Państwo Islamskie - aktor państwowy czy niepaństwowy?

Author(s): Wojciech Grabowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2016

Islamic State, as the name suggest, is going to be perceived and treated not as a mere terrorist organization, but rather as a caliphate, Islamic state. In the last decades many violent non-state actors have propagated the idea of caliphate but none of them have never accomplished the idea. Islamic State can be treated as the first organization, which declare and what is more important create state structures, responsible for administrating conquered territory. To some extent Islamic State fulfills thecriteria for statehood listed in the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, 1933. But the basic question is whether it can be recognized as a state in the light of international law?

Книги 2016

Author(s): Emiliya Voleva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 33/2016

Selected bibliography in the field of Bulgarian Studies published in the current year

Българистичната проблематика на XXIII международен конгрес по византийски изследвания

Author(s): Vasya Velinova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 33/2016

Reconstruction of Contents by Raported To The Idea of Didactic Transposition

Author(s): Tiberiu Octavian Cujba / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2015

In order to contextualize the theme discussed in this article is presented briefly the historical development of educational sciences from the Didactica Magna to Postmodern Didactic, then localized reconstruction of contents in Didactics of specialty between discursive strategy and argumentative performance. Reconstruction of contents by reported to the idea of didactic transposition, the main theme of discussion of this article, is analyzed in relation with didactic speech, which has the role to put into practice in the classroom the idea of didactic transposition. Didactic speech, mediated by computer, is a current reality at the present time, as generalization in the educational process. Reconstruction of contents is placed on the axiomatic background of curriculum paradigms because changing paradigm has the effect of change the architecture of didactic speech to present in classroom the scientific contents reconstructed by didactic transposition. Finally, some conclusions are presented.

Motyw fontanny-ran w barokowej rękopiśmiennej medytacji: wpływ ikonografii na poezję

Author(s): Joanna Panasiuk / Language(s): English Issue: 5/2016

Behind the foundation of the monastic meditation about fountains is a concrete devotional graphic from Western Europe. It is the Dutch emblem that is the key to the interpretation of the religious text, which uses words to directly refer to a specific image. These cultural correspondences constitute a curious phenomenon. They present the spirituality as well as the mentality of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European society. This seems to confirm, at the same time, the fact that no artistic activity is ever isolated.

Фолклорни елементи в разказите на циганите евангелисти

Author(s): Yana Moroz / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 101/2016

The oral stories of the Gypsies-evangelists of “Fire Church” (Pentecostal Church) in Sofia have a number of differences compared to other religious stories. While the term "testimonies" is associated with evidence for the presence and help of God, to the gypsies the term testimonies includes all miraculous and religious experiences. The testimonies are needed for several reasons: to simplify the complex structure of the Christian doctrine, to be easier to understand and communicate to other members God’s miracles, such as healing, omen, meeting God and being in the otherworld. Due to the requirements of the denomination. there are no saints, no Virgin Mary and Angels in the stories. Thus the believer has a more important role, almost comparable to the apostles, he/she is closer to God. God is no longer unattainable and frightful but close and kind, willing to help. The testimony stories include rites of passage and initiation. They bring together different groups of Gypsies in one unity- religiously and socially. The narratives have educational purpose and indicate the "right" religion for the Gypsies. After going through an initiation (and telling the story about it), the believers can take their place as complete and legitimate members of the church and thus members of the society.

Gluhite Kamani: Old Questions and New Approaches

Author(s): Georgi Nehrizov,Lynn E. Roller,Maya Vassileva,Julia Tzvetkova,Nadezhda Kecheva / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 20/2012

Големият интерес към Глухите камъни се дължи основно на многобройните ниши, изсечени по увенчаващите билото скални зъбери. Най-впечатляващи обаче са изсичанията в доминиращия над околните скален масив. Върху заравнения му връх е вкопана дълбока правоъгълна щерна за събиране и съхраняване на вода. До нея води добре оформена двураменна стълба. Южното лице на скалата, от където започва стълбата, е оформено отвесно. На това място е издълбано пещерообразно помещение, с правоъгълен план и куполообразно покритие. Първият опит за системно изследване на обекта е поставено от експедицията на Института по тракология през 1975 г. Затова с удоволствие представяме първоначалните си резултати в издание, посветено на 40-годишнината на Института. Първите археологически проучвания на Глухите камъни започват през 2008 г. под ръководството на д-р Г. Нехризов. Резултатите веднага показаха, че е необходимо ново теренно изследване и документиране на нишите с модерни технически средства и според съвременните стандарти за теренно проучване. През 2011 г. с финансиране от Фондация Америка за България чрез конкурс, организиран от Американския научен център в София, започна българо-американски проект с две основни задачи – теренно проучване на района на Глухите камъни и археологически разкопки в централния сектор на обекта. В настоящата работа представяме предварителните резултати от тези изследвания. Основната цел на теренното проучване беше оглед, точно локализиране с мобилни ГИС и GPS устройства, подробно описание и документиране на всички изкуствени изсичания върху скалите в м. Глухите камъни. В резултат на теренната работа бяха установени 459 ниши, част от които неизвестни досега. Те са обединени в 81 единични или групи от ниши, разположени върху 28 обособени скали и скални групи. Вероятно броят на нишите е по-голям, регистрирането им обаче е затруднено от гъстата растителност, която ограничава видимостта към скалите. Още в началото на археологическите разкопки се установи, че на обекта има значителни културни напластявания от ранната желязна епоха. Археологическите проучвания в централния сектор продължиха четири сезона докато културните отложения бяха напълно изчерпани. В резултат на стратиграфските наблюдения се установи, че под пласт от средновековието е отложен седимент от ранната желязна епоха с обща дебелина над 2,40 м. В него се разграничиха три стратиграфски пласта с различен интензитет. При проучванията на различни нива бяха разкрити огнища, замазки и други структури, както и голямо количество фрагментирани керамични съдове и разнообразни находки. Резултатите от четиригодишните проучвания на пластовете от ранната желязна епоха, както и изследванията на целия комплекс ни дават основания да потвърдим досегашната интерпретация на обекта – сложен комплекс с култов характер. Центърът на култовата дейност изглежда е бил на най-високото място, където сега се намират останките от средновековната църква. Предварителните резултати ни дават възможност само предпазливо да се обърнем към хипотези за предназначението на скалните ниши. Връзката на нишите с погребалната обредност не може да се изключи напълно. Трапецовидна форма на нишите би могла да е алюзия за погребални ритуали или възпоменателни ритуали за вожд или герой. Групите ниши може да са предназначени или изсечени от членовете на една социална единица, като например семейство или род. Също така може да се предположи, че те са били правени по време на различни ритуално (календарно) важни моменти. Дали става дума за почитане на божество, местен херой или култ към предците все още е рано да се каже. Бъдещите изследвания на Глухите камъни и съседните обекти вероятно ще помогнат за решаването на тези въпроси.

Operacje korekty płci: czyn legalny czy bezprawny?

Author(s): Jerzy M. Ferenz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 6/2016

The article concerns the issues of legality or illegality of sex reassignment surgery in the light of the Polish penal law. Conducted considerations start from the reference to the phenomenon of transsexualism (including its definition and etiology), possible methods of improving the health of transsexual people and the level of their effectiveness. Taking into account the aforementioned context, there has been analysed the existence of the medical purpose of the SRS. In that context there has been analysed the possibility of finding the primary legality of SRS. Subsequently, it has been analysed whether there is a possibility to exclude criminal liability for conducting such surgeries by the way of using justification, circumstances excluding the guilt or due to negligible degree of social harm of an act. Referring to the current de lege ferenda demands, there has been proposed the solution to the problem of establishing a clear legal settlement which should take the form of justification which would re-legalise SRS. The basis for such justification would be consent, as well as the requirement to have completed the register sex change first.

Zmiana płci u dzieci jako wyzwanie dla prawa i społeczeństwa

Author(s): Błażej Kmieciak / Language(s): Polish Issue: 6/2016

Can the child change his/her gender? This question can cause a shock. Sex is very strongly associated with the development of the child. Can this development be impaired? Similar questions have become an essential element of the social and legal discussion which took place in Poland at the end of 2015. In mid-October a gender agreement act was enacted. This document – according to its authors – was supposed, in a comprehensive manner, to solve problems and difficulties experienced by transsexuals, including underage transsexuals.The issue of sex change in children met with great interest. Proponents of the law pointed out that children should have the right to “manage their own identity.” Opponents of this document also cited in their opinions the idea of children’s rights. It was emphasized that “reconciliation of the sex of the child” is the action that violates his/her dignity.The gender agreement act has not been passed into the system of Polish law. However, it has become an inspiration to pose two questions: Have there been new rights of the child in the last years? Can we – paradoxically – during the fight for rights of the child violate these rights?

Program pomocy BRIGE dla młodzieży z opieki zastępczej

Author(s): Małgorzata Gocman,Małgorzata Szarzyńska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 6/2016

Persons brought up outside their own family, in foster care, are particularly vulnerable to experiencing life difficulties and the risk of social exclusion. Research on youth leaving foster care conducted in Europe and the United States shows that they experience many problems in different areas of functioning. These problems include: mental disorder symptoms, antisocial behavior, risky sexual behavior, psychoactive substance abuse and victimization. Due to the difficult situation of youth from foster care, a team of researchers from the Opole University adjusted to Polish conditions American program for young people leaving foster care. The program is called Bridging Resilience through Intervention, Guidance, and Empowerment (BRIGE). The purpose of the article is to present the BRIGE program and to evaluate it in terms of mental health. The study involved 12 young people preparing to leave orphanages in the province of Opole and the Lower Silesia. The program was controlled using the survey “Aging out” specially designed for this purpose. Each participant was evaluated 4 times: at the beginning of the program (measurement I), after 6 months (measurement II), after 12 months (measurement III) and after 18 months (measurement IV). In the present study we were limited to analysis of the results of three measurements, because not all subjects completed their participation in the program. The results showed that adolescents participating in the BRIGE program decreased symptoms of mental disorders, such as depression and a sense of hostility. The results are discussed in relation to existing programs for youth from foster care.

„Задушница“ в системе болгарских народных обычаев

Author(s): Valentina Vasseva / Language(s): Russian Issue: 19/2011

The paper presents in detail and on a territorial principle the specificities of the custom of the Bulgarians connected with All Souls’ Day. It involves commemoration of deceased relatives, which is performed every year on specific days at their graves. The author claims that the custom is a relict of the cult of the dead and that it plays a concrete social role, being performed at the cemetery where all deceased individuals from a certain territorial community are buried. The custom is assumed to have a dual nature. On the one hand, it is part of the burial rites and can be perceived as their continuation, in functional terms the custom is close to calendar rites and in most cases it is characterised by the spirit and specificities of the festive cycle to which it is attributed. A specificity of the Bulgarian All Souls’ Day is the abundance of food in honour of the dead and the food served at the feast.

Обредите на Бромиос според епиграфски сведения

Author(s): Rossitsa Gicheva-Meimarie / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 19/2011

The study presents a multi-faceted and detailed analysis of the ritual practices in honour of Bromios and the beliefs connected with them. Bromios is a popular epithet of Dionysos in the ancient written and epigraphic monuments dated between the 6th century BC and the 4th century. The epithet Bromios (“Noisy”) has different interpretations that usually follow the link to the noise of the Dionysian festivities proposed by Diodorus (I, 61), but there are also opinions that it was an epiclesis of Dionysos. The author of the present study supports the theory of a possible cult use of the name. The analysis of the texts containing the name Bromios indicates that most of them mention Bromios in an unambiguous ritual context. The proposed analysis focuses on the reconstruction of elements of the rituals connected with Bromios on the basis of epigraphic evidence as a relatively direct source on the cult reality. Arguments are presented in support of the idea of associations of Bromios rites and beliefs with other mysterial cults, above all with the Orphic rites and with the cult of the Kabeiroi, emphasising that it is possible to identify separate elements that are specifically characteristic of the Bromios mysteries. One of their most important specificities is that the mysterial logos and rite were apparently not subject to such a strict secrecy, unlike the Orphic, Eleusinian and Cabiric mysteries.

Thracian Beliefs in Afterlife

Author(s): Peter Delev / Language(s): English Issue: 19/2011

The study focuses on the considerable diversity and heterogeneity of the Thracian notions of death and life after death, known to the ancient tradition. Pomponius Mela, as well as Solinus, inform that the Thracians welcomed death willingly as a result of their different beliefs: some imagined that the soul of the deceased individual would return, others believed that the soul does not die, but does not return either, passing to a better life, while a third group believed that the soul dies and that this is better than to continue living. Each of these concepts is examined in detail with additional source data. The author recalls that the concept of the soul of the deceased individual is mentioned in connection with Thrace only by relatively late authors: Pomponius Mela, Solinus and Iamblichus. It is emphasised that the specificities of the Thracian burial practices and their millennial evolution suggest parallel existence of different ritual and – accordingly – ideological traditions, whereby direct association of certain burial practices with concrete beliefs is unjustified. The existing ancient evidence on the Thracian notions of eternal happiness and the “good things” that they receive after death are linked with feasts, hunting and horses, a loving wife, servants and wealth, all of which are of a markedly aristocratic nature.

Елка Бакалова. Култът към реликвите и чудотворните икони. Традиции и съвременност. София: Издателство на БАН „Проф. Марин Дринов“, 2016

Author(s): Ivanka Gergova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2016

Book Reviews

Научна конференция на Полското народописно дружество – заседанията на секция „Фолклористика“

Author(s): Piotr Grohovski / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2016

Scholarly Conference

RESORTING TO SHAMANIC AGENCIES: FILLING IN FOR THE FAILURE OF THE OFFICIAL INSTITUTIONS IN A SIBERIAN PERIPHERY (TYVA REPUBLIC, RUSSIA)

Author(s): Konstantinos Zorbas / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2017

Drawing on a field study of shamanic remedies against affliction with curses in Tyva Republic (Siberia), this paper offers striking documentation of an ‘agency’ of social control and justice which is officially unseen by the Russian state. The paper identifies several crucial social implications of ‘shamanism’ as an unofficial redress for kinds of occult-mediated conflict which transcend the limits of state jurisdiction. The data on shamanic counter cursing and retaliatory practices provide evidence of the proliferation in Tyva of a pattern of interpersonal violence, associated with lethal appropriations of the ‘occult’ for rational purposes. The argument is advanced that the post-socialist ‘return’ of shamanic religion in the form of a ‘judicial offensive’ against misuses of the ‘occult’ in Tyva signifies a notable departure of ‘shamanism’ from typical meanings of traditional religion which emerge from the state’s law.

Evaluating Political Society in Rerum Novarum in the Context of Francisco Suárez’s Social Doctrine and Its Development in Gaudium et Spes

Author(s): Jan Koblížek / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2016

Drawing on an analysis of two well-known documents of the social teachings of the Church (Rerum Novarum and Gaudium et Spes), this paper aims to demonstrate a noticeable conceptual development of the notion of politics and political authority which occurred between the end of the nineteenth century and the Second Vatican Council. The criterion used in the analysis was Francisco Suárez’s political writing of the Enlightenment period. It is argued that politics was defined not only in relation to natural familial community and to the separation of ecclesiastical and secular authority, but also in relation to the return to traditional Aristotelian and Thomistic notions.

ЕВРИПИДОВАТА ТРАГЕДИЯ ХЕКУБА: МЕТАМОРФОЗА И РИТУАЛНО ПРОСТРАНСТВО

Author(s): / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 22/2017

The topic considered is the motive of regressive metamorphosis of the Trojan queen Hecuba as an essential element for the identification and reconstruction of the ritual space of dramaturgical eventfulness in Euripides’ tragedy Hecuba. Metamorphosis is considered generally as a non-traditional solution of the tragic conflict. One of the few known precedents is the lost Sophocles’ tragedy Tereus, which places the dramaturgical ritual space – on the analogy to Euripides’ tragedy Hecuba – in the mythological topos of the ancient Thracian world. These paradigmatic associations determine the specific functionality of ancient Thrace in seeking for theatrical Otherness of Athenian democracy and the ritualising of overcoming its own problems and conflict situations.

РЕЗОС – ЛИТЕРАТУРЕН ОБРАЗ ИЛИ ЛИТЕРАТУРИЗИРАНА ПРЕДСТАВА ЗА КОННИКА ХЕРОЙ НА ТРАКИТЕ

Author(s): Valeria Fol / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 22/2017

The paper analyses the written sources and the hypotheses expressed in favour or against a developed cult of Rhesos as a hero. The evidence on Rhesos shapes three images, each with its specificities. The idea of the Hero in Hellas and its “encounter” with the notion of the Thracians of the heroic are examined. Some authors accept that the image of Rhesos belonged to the Achaean mythological cycle. Most Bulgarian authors prefer the opinion expressed 100 years ago by W. Leaf, based on Cicero’s evidence (Cic. De natura deorum III, 45) that the tragedy Rhesos was born from poetic fancy, which is seriously criticised in Western specialised literature. The evidence shows that the socium in the region of the Rhodope Mountains overcame the conflict between the disappearance and the preservation of the cultural memory, and the defining of yesterday and today through a folklore narrative and rites connected with the image of the Horseman Hero, probably Rhesos. In the different cultures – of polis and ethnos types – the individual who had passed “beyond” can become unforgettable and divine protector of the socium in different ways, Euripides (Eur. Rhes.) and Philostratus sensed the different notion and understanding of a divine protector among the Thracians, which led to the confusing use of theos, heros and anthropodaimon, which is confusing to us, as the authors have tried to come maximally close to the way of thinking of the bearers of the faith-ritual related to Rhesos, i.e., to the Thracian world outlook and way of preservation of the cultural memory. The reference to Rhesos as anthropodaimon, daimon and heros can also be interpreted as defining of different recognised ideas in the “culture of death” of the Thracian aristocratic faith-ritual whose aim is the immortalisation and the preservation of the link with the deceased who had gone to the World Beyond, profanated and rendered as folklore during the Late Antiquity.

Stories of Suffering. Bodies and Illness in Post-communist Romanian Literature

Author(s): Adina Mocanu / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

The fall of communism means liberty of expression, among other things. Contemporary writers tackle topics that were either considered taboo, or were censored under communism, and they portray an immediate reality that reflects everyday society. One important element is the depiction of disease in the works written after 1989, namely from a perspective that pays great attention to the body. Diseases such as AIDS and syphilis terrify people, even though they are treatable and being kept under control. Departing from Susan Sontag's main idea from her essay Illness as Metaphor, in this article I explore the role of disease in contemporary society as depicted in two recent novels: Cruciada copiilor by Florina Ilis and Lizoanca la 11 ani by Doina Ruşti. Romanian post-communist society still avoids speaking about disease, because it is considered taboo. This avoidance most often frustrates the people afflicted by disease. One of the novels discussed in the article observes the relation between the disease and its symbolical meaning in post-communist society, and this is indicative of the problems people run into in their everyday lives. Thus, I demonstrate why disease is an important element in the reality depicted in the aforementioned novels, and I also highlight how illness becomes more than a metaphor. It shows the institutionalized or structural arrangements in society.