Introduction
Wstęp
Keywords: power; foreign policy; international relations
The introduction contains a description of the theoretical framework and the issues raised in the work, especially the categories of power.
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Keywords: power; foreign policy; international relations
The introduction contains a description of the theoretical framework and the issues raised in the work, especially the categories of power.
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Keywords: The European Union; superpower; power; evolution of the international order
The European Union faces a dilemma of playing the role of a serious world leader or falling into marginalization, which will result in a bipolar world (USA, PRC). The EU soft power, i.e. peace and development, is to be extended by European decision-makers to include hard power, i.e. the creation of a defense community. The aim of the text is to look at the prospects and conditions for the formation of the EU as a world leader in the 21st century.
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Keywords: Canada; foreign policy; Justin Trudeau; power; selective power
The starting point of the article is the assumption that after the end of the Cold War, the main theories describing Canada's international position ceased to adequately describe the country's role and international importance. It therefore became necessary to introduce a new approach - selective power. The article describes its main assumptions, first of all, the high selectivity and hierarchization of Canada's fields of international activity and the fact that the country's foreign policy is increasingly inward-looking, based on hard interests, rational and pragmatic, in which the calculation of profits and losses matters. Such characteristics are relatively constant and detached from the political line of a party currently in power. In the next section of the article, the theory of selective superpower is used to examine Canada's international activity under Justin Trudeau using selected examples, including climate and energy policy.
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Keywords: middle power; Japan; foreign policy
Japan, which until 1945 was a colonial power, marked its position in the international arena as an economic power in the post-war period. The end of the Cold War led to the beginning of a discussion in this country about its place in the modern world. While the government in Tokyo started aiming at the status of a superpower, symbolized by a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, there were also voices among politicians and the intelligentsia that Japan should follow the path of a "middle power". The purpose of this article is to analyze to what extent Japan can be called a middle power not only in terms of its economic and military potential, but also the awareness of the elites and society as well as behavior on the international arena.
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Keywords: South Korea; China; United States; economic security; hedging
The US-Chinese rivalry has been a strategic challenge for South Korea for years. Seoul, however, is used to balancing between powers and avoiding the firm support of one side - the most important ally or the largest economic partner. The Korean hedging strategy was based on the paradigm developed over the years: "Security is the United States, the economy is China." Based on "strategic ambiguity" and "balanced diplomacy", this concept separated the spheres of cooperation with the superpowers. However, the intensifying rivalry between the superpowers and the global situation related to the COVID-19 pandemic or Russian aggression against Ukraine changed this paradigm to "security is the United States, the economy is the national interest." The new approach does not mean a departure from hedging against superpowers but points to the need to re-evaluate relations with China. In its strategy, South Korea also seeks greater autonomy from the superpowers in the realm of economic security.
More...![“Take care […] so we would not live like beasts” – “we go together with beasts”](/api/image/getbookcoverimage?id=document_cover-page-image_1179484.png)
Keywords: Baroque; relation between man and beast; Christian Aristotelian writing; Christian notion of soul; anthropomorphism
The study contains reflections on the relations between man and beast in the works of two writers, who played significant roles in Polish history of Christian Aristotelian writing of the Baroque. The main source is are the works of Sebastian Petrycy from Pilzno (1554–1626), published together with Aristotle’s works translated by him, i.e. "Commentaries to Aristotle’sEconomics" (1602), "Commentaries to Aristotle’s Politics" (1605) and "Commentaries to Aristotle’s Ethics" (1618), as well as written as scientia curiosa the encyclopedia of the Jesuit, Wojciech Tylkowski (1625–1695), "Erudite Discussions Containing Almost All Philosophy" (1692), whose basis was his earlier work "Philosophia curiosa seu universa Aristotelis philosophia" (1680–1690). The analysis of the title subject leads to the conclusion that the essential difference between regnum hominis and the animal world lies in the soul unique to a human being, created by God, endowed with reason and immortal. The difference between man and beast defined in such a way enabled to emphasize the privileged status of the ontic human being in the great chain of existence and justify human supremacy over fauna. Emphasizing the difference between man and animal, the authors of the analysed sources drew attention to the similarities between them, referring to the Aristotelian concept of the division of the soul into vegetative, sensitive and rational one. They also argued that the insight into similarities and differences between people and lower beings should inspire self-cognition, which aims to discipline animal features of human nature. An important thread of their inquiry was emphasizing ingenuity and intelligence in the behaviour of animals, while stressing that they should not be explained in an anthropomorphic way.
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Keywords: United States; India; China; political relations; economic relations; military relations
In this article, the author presents and analyzes U.S.- India relations in the twenty-first century, which are fundamentally different from previous ones during the Cold War and before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The introduction sets out the premises that prevented good relations between the US and India during the Cold War. Then, in three parts, the dynamics of American-Indian relations are presented and analyzed. On the other hand, the conclusions summarise the most important factors that have become the basis of the current relations between the two countries.
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Keywords: new Cold War; deterrence; war in Ukraine
The chapter discusses the problem of adequacy of adopted and modified for the sake of XXI century capacities to defend NATO East flank (European Deterrence Initiative) in the context of the ongoing Russia-West crisis since 2014. Relations between the U.S. and Russia (with an impact on the outcome of the Ukraine contest) were to a large degree under a pressure of the post-Cold War arms control agreements, a part of which referring to intermediate range ballistic missiles and conventional forces were made inactive before the Russian aggression in Ukraine of 2022. Under the conditions of the crisis of the New Cold War the security policies of Western powers were subject to revision connected with the challenge to its liberal concept of international order, as well as in the light of the challenge to earlier balance of power in Europe formed under the leadership of the U.S. and NATO, sharply put into question by Russia. The chapter analyses the budgetary dimension of the Western defense aid to Ukraine and instruments of supporting NATO East flank with an eye on newly formed challenges in the time of Ukraine war, including a threat to European and international energy security.
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Keywords: the Arctic; Russia; the United States; Russo-Ukrainian War; NATO; Nordic states
For thirty years since the end of the Cold War, the Arctic, and the international regime there have been characterised as “exceptional”. However, there have been many definitions of “Arctic exceptionalism” and it is difficult to identify one to which all states in the region subscribe. At the same time, the concept was changing over time and adapting to new conditions, right up to the Russian aggression against Ukraine on 24 February 2022. Crucial to this was the policy of Russia and the United States, the only global powers that are Arctic states which, until the war in Ukraine, respected the norms and principles developed for the Arctic based on trust. The aggression against Ukraine undermined Russia’s credibility and highlighted how divergently the various Arctic players understood “exceptionalism”. As a result, Western states began to rally around the US and isolate Russia by depriving her, at least for a time, of her “territory of negotiations”. In response, they were met with military demonstrations designed to induce them to return to the status quo ante bellum. However, this has not been successful, has led to a strengthening of the US position in the region and has cast doubt on the continuation of the “exceptionalism” in its current form.
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Keywords: power; foreign policy; international relations
The Summary contains conclusions from the case studies presented in the book. The analysis of the potential and international strategies of selected countries shows that a world power must possess sufficient power resources in all key dimensions: economic, military and political. While some countries more or less successfully aspire to this status, others have settled for the rank of "middle power". Although middle power is not able to independently implement all the goals of its foreign policy, it at least has sufficient resources to effectively deter potential aggressors and lead in selected fields of international activity.
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Keywords: Renaissance; humanism; Bible; early modern Christianity; Erasmianism; animal symbols; mysticism; paraenetic literature; religious polemic
The text explores 16th century religious contexts in literature which refer to animals. It includes poetry and prose from the Early Renaissance to its last years, the works of Jakub Wujek, among others, who was the author of a monumental four-volume "Posthylla catholica", an original and not translated work. The sermons in this book are the biggest Polish collection of animal exempla from the 16th century. The text indicates the main source inspirations for animal topics, i.e. the Bible and Aesop’s "Fables", published by most European printers. The rules of modern animal topic were formulated by Erasmus of Rotterdam, who also used animal examples to paraphrase Biblical texts, formulate the rules of the rhetoric in De duplici copia verborum ac rerum, juxtapose exempla in Adagia, and to discuss the methods of educating young people in De pueris instituendis, on the basis of the human-animal parallel. The translations of the Bible and adaptations of ancient works formed an animal symbol characteristic of the Renaissance. His distinguishing features are: performance realism, identification of its literary context and its relation to divine and human being. The company of animals reminded people of their moral condition, focused them on good, aroused sensitivity and self-reflection. The Renaissance reception of Cicero contributed to discovering the subjectivity of animals, making them carriers of feelings: mourning, sympathy, helplessness in suffering. Biblical affirmation of life in the works of Janicius, Andrzej Krzycki, Andrzej Trzecieski and Jakub Wujek, saw charis in animals: grace, admiration, tenderness and affection. The metaphors of animal community, especially of sheepfold, were present in social and political discourse (Stanisław Orzechowski) and in the religious one (Stanisław Hozjusz, Andrzej Trzecieski and others). Anthropomorphization and teriomorphization, known since ancient times, in the discussed texts gain new interpretative, allegorical contexts, and in the second half of the 16th century become an expression of religious beliefs. In Catholicism animal symbols express transcendence aimed at internal and mystical experiences. In Protestantism they have didactic and allegoric meaning, which is also present in Arianism (Erazm Otwinowski). In other authors representing this last trend (Marcin Krowicki) the questioning and crisis of the symbol become sclearly visible.
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Keywords: epitaph; zoothanatology; Jan Kochanowski; Zbigniew Morsztyn; Jan Gawiński
The research was conducted on one hundred Old Polish animal tombs by different authors, from Jan Kochanowski to Jan Ludwik Plater (18th century). As a result, it was possible to define five paradigms of perceiving animals in Old Polish literature: 1. on the moral level (animals are subordinate to man, opposed to him only when they show solidarity with each other), 2. in the utilitarian context (their beauty and other features serve men), 3. in connection with the sphere of eroticism, 4. in the sacrum space and 5. on an equal footing with man (few epitaphs). Zoothanatology, present on Old Polish tombs, is dominated by functional perception of animals. The epitaphs serve as moral and, more frequently, immoral examples, far from the Christian vision of reality, but very useful to express “the law of the jungle” of the human world. Objectified animals occupy a separate, usually lower than that of a human, place in the order of nature as they are jokingly or seriously perceived from the angle of human sexuality. They are used as a pretext for writing panegyrics addressed to people and as objects of praise only when their beauty corresponds to the sense of aesthetics of man and their behaviour (mammals and domesticated animals) becomes like that of a human or serves the work and fun of their owners. The more animals discard their natural features, the more they are valued by people, becoming their companions, friends and, in the most extreme cases, the heroes of a battle (knights’ horses), who are treated equally with fallen soldiers. Even the reflections on the death of animals per se does not exempt Old Polish poets from the anthropocentric attitude. Only Zbigniew Morsztyn and Jan Gawiński, albeit in few cases, stand in their epitaphs on the animal side, which allows them to see the emerging sensitivity to their death and human cruelty.
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Keywords: collecting culture; Baroque; curiosity; philosophia curiosa; Wojciech Tylkowski; collections
The dissertation shows curiosity – curiositas as one of the most essential, apart from novitas, varietas, maraviglia, admiration, categories of the Baroque aesthetics. The article aims to show biological and neurological mechanisms governing this drive. The author discusses the qualities of the brain and how the prize works, which are the most important aspects of awakening and satisfying curiosity. The analysed notion is considered in one of its manifestations: the need to collect animals. Zoological specimens – apart from plants and minerals, frequently became the most important element of the collection of curiosities. As a result of the emancipation of natural sciences in the 17th century, numerous inventions and the change in attitude to knowledge, which was treated in a syncretic manner, human attitude to nature was also transformed. People were interested in nature more and all unusual and strange specimens were treated as the limits of power of creative nature. Although natural collections in old Poland were not as abundant as in Western or Southern Europe – armour, works of art and decorative arts were exhibited more often, they constituted an important component of contemporary cabinets of curiosities also in these areas. From this different, new research and collector’s perspective the objects which belong to the scientia curiosa trend look especially interesting. The basis for further reflections is the analysis of Wojciech Tylkowski’s "Erudite Discussions", which are characteristic of this intellectual trend. The article focuses on reading the vision of the animal world, which emerges from the Jesuit’s works. His questions, confirming the curiosity of the world are still surprisingly valid, and the answers given by the author show his profound knowledge of animals. The dissertation attempts to answer the question what “quaint” means in the Baroque era: on what basis a natural exhibit could be classified as unusual and what animals were perceived as such. Tylkowski attempts to answer this question differentiating between familiarity, ordinariness and strangeness and wildness, related to it.
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Keywords: Bartolomeo Platina; Martino da Como; libri di cucina; cookery books; cooking recipes; herbaria; peacock; sea urchin; suckerfish
The chapter is devoted to the analysis of the portrayal of animals in medieval and Renaissance culinary literature and texts on the specific dishes consumed by upper social classes. Old culinary books show animals not only as a natural product, rich in in appropriate nutrients, but also as an important component of dishes prepared for the tables of nobility. In this second aspect, individual animal species have additional cultural, symbolic or aesthetic meanings. An indispensable element of books, reflecting the then state of medical knowledge and existing opinions, is the assessment of animals as such and the recipes subjected to the theory of humours in terms of their suitability for different groups of people, with regard to their health, age, sex or background. De honesta voluptate et valitudine, Bartolomeo Platina’s Renaissance publication is a breakthrough in the earlier perception of cooking as a prosaic aspect of life. Platina shows a culinary animal in a new humanist version, devoting to it additional chapters containing natural knowledge, closely related to dietetics and medicine. The popularity of his treatise is reflected in how particular animals are described in Polish Renaissance herbaria.
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Keywords: symbolism of the swan; literary tradition; Latin ornithological treatises; emblems; heraldry
The article aims to explore the origin of topoi connected with a swan and their presence in old literature and culture. The author attempts to draw attention to writers’ choices leading to the transposition of descriptions of nature and habits of the bird into symbolic images. The analysis was conducted on the basis of ancient literature and Latin literary works of the modern era, which until now was taken into account only to a small extent. Untranslated sources, including encyclopaedias of symbols and emblematic books were used. The second part of the article focuses on the swan as a heraldic figure. Undertaking threads contained in "The Medal of Bishop Andrzej Trzebnicki", a thorough study of Krzysztof Czyżewski and Marek Walczak, the author completed the analysis of stemmata dedicated to the bishop of Kraków with her own translations from Latin, a philological commentary and interpretation. In the last chapter the author asks the question why modern culture has forgotten the swan symbols and why only few of the meanings have survived in collective consciousness.
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Keywords: Middle Ages; animals; trickster; satire; comedy
The flourishing of vernacular bestiaries of the High Mediaeval Period bespeaks a lively interest in animals in the French culture of that period. Amongst the genres that gained widespread popularity and provided an alternative to the chiefly scholarly and moral character of the bestiary was the beast fable. Reynard the Fox (Roman de Renart), a cycle of fables about animals in 30 000 eight-syllable verses edited between the late 12th and early 13th century, is arguably the most notable example of the genre. The characters of the fable are animals inhabiting the kingdom of King Noble the Lion, which is modelled on the feudal monarchy. The protagonist, the titular "Reynard the fox", uses his cunning – a virtue that the tale centres on – to wreak havoc in the animal community. Although this work fails to offer a reliable representation of the animal kingdom, it constitutes a valuable historical source in its examination of the social and economic conditions of the Northern French countryside during the reign of Philip II of France. "Reynard the Fox" is an example of epic comedy. The comic aspects of this work are twofold. On the one hand, the fable satirises the representatives of the higher echelons of the feudal hierarchy. However, as the point of departure for the satire is not so much the social order of the day as its literary representation, Reynard the Fox can be also classified as a literary satire in its adoption of the elements of the courtly love tradition (amour courtois), which has its pedigree in the Troubadour poetry and chivalric romance. On the other hand, the fable heavily relies on the aspects of the Gallic jeer (rire gaulois), a genre that does not employ humour for satirical or moralising purposes. The main source of both the first and the second types of comedy is the relentless oscillation between the characters’ animal nature and their adherence to the norms of feudal society. Figuring in numerous French literary works and their foreign adaptations, the character of Reynard the Fox enjoyed immense popularity in the Middle Ages. But the character’s renown is not limited to mediaeval culture. He has also featured in some contemporary adaptations of the mediaeval tale, such as the 1979 "Kryminał o Renarcie" ("Reynard the Fox: A Crime Novel").
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Keywords: Bible translations; Psalm 103 (104); culture of old periods; history of exegesis; history of philology; erudition; natural science; avifauna; Joannes Lorinus SI
The article explores the problem of the bird from Psalm 103 (104), 117; the attempts to identify it, their conditions and mechanisms and the importance of deciding the identity of this representative of the Middle East fauna for the exegesis of the Psalm from Antiquity to early modern times. The study begins with a comparative analysis of Polish translations and paraphrases from the Middle Ages to the 17th century, with reference to source texts (part 1). It is followed by the attempts to identify the bird, reconstructed on the basis of Joannes Lorinus’ commentaries ("Commentariorum in Liber Psalmorum… tomus tertius", 1616) and the ancient, medieval and early modern sources Lorinus indicates (part 2), and the implications of the findings for the exegesis of the Psalm in two keys: birds of prey (part 2.1) and other birds (part 2.2), which were first used by Saint Hieronymus and Saint Augustine. The results of the analyses are then merged in relation to individual historical periods from the perspective of perceiving Biblical fauna from a textual to a naturalistic paradigmin the 18th century (part 3). The study ends with the discussion of traces of reception of the problem outside the scientific biblical-philological discourse in early modern Polish republic (part 4) and a concise reconstruction of contemporary findings on the identity of the bird, also non-conclusive (part 5).
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Keywords: Old Polish culture; travellers; elephant; menagerie; zoos; Hannibal; military elephant
The dissertation presents an elephant, the biggest land mammal in the cultural and biological context. It discusses the oldest findings of elephants’ bones, the history of the species, and the meaning of its name and its etymology. The article aims to present a broad research spectrum of interdisciplinary character, combining nature and humanist sciences. On the one hand, it shows the zoological conditions of the animal, its characteristic morphological features and behaviour, on the other hand, it presents how these aspects were interpreted in beliefs, literature and art. The article explores the motif of an elephant and its images in old cultures, especially in the ancient world and Indian and African mythology; it also focuses on the reception of the elephant image in Polish modern culture. It was Pliny’s and Aristotle’s early zoological works, which made elephants appear in images and symbols of the whole Europe. They brought clearly positive connotations with them, which allowed for using elephants as moral examples. They were associated with strength, memory, long life, wisdom, fidelity as well as royal or imperial power. They were used as military and pack animals, they took part in parades and festivals to add splendour and show richness and high social status of their owners. Elephants were eagerly shown in travelling menageries as a peculiarity. Their images were present on Roman coins, in old bestiaries, herbaria, modern zoological encyclopaedias. The motif of an elephant was, as we can see in the dissertation, known in Old Poland. The basis for the analysis are mostly source texts: manuals and encyclopaedias (especially Jakub Kazimierz Haur’s "A Storeroom or a Treasury of Farm Secrets", Jan Jonston’s encyclopaedia, Benedykt Chmielowski’s "New Athens"), memoirs and journey accounts (by Albrycht Radziwiłł, Mikołaj Krzysztof Radziwiłł, Krzysztof Pawłowski, Michał Boym, Maksymilian Wikliński), literary works (in particular Wacław Potocki’s "Chocim War", Samuel Twardowski’s Important Embassy) and various other historical records such as the description of the parade during the wedding of the Grand Crown Hetman, Jan Zamoyski. The article also discusses few iconographic images of elephants, from the territory of the Old Polish Republic (illustrations from herbaria, the picture of the Hasken she-elephant) and the first representatives of this species in Polish zoological gardens.
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Keywords: Michał Boym; Flora Sinensis; knowledge transfer; Chinese mission; modern zoology
Michał Boym’s Flora Sinensis is the most important 16th century treatise devoted to flora and fauna of China and compiled in the West. The import of zoological knowledge to Europe was then an extremely complex process, in which animal world research prevalent in modern times and frequent problems connected with translating and preparing scientific illustrations played a significant role. The aim of the first part of this study is to analyse the way in which Boym used the information taken from treatises of Chinese scholars to show the fauna of the Middle Kingdom to European readers, and to indicate what methods of the zoological description he took from Chinese authors. In the second part, on the basis of numerous historical sources, the author shows the late 17th century and the 18th century reception of the "Flora Sinensis" to demonstrate that in the middle of the 17th century Boym could have easily transferred the knowledge from China to Europe thanks to the similarity of paradigms in describing the world of nature. The subsequent decades brought a gradual change in thinking about zoology, which made his treatise obsolete very quickly.
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Keywords: salamander; fire; humanism; literary tradition; Konrad Gessner; Ulisses Aldrovandi; Jan Jonston; Edward Topsell
The article aims to explore the motif of salamander in old Polish literature, as well as the literary traditions which contributed to its perception in the old ages. The reflections are embedded in the context of the works of ancient writers and medieval compendia (Aristotle, Pliny, Isidore of Seville), the treatises containing information on salamander and the works of modern naturalists (Gessner, Aldrovandi, Jonston, Topsell). The reading of this material allows us to learn about the state of knowledge of old humanists on this amphibian and enables to verify their attitudes towards the information resource inherited from antiquity. Similar thought patterns are present in Old Polish writers’ works, who oscillated between repeating data taken from classical canons, skepticism about them or an open polemic with their authors.
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