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The analysis is based on sixty newspapers and journals of the given period. It wants to show the political and everyday life of people in the last month of the peace after the assasination of Franz Ferdinand and before the declaration on war. The essay also wants to show the changing standpoint of Hungarian political elite concerning the outbreak of the war, and the cultural background of Hungarian nationalism.
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In the 1910’s the Slovak national movement had a double political program. The first level of this was the realization of the Nationality Law of 1868/XLIV. The second was the achievement of the autonomy for the compact Slovak language area in Upper Hungary. The Slovak national movement was too week to reach these goals all by itself, so they had to look for allies. They had four possibilities. The first was making alliance with other parties in the Hungarian parliament or besides it. The second was entering into connections with the crown prince, Franz Ferdinand who intended to federalise the Empire and give autonomy to ethnic groups within the Monarchy. The third was the Czech-Slovak cooperation, because the Czech regarded them as a brother nation. The fourth was to make pact with the Hungarian government to get some preferences by virtue of the Nationality Law of 1868/XLIV. Until the World War I the last the Hungarian government meant the real alternative, from 1915 the Czech-Slovak cooperation.
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The main political objective of István Tisza was to protect the integrity of historical Hungary at all costs: this was the underlying reason for sustaining the dualist system and the relationship with the Habsburgs. He believed that the situation dictated by the balance of powers exposed the Hungarians to grave danger, thus he maintained order with a firm hand, though by rule of law. He tried to curb the excesses of Hungarian nationalism („Hungarian imperialism”). He regarded contemporary world politics as struggle for regional dominion. Though he was a pro-German politician, in my view he rejected German dominance over Central Europe. As a devoted Christian, he considered the war a disaster.
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This article is dedicated to the process of inception, contradictory development, topical condition and the main problems of one of the most authoritative international organisations, the Council of Europe. It follows the movement of ideas regarding its different visions: the initial hopes that it will achieve the centennial idea for unification of Western Europe, the subsequent disappointment and its transformationa into a second-tier West European organization, its development after the Cold War as prestigious 'club of European democracies' and a sort of first anteroom to the European Union. Some of the main problems it faces as challenges in the XXI c., particularly the policy of protection of national minorities, the application of double standards and the notion that precisely this organization outlines the visible frontiers of United Europe, have been analyzed.
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The exchange of embassies before the election of Grigorij Tsanblak as Kievan Metropolitan caused the meeting of Władysław II Jagiełło and Byzantine embassy in Sniatyn in May 1415. This meeting recorded by Jan Długosz is marked by the mentioning of wheat delivery from the “royal port of Kaczubyeow”. Sniatyn negotiations are not connected with the “nuncios from Constantinople” visit to Krakow in September the same year. This nuncios must have been Theodor Chrysoberges departing to the church council in Konstanz with the proposition of union between Western and Eastern churches in the name of king Władysław. In early 1418 the same proposal was brought to Kostanz by Grigorij Tsamblak in the name of Władysław II, Vitautas, emperor Manuel II and the patriarch of Constantinople altogether.
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The body occupies a crucial and special place in the Sufi tradition. It is seen as a Gateway leading from the outer dimension of reality (ẓāhir) to the inner dimension (bāṭin), bearing within itself a microcosm that is a mirror image of the macrocosm. Mystics recognize the dual nature of the body — on the one hand, it is a source of obstacles to the individual’s rise above trivial needs and desires, while on the other hand, it provides a means of transgression into the world of immaterial reality. As a boundary point between two worlds, the body can become a means of achieving closeness. The various bodily practices employed by Sufis bear traces of similarity to other mystical practices. This is not surprising, given the inclusive nature of Sufism, readily adapting the practices of local spiritual traditions. It was no different in India, where Islam appeared in the 8th century and entered into dialogue with Hindu traditions, both at the level of intellectual exchange between representatives of Islam and Hinduism, and at the level of mutual interpenetration between the practices of adepts of Sufism and Hinduism. This closeness bore fruit both in the joint practice of spirituality and in the attempts made by Akbar and his great-grandson Dārā Shikōh to combine the teachings of the two religious traditions. Today it is difficult to determine the paths of mutual influence or to say with certainty whether a particular practice is the result of influence or arose independently. The article constitutes an overview of the bodily practices of Sufism and a reflection on their possible origins and similarities to Indian traditions.
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This article focuses on two of the oldest films in which the figure of the yogi occupied a central position. The first of them is the film Der Yoghi (alternatively: Das Haus des Yoghi), filmed in 1916 and preserved only in fragments. Paul Wegener was the director, screenwriter and actor playing the two roles of the title yogi and his opponent. In the film, the yogi is the inventor of a magic drink that makes invisibility possible. The creator of the work, focused on recognizing the properties of the new medium, was interested in visualizing invisibility and not in presenting the figure of the yogi according to the accounts that were available to Europeans on the subject. This was not the case with the monumental 1921 film Das indische Grabmal, directed by Joe May and with a screenplay by Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou, author of a novel of the same title published in 1918. In the book, the story of the betrayed Raja and the oriental setting constructed through the references to the history of the Taj Mahal were important, while in the film an equal place was given to the recurring theme of the exceptional powers of Ramigani the yogi, whose primary goal was to bring about the spiritual transformation of the Raja. Bernhard Goetzke, superb as Ramigani, had a powerful effect on the audience: he evoked admiration as well as fear. He convinced the Europeans that the mysteries of the East were greater than they had supposed, and that the “miracles” and extraordinary powers of the yogis were only tools, not goals.
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After 1945, Poland saw a more pronounced interest in yoga as a practice related to physical exercise, which is evident in book publications (manuals such as Yoga for You by Claude Bragdon, Eng. ed. 1954, Pol. ed. 1955) or press publications (such as the February 17, 1959 issue of “Przekrój”, which featured an interview with the pianist Witold Małcużyński, in which the artist talked about his experiences with yoga and his use of the practice in his daily and professional life). Yoga also became an object of interest for the creators of the popular 1960s television series Wojna domowa (“House Quarrels”) (1965). This paper analyzes episode seven of Wojna domowa entitled “Polish Yoga.” The author traces the social and cultural changes that occurred in the perception of yoga and the people who practice it. On the basis of her analysis, she proves that the figure of the yogi gradually ceased to be associated only with the culture of India at that time, undergoing a kind of “Occidentalizing” — the yogi did not have to be an Eastern master, but could be a specialist (though in the case of the show presented in a comedic fashion). Yoga, adjusting to the new cultural reality, became an interesting novelty for the young generation, at the same time entering more and more clearly into everyday life.
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Klan (The Clan), one of the most famous and popular Polish television series, aired for over twenty years on Channel One of the Polish Television, is considered by film scholars to be a soap opera or a family saga. Characteristics of the series include: the correspondence of film time and real time, continuity, multi-threading, as well as the assumption of reflecting non-film reality and at the same time modeling it by influencing the audience. The theme of yoga and yogis in Klan have appeared relatively recently. This theme has been recurring with varying frequency for several years. It was preceded by the publication of a book by Paulina Holtz (the actress who plays the character Agnieszka Lubicz in Klan) and her trainer Ewelina Godlewska, entitled Po pierwsze joga (First of All Yoga) (2015). Yoga is presented in Klan primarily as a form of physical exercise, positively affecting many aspects of the human psychophysical condition. It takes a skeptical and distanced approach to the forms of “Orientalizing” yoga present in contemporary culture, which is sometimes presented as a complex system of exercises associated with an eclectic mix of selected elements from different cultures, religions, and philosophical systems. The series promotes a healthy lifestyle, which may or may not include yoga, promoted as a recommended exercise for all, regardless of age and physical condition.
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Jerzy Grotowski, founder of the Laboratorium Theatre and a charismatic explorer who has combined Eastern and Western modes of working with the body and psyche, has been also inspired by Indian yoga. There are four main phases in his artistic activity: performance theater, participatory theater, source theater, and vibrational song theater. In all of these phases there is a fascination with mystery and understatement. Grotowski consistently seeks a specific language for “opening up to the sacrum,” but in order to achieve this he uses carefully selected “laboratory” tools. He does not adapt ready-made techniques, but rather seeks them in other cultures, observing how they work in order to later propose solutions that seem most appropriate to him. Therefore, in all four of these phases of work, the actor, performer, participant and seeker experiencing the internal process is supposed to transform it into an external process, one that is oriented towards opening rather than closing. Particularly in the last phase of Grotowski’s work, terms such as centers of vital energy, vibration of sound when it is chanted, and verticality of movement of Energy in the body appear. During this period, the practice aims to unblock individual body centers on the vertical axis, and this flow is to be accompanied by the subjective sensation of luminosity coming not only from the body, but also, in a psychological sense, by the experience of the “expansion of boundaries” of one’s own self.
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This article takes a closer look at the social world of haṭha yoga practitioners who post content online on the popular website Instagram. The analysis of the available research material included both photographs and, to a greater extent, descriptions accompanying the photographs. The data posted on the app became the source of the analyzed meanings and definitions of yoga constructed by the online community centered around yoga practice.
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If at the end of the 20th century you wanted to know whether Moscow or the authentic extreme left had been more powerful in postwar Central Europe, you had to go to Russia. The promising partial opening of the Soviet archives began a trend and researchers let themselves be seduced by the vision of uncovering the secrets of Bolshevism’s success. The symbolic representation of this vision was an imaginary map of the blank spaces in Soviet history.
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The paper deals with the delimitation and access to the historical bases of pre-school education, whose author is the momentous German pedagogue F. W. A. Froebel and points to the importance of his pedagogical work for contemporary pedagogy. Article presents eminent thoughts influencing the establishment of kindergartens, which have become the principal fundamentals of institutional education of preschool children around the world. In the paper are 1. delineated documents that deal with the topic and present the state of the issue in Slovakia as well as abroad; 2. formulated bases of projected research in the area in question from the acquired knowledge.
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This paper explores the relationship between reality and dream, between the real and the unreal in the Francophone imaginary. It describes the evolution of this relationship in all its aspects and approaches starting from the Romantics. The analysis is based on Francophone literature in Belgium, which is characterized by an intricate tension between the real and the unreal. Ulenspiegel’s Legend by Charles De Coster is considered to be the founding text on human propensity to dream and it paves the way for Modernist aesthetic theories. The same approach can be found in Maurice Maeterlink’s works where the threshold between reality and unreality is widely discussed. Franz Hellens, who promoted the fantastic in his works, wrote what can be termed as an extension of surrealism in Belgian literature, while Michel de Ghelderode associated onirism with painting-ness. The power of dreams in Marguerite Yourcenar’s characters relied on the theory of the communicating vessels, and Jean Ray adopted a classical fantastic centered on the paranormal. The paper ends with Paul Willems whose works are imbued with onirism and magic realism.
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