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The introductory essay explains the motivation for this discussion forum. After the success of Samuel Moyn’s slim book on Utopian human rights, the American historians of human rights began to turn a blind eye to the whole period before the 1970s, including the Age of Enlightenment. The focus is now more on persons and events of the Utopian decade, and not on the history of human rights. „On the Spirit of Rights“ is a recent monograph by an influential American historian, which may help reverse the tide. There follows a brief summary of the argument of the book and an introduction to the participants in the discussion. In his discussion of enlightenment authors, Edelstein focuses on the question whether they recognized natural rights after the social contract. He calls such an approach the „preservation regime“ and identifies the physiocrats as authors of such a solution.
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Dan Edelstein responds to the comments by Thérence Carvalho, Olivier Grenouilleau, Emmanuelle de Champs and Ivo Cerman. He sums up the argument of his book and stresses that it was not only about 18th century and physiocracy. He explains that the book was motivated by his efforts to bridge the gap which appeared in US historiography, where an older trend stressed natural law, while a second newer trend focuses only on natural rights and the twentieth century. Edelstein follows the view that natural rights and natural law are two sides of the same coin. He defends the importance of Roman Law and Montesquieu for the critique of slavery. In the responses Edelstein underscores the religious grounding of natural law, the importance of medieval thinkers and the merits of the Catholic Church for renewing the interest in natural law at the end of the nineteenth century. Even though we like the result of this religious thinking, we do not like the metaphysical foundation on which it stands.
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The article discusses the recent movement initiated by the NYT to „reframe“ American history, as if the United States was established in 1619 and its main aim was to preserve slavery at any price. We sum up the timeline of the discussion from 2019 till the present. Since an East European historian sees the striking similarities with the Communist anti-American propaganda, we ask here, to what extent is this present approach dependent on the propagandist image of the past. In the first part, we explore the way history of Black Americans had been exploited by the propaganda from 1951 to 1990, then we examine the arguments put forward by the present-day 1619 Project. Whereas the Communist propaganda put emphasis on the principle that Black and white workers should unite against capitalism (or „fascism“), the present-day approach sees Black Americans as the only exploited class in the US. It has racialized also many other elements of the Marxist historiography (e.g. primary accumulation, class struggles).
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The subject of this paper is the study of Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo, as a place of interdisciplinary discussion of the concepts which shaped the historical development of anthropology and psychoanalysis. After explaining the psychoanalytically informed concept of cultural origins, the paper will discuss the most significant anthropological criticism addressed at Freud. At the time of publication of the study, the existence of totemism had already been called into question, and the deconstruction of the totemism was completely formulated by Lévi-Strauss. The paper deals with Alfred Kroeber’s critiques, and then considers Malinowski’s first critique of the universality of the Oedipus complex, based on his research of the matrilineal society of the Trobriand. Freud applied psychoanalytic findings to social phenomena for the first time in this study of totemism. The purpose of this paper is to present the early disagreements between anthropology and psychoanalysis, as well as possible implicit readings of Freud’s work.
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Relying on Foucault’s theoretical differentiation of three derived management models reflecting the historical and political response to the emergence of three infectious diseases, namely leprosy, the plague and smallpox, this paper will consider the manner in which the approach of health policy-makers in Serbia has changed before, during and after the introduction of the state of emergency caused by the outbreak of the SARS-CoV2 epidemic, largely following the ideal-typical description of these three models of confronting the infection. Starting with the idea of identifying and completely isolating those that are infected from the community for the purpose of preserving a “clean” society, typical of the period of the spread of leprosy, through the idea of introducing quarantine and monitoring mechanisms for the purpose of establishing a disciplined society, typical of the period of the spread of the plague, to the reliance on vaccination and abandonment of the idea of complete eradication of the pathogens, i.e., reliance on statistics and risk analyses for the purpose of long term understanding and curbing the epidemic, typical of the outbreak of smallpox, it is possible to identify significant similarities of these historical models with different stages in managing the crisis caused by the Covid-19 epidemic in the contemporary local context.
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The construction of modern Romania has been achieved, not only through the efforts of politicians and culture people, who proposed and made the necessary reforms, but also by the teachers's contribution, especially rural teachers. Besides the class and extracurricular students activities of lifting the masses through education, teachers have also been involved in solving other problems, with impact on the community, such as the study of natural phenomena (climate and influence on vegetation, earthquakes), contributing to the foundation of Romanian scientific research in this field. This study presents the role of Bacau teachers in the development of Romanian meteorology and seismology at the end of the XIX-th century and the beginning of the XX-th century.
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The article develops K. Randsborg’s idea, according to which the decorative elements of the Trundholm disc have the character of calendar symbols. When considering these elements in their structural and numerical groupings, astronomical and calendar significance is found for all belts of both sides of the disk, and the proposed interpretations are consistently contextual. One discloses on the right side of the disk an 8-year cycle connecting the counting of days according to the sun and to the moon, 16 transitions of the sun from winter solstice to summer solstice, and 27 weeks of the summer half of the year. The patterns represented on the left side of the disk are relevant to the night sky: the same 8-year cycle, since it refers to the counting of days not only according to the sun, but also according to the moon; either division of a year into 10 months or the 19-year cycle of the return of both the moon and sun to their common position with respect to the stars; 25 weeks of the darker, winter half of the year. One concludes that in Denmark of the Bronze Age two types of calendars were used: lunisolar, which regulated the timing of religious festivals, and a solar, so to speak, civil, with a year made up of two not quite equal half-years, 52 weeks and 364 days (probably coexisting with knowledge of a year of 365 ¼ days). The data concerning the medieval Scandinavian calendars, on the one hand, and ancient calendars of Greece and the Near East, on the other, are in perfect agreement with the above conclusions.
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In this study we aimed at understanding the concept of Tradition in the thinking of theologians Georges Florovsky and Dumitru Stăniloae. I propose to highlight the main contributions of these theologians regarding the importance of Tradition in the current theological approach. Although the writings of the Holy Fathers weren’t unfamiliar to the Orthodox theologians before these two fathers, as well as to the theologians from their time, the difference consisted of the way of relationing to the patristic work and thought. Georges Florovsky is the theologian who officially announced at the Athens Congress of 1936 the need to restructure Orthodox theology on its patristic foundations by returning to its origins, to patristic thinking unaltered by rationalism, abstract scholasticism, idealism, syncretism, and religious individualism. Although he didn’t elaborate a proper synthesis, he laid down the foundations of a new method in theology: the neo-patristic method. On the other hand, Father Stăniloae rediscovers the importance of Palamite theology, Hesychasm, and Philokalism, and he accomplishes a true neo-patristic synthesis, able to free the Orthodox theology from those Western influences that Father Florovsky pointed out in his writings. The present study aims to expose the main directions of the neo-patristic synthesis related to the dynamic and creative updating of the Church Tradition in the works of Fathers Georges Florovsky and Dumitru Stăniloae.
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The article explores Moravian manuscripts as a source of literary and social history, focusing on the Latvian part of Livland with the aim of providing an overview of Latvian manuscript literature and highlighting the most significant research perspectives. Written and rewritten in the eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, Moravian manuscripts build a heterogenous body of texts, including religious speeches, hymns, biographical writings, historical treatises, letters, and devotional literature. The development of the tradition of Moravian handwritten literature has been viewed in the article from the point of view of literary history by focusing special attention on historical texts and life stories. The effects of Moravian manuscripts have been analysed within the context of social change and emancipating trends brought about by the Moravian movement.
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National history is often opposed to transnational history and considered an outdated approach to studying the past. Yet it is unclear why this should be so, especially if national history is defined merely by a concern with what is perceived as national and not wedded to any particular methodology. The article sets out to analyse the various meanings of national history by exploring one of its manifestations in action: the ‘Estonian orientation’ that arose in the 19th century and came into conflict with existing Baltic German historiography. The ‘Estonian paradigm’, as Jaan Undusk has characterised it, is interesting not only as an example of national history (of which there are, of course, many) but also because of the way its exponents described their own intervention. They claimed to ‘write history from the point of view of Estonians’. It can thus be seen as a predecessor of later attempts to change the viewpoint from which history is written (for example ‘history from below’, animal or environmental history). In order to examine more closely the role of viewpoint in history writing, the article begins by setting out the differences between the Estonian and Baltic German orientations as they had developed by the 1930s. The Estonian historian Hans Kruus deserved particular attention since he was the first to offer a theoretical account of the effects of an historian’s social position upon the work produced. Whilst his analysis was a rather crude application of Marxism, it led him to distinguish between various forms of bias: a tendency to privilege certain subject matter and a tendency to treat it in a manner most favourable to one’s social group. The emergence of a rival body of work, strongly revisionist in character, also prompted a few Baltic Germans (for example Arved von Taube) to appreciate the importance of viewpoint in history writing. After following this parallel development (it can hardly be seen as an exchange, since Estonians and Baltic Germans never engaged with each other on such theoretical matters), the article moves on to ask if the two orientations were really as dissimilar as they were made out to be. I suggest that the two, although starkly contrasted in their depiction of historical events, were representative of a shared tradition of homeland history (Vaterlandsgeschichte).
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On models of interpretation and Uku Masing or how to understand „Üldine usundilugu“? This article deals with the issue of using conceptual and historical models for the purposes of interpreting Uku Masing. Primary focus is on his major work, „Üldine usundilugu“ and how it has been understood over the years and why these interpretations are misleading. Instead, an alternative reading of this book is presented. This is used to exemplify the more complex methodological problem of relying on historical and conceptual models in research. It is argued that this has become too prevalent in research on Masing. Instead, more attention should be paid to the actual intellectual context of Masing’s development, the fields of research and the schools of thought he himself is in clear dialogue with.
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The publication includes documents on the history of the public organization IMRO – UMS (Union of Macedonian Societies). The organization originated from the Union of Macedonian Cultural and Educational Societies in Bulgaria, restored in 1990, and lasted until the end of the 1990s, when the political party IMRO – Bulgarian National Movement was established on its basis. The documents show the official position of IMRO – UMS on the Macedonian issue and its efforts to defend the rights of the Bulgarians in the newly created after the break-up of communist Yugoslavia independent Republic of Macedonia (now Northern Republic of Macedonia).
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The article is the first comprehensive analysis of Peter the Great’s role in the formation of the Chinese vector of Russian foreign policy at the beginning of the XVIII century. The contribution of Peter the Great to this process can hardly be overestimated. Through his activities, the first Russian emperor laid foundations for creating a unified Eurasian geopolitical and sociocultural space and formed the paradigm of the Eurasian policy of the Russian Empire. During this period, thanks to Peter the Great’s efforts, Russian-Chinese trade entered the phase of active development. The establishment of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Beijing marked the beginning of spiritual, scientific and cultural ties between the two countries. The policy of Peter the Great towards China on the whole was aimed at maintaining peace and good neighborliness between the two countries and tranquility on the Russian-Chinese border. The relevance of this topic at the present time is due to the steady pivot of Russia’s foreign policy to the East and the need for a deeper study of the history of Russian-Chinese relations.
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Professor Anton Domide was born in the village of Şanţ (today in the county of Bistriţa-Năsăud) on 18 December 1880. He began his school in his native village and continued his studies in Năsăud, at the Gymnasium and at the Hungarian State Preparatory School in Deva. After graduated from “Pedagogia Superioară” in Pesta (1905), he went to the Romanian Greek-Catholic Preparatory School in Gherla where he taught mathematics, physics, chemistry, natural sciences, geography and astronomy, being a supporter of the modernization of education at that time. After three years of fruitful activity, Professor Anton Domide was dismissed by the Consistory of the Greek Catholic Diocese of Gherla, as a result of his reformist ideas. The move sparked protests among his colleagues and heated controversy in the press at the time. As a result, in 1908 he was transferred to a secondary school in Hajduszoboszlo, Hungary. After the Great Union, he worked as a teacher at several schools in Cluj, and he performed other professional and community activities. During this period, wealso find him involved in the problems of Orthodoxy in the Rodna Valley during the inter-war period, with his revival centre Sângeorgiul Român (Sângeorz-Băi). Transylvania being ceded in the autumn of 1940, he took refuge in the house of his son, in Timişoara, where he worked as a teacher at the “Constantin Diaconovici-Loga” High School until 1942, when he retired. He died on 4 December 1944.
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Elisabeta Scurtu, Familii de preoţi greco‑catolici din Ţara Năsăudului 1700–1948, Editura Mega, Cluj-Napoca, 2021, 266 p. Grigore Mihai Stavariu, Feldru, un sat din graniţa năsăudeană, Ed. Argonaut, Cluj-Napoca, 2021, 784 p. 784 de pagini recente pentru FELDRU Poenar Dănuţ, Coşna. File de istorie, Ed. Pim, Iaşi, 2020, 747 p. .
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In the Christian world, the worship of relics dates back to the second century of the Christian era. The veneration of the earthly remains of the saints, considered lucky and having healing powers, came to occupy a very important place in the culture of saints’ worship. The relics retained all the prerogatives of the holy bodies of which they were a part, having the great power to heal the sick, to protect the communities from epidemics and invasions, to bring good fortune and prosperity. Moreover, people believed that the remains of the saints had unsuspected powers, including the power to secure the connection between the world of the living and the heavenly world, in which God reigns and judges. Relics were found to be the solution for almost every problem. As a form of popular devotion, the worship of relics has occupied an extremely important place in the history of Christianity, its evolution being long-lasting and allowing the analysis of the most intimate feelings of the members of the Christian community. One may state that this cult of relics is one of the most amazing and striking aspects of medieval religious life.
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The article has as subject the impact of the plague on the collective mentality in the Romanian space during the 16th and 17th centuries. Of all the calamities that befell people during the Middle Ages, and especially during the 16th and 17th centuries, the plague was undoubtedly one of the most frightening. The lack of logical explanations for the cause of its occurrence and its way of spreading, its devastating effect on those infected and the inability to apply effective treatment made this contagious disease have a profound impact on the collective mind. Thus, the sources that recounted the events related to this calamity, the periods in which it spread and deeply affected the population of Transylvania, Moldavia and Wallachia are highlighted. The way in which the people of those centuries tried to explain the causes of the plague, the measures of prophylaxis imposed, even sporadically, and the effort made by human communities, both in rural areas and especially in urban areas, to overcome this terrifying calamity are contained in the pages of this article. In the face of this threat, people were trying to take measures that mainly consisted in isolating the sick and fleeing the calamity. When they proved ineffective — that is, almost every time — the people tried to find the support of the divinity or resorted to ancient rituals, in which they placed their last hopes.
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This paper discusses the medieval theological and political history, and the difference between blue and red blood. The popular phrase blue blood had a special significance during the Middle Ages, and its echo has been present in our culture ever since. One might think that such an abstract concept is only an insignificant legend that emerged from the oral folk tradition without any roots in theory and literature. The author’s intention is to present the concept of blue and red blood as a part of fictional genre theory. The fictional genre discourse becomes especially evident when the king’s simultaneously natural and supernatural bodies, or more simply, the notion that the king possesses a superbody, are discussed. In the given period the concept of blue blood, which referred to the king’s dignity, was coined. Thomas Hobbes, in his famous work Leviathan, develops the social contract theory, which is used to explain the development of the modern political community. Blue blood becomes red when an ordinary citizen becomes involved in politics, as this paper confirms.
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