Keywords: Burgundy; Pilgrimage; Itinerary; Bertrandon de la Broquière; Islam
Bertrandon de la Broquière, the spy of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, underwent a long pilgrimage in the Holy Land and Turkey during 1432–1433. In his declining years, in the 1450s, he wrote an account of his travels in the genre of an adventurous memoir entitled Le Voyage d’outre-mer (The Overseas Voyage). His primary task was to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor in espionage Guillebert de Lannoy and gather information that could be used in the next crusade and liberation of Jerusalem. However, he had set a different personal goal for himself: to gather information about the life and faith of the Osman Turks. The unusual nature of Bertrandon’s memoirs accommodated the shift from his original objective. The Overseas Voyage was not intended as a mere handbook for future crusaders and pilgrims; it was also designed to serve as a tool for understanding the “other” world.
More...This essay treats the growth and development of Charles S. Peirce’s three categories, particularly studying the qualities of Peirce’s Firstness, a basic formula of “airy-nothingness” (CP: 6.455) serving as fragment to Secondness and Thirdness. The categories of feeling, willing, and knowing are not separate entities but work in interaction within the three interpretants. Interpretants are triadomaniac elements through the adopted, revised, or changed habits of belief. In works of art, the first glance of Firstness arouses the spontaneous responses of musement, expressing emotions without the struggle and resistance of factual Secondness, and not yet involving logical Thirdness. The essential qualities of a loose or vague word, color, or sound give the fugitive meanings in Firstness. The flavor, brush, timbre, color, point, line, tone or touch of the First qualities of an aesthetic object is too small a base to build the logic of aesthetic judgment. The genesis art is explained by Peirce’s undegeneracy growing into group and individual interpretants and building into the passages and whole forms of double and single forms of degeneracy. The survey of the flash of Firstness is exemplified in a variety of artworks in language, music, sculpture, painting, and film. This analysis is a preliminary aid to further studies of primary Firstness in the arts.
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Keywords: Polish-Jewish relations; Holocaust; Jews; testimonies
This text analyzes personal documents, with emphasis laid on how certain Jews, authors of the works discussed, perceived Poles. It contains testimonies on the various aspects of Polish-Jewish relations during the occupation. In particular in focuses on: Anti-Jewish prejudice and stereotypes, the indifference of Poles toward the persecuted Jews, the actions of helpers and those aimed at offering aid to Jews, on acts of treason and violence, robbery and theft of Jewish property, as well as on acts of violence by Poles on Jews.
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ROUND TABLE : The Balkans - Traditions and Changes. The Crisis of Identity and Intercultural Communication. Participants: Ivaylo Znepolski, Bogdan Bogdanov, Gueorgui Fotev, Ivaylo Ditchev, Svetlozar Igov
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17th-century wall painting in the Peloponnese shows the trends visible in painting in the two great currents of the 16th century, that of the Cretan school and the school of NW Greece. The influx of Western iconographic elements – whether in the overall pattern, as in the scenes of the Massacre of the Innocents, the Crucifixion and the Noli me tangere, or in details – it is done very discreetly and assimilated into the aesthetic of the Byzantine tradition. Western motifs exert no more than an indirect influence on the style of their work. Despite the teachings of the great creators of wall paintings in the 16th century, Frangos Katelanos and Theophanes, and their sensitisation to humanism and Renaissance art, the Peloponnesian artists of the 17th century, the Kakavas and Moschos families and Manuel Andronos, proved to be more conservative and remained loyal to the aesthetic of the Byzantine tradition. Western elements infiltrated their work through the innovations of 16th-century painting. In isolated cases only, such as the Philosophou Monastery, new themes and motifs were introduced that showed the influence of painters of portable icons, whose clients included both the Catholic and Greek Orthodox bourgeoisie, whose good taste and way of life were influenced to a large degree by the ideas of the Renaissance. The innovations introduced in 17th-century wall paintings in the Peloponnese through the great works of the 16th century constitute examples of an art that is trying to renew itself while remaining faithful to its roots and to its doctrinal content. In this way, the co-existence of various elements of folk origin from daily life can be explained, as artists showed particular interest in the world around them and drew many details from it, objects of daily use, clothing, etc. Despite its conservative nature, 17th-century painting in the Peloponnese succeeded in responding to its era. It is an art which, in terms of its iconographic content, belongs to its times, taking on elements even indirectly from Western art, creating eclecticist agglomerations of features of daily life, and in this way reflecting the thought processes of a subjugated people who were trying to survive by preserving their traditions.
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Keywords: absurd in Ionesco’s dialogues; disturbances in ordinary conversation; politenesss and rudeness; instability; undecidability.
This paper approaches the question of the « absurd » in Ionesco’s dialogues, and more precisely in La cantatrice chauve, by comparing the way they work to ordinary conversations. We consider, above all, the different types of disturbances present in the corpus, which can affect, as well, the fictional represented world (temporality, causality), the characters’ behaviour (amnesia, incoherence), their discourse (confusion in the use of words, paralogisms, automatisms), the rules of communication (conversational maxims, turn-taking, sequential organisation). Then we turn towards the question of politeness (seen as equivalent to « face-work ») and rudeness, in order to see how the different characters behave in this respect in the different situations they are involved in : conversations between husband and wife, masters and their maids, hosts and their guests in the context of a visit. As a conclusion, we assert that the feeling of the « absurd » in Ionesco’s plays originates mainly on principles of instability and undecidability.
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Polish Bibliography on European Integration 2008
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Keywords: jewish museum;Prague;nazism;
One of Prague’s most important tourist attractions is, without a doubt, the local Jewish museum, which attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. Most of the visitors know about its existence from tourist guides or from friends or relatives who have already been to Prague; alternatively, they have come across the collections of the Prague Jewish Museum at their displays abroad. Aside from the well-preserved monuments in the former Jewish ghetto, the synagogues that house the museum’s exhibitions, and the museum’s diverse collections, what also may inspire some tourists to visit the museum is the legend surrounding the genesis of its collections during the Second World War. A general idea still prevails that the museum was founded at the behest of the Nazis who intended to create a ‘museum of an extinct race’ in Prague for propaganda purposes and cynically compelled the Jews of Prague themselves to carry out their goal; as if the Nazi authorities had not concealed their plans from the Jews during the war and as if the employees of the Prague Jewish community – who were entrusted with this task – were already aware of the result and the extent of the tragedy that befell European Jewry.
More...Keywords: Transylvania; Indo-Europeanization; Romanian paradigm; research history; theoretical models
In this article, I discuss the manner in which the model proposed by Marija Gimbutas regarding the Indo-European migration in Europe was perceived by Romanian specialists. The article is also an extension of my efforts to understand the relations between prehistoric Transylvania and the Pontic steppe. Approached from this historiographic perspective, the subject illustrates a situation symptomatic of Romanian archaeology: the lack, with few exceptions, of serious debates on this controversial subject, the frequent repetition of unverified opinions, statements supported by invalid arguments, etc. Under these circumstances, the late Alexandru Vulpe took a harsh stance against those who considered the Indo-European migration a closed subject.It is well known that the theoretical discourse had little to no impact on Romanian archaeologists, who were not even influenced by Marxist theories. As presented in the article, their arguments in regards to the Indo-European matter, if such thing ever existed, were based on the relationship between professor and disciple, or, plainly, on personal intuition. This approach was subject to some changes only after 1989. Naturally, a new generation of archaeologists developed, ready to bring a different style to their participation in scientific process. Often starting as a rejection of the moral authority claimed by some established archaeologists in the old regime, the validity of their scientific opinions is also questioned. Personal relationships suffered as well; however, there visible transformations, driven by a growing independence coupled with better access to bibliographic sources, breaking the monopoly of personal libraries. New academic models prevailed, while the scientific discussions turned to a more critical view, a natural reflection of the social turmoil which overwhelmed Romania at the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first century. However, this new reality had a limited impact over the Indo-European matter; therefore, the Gimbutas model remained an educational template, still unquestioned or reviewed.How much do we know today about the social impact triggered by the arrival of the Scythians, the Noua communities, or the Iamnaia shepherds in Transylvania? For some, these periodical infiltrations of steppe populations in the Carpathian Basin had double role. In addition to their destructive role, they also brought technological innovations, which had a major role in further local cultural developments. For others, these influences travelled in the opposite directions, as the Carpathian and Balkan cultural mediums had a decisive role in shaping the socio-cultural realities in the steppe world at the beginning of the Copper Age. Which opinion is accurate? Must we adhere to a unilateral approach? The opinions of Al. Vulpe, as well as some contributions made by E. Kaiser, Y. Rassamakin, B. Govedarica, I. Manzura, R. Harrison, V. Heyd, and many others, filtered through the perspective of current archaeological realities in Transylvania, encouraged me to decide to create a theoretical model which I deemed appropriate for understanding the relations between local prehistoric communities and the north-Pontic world.The existence of clear contacts (collective or individual) in the second half of the fifth millennium BC contributed to the transfer and diffusion of technological innovations. Apart from metal objects (made from copper or gold), certain types of artefacts also circulated in a vast area during this time: specific stone maces, large flint blades, stone or bone sceptres with abstract or zoomorphic shapes, axes decorated on the sharp edge with schematic animal heads, and pottery with crushed shells as temper. Even if we might have a vague idea, we cannot fully understand, based on tangible evidence, the full spectrum of economic repercussions set in motion by these influences. Even less can be said about a possible renegotiation of social structures in Transylvania during the late Tiszapolgár and Bodrogkeresztúr ceramic cultures. For the rest of the Carpathian Basin, where more archaeological information is available, signs of social inequality can be observed from the late Neolithic horizon, and these became more and more visible towards the second half of the fifth millennium BC.It is not possible discuss collective contacts between Transylvania and the Pontic steppe in the middle of the fourth millennium BC, because the second kurgan migration wave, as proposed by M. Gimbutas, cannot be proven. Only from the end of the fourth and the beginning of the third millennium BC is there documented evidence of the presence of Yamnaya communities in the mid-Mureș Valley. Relevant archaeological discoveries are scarce, making it hard to establish the intensity of potential contacts with the local Coțofeni medium. Considering this, there is insufficient evidence to prove the steppe populations were responsible for the major changes which occurred in Transylvania at the beginning of the Early Bronze Age. Based on certain metal artefacts or distinct funerary practices, potential individual connections were often presumed. However, for the period towards the end of the first half of the third millennium BC, I consider certain stone or metal weapons and adornments, as well as the funerary mounds and the stone anthropomorphic stelae, to in fact be representations of social status for the elites involved in a trans-regional dialog (Fig. 1).Similar interpretations concerning the relationship between Pontic communities and the regions they influenced between the fifth and third millennia BC can be found in recent studies by E. Kaiser, Y. Rassamakin, M. Furholt, V. Heyd, I. Manzura and S. Ivanova, to name only a few specialists interested in the movement of populations and products. The current theoretical models concerned with mobility or the transfer of technological knowledge are in a similar position. In the last years, research on funerary mounds in Romania has been increasingly connected to a wider spectrum of interdisciplinary approaches, catching up with European trends. A few examples are eloquent in this regard. A coherent project focused on tumuli was developed by A. Frînculeasa and his team in Prahova County. Needless to say, the results are remarkable and capable of changing our way of interpreting such funerary practices and their impact in the local medium. A project to obtain sufficient absolute dates, coupled with anthropological and metallographic analyses, was undertaken by S. Ailincăi is while investigating the tumulus in Rahman, Tulcea County. If this positive trend continues, there is hope that the thousands of tumuli in southern and eastern Romania can be integrated into a vivid illustration of prehistory, with or without Indo-Europeans.The so-called Cucuteni C ceramic style, also linked several years ago with the North-Pontic area, was analysed in regards to its technological characteristics, targeting the chemical and mineralogical composition of the temper. Interestingly enough, the conclusion suggested the potters had a predilection towards nonstandard materials.Strontium and oxygen isotopes analysed on a skeleton found in a tumulus in Sárrétudvari suggested that some individuals from the Apuseni Mountains travelled to the northwestern Hungarian plains. Although the first small steps have been taken in this direction, the current genetic data available for prehistoric Transylvania is far from sufficient to include this area in some of the European studies dedicated to the reconstruction of Bronze Age life. From a linguistic point of view, the contribution of the steppe populations to the development of the Indo-European languages is considered as an undisputed fact. Hopefully, further research projects will bring more light to this matter.The linguistic debate regarding the Indo-European motherland is, as well, added to the archaeological interpretations. However, the scientific conclusions are still very cautious, unable to surpass certain constraints. Therefore, the evidence presented thus far still supports the Gimbutas - Mallory interpretative line.As a homage to the memory of Alexandu Vulpe, I chose to end this historiographic investigation with some of his thoughts on the matter: “I strongly believe that the beauty of the Indo-European research, in all of its aspects, resides precisely in this perpetual discussion and critical evaluation of the advanced hypotheses”.
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Keywords: postimperialism; masculinity;dominant masculinity;
In my book Female Masculinity (Duke UP, 1998), I found that I had little if nothing to say about the various dominant and subversive forms taken by male masculinity. My resistance to engaging the topic of male masculinities certainly left my project open to questions about the vagueness of the term masculinity itself and possibly created historical problems by failing to develop a model of the production of manliness. However, I argued in Female Masculinity that if what we call “dominant masculinity” appears to be a naturalized relation between maleness and power, then it makes little sense to examine men for the contours of its social construction. Male masculinity figured in my project as a hermeneutic, and as a counter example to the kinds of masculinity which seem most informative about gender relations and most generative of social change.
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Keywords: Roma exclusion; cosmopolitanism;refuge
« THE BRIDGE » is offered in PDFs comprising always a full issue, unsplit into individual articles. Please take a look into the TABLE of CONTENT and into the EDITORIAL (above ↑) to look for authors and texts of interest for you.
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Keywords: Balkans; Europe; EU membership; political-cultural values of the European tradition; liberalism; tolerance; coexistence in diversity
« THE BRIDGE » is offered in PDFs comprising always a full issue, unsplit into individual articles. Please take a look into the TABLE of CONTENT and into the EDITORIAL (above ↑) to look for authors and texts of interest for you.
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Keywords: Tabula Peutingeriana; vignette of Constantinople; the Column of Constantine; lighthouse
The article contains the analyses of 40 descriptions of the vignette of Constantinople in Tabula Peutingeriana created between the years 1768 and 2018. The number of these descriptions is not at all complete, however, it seems to give quite a representative survey of how has this vignette been interpreted throughout the last 250 years. Among these descriptions, merely five authors (H. Thiersch – 1909; F. Castagnoli – 1960; A. and M. Levi – 1967 and M. Reddé – 1979) believe that one of the elements of that vignette is a lighthouse. The article explains the origin of this erroneous interpretation on the basis of the edition of Tabula Peutingeriana from the year 1753, prepared by F.C. von Scheyb, and repeated by K. Mannert (1824), E. Desjardins (1869–1874) and K. Miller (1888), as well as of the observations in this field made by H. Gross (1913) and W. Kubitschek (1917). What is today regarded as the most probable interpretation of the element of that vignette, referred to as the lighthouse is the thesis that what is referred to here, is the Constantine’s Column, on whose top there is the statue of the founder of the Second Rome. If we assume the second half of the 4th century as the time when Tabula Peutingeriana was created, then the Constantinople vignette would be the oldest graphic presentation of that column. However, the graphics of the vignette is far from the descriptions of Constantine’s column in the Byzantine sources. That might result from a simple mistake made by the later copiers, or it can also be the effect of their conscious modifications of the most important vignettes on the map. For the Constantinople vignette, compared to the vignettes of Rome and Antioch, seems to contain a certain symbolic code, which allows for dating the copy of map stored today in Vienna. It seems that the original map could have been created, as it seems, in the 2nd half of the 4th century, as it is traditionally assumed. Probably it had been graphically retouched quite substantially (at least as far as the vignettes of Rome and Constantinople are concerned, joined in a strict mutual relationship) in the Carolingian period, and, more exactly, in the 1st half of the 9th century, and then, for the second time, the map underwent modifications aimed at updating its contents in the 13th century.
More...Keywords: control; world; pre-human living beings; human species; community; individual; knowledge; science; technology; values; nature; society; information; energy; vulnerability/fragility; stimulants;
In today‘s context, the title implies taking the pandemic as the proof of the weak/at least disputable capacity of humans to control the world. However, as the pandemic as such is not a simple biological phenomenon but a social-biological one, so the above implication is false because the humans do not constitute a homogenous entity in front of nature/the pandemic. The multiple social divisions explain both that the responsibility for the creation of the pandemic is not the same for all humans (and was not, even much before the pandemic), and that the consequences of the pandemic are not equally endured by all (and they have never been, even much before the pandemic), and nor is the problem of control of the world tackled in the same manner by all. Actually, the paper only sketches an investigation of the human control of the world rather echoing the coexistence of human brittleness with the societal conditions that weaken or strengthen/even create it. The reason of this sketch is that the control is the intentional aspect of human activities –and for humans this intentional aspect is related to values, and not only to adaptations made by the ―machine structure of life itself –and thus the direct results of the human intentions can be confronted with their broader and indirect consequences. And, because this relationship is mediated by knowledge, more precisely by science, the contradictions between various types of intentions and the present visible results of their consequent actions deny the festive image from different origins about the incontestable progress in the human control of the world. In this sense, the point is that fragmented advances in science and technology –regardless of the general use of their application –do not converge towards unitary, coherent and effective control of the world and even less towards human control. The capacity to control the world and the state of fragility of humans are mutual criteria, insomuch as they depend on the class and community membership of the individual. The dialectic of the individual‘s-community‘s-species‘ control in the world is highlighted. What does control mean –much beyond the well-known discussions about the original meanings of (the word) cybernetics –and what does human control mean are questions that the paper only opens.If some aspects of the style could suggest a ―manifesto highlighting a rough attitude towards the correlations analysed by the scientific research of the human-nature and human-human relationships it is because of the moment of world emergency challenging the solving of the contradictions which are not new but have entered the phase of uncontrollable storm. Generally, all the manifestos were based on the authors‘ belief that they responded to unique moments in the human history. The present article, contributing to the scientific demonstrations about the above relationships and the conditions of solving them, shows one of the conclusions of these demonstrations as feature of the present moment: that there is no longer time and space for further deploying the cognitive and social model that does not control the world emergency.
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Keywords: Mureş County Library; newspapers; bibliography; cultural activities; cultural events;
The material bellow is a selection of 279 articles from local and national periodicals, published during 2017-2018: 106 articles in 2017 and 173 in 2018. From the local newspapers we have selected: Cuvântul liber, Népújság, Zi de zi, Vásárhelyi Hírlap (from July 10 2018, it added as title Székelyhon), Punctul, Központ, Telegraful de Mureş, Libraria, and from national level we chose Historia. The articles described provide information about cultural events and other events that Mureş County Library has organized or attended during 2017-2018. This article does not include the online articles.
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