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Although Jews and Judaism were marginal topics of early modern preaching in the Czech lands, this paper shows that these rare mentions shaped the image of the Jewish community in Christian eyes, and that the Catholic sermons both guided and partly smoothed the hostile perception of Jews. This article examines Czech collections of sermons from the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, the period of the official oppression, and the state anti-Jewish policy, moreover focusing on the roots and function of the literary representation of Jews. It is indisputable that preachers, drawing from medieval literature, were fundamentally influenced by the traditional theological concept of Jews as a living witness to the Christian truth. At the same time, baroque sermons reused medieval exempla and miracula preserving narratives about host desecrations, ritual murders, as well as miraculous conversions. The Jewish figures in the Czech sermons served also as a concetto (conceit), a cornerstone in the structure of conceptual preaching. Due to the increasing number of Bohemian and Moravian Jewry at the end of 17th century, and the socioeconomical tension between Christian and Jewish communities, catholic preachers pursued contemporary topics and criticized unpermitted contacts, allegedly leading to the inferior status of Christians. On the other hand, these critical notes usually were targeted primarily on Christian believers and their laxity in the observance of religious life, as well as ignorance of social hierarchy. Anti-Jewish rhetoric was an integral part of early modern homiletics, however, catholic preachers endeavoured to avoid vulgar and popular anti-Judaism. Based on the analysis of Czech sermons, the pulpit oratory did not represent the official reduction and extirpation policy of the Habsburg dynasty in Bohemia and Moravia, contrarily, there are few examples of preachers who reservedly defended Jewish community against any kind of injustice.
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Since the beginning of the formation of the Latvian nation, the garden has been an integral part of the national cultural space. For a Latvian, a garden is a special asset as it has always been associated with independence, self-assurance and a sense of worth, including wealth. It is present on a daily basis and during the holidays, reflecting the social and economic characteristics of the time and the concept of a beautiful and tidy environment. Thus, the study of narrators’ memories of plantations of flowers, trees and shrubs in peasant farmsteads provides an opportunity to enrich the understanding of the formation of Latvian identity and to contribute to the interdisciplinary research in environmental humanities. In the study the materials of the Latvian Ethnographic Open-Air Museum archive – 24 memory stories obtained in the fieldwork in the vicinity of Skrunda, Liepāja and Kuldīga in 1955 and 1956 have been used. The narrators, in most cases, were servants or their children, mainly aged 70–80. The narrators focused on personal experience revealing the location of the flower, tree and shrub plantations in the farmyard space and the features of its formation. The attention was paid to the cultivation and use of medicinal plants. The plant names mentioned in the narrators stories and the plant names given by three narrators in the vicinity of Liepaja in 1972–1974 were summarized and accompanied by the scientific name of the respective plant.
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The purpose of this article is to identify the place and the particular aspects of the Historical and Legal Method as a tool used in scientific research. In order to achieve this purpose, the ‘Analysis’ and ‘Summary’ Methods have been applied. In particular, a juxtaposition was also used when comparing the "Historical and Legal Analysis” with its variety of “Comparative Historical and Legal Analysis”. The productiveness of this method has also been established not only in legal but also in historical research. The spontaneous application of the latter in historical science was also ascertained. For the first time, the benefit of using the method as an interdisciplinary research tool on the watershed between law and history has been revealed in the theory.
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Following the establishment of the first rüşdiyyes in Istanbul in 1847, the Council of Education launched an active policy of spreading their network in the entire territory of the Ottoman Empire. Exploring the process, the article pays attention to the edifices that housed them and the attempts to coeducate Muslims and Non-Muslims. Although its initial endeavors failed, the Council of Education did not hesitate and took every opportunity to promote the rüşdiyyes. The growth of the network was influenced by positive and negative factors, natural disasters and political events. The most important problem that slowed down its development was the difficulty to provide quickly an adequate building. Nevertheless, by January 1876 there was a rüşdiyye in almost two-thirds of all Ottoman administrative centres. Nowadays many of the rüşdiyye edifices have been demolished while modernizing the urban environment. The article is based on documents and newspapers kept in the Sts Cyril and Methodius National Library of Bulgaria, the Istanbul Ottoman Archive, the Library of the Turkish Historical Society, the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Taksim Atatürk Library, and the Library of the Turkiye Diyanet Foundation Centre for Islamic Studies.
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The aim of this paper is to cast more light on the spatial and demographic development of the mid-18th century town of Rusçuk (mod. Ruse) – a center of an Ottoman district (kaza) on the Lower Danube. The basic source for the study is a rare mid-18th century detailed avariz register. However, this “ready overall account” of the local population posed two general problems: 1) the acute confessional disproportions, with the extremely low numbers of the local non-Muslim communities (comprising about 10 % of the town’s population); 2) the ‘flexibility’ of the Christian neighbourhoods. This predetermined the particular focus on the zimmis (non-Muslims) as the first part of the study elaborates the demographic dynamics, town neighbourhoods network formation, religious institutions, local parish and monasteries networks in a long term perspective (16th – 18th centuries) examining different types of state tax-registers (tapu tahrir, avariz, detailed post-1690’ cizye registrations). Beside the registers, the collection of the kadı court records (sicils) of the local sharia judges of Rusçuk are particularly valuable source approached here for a more thorough interpretation of the level of inclusiveness of the mid-18th-century macro-framework and of outlining some of its major “demographic” gaps. The sicils spotlight the relevant processes and contextualize the application of the taxation policy in situ, tracing both continuity and serious transformations of the town tissue. The shifts were more tangible in the mahalles of the non-Muslim as well as in the process of the town askeri çiftliks’ proliferation. The latter in particular spotted one of the major demographic “gaps” of the mid-18th-century register as it generally surveyed the dwellers of the town neighbourhoods omitting the reaya of the town askeri çiftliks (mostly Christians). Thus, this study points at the robust functioning of the local Christian institutions within the framework of much more optimistic demographic parameters of the community than those attested in the mid-18th century avariz register proper.Another micro-focus of the study is the family story of the only priest registered in the town in this mid-18th-century avariz defter – here corroborating the information from the marginal notes left by his ancestors, and thus presenting a more vivid image of those who guided the parishioners in the 18th-century Rusçuk.
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The altarpiece of Lubowo (Łubowo) appeared in the time of the last months of Second World War. In fact, a German officer deposed the parcel by the Pomeranian family. After the war, when the parcel was unpacked, the depositors discovered the late medieval triptych on. It has been conceded to the filial catholic church in Starowice and in 1975 placed in the parish church in Lubowo (Łubowo). The altarpiece has been restored in the years 1974–1975 and in the years 1994–1995 by the renovation ateliers in Gdansk (Gdańsk) and Szczecin. The retable has a central part with the figures of Mother of God with Child and two saints – James the Older and Antony Abbot. The two wings contain the quarters with figures of saint. The left wing contains the figures of saints John the Baptiste, Peter and Paul above and Barbara, Catharina and Dionisius below. The right wing contains the representations of two unidentified saint and saint John the Evangelist above and Margaretha, Dorothy and Laurent below. The message of this composition of figures consist on the Redemption represented in the figure of Madonna with Child, because the little Jesus bears the apple, symbol of sins and its redemption. The groups of figures represents the particular categories of Saints – apostles matyrs, virgins, confessors. The altarpiece has been created in the context of life of urban communities of Pomerania – the cities who managed the international commerce. The citizens needed a particular tool of visual communication, who proclaimed the Christian realities, Zofia Krzymuska-Fafius recognized the stylistic analogies which connect our altarpiece with different other realizations in the German areas. She founded similarities in the late gothic works of sculpture from Szczecin Dabie (Dąbie), Osnabrück, Bordesholm and Würzburg. But it is possible to compare our retable with different example of Pomeranian altarpiece from Stary Ludzick and Koszalin.
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Political caricature as one of the political discourse genres portrays the characteristic comic affect, inter alia, by the implementation of folklore characters, motives, calendar, conventionalities and figurativeness. Especially intensive and diverse usage of the folklore language is evident in the first part of the 20th century, when traditions of parliamentary administration in Latvia just started to develop and the first Constitutional Assembly and first four Latvian parliaments, i.e. Saeima got elected. The popularity of the folklore “language” may also be substantiated by the fact that folklore and mass communication have close relation; theoretically they are non-dissociable because conventional formulas have been used in both verbal and visual communication. However, with the intermediation of the folklore the society expresses traditional values, whereas mass communication culture (which by nature is commercial) strives to create new knowledge, based on a traditional formula. The usage of the folklore “language” in Latvian cultural environment was promoted not only due to the favorable background of parliamentary democracy and freedom of speech, but also by the personalities of caricature authors, who were prominent intellectuals and representatives of art of their time and got excellent knowledge not only in the content of the folklore and its figurativeness, but also were able to apply the knowledge to express a new content related to the current events and interests of contemporary society. The folklore “language” in the beginning of the 20th century entered the political caricature genre in the form of citations, stylization and allusions. Practically, it covered all folklore genres and techniques of figurativeness; it confronted not only the traditional and contemporary values, but also created a new metaphorical understanding about the essence of the parliament and its operating principles. Such conceptual metaphors as “parliament – children” and “parliament – war” have proven to be sustainable even nowadays. Although the last Latvian humor and satire magazine “Dadzis” suspended its publication in 2008, the political caricature still remains popular in Latvia’s renewed democracy. It gets published in printed and electronic media and still serves as one of the most prominent reflections of public political processes.
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The article explores a new tradition, the White Tablecloth Festival (“Baltā galdauta svētki”), in its early development phase. It was introduced at the national level by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia and its partner organizations as a new and fresh form for celebration of the Day of the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia on May 4, 1990. It always had a place on the official calendar of holidays, through codified protocols, some ritual activities were carried out in narrow elite circles mainly inside the Parliament building and at the Liberty Monument in Riga; however, the Day was not widely celebrated by the general public in a broad ritualistic way. Launched on May 4, 2016, the White Tablecloth Festival was conceived as one of the large scale Latvia’s centenary (2018) celebration projects. The newly created White Tablecloth Festival tradition is based on a purposeful cultural memory strategy and encompasses objectives of strengthening patriotism and targeted collective memory guiding. Planned, implemented, and monitored by the experts of culture, politics, history, marketing and media, the White Tablecloth Festival tried to be an inclusive, simple, and not strictly regulated novelty. Having the white table setting as a unifying element and symbol of self-confidence and pride in the centre of the new tradition, other activities were proposed and demonstrated to people in Latvia and beyond. These included being together and sharing memories, singing together, enlivening old culinary heritage, documenting the holiday, and sharing photos on social media. People were invited to celebrate both in public spaces and in family settings. The first four years of the White Tablecloth Festival demonstrate fluctuating dynamics in its celebration and precautious attitudes. Likewise, the audience reception of this tradition is also rather divisive. The controversial opinions have been shared mainly on social media. The arguments in favour of the Festival are: clarity of celebration form, sense of community, inclusiveness of everyone, the opportunity to celebrate with dignity and style. The main argument expressed against the new calendric practice is the danger of deprivation of the national history narrative along with substituting it with entertainment and consuming activities. *Baltā galdauta svētki ir viens no Latvijas valsts simtgades svinību (2018) projektiem. Tā ir valsts līmeņa jaunrade, mēģinājums rast nebijušu veidolu 4. maija – Latvijas Republikas Neatkarības atjaunošanas dienas – atzīmēšanai. Kultūras pētniekam dzīvot laikā, kad tiek radītas jaunas tradīcijas, ir liela veiksme. Ir dota iespēja reizē būt gan Baltā galdauta svētku tapšanas aculieciniekam – vienam no sabiedrības, gan svētku rašanās brīdī analizēt to kultūrpolitisko un etnogrāfisko pamatu. Šā pētījuma mērķis ir saprast jaunās tradīcijas “anatomiju”. Rakstā analizēta Baltā galdauta svētku cilme, nozīme, etnogrāfiskās izpausmes un recepcija.
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Review of : Ivana Drmić - Dane Pavlica, U vatrama – Počitelj (1263. — 1993.), Požega: Povijesno društvo Požega i Biro-tisak d.o.o. Brestovac, 2021., 310 str.
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Review of: Petar Markuš - Anita Buhin i Tina Filipović, Kontinuiteti i inovacije. Zbornik odabranih radova s Četvrtog znanstvenog skupa Socijalizam na klupi – Kontinuiteti i inovacije, Srednja Europa i Sveučilište Jurja Dobrile, Zagreb i Pula, 2021., 255. str.
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At the beginning of the foreign rule, Bukovina had a population of approx. 67–73 thousand people, and Bessarabia – at least 300 thousand inhabitants. Most of the inhabitants were Romanians (Moldovans), both in Bukovina (about 59–60% in 1774) and in Bessarabia (about 75–76% in 1812). In both provinces, the most massive migration processes took place in the first decades of the foreign administration (in Bukovina – until the 1920s and 1930s, in Bessarabia – until the middle of the 19th century). In 12 years, the number of inhabitants almost doubled in Bukovina (from 67–73 thousand people in 1774, to about 135 thousand people in 1786) and Bessarabia (from at least 300 thousand in 1812, to approximately 583 thousand in 1824). Subsequently, the migration processes decreased in intensity, and the number of inhabitants increased due to the natural growth.In the first years of the Russian rule, simultaneously with the relocation of the wandering peasants from across the Dniester to Bessarabia, there was a reverse process of refuge of Moldovan peasants in Moldova west of the Prut. Similar processes took place in the first years of Austrian rule also in Bukovina, when many Romanian peasants fled to Moldova. In the first decades of foreign rule, most foreign immigrants arrived in both Bukovina and Bessarabia, mainly Ukrainians from the north and east of the Dniester. As a result, it was during this period that the ethnic structure of the population in both provinces changed radically, to the detriment of the local Romanian population. Towards the middle of the 19th century, Bukovina was populated by approximately 380 thousand inhabitants, including 48.5% Romanians, and in Bessarabia, the proportion of Moldovans was reduced to approx. 52–56% (in the years 1850–1862).
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After the establishment of the dictatorship, several cultural societies operated in Dubrovnik, namely the Dubrovnik Philharmonic, the Dubrava Singing Association, the Sloga Serbian Singing Association, the Church Choir, the Dubrovnik Theater Association and the Workers’ Music Association Zora. These associations were the bearers of cultural activities in the city. They held music and singing concerts, drama performances, public lectures. In addition to the activities of the aforementioned associations, the cultural life of Dubrovnik was complemented by visiting theaters and choirs from Yugoslavia and abroad. On two occasions, in 1929 and 1932, all associations performed together. In 1929 the 300 th anniversary of Gundulić’s Dubravka was celebrated. A total of 300 participants took part in this mass cultural event. The second time they gathered also in large numbers was on June 17, 1932; around 220 participants gathered in Dubrovnik. These were indications of great cultural events in Dubrovnik that are still organized today in the Dubrovnik Summer Festival. The mentioned cultural activity was not limited only to the activities of music and singing choirs, but also to the revitalization of Dubrovnik’s cultural institutions – libraries, archives, museums, public lectures and guest theater performances, singing and instrumental ensembles, and prominent world musicians from Yugoslavia and abroad.
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After the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877-1878 when Dobrudja became part of the Romanian state, Turkish language education continued to function in the traditional way remaining from the Ottoman period. Attempts to regulate the education of minorities existed in the interwar period when officials from the Kingdom of Romania adopted a series of measures in this regard. At the same time, there were initiatives from minorities, in the case of the Muslim community a sensitive aspect being that of the subjects that should be studied in schools. The first unified curriculum of Turkish primary schools in Dobrudja was prepared at the initiative of the "Association of Graduates of the Muslim Seminary in Dobrudja" and published in 1937 at the printing house of the "Emel" magazine. This article aims to analyze the content of the curriculum. Thus, an important contribution is made in terms of the code of conduct and the themes studied in the Turkish schools until the establishment of the communist regime. Given that the curriculum was published in Ottoman Turkish in 1937, long after the introduction of Kemalist reforms, that it proposes the use of the Ottoman alphabet, and that most of the program focuses on the study of religion, the paper tries to show whether it was an expression of opposition against the kemalist reforms or an attempt to improve the quality of education in Turkish schools in Dobrudja. To achieve this objective, beyond the analysis of the content of the program, the foundations of those who drafted it is also explained.
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My research aims to investigate the Turkish and Tatar language education in Romania from two perspectives: the reconstruction of the dominant educational paradigm and the outline of a history of Turkish and Tatar language education. At a first level, I reconstruct the educational paradigm which is dominant among the Turkish and Tatar elites by placing education in the general ethno-political program of minority elites, by identifying relevant policy actors concerning minority education and the main debates on this issue. At a second (history outline) level, I identify the major historical turning points of the Turkish and Tatar language education, by sketching a periodization of educational and institutional processes. Emphasizing the current institutional reality of Turkish and Tatar language education, the research will give a glimpse on how two minorities in Romania, with a similar historical and cultural background, are engaging in different forms of minority-language education. The research is based on qualitative methods: structured and semi-structured interviews with political actors, experts in education, members of the two minorities, on text analysis of political programs, journalistic texts and not last on the analysis of legislation.
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The article discusses the Esmahan Sultan Mosque in connection to the tombstone inscriptions from the building’s courtyard. Using as a starting point a summary table with the names and details of the deceased, the authors will refer to the demographic situation of the city during the 17th – 19th centuries, highlighting the consequences of the Russian-Turkish conflicts of the 19th century on the evolution of the population. As a historical source, there will be presented Ottoman maps used during the 19th century, showing the city of Mangalia and the main roads in the area of southern Dobrudja. The paper ends with the presentation of the plan and brief description of the oldest house in Mangalia, owned by the merchant Mehmet Hagi Ismail at the end of the 18th century.
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Studying the history of Siberia, it is important to consider the activities of individual representatives of the artistic intelligentsia, since it influenced the development of socio-cultural ties in the urban space. In the second half of the XIX — early XX century it was possible to visit exhibitions, museums, galleries and other events that introduced residents to the art and culture of the Russian Empire. The significance of the research lies in the analysis of archival documents that reveal the life and work of M. D. Butin (1835—1907), as well as the history of the creation of an art collection in the second half of the XIX — early XX century. The work confirms that M. D. Butin participated in creating favorable conditions for the residents to get acquainted with objects of art. The research allows to reveal the meaningful side of artistic events in the cities of the Baikal region. Consideration is given to M. D. Butin’s interest in the development of sociocultural ties among the artistic intelligentsia of Baikal Siberia in the second half of the XIX — early XX century and the present work is devoted. In preparing the article, the author relied on general historical research methods — historical-genetic, historical-comparative, problem-chronological, retrospective, as well as the principle of historicism. The conducted research allows us to draw the following conclusions. M. D. Butin took part in the development of socio-cultural ties in Baikal Siberia in the second half of the XIX — early XX century. Activities by Mikhail Dmitrievich influenced the process of familiarizing residents with art objects. He supported the work of public organizations, scientific expeditions, art exhibitions and other educational events in the region. Many interests and ideas of M. D. Butin in various fields of culture were fulfilled during his lifetime and after by other representatives of the artistic intelligentsia of Baikal Siberia.
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Cultural heritage can be perceived as an inimitable and highly original type of information (in the broader context of communication), and thus from a certain point of view as a medium. In the long term, cultural heritage can be viewed as a means of communicating the social identity of a community and a person, in the short term it can be a means of communicating various goals – in addition to cultural or educational, also marketing, political, and cultural heritage can be used/abused as a propaganda tool.Communicated “cultural heritage links” are inadvertently/intentionally implemented in various media products, including film production, in the form of various themes and in various formal designs. In film production, we can record a whole range of elements of cultural heritage, which the recipients also evaluate according to cultural, national and ethnic affiliation and create a relationship and build an attitude towards the works on the basis of various codes (verbal, sound, visual, cultural).
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