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Both the German language and the Evangelical A. C. (meaning Lutheran) confession are constitutive components of the identity of the autochthon minority of the Transylvanian Saxons. During Reformation in the 16th century, Latin was replaced by the vernacular languages, which for the Germans in Transylvania was the Saxon dialect. In the middle of the 19th century a change occurred from Transylvanian Saxon to standard German as the language of sermon. This change took place gradually and at a slow pace. The Reports of Bishop Georg Daniel Teutsch on his General Church Visitation during the years 1987–1888 give evidence about this process, which is most interesting from the sociolinguistic viewpoint. The present paper investigates the bishop’s Reports, looking for Teutsch’s comments on the use of languages in the evangelical church and bundles the conclusions of the Saxon church leader.
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237,000 Germans were registered in the census of 1930. They formed 8,3% of the Transylvanian population and were the core of the German minority in Romania after 1918. The Transylvanian Saxons’ economic force was greater than their percentage within the total of the Transylvanian population. In 1919, the Transylvanian Saxons were already an economic elite with a long-lasting tradition. In the Middle Ages, the wealthiest craftsmen and merchants were those who exercised the leadership of the entire community. In modern times, the guilds were abolished. These were replaced in time by manufactures, factories and banks. Some of their owners imposed themselves in the leadership of the economic life. Oftentimes, they sent their sons to study in Germany and soon after these became part of the economic elite. Members of the economic elite also arose from the ranks of Transylvanian Saxon farmers. There were about 15,000 homesteads, each having 10 hectares of land. The sons of these farmers were attending the four Saxon peasant schools. Afterwards, some of them attended colleges for agriculture in Germany and Romania. They made an important contribution to the success of this economic branch. Fritz Connert was one of the most prominent figures of the agricultural economic elite. He was the leader of the Saxon Association for Agriculture, editor of the association’s newspaper, member of Parliament. The winegrower Michael Ambrosi was also a member of Parliament and of the association’s leadership. The teachers giving lessons at the agricultural schools were also part of the elite of this field. Members of the industry and commerce elite came from real dynasties of these economic branches: Scherg, Rieger, Schiel, Czell, Jickeli, Misselbacher et al. These branches were represented in Parliament by: Arthur Polony, Otto Herzog, Carl Schiel. The best known representative of the banking elite was Gustav Adolf Klein, the director of the most important Saxon bank. The Saxon economic elite contributed to new directions in the country’s modernization and economic development. It also brought important contributions to this process, and held a special position in Romania’s economic elite. Its characteristics were: high-level expertise, solidarity with the Saxon community, business relations and cultural ties with the mother country Germany. During the interwar period, this elite was constantly renewing itself with new young members, trained at Romanian and German schools. However, many of them came back with Nazi ideas.
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This article investigates the social dimension of the industrialization process in Romania during the first decade of the communist regime by a case study: the steel production center of Calan located in the Hunedoara region. It pays a particular attention to the ways in which the mobility of the labour force towards the Victoria Steel Plants influenced the process of urbanization in the area. This investigation is based on the employment records of the workers of this industrial center. These files include autobiographies, letters of recommendations, technical evaluations, as well as personal information about the workers’ financial situation and family, education, employment history, political activity prior to 1945. Given the highly influential part of the propagandistic discourse, I premise on the assumption that such documents illustrate an outcome of the joint between the official identity and individual interests. Accordingly, this article argues that the state-led program of intensive industrialization, urbanization and mobility of the labor force conducted by the Romanian communist government during the 1950s had two effects. First, the decision-making factors developed a well-shaped hierarchical bureaucratic network across the country, which had to secure the functioning of the program and the financial and material economic resources through institutional control and loyal elites’ involvement. Second, as the population’s transfer from rural to urban areas occurred given the political program of agricultural collectivization, the integration of the new comers within the urban space as well as their every day practice were profoundly marked by the previous experiences, subjective reading of the state-led politics and personal interests and expectations. This coincided with a complicated process of renegotiation of the collective and individual identities within the Romanian socialist public space. While for the state, industrial work was a conducted collective experience, and labor was both means to the regime’s self-legitimating drive and illustrative of the commensurate increase in the population’s consumer satisfaction, workers experienced labor individually by acceptance and/or contestation of some spaces, which took multitude of forms.
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The Romanian medieval society has experienced a constant concern for the proper administration of the assets of minor orphans, as shown in the code known as Cartea românească de învăţătură (Romanian Book of Precepts), based on Byzantine law. In the process of modernization of the Romanian society, we see that there is a trend in order to law codification: rules on guardianship can be found in the Andronache Donici Textbook, the Calimach Code and the Organic Regulation. A new law in this area was approved on May 24th, 1840. In establishing the Tutorship Commission on permanent proceeding, the state authority intends to protect the wealth and interests of orphans, ,,who are entitled to find in the care of Government fair compensation for the loss of their parents”. We publish four documents drafted by the Bacău district authorities between August 30th, 1840, and November 5th, 1845, following the entry into force of the new legislation on the Tutorship Commission. The interested reader will find in these documents a different kind of information concerning the names of the orphansʼ families, their tutors, the date on which the guardianships have been established, the age of minors etc. From these lists we can understand better the ,,world” of the small towns of Moldavia in the mid-nineteenth century, its merchants, craftsmen and small landowners, whose children inherit inns, houses, shops or lands. Altogether, the documents are a useful source of information for researchers interested in the legal, social and economic aspects of Moldavian society of that period of time.
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During the communist regime, tens of thousands of officers and NCOs belonging to Securitate, Militia, and Penitenciaries, have served the repressive apparatus. Among them an impressive number of militaries who have gone beyond their duties by personally participating to or giving orders for (VOs or written ones) murder, torture and mutilation of thousands of inmates, be they political prisoners or just common law criminals. Their deeds remained unpunished for the most part, although they were breaking the Communist Constitution and the legislation in force. The current study, which was initially released in the cyberspace (February 22, 2014), presents the case of an officer of the Ministry of the Internal Affairs germane to the classic typology of cadres that the Communist regime used to recruit in order to run and administer the Romanian penitentiary system.
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The first documented mention of the village of Dănceni, in the district (rayon) of Ialoveni appeared in a source dated April 16, 1617 (1725): a charter, known only through a Romanian translation, issued in Iaşi by Prince Radu Mihnea, confirming the possession of Nestor Ureche, great vornic (governor) of Ţara de Jos, over all his villages (inherited, came through donations or purchased, as already confirmed by the previous Princes). Among the list of estates there was also the „village Dănicini upon Işnovăţ and part of the village of Chilii of Işnovăţ”, the latter being, in fact, the village of Cheile (Işnovăţului), integrated today in the area of the city of Ialoveni. The name of the village of Dănceni probably comes from the name of an owner Danciul, as in the case of homonymous village of Dănceni in the district (ţinut) of Soroca, where this etymology has been established using documentary evidence. The research of Danciul, the man who gave his name to this village should be among the closest ascendants of the first known owner – the great vornic Nestor Ureche (* about 1550 to 1555, † 1618), father of the chronicler Grigore Ureche. Also, if the village came from the dowry of Nestor’s wife, Danciul may be also one of her ancestors.The ownership of the Ureche family in Dănceni, even before Nestor Ureche, was certified by the documents. It is also known that Nestor Ureche used a hereditary heraldic achievement, as attested by seals connected with three generations. Thus, the mark of the Ureche family was chosen as the main charge of the coat of arms of Dănceni village, as a symbol of the former property of this illustrious family of boyars, over the estate of Dănceni.The second key element from this project is the heraldic color of field – cherry-red – a characteristic enamel personifying the name of Işnovăţ watercourse, upon which is located the village of Dănceni.The third heraldic charge is a fish, which symbolizes the Lake of Dănceni, famous for its fish attraction. "The Great Lake" of Dănceni is mentioned in an act of demarcation of the domain of the village, dating from July 12, 1777.The coat of arms of the Dănceni village is: cherry-Gules, with the mark of Ureche family (a label of three points with patty endings, the one in the middle finishing in crosslet-patty) Or, over a fish Argent in fess. Coronet of a village Or.The flag is a square canvas cherry-red, bearing the yellow mark of Ureche family, accompanied in the lower third of the canvas by a white fish in fess.The above-mentioned symbols, conceived by the author of this article and drawn by the artists Mariana Şlapac and Iurie Caminschi, were approved by the National Committee of Heraldry the day of July 2, 2013 (protocol no. 195-IV) and by the Dănceni Village Council the day of October 17, 2013 (decision no. 4.8).
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The article focuses on the process of Sovietisation of the city of Bălți during Stalin’s rule of USSR. Being a territory occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940, Bessarabia was quite different from other regions of USSR. It had a poor industry, the most important branch of economy being agriculture. Also, it was different from an ideological and social point of view. The first aim of the Soviet cadres sent by Moscow to rule the newly established Moldavian SSR, which comprised two thirds of Bessarabia and several rayons of the former Moldavian Autonomous SSR, was to organize and strengthen the Soviet state control over the region. Analysing the case of the city of Bălți, the author identified the political, economic and social tools used to accomplish this purpose. From the Moscow’s point of view, all the Bessarabians, despite their social or national origins or their political views, could not be trusted because they where former Romanian citizens. The Soviet state appointed in all important functions only non-Bessarabian cadres. The industrial enterprises and the number of the population of the city of Bălți grew fast as a result of the economic and social policies applied by the Soviet state. The growth of the population was a result of the arrival of workers and of the staff of state institutions. From 1940 to 1948 the population grew from 30.000 of inhabitants to 60.000 of inhabitants mainly due to the arrival of non-Bessarabian people. From the point of view of All-Union C(b)P this was a measure aimed to increase the social support of the regime in the city and to accelerate the process of Sovietisation of the region. An important step was to create the conditions for a bigger population by investing in dwellings. The elimination of real or virtual enemies of the regime, by arrest or exile, was another policy applied in this period in the city of Bălți that was not only a constituent part but rather a central part of the Sovietization.
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In this article, the author reflects on the fatal traffic accident which happened on 27 October 1966 at the mountain pass Karaula, between Olovo and Kladanj. A bus carrying school children from the “Mitar Trifunovic Uco” primary school from Gračanica, who were returning from a school trip, had an accident. Five people lost their lives (three students and their teacher, and one travel companion). Higher number was injured seriously or slightly. The accident happened during the collision with a JNA military vehicle. According to the testimony of a large number of participants of event, the culprit was the driver of the military truck that hit the school bus.
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The dynamic development of industry in Konin and its vicinity launched in the 1950s and the issuing inflow of population from different regions have altered the character and perception of Konin and the Konin District. In view of all these new phenomena, it is of major importance to culturally define the latter. It is monuments that constitute one of the essential values consolidating historical awareness and cultural identity of a nation and, within it, of small communities (Heimats). Monuments create priceless legacy passed on from generation to generation, while building the prestige of, not only, the place where they are located, but also, of the whole region. Today’s territory of the Konin District differs from its historical boundaries, altered and trimmed after Poland’s partitions in the late 18th c. The cultural identity of the region was for many centuries shaped by an impressive set of monuments present within the pre-partition Konin District. Also today, the rich legacy of monuments should contribute to the cultural identity and development strategy of the region. The high quality of the historic substance and the Konin Region’s attractive leisure offer promise a strong tourist branding of the ‘Konin District’ whose promotional motto could read: ‘The Konin District - rich in nature and culture’.
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The article reflects the influence of Kaizer Germany on the struggle for independence and democracy in Georgia (1901 – 1921). It also analyzes the international activity of political organizations of Georgia and the conditions of the agreement, which made Germany the guarantee of the Georgian independence.
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Jewish settlment in the Kielce region began to a greater extent at the end of the 17th century. In the 19th and 20th centimes the number of Jews in the region rapidly grew and an economic expansion of the Jewish community took place. At the brink of Polish independence and in the years that followed, the economic plane remained the basic field of Polish-Jewish relations. Competition in that field often caused tensions and, sometimes, generated open conflict. Other aspects of life, such as socializing, social and cultural activity were lead separately. The both communities lead their lives in voluntary isolation, which was being cemented by the two different systems of beliefs (Christianity and Judaism), as well as by a hundreds of years of tradition.In the period of the Second Polish Republic in the Kielce region, two waves of worsening of the Polish-Jewish relations could be observed. The first one took place during the period of setting the framework for the independent Polish state in the years 1918-1921. At that time the national aspirations of the Poles and Jews collided. The Jews aimed at achieving a wider autonomy in Poland (as well as in East-Central Europe generally), must have been met with a counter action on the Polish part, which aimed (or at least some of its political movements) at strengthening and consolidating the state. Some role in the outburst of social unrest was certainly also played by the attitude of some Jews (mostly the Communist followers), as well as by the difficult material situation of the people. Some more significant anti-Jewish disturbances were recorded in some towns such as Częstochowa, Wolbrom or Olkusz.The second wave of social unrest, far more intensive than the first one, took place in the mid 1930s. The ground for these tensions was provided by the economic crisis, which resulted in an increased competition between Polish and Jewish enterpriseand increasingly difficult material standing of the people. Additionally, national movements on both sides had developed (the National Camp and Zionism). In the years 1935-1937 there have been disturbances of an anti-Jewish background. The most well- known oftheose remain the disturbances in Odrzywół (1935), Truskolasy (1935), and Przytyk (1936). In the years 1935-1939 there have been 277 assaults on Jews, during which 388 people were beaten up, 232 homes were devastated (to a greater or lesser extent) and over 6000 windows were broken. Although the relations, especially in the times of increased tensions, had not always been perfect, the Jewish citizens enjoyed a lot of freedom, which is indicated by the lush development of social and cultural life of the Jewish community in the Kielce region. Dozens of magazines were being published, 19 ofwhich were written in Yiddish; 217 Jewish associations were active,numerous Cheiders and yeshivot and Jewish high schools, as well as theatres, libraries and sports clubs were open.
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The difficult Polish-Jewish relations in the years 1945-1947 in the Kielce region were influenced by Poland’s political and social situation immediately after the end of the World War 2. The article characterizes the risks and challenges which the Polishand Jewish communities faced in the first two years after the war. The awareness of immense demographic and material losses, the catastrophic living conditions, mass banditry and the struggle of the anti-communist underground resistance, both political and armed, against the new authorities, combined with the process of social reforms and the sense of insecurity they caused - were factors that worsened the morale of both the Polish and the Jewish citizens. Along with the strengthening of the new government, there was an animosity arising among some Poles against the Jewish minority. The source of this antipathy was mainly in the over-representation of the Jews on high positions within state authorities, their perceived and real privileges and the non-assimilation of the surviving Jews with the surroundings.
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The article presents the voting behavior in the municipality of Uniejów in the elections of 2015. The electoral behavior examined includes the turnout and voting results in each of the elec-toral districts and synthetically in the city-country relation. The article also attempts to explain the variation in voter turnout and transfers within the electorate.
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This article tackles the topic of street names and other public spaces in the city of Stettin/Szczecin within the last hundred years. As the city was placed in German Empire, Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, People’s Republic of Poland, and Republic of Poland, the city and its inhabitants have experienced a dramatic change within this period of time. Many names of public spaces offer a deep insight of those processes. Most names have been changed and replaced several times; a very little part of them has remained the same until today. The article takes a cultural science orientation and offers two methods of researching. It is meant to be a contribution to further analysis.
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Local people from the area of the Greek-Bulgarian armed conflict in October 1925 because of military weakness of Bulgaria carried the brunt in defence of the state border. They did not allow the Greeks to penetrate deeper into Bulgarian territory. From the first days of the conflict, IMRO played significant role in events with its combat units – bands and peasant militia.
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The main author's purpose is to present analytically and evaluate the anniversary historical event from different perspectives. This option opens by introducing tools inherent to international law, the knowledge of conflicts and political science in general. The research tasks are in three directions: Clarifying the nature of inter-state conflict to focus its major phases and emphasizing the reasonable direction of Bulgarian foreign policy, the unity of all the major national factors in the development of the conflict, and also led by the “spirit of Locarno” effective peacekeeping intervention of the League of Nations.
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The European press reflects broadly the developments in Petrich in 1925. As if to wash the image of the great powers of the injustice to Bulgaria, now the press expressed sympathy and support of the Bulgarian cause. This general opinion in many European newspapers is accompanied by explaining the aggressive policy of the Greek authorities against the Bulgarian population in Aegean Macedonia – closure of schools, churches, expulsion of priests and teachers, not recognition of minority rights.
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In the archive there are original archival material (161 sheets) relating to the events of October 1925 in Petrich region that probably came to General Todorov when he was appointed Regional Manager of Petrich after developing conflict at the border. On documents there is no detected handwriting, signature or an explanation of the general himself.
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