The subject of this article are Albanian-Serbian local conflicts from 1881 to 1912, which took place in European provinces of Ottoman Empire. The particular attention was paid for contemporary tensions in Villayet of Kosova. The discussed tensions had, despite some common features, different specificity, range and dynamics. There are showed and analyzed only chosen conflicts. Information about them has been derived from Serbian sources, which had been selected from a file of the Serbian Archive and from published files of documents. Author opposed constructing such formulation as directories and catalogue of Albanian-Serbian incidents. He proposes the typological analysis instead. There are separated three fundamental backgrounds of this conflicts: economical (in a wide meaning), religious and the background of political aspirations. More attention is paid for conflicts between Albanians and Serbs in reference to economical and religious conflicts, than to those which followed from political ambitions. In the considerations author is trying to point factors responsible for the fact, that one type of conflicts had escalated in given moment of history, and some other time other conflict dominated.
More...Keywords: emperor Stefan; Hilandar monastery; icon;
The Story of the miracle-working icons of the Hilandar monastery, written down in 1558/9 in Moscow, contains an interesting legend about the processional icon of the Mother of God Abramiotis(s)a with Christ and the representation of the Prophet Elijah on the background, still kept in the treasury of the Serbian monastery on the Holy Mountain. According to the legend, this icon, which was taken from Bitolj by the Serbian ruler Stefan Dusan, played the decisive role in the Serbian conquest of Serres in 1345. This Mother of God with Christ belongs to the rare Pelagonitissa type and it used to have revetment. To judge by its later copies, the icon was held in high reverence on the Serbian Court and later in the Hilandar monastery, where the legend says the Serbian imperial couple brought it on the occasion of their visit to the Holy Mountain in 1347/8. On the basis of its style, the icon can be dated around the middle of the 14th century and it is a copy of the older and now non-existent Mother of God from Bitolj. However, the iconographic type was in existence also independently of Pelagonia, and it is safe to assume that its sources were probably in Constantinople. The unique epithet of the Hilandar icon also points to the Capital, or, more precisely, to the monastery tSv AppocuiTSv, as the place of origin. In the second half of the 9th and in the 10th century, this monastery treasured a venerated icon of the Mother of God which was considered as Acheiropoietos. Nothing is known about the appearance of this icon, unless the Hilandar icon, dealt with in the present paper, represents its replica. The miracle-working icon of Pelagonitissa from Bitolj was probably treasured in the city cathedral, i.e. in the seat of the Pelagonian bishopric, dedicated to the Virgin, up to the Ottoman conquest and subsequent destruction of the town in 1385.
More...U Erasmusu broj 8 objavio sam tekst Očevi zapisi s podnaslovom Tlapnja o slamci spasa. Bio je to dio prozne cjeline nastale pod jesen i na početku zime 1991. U uvodnoj napomeni naveo sam kako pokatkad pomislim da i pred tim zapisima moram bježati u sklonište, jer je u njima sublimirana muka zbira sudionika u događajima o kojima Zapisi govore. Povjerovao sam kako pred nevoljama valja uzmicati, pa makar i u tlapnju spasa, koja se može nazvati i razumijevanjem tuđe muke, ili pozivom na shvaćanje zajedničke nevolje. Od objavljivanja tog teksta protekla je godina dana. Za to vrijeme moj Radovan Vujanić sve određenije gubi i ono malo nade, čak i u tlapnju o slamci spasa, te - svjestan u što se razvijaju uvjeti egzistiranja građanina Hrvatske sa srpskom rodovnicom pokušava (zajedno sa mnom) preispitati kamo čovjeka vodi razumijevanje sredine koju razdražuje i sama pomisao da netko sa srpskom rodovnicom, usprkos posjedovanju hrvatske domovnice, može osjećati i razmišljati drukčije od onoga što ta sredina od njega očekuje. A kad i pokuša tako osjećati, misliti i govoriti, onda ta ista sredina iskaztlje svoje čuđenje i nevjericu; u smislu: Ne vjeruj Danajcima i kad darove nose! Rezultat gubitka nade Radovan Vujanić sažima u ispovijed za koju unaprijed znamo da ne zanima nikoga, a najmanje onoga tko nas potiče na tu uzaludnost. I tako sam počeo bilježiti Radovanovu ispovijest koja je, u toku bilježenja, sve određenije postajala i moja stvarnost. A onda je - poslije Bljeska ... kao predigre - uslijedila Oluja. I - krug se zatvara neočekivano lakim rješenjem položaja Srba u Hrvatskoj, u procesu kojeg krunska uloga pripada srpskim svjetovnim i duhovnim vođama. U drugom dijelu ovoga teksta - u reinterpretaciji moga zgotovljenog rukopisa, ali neobjavljene knjige o dalmatinskim manastirima - pokušavam se snaći u onome što je ostalo od dvostruke brige za "našeg čovjeka i građanina", s posebnim osvrtom na kolone samoprognanih Krajišnika koje su krenule, a možda već i stigle, u - neizvjesnost.
More...Keywords: Albania;1911 ; Albanian History;
Vendosja e Kushtetutës Osmane në korrik të vitit 1908 nuk i fashiti problemet kombëtare në Perandorinë Osmane. Pas shtypjes së puçit të prillit 1909, në të cilin "të shtypurit" luajtën një roi të dores së pare, Turqit e Rinj vendosën të vinin në jetë pikëpamjen e tyre centralizuese të bashkimit, sipas së cilës në shtetin osman nuk duhej të kishte turq, shqiptare, grekë, armenë, arabe, por vetëm qytetarë osmanë të bashkuar, të barabartë përpara ligjit, me të njëjtat të drejta dhe detyra1. Në gusht 1909 doli ligji mbi shoqatat, zbatimi i të cilit shpërndau shoqatat kulturore dhe mbylli klubet patriotike. Shpërbërja e çetave në territoret shqiptare dhe ato maqedonase do të bëhej nëpërmjet vënies në jetë të ligjit mbi ndalimin e çetave në Rumeli dhe ligjit mbi komitët. Parashikohej kryerja e shërbimit të detyrueshëm ushtarak edhe për populisme jo myslimane. Turqit e Rinj menduan të centralizonin edhe sistemin arsimor në Perandori. Pasi dështuan të devijonin ecurinë e arsimit kombëtar, ata vendosën ta asgjësonin krejtësisht atë. U krijua një inspektorat për shkollat jo turke dhe u kërkua të vendosej me detyrim nëpër shkolla dhe gjykata gjuha turke si gjuhë zyrtare. Gjatë vitit 1910, shkollat shqipe kudo në vilajetet shqiptare u mbyllën duke përfshirë edhe shkollën Normale të Elbasanit. Gazetat shqiptare u ndaluan dhe botuesit në shumë raste u burgosën pa gjyq. Qindra nacionalistë shqiptare u arrestuan ose u detyruan të kërkonin strehim jashtë vendit2.
More...Keywords: monasteries;Serbian Orthodox Church; Internet; Facebook; online religion;
The virtual world of the Internet is acknowledged as a potentially innovative way of doing research on faith. Computer mediated religious communication is a relevant field of research at the beginning of the 21st century and a significant source of data for researching religious identity, communities and the ritual use of the Internet. Using the examples of two monasteries of the Serbian Orthodox Church, we will attempt to examine new ways in which the church mediates in the communication of the faithful with god, as well as examine new types of spiritual interactions which occur through Facebook. The first part of the paper describes the look and content of different types of communication of orthodox monasteries and churches which emerges on the Internet. The second parts thematically groups and analyzes the visual materials posted by Facebook users, the contents of messages and the descriptions of their religious and spiritual experience, their behavior, and whether and to what extent members of a FB (Facebook) group “like”, share and comment on certain content.
More...Keywords: Miracle of Latomos;Hosios David;ossuary in Bačkovo;Poganovo Icon;Jelena Mrnjavčević
The main preoccupation of this text is iconographical analysis of depictions of the Miracle of Latomos. Firstly, we discussed historical background of the Miracle. At the end of the third century AD, a miraculous thing happened in Thessaloniki. Mosaic depiction of Virgin Mary transformed into Christ’s face, and that is what we today call the Miracle of Latomos. This mosaic is today connected with Hosios David church in Thessaloniki. This composition influenced various depictions of the Miracle of Latomos. The scene was painted on the walls of the Bone house in monastery of Bachkovo (Bulgaria) in the eleventh century. Unfortunately, it is very damaged, and only the figure of the prophet Ezekiel is preserved. At the end of the fourteenth century, the most detailed composition of the Miracle of Latomos was painted on the Icon of Poganovo. Classical iconography was taken from Hosios David, but in the Icon of Poganovo, the scene was enriched with a depiction of a lake with seven fish. The Icon from Poganovo has two sides and it is important to discuss its other side too. In the averse side we can see Virgin Kataphyge meaning safehouse. The donor of this icon was Helene of Serres (Jelena Mrnjavčević), who had tragic life, so she needed a kataphyge. Based on all the information given, we can conclude that all three depictions of the Miracle of Latomos represent soteriological ideas. Due to complexity of its symbolic meaning, the composition was painted very rarely, confirming the fact that people who ordered the Miracle to be painted, Jelena Mrnjavčević and a responsible person from Bachkovo, were among the best educated people of their times.
More...Keywords: Icon; Mural Painting; St. Nicholas
The article treats some issues related to the beginning of hagiographical icons and mural paintings as a short pass in review, especially the representations of Saint Nicholas as a very popular character, their common or different features, and their development, depending on their inspiration source. Thus for having a background in what concerns an informed reference and a comparison basis for a case study, the icon of Saint Nicholas from Urisiu de Jos, Mureș County. There are taken into consideration the stylistic particularities, the compositional and symbolic features in a closed relation with the inspiration sources and the message that these representations convey, resulting in a new perspective upon the provenience, the way they were made and spiritual effects. The knowledge is accompanied by examples, and some images to relate to.For the case study, there is made a characterization of the biographic scenes of the saint, with a closed reference to the general or peculiar features that were studied before. In this way, the frame of its research begun broader, and as a consequence, a more defined portrayal upon the sources of the influences and artistic moves that marked the epoch in which the icon was designed.
More...Keywords: Sićevačka gorge; weekend settlements; rest and recreation houses;
In this paper we present an analysis of the impact of an intensive process of building rest and recreation houses and the establishment of settlements in the Sićevačka gorge, Serbia, from the 1960s to the beginning of the 20th, century. The analysis is based on field research conducted in 2001/2002nd, as well as official statistical data. In this paper, settlements are defined by their spatial distribution, characteristics of the local position within the existing territory (Atari), and basic trends in development and advanced geospatial changes. Special attention is devoted to the consideration of how the density of temporary settlements (weekend) has impacted the permanent (continuous) population as well as the territorial and population development of existing rural settlements.
More...Keywords: Gulf of Kotor (Boka Kotorska/Bocche di Cattaro); Virgin of Savina; Cretan School; ex-voto; palladium; multiculturalism; identity
The sixteenth-century miracle-working icon of the Virgin Glykophilousa in the Serbian Orthodox monastery of Savina, modern Montenegro, has been the focus of cult and devotions for centuries. A compelling visual presence, it played multiple roles: liturgical, social, legal, and cultic. In each of its roles, it provided support for ethnic and religious identity, being above all a palladium both for believers as individuals and for the Orthodox Christian community as a whole in the complex multicultural and multiconfessional contexts of foreign Venetian rule in the eighteenth-century Gulf of Kotor (Boka Kotorska/Bocche di Cattaro).
More...Keywords: Fr. Marko Kalamut; weather; Austro-Hungarian occupation; army; Karstjanluk; anarchy;
The written legacy of Fr. Marko Kalamut, or its later offi cial title given by Fr. Leonard Čuturić „The Diary of Fr. Marko Kalamut, 1865-1875. Part I“ and „The Diary of Fr. Marko Kalamut 1875-1887, Part II“, was classifi ed as Chronologica category in the archives of the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Fojnica. Marko Kalamut’s chronology, written on 1310 pages (20.5x29.5), is signifi cant not only because of ist historical facts, but also for the language and style in which it was written. More serious study of this manuscript would include, besides historians, linguists and, of course, meteorologists. Conclusion based on this manuscript is that Fr. Marko Kalamut was a highly educated Franciscan, who in addition to Croatian and Latin also knew Turkish, Italian and German. In this paper, we have extracted an interesting passage from Kalamut’s accounts of the events in Fojnica during the occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, without the intention of presenting Kalamut’s records as the only complete and accurate sources of events in Fojnica during that deciding period of BiH history.
More...In the narthex of the church of St. Nicholas of the Seslavtsi Monastery (1616), in the zenith of the vault, there is a composition consisted of several fields with full length figures whose center along the east-west axis is occupied by the depictions of the Virgin Mary, St John the Baptist and Prophet Elias. The main semantic emphasis in the vault program is placed upon them: the images of the Virgin Mary (without the infant Jesus) and St John can be deciphered as the closest witnesses of the Incarnated God the Word and advocates for the salvation of the mankind while the presence of the Prophet Elias is more uncommon. His image in that prominent place can be interpreted in relation to St John the Baptist, taking into consideration that the two have been defined as precursors of the Messiah as early as in the Holy Scripture. For instance, in his interpretation of the Gospel according to Matthew St John Chrysostom speaks of Elias as precursor of the coming Last Judgment and of John as precursor of the First Advent that had already happened. In this sense the parallel between the two has also been pointed out in the hymnographic works dedicated to them. The juxtaposition of the two on yet another level is well developed in the theological thought as well: they are commensurable in terms of spiritual perfection and ascetic lifestyle and therefore were promoted to models of an anchoret exploit.
More...The article discusses once again the reliquary, which belongs to the Intercession of the Theotokos Monastery in Samokov. This is among the well-known artifacts of goldsmiths in Bulgaria during the 19th century, and information about it has been published several times in the Bulgarian literature, but still numerous problems in its history, the donator and the contained relics are unsolved. However, the study deals with the reliquary’s decoration and its function. The first chapter of the text presents the stylistic and iconographic characteristics of the object, focusing on the composition Christ the True Vine placed on the lid of the reliquary, which is very rare in Bulgarian lands in this period. The examples of iconographic variations of the composition show that the unknown goldsmith from Vidin was influenced by the models used by the contemporary woodcarving craftsmen in the workshops of the Mount Athos, who followed the iconographic tradition of the 16th and the 17th centuries. At the end, the study presents briefly the liturgical relation between the image of Christ and the relics of the saints, according to The service for the consecration of the churches, in Vidin in 1881. The analysis shows that the decoration has liturgical function related to the specifics of the reliquary and its usage as a so-called “taxidiote” box.
More...This article deals with the existing assumptions about the occurrence and the layers of murals and construction works at the Chapel of the Holy Archangels in the Monastery of Bachkovo. Two Greek inscriptions found while carrying out restoration work are published for the first time: one above the window in the south wall, and the second inscribed on the basement of the drum on which the dome rests. The former is a donor’s inscription and the author deems it to have contained the name of the founder along with that of the painter, while the latter is hymnographical/liturgical and though surviving and uncovered fragmentarily until mid-2020, its content refers to the Archangels. Both inscriptions are palaeographically dated to the fourteenth century and are associated with the donation activities of King Ivan Alexander in the cloister. The deciphered inscriptions confirm the correctness of the assumption of some researchers that by the mid-fourteenth century the church was dedicated to the Archangels. The author inevitably addresses the question of the function of the chapel in the medieval period and how it correlates with the lower floor, the catholicon and the old gates. Here once again he argues that the Chapel of the Holy Archangels was not a mortuary one. In addition to the overall argumentation, Emmanuel Moutafov draws a number of parallels from the historical, theological, philosophical and artistic contexts of the age.
More...Keywords: history of culture; medieval art; Byzantine tradition; the Balkans; originality;
Our work starts with a discussion of some aspects of the history of culture, with references to the historical events in the evolution of Southeastern Europe art during the Middle Ages. The Medieval Byzantine art in the Balkans is the result of a stable and fruitful contact of the stylistic influences and intersections of the knowledge of South Slavic, Romanian and Greek gifted craftsmen. Therefore, we will deal with, on the one hand, the contents which are common to such masterpieces of art especially regarding the church one and, on the other hand, with those aspects that have made them be unbeaten - their aesthetic and theological identity. We are going to locate those border areas of medieval art in which the stable principles (rules) could be converted into artistic individual authorial solutions in South-Slavic and Romanian space.
More...Keywords: Umberto Eco; The name of the Rose; Orta Çağ; scriptorium; manuscript; scholastics; Beytü’l Hikme;
The Name of the Rose is a postmodern work in which Umberto Eco has integrated his deep knowledge of medieval history and Christianity with literary art and is composed with writing techniques such as fiction, metafiction, intertextual irony, frame motif, pluralistic narration, and key novel. In this work, Umberto Eco, one of the most well-known authors of contemporary Italian literature, deals with the political, social, cultural, and religious events that shaped the European Middle Ages from a historical perspective and within the framework of detective novels. The historical facts between the Empire and the Church in 14th-century Europe, which led to a political crisis, are reflected in the novel through the discussions of the monks in the same monastery. The hunger for knowledge in the Middle Ages and the oppressive attitude of scholastic thought towards the works of antiquity are expressed in the mysterious deaths of the monks who copy the manuscripts in the monastery scriptorium. The cosmos, fictionalized by Eco in the novel, reflects the influence of scholastic thought on culture and art in early medieval Europe. However, in these centuries, Eastern civilizations, which were much more advanced in terms of science, art, and philosophy, were experiencing their golden ages. In the 9th century, while valuable manuscripts of the Ancient Age were copied in monastic scriptoriums in Europe, the same works were translated into Arabic in Beytu'l Hikme (House of Wisdom) of Baghdad.
More...Keywords: Tryavna icon-painters; Zachariya Tsanyuov; 19th century; church plate; Sevlievo; Batoshevo Monastery “Dormition of the Virgin”; taxidiots (itinerant monks)
The article focuses on a box for a cross from the collection of the National Church Museum of History and Archaeology in Sofia, which entered under 3549 inventory number in 1940. According to the inventory books of the museum, the box was brought from the town of Sevlievo and dates to the first half of the 19th century. The box is made of wood in the shape of a book, bound in leather and on the inner part of the lid is depicted the scene Dormition of the Virgin Mary. The stylistic analysis showed that the painted decoration could be attributed to the Tryavna icon-painter Zachariya Tsanyuv. On the basis of the made parallels, the box dated back to the third quarter of the 19th, most likely crafted during the 1850s or 1860s. In terms of the functional specifics of the object, which probably was used by an itinerant monk, a hypothesis about its origin is made. It is possible that the box for a cross was made for the Batoshevo Monastery “Dormition of the Virgin Mary” near the town of Sevlievo. Literary sources do not state that the monastery had sent taxidiots. Contrary to this, there is some historical evidence that give reason to assume that towards the second half of the 19th century such activity existed. On this assumption, the article suggests that the box for a cross from the National Church Museum of History and Archaeology originates exactly from this monastery.
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