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The article constitutes the attempt to formulate remarks and hypotheses referring to the mentality of the elite of Toruń’s burghers in the 17th and the first half of the 18th century, mainly on the basis of the research concerning the history of the culture of Toruń in this period. Toruń’s elite consisted of the few rich members of the proud patriciate and the group of the so called “Scholars” (Gelehrte) – people of various backgrounds, who, having acquired the university education, made a political career in the town and representatives of professions requiring a much better education” priests, teachers, doctors, pharmacists, lawyers and officials of the city authorities. The factors which united all those people in one group was the Protestant religious community (Lutherans), family, social and economic connections. The mentality of Toruń’s inhabitants was affected greatly by the life in a big city where goods were exchanged and people travelled from the north to the south and the east, and from the west to the north and east. Toruń was traditionally connected with Gdańsk and the Baltic Sea, Germany, the Netherlands, England and the Scandinavian countries. The mentality of the patriciate and burghers was imbued with religiousness in the Lutheran or Calvinist sense. The Protestant model of personal life filled with science and work prevailed. At the same time the mentality of Toruń’s burghers, in the first place those who spoke Polish and had direct contacts with noblemen and Catholics, was affected by the Baroque-Sarmatian models promoting the joy of life, the pursuit of luxury and presenting oneself from the best side. A case in point is Jakub Kazimierz Rubinkowski (1668-1749) – a nobleman and burgher of Toruń. This postmaster and burgrave of Toruń combined the features typical of the mentality of the noblemen and burghers. Toruń’s patriciate adopted many customs from noblemen and magnates, which was reflected in fashion, ceremonies, funerals, weddings, etc. Like noblemen, patricians purchased land, set up small “folwarks” and erected summer mansions in the countryside. Inhabitants of Toruń were mentally connected with inhabitants of Gdańsk. Yet, the mentality of Gdańsk’s inhabitants was mainly affected by the fact of living in a harbor open to the sea. Toruń was more closely connected with the Polish-Sarmatian background. What should be underlined is the ability to adapt and co-exist of various groups along with the ability to create a coherent whole. Toruń’s burghers were capable of reconciliating the material (the sphere of business and economy) with the spiritual (the sphere of belief and existential fear).
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This article is devoted to an important development in European history, which took place at the borderline between the Middle Ages and the New Age. The author attempts to analyze and rethink the Reformation and Protestantism as the phenomena that underlie the 16th century bourgeois worldview, which stemmed not only from the economic processes and the emergence of capitalism, but also from the moral system of Protestant ethics, which, with the withering of trust in Catholicism, called for a new interpretation of Christian faith, morality, and norms of civil life.
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The aim of the article is to present the material scope and methodological assumptions of the research on the image of cities undertaken since the late 1970s. The author points out that the image of the city is a very broad term in which various research directions are included. The subject matter had been addressed in the works of sociologists, geographers and art historians since the 1920s. The so-called cultural breakthrough in historical sciences in the 1970s has contributed to the increasing interest in the problem of the representation of cities. The essence of the new approach has become the interest in the principles of creating an image, the ways of its construction and its functions. The priority in undertaking new methodological challenges in the research on the perception of cities and its representations should be attributed to researchers of literature and art historians. Historians started to be more seriously interested in the area in the 1980s. According to the author, the studies developing until the beginning of the 21st century were characterized by a large methodological diversity. Over the last ten years, the focus of researchers has been the issue of creating an image of their own city in various research contexts: city representation, city branding, symbolic communication and communal staging.
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Peter Mundy (1596 – ca. 1667), one of the most representative English travellers of his period, visited Gdańsk (Danzig) and Toruń (Thorn) in 1640 and 1642 and described these cities in his Relations. The article includes deliberations concerning Mundy’s descriptions of the two most important cities in Royal Prussia in the context of early modern theory of ekphrasis and the eulogy of the city, represented especially by manuals of preliminary exercises in rhetoric (progymnasmata) and chapters from De inventione et amplificatione oratoria by Gerard Bucoldianus included in Reinhard Lorich’s Scholia attached to his edition of Aphthonius’ Progymnasmata, one of the most popular rhetoric books in the second half of 16th and in 17th centuries. The analysis of the structure and contents of Mundy’s “relations” leads to the conclusion that the English traveller was aware of the early modern theory of description and eulogy of cities but, at the same time, his curiosity made him free to leave the theoretical rules aside and focus himself on interesting technical constructions (“The great Organs in the Pfarrekerke” in Gdańsk or the Toruń bridge) or customs of burghers (“execution of Justice” and “Recreations” in Gdańsk and “A greatt faire” in Toruń).
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The article presents the biography and scientific achievements of the outstanding researcher of ancient culture, Margarete Bieber (1879–1978). At the same time, it is an example of women’s emancipatory aspirations in this region at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The article describes the less-known Pomeranian roots of Margarete Bieber. She came from Przechów (Schönau, Świecie district) in former Western Prussia. Bieber was the first woman from Western Prussia to pass high school final examinations in Toruń in 1901. Then, despite all kinds of difficulties arising from her gender and ethnicity, she made an excellent academic career in Germany and the United States. The article also describes in detail the Pomeranian Bieber family living in Przechów and their property status (until the sale of the mills in 1921). Jacob Bieber, Margarete’s father, the owner of “the most important mills in Pomerania – Przechowo”, who perhaps was interested in ancient art himself, supported the scholar’s research for a long time. The high financial and social status of the family was important for her educational opportunities, but it was not recognized in the article as the most important reason for her success. First of all, her personality features, talent and great diligence were emphasized.
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Racist ideology permeated every element of the Third Reich’s society. Art historians have focused on the problem of Nazi urban projects since the 1960s. Issues related to older concepts from the 19th century were on the margins of the research. Thus, sources of inspiration for Nazi urban solutions remained unexplored. The article aims to complement the current considerations with an analysis of the oldest accounts that constitute a synthesis of racist and urban thought. The problem of rebuilding cities in a “a proper way that corresponded the German spirit” was raised in the mid-19th century. The ‘heralds’ of national socialism at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries – Theodor Fritsch and Houston Stewart Chamberlain synthesized the traditional German thought with scientifically founded racist anti-Semitism. With the help of textual analysis of their works, several assumptions common to both authors can be observed. They both called for the simultaneous reconstruction of cities and the reorganization of social life by introducing racial and class segregation. The urban buildings were to reflect the hierarchical social structure. Factories of heavy industry were to disappear from the cities (they were to be hidden underground or on the outskirts); they also wanted to eliminate environmental pollution and allow residents to contact with nature thanks to extensive garden complexes. At the same time, people with less desirable racial attributes were to work on the outskirts of the city, carrying out subordinate professions and maintaining racist utopias. The popularity of both authors among the Nazi circles (even before 1933) contributed to the incorporation of their propositions into the ideology of the Nazi Party. The strong influence of slogans proclaimed by anti-Semitic radicals is visible, e.g. in in the case of Alfred Rosenberg or Richard W. Darré. They wanted to return to the so-called old Aryan values, which were to include living in harmony with wild nature. The implementation of these postulates would have involved the reconstruction and limitation of the size of most of the then urban complexes, which was to take place according to the assumptions formulated before the First World War.
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Renaissance Platonism is linked to the revival of the interest in the deities of the Ancient pantheon. The present text traces back some of the origins of this process (the tradition of the Dolce stilnovo in Tuscan language and Dante Alighieri’s commentaries on his own works), arguing that the genre of the allegorical commentary on poetic texts is one of the main instruments facilitating the return of Ancient gods in the Christian context of 15th-century Florence. The key moments of the analysis regard Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s commentary practice.
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In the 17–18th centuries the interest for works concerning the history of Protestantism in Hungary and Transylvania has increased. Such an opus is the Historia Ecclesiae Reformatae in Hungaria et Transilvania (1706) by Pál Debreceni Ember. The author of this ecclesiastical history not only presents the history of the Reformed Church in Hungary, but he also tries to present the origin of the Hungarian Christianity projecting it onto the apostolic period. To prove his theory, he turns to the early Christian writers. The aim of this paper is to present the reception of his sources.
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Using archival documents issued by communist party structures and official publications this article analyses the process through which the atheist education of the Romanian society became a priority for Ceauşescu’s regime. At the middle of the 60s, against the background of liberalization, the official ideology, science and religion coexisted. This process was caused both by the political developments within the communist bloc and the ability of the official churches to adapt to a new context. From the perspective of ideological program, Ceauşescu tried to impose atheism as the only accepted dogma of the socialist society. This was the reason why the natural scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, folklorists were mobilized to use their knowledge and to offer answers how to get a desecrated society. Despite the anti-religious campaigns, the all education programs aimed to reduce the importance of religion within the society failed. The atheistic society designed by the official’s party meant the replacement of religious holidays with the socialist rituals. Regardless of confession, in the last years of Ceauşescu’s regime, the whole society felt the effects of the restrictions which limited the religious freedom.
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There are four new forms of negationism. The first (Universalization of the Holocaust) knows no geographic boundaries. The other three – the Double Genocide theory, Holocaust Obfuscation and Competitive Martyrdom – are encountered mainly in the former communist countries of East Central Europe. This study focuses mainly on the latter three. Examples from Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Serbia illustrate this revised attempt of negationism taxonomy.
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Between 1920 (Trianon) and 1946 (the year of establishment of the Romanian vicariate in Gyula), 17 Romanian Orthodox parishes located in eastern Hungary lost their connection with the ecclesiastical structures in Romania. Until then, the parishes had been under the jurisdiction of the two dioceses of Arad and Oradea. For the History of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Hungary, the interwar period is identified as a turbulent period, with most priests leaving for Romania. They left, although many of the parishes had a very good financial situation. Under the pressure exerted by the Hungarian authorities, the saviour-figure of Bishop Georgije Zubković emerged, who became the spiritual father of the disorganised Romanian Orthodox believers.
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L’intervalle de temps compris entre la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle et le début du XXe siècle a été une périodede l’histoire de l’Europe occidentale marquée par plusieurs changements socio-économiques, comme l’industrialisation, l’expansion urbaine, ou le développement de la division du travail. Tout ça a conduit au lancement d’un mouvement progressif de modernisation non seulement sur le plan technologique, mais aussi dans les mentalités individuelles et collectives, ainsi que dans les visions de la vie. Un tel changement de perception s’est également produit dans le domaine de la féminité et du changement de statut et d’équilibre des forces entre hommes et femmes, annonçant une nouvelle étape d’évolution culturelle et sociale dans l’histoire de l’Europe. Pendant cette période les femmes ont rejeté les notions conventionnelles de féminité précédemment acceptées et elles ont transcendéle territoire de la maternité et de la vie domestique, acquérir ainsi leur indépendance financière et sociale. Cela a marqué l’avancement des femmes modernes dans la sphère publique et l’adoption de formes plus libres d’expression de leur propre identité. Ainsi, de nombreuses femmes ont réussi à faire carrière dans les services publics, dans l’enseignement ou dans les transports. Bien que préfiguré depuis la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle, le début du XXe siècle imposera un concept artistique beaucoup plus progressif de l’idéal féminin, contrairement à l’art du début du XIXe siècle, qui illustrait la notion de féminité idéalisée et servile. On va gagner plus en plus de terrain l’idée que, grace d’une part, à leur qualités innées en ce qui concerne les questions sociales et d’autre part, grâce à l’éducation reçue des mères, les femmes sont plus capables dans la société que les hommes qui ont une éducation plus orientée vers la sphère professionnelle quine leur fournit pas suffisamment d’orientation et de connaissances intuitives. En conséquence, il était indiqué aux hommes de faire appel au jugement féminin concernant la vie sociale. Au Banat et en Transylvanie, provinces qui, dans la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle et dans la première moitié du XXe siècle faisaient partie de l’Empire austro-hongrois, ainsi que dans le reste de l’Europe, bien que les normes sociales continuent de placer les femmes dans un rôle d’inégalité avec les hommes, le modèle de la nouvelle femmel ibérée de toute contrainte, qui a surgi pendant cette période, a gagné une victoire decisive sur le vieux état d’innocente plénitude et d’asservissement docile.
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About the archaeological discoveries from Ardeu (Balşa commune, Hunedoara county), many pages have been written over time. We tried to present a different overview on the site „Ardeu-Cetăţuie”. On this paper we set out to undertake an exploration of the mythological micro-universe, in the form in which it is still preserved among the members of the community of Ardeu village. The investigation is based on small sequences collected from local folklore, directly from the locals, during the research campaigns, as well as by the Hunedoara journalist Laura Oana. The study area is located in the south of the Apuseni Mountains, in a place dominated by rocky cliffs and caves, where there are traces of habitation of populations from many historical times. The walls of some fortifications, visible for centuries on top of the Cetăţuie hill, were a source of inspiration for the collective imaginary of the place, allowing the adaptation of some archetypes widespread in mythology, to the geographical framework of the place. Thus, we had the opportunity to capture details that ensure the connection with the intimate environment of popular beliefs. We noticed the persistence of a series of significant elements, with their own function, which are correlated with each other: giants and their homes, huge guardians and/or treasure owners, underground rooms and tombs of giants. In the mythical universe, the giants lived in “Colţ”, on/in Dealul Cetăţuie (Cetăţeauă), an archeological site registered in the National Archaeological Repertory and in the List of monuments and archeological sites. From the point of view of archeological research, the association of the site with the treasures brings disadvantages, and the activity of the treasure hunters can only be classified as harmful for the national cultural heritage. The material proof of the presence of the giants at Ardeu, in antiquity, is a skeleton, or rather the accidentally unearthed head of a person with larger dimensions than the usual ones. As it is still preserved, the legends with and about giants are part of the general structure and limits of the genre, with details that are widespread, in larges paces, but also with some particular ones. These fairy tales and stories are in a process of updating, but nevertheless we tried to understand their ancestral meanings and to draw research directions. The folklore of Ardeu village is vast unexplored land, in full transformation, land from which representative details are lost every day. Sequences of the mythological universe can still be recovered in Ardeu, such as the set of customs during the winter seasons, whose „piece of resistance” is represented by Căluşerii.
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The subject of the article is an analysis of a nineteenth-century folk song originating from Lesser Poland and the region of Kielce, which describes the events of the Tumult of Toruń (1724). The author used the historical method (factual analysis), anthropological method (theories of memory and orality) and discourse analysis (a written text as a reflection of mentality) to focus on three main issues. The first one is a polemic with the previous opinions of researchers, who argued that the folk song faithfully represents the events of the riots in Toruń (Thorn). In fact, it seems to be more of a propaganda text. It is impossible to determine precisely the place and time it was created, however, it seems that its author was a clergyman who wanted to convey his vision of the Tumult to the lower social strata. The song presents the community of Toruń as divided into two hostile camps, namely aggressive Protestants and pious Catholics. The article embedded the images of both sides in broader contexts of the German-Protestant stereotype and religious polemics in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The last part of the text is an attempt to answer the question why this particular song was internalized by the common people. The interest in the Tumult of Toruń could result from its sensational character, the fact that it was very well fitted to folk culture, and the possibility to derive satisfaction from the course of this event. The article ends with the presentation of folk songs as an interesting research material for historians, cultural anthropologists and scholars conducting interdisciplinary memory studies.
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What is commonly referred to in Poland as ‘December 1970’ was one of the most important and most tragic moments in the history of this country after the Second World War. Then, a violent suppression of workers’ revolts in several Polish cities on the Baltic coast, by the Citizens’ Militia and the army, and the subsequent changes in the leadership of the Polish United Workers’ Party took place. After fourteen years in power, the First Secretary of the Central Committee, Władysław Gomułka, was replaced by the former member of the Politburo and also the First Secretary of the Voivodship Committee in Katowice, Edward Gierek. The military operations on the Polish coast, alongside the Citizens’ Militia, involved some 27,000 soldiers and 550 tanks, 750 armoured carriers and 2,100 cars. Also, 108 aircraft and helicopters, as well as 40 vessels of the Polish Navy were deployed. Apart from the period of martial law (1981–1983), never during peacetime has the Polish Army been put on standby on such a scale and used to such an extent to pacify the society. According to official data, a total of 45 people were killed and 1,165 wounded on the Baltic coast. Although over 80 books and brochures have already been published on ‘December 1970’, we still do not know the answers to all the questions. The role played by the Soviet authorities at that time has been researched the least. However, without free access to the post-Soviet archives stored in Russia, which seems hardly possible in the near future, it will be difficult to make new findings on this issue.
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The article presents an analysis of the foreword by Samuel Schelwig (1643–1715), pastor of the Holy Trinity Church and rector of the Academic Gymnasium in Gdańsk (Danzig), to the opinion issued by the theological faculty of the University of Leipzig on Pietism and its founder Philipp Jakob Spener (1635–1705). The opinion was published in 1693 under the title ‘Gründliches und wolgesetztes Bedencken, Von der Pietisterey’. The author of the foreword made an assessment of the religious condition of the new movement and also pointed out that its supporters misunderstood the essence of piety, comparing them to medieval and early modern heretics. In this way, he anticipated the subsequent harsh criticism of Pietism and initiated a religious dispute on this issue that continued in Gdańsk from 1692/1693 to 1703. At the same time, he contributed to the dissemination of a debate on religious fanaticism and attempts to modernise pastoral activities of Lutheran preachers. The analysis of the source text is part of broader research into the history of the Pietistic movement in Gdańsk, which has incorporated research methods in the fields of philology and history, as well as biblical hermeneutics. This approach has made it possible to determine the origin of the conflict on Pietism in Gdańsk, to identify the related phenomena, events and key doctrinal issues, and to interpret and evaluate the theological value of the investigated polemic.
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The material contains the memories and impressions of one of the prominent Bulgarian historians of the 20th century. In the same time it also uncovers the importance of Hristo Gandev’s scientific work, which was highly praised thanks to the clear thought process and the heuristic charge inherent in his texts.
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Europe is an idea. Matter-of-factly, the European civilisation, as we call it today, had come into being before states and nations, its capricious children, were born. Throughout the ages, it matured, was formed and clashed with other civilisations. It learnt from them and shared its achievements with them. Finally, as a result of these clashes, as well as the less noticeable internal transformations, this concept has undergone numerous metamorphoses. This process can be illustrated through different forms: from the palace in Knossos to the palace in Versailles, from the battle of Troy to the battle of Stalingrad, from the Roman Senate to the US Senate. Since the period of the Dactylic hexameter in Greek poetry, which is seen as the marker of the grand style of classical poetry, the European idea has been carried through literature. Thus, Homer and Hesiod have become known as the first poets of our civilisation. Their steps were followed by the Greek philosophers and tragedians. Those who lived in Alexandria and Pergamon.
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Review of: Wright, Zachary Valentine. On the Path of the Prophet: Shaykh Ahmad Tijani and the Tariqa Muhammadiyya, Atlanta: Fayda Books, 2015. 260 sayfa. ISBN: 9780991381388. Orientalist scholars claim the existence of a reform movement in the Islamic world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries based on the concepts and issues put forward by the ulamas and Sufis of that time. This article discusses, concerning that claim, the concepts of neo-Sufism and Tariqat al-Muhammadiyya through the Tijaniyya, Idrisiyya and Sanusiyya orders. Although it does not question and comprehensively analyzed the validity of the reform debates, the article stands as a starting point paving the way for the studies following a similar set of questions on the issue.
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