![POLITICS AND IDEOLOGY IN JEWISH ROMANIAN INTELLECTUAL LIFE DURING THE INTERWAR PERIOD:
THE A. L. ZISSU – W. FILDERMAN DEBATE](/api/image/getissuecoverimage?id=picture_2011_28190.jpg)
Keywords: Mircea Eliade; super‑consciousness; the sub‑conscious; psychology of religion; yoga; metapsychics
This paper offers an overview of the way in which Mircea Eliade used psychological language in his early work on religion, and places this early contribution in the context of the history of the psychology of religion. The first two sections comment on Eliade’s earliest mentions of psychological concepts, while the following two go into a more in‑depth analysis of the history of the concept of higher consciousness in psychology and into the history of the psychology of yoga in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Building on these two sections, I analyse the uses of psychology in an unpublished manuscript from 1929 and in Eliade’s Ph.D. thesis.
More...Keywords: littérature française; méthodes; discipline; pratiques; postures; trajectoires; controverses
Étudier la littérature française en Roumanie du point de vue de l’histoire des disciplines suppose d’abord de faire la distinction entre la recherche et enseignement. Cet article propose quelques orientations méthodologiques qui pourraient guider une telle approche : l’histoire des idées sur la littérature française, l’histoire des trajectoires professionnelles et intellectuelles des représentants de la discipline, l’analyse des pratiques de recherche et d’enseignement qui caractérisent l’évolution de la discipline dans le cadre plus large des sciences humaines, l’analyse des controverses intellectuelles et la restitution des dimensions politiques de la littérature française dans la Roumanie moderne.
More...Keywords: sociology of art; sociology in Poland; art worlds; research traditions; research directions
In the introduction to this issue of Przegląd Socjologii Jakościowej, we undertake an attempt to characterize the contemporary field of the sociology of art in Poland. For the point of departure, we took four generations of the sociology of art as defined by Nathalie Heinich as well as the identification of the following four elements: an artwork and its reception, an artist and a creative process, an audience, and a social-institutional framework. We try to draw the timeline of this sub-discipline by means of indicating works of Stanisław Ossowski (the sociology of art sensu largo) and Florian Znaniecki (the sociology of artist) as its beginning in the country. We also define the unique status of art sociology in Poland as a sub-discipline of the sociology of culture, as well as its mutual relations with different sciences. We analyze the emergence of scientific communities and the appearance and disappearance of research specializations during the period of over 80 years. Additionally, we indicate missing pages as well as thematic fields and perspectives that are still developing. We are aware of the fact that it is difficult to exhaust the problem of the history and status of art sociology in Poland within one article, which is why our objective is, rather, to indicate problems, perspectives, and ideas that can begin the discussion on the topic.
More...Keywords: Western Krai; landed gentry; the Podhorskis
The article presents the history of the Podhorski family which, before 1914, owned numerous estates in Russian Ukraine. The family lost the estates following the Oc-tober Revolution and the subsequent wars. Their fate was sealed by the Peace of Riga as a result of which, the Kiev region was incorporated into the USSR .
More...Keywords: bookbinding; bound book trade in 16th century Poland;
This work discusses the trade of bound books in 16th century Poland. Its first part presents some insights into this topic based on extant archival sources, including earlier studies. In the centuries following the invention of the printing press, books were generally sold in the form of loose sheets, and binding was to be commissioned by the buyer. Those trading in books – booksellers, printers and bookbinders – could also have the books bound before offering them for sale. So far this topic has not received broader attention, though numerous remarks about books being bound for sale appeared e.g. in the works of Monika Jaglarz (Księgarstwo krakowskie XVI wieku, Kraków 2004) and Edward Różycki (Z dziejów książki we Lwowie w XVII wieku, Katowice 1991). The primary sources of information are here 16th century booksellers’ inventories, preserved in the Krakow City Archives, such as those of Piotr Reismoller, Maciej Szarfenberg and Zacheusz Kessner bookshops. Next to unbound copies, those inventories list between 10 and 20 percent of bound books (ligata). There are also records of cooperation between bookbinders and booksellers, who probably commissioned the binding of some copies for sale (e.g. contracts between the publisher and bookseller Jan Haller, and the bookbinders Piotr Walde and Henryk Süssmund). Such cooperation is also evidenced by large quantities of waste paper used in the bindings, coming from a single printing house, which hints at collaboration of the printer Łazarz Andrysowicz and the bookbinder Jerzy Moeller. Traces of bound book trade have been found not only in Krakow, but also in Lwów, Poznań and Warszawa. Bound books were also sold by bookbinders, as witnessed by the 16th century inventories of Maciej Przywilcki and Stefan Terepetka, listing the prices and types of bindings of the copies being offered for sale. The second part of this work presents two copies of the Polish translation of the Bible, published in Krakow in 1599, which had probably been bound before sale. Of special interest among the decorations on the bindings are the titles Biblia impressed with a woodcut block, an empty oval cartouche with room for a coat of arms, and a quote from the Book of Joshua, pressed onto the front cover.
More...Keywords: collective identity; past presencing; museum; musealization; art; local community
Museums and art are both phenomena strongly connected with collective identities. During the process of development of modern nations in the 19th and 20th centuries, museums were actors (or tools, depending on the context) of the process of the construction of collective representations. This relates to a certain link between collectivities and objects, in which the latter contribute to the emergence of social roles and the organization of social worlds. Artworks as collective representations, and memory carriers significantly participate in these processes. Since 1989, the importance of local identities has been growing. Local actors undertake organized activities to develop a sense of community and attract the attention of outsiders. Museums also participate in these processes, yet in the changing context the question arises as to whether they play a role similar to the national ones or, perhaps, different situations introduced new ways of museum involvement. The paper examines the practices during which representations of a locality are constructed to be displayed in the museum context. We are interested in how art pieces contribute to this process and how they are used in comparison to non-aesthetic artifacts. The study is based on 50 in-depth interviews collected during two projects conducted in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship in Poland and in the Kosice Region in Slovakia. Concentrating on the practices of collection building, exhibition designing, and interpretation, we discuss different classes of objects used in the process, analyze their effectiveness in representing the original context – the main topic of museum narratives – and indicate some of them as boundary objects around which arenas emerge.
More...Keywords: Zofia Rydet; artist; photography; art; biography; fieldwork; mythologization
Zofia Rydet is one of the most outstanding Polish and even European artists of the second half of the 20th century. She left a huge artistic legacy, but her biography still in many respects remains a mystery. The memory of a great artist is often mythologized, and the interpretation of the work after his/her death begins to separate from the original intentions of the creator. These are processes of great interest to art historians and sociologists alike. They can be studied by adopting the methods of the biographically-oriented sociology of art. This article uses some of these methods, namely the analysis of the existing documents, archival research, and interviews. The analysis of the collected material has revealed how Rydet was remembered by those who had the opportunity to meet her, accompanied her during field trips, and talked with her about art and photography. The aim of such research is to try to get to know the artist better, as well as to understand her work and the social functioning in what was a very specific time and environment.
More...Keywords: Jan Baudouin de Courtenay;Jan Karłowicz;history of Polish linguistics
The presented correspondence includes nine letters and nine postcards from 1894, sent by Jan Baudouin de Courtenay to Jan Karłowicz. Among other things, it shows the scientific and extra-scientific relations in Cracow in the last decade of the 19th century – although, owing to the person of the addressee, it also refers to Warsaw. The main scientific topics are 1) comments on the etymology of lexemes studied by J. Karłowicz for a dictionary of foreign words which were used in Polish and had a less clear origin; 2) matters related to changes in Polish orthography; and 3) comments on the edition of the so-called Warsaw dictionary.
More...Keywords: Belgrade Nesmin; Akhmim; paleoradiology; Book of the Dead; amulet placement; museum superstition; 350‒325 B.C.
An anthropoid wooden coffin with human mummy was purchased in Luxor in February 1888 by the Serbian mécène and world traveler Pavle Riđički (1805‒1893). Due to historical, political and cultural circumstances the first studies of the mummy did not start until May 1993. The ancient ‘patient’ ‒ Nesmin, stolist-priest of Akhmim, son of Djedhor (son of Wennefer, son of Djedhor) born to Chay-Hathor-Imw/Tjay-Hathor-imw ‒ who became known as the Belgrade mummy ‒ underwent a CT scan at the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Dental Medicine, Diagnostic Radiology Center. The present paper provides the first complete analysis of the CT scan. At the time of death (350‒325 B.C.) Belgrade Nesmin was between 35 and 40 years old. A proper bioanthropological study is presented. The mummification features are discussed. The distribution of funerary amulets on the mummy has been established. The mummy’s cultural biography is specified. A museum superstition phenomenon is noted.
More...Keywords: range of the Member States in the field on land policy; restitution of property and the EU Law; analysis of the European Commission’s practice
The scope of action of EU Member States’ land policies lies at the intersection of positive and negative integration. Therefore, if a Member State restricts the ownership and use of agricultural land, it implies both the legitimate restriction of fundamental freedoms and that it achieves the targets listed under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) on improving the quality of living for farmers in keeping with the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). Despite this, it is worrisome that the EU’s control over negative integration does not allow Member States to create sustainable regulations. In contrast, the EU law leaves it entirely to the Member States to introduce restitution measures vis-à-vis the properties that were confiscated before their accession. The EU’s control prohibits direct discrimination against the citizens of other Member States. Under certain circumstances, according to the European Commission, the general principles of EU law and the provisions of the Charter can help individuals enforce restitution provisions. Bearing this in mind, we analysed the practice of the European Commission, its statements, and procedures against Member States, given that these are based on professional and/or political considerations. We examine the practice of the Commission and the CJEU vis-à-vis a Hungarian legislation on the so-called ‘zsebszerződések’. We also propose recommendations.
More...Keywords: culture; group work; proverbs; cooperative learning; American culture
The role of culture, especially the American culture, in group work is relatively understudied because it is often presumed to be no different from the colonialist West, or is alternatively stereotyped as individualistic and competitive. Thus, this paper studies English-language proverbs used in America, as culturally rich symbols, at three levels of discourse, conceptual metaphor, and content to discern what attitude American culture, as represented in the proverbs, has to group work, and what world views and psychosocial factors can inform such attitudes. The findings suggest that American culture is marginally cooperation friendly, with a considerable penchant for individualism and competition. This ambivalence was not simply a proverbial phenomenon, rather a cultural reality because it was observed to be the result of the interplay between heterogeneous conceptual metaphors, representing different world views. Psychosocially, many factors were observed to have molded the American culture’s attitude to group work, noticeably, egoism, distrust, altruism, and socially shared cognition.
More...Keywords: Riga; port city; Imperial Russia; historical GIS; sales volume; industrialization; industries; railroad; Provodnik; World War I; Baltic Germans;
In the first decade of the twentieth century, Riga became imperial Russia’s most successful trading hub in terms of sales volume. This concluded a development which began in the 1860s with the rapid expansion of Russia’s railroad network, the rise of supplies of agricultural products, and the increase of Riga’s trade contacts on a global scale. This article uses historical GIS to display the agglomeration of trade contacts on the supplier side, i.e. central Russia, and the rising demand in Western Europe, the Americas, and Australia. The article’s GIS visualizations allow the study of Riga’s development into a global trading hub and the city’s increased industrialization. The article argues that the sharp increase of sales volume was due to two developments: Riga’s successful expansion of exports, including new products such as eggs and butter, and a rise of imports due to the increased need of various raw materials for Riga’s native industry. The article also uses GIS to demonstrate the variety of ethnic backgrounds of Riga’s business owners, which included Baltic Germans, Jews, Latvians, Russians, and Poles. A micro-study of Riga’s biggest industry at the time, the rubber-processing factory “Provodnik,” concludes the argument underlining the incorporation of Riga into the global trade network prior to World War I.
More...Keywords: Liberal International Order; Dialectic of Political Mechanics; Friend/Enemy; International Relations; Westphalian System;
The authors of this paper offer an overview and analysis of the rise and fall of the liberal international order that emerged after the end of the Cold War and along with the rising power of the United States. The foreign policy agenda of the post-Cold War sole superpower was guided by the idea of creating a global order based on the ideology of liberalism, which incorporates theories of liberal peace, democratic peace and neoliberal institutionalism. The establishment of a liberal order has been accompanied by numerous political, social, economic and security crises. The current era is characterized by the rise of the relative power of global actors, primarily China and Russia, as the main challengers to the world domination of the United States, geopolitical revisionism and ideological struggle around the world. The authors of this paper use the dialectic of political mechanics as a method that relies on the teachings of Friedrich Hegel on the dialectic of history and Carl Schmitt on the phenomenon of the political. The authors advocate the view that the political field “permanently pulsates”, which, in everything that is social and political, necessarily creates action and reaction.
More...Keywords: Soft Power; Digital Public Diplomacy; India; Brazil; Global South;
The focus of this comparative study is on the use of soft power in the digital public diplomacy of two Global South players, Brazil and India, in EU member states. The main objective of this research is to find out how their embassies use digital diplomacy in communication through their official websites and to identify which soft power resources they dominantly use. Quantitative content analysis and thematic analysis were used to analyze the categories and subcategories on the main menu and special banners on each embassy’s home page, and the associated content. Unlike the Indian embassies, which fully embraced digital diplomacy 2.0, the Brazilian embassies do not utilize the full potential of digital diplomacy and primarily remain reliant on websites only. According to this research, the Brazilian embassies in the EU use film as a dominant soft power resource in their digital diplomacy, while the Indian embassies use yoga as a powerful diplomatic tool. Still, both approaches are not enough to attract European publics. There remains a lot of space for improvement and better usage of soft power resources and digital public diplomacy potentials in communicating the powers of Brazil and India in EU countries.
More...Gersmann, K.-H. and Grimm, O. (Eds.) (2018). Raptor and human – falconry and bird symbolism throughout the millennia on a global scale, I–IV. Advanced studies on the archaeology and history of hunting 1. Wachholtz Verlag, Kiel–Hamburg. p. 1957. ISBN 978-3529014901.
More...Keywords: agency; intelligentsia; oath; Orthodox icons; peasantry; political theology; Russian Empire; secular studies; speech-act; subaltern;
This two-part transdisciplinary article elaborates on the autobiographical account of the Georgian Social-Democrat Grigol Uratadze regarding the oath pledged by protesting peasants from Guria in 1902. The oath inaugurated their mobilization in Tsarist Georgia in 1902, culminating in full peasant self-rule in the “Gurian Republic” by 1905. The study aims at a historical-anthropological assessment of the asymmetries in the alliance formed by peasants and the revolutionary intelligentsia in the wake of the oath as well as the tensions that crystallized around the oath between the peasants and Tsarist officials. In trying to recover the traces of peasant politics in relation to multiple hegemonic forces in a modernizing imperial borderland, the article invites the reader to reconsider the existing assumptions about historical agency, linguistic conditions of subjectivity, and the relationship between politics and the material and customary dimensions of religion. The ultimate aim is to set the foundations for a future subaltern reading of the practices specific to the peasant politics in the later “Gurian Republic”. The second part of the article delves into Uratadze’s account of the aftermath of the inaugural oath and the conflicts it triggered between peasants, intelligentsia and the Tsarist administration.
More...Keywords: biographical research; oral history; memory research; post-Soviet revolution; trauma; generation; Estonian Russians; Soviet period; World War II; memory history;
This article provides an analysis of the intersection of memory studies and biographical research in the study of Estonian post-Soviet memory processes and memories. Both lines of research emerged during the postcommunist turn, albeit with different dynamics and different possibilities to build on existing research traditions. Both are multidisciplinary in nature. This article focuses on the points of contact between biographical research and memory studies in social and scientific methodological processes. The authors show that biographical research, which played a significant role in documenting and disclosing the long-silenced past throughout Eastern Europe during the collapse of communist regimes, has shifted from memory activism to critical examination of memory contexts, mnemonic actors, power relations, and contradictions. To this end, first, the impact of the cultural institutions dealing with collecting oral histories and life stories is analysed as contributors to the Estonian post-communist turn. Second, an overview is provided of post-communist biographical research in Estonia from a memory studies perspective, focusing both on influential theories and methods and pointing to contributions to international memory debates. In addition, gaps in biographical memory work and research are highlighted. Biographical memory studies in Estonia grew out of anticommunist memory work in the late 1980s and early 1990s, being part of a symbolic process of truth and remembrance, actively shaping interpretations of the past, evoking and slowing down collective ‘memory shifts’.
More...Keywords: Romania; European Union; administrative law; region; regionalization; security; sovereignty;
In order to understand the biunivocal relationship from the binomial national security-regionalization we chose the special case of the geo-historical space Argeş-Muscel, with the tragic consequence of the disappearance from history of Muscel County, thinking that in order to understand the present we must first find and decipher the past from the multitude of unpublished facts that are insufficiently known or even overlooked, due to various political calculations of the time, it was deliberately left to lie in oblivion. The history of the administrative-territorial delimitations of Romania is a living, inexhaustible magazine, which from closed circuit or eminently secret archives reveals documents and events that decided the fate of the Romanian nation and major conflicts starting from petty pride, wars and long processions of catastrophes, their responsibility or the cynical division of areas of influence around the globe. The biunivocal aspect is concerning the meaning of the interinfluence between the components of the relationship thus we will focus on such an important phenomenon for Romanians in the present study. We do not want to be prophetic or pessimistic, but in our past, looking through the older or more recent history of Romania, it is difficult, if not impossible, to find a period of time in which we were a truly independent state and sovereign. Was it the fault of our geographical position, in contact with the great players of history? Is it because of our national spirit inclined to obedience and servility? Or is it due to the fact that for centuries we have not had leaders with respect for the nation and love of country? By surrendering piece by piece, for vain promises, in an infamous barter in which we have always been the deceived ones, the basic components of the nation's sovereignty, state security is at an extremely dangerous level.
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