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This text deal s with the relationship between the fall of socialism and the profanation of the world. Its basic thesis is that "real" socialism truly and significantly influenced change in the whole world. It had a cultural purport and effective influence on the repression of religion, similar to the process of secularization in Western societies. This political order, however, was far less successful in the attempt to impose upon the religious-ecclesiastical system a new integrative ("scientific", i.e. ideological) system of viewpoints and morality. This unsuccessful attempt, contrary to possible theoretical expectations' did not bring about a strengthening of religious life, but quite the opposite. What had occurred was a deep disillusionment and the loss of interest for all supernatural, for all that transcends the existing world.
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Regaining the legion’s standards (insignia) lost by Crassus as a result of his defeat at Carrhae was widely used in the Roman propaganda during the times of Augustus. The event in question had a rich religious significance in addition to its prestige. Referred to in literature as a factor contributing to the emperor’s glory, as the event was also a prerequisite of and a step towards building the Roman reign without borders. After recovering the standards, the success was celebrated not only in the above-mentioned contexts, but also as a military victory that forced the Parthians into surrendering. The occasion was similarly distinguished in numismatics and iconography, and by means of them promoted the connection of the signa with Mars the Avenger, both due to the character of the god’s veneration and origins thereof. Associating the recovered standards with the god could also involve the fulfilment of Caesar’s obligations and one of his promises.
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Remaining true to the spirit and logic of the war-torn territories, the Dayton Peace Agreement highlights the interdependence of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s (B&H) 'local' problems with the wider region’s problems, and indeed, global problems. 25 years after the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement, we have gained a democracy without a people, a democracy with MP’s defined by their ethnicity, who, at their discretion, interpret the will of the people and dispose of the mandate entrusted to them by their convictions. This paper aims to open up the question of whether the Dayton Constitution alienated B&H’s citizens from their political community. Pointing to the process of alienation from citizenship, which is, among other things, caused by a constitutional architecture that does not conceive of the citizen as an abstract category, the author focuses more on the conditions in which voters are denied real political participation. In theoretical terms, this participation would mean not only resistance to ethnonationalism, but also the creation of opportunities for citizens to unite and make political-strategic, and long-term decisions important for the future of B&H.
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Being a son of the Crown Hetman Mikołaj Potocki, and having inherited the title of the starosta of Kamieniec, Piotr Potocki distinguished himself before 1648 in battles at Kumejki (1637) and Ochmatów (1644), leading the charges of his father’s Cossack unit (rota). From 1643 on, as the starosta of Kamieniec, he was responsible for security of Kamieniec Podolski (a fortress), which proved especially significant during the Chmielnicki Uprising. Since he resided in the fortress also after he had taken office as the voivode of Bracław (1651), rarely did he appear in the General Sejm. Several times he repelled the attacks of Cossack-Tatar armies trying to seized Kamieniec; he participated in the Biała Cerkiew (1651) and Żwaniec campaigns (1653), leading a cavalry regiment. During the Cossack uprisings, he was in charge of organising the net of overt “intelligencers” (early intelligence agents) who would pass information of essence to Vasile Lupu, the voivode (hospodar) of Moldavia. He partook in another Ukraine campaign of the Polish Crown army (in the spring of 1654) resulting from B. Chmielnicki’s surrender in Moscow. In 1655, he appeared to be a faithful supporter of Jan Kazimierz, by guaranteeing the perpetuation of his influence in Kamieniec along with the military forces in his command. In order to acknowledge his military merits, as a defender of Podole and the Kamieniec fortress, the Ruthenian nobility recommended him to be awarded during dietines.
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The Polish-Bolshevik war of 1919-1921 emphasized Poland’s need for establishing supply routes in case of another conflict. Given the political situation on the European continent, Romania was chosen to become a transport hub for war material from Great Britain and France. To this end, steps were taken to establish a Polish Transshipment Base in the Romanian port of Galați. From there, the military equipment delivered on ships was to be transshipped to railroad cars and sent to Poland.
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Following World War I, the anti-revisionist states in Eastern Europe increasingly needed to safeguard their collective security. The solution was, on one hand, to strengthen the existing alliances (the Little Entente was consolidated through the signing of the Pact of Organization, in February 1933), and, on the other hand, to establish new political-military alliances – the Balkan Pact (or the Balkan Entente), signed in Athens on February 9, 1934 – which brought together Yugoslavia, Romania, Greece and Turkey, the states that sought the preserve the status quo in the Balkans. To achieve their goals, the respective alliances had military clauses which ensured the cooperation of national armies in repelling any possible aggression. These arrangements were included in military conventions and in other documents agreed upon during the annual conferences of the chiefs of staff of the allied countries. Within the Balkan Pact, two such conventions were adopted: the Military Convention in Three (Romania, Turkey and Yugoslavia) and, respectively, the Military Convention in Four (with Greece), signed in late 1936. Military collaboration within the Pact had a rough start because of the “reservations” each state strongly “defended”. Renunciation to these “reservations” became possibly only after high-level political talks or on the basis of mutual concessions. The short time between the conclusion of the conventions and the outbreak of the war found the Pact unprepared: it dissolved before being put to use by the member states that were the target of military aggression. The transformation of the Pact into the Balkan Bloc of Neutrals also proved an illusory solution.
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The Convention of Brăila was an extension of the Armistice of Focșani (November 26 / December 9, 1917), concluded by the Romanian army with the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey) in the wake of the unilateral decision of the Bolshevik government in Russia to cease all hostilities, thus exposing the entire eastern front. The four Russian armies in Romania complied with the order, requesting an armistice and preparing to return home. After about one month, the representatives of the two combatant forces met in Brăila in order to discuss the prolonging of the period of calm and other technical matters.
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Just like the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 3, 1918), The Treaty of Buftea (Bucharest), signed on May 7, 1918, translated into international law a state of affairs brought into existence by the collapse of the former Tsarist Empire. The revolutions of 1917, which shook the huge Tsarist Empire from its very foundations, and the disintegration of the administrative and military structures made impossible any resistance on the eastern front, which stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. On the Romanian front, where there were deployed almost one million Russian soldiers, the situation was even more serious, given that the Romanian government faced not only the presence of foreign troops on its national territory, but also the possibility of a war on two fronts due to the disorganization, anarchization and communization of Russian military units. In this context, the Armistice of Focșani (December 1917) and the beginnings of the negotiations for a separate peace represented unavoidable steps.
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After the breakthrough of the so-called Macedonian front, made by the army of the Entente, the Bulgarian government faced a rebellion of its own soldiers, which brought the danger of a total military pogrom. To avoid the utter defeat, the authorities in Sofia sent a delegation to the headquarters of the Allied Army of the Orient, situated in Salonika. The members of the mission were Andrey Lyapchev, Simeon Radev and General Ivan Lukov. They were accompanied by the US Consul-General in Sofia, Mr. Dominique Murphy, who had to secure their save arrival in Salonika. The main aim of the envoys was to sign an armistice with the Entente. The terms of the document were cruel for the Bulgarian nation. The Bulgarian Tsardom took the obligation to disarm its army and also it had to leave the Macedonian lands immediately. This became a national tragedy for the Bulgarians, which was internationally legalized by the Neuilly peace treaty, signed on Nov. 27th 1919.
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The peace-diktat of Bucharest (April 24 / May 7, 1918), which was the direct consequence of Romania’s utter military isolation following Russia’s defection caused by the Bolshevik revolution, did not entail the complete abandonment of the grand strategic objective which prompted Romania to enter the war alongside the Entente in the first place. As the representatives of the Allies subsequently admitted in writing, Romania, which “faithfully respected all its commitments” undertaken in August 1916, was no longer capable, under the new circumstances, to continue its armed resistance. However, the struggle for national liberation and unification – which recorded its first major success through the return of Bessarabia to the motherland (March 27 / April 9, 1918) – experienced an unprecedented boost in the coming months, culminating with the historic decisions from Chernivtsi and Alba Iulia, which laid the foundations of the unitary and independent Romanian nation state. During all this time, Romania maintained close ties with the Allies, communicating to the governments from Paris, London, Rome and Washington its desire to resume the fighting when the circumstances will allow it.
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This paper presents a number of documents published in Bulgaria in 2005 in a volume bearing the title “Bulgaria in World War 1. German Diplomatic Documents. Collection of Documents in Two Volumes”, 2nd volume, 1916-1918. Keeping in mind that the government in Sofia was allied with the Central Powers and had taken part in the war since October 1915, the imminent signing of the Treaty of Bucharest (May 1918) provoked a lot of excitement within Bulgarian political circles. Unsurprisingly, the main objective of the aforesaid circles was the annexation of entire Dobruja.
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For ordinary people, the end of World War I brought not only interminable negotiations between states prior to the conclusion of treaties, but also a state of impatience to return to peace and to get rid of all deprivations caused by the conflagration. From the multitude of documents in the custody of the “King Ferdinand I” National Military Museum concerning the year of 1918, we made a selection in order to reveal how the end of the war reflected in the daily life of ordinary people.
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The year of 1917 brought noteworthy developments with regards to Romania’s strategic position. After the defeats suffered in the fall of the previous year, which led to occupation of the sourthern part of the country – including capital Bucharest – by the Central Powers, something that prompted some of the allies within the Entente to doubt the worth of the Romanian army, the Romanian political and military decision-makers managed to restore the country’s war potential. Standing proof of this impressive feat were the victories from Mărăști, Oituz and Mărășești of July/August 1917, which were immediately praised by the Entente and acknowledged by the enemy. However, in 1918 the tide turned once again, Romania seeing itself forced to make a separate peace with the Central Powers, a decision that could have seriously damaged the country’s standing within the Entente.
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How could a state and its leadership abandon without resistance millions of its citizens and almost a third of its territory, like Romania did in 1940? It’s a disturbing question and simply blaming the external factors is not sufficient, nor fair to the Romanian society. The events from the summer of 1940 are all the more shocking considering that the regime the King himself and his regime were pushing the pedal of nationalism, promising the citizens of Greater Romania that every swath of land will be defended under any circumstances, at any cost.
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The first part of the study examines the reasons of the backwardness of the state genesis: the absence of an urban or rural elite after the withdrawal of the Roman administration from Dacia; the destruction by the Avar domination of the Gepidic kingdom, who was evolving on a similar way like the western Germanic kingdoms which enabled the survival of the state organization in Italy, France and Spain; the Hungarian conquest which interrupted the evolution toward a state organization in the western part of the Romanian territory. The second part of the study begins with an overview of two neighbor cases of state genesis, illustrative for the external or internal factors of their emergence: Bulgaria and Serbia. The comparison concerns the origin of the elite which built those states, a foreign one in Bulgaria, a local one in Serbia. The study continues with a discussion on the origin of the Romanian noble class of the boiars, whose name was inherited from the period of the Bulgarian domination north of the Danube. This elite of landowners existed before the establishment of the state organization, on the entire territory peopled by Romanians. The first attempt of organization of a Romanian state in the region south of Carpathians failed in 1279 (the voievode Litovoi from northern Oltenia rebelled against Ladislas IV), but the new offensives of the Golden Horde created a favorable situation for the detachment of the Romanians from the vassalage ties, began with the rebellion of Făgăraș (1291) and ended with the victory of Basarab against Charles Robert in 1330. In Moldavia, the local population was under the rule of the Golden Horde, and it is possible that enjoyed a certain autonomy. The offensives of the Hungarian armies in 1345-1346 were followed by the establishment of a mark in the valley of the Moldova River, led by the Romanian noblemen Dragoș, from Maramureș. This was the kernel of the future Moldavian state.
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According to researchers, the Lithuanian rock of the 1970s and 1980s was a hybrid of the Western alternative culture, the Soviet proletarian culture and the Lithuanian dissidentism. Instead of turning into a part of show business as it did in the Western Europe, the Lithuanian rock-music always stayed illegal and prosecuted. Among the most bitter rock groups was Antis, which satirized the Soviet bureaucracy and the official kitschy art. The soloist of the group Algirdas Kaušpėdas was one of the leaders of the Lithuanian movement for freedom. All the power of the national independence movement gave vent in the “Singing Revolution” in 1989. The process of liberation was like a rite, which for many people turned into an unforgettable personal and historical experience. The demonstrators gathered in squares like in churches. Folk, rock and pop-songs performed at that time were regarded as sacred; and this attitude towards them did not change much until nowadays. Political demonstrations of Lithuanian people could be characterized by numerous traits typical to the religious festivals: not responding to force by violence, experiencing brotherhood and sisterhood, praying to Providence and hoping for a miracle. In the song by Algirdas Kaušpėdas Coast of Our Dreams, some biblical images could be noted: “We are a strange young armless troop stepping onto a bright surface of water. Let’s walk ahead, no hesitations, or we’ll forget the destination!” New wave of patriotic songs surged up before another important achievement in the history of Lithuania, i.e. joining the European Union in 2004. Hopes and feelings of the new members of the community were heartily expressed by the Lithuanian rappers. Lithuanian hip-hop of that time was incredibly romantic and patriotic. Listening to the famous album Concrete Tales one could hear: “Our native Vilnius, we’ve been conceived in your underground; that’s where we’ve learned to spell the word and portion it out in doses. <…>
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This paper analyzes Albanian Grade 9 history textbook currently in use in Kosovo and Metohija. Emphasis is placed on the important issues related to Serbian/Yugoslav-Albanian relations between 1918 and 2008.
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My study is looking for answers whether in these days Serbia belongs to the category of democratic countries as well as what changes could be observed in the political system. My basic hypothesis is that in 2008 there were changes that affected the current system as well. In examining the background to these transformations, I present the economic and social characteristics that have strong impact on political life. In what follows I briefly describe the political system in order to make it understandable why has a predominant party system evolved, what components it has had and how the levers of power have been used. Finally, I analyze the Serbian practice of populism, highlighting the social tensions that actually led to it.
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