Отношение Константинопольского патриарха Николая I Мистика к вопросу сбора чрезвычайных налогов с Церкви в пользу государства

Author(s): Mirosław J. Leszka / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1/2015

The article discusses the attitude of Nikolaos Mystikos towards the exaction by the state of extraordinary fiscal duties from the Church. The Author of the study concludes that the patriarch, despite his experience in civil service, in this respect tended to display views which were expected of the head of the Church, i.e. he defended the interest of the ecclesiastic structure and chose the way of tax evasion to avoid losses in the Churches’ financial resources. However, he was also well aware of the fact that in some instances the Church has the obligation of supporting the state with ecclesiastic funds. Such a situation was a threat posed by an external enemy. That is why during his reign the Church’s resources were tapped in the face of the danger caused by Bulgaria under the rule of Simeon. Neither can one exclude the conclusion that the above-mentioned reluctance of Nikolaos Mystikos to support the practices of the state resulted not only from his defence of ecclesiastic resources but it also was caused by the anti-Bulgarian policy pursued by the authorities in Constantinople. The Patriarch simply did not see a reason why the Church should be obliged to pay for mistakes made by rulers of the Empire.

Polityka i czas, czyli zderzenie epok: tradycyjności, moderności i postmoderności

Author(s): Włodzimierz Julian Korab-Karpowicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 15/2013

There are many social conflicts. Some of them may be regarded as intra-epoch conflicts. In the past traditional societies faced many conflicts and wars including those for dynastic, economy, ethnic, and religious reasons, as well as those caused by unequal availability of resources. Subsequently, the modern epoch added economy and ideological conflicts between sovereign national states or groups of states. The fundamental reason which has been causing conflicts for more than 300 years is the clash of epochs. It leads to the severe change of the human life − from the traditional life based on the value of community and culture as a whole; through modernist, which results in a secular and sovereign state, to postmodernist which is characterized by the idea of globalization, abolition of all traditional moral and social barriers, and religious fundamentalism. The author proposes that the fundamental conflict is the conflict between epochs. However, it constitutes an insufficiently observed arena, which faces many conflicts, including the one between civilizations. The author assumes that the fight, which in fact is a fight between traditionalism, modernism and postmodernism, has lead the Western world to an internal dilemma, which causes it to become less capable of facing new challenges.

In memoriam проф. Йежи Русек

Author(s): Wanda Stępniak-Minczewa / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2015

Despre întruparea spațiului sacru

Author(s): Radu Stănese / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 1-2/2015

The embodiment of the sacred space represents the animistic archetype of the living space, which will later become a principle in architecture. Perceived as „the navel of Earth”, the temple is always situated in the center of the world and it spreads its sacred message, one that is, at the same time, a civilizing one. During the Christian period, this role is assumed by the church since its architecture embodies Christ, the Son of God. In the Christian worldview, the most important expression of ecclesiastical embodiment is the Eucharist, the sacrament by means of which the crowd becomes a single body; all Christians reunite as the divine One. The murals and the architecture of old Orthodox churches situated in the county of Sibiu emphasize these aspects and the artistic recurrence of Biblical characters serves the purpose of creatively capturing the specificity of each place of worship.

O potencjale rewolucyjnym w Europie

Author(s): Tomasz Grzegorz Grosse / Language(s): Polish Issue: 15/2013

The article aims to analyze the situation in the European Union in terms of whether it is possible to talk about the pre-revolutionary situation in 2013. This analysis refers to the three factors contributing to violent political change, that is the geopolitical factor, economic factor, and democratic legitimacy. The article concludes with a forecast of possible changes in the current integration processes, which may be a result of accumulation of political tensions in the above-mentioned fields.

Solidarność jako wartość polityczna

Author(s): Agnieszka Nogal / Language(s): Polish Issue: 15/2013

Horizontal relationships unite the society and level off the differences from other sources. A solidary political community is based not only on common property but also on private property, and at the same time levels off the economic disproportions so that economic conflicts would not become political, which could in turn cause the emergence of antagonized social groups. In this sense, solidarity can stabilize the political community. A case in point being the Western European democracies, which after the Second World War became welfare states. Solidarity could play this role now, even though there are organizations such as Occupy Wall Street or Indignants Movement, which rebel against the inequalities. The current idea of solidarity may be achieved on different levels. The first is the local level, where the most is known of the citizens’ situation; the state level, where there are institutions which aim at a unified political community according to economy and culture; and finally, the supranational level, to level off the dangers which a growing economic stratification entails.

Към Витлеем ума си да насочим

Author(s): Iskra Hristova-Shomova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2015

Demokracja jako permanentna rewolucja w ujęciu Claude'a Leforta

Author(s): Jolanta Sawicka / Language(s): Polish Issue: 15/2013

When young, Claude Lefort, was a committed Trotskyist. However, in the mid 50’s he lost his faith in the communist and truly proletarian revolution, which was presumed to lead to a truly socialist society. By claiming Marxism was not a political philosophy, he proposed a new view on politics. The foundation of this new philosophy was the opposition of totalitarianism and democracy. What kind of society it is, totalitarian or democratic, is decided by looking at the authority. In totalitarianism the place of the authority is occupied by one particular person, or a particular group. In democracy, that place is empty. Nobody, or no group may take this place permanently. However, at the same time everyone has the right to it. So democracy as such has no solid foundations; its foundations are undefined and unstable. For Lefort, it is democracy that constitutes revolution, which makes members of the society constantly involved in politics, so as not to allow one person to take that empty place. A question then arises, does permanent revolution really determine a democratic society and protects against totalitarianism?

Dobrogea în epoca otomană: kazaua Hârșova (sec. XVI)

Author(s): Anca Popescu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: XXXIII/2015

The Ottoman chancery documents, such as defters, orders, regulations, are a key source for studying Dobrudja under Ottoman rule, revealing its administrative, military and economic structures. This paper draws on toponymical, topographical and administrative information taken from eight Ottoman registers, all dating from the sixteenth century. The toponymy and the rural habitat are interpreted from a long-time perspective, assessing the continuity between the Ottoman and the pre-Ottoman structures. The Dobrudja case is also placed in the larger image of the dynamics of the Ottoman rural landscape. This article identifies both military and non-military Ottoman institutions in Dobrudja, such a vozar, derbendci, ellici, gümrükçi, müsellem, akıncı. Consequently, it proposes a comparative analysis between the Ottoman power structures and the previous, imperial, Byzantine ones. A chronological and cartographic inventory of the human settlements in Ottoman Dobrudja argues for a reconsideration of their synchronic and diachronic evolution.

Ново фундаментално изследване за новобългарските дамаскини

Author(s): Margaret Dimitrova,Ilina Lulejska / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2015

Kilka uwag o kryzysie i potrzebie filozofii polityki

Author(s): Michał R. Węsierski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 15/2013

A philosopher of politics should not be a social engineer, even if he were to dabble in piecemeal engineering, in Popper’s sense; he should rather be a social surveyor, responsible for measuring a plot of land for development, for which politicians should in turn be responsible. That measured land is ordered by a system of philosophical notions and critical studies, together with comments on the history of political thought. One of the outcomes of a philosopher’s work should be an ordered thought, i.e. objective knowledge that includes genesis and evolution of philosophical notions, relationships between ideas, and presentation of the cultural background, from which those ideas originated. In this reconstruction work a philosopher of politics needs to move in between the allowed boundaries of the text under analysis. A philosopher does what others cannot do due to the separation of exact sciences from philosophy. Therefore, a philosopher is not beyond scientific inquiries; he can use them as confidently as representatives of those sciences. It can be argued that a philosopher has a unique position in the social life of every group.

»Inonderiano tutti doi la turchia como un mare«: lumea creștină, Persia și proiectele anti-otomane într-un episod din secolul al XVI-lea

Author(s): Ovidiu Cristea / Language(s): Romanian Issue: XXXIII/2015

The starting point of this paper is a dialogue between the grand vizier, Rüstem pasha, and the Habsburg ambassador to Constantinople, Gerhard Veltwyck. During Veltwyck’s audience, the grand vizier recalled an unpleasant memory of a previous encounter with another Habsburg emissary, the Polish nobleman Hieronymus Laski. Laski tried to gain the upper hand in negotiations by claiming that the Habsburg emperor had already sealed a treaty with the shah of Persia. As a result, the two emperors were going to attack the Ottomans from both sides, at the same time. To make his threat more vivid, Laski used the metaphor of the sea: “inonderianotuttidoi la Turchiacomo un mare”. Taking this visual image, the article analysis how the supposed alliance between Christendom and Safavid Persia was used as a diplomatic tool during the 1545-1547 Habsburg-Ottoman negotiations. On one side, the Habsburgs had the option to emphasise the Safavid card, as Laski had done, or to play it down, which was Veltwyck’s more diplomatic approach. On the other side, the Ottomans were rather less intimated by this alleged alliance and more curious to find out what the Western Christians knew about the shah’s military strength.

Nietzsche și fenomenul globalizării

Author(s): Gabriel Hasmatuchi / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 1-2/2015

The Ottoman Mediterranean and the Renaissance Venetian Isolarii

Author(s): Marian Coman / Language(s): English Issue: XXXIII/2015

The main contention of this article is that from the very beginning of the genre to its very end, the Venetian isolarii viewed the Levant as a network of islands fractured by the Ottomans’ conquest. Cartographical narratives of a historical trauma, the Venetian isolarii adopted different strategies for tackling a highly sensitive topic. As the Ottomans were steadily advancing along the Eastern Mediterranean archipelagos, the Venetian cartographers, such as Bartolomeo dalli Sonetti and Benedetto Bordone, were carefully editing the content of their isolarii, expecting from their readers to mentally map the invisible confrontation between the Sultan’s army and the Serenissima. The Lepanto victory brought a radical change of tone, and the mapmakers, such as Tomasso Porcacchi, Giovanni Camocio or Simon Pinargenti, manifestly joined the choir of those who were looking forward to the Venetian resurgence in the Levant. The fracture of the Eastern Mediterranean space was no longer suggested, but visibly exposed. However, it was only a change of tone, as the mapmakers continued to convey the same fundamental ideas. Thus, the Venetian isolarii display a remarkable continuity through time, from its beginnings to the post-Lepanto era and illustrate both the enduring format of this cartographic genre and its adaptability.

Cudze chwalicie...

Author(s): Agnieszka Nogal / Language(s): Polish Issue: 15/2013

Włodzimierz Bernacki: Myśl polityczna I Rzeczypospolitej, Arkana, Kraków 2011, ss. 436.

Crusades as viewed from Venice. The case of the chronicle transcribed by Gasparo Zancaruolo

Author(s): Şerban Marin / Language(s): English Issue: XXXIII/2015

Among the around 2,000 codices representing the Venetian chronicles written between the 11th and 18th centuries, we selected the chronicle transcribed by Gasparo Zancaruolo around 1519. The present paper focuses upon manuscript M 2570 at Marciana National Library in Venice, presenting a history of this codex and getting involved in the clarifications referring to the paternity and the dating of it. It also insists upon the sources and influences that this work had in connection with other Venetian chronicles.This paper presents in extenso the fragments in the chronicle that deal with the crusading phenomenon, with the mention that the term of ‘crusade’ does not refer exclusively to the so-called ‘classical crusades’, but also to the various military confrontations between Christians and Muslims both previously and afterwards.

Zmagania ekonomii z filozofią

Author(s): Bartosz Fingas / Language(s): Polish Issue: 15/2013

Łukasz Hardt: Studia z realistycznej filozofii ekonomii, Wydawnictwo Beck, Warszawa 2013, ss. 176.

Banalność pragmatyzmu i piękno amerykańskiej nadziei

Author(s): Tomasz Sosnowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 15/2013

Richard Rorty: Filozofia a nadzieja na lepsze społeczeństwo, opracowanie i przedmowa J. Grygieńć, przekład J. Grygieńć, S. Tokariew, Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, Toruń 2013, ss. 344.

L'impensable ironiste

Author(s): Ionel Buse / Language(s): French Issue: 1-2/2015

L’écriture de Cioran est une alchimie entre un penseur et un styliste qui vivent la scission entre vie et la conscience. Il est d’une lucidité tragique, abyssale née en fatalité et désespoir. Certaines interprètes parlent d’une éthique du refus qui instaure un équilibre dans cet « animal malade » qui est l’homme. Un équilibre instable, fragile, mais authentique. Un mal-être transfiguré en écriture cathartique.

«Je vais donc narrer les grandes actions du prince Michel, dire comment il tailla les Turcs en pieces»: Michel le Brave, champion de l’Orthodoxie des chroniqueurs grecs

Author(s): Alexandra Laliberté de Gagne / Language(s): French Issue: XXXIII/2015

This study focuses on the figure of the Wallachian voivod Michael the Brave and his glorification in the light of the Greek chronicles of Matthew of Myra, Stavrinos the Vestiar and Georges Palamades. The Romanian prince is an emblematic figure of the Balkan region under the Ottoman yoke in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. His case is very evocative for the use of heroes embodying the struggle against Ottoman rule in modern Greek literature. However, the fight is led by a prince of Vlach origins, who’s participated in the unification of the Romanian principalities and their emancipation. This study is to determine the reasons for its appropriation as a symbol of liberation by Greek authors, despite tensions between Greeks and Vlachs.