differences stem from two reasons. The first reason is the difference between the two cities’ development into large industrial-economic cities. The other was the different cultural perceptions within the labor movement embedded in this newly transformed industrial capitalist relationship. Both institutions played a role in the formation of new states after the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (1867–1918) and the development of industrial capitalism. However, they became part of the state institutions seeking to integrate industrial labor for completely different purposes. In the following, I present the changes in welfare politics and ideology that have shaped the two museums in the two cities. The starting point for all this is how the social question emerged in Vienna and Budapest. What is the reason why the worker's body, living, and housing conditions appeared so differently in the two cities? In other words, how did the state-represented political anatomy and body culture move in such a different direction in the two related cities of the era?

Filantrópia vagy plutokrácia? A Soros-realizmustól a Soros-tervig

Author(s): Beata Hock / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 30/2022

Following the regime change of 1989/1991, the cultural infrastructure has also undergone significant transformation in most Eastern European countries. Two "foreign", i.e. transregionally and transnationally operating donor organisations have played a significant role in this transformation: the Soros Foundation (later Open Society Foundations / OSF) and the ERSTE Foundation. Their initiatives have led to the creation and increasing professionalisation of the field of contemporary arts in the region. Given that the organisations in question have provided corporate philanthropy, a potential tension arises between the progressive social content of the objectives promoted on the one hand, and the more conservative economic policies enabling the wealth being donated, on the other. This is particularly relevant in the case of the Soros Foundation/OSF, which, unlike the ERSTE Foundation, has a decades-long history of political philanthropy and currently efficiently advocates, on a global level, a range of progressive social causes. This paper explores this tension and weighs the kind of democratic deficit inherent in philanthropy, especially in its politically motivated forms.

За ранната стопанска дейност на възрожденския предприемач Евстати Селвели и за неговото материално и финансово състояние през този период

Author(s): Veselin Goranchev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2022

The publication is aimed at clarifying a hitherto unexplored topic, namely the early business activity of Evstati Selveli. By the term “early business activity” the author of the study means the period before the establishment of a joint partnership between Evstati Seleveli and hadji Mincho hadji Tsachev in 1841. The publication also provides information about the earliest, known at least for now, partners of Evstati Selveli – Evstati Andrea and Atanas hadji Nikolau (Nikolov). Information on these issues is derived from unknown and hitherto untranslated Greek-language documents. A certain exception are the cited in the study kondika of the Hellenic school in Tarnovo, read and translated by Vladimir Vladov and codes of the Holy Metropolis of Tarnovo, which are annotated and retold by Acad. Ivan Snegarov. So far, several authors have written about the origin and family environment of Atanas hadji Nikolau. The most complete, in this aspect, is the study of Elena Statelova which is dedicated to the history of the Panitsa family. Unfortunately, it is not known, at least to the author of the publication, if any of the researchers have found that this particular ancestor of the Panitsa family (his heirs adopted the surname Panitsa around 1879) was one of the earliest partners in the business of Evstati Selveli.

Plague in Early Modern Istanbul: The Experience of the Habsburg Resident Ambassadors, 1560s – 1590s

Author(s): Aneliya Stoyanova / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2022

The Black Death from the mid-14th century initiated a long series of recurrences of the disease with significant effects on the affected human societies. The current article explores the awareness of the plague epidemics and the experiences made by the Habsburg diplomatic representatives in Istanbul from the mid-1560s to the early 1590s. In the early modern Ottoman empire plague was a persistent and disturbing part of life, recurring at unpredictable intervals and affecting all levels of society. The studied correspondences demonstrate the common measures the diplomats took to protect themselves and their servants in times of plague outbreaks. The letters contain sporadic descriptions of various diseases. Besides the recurring plague epidemics, the diplomats mention and describe other illnesses which also caused fevers and were recognized as highly contagious but seem to be distinguished from the plague. The epidemiological experience of the residents in Istanbul is worthy of scholarly attention since the disease descriptions preserved in diplomatic letters could play a supplementary role in the establishment of a detailed plague chronology of the Ottoman capital.

Съдбата на здравната реформа в Съединените щати през 40-те години на ХХ век

Author(s): Ivana Nikolova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2022

The article focuses on the attempts at healthcare reform by the Truman administration alongside the liberal wing of the Democratic party in the 1940s. The proposals of both the White House and different groups of congressmen are laid out in detail. The main reasons for the failure of healthcare reform, as proposed by the author, are the lack of coordination among the Democrats supporting healthcare reform, Truman’s poor influence on Congress, and the role some key professional organizations play in weakening public support for the administration’s initiatives.

ЧУТО-ВИДЯНО

Author(s): Ivan Marazov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 26/2022

The article aims to compare the creative principles of the epic and that of archaic art. The standard repeatable vocabulary of folklore and art is determined by the use of object and action formulas and themes, as well as rhythm and symmetry in the composition. In this way content is condensed and the whole myth can be read / remembered. For the initiates in the language of mythological thinking, figurative hints are sufficient to reproduce a mythological situation. As in myth and ritual, cosmogony is realized through naming, so in art the world is created through obtaining an image. The article draws analogies with Balkan folklore, as well as Greek, Vedic and Celtic mythology.

ИЗ BITHYNIA PONTICA – ИНТЕРПРЕТАЦИЯ И РЕИНТЕРПРЕТАЦИЯ (ТЕРЕННИ НАБЛЮДЕНИЯ ПРЕЗ 2013 Г. – ПЪРВА ЧАСТ)

Author(s): Kalin Porozhanov,Alexandar Portalsky,Valentin Kitanov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 26/2022

According to ancient authors, the ordering of the Thracian ethnicities from the Bosporus/Bosphorus to the east along the Anatolian Black Sea Coast is as follows: Bithynians, Thynians, Mariandinians, Tibarenes, Halybes, Mosynoikes and Paphlagones. Located on the map, they are identified in modern settlements and sites: Kefken, Eregli, Amasra, Sinop, Hissar, Akliman, Ikiztepe, Ordu, Trabzon. In and around them were observed interesting topographical locations associated with objects from the Thracian times.

СЦЕНАТА ОРФЕЙ УКРОТЯВА ДИВИТЕ ЖИВОТНИ II: ОРФЕЙ И КЕНТАВЪРЪТ ХИРОН

Author(s): Vanya Lozanova-Stancheva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 26/2022

A series of remarkable images on mosaics from sepulchral buildings or ritual halls, textile works of art within a Christian context, as well as pyxides, introduce strange and unusual mythological figures into the widespread theme of Orpheus taming wild animals. A special place in the pictorial composition is occupied by the figure of a centaur, who seems to have had complex functions indicating the space of the events. This paper aims to systematize the source base, to analyze “the narrative,” and to offer new details to the interpretation of the remarkable and enigmatic scene, which – in combination with the fragmented poetic evidence – allows the reconstruction of a possible mythological precedent for the journey of Orpheus to the World Beyond, where he attained the mystic theological knowledge and that allowed him to lay the foundations of the mysterial initiations. Those eschatological notions were projected in some early Christian or Christian gnostic communities in the period between the 2nd and the mid-6th century, as indicated by sacral and funerary monuments.

БАЗИЛИКАТА НА ЛЬО КОРБЮЗИЕ В LA SAINTE BAUME. АРХИТЕКТУРЕН ПАРАЛЕЛ С ТРАКИЙСКИТЕ КУЛТОВИ СГРАДИ

Author(s): Adriana Sarbova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 26/2022

This article concerns the project of the unbuilt basilica of Le Corbusier at La Sainte Baume, which has been analyzed in the same context with the Thracian cult buildings – the Pythagoreanism. Since I find some visual and conceptual similarities between the architecture of these buildings from different epochs, I decided to make a parallel between their design and concept. For this purpose, I use a special research methodology, created for comparing architectural spaces from different epochs, which focuses on: the context; the function; the composition; the materials; the façade; the interior of the buildings. My aim is to find out whether similar ideas and philosophy lead to similar architectural interpretation, although created in different epochs and social conditions.

ПОСВЕЩЕНИЕ НА ИЗИДА И САРАПИС ПО ВРЕМЕ НА ЦАРУВАНЕТО НА РЕМЕТАЛК (IK Byzantion 324)

Author(s): Ruja Popova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 26/2022

This text is dedicated to an inscription with unknown provenance, stored for sometime in the Istanbul Museum, today in the National Museum of Warsaw, first published in1911. It is a dedication to the gods Isis and Sarapis at the time of the reign of Rhoemetalces(Ἴσιδι καὶ Σαράπιδι· βασιλεύοντος Ῥοιμετάλκου) from Artemidoros, son of Synistor – nauarch during the Great Ploiaphesia (IK Byzantion 324): To Isis and Sarapis, at the time of the reign ofRhoemetalces, when a merarch was Artemidoros, son of Philostratus, in the year 32 Artemidoros, son of Synistor, who was nauarch during the Great Ploiaphesia, consecrated this telamon. Sincethe first publication, the dating of the inscription is linked to the king Rhoemetalces I because of the year in the inscription (l. 6), associated by some of the researchers with the era of Actium, by others – with the reign of Rhoemetalces I, which is uncertainly dated. Despitethe explicitly stated unknown provenance, the epigraphic document remains attached to Byzantium. M. Tacheva is the only one who states doubt the connection of the inscription with the first Rhoemetalces, and she displaces it dates to 37–45 AD, i.e. to Rhoemetalces III. For a place of provenance expresses a preference to Perinthus or Mesembria. The inscription is extremely interesting with the two mentioned offices – merarch andnauarch. Both carry information about a Thracian control over Byzantium (?) or over the city where the stele (telamon) was erected. A decree from Cyzicus and information in Tacitus seem to provide an opportunity to revise and put the inscription in a different temporal context. Anyway, the dedication to the two Egyptian gods Isis and Sarapis on the occasion of the great feasts to the resumption of navigation celebrated on 5 March in one of the maritime centres around Propontis from the nauarch Artemidoros, most probably happens with the support of the Thracian king Rhoemetalces, whose name the dedicator explicitly mentions.

МИТ ИЛИ РЕАЛНОСТ – ТРАКИЯ И ТРАКИТЕ В МЕТАМОРФОЗИ НА АПУЛЕЙ

Author(s): Slavtcho Kirov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 26/2022

This article discusses the various stereotypes associated with Thrace and the Thracians during the Roman era, not only drawn from the Greek literary tradition, but also directly inspired by the political situation in Rome and the Balkans, skillfully intertwined by Apuleius to offer different levels of interpretation.

ПРОВАДИЙСКАТА ОМУРТАГОВА КОЛОНА – ОПИТ ЗА АНАЛИЗ

Author(s): Lyubomir Tsonev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 26/2022

In 1930, a Khan Omurtag column was discovered in Provadia with a dedication inscription about a killed Bulgarian military leader. In 1943, historians noticed that a Thracian horseman's relief is also engraved on the column. The present report attempts to analyze this unique monument from a variety of perspectives and aims to initiate a fruitful discussion.

Madhva and Calvin. A Comparative Study of the Views of Two Medieval Theologians of Hinduism and Christianity

Author(s): B.N. Hebbar / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

This article compares and contrasts two eminent theologians, one Hindu (Madhva), and one Christian (Calvin) who had similar ideas in terms of the sovereignty and majesty of God and the doctrine of Predestination of souls each, of course, based on their respective religious-cultural contexts and scriptural texts.

The Third Assembly of the World Council of Churches in New Delhi, in 1961, in the Asian Religious Context of the Second Half of the Twentieth Century

Author(s): Ștefan Popa / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

The Third General Assembly of the World Council of Churches took place in New Delhi, a multicultural and interreligious town in India. By this means, the World Council took a step forward towards the dialogue with the world’s religions. From ancient times, India was a place of dialogue between adherents of different cultures and religious traditions. At the Third General Assembly of the WCC, the interreligious dialogue which will be more acknowledged throughout the years became a leitmotif on the ecumenical agenda of the member churches. In this study, I try to present how this historical ecumenical event has shaped the interreligious dialogue architecture of the World Council and how it fits in the Asian interreligious landscape. It was the first General Assembly of the WCC outside the traditional Christian space, which up to that moment represents more or less the European and North-American geographical space.

Uma Das Gupta, A History of Sriniketan. Rabindranath Tagore’s Pioneering Work in Rural Reconstruction

Author(s): Eleonora Olivia Bălănescu / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

Review of: Uma Das Gupta, A History of Sriniketan. Rabindranath Tagore’s Pioneering Work in Rural Reconstruction, New Delhi, Niyogi Books, 2022, 234 pp., ISBN: 978-93-91125-44-8.