![Childrens' political anecdotes](/api/image/getissuecoverimage?id=picture_1997_8143.jpg)
Keywords: Prussian Claims Society; Centre Against Expulsions in Berlin; World War II; Constitutional Treaty; Gdańsk Declaration; Gerhard Schröder; Warsaw Uprising; Polish-German relations; Adam D. Rotfeld; Polish historical antecedents in relations with Russia
Changes in the attitude towards history that occurred in Germany and Russia provided a strong impetus for the Polish discussion concerning the use of “arguments underpinned by history in politics.” The accession to the European Union gave rise to an expectation in Poland that historical issues in relations with Germany would be closed once and for all. The Poles would also like the EU to recognize and respect the experiences that Central European countries had had with Communist totalitarianism and Russian imperial tradition, both of which were significant for the identity of Central European nations. Therefore, the deliberations concerning the place of historical issues in Polish foreign policy in 2005 necessitate a presentation of the role they played in Poland’s relations with Germany and Russia in recent years. The historical burden in relations with the other neighbours was much smaller and, in the case of Ukraine, considerable progress in the process of overcoming problems from the past has been observed. Among others on: Celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the end of the World War II in Europe, the Action Against “Polish camps” The anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Establishing the “Memory and Solidarity” European Network, The opening of the Lviv Eaglets’ Cemetery, The celebrations of the 25th anniversary of “Solidarity”, Discussions on the Role of History in Foreign Policy, History in the Foreign Policy of Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz’s Government.
More...Keywords: Democracy; Iraq; Middle East; monarchy; republic
Was Iraq’s heritage British, or Turkish? Between 1922 and 1958, the country was a constitutional monarchy under Hashemite rulers; external observers considered its organic law one of the most advanced among all the Arab states, and its diplomats to have exercised an independent foreign policy unmatched in the region. On such a basis, Bernard Lewis observed that democracy fared well under the region’s constitutional monarchies established under British guidance. The elections of September 1954 to Iraq’s Chamber of Deputies provide the means to assess Lewis’s observation. Three factors are considered (the electoral law, the status of the opposition political parties, and status of Kurdish populations) in a general discussion of Britain’s influence on political modernity in the Middle East. The data consulted includes government documents, memoirs, and transcripts of contemporary radio broadcasts; as an alternative to Lewis, Rashid Khalidi’s description of 1912 elections to the Ottoman Chamber of Deputies is presented as an explanatory model.
More...Keywords: anti-communism; post-communism; nostalgia; cinema
This paper attempts a conceptual understanding of ”post-communist nostalgia” by looking at various interdisciplinary approaches to the phenomenon. It then brings empirical evidence into discussing how the ”nostalgia” label has been applied in public discourse among various Romanian opinion leaders in the recent years by focusing on two main controversial issues: the official document condemning communism with its associated discussions and the debate around building a Museum of Communism in Romania. Discourse analyses of 50 articles including editorials, opinion articles, interviews and reports outline the main clash between an official anti-communist discourse and alternative positions or anti-anti-communist discourses, be they radical-moralising, leftist or simply critical towards the politicisation of the anti-communist discourse. The official anti-communist discourse seems one-sided and while doing justice to victims of the past regime, it also confiscates a collective memory at the expense of a decisive Western-type of discourse. Finally, the paper provides examples of an alternative discourse to the dominant verdict of ”exorcising the past”. When bringing into discussion examples from cinematic representations, I argue that they have little to do with amnesia or anti-modern tendencies commonly understood as explanations for the results of recent polls on people’s attitudes regarding communism. Since yet another verdict on the matter is far from being useful, I strive to shift the perspective on the debate from a moral, anti-communist view to a more balanced one that takes into account cultural, psychological, social and political explanations, while keeping in mind the dangers of both starting from zero in a purified present and glorifying a utopian ”Golden Age”
More...Keywords: migration; family; husband; wife; father; children
Migration impacts the lives and family relations of those who migrate, and this is also true with regard to circular migration, where the person is in a cycle of going aboard to work and then returning to the home country for some time. On the one hand, as a result of the migration, the entire family has to adjust to the rhythm established by the migrant. On the other, it also makes it necessary for family members to become independent and take over the responsibilities that pre-migration belonged to the migrating husband/wife. Using research completed in the Opole region of Poland, the authors attempt to answer the question of how families adjust to the situation in the different periods, and how gender roles as well as parent-child relations change in such families. The authors focus in particular on the issues of the changes in the families themselves: do they continue as traditionally functioning families (albeit imperfect), or do they shift towards the contemporary model of 'living apart together', where each family member independently forges their own path in life?
More...Keywords: there-sentences; existentials; definiteness effect; strong vs. weak quantifiers
In this article, new data from a corpus study and experimental data concerning the definiteness effect in English there-sentences is presented. In the corpus data, we find noun phrases including both strong quantifiers like every and definite expressions. It is shown that these examples are exceptional in the sense that they give rise to cardinal readings of the strong quantifier every and the definite determiner the. As cardinal readings are generally not ruled out by the definiteness restriction, these readings are not exceptions to the definiteness effect.
More...In the spirit of the principles of liberal nationalism, which dominated Hungarian political life from the Reform Era to the end of World War I, Christian politicians and intellectuals tirelessly emphasized their firm belief that, in addition to acculturating and identifying with the Hungarian nation, the Jewry must also integrate socially into majority Christian society. This call for integration also allotted a task to the Christian members of Hungarian society, namely that they welcome their compatriots into their social circles. The views of contemporaries notwithstanding, according to whom the greatest aspiration of the Jewish haute bourgeoisie was to gain acceptance into the circles of the traditional social elites and their families, this striving was really only characteristic of the second and third generations of upper-class Jewish families. With regards to the last stage of integration, in other words marriage into the families of the traditional elite, with one exception that confirms the rule, this was only possible for Jews if they were willing to convert. Following the 1850s, 1860s, and 1870s, decades that were more open from the perspective of integration into the social sphere, the traditional elites closed ranks. The National Casino, which had been founded in 1827, accepted its last Jewish member in 1872. Neither the Country Casino that was created in 1883 (it was referred to as the Országos Kaszinó, i.e. the word “nemzeti,” or “national,” was replaced with “országos,” which means national in the more political sense) nor the Park Club (which was created in 1895) ever had a single Jew among their members, though both had many Christian members who had converted from Judaism. This constituted a clear contradiction of the liberal promise of social integration, though at the same time it also indicates that exclusion was not (yet) based on concepts of race.
More...Keywords: inscriptions; Chinese lead objects; barbarous Greek; Brāhmī; Indo-Aryan;
The work comprises a presentation of a decipherment of an inscription on ancient lead objects found in China’s Wei River Valley, and the Han dynastic histories that preserve their memory. To reach his decipherment the author provides a substantial assembly of lexical material – much of it heretofore unpublished and absent from dictionaries – including Indo-European, Sanskrit, Indo-Aryan, and Chinese languages. Augmenting the philological material is a meaningful observation of Brāhmī forms and Chinese graphs also missing from standard works. The author observes the implications of his decipherment for the study of the interaction between Indian and Chinese cultures in antiquity, as well as for the history of the early proselytisation of the Buddhist faith and philosophy outside of India. All of it results in a contribution that should be of serious interest to Indologists and Sinologists alike.
More...In his paper the author links introduction in Bosporus of a new gold and silver monetary and weight system similar to a heavier Chios-Rhodos system with Eumelus’ rule, who was son of Perisad I. Based on Eumelus’ coin emissions the author developed his own absolute chronology.
More...Keywords: juvenilia; narrative; Tadeusz Kościuszko; Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture; artistic creation
Juvenilia, artistic works, especially literary or musical ones, produced by an author during their youth, are often a subject of analysis of renowned artists’ legacy. They have also become the subject of a certain narrative, i.e. certain information concerning the educational process of Tadeusz Kościuszko. The juvenilia of the future Commander deposited in Polish collections are presented first of all as a way to master military and engineering skills. Kościuszko by studying classical art and tedious copying of masterpieces focused on the topics referring to heroic and civil virtues. Unfortunately it is difficult to establish specific dates of creation of subsequent works since they have not been dated by the author. The comparative analysis of drawings made by Poles studying in Paris has helped to establish probable dates of creation of Kościuszko’s works from the collections of the Warsaw University Library, the National Museum in Kraków and the Princes Czartoryski Museum, whose collections were acquired by the Polish state in December 2016. The works bear contemporary trends in art education from copying to studio sketches from nature performed under the guidance of experienced pedagogues.
More...Keywords: John Paul II; Pontifical University;
“The vocation of every university is to serve the truth, to discover it, and to pass it on to others.” That was how John Paul II defined the vocation of the university twenty years ago. The past academic year marked the twentieth anniversary of the canonization of the founders of our Faculty of Theology (June 8, 1997) and John Paul II’s memorable meeting with the rectors of the Polish universities in Krakow, which took place on the 600th anniversary of the establishment of our Faculty of Theology and the foundation of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow (June 8, 1997, in the afternoon). This event was reported in the Chronica published in the 29th volume of our periodical (for 1997).1 The pope’s teaching that was formulated then is not only still relevant, but it is especially valuable today with regards to the contemporary ideologies that reject the classical understanding of the truth. In his Last Testament, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI says: “I had for a long time excluded the question of truth, because it seemed to be too great. […] In these years of struggle, the 1970s, it became clear to me: if we omit the truth, what do we do anything for? So the truth must be involved.”2 Thus the truth gives ultimate meaning to all university activity
More...Keywords: Jesuits; Russia; St. Petersburg; education; college; Tsar Paul I
The aim of this article is to present and popularise information regarding the current state of research on the presence and activity of the members of the Society of Jesus in the Tsarist state between 1772 and 1802. A synthetic analysis of the complex issue of official educational activities provided by the Catholic Order in the Orthodox Russian Empire is based on a comparative analysis of the existing subject literature and the author’s archival research, the results of which have been published in the papers referred to in the article. The first part explains the circumstances that led to the appearance of the Jesuits in Russia and discusses the reasons that allowed these subjects of the Tsar to maintain relative autonomy in managing their Order, ensure its development, and pursue their own goals. The functioning of Jesuit schools in Russia is also discussed in this context. The second part focuses on close relations between the Jesuits and Tsar Paul I, which had a significant impact on the functioning of the Order. Based on, among others, the fragments of the correspondence found in the Roman Archive, the author describes the Tsar’s contacts with Father Gruber and analyses their role, significance and results in the political and diplomatic area connected with the Jesuits’ activity in Russia.
More...Keywords: Aviation industry; Turkish-American relations; economic relations; public diplomacy; foreign direct investment;
This article analyzes Curtiss-Wright Aerospace Industry’s inflow process to the Turkish market in the early 1930s. In these years, aviation was a quite significant industry that contributed economic, military, and political prestige of the states. Progressive decision-makers of Turkey were looking for an opportunity to establish a partnership with a multinational company to manufacture its own aircraft because the young state was destitute of such technology. Curtiss-Wright was eager to do business in Turkey; two American pilots’ record-breaking flight from New York to Istanbul in 1931; withdraw of German Junkers Aerospace Industry’s from Turkey in 1929 and American Ambassador Joseph Grew’s public diplomacy between 1927 to 1932, helped this process.
More...Keywords: Museum of the Holy Father John Paul II Family Home; museum tourism; pilgrimage; religious tourism;
The research was aimed at identifying changes in tourist traffic – religious tourism and museum tourism to the Museum of the Holy Father John Paul II Family Home in Wadowice in 1996–2019. The museum was opened in 1984 in the house where Karol Wojtyła, Pope John Paul II, was born in 1920. The thorough reconstruction between 2010 and 2014 resulted in the establishment of a museum with a modern multimedia narrative exhibition. In recent years, the museum has been visited by more than 200 thousand tourists a year, including 40 thousand foreigners from more than 100 countries worldwide. During the years 1996–2019 the number of international tourists rose more than twice. The greatest boom in the visits to the museum was noted in 2005 and was associated with the disease, death, funeral, and increasing worship of Pope John Paul II. Following decreased interest in visits to the museum during the period of 2010–2014, which was due to the museum renovation, a revival and increase in visits to the museum was observed again. Changes that were observed in the museum during the last twenty-five years were identified, among other things, thanks to field research involving observations and interviews with museum curators and staff. Analyses of tourist visits to the museum were based on detailed data provided by the museum managers. In the elaboration of the collected research results descriptive-analytical, dynamic-comparative and cartographic methods were used.
More...Keywords: Jan Edmund Jurkowski; Silesian contemporary music; Polish guitar music; composing guitarists; Silesian Guitar Autumn Festival;
Associated with the Silesian musical circle, Jan Edmund Jurkowski played a significant role in the history of post-war guitar music in Poland. His activity as a teacher, music event organiser and designer of string instruments (as the creator of the eight-string Polish guitar) is widely known, as it has been repeatedly discussed in various publications. What is less common is the knowledge of his creative work, which – while not very prolific (14 preserved compositions and 3 compilations) – occupies a prominent place in the development of Polish guitar literature. The present text offers an insight into his creative legacy, both in terms of pieces intended for the guitar as well as performing ensembles consisting of different instruments, presenting it against the backdrop of other guitar composers working in Poland after the II World War. It demonstrates the importance of his achievements as a composer in the history of Polish guitar music, for he was the first guitarist in Poland to receive formal education in the field of composition.
More...Keywords: Cold War; football; German Democratic Republic; 1. FC Union Berlin; Hertha Berlin; ‘sport traitors’
Given the cultural centrality of sport during the Cold War, the East German communist authorities constructed an elaborate system of surveillance to prevent flight to the West by sport personalities and to control private interactions between East and West Germans, encounters that increased exponentially in the détente era. East German football fans met up with West German counterparts to watch games in East Berlin as well as at high-profile matches in Eastern Europe that involved clubs such as Bayern Munich and the West German national team. Cross-border interconnections were especially close between supporters of Hertha Berlin in the West and those of Union Berlin in the East whose bitter rivalry with the Stasi-supported BFC Dynamo frequently erupted in violence. Widespread outbursts of ‘hooliganism’ and East-West football entanglements testified not only to the fracturing of Cold War polarities but also to the prevalence of autonomous activities in society that contributed to the cultural ‘defeat’ of GDR-style socialism.
More...Keywords: Old Norse; dwarfs; humans; gods; manipulation; reciprocity;
“They Were Such Skilled Craftsmen”. How to Manipulate a Dwarf. In Old Norse literature, dwarfs are first and foremost known as remarkable smiths and producers of weapons and other valuable, magic objects. Both gods and human protagonists need those products. However, dwarfs do not usually sell their products, neither to gods nor to humans. The closest thing to a sale contract is found in Sǫrla þáttr eða Heðins saga ok Hǫgna, a short narrative found in the Flateyjarbók manuscript. Here, Freyja intended to buy an exceptionally beautiful necklace, from the dwarfs, and offered them gold and silver in exchange for it. However, the dwarfs would only sell it to her in exchange for one night spent together and Freyja accepted the trade. But how can you make sure you get what you need from a dwarf if you do not happen to be Freyja? In this paper, I provide some case studies that seem to indicate a pattern. The most powerful gods, such as Óðinn, may issue a direct order, while less powerful beings, as Loki or Freyja, need to manipulate the dwarf into wanting to provide them the desired item. Human protagonists are able to manipulate dwarfs by exploiting the fact that the dwarfs reciprocate help and generosity. However, if someone attempts to treat dwarfs as servants, when, in reality, they do not have the same power over them as the mighty gods do, they risk severe retribution from the dwarf.
More...Keywords: Taruskin; sociocultural musicology; historiography; analysis; musical essays;
On the first day of July 2022, the headline of an article in the New York Times officially announced the passing of the great American musicologist Richard Taruskin. The news of the loss of a world-renowned researcher, whose prolific activity changed ancient paradigms of musical thought, constitutes an impetus for the new generations of musicologists of the 21st century in approaching music history and analysis from a new, multi-branched and integrative perspective, constantly adaptable to the reality of our days. The present study aims to systematize and promote the ideas gathered in the last volume published during the author’s lifetime, Cursed Questions: On Music and Its Social Practices (2020), which comprises in a condensed form Taruskin’s conceptions regarding the relationship between music, external factors and the other adjacent disciplines (aesthetics, philosophy, sociology).
More...Keywords: the disappearance of hoards; actual problems of legislation; depassportization; numismatics; Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus;
For a long time, the need to study and publish hoards from museum collections was poorly touched upon by belarusian scientists and museum experts, both because of the absence of specialists and low level of interest in this topic. In the process of processing the hoard, the author faced a problem in the form of the loss of a part of the deposit, which eventually resulted in a separate article devoted to this topic. The aim of the study in this article is to introduce the 1962 Pinsk hoard into scientific circulation, as well as to reveal the history of the loss of a part of this deposit, in the context of the specifics of the development of archaeological science in the BSSR and the post-Soviet period. Research methodology. The scientific processing of the hoard complexes is not limited to just one description of them. The researcher can raise a series of questions – from the provenance of the deposit to the context of the hoard in the section of the history of the settlement where it was discovered and / or the history of the era and culture to which it belongs. In the process of studying this complex, analytical, logical and illustrative methods were used. Photographing and measuring technical parameters, editing photographs in graphic editors and establishing the correspondence of their characteristics with the description in previous publications were used as additional data for a comprehensive study of coins. Also, work with short publications and periodicals on the topic of the loss of archaeological and numismatic items was carried out. Due to the specifics of this topic, the but also on sometimes tendentious periodicals. Scientific novelty. The topic of the preservation and loss of hoards in non-museum organizations was not actually raised in national historiography. In some publications, there is information that the storage location of the hoard is unknown. But, the authors of these articles did not make the loss of the deposit the main topic of their work. Therefore, there are no scientific works devoted to this problem in Belarus. Conclusions. The loss of a part of the Pinsk hoard occurred as a result of a coincidence of circumstances that gradually formed over the years at the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus (and in Soviet times at the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR). Lack of a system of accounting and storage of materials, violation of the legislation of the Republic of Belarus in the field of protection of cultural heritage to the existing funds and unwillingness to put them in order and register, reluctance to remember the failures and annoying mistakes of the past – this is how the current state of affairs in this organization can be characterized. Probably, similar situations with archaeologically identified coin, coin-material and material complexes will be repeated many times in the future. The hoard itself, by its nature, probably belonged to a jeweler and was a collection of precious metal scrap. The time of the concealment of the treasure took place after 1632, and was possibly connected with the hostilities in 1648, when Pinsk was taken by the troops of Bohdan Khmelnitsky. Due to the lack of work in this direction, the prospects for further research are broad. The hoard from Pinsk is far from being a single hoard, divided in Soviet times between several organizations, or partially transferred to the museum. The issue of the loss of hoards and numismatic artifacts in the Soviet period in Belarus has not been investigated, as well as almost no legal issues related to the finds of treasures were raised. A promising topic is the loss (in view of theft or loss) of numismatic materials in the funds of Belarusian museums, since the latter was touched upon in a few publications.
More...Keywords: sports talent; talent development; rhythmic gymnastics; coaches
The purpose of this study was to investigate how rhythmic gymnastics coaches perceive the factors influencing sports talent development. Participants (30 female coaches) were administered a demographic survey, an open-ended questionnaire (a structured interview), and the Talent Development Environment Questionnaire (TDEQ PL). Mixed strategies (quantitative and qualitative) were used in the analysis. The research revealed two types of facilitators (essential vs. favorable), and two types of inhibitors (preclusive vs. disruptive). Within the essential facilitator factors, coaches most often indicated long-term motivation. Social support was perceived as a main favorable talent development factor. The child’s inadequate approach to training and inadequate parental involvement were indicated as the main preclusive talent development factors. Difficult situations (e.g., health problems) were enumerated as a major disruptive factor. The studied group of coaches recognized the Individualized Approach to Athlete (M=4.24) as the most important environmental factor that positively influences the development of talented athletes.
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