Българският комунизъм. Дебати и интерпретации
A presentation of “The Bulgarian communism. Debates and interpretations” – research papers collection, edited by Mihail Gruev and Diana Mishkova
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A presentation of “The Bulgarian communism. Debates and interpretations” – research papers collection, edited by Mihail Gruev and Diana Mishkova
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The primary objective of the study is to find and describe the narrative code of calendar verbal rituals, defined as an unalienable word of the living present. The term narrative code determines a system of rules that has a crucial impact on defining the principles of selecting and combining the elements of the story, i.e. heroes, space, time and plot. The sources for the analysis are verbal rituals excerpted from the ritual and customary practice Vodice (epiphany) in Macedonia. The analysis demonstrated a strong dependence of intratextual narration (i.e. the story creating a work of verbal folklore) on extratextual narration (social and religious). Using the following theories: 1. the memory of religious groups (Maurice Halbawchs), 2. collective and cultural memory (Assmann Jan, Astrid Erll) and 3. commemorative ceremonies (Paul Connerton), has shown how the foundational scenes of extratextual social (change in status) and religious (defined role in the festivities) narration are present in the ritual and customary practice of the Feast of Epiphany.
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When Norman Manea left Romania for Germany in 1986, he was already an established Romanian writer. Two years later he immigrated to the United States of America and ever since he has published ten more volumes. He is currently living in New York, teaching literature at Bard College.Manea’s fiction and non-fiction books published in the United States relate closely to the concepts of history, memory and totalitarianism. The year 1986 was a turning point in his writing. Whereas America gave him the chance to reach a new fiction level, his biography became a crucial source of inspiration for his work.His whole literary trajectory during his exile represents a process of memory incitement, of self-discovery at different ages; by narrating himself, the author bears witness to the violence and destruction caused by both forms of totalitarianism – Nazism and Communism. Using language as an ally to anamnesis, Norman Manea descends into his own past and rediscovers his identity. His memories represent the raw material for a literature that brings together stories of three fundamental experiences: Nazism (with its dehumanizing corollary, the Holocaust), communism (with the White Clown’s perverse pleasure in “order and discipline”) and exile, with language displacement.
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The text discusses the accounts given by the so-called “Lebanese”, as those Poles who at some point of their lives found refuge in Lebanon call themselves. The accounts were recorded in Poland, Great Britain and Lebanon. “The Lebanese” explained the motives that drove people or their families forced to leave their place of stay when taking decisions regarding new destination. Also, the text describes in detail the impressions of the narrators from the new places they found themselves in and how they coped in new reality (on the example of Great Britain and Poland which was a Communist-ruled country at that time). The text aims to familiarize the audience with this subject, about which not much has been said so far.
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This article presents preliminary findings of the oral history project on the subject of the soldiers of the People’s Troops of Poland. Testimonies of ca. 40 “People’s Poland” veterans were recorded (giving more than 2000 hours of audio recordings). These soldiers fought on the Eastern Front, participating in, among others, the battles of Lenino, Budziszyn, and Berlin. The article describes the interviewed group and defines the method applied when conducting the interviews. It also gives a short account of how the interviewed were conscripted into the People’s army. The main part of the article is devoted to pointing to the similarities in the veterans’ accounts. These common elements include interspersing a personal narrative with a broad historical context, underlining that in their individual actions during the war and after it they encountered situations from which there was no escape, using the propaganda expressions dating back to the times of the Polish People’s Republic, and the feeling of being omitted (as a whole group of veterans of the People’s Troops) from the sphere of historical memory after 1989. In the last part of the article, plans for a monograph based on the project are presented.
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The main aim of this article is to analyse the essence and usefulness of beyond-academic usage of oral history as a particularly important part of public history. It discusses oral history as a part of public history as practised by some Polish socio-cultural institutions who concentrate on documenting people’s memories. The author focuses her attention of four centres documenting people’s accounts and their recordings collections. In her opinion, these main Polish centres are: the “Grodzka Gate – NN Theatre” in Lublin, the History Meeting House and the KARTA Centre, the “Topografie” Association in Łódź and the “Remembrance and Future” Center in Wrocław. In order to be able to fully analyse separate social initiatives in Poland, one needs to, in the first place, pay attention to the uniqueness of oral history in the post-Communist countries. Having this context in mind, it is easier to present the way this technique has been adapted to the documentary arena in Poland. First and foremost, the author is most interested in what subjects are covered within the scope of programmes run by these institutions, and what picture of the past is promoted by these institutions in today’s public sphere. She also tackles issues connected with social archive studies conducted by the institutions she is talking about. It is her opinion, that by archiving the testimonies of witnesses to history, these institutions successfully fulfil their task: they do not make their findings and knowledge a secret, they do not treat it as something only a small group of chosen researchers on contemporary history can have access to. Instead, they make it available to anyone who is willing to learn history as presented in individual witnesses’ stories. Somewhere in the background remains the question of the avant-garde and outsiders division, as towards the end of the article the author wants to present as fully as possible the place of beyond-academic oral history in Poland as compared to oral history developed by academic circles.
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Article is an attempt to analyze the image of Lviv’s space in the years of 1919–1939 using the oral history method. Research and analyzes were based on narratives represented by three nationalities: Polish, Ukrainian and Jewish, who lived in Lviv between 1919 and 1939. Each nationality remembered space and life differently. Poles emphasized their longing for a lost paradise, while Ukrainians and Jews recalled Polish cultural domination and discrimination in Lviv.
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This contribution shows how oral history and the concept of ‘belonging’ can be used for the analysis of spatial notions in borderlands over time. By giving examples of her research in the border region of Melilla (Spain) and Nador (Morocco), the author presents a transnational and intersectional approach and shows how spatial imaginaries can be taken into view from a historical perspective.
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The edited interview with a Polish mathematician Andrzej Sołtysiak shows the influence of his father in his decision to study mathematics, the importance of his relationship as a PhD student with his mentor Wiesław Żelazko and the transfer of contacts thanks to Czechoslovak-Polish conferences on functional analysis. The authors show the importance of interconnectedness, individual contacts, and their manifestation in individual memory. They also describe the dialogue characteristics of the interview.
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The paper presents a biographical interview with Dr. Magdalena Rostworowska, an ethnographer and museologist, focusing on her professional experience. Her narrative gives us a valuable insight into the development of the ethnological community in Wrocław with its main institutions: the Polish Ethnographic Atlas, the Polish Ethnological Society and the Ethnographical Museum, as well as the substantive dilemmas and choices of Polish ethnographers who began their research in post-war Lower Silesia.
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On several occasions in the 20th century, the city of Gdańsk has been the backdrop of events that became a part of both local and broader Polish cultural memory, that is a certain canon of knowledge about the past included among others in school curricula and the calendar of annual celebrations and commemorative events.1 Among these we could list the conflict concerning the city’s nationality after the First World War and the establishment of the Free City of Gdańsk, the start of the Second World War with the attack on Westerplatte, the events of December 1970, the anti-communist movement, the strikes of 1980 in the Gdańsk shipyard and the subsequent foundation of the Independent Self-Governing Trade Union ‘Solidarity’ (NSZZ ‘Solidarność’), the martial law, or the mass internment of Gdańsk opposition activists. Institutional and community oral archives existing in the city since the first decade of the 21st century would collected recordings of accounts by residents of Gdańsk who had been associated with these events in some way. Such recordings make up a large part of the archival collections of the Institute of National Remembrance,2 the European Solidarity Centre3 and the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk.4 Individuals recorded by the first two institutions are predominantly people associated with political opposition during the Polish People’s Republic. When it comes to the Museum of the Second World War, the accounts are from those who remembered the experience of the war. Archives profiled in this manner were also more likely to gather topic- -oriented stories rather than life stories.
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Review of: Jakub Gałęziowski, Niedopowiedziane biografie. Polskie dzieci urodzone z powodu wojny (Undertold biographies. Polish children born of war), Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznej, Warszawa 2022, pp. 458.
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Review of: Selma Leydesdorff "Surviving the Bosnian Genocide: The Women of Srebrenica Speak" Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2011.
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The article focuses on gender-specific experiences of Estonian women architects in the late Soviet and post-Soviet Estonia. Architecture has been, and to a great extent still remains, a rather masculinist field, adhering to an image of heroic individualist creative genius and supporting a very demanding and uncompromising work culture. These preconceptions often make it complicated to forge different career paths or to appreciate alternative or more cooperational modes of practice. The article asks if and to what extent the unwritten rules and prejudices have affected Estonian women architects’ experiences in studying architecture, establishing their careers, combining the responsibilities of professional and private lives, and building up their image as (women) designers in a general sense. Based on in-depth interviews with 16 professional architects aged 33–92, the article also highlights the differences and similarities of practising architecture as a woman in the Soviet and post-Soviet social and economic contexts, mapping them onto findings of international feminist research in the context of both Western Europe and the former Eastern Bloc. Additionally, the article refers to the productive possibilities of oral history as a method to complement and challenge the conventional architecture historical writing as well as the intersubjective character of the narratives thus constructed.
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This paper is focused on the modern history of the village Jemnice near Tisová in the Tachov district. We will focus primarily on the first half of the 20th century. This text is primarily focused on comparing collective memories, recent history with oral-historical interviews, and primary and secondary sources. Through comparative methodology, we obtained a comprehensive and objective view of historical events in Jemnice. Through oral-historical research, we were able to fill in the blanks in the modern history of Jemnice.
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The article focuses on Lucavsala, an inhabited island in the River Daugava, as seen through the perspective of Gunārs Indriksons (1940–2023). As one of the few permanent residents who was born and raised in Lucavsala, he provides an insider’s view of the island. His recollections of childhood memories, everyday life on the island, stories passed down from parents and neighbours, and personal experiences create a sense of place and events that have since disappeared. The unique geography of Lucavsala, characterised by its isolation from the surrounding urban environment and the prominent presence of nature, has profoundly influenced Gunārs’ sense of the place. Since 2021, the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art of the University of Latvia has been conducting a project funded by the Latvian Council of Science titled Urban Experiences: Narratives, Memory and Place Heritage. This project explores the neighbourhoods of Pārdaugava by documenting the life experience of residents, local histories, traditions, and processes of change in the area. Lucavsala is one of the locations being studied. Eighteen informants, primarily allotment gardeners, were interviewed using semi-structured interviews. Given that Lucavsala is most commonly associated with allotment gardeners, while its permanent residents remain largely out of the public eye, exploring the character of the place through the story of Gunārs Indriksons is pertinent.
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The research delves into healing traditions within urban environments, offering a detailed analysis of individual healers’ experiences and the reception by their clients through a case study approach. It draws upon a historical and contemporary context provided by research spanning different eras, along with published and unpublished archival materials and interviews with healing practitioners. This publication is grounded in a qualitative study of contemporary healing practices, explored within the framework of contemporary spirituality, distinct from charming raditions. Additionally, the article offers insights into historical research on rural and urban folklore and traditions, outlines the legal and regulatory framework governing contemporary healing practices in Latvia, and elucidates the similarities and integration of these practices into the broader spectrum of contemporary spirituality in Europe and worldwide. The term contemporary spirituality encompasses the diverse habits of contemporary society, characterised by the eclecticism and pluralism in religious beliefs and systems, spiritual and transnational healing practices, and various research approaches focusing on expressions of contemporary spirituality such as New Age, Wicca, Western esotericism, Neopaganism, among others.
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The topic of the article is metalworking and blacksmithing in Mountainous and East Samegrelo. It is suggested that blacksmithing was a fairly advanced economic branch in this region. Kolkheti’s long history of copper and bronze mining, processing, and production survived in later times and became the basis for the development of the iron industry. Data about high bronze and iron processing technologies used in West Georgia and its environs are found in various historical written sources. This fact is believed to be depicted in the Argonaut Myth as well. The evidence of the Region’s strong blacksmithing tradition is the geographical names derived from the root chkad (chedva, which is Georgian for “blacksmithing”). On the other hand, there are toponyms that are connected to blacksmithing, although do not have the root chkad (for instance, Onoshkere meaning a coal bunker, a place where coal was prepared for use in blacksmithing, as well as Saangure, which is a brick furnace for making clay pots and bricks. Probably, pipes of melting furnaces, clay pipes and some other details were also made there). East Samegrelo has more toponyms that refer to blacksmithing than the western part of Samegrelo Region. This fact suggests that blacksmithing was more developed in East and Mountainous Samegrelo than in other parts of Samegrelo Region. As the field ethnographic data gathered in the mid-XX century evidence, a smithy was revered and a blacksmith was regarded a very valuable and important member of the community, although his social status must have been much more honorable in the earliest days of metallurgy. The smithies were where ritualistic swearing and “anathematizing” (a type of curse) took place. On particular days, blacksmiths would pray to “St. Solomos/Solomon”. Although the most recent field materials do not confirm this practice, sacredness of blacksmith shops is still remembered by the locals. Today, blacksmithing in Samegrelo no longer serves the purpose it once did, though one or two smithies are still working primarily making agricultural tools and equipment.
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