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The following paper presents an extensive overview over the motivations, circumstances and consequences of the foundation of an Hellenistic gymnasium and the constitution of a civic group of “Antiochenes” within early Seleucid Jerusalem by the philhellenic Jewish elite gathered around the high priest Jason
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The fifth chapter of the First Book of Maccabees recounts a whole range of wars waged by Judas Maccabeus against Judaea’s neighbours, who are depicted as threatening the lives of the Jews living in their midst. The account of these punitive expeditions contains the only explicit reference found in the book to an anathema (ḥerem) against a foreign people, a reference which has led some scholars to see Judas as re-enacting the biblical prescription of the ḥerem against the Canaanites. In contrast with this interpretation, the present article argues that the description in 1 Maccabees 5 is highly literary and rhetorical, and that it is part of a strategy which aims at presenting Judas as the heir of the first kings of Israel. In particular, a careful literary analysis shows that nearly all the differences between the accounts in 1 and 2 Maccabees can be explained by taking into consideration the project of the author to present Judas’s military expeditions in the light of Saul’s campaigns, following 1 Samuel 10–15 (especially 14:47–48). Given the indebtedness of 1 Maccabees 5 toward such biblical traditions, the historicity of Judas’s wars against Judaea’s neighbours should be re-assessed.
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The success of Roman expansion in the Republican period and the durability of the empire, which survived the fall of the Republic and continued to function for the next few hundred years under the rule of emperors, drew the attention of both scholars and rulers in subsequent eras. The Imperium Romanum became a model for other states that attempted to build their own empires in later times. What captures our attention in discussions on Roman imperialism is mainly one, so far unresolved, dilemma: was Roman expansion a result of the material and psychological benefits that individual social groups enjoyed as a result of the aggressive policy, or a product of the Roman society’s atavistic tendencies for using violence? This seems to be a very difficult question to answer. If we also consider other elements that cause aggression, such as fright, fear (metus Gallicus, Punicus, Etruscus, etc.) of something or someone and a desire to win fame or glory over an enemy, then solving the problem seems impossible indeed. Finding the right answer is not made any easier by the historical sources. On the one hand, they are very biased, as they hide the actual reasons under a thick layer of propaganda and apologetic slogans; so thick, in fact, that in many cases the Romans’ true motives seem incomprehensible. The majority of available accounts present the Romans as the defenders of the weak and their allies. This is the result of a strong propaganda rhetoric used by the Romans in order to justify themselves in contemporary eyes and in posterity too.We should also note one more element that could have had an influence on the development of an imperial mentality in Rome, i.e. the broadly defined civilisation and cultural milieu in which Rome came to be – Italy. A cursory comparison of various Roman war rites with the rituals of other inhabitants of Italy indicates that war was very much a part of the mentality of Italic communities. The presence of war rites in Italic tribes suggests that in Italy, war was an important element of existence. Rome was an integral part of this world, which meant that the presence of a strong military component and aggressiveness in the life of the Roman community was natural.
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Publicly displayed statues constituted an important element of Rome’s presence in the life of a province. Until quite recently this form of communication has hardly been attested in the province of Iudaea/Syria Palaestina giving the impression that it was not practiced. However, large scale excavations in various regions in Israel and the intensive “hunt” for inscriptions and their systematic collection carried out by the CIIP yielded a corrective: there is no doubt left that this form of public communication was widely practiced here as well.
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Vespasian and his sons were forced to create their own style of politics, and, in search of auctoritas and maiestas, they could not neglect the realm of religion. We should bear in mind that in the Roman world, religion was an integral and indispensable component of social and political life. For these reasons, these representatives of the Roman Imperial Dynasty, just like their predecessors and successors, successfully used different forms of activity surpassing the narrow interpretation of the domain of religio, including massive building programmes, monetary policy or even poetry, to express devotion and respect for mores maiorum as well as to confirm the legality of their power by presenting the divine approval of their political strength.It seems legitimate to acknowledge that the Flavian era did not bring revolutionary changes in traditional religion. This clearly shows that the new dynasty was perfectly aware that one of the aspects of a well-functioning Rome was preservation of the ancestors’ customs and a belief in divine protection which could ensure safety, strength and belief in the unity of the Empire.
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Literary sources, inscriptions and coins present Antoninus Pius as an emperor perfectly representing the traditional ideal of a pious emperor who promotes traditional Roman and Italian cults. On the other side his medallions which were meant to some extent as gifts for his close friends show a series of unusual gods and mythical scenes. Some of these medallions seem to reflect the emperor’s personal religious belief. Gods connected to mysteries like Ceres and Cybele as well as healing gods like Aesculapius seem to belong to the emperor’s religious strategies to handle difficult situations as illness and death within his family – and thus reflect a more or less ‘powerless’ side within the topic of ‘power and religion’.
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The imperial cult was a local phenomenon. Religious colleges, like other social groups, included various forms of the emperor cult in the rituals they practised at their own discretion. Most frequently, the collegial imperial cult took the form of ceremonies organised to celebrate anniversaries connected with the emperor. They could be accompanied by foundations of statues or even temples dedicated to the emperor or members of his family. The imperial cult played a special role in the case of corporations, which embraced it as their axis of activity and the main element of their identity. Associations of cultores Larum et imaginum Augusti, regardless of their genesis, were an important element of the very complex phenomenon of imperial cult in the western part of the Roman Empire. Testimonies left behind by their members enable us, to a large extent, to verify the 19th-century vision of the imperial cult, which mainly interpreted it in the context of “religion of loyalty.”
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The study outlines the nearly forgotten historical event of the capturing of the civilian people as prisoners by the Red Army, that was taking control over Northern Transylvania in the fall of 1944. This central, planned and well organized action extended all over the northern region of Transylvania, and it was aimed especially on Hungarians from Szeklerland, central Transylvania and Crișana (Partium). There were taken by force around 20 000 Hungarian men, among them 5000 from the capital city of Transylvania, Cluj (Kolozsvár). The age of the prisoners was between 16 and 55 years. They were deported to several forced labour camps from the Soviet Union. The time spent in captivity in most of the cases was 4 years, but sometimes it could take even 8-9 years. The camps of war prisoners were situated on the territory of Ucraine (for example: Mykolaiv), in Ural Mountains (Ufa, Asa, Magnitogorsk), in Crimean Peninsula (Sevastopol, Simferopol, Feodosia) and in the region of the Sea of Azov (Taganrog) etc. The prisoners had to work in different mines or at loggings in very hard conditions, in summers being engaged in agricultural works in nearby Soviet kolkhozes. As a result of their very hard work and of the acute lack of food and medicines, the prisoners became extremely extenuated. One third of themdied in captivity. This piece of our contemporary history was a taboo subject during the whole Communist era, a real change being brought only by the revolution of 1989. Our study is based mostly on papers and articles published in the last two decades, which deal with these tragic events, and tries to offer an overview on the discussed problem. The source material of the study consists of books, studies, essays, memoirs, published recollections, data and articles printed in contemporary press, as well as interviews with survivors made by the author.
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The First World War changed the destinies and crushed the careers of many foreign civilians who lived in Britain in 1915.Elek Kiss (1888–1971), the former bishop of the Romanian Unitarian Church, was among those civilians who were interned behind the barbed wire at the Frith Hill P.O.W. and Enemy Alien Internment Camp, at Frimley, in Surrey county.The camp, commonly referred to as Frimley, was a forty-acre outdoor camp housing civilians as well as Austrian and German prisoners of war. It was bisected by a public road, on one side the military prisoners, on the other side were the civilian internees. Elek Kiss, a Hungarian Unitarian student of Manchester New College, Oxford, was a civilian internee at Frimley in May and June of 1915.Among his comrades he mentioned in his journal the names of several German prisoners including many Jews.Kiss’s seventy-page archive contains the letters destined to his fi ancé. It is most probable that he never sent these letters, but kept them and brought them back aft er his release. Th ey then disappeared into oblivion for several decades until, fortunately, an anonymous person sold them to the Archive of theTransylvanian Unitarian Church.Th is paper presents a short introduction to the life of Elek Kiss and publishes his authentic Frimley letters. As far we know this is the sole Hungarian language documentation about the internees’ life at Frimley. The English language diary written by the well known painter George Kenner (1888–1971), who was an internee at Frimley at the same time, coincides in many aspects with Elek Kiss’s letters, both as a confessional and as a descriptive representation.
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The paper examines the Frankish presence in Byzantium during 11th century. It was stressed that the mentioned period was the time of a great influx of westerners to the East. At first, most of them visited Constantinople as pilgrims during return journey from the Holy Land. The author points out that the term Franks (Frankoi) was basically attributed to the Eastern Franks/Germans, while in the course of time the Byzantines started to use it to identify rather Western Franks (i.e. French, Normans, Burgundians etc.). The author studies the circumstances in which the new mercenaries and adventurers meet the Empire, trying to define the reason of their success. Another issue investigated in the text is the extent to which Franks got promoted within the social hierarchy in Byzantium during the 11th century. Finally, the author argues that before the presence of great families such as Petraliphai, Raoul or Rogerioi there was at least one house of Frankish descent, which was raised significantly earlier and whose founder was Hervé Frankopoulos.
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The history of Croatian refugees in Italy should be viewed as a stage in history of the Croatian refugee camps from 1943 to 1946. Italy is primarily important as an area which a large number of refugees from the territory ofsouthern Croatia went through, for most of them it was just a stop on a trip to Egypt, and for minority of them it was also a permanent residence till they return to their homeland. It is also significant as an area of the ongoing military cooperation between the partisan movement and the Western allies, a place where the most important operative segments of the Croatian refugee camps were set, where the relationship with the Western allies was elaborated, as well as the importance that the refugee camps could have had on the foreign territory. This minor part of Croatian refugees, which counted maximally up to 7000 people, witnessed the difficult conditions of everyday life in the Italian refugee camps. Impossible living conditions, insufficient clothing, inadequate nutrition and conflicts with the royalists were just some of the indicators of a hard life in the Italian camps. However, the most difficult circumstances were those of medical nature. Various diseases did not spare the members of the camps, especially children who were dying because of inadequate medical care. In addition to all these troubles, life in the camps continued, and it was filled with all sorts of activities in the social, labour, cultural and educational field that made waiting for a return to homeland quicker to pass. Activities of Croatian refugees in the Italian camps had continued until the return of the last group of camps’ members from Italy in March 1945. Within such relationships, activities of the refugee camps in Italy were simply a small sign of what was parallel happening in Egypt.
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In a complex system of controversial events, causes and consequences of World War I, scientific and national historical perspective still differ considerably. I can have the same evidence about an event and yet quite different to understand their meaning. The sole responsibility for the war can not be attributed to a single person or country. Take into account the entire context. Space for further scientific analysis remains open. For historians, with the necessary creative dialogue and broader communication to continue to combine multiperspectival methods and numerous facts “like a puzzle” to get as comprehensive picture of events in this worldscale conflict, which has caused far-reaching political, social and civilizational change
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It is instructive to compare Hitler and Churchill as boys in school. Churchill at St George’s School, Ascot (1884). Headmaster’s remarks. General conduct: “very – bad – is a constant trouble to everybody and is always in some scrape. He cannot be trusted to behave himself anywhere. He has very great abilities.”
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The article concerns the massacre of prisoners that occurred at the Villa Publica few days after the Battle of the Colline Gate. The order to slay the prisoners was issued by Lucius Cornelius Sulla. The view that only Samnites had died in the massacre due to Sulla’s personal hatred of those peoples is deeply embedded in historiography. The author of the article believes that Samnites constituted only a part of the murdered prisoners in the Villa Publica. Also Sulla’s motives were different – he aimed at intimidation of senators who held a meeting at the same time in the nearby Temple of Bellona. The massacre also launched reprisals against political opponents that escalated into the infamous proscriptions.
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In the 1920s and 1930s, the USSR dispatched hundreds of agents and couriers to Romania to take pulse of the society, the armed forces, the political Russian emigration to this country, as well as information about the leaders of the main parliamentary political parties. This study examines the case of such a spy (Simion Babenco) who was entrusted by the Soviet secret services to establish an informative residence in Moldova. Babenco was supposed to gather information, via recruited Romanian citizens, about the Romanian units quartered in the garrisons of Buzău and Focşani. Unfortunately for him, Babenco was arrested by the Siguranţă in the summer of 1939, just few weeks after crossing the border illegally. He was tried by a military tribunal and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for attempted espionage. During detention, he meets the future leader of the Romanian Workers' Party, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, as well as other Soviet spies captured on Romanian ground, most of whom had been around Dej during detention and after communists seized power. The political fate of Babenco after August 23, 1944 was deeply influenced by the proximity to Dej and his entourage.
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Emil Bodnăraş was one of the most mysterious characters of the Romanian communist regime. This mystery was kept alive by Emil Bodnăraş’ undisclosed relations with the Soviet intelligence and his own personal features. That often brought Bodnăraş in the midst of events central for the Romanian Communist Party and Romania, such as the overthrow of Antonescu’s regime, on 23 August 1944. This article follows the role played by Emil Bodnăraş during the RCP internal struggle for power, from the banishment of Ştefan Foriş, the secretary general of the party, on 4 April 1944, to the casting out of the „right deviationists” (Ana Pauker, Vasile Luca, Teohari Georgescu), in May 1952.
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The Author analyses the described in the Old Testament Holy Wars (or YHWH wars) of the ancient Israel, their theoretical construction and theological justification. He argues, that the basic of holy wars is concept of the Covenant between God and the Israeli tribes. Following this train of thoughts, the Author reconstructs the notion of holy war as described in the Old Testament narrations concerning the wars conducted by the Chosen People. He describes their principles and theological roots, first of all the aim of war, enemies of Israel and YHWH, the role of God-warrior and Herem ritual. He compares them with the practice of the different ancient nations of Near East and concludes, that the holy wars of Israel in their construct and justification are different from wars conducted by the others.
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The Author analyses the described in the Old Testament Holy Wars (or YHWH wars) of the ancient Israel, their theoretical construction and theological justification. He argues, that the basic of holy wars is concept of the Covenant between God and the Israeli tribes. Following this train of thoughts, the Author reconstructs the notion of holy war as described in the Old Testament narrations concerning the wars conducted by the Chosen People. He describes their principles and theological roots, first of all the aim of war, enemies of Israel and YHWH, the role of God-warrior and Herem ritual. He compares them with the practice of the different ancient nations of Near East and concludes, that the holy wars of Israel in their construct and justification are different from wars conducted by the others.
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Artykuł traktuje o losie ks. Grzegorza Kuryłasa, kapelana w siłach zbrojnych II Rzeczypospolitej. W czasie II wojny światowej duchowny był organizatorem i szefem duszpasterstwa wojskowego wyznania prawosławnego w Armii Polskiej w ZSRR i Armii Polskiej na Wschodzie. Z pewnością postać ks. Grzegorza należy do najbardziej ciekawych i złożonych w dziejach wojskowego duszpasterstwa prawosławnego w omawianym okresie. Wokół historii księdza narosło wiele niejasności i kontrowersji. W oparciu o źródła archiwalne z Polski i Wielkiej Brytanii Autor omawia kolejne etapy jego służby duszpasterskiej w wojsku. Szlaki żołnierski i kapłański duchownego zostały ukazane na tle wydarzeń politycznych, które wówczas się dokonywały w kraju.
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