Changes in Moldavian politics at the end of the rule of Alexander I the Good: Documentary notes

Author(s): Mark Whelan,Alexandru Simon / Language(s): English Issue: XXXIII/2015

This article aims to reassess the last years of Alexander I’s reign in Moldavia by using two German sources. The first is an anonymous report, most likely written by the bishop of Augsburg in March 1431, which documents Alexander’s change of allegiance from Poland to Hungary. The second document comes from the Archives of the Teutonic Orders and refers to the negotiations between Sigismund de Luxemburg, the Teutonic Grand-Master and Svidrigiello in the spring of 1431. According to these documents, Alexander was actively involved in an ambitious political design that brought together the Teutonic Order, Lithuania and Moldavia, having Sigismund of Luxembourg’s tacit support. The main contention of this article is that the matrimonial alliances played a key role in this political design.

Huragany, ludożercy i giełdowi maklerzy - czyli o tym, jak napisać popularną książkę filozoficzną

Author(s): Emilia Kaczmarek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 15/2013

Michael J. Sandel: Sprawiedliwość. Jak postępować słusznie?, przekład O. Siara, Kurhaus, Warszawa 2013, ss. 367.

Advocatus diaboli

Author(s): Ion Militaru / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 1-2/2015

Was Cioran a veritable “advocatus diaboli” as he is explicitly named in the above title? Cioran would never acknowledge this position and, probably, if he were to be confronted with this status, he would never accept it.The most significant aspect of this article is the emergence of such a philosophic view which is made from a secondary angle of the writing. Secondly, another striking characteristic of this article is the manner in which this view can be developed at such a large scale that even its own subject – Emil Cioran – can no longer contest it. Whether or not Emil Cioran was such an “advocatus” it remains unknown. Nevertheless, from this point of view, a coherent interpretation of his writings is undeniable.

Anul 1432: începutul conflictului dintre Ilie vodă şi Ştefan vodă, fiii lui Alexandru cel Bun. Documente inedite din arhiva Ordinului Teuton

Author(s): Liviu Cîmpeanu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: XXXIII/2015

The fratricide war between Alexander the Good’s descendants is difficult to reconstruct due to the lack of sources. Thus, until now, historians dated the beginning of the conflict between Alexander’s sons, Elijah and Stephen, using Jan Dlugosz’s Chronicle. According to the Polish chronicler, the war started in the autumn of 1433, when Stephen received Ottoman and Wallachian support. However, documents from the archive of the Teutonic Order from Berlin-Dahlem shed a new light on these events. It seems that the first conflict between Elijah and Stephen broke in mid-1432, after a joint rule that lasted half a year. Although Stephen was helped by the Wallachians, he was defeated by Elijah, who in his turn was assisted by the Tatars mercenaries sent by his Lithuanian ally, Boleslav Swidrigaillo. As a result, Stephen fled to the Ottomans. Later that year, he once again tried to gain the throne, but he failed despite having the Ottomans’ support. Next spring, in 1433, the two brothers made a short lived peace. The second was ended with Stephen’s victory, which was recognized by the Polish king as the legitimate ruler of Moldavia, while Elijah fled the country. Thus, it seems that Dlugosz compressed the two fratricidal wars, from 1432 and 1433, in a single one.

O możliwych związkach solidarności i społeczeństwa obywatelskiego

Author(s): Jowita Radzińska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 15/2013

Karolina Ciechorska-Kulesza, Radosław Kossakowski, Paweł Łuczeczko (red.) Kul:tura solidarności. Socjologiczno-antropologiczne analizy kulturowego dziedzictwa «Solidarności», Orbis Exterior, Pszczółki 2011, ss. 362.

Tam, gdzie panuje równość, wszystkim żyje się lepiej

Author(s): Katarzyna Anna Klimowicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 15/2013

Richard Wilkinson, Kate Pickett: Duch równości, Czarna Owca, Warszawa 2011, ss. 312.

Leibnitz și Blaga: de la monadă la diferențialele divine

Author(s): Ionuț Răduică / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 1-2/2015

This article explores some particularities that connect the philosophies of Leibniz and Lucian Blaga. Despite the centuries between these two great thinkers, the monad, as the article displays, is related with the Blaga’s concept of divine differential. Although there are many similarities concerning the monads and the divine differentials, the study will also unfold important differences, as it is the differentials competition rule. This later feature reveals another historical genealogy that makes Blaga’s philosophy tied with Charles Darwin’s concept of competition.

,„Și încă a pustiit şi sfânta mănăstire”. Mănăstirea Govora și un gest de putere de la mijlocul secolului al XV-lea

Author(s): Ramona Neacşa / Language(s): Romanian Issue: XXXIII/2015

This paper analyses the destruction of the Govora Monastery by the boyar Albu the Great in mid fifteenth-century Wallachia. The main contention of the article is that this sacrilegious act was embedded in the struggles between different Wallachian noble groups competing for power. Thus, by devastating the monastery, Albu the Great was trying to strengthen his own position, while undermining that of the founder of the monastery, no other than Vlad the Devil, the lord of Wallachia. The Govora monastery played an important role in supporting and legitimizing Vlad’s rule, therefore any act of violence directed against it was actually aimed to its founder. A locus of history and legitimacy, the monastery had a significant capital of symbolic power that could be manipulated, destroyed or, on the contrary, restored. This is precisely what happed with Govora in the second half of the fifteenth century, when Vlad the Devil’s descendents took care to restore the family monastic foundation. Thus, Vlad the Impaler punished Albu the Great and his entire kin and, afterwards, Vlad the Monk and Radu the Great re-established the monastic estate by buying back two of its former villages, Glodul and Hinţa. The purpose of this article is to suggest that the fifteenth-century Wallachian monasteries were not solely a network of religious and economic centres, but also hubs of political power.

Der Dritte Sinn

Author(s): Teodor Vidam / Language(s): German Issue: 1-2/2015

Ion Dur’s thought-provoking and ground-breaking essays in The Third Meaning underline, on the one hand, a rather polytrophic perspective on the Romanian cultural phenomenon, i.e., on the essential perspectivism that our native philosophy should be granted. The evincing of the most precious resources of the Romanian ethos grants Ion Dur the privilege of unraveling the originality of Romanian philosophical thinking. A first aspect being addressed is that of the swing between the archaic and the universal. Ion Dur’s contribution to the studying of Emil Cioran’s works and of Mircea Vulcặnescu’s personality gets even better evinced by contrasting it to Marta Petreu’s approach to these issues. Without denying the merits of Marta Petreu’s insightful and bold assessments, one cannot overlook her limits in comprehensively addressing the great cultures’ deeper and far-reaching genuineness. While grasping our attention on Mircea Vulcặnescu’s phenomenological reduction in Dimensiunea românească a existenței, Marta Petreu cannot escape the confines of some regional ontology, which is unable to reveal the permanently active role of this thinker in having his generation assert itself way beyondthe rumors of the Little Ewe Lamb’s myth. Conversely, Ion Dur is able to meet in his essays the most recent modernist demands in evaluating the merits of Romanian philosophy.

Voci de dincolo. Pietrele de la Dragomirna

Author(s): Ştefan S. Gorovei / Language(s): Romanian Issue: XXXIII/2015

L’exonarthex de la grande église du Monastère de Dragomirna abrite cinq dalles funéraires, dont deux ont des inscriptions grecques et une n’a jamais eu d’inscription; les deux autres sont très effacées: elles conservent aujourd’hui seulement des bribes des lettres de leurs inscriptions slaves et de leur décor floral. L’évêque Melchisedec (1823–1892) en 1883 et le professeur Eugen A. Kozak (1857–1933) en 1903 avaient lu et déchiffré les inscriptions, mais sans pouvoir établir l’identité des personnages enterrés là-bas et dont les noms paraissent illisibles. De nos jours encore, on utilise les traductions roumaines établies par N. Iorga (1938) d’après les lectures de Kozak.Heureusement, ces deux inscriptions slaves ont été lues, déchiffrées et traduites vers 1883–1887 par un savant roumain très passionné et très dévoué aux recherches épigraphiques: Nicolas Beldiceanu (1844–1896). Ses décalques, ainsi que ses copies, transcriptions et traductions ont été copieusement utilisés par N. Iorga pour le premier volume de ses Inscriptions des églises de Roumanie (Bucarest, 1905). Mais un cahier est resté inaperçu parmi les milliers de manuscrits de la Bibliothèque de l’Académie Roumaine, où il fut déposé en 1912 par D. A. Sturdza. Dans ce cahier, l’auteur a retrouvé les deux inscriptions de Dragomirna, transcrites d’une manière impeccable, presque photographique, ainsi que leurs traductions.Grâce aux dessins de Beldiceanu, on est arrivé à connaître les noms des personnages enterrés à Dragomirna. Il s’agit de deux membres de la famille des boyards Drăguşescu, dont un est fréquemment mentionné dans les documents de l’époque: Dumitraşco († 1709/1710). Il est le commanditaire d’une de ces deux dalles funéraires, destinée à recouvrir la tombe de son père, Serghie, mort le 4 juillet 1680. Mais, selon les documents, le père de Dumitraşco s’appelait ProdanDrăguşescu ! C’est un faux dilemme: il faut accepter que le personnage eût porté en effet le nom Serghie (St. Serge), mais il était connu avec le surnom Prodan (ce qui signifie «vendu»). C’est lui qui a commandé l’autre dalle funéraire, destinée à recouvrir la tombe d’un certain Savin (peut-être un autre fils), mort le 27 janvier 1673 ou 1674. Ces noms ont été inscrits dans les anciens obituaires du monastère. À partir de ces informations, l’auteur se propose de reconstituer la généalogie de cette famille de boyards du Nord de la Moldavie historique. La dernière partie de l’article concerne un personnage connu sous le nom de Silitrarul – le salpêtrier. Apparenté aux boyards Drăguşescu, descendant lui-même de la vieille aristocratie du pays, il a dû être une sorte d’entrepreneur qui surveillait la production et l’export du salpêtre, ce qui lui a valu son surnom.

O doktorskoj disertaciji Milivoja Mirze Abdurahmana Malića

Author(s): Namir Karahalilović / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 68-69/2015

Milivoj Mirza Abdurahman Malić is one of the first South Slav Iranianists who were educated in Western European university centres. Malić passed the viva voce examination for his doctoral thesis in 1935 at the Sorbonne, and published it in Paris in the same year. The topic of his thesis was Bulbulistan, the work of Fawzī Mostārī, a Bosnian-Herzegovinian author who wrote in Persian and Turkish languages in the second half of the seventeenth and the the first half of the eighteenth century. This article presents a critical overview of Malić’s doctoral thesis.

Edmund Husserl și evaluarea crizei științelor europene

Author(s): Dragoş Dragoman / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 1-2/2015

The European science is in deep crisis, this is the fundamental statement made by Husserl. The article intends to explore the logic of Husserl’s critique of victorious positivism, the dominant paradigm of the 20th century and to shed light on the most important proposals made by Husserl in order to access the true knowledge. Phenomenology is the promise, the new science entitled to offer the full understanding of the world, as it is offered from the very beginning to everybody through intuition. The new philosophy is called upon to provide a fresh new understanding of phenomenal life and to rebuild psychology and logic, which have both been undermined by the seemingly powerful positivism, founded on the premise that one could fully understand the world by making use of quantities, numbers and being deeply persuaded by the existance of an objective, universal, mathematical and physical causality.

Cuvântul și sabia. Patriarhul Alexandriei, Gherasim Palladas (1688-1710), un reprezentant al școlii veneto-cretane în ţările române (II)

Author(s): Violeta Barbu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: XXXIII/2015

Could we imagine in the 17th Century a new „literary Byzantium”, as deeply entrenched in the oral tradition and as interested in communicating itself as the original one? Or, on the contrary, we should rather think that the byzantine literary legacy was revived making recourse to scholarly tools borrowed from the modern Republic of Letters? The second part of this paper tried to solve this conundrum by a thorough analysis of The Panegyric of St Constantine the Great, authored by GherasimPalladas, patriarch of Alexandria. The second part is devoted, in the same vein, to identifying the sources and to a hermeneutics of another work attributed to Palladas, In praise of the Word (Ms. BAR 766). On a first level of interpretation, the inquiry continues to charter the cultural network that brought together intellectuals in Bucharest, Constantinople, Venice and the Near East as well as the next level probes Palladas' style (topoi, loci communi, critical irony) and writing technique (compilation, amplification, metaphrasis, paraphrases). The deconstruction of his Panegyric reveals that the text exceeds its own established byzantine genre and takes in different cultural traditions and epistemic frames (classical Antiquity, the Veneto-Cretan school, European classicism and, blatantly, Baroque) that amount to poetic and encyclopaedic compendium.

Contextul finalului domniei lui Şerban Cantacuzino şi situaţia averii sale

Author(s): Marian Lazăr / Language(s): Romanian Issue: XXXIII/2015

1688 was an extremely difficult year for ŞerbanCantacuzino, the ruling lord of Wallachia, and for his family. First of all, the Habsburgs’ victories against the Ottomans forced him to hasten a political alliance. The arrival of the Austrian armies at the Wallachian frontiers gave no room for further negotiations. When general Veterani’s troops crossed the border into Wallachia, Şerban Cantacuzino had no choice left. He sent an embassy to Vienna and his representatives, the most important Wallachian nobles, who were also his relatives, signed a treaty. 1688 was a bad year not only for politics, but also for his health. Facing an uncertain future for his family, Şerban Cantacuzino placed some of his fortune in safe places. Thus, he sent money, silver, jewellery and robes to four monasteries: Cotroceni, founded by him, RaduVodă, Câmpulung and Tismana. Şerban Cantacuzino died on the 29th of October 1688 and his wife, Mary, entrusted more of the family goods to close relatives. Nonetheless, soon afterwards, Mary Cantacuzino was forced by the new Wallachian lord, Constantin Brâncoveanu, to give up part of her family fortune. Brâncoveanu, who was actually Şerban Cantacuzino’s nephew, claimed that the former lord failed to pay what he owed to the Ottomans. In order to avoid being sent to Constantinople, together with all her kids, Mary Cantacuzino left the country and took refuge in Transylvania. Much later, she was able to recover some of the family goods that had been confiscated by Brâncoveanu.

Fevzijeva filozofija

Author(s): Milivoj (Mirza Abdurahman) Malić / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 68-69/2015

Kada smo se pozabavili sadržajem Bulbulistana, ugledali smo čitav jedan svijet ideja i osjećanja koji se, izgleda, svi vrte oko vrhovnog načela: Duhovni život jedina je stvarnost dostojna da se njome bavimo. Pa ipak, ovome djelu ne manjka ni razmišljanja čisto materijalističke prirode, kao što ćemo vidjeti u daljnjem izlaganju: ali ta su razmišljanja tu samo da, na neki način, posluže kao opipljiva osnova psihološkim, moralnim, političkim ili mističnim poukama kojima nas autor neprestano obasipa.

Heraldica neamurilor boiereşti din Moldova în secolele XIV-XV. Contribuţii şi interpretări noi

Author(s): Alexandru Pînzar / Language(s): Romanian Issue: XXXIII/2015

A recent book published in the Ukraine, regarding the heraldic system of Moldavia's noble families in the 14th to 16th centuries (Олег Однороженко, Родовагералдика Русо-Влахії (Молдавськогогосподарства) кінця XIV – XVI ст., Харків, 2008), is reviewed by the author of this paper, who presents the wealth of data discovered by the Ukrainian historian in the archives. Oleh Odnorozhenko gathered together the images of almost all the extant seals of the Moldavian boyars, which were appended to some of the charters issued by the voivodes, now preserved mainly in the Polish archives, using them as the main source for an assessment of the heraldic system in medieval Moldavia. Leaving aside the nationalistic excesses of the Ukrainian historian, his work proves a valuable tool for anyone interested in Moldavia's early history. Using the information in this book, the author of the paper discusses some old hypotheses in Romanian historiography and raises new ones

Conceptul de totalitarism - construct tipologic sau model?

Author(s): Ecaterina Artiomov / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 1-2/2015

The concept of totalitarism is one of the most disputed concepts of the political language. The critics of the totalitarism, on the one hand, were directed namely against the “model of totalitarianism”. The frequent use of totalitarianism as a “model” led us to ask ourselves what does a “model” mean and if we can use totalitarianism as a model? On the other hand, the scholars who implemented the concept of totalitarianism, especially Giovanni Sartori, have argued that the term is a „typological construct” and the understanding of the totalitarianism as a „model” dismiss some important aspects of the term itself. In that situation, the article deals with the necessity of emphasizing some conceptual delimitation in the complex theory of totalitarism.

ADDENDA ET CORRIGENDA

Author(s): Ştefan Andreescu,Ştefan S. Gorovei,Petronel Zahariuc / Language(s): Romanian Issue: XXXIII/2015

RECENZII ȘI NOTIȚE BIBLIOGRAFICE

Author(s): Violeta Barbu,Dana Caciur,Marian Coman,Ştefan Andreescu,Ştefan S. Gorovei,Gheorghe Lazăr,Marian Lazăr,Maria Pakucs-Willcocks,Anca Popescu ,Petronel Zahariuc / Language(s): Romanian Issue: XXXIII/2015

Reviews of: ---------------------------- Neofit Cretanul. Jurnal de călătorie, ediție îngrijită, introducere și note de arhimandrit NECTARIE ȘOFELEA, Basilica, București, 2013, 175 p. Vlad Boțulescu de Mălăiești. Scrieri I. Viața lui Scanderbeg, ed. critică, introducere, studiu filologic și lingvistic, glosar și indice de EMANUELA TIMOTIN și OVIDIU OLAR, Univers Enciclopedic Gold, București, 2013, 284 p. + 8 il; II. Canonizarea Sfântului Felice. Varlaam și Ioasaf. Glosar irochezromân. Însemnări astronomice, ediții critice, studii introductive și glosar de CRISTINA IOANA DIMA, Univers Enciclopedic Gold, București, 2013, 215 p.; III. Istoria universală. Asia, ediție critică, studiu, glosar și indice de EMANUELA TIMOTIN și ANDREI TIMOTIN, Univers Enciclopedic Gold, București, 2013, 258 p. + 5 il. Scrierea chirilică românească din Transilvania şi Ungaria habsburgică (sec. XVIII). Album de OVIDIU GHITTA, Edit. Argonaut, Cluj-Napoca, 2015, 121 p. Istorie în documente: Mavrocordaţii (1711-1786). History in Documents: The Mavrocordats, întocmit de CLAUDIU VICTOR TURCITU, Arhivele Naţionale ale României & Dar Developement Association, Bucureşti, 2015, 288 p. NADIA MANEA, Cronicarii, adevărul şi puterea. Istorie şi ideologie în cronistica moldovenească a secolului al XVII-lea, Edit. Oscar Print, Bucureşti, 2013, 528 p. (din care am citit 100!). DAN DUMITRU IACOB (editor), Avere, prestigiu și cultură materială în surse patrimoniale. Inventare de averi din secolele XVI-XIX, Edit. Universității “Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, Iași, 2015, 802 p VIOLETA BARBU, MARIA MAGDALENA SZÉKELY, KINGA S. TÜDŐS, ANGELA JIANU, Grădina Rozelor. Femei din Moldova, Ţara Românească şi Transilvania (sec. XVII-XIX), Edit. Academiei Române, Bucureşti, 2015, 381 p. ENIKŐ RÜSZ-FOGARASI, Egy elfeledett intézmény: a kolozsvári Szentlélekispotály kora újkori története, [O instituţie uitată: istoria premodernă a azilului Sf. Duh din Cluj], L’Harmattan, Budapesta, 2012, 172 p. BOGLÁRKA WEISZ, Vásárok és lerakatok a középkori magyar királyságban [Târguri şi locuri de depozit în regatul medieval al Ungariei], Budapesta, MTA Bölcsészettudományi Kutatóközpont Történettudományi Intézet, 2012, 222 p. + hartă. A kolozsvári osztóbírói intézmény és a kibocsátott osztálylevelek [Instituţia judelui divizoral al Clujului şi documentele emise], ed. GYÖNGY KOVÁCS KISS, Cluj-Napoca, Edit. Korunk Komp-Press, 2012, 568 p Keresztesekből lázadók. Tanulmáyok 1514 Magyarországáról [Din cruciați răsculați. Studii despre Ungaria anului 1514], ed. NORBERT C. TÓTH și TIBOR NEUMANN, Budapesta, MTA BK Történettudományi Intézet, 2015, 375 p JÁNOS JÓZSEF GUDENUS, Örmény eredetű magyar nemesi családok genealógiája (Javított, bővített kiadás) / (Genealogia familiilor nobile maghiare de origine armeană, ediţie corectată şi augmentată), editată de Asociaţia Culturală Rădăcini a Armenilor Transilvăneni (Erdélyi Örmény Gyökerek Kulturális Egyesület), Budapesta, 2010, 971 p. + XVII pl. cu 66 de steme. Preot IOAN CANCIUC, Protopopiatul Darabani. Contribuţii monografice asupra aşezărilor, bisericii şi învăţământului, Edit. Trinitas, Iaşi, 2009, 372 p.; idem, Protopopiatul Dorohoi. Contribuţii monografice asupra aşezărilor, bisericii şi învăţământului, Edit. Doxologia, Iaşi, 2013, vol. I, 437 p.; vol. II, 447 p. RAMONA NEACŞA LUPU, De la Mircea cel Bătrân la Neagoe Basarab. Raporturile dintre domnie şi biserică în Ţara Românească, cuvânt înainte de Ovidiu Cristea, prefaţă de Virgil Ciocîltan, Cetatea de Scaun, Târgovişte, 2014, 259 p. BOGDAN-PETRU MALEON, Cercetări privind ideologia puterii și organizarea ecleziastică în Moldova Medievală, Edit. Universității „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, Iași, 2015, 282 p CĂLIN HOINĂRESCU, MANUELA HOINĂRESCU, Habitatul rural tradiţional prahovean. Restitutio Edit, Ploieşti, 2013, 174 p., 3 anexe tabelare, 1 spiţă de neam, 101 pl., 12 hărţi, 16 pl. de moşii. GABRIELLA AIRALDI, Andrea Doria, Salerno Editrice, Roma, 2015, 256 p. + 4 pl. color. STÉPHANE CASTELLUCCIO, Le prince et le marchand. Le commerce de luxe chez les marchands merciers parisiens pendant le règne de Louis XIV, Editions SPM (collection Kronos), Paris, 2014, 878 p. Studia et Documenta Turcologica, Cluj, nr. 1/2013, 363 p.; nr. 2/2014, 377 p. Ege ve Balkan Araștırmaları dergisi (EBAD) / Journal of Aegean and Balkan Studies, Izmir, 2015, vol. 1, 205 p.

Kompariranje logosa u kršćanstvu sa savršenim čovjekom Ibn Arebija

Author(s): Mansour Mo'tamedi,Vali Abdi / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 68-69/2015

The notion of pre-Christianity logos is found in an abstract form in ancient Greek philosophy as well as Judaism (ancient times and some works of Philo of Alexandria). In Christianity (Prologue to the Gospel of John), logos is for the first time identified with a historical character (Jesus), and Christians, namely, Church elders, attributed to logos some characteristics very much resembling Islamic Gnostic interpretation of the “perfect man”. In Islamic gnosis, Ibn Arabi gave a detailed treatment of the issue of the perfect man and gave standpoints comparable to Christian standpoints on logncesos. Having processed Ibn Arabi’s standpoint and standpoints of his commentators’ on the perfect man, as well as standpoints of Church elders on logos, we have concluded that, despite noticeable differences between these two terms, the question of embodiment of logos in Christianity still makes a huge difference regarding this issue.