Keywords: Isaccea; ferry across the Danube; 1770s - 1870s; Russian-Turkish wars; military operations;
The article is devoted to the publication and analysis of iconographic and cartographic sources on the topography and planography of the town of Isaccea and the adjacent area of the Danube crossing in the 1770s - 1870s. Most of them are associated with hostilities during the Russian-Turkish and Eastern (Crimean) wars, and are stored mainly in the archives and libraries of the Russian Federation. At the indicated time, the Russian army twice sent a ferry across the Danube (1828 and 1854), and Isaccea and its fortresses were attacked at least 10 times. Almost each of them ended in destruction, explosions and fires, and stones from dismantled fortifications were used to build the Satunovsky dam and fortress and Ismaіl. Finally, the Isaccea fortress was demolished after the signing of the Berlin Treaty on July 13, 1878 (Article LII). However, the materials collected and analyzed in the article made it possible to characterize many aspects of the topography of this micro-region, including localizing a number of objects – the Ottoman castle, three mosques, the Pasha’s house and the Moldavian (Greek) church.
More...Keywords: Forensic Handwriting identification; Method of expressing opinion; probability; opinion levels;
The inspiration for the paper and the problem(s) that the paper addresses: Thematically and structurally, this work was inspired by desire of the author to show the necessary way of expressing an opinion in Forensic Handwriting identification and to compare ours experiences with international practice. The goals of the paper (scientific and/or social): To show ways of expressing an opinion in Forensic Handwriting identification in our country, and in some other countries which experiences and practices could be of interest to our professional and scientific public. Methodology/Design: Elementary methods used during this study are: content analysis, method of description, classification and specialization, comparative and historical method. Research/the paper limitations: The work has theoretical character and there are no more important limitations. Results/findings: When we are talking about practical work within forensic handwriting identification field, it is necessary to mention the possibility to present results of expertise with a certain level of probability. In practice of other countries that are mentioned in this paper, it is noticeable that they are all using pretty much similar fundamental points for this problem. Countries that we decided to use for comparison purposes are using less detailed (Netherlands and USA) or more detailed (Germany) probability levels, when presenting the results, than we do, in our country. In the future, it will be important to follow movements within practice in Germany, considering their striving to present results of performed expertise without absolute certainty (so-called striving to „mathematically process“ the results of expertise). General conclusion: Practical work in our country, generally speaking is not that different from practical work in countries that we decided to use for comparison purpose. However, it is quite noticable that within these countries, it is payed more attention (on theoretical, practical, and especially on scientific level) to these questions, and to the attempts to answer these questions form scientific aspect.
More...Keywords: reconstruction of biography; context of life history; Zygmunt Bauman
The article focuses on extracting from the shadows certain events that, for strategic or accidental reasons, did not leave any traces in the archives, testimonies and various documents of people who were the subject of research (most often in the case of the reconstruction of their biographies). This text refers to a situation in which the problem is not so much the lack of data as their excess, as well as numerous legends that have grown up around the main figure of the reconstruction of life history – Zygmunt Bauman. The article emphasizes the importance of context and meanings accompanying the recreated biography, which enables a better understanding of the main character.
More...Keywords: blog; blogging behaviour; corona crisis; personal diary blog; Triinu Meres;
The history of the (we)blog shows that this online genre can be evaluated as an excellent source of data for qualitative research of various problems. Some authors (e.g. Hookway 2008) even consider the blog as a research technique for exploring certain questions which deal with people’s everyday practices. This article presents the results of a case study, which are based on content analysis of a personal blog (diary blog). The study grew out of the premise that the blog owners’ posts and their readers’ comments can shed some light on ground-breaking events and social processes at both the local and global levels, which in turn can influence the bloggers’ behaviour in various ways. The source of the current study was a personal blog titled “Maha äng” (“Down with angst”), the owner of which is poet and writer Triinu Meres a.k.a. väga väga naine (very very woman). The aim was to find out whether and, if yes, then how the corona crisis has changed the blogging behaviour as an integral part of everyday life of one particular blogger. The focus was on posts and comments entered in 2020, often called the year of corona due to the global pandemic. To illuminate possible changes in blogging behaviour, the 2020 posts were analysed in the context of earlier posts archived in 2008–2019. For comparison, the Health Board’s blog was used, which documented the course of the corona crisis chronologically with factual accuracy, as well as dailies in Estonian and English. The results of the study showed that in 2020 the number of posts and the activity of commenters in Triinu Meres’ personal blog did not increase and that the corona crisis did not become the dominant topic in comparison with the blogger’s personal crisis often covered in her blog. The posts revealed some signs that suggest boredom with the corona crisis as a topic of conversation which seemed to be over-exploited by various media channels.
More...Keywords: Great Powers; interests; influence; (system of) alliances; war; pressures; negotiations;
The tragic summer of 1940 brought, for Romania, not just the loss of Bessarabia and Northern Bucovina in favour of the Soviet Union and of roughly half of Transylvania to Hungary, but also the retrocession of Southern Dobruja to Bulgaria. The Romanian State had obtained this territory in 1913 appealing to geopolitical justifications. The hereby article briefly presents the main points related to the evolution of this region within interwar Romania, the plans of Romanian and Bulgarian decision-makers in the context of 1938-1940, the conditions surrounding its surrender in the summer of 1940 and the concrete aspects concerning this territorial cession. The sources include numerous Romanian, Bulgarian and Western contributions, newer and older, as well as several documents from Romanian national, diplomatic and military archives. An inseparable part of the drama of the Greater Romania, the cession of Quadrilater nevertheless highlights strong individual characteristics. Similarly, the reasons invoked for obtaining this region during the years of the Balkan Wars and its identity and evolution within Romania, were also distinctive.
More...Keywords: Yugoslavia; Italy; Treaty of Peace with Italy; temporary border; border incidents; demarcation
The problem of regulating the Yugoslav-Italian border was topical for a long period of time, from the end of the First World War, until the final demarcation with the signing of the Osimo Agreements in 1975. The article analyzes the attempts of the Yugoslav and Italian governments to determine the final line of the new borders established by the Peace Treaty. Pursuant to Article 5 of the Peace Treaty, the Italian and Yugoslav governments had an international obligation to jointly define the border line. Attempts to determine definite border lines and adjust the border to local geographical and economic conditions were accompanied by incidents at the border. The author points to the diplomatic contacts of the Yugoslav and Italian representatives in order to overcome the problems related to the determination of the final border. Given that an agreement could not be reached, and it was not possible to meet the six-month deadline set by Article 5 of the Treaty, the two governments continued to co-operate on other outstanding issues, while the demarcation was left for some better times. The article was written on the basis of unpublished archival material from the Diplomatic Archive in Belgrade and the Archives of Yugoslavia, published normative documents and literature in Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian.
More...Keywords: ministers; EU Council; sociological institutionalism; rational-choice institutionalism; participation;
The Council of the EU is the primary institution through which ministers of member states can express their positions on Commission proposals and vote upon legislation. This article first examines the extent to which ministers actually attend Council meetings before moving toward investigating the determinants of ministerial participation in over a period covering almost thirteen years between May 2004 and December 2016. It aims to identify determinants of why ministers from the Visegrad countries participate at some meetings and are absent from others. Using an original data set containing information about 940 Council meetings as well as several country-specific characteristics, we show that, on average, at about four out of every six meetings, ministers are absent. The results of our regressions indicate a pattern in which holding the office of the EU’s rotating presidency, the number of b-points on the agenda, and the size of the government increase the likelihood of ministerial participation in meetings. In contrast, high levels of popular support for Eurosceptic parties and holding of national legislative elections decrease the probability of ministerial attendance. Moreover, meetings of Council formations related to policy areas with a low level of EU competence are significantly less likely to be attended by ministers.
More...Keywords: German Federal Constitutional Court; Constitutional Court of Slovenia; Court of Justice of the European Union; PSPP; ultra vires review; constitutional identity
The BVerfG’s judgment on the PSPP marks another important part of the EU constitutional mosaic. It was the first time that the court declared an EU act ultra vires. Intense academic commentary ensued, mostly adopting a critical attitude towards the judgment. However, a summary rejection of the underlying idea of an exceptional national constitutional review of EU acts does not seem warranted. Unconditional primacy has been disputed by different national courts for some time now, and on two occasions, national apex courts already declared EU acts ultra vires. Considering its inherent diversity, the EU should be able to accommodate legitimate national constitutional concerns. A common frame of reference, possibly provided by Art. 4(2) TEU, could facilitate such accommodation if very high standards of violation were adopted by national courts, which would also respect the principle of loyal cooperation. In this regard, EU law also marks red lines when it comes to its fundamental principles, limiting the possibility of abuse. The Slovenian Constitution introduces EU law through Art. 3a, adopted for the purpose of accession to the EU. The Slovenian Constitutional Court's case law is generally very EU-friendly, and it could be marked by cooperative vagueness, echoing the doctrines of the CJEU. A clear answer regarding the relationship between national (constitutional) law and EU law is lacking in its jurisprudence. The court explicitly left the question of absolute primacy open. The substantive preconditions for the transfer of sovereign rights in Art. 3a, namely, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, democracy, and the principles of the rule of law, have been interpreted in different ways in academia. However, considering the inalienable right to self-determination, in exceptional cases of serious encroachment on fundamental constitutional values, the SCC would probably adopt its version of the BVerfG’s doctrines.
More...Keywords: sustainable urban development; global development trends; alternatives; Vilnius; conceptual modelling;
This research consists of 5 stages: comparative description of the sustainable urban development in developed countries and in Vilnius; a comparison and contrast of sustainable urban development in developed countries and Vilnius; a development of some of the general recommendations as how to improve the efficiency levels for a sustainable Vilnius; submission of particular recommendations for the city of Vilnius; a multiple criteria analysis of sustainable urban development’s components and a selection of the most efficient version of sustainable urban development life cycle. The obtained results have partially confirmed the available data, and interesting trends of the development of established cities have been noted. In order to demonstrate the application of the above research, concrete examples of Vilnius will be considered in this paper.
More...Keywords: cyberspace; victimization; students; research; Serbia;
The inspiration for the paper and the problem that the paper addresses: The life of a modern man is unthinkable without the use of modern technology. Additionally to the undeniable advantages of life in the digitalization era, cyberspace also represents a very risky domain of possible abuse, manipulation and various types of victimization. Young people, as the largest users of information technology assets, are at the highest risk of their misuse and victimization in cyberspace Aims of the paper (scientific and/or social): This paper aims at presenting a part of research findings which relate to the experiences of victimization of Belgrade University students in cyberspace. The results obtained can serve as a good basis for identifying characteristics of negative experiences of students in cyberspace, and planning preventive strategies aiming to eliminate students' cyber victimization. Methodology/Design: The research is exploratory in nature, implemented using a quantitative methodology, on a sample of 338 students of all levels of study at faculties from all scientific fields of the University of Belgrade. Research/paper limitations: The limitations of the research comes from the limitations of the techniques used for data collection. Although undoubtedly, useful for finding out the dark crime figures, victimization surveys and self-report surveys have their limitations, which are reflected in the unwillingness of the respondents to admit victimization and violent behaviour, as well as the subjectivity of the respondents (“mistakes” in memory, different perception of questions by different respondents etc.). Results/Findings: The results show that more than half of the respondents had the experience of victimization in cyberspace during the studies. Mostly, it was multiple victimization committed by unknown perpetrators. Additionally, respondents reported a cyber IPV victimization, mostly manifested in a form of different control tactics. Correlation between victimization in real life and cyberspace, with particular emphasis on the experience of violent victimization, was also found. General conclusion: It can be concluded that students are at high risk of different forms of cyber-victimization, with the most prevalent those forms than can be treated as serious crimes.
More...Keywords: International Labour Organization; labour law; minimum age to work; children; night work; women; maternity protection; young people;
The International Labour Organization (ILO) established in 1919 was active in the creation of legal norms for certain work standards and coordinated the cooperation of member states, so that these norms would be transformed into general standards that would be followed in all states and which would be a precondition for securing permanent social peace in the world. One of the basic tasks of the ILO was to protect the most vulnerable on the labour market – children, young people, and women by creating for them appropriate conditions of work. The article deals with the ILO international standards for the protection of these groups, the adoption of the international standards by Estonia, and the effect of these standards on Estonian legislation.
More...Keywords: Bosniaks; Bosnia; Genesis; Memory; State;
The third, final part of this study, analyses the relationship between Bosniaks and Bosnia through the interaction of three chronologically problem-related processes: 1. The procedure defined as 'The Archeology of the Politics of Oblivion' reconstructs in all previous research completely neglected aspects of the genesis of historical and political factors of the project of denial of Bosniaks as a separate people / nation, erasing their historical name, language name and ethnic, spiritual, cultural and state identity; 2. The issue of the relationship between Bosniaks as a people / nation and Bosnia, as their home state, which they created and defended, from the general problem-theory perspective as well as from recent events and with the current situation being considered; 3. The thesis is argued that the preservation of the historical name „Bosniaks“, returned on September 28, 1993, is a permanent strategic imperative of all Bosniaks in the world and a conditio sine qua non of the survival of Bosnia as a state and as a concept.. The initiative to use the territorial determinants „Bosnians“ or „Bosnians and Herzegovinians“ instead of the historical name, which aims to definitively remove Bosniaks from the historical scene as a people / nation, is critically analysed. Since the survival of Bosniaks is a necessary condition for the survival and existence of Bosnia, the imperatives of the historical moment require the unconditional acceptance of the historical name „Bosniaks“, the renewal of the sense of common belonging and mutual connection of Bosniaks as a people / nation, strengthening the emotional connection with one's own national being and establishing the awareness of the moral obligation of every individual Bosniak towards his/her Bosniak people and their home state of Bosnia.
More...Keywords: Slovakia; Nitra; Bishop archive; medieval times; fragment; notation; liturgy
In the assessment of liturgical musical codices from the territory of Slovakia dating from the medieval period and the early modern period, the town of Nitra has a special status. From Nitra’s church institutional funds only one liturgical manuscript has been preserved in its original place – the Nitra Codex from the 12th century (ekphonetic symbols, elements of German adiastematic neume notation). From the subsequent period (12th to 16th centuries) religious books with notation have not been preserved. All the more surprising, then, is the discovery of 7 antiphonary fragments from the turn of the 16th century with the Esztergom notation system in the Nitra Diocesan Archive, which is one of the oldest church archives in the Slovak Republic. On account of the historic status of the Nitra diocese and its church archive, we regard the finding of these fragments as an exceptional discovery in the field of medieval musical research in Slovakia.
More...Keywords: audience; catholic priest; funeral; lecture; Slovak army; translator;
The military Catholic clergy operating on the Italian front emphasized the sacramental pastoral acts. However, their activities did not end here. On the contrary, their scope was also used in other areas. In addition to blessings (military funerals), they were responsible for the organization, implementation and material provision of commemorations, religious devotion, the program during public holidays, lectures, edifying or educational activities. They organized collections for the help and needs of Slovak institutions, which suffered from a lack of funds during the war. These were mostly charitable or children's homes and school facilities. The organization of audiences with Pope Pius XII, who often and gladly blessed Slovak soldiers, deserves great attention. Slovak Catholic clergy were also usable as translators between Slovak commanders and the local government and the population. Their usability in the front conditions of Italy aroused an awareness of urgent cooperation. It should be noted that the Catholic military clergy carried out their many activities with great responsibility and precision.
More...Keywords: Sandu Tudor; Alexandru Teodorescu; Monk Agaton; Orthodoxy; The Burning Bush;
Father Daniil Sandu Tudor remains one of the most solar personalities in the perimeter of Romanian spirituality, a figure that indelibly imprinted the Romanian intellectuality, both the secular and the ecclesiastical one, through the conviviality of the Rugul Aprins (The Burning Bush). But in the following, as the title of the present study also states, the author intends to deal only with the issue of Sandu Tudor's reception during the Second World War, when, as it is known, he was mobilized. File no. 013495, vol. 1 and 2, Criminal fund, located at the Archive of the National Council for the Study of Security Archives (A.C.N.S.A.S.), represents a collection of disturbing documents that offers many clear (the author considers them as so) details related to this subject. From the first sheet of the aforementioned file, vol. 1, represented by the Cover of the File no. 1811/1950, of the Bucharest Court, the Third Criminal Section, „Posteucă Dumitru and Teodorescu Alexandru”, the mention „War crime” shocks. Of course, this raises multiple questions. In the following, the author will use an evolutionary, chronological x-ray of the data, meant to offer the potential reader a systematic form of exposing the conduct of the investigation and of the trial of the Monk Agaton.
More...Keywords: pandemic; crisis; media manipulation; tipping point; future world;
Suspended between theories of manipulation and the public health catastrophe that continues to shake our world, there is a whole range of answers to the questions posed by scientists, doctors, politicians and ordinary folk – when, where, how and why did it all begin? Given the various concepts and ideas on the future corona world, it is important to keep asking and (still) avoid simple and mind-numbing answers. The world of media has also reached or surpassed a tipping point – can we even shake the illusion we deserve some “new normal”? Or perhaps the future holds a “new abnormal” world, alongside the “old abnormal”. On the one hand the pandemic has changed our behavioural patterns, and will continue to do so, but it has also changed our way of thinking, reaching conclusions and perceiving the external world and the world within us. On the other hand, are we in part historically regressing through our acceptance of half-dictatorship, lockdowns, immovability, blandness and hiding our smiles? Why and how might the philosophy of the media help with this challenge of views in some new techno-feudalism? Will we adopt any new lessons? We must first remember the legendary children’s show Sesame Street and its revolutionary insight – you can teach children only if you attract their attention first...
More...Keywords: World Exhibition; New York; 1939; Soviet pavilion; cultural diplomacy; architectural image;
This article addresses the Soviet pavilion at the World Exhibition in New York City, 1939, especially the architectural and artistic image of the Soviet pavilion, including its search and implementation. Archival documents from the Soviet section of the International exhibition in New York, as well as professional periodicals of the 1930s, analyzed to interpret and evaluate the New York exhibition and the Soviet pavilion in the Soviet public field, make up the main database for the article. First, the competitive practices of the 1930s and their hidden mechanisms, ruled by party-state power, are shown through the case of the New York Pavilion. Further, the stylistic peculiarities of the pavilion are considered, and ideas among the power circles about worthy forms of the “export” representation of the USSR by architectural and artistic means are shown. With the example of an “Americanized” style of the Soviet pavilion, the practice of appropriating alien architectural forms was demonstrated as a way to emphasize the involvement of Stalinist culture in current global trends. Attention is also drawn to the contradiction between official “internal” discourse, with its main thesis of turning to “classical heritage”, and the choice of a modern language for “export” architecture.
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