Around the Bloc: Ethnocosmology, Beekeeping Museum Beckon Tourists to Lithuania
Meanwhile, genocide museum in Vilnius is criticized for failing to present the Holocaust in an appropriate way.
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Meanwhile, genocide museum in Vilnius is criticized for failing to present the Holocaust in an appropriate way.
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After surveying the creative methods of the French playwright-director, the review presents three drama adaptations of tales by Pommerat. Little Red Riding-Hood (2005), Pinocchio (2008) and Cinderella (2012) were published by the French publishing house Actes Sud, in separate volumes, in no more than one year after their writing and stage premiere. The reviewer thinks about the French tale-adaptations that they are embedded in the reality of our present, because they question our relationship to the world and the mechanism of our family relations.
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In the Ready-Made Image series you can see Hungarian playwright István Örkény and his wife, Zsuzsa Radnóti after the premiere of The Tóth Family (Tóték) at Tg-Mureș, on the 8th of March 1968. The photo shot by József Marx is the property of the archive of the Tg-Mureș National Theatre. In the caption you can read a fragment from an interview with István Örkény, published in March 1968 in the literary magazine Utunk.
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Anne Lepper is a German playwright born in 1978 in Essen. Seymour, her drama, can be read in Eszter Biró’s translation in our issue: the world premiere of the text was in 2012 at Schauspiel Hannover, and in 2016 Balázs Bodolai directed a reading performance of the text at the Hungarian Theatre of Cluj. Seymour tells the story of five obese children who participate in a special diet-cure in a high-mountain sanatorium following the precise rules of Dr. Bärfuss. They keep hoping that the doctor will finally appear to certify the success of the cure and they can go home. But this never happens, and when they get stuck forever on the mountain-top of their desired transformation, they get a message from their parents that they have been replaced by slimmer children. Lepper’s grotesque morality targets the perception of the individual in a consumer society, through the ideal of the acceptable, tolerable and useful body. Although the characters are children, their words and problems reflect the world of adults: the endless and fruitless struggle for the ideal, the desire to meet expectations, the basic emotions of lovelessness and exchangeability.
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In 2007 started the Project for the Street and Utilities Rehabilitation – Pilot Area – The Historic Centre of Bucharest over an area bordered by Victoria Avenue – Brătianu Boulevard – Lipscani Street – Independence Boulevard. On nine streets (21763 m2) numerous buildings (brick or wood) were identified, as well as cemeteries and various structures of public or private character. Some of them are better known, such as the inns on Lipscani Street, some of them aren’t, but all of them together tell the story of the birth and development of a town. Zlătari Inn. During the 2007 campaign of archaeological excavations, a very interesting situation presented itself in the sector of Lipscani Street bordered by Victoria Street and E. Carada Street: the remains of one of the most famous inns in Bucharest, next to the basement of a house pulled down at the building of the inn. Due to the special situation both from the archaeological and architectural point of view, and the conservation state being very good, this particular area (Zlătari Inn, on a length of 25 m and the 17th century house on a length of 13 m) was the first one proposed for conservation, restoration and public display. First stage consists in ensuring the protection of the area. Gabroveni. During the second year of the project Gabroveni Street was excavated. Known for many years as “the street running parallel to the Princely Court wall”, Gabroveni Street was one of the main arteries within the commercial center of Bucharest. The archaeological excavations led to the uncovering of some wooden houses – predating the present day street space, of the wooden palisade of the Princely Court, of the brick wall later replacing the palisade, of the buildings adjacent to the precinct wall and of the wooden pavement of the street. In one of the sections, the Princely Court wall and the wooden pavement were exceptionally well preserved. First measures for a protected area in Gabroveni Street have already been taken: the restoration and conservation of the wooden pavement segment described above. The action was performed by the specialists of the “Bucovina” Museum Complex from Suceava. Şerban Vodă. For two centuries (18th-19th) one of the most imposing buildings of Bucharest, the Şerban Vodă Inn was forgotten after its demolition for the whole following century (20th). The 2007 archaeological excavations taking place on the Lipscani Street, sector between Eugeniu Carada and Smârdan Streets, brought to light the Lipscani side of the inn. During the next year (2008), it was possible to explore the interior of the inn, as a series of foundations from the inn’s first floor were identified, together with a number of six cellars and the access way from the street. The area proposed for conservation covers the area of the six cellars mentioned above, some of the best preserved medieval structures in the historic center of Bucharest. In the passageways between the cellars, three frescoes were uncovered: two represent St. Nicholas and the third depicts “The Dormition of the Virgin”. Considering the technique and style they date to the second half of the 17th century. Conclusions. The three areas proposed for conservation - restoration - public display were accepted by the National Commission of Archaeology and the National Commission for Historic Monuments. They were also included in projects developed by the Municipality of Bucharest, the beneficiary of the Historic Centre works. They represent cultural landmarks both for the locals and the foreign tourists, often amazed and impressed by the things hidden until recently under the modern pavement of the Historic Centre.
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Previous investigations revealed that a number of scenes in the eleven cycles of the Akathistos painted in Moldavia during the reigns of Peter Rareş and Jeremiah Movilă depend on 14th-early 15th century Byzantine monuments (icons, frescoes, murals) or their parallels. Certain details in these Akathistos illustrations refer to Constantinopolitan miracles or wonder-working icons and relics, such as: healing sands in the Christ Philanthropos monastery (Ancient Serail), the Tuesday procession of the Virgin Hodegetria with the bearer of the icon extending his arm as being crucified, or the use of famous icons (Hodegetria) and relics (Mandylion, maphorion of the Virgin) as securing victory during the city sieges.
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Two Fathers of the Reformation, Martin Luther and John Calvin questioned the veneration of images. They used different arguments. Martin Luther allowed the presence of paintings in churches, while John Calvin did not. Their theology influenced Europe so strongly that even Catholicism in its ordinary sensitivity departed from the understanding of the image as an object of worship and entered the time of art. A painting ceased to be understood as a special place of presence (icon), and began to function as a work of art. Having ceased to be a medium referring to the original, it became itself an original in the artistic sense.
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Chiprovtsi was among the most important goldsmith centers on the Balkans at the end of 16th century and during 17th century. Its prosperity was based on the rich deposits of metals in the region, the Catholic orientation of considerable part of the population and the active trade of some of the local inhabitants in and outside the Ottoman Empire. The scope of the work of the local goldsmiths encompassed broad spectrum of objects for the needs of the church as well as the typical for this period hemispherical bowls. The craftsmen of Chiprovtsi were famous for their skilful applying of various goldsmith techniques and the quality of execution and as a whole their works were notable with their complex iconographic choices and low relief combined with a specific variation of orientalized floral ornamentation engraved in the backgrounds. During the mentioned period the popularity and interest in the production of Chirpovtsi goldsmith center went beyond the borders of the present Bulgarian territory and even outside the Balkan Peninsula. Some of the craftsmen executed very important orders for the big Serbian monasteries Dečani, Hopovo, Krušedol and Vrdnik. Another group of goldsmiths found a warm reception across the Danube and also received opportunity to express its creativity in silverware for the Wallachian monasteries Bistriţa, Tismana and Snagov. Among these craftsmen stands out the figure of Francesco (Franco) Markanich who in 1642 by order of the Metropolitan of Wallachia Teofil executed gilt silver Gospel cover for the Bistriţa Monastery. The subject of this paper is that work of Markanich as well as two other Gospel precious covers. Probably they were also made by goldsmiths from Chiprovtsi, but in 1656 for the Krušedol Monastery. Some of the characteristics of these book bindings are examined in the context of their ordering, the taste of the donors, current tendencies in the region and also in comparison with other famous examples of Chiprovtsi goldsmith tradition. In more general terms are traced some of the changes in the iconographic program of Gospel precious covers during the Post-Byzantine period.
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This article aims to present an important change in manuscript decoration that took part during the 17th and 18th centuries within the territories of the Romanian principalities Wallachia and Moldavia. It discusses the initial decoration of a group of four luxury liturgical manuscripts three of which were written and decorated in Wallachia and one in Moldavia. All of them are showing the features of the modified function of the initial letters under the influence of the liturgical texts. There are different reasons for this modification. Some of them have their basis in politics while others have ecclesiastical motivation. But what is important here is the result – the appearance of the visual discourse of the initial letter that decodes and provides an additional source for understanding the sophisticated and abstract meaning of the liturgical texts. The initial letters from the four Romanian liturgical manuscripts (AR ms. rom. 1790, AR ms. slav. 170, AR ms. rom. 1384 held in the Library of Romanian Academy of Science in Bucharest and AR ms. rom.1216 kept in the Library of Romanian Academy of Science in Cluj-Napoca) are grouped into four basic groups based on their visual function and interaction with the text. Last but not least the article presents an attempt to decode the symbolical meaning and allusions that these initial letters probably implied back in time they were created as a pictorial comment to the texts of liturgy books.
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The paper deals with the common cultural, social and psychological dispositions that have influenced comedy playwriting in Romania and Bulgaria from the nineteenth century until about 1944, in the beginning drawing parallels between three renowned Balkan comic dramatists: Ion Luca Caragiale, Branislav Nušić and Stefan L. Kostov. The very troubled history of the Balkans with its inevitable closenesses, but also with its conflict-ridden and pulling-apart confrontations; with the aspirations of the Balkan nations both to identify themselves and their histories and to fit in with the European process of development, created a comic situation in itself, where the ‘bodies’ of these nations seemed to be unsettled between moving ahead and backwards at the same time; a movement that can’t but provide a lot of comic situations. Romanian comedy playwriting in the interwar period is analysed in brief using as examples the works of such playwrights as Victor Eftimiu, Camil Petrescu, Tudor Muşatescu and Mihail Sebastian, where an ideal, poeticised principle is contrasted to vile passions and aspirations in life: a new subject matter undoubtedly. The article ends with general reflections on the uniting power of theatre.
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The paper explores the relations between Bulgarian and Romanian theatres in the last two decades and a half in the light of the visiting Romanian theatrical productions. Festival circuits along with joint initiatives of companies from both countries have acted as a catalyst for this process. Varna Summer International Theatre Festival has most consistently presented the achievements of Romanian theatre in its selections over the years. Most of these guest performances have been deemed to be major events in Bulgaria’s cultural life. It all began in 1998 with Philoctetes by Sófocles, in the rendition of Andreea Vulpe (Caragiale National Theatre of Bucharest). The National Theatre was invited again to the Varna Festival two years later with Mihai Măniuţiu’s signature production of Joan of Arc. Pages of a File, a combination of a fiction and documents (built on records of the trial of Joan of Arc) and an integrated whole of word, dance, music and singing. The auteur visual theatre of Surrealistic characters came to Varna with two productions of internationally acclaimed director Silviu Purcărete: Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (2006) and The Tempest (2012), both of them staged at Marin Sorescu National Theatre, Craiova. In its 2010 and 2011 editions, Varna Festival presented a new figure of Romanian theatre, director Radu Afrim and two of his productions: Lucia patinează (Lucia Is Skating) by Lithuanian writer Laura Sintija Černiauskaitė (Theatre Andrei Mureşanu, Sfântu Gheorghe) and The Avalanche by Turkish playwright Tuncer Cücenoğlu (Caragiale National Theatre of Bucharest). Such a high intensity of contacts between Bulgarian and Romanian theatres shows in itself strong mutual interest. The opportunities for its development lie mostly in launching joint projects at bilateral, regional and European levels both through theatrical coproduction and general rethinking of the histories and the present of Bulgarian and Romanian theatres.
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The article examines two different aspects of the state cultural policy in Romania in the film industry. On one hand it marks the legislative regulation of the Romanian cinematography from the 30`s of the past century until today, and on the other – the accent is put on the active foreign policy of the country over the past years, which is directed toward popularization of the Romanian culture abroad as a whole and cinema in particular. The Romanian film is regarded by the state as a cultural product of national importance, which by different mechanisms like legislation and cultural diplomacy is supported and distributed worldwide. In the analysis of the framework of the state cultural policy in Romania in cinematography, there are several points that make impression. After the turbulences in the years after 1989, the state is trying to support traditions in passing protectionist policy toward cinema. Following the French law regulation and mechanisms of financing, there are attempts to form a European model of cinema industry development: creation of a special cinema fund, engagement of the TV channels and cable operators in the film production financing, imposition of taxes over the cinema theatre tickets. At the same time, the role of the state cultural diplomacy in distributing the new Romanian cinema worldwide is very active and important. The Romanian cultural centers are the focus points, where different activities are located such as festivals, film screenings etc. In conclusion –legislative frame and diplomacy are onlylevers, which gives basis for cinematographic development. However, such a state support is essential to have a new wave in the Romanian cinema.
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Digitalization is one of the most common topics, discussed by different authors the past decade. Since the beginning, the digital process came across a specific problem of transfer, from analogue to digital form, which is common for all arts. At first it looked as the digital is the ultimate future, and all we have to do is to digitalize all old masterpieces and art works in general. Slowly, as the technology improved, we understood that there are several major problems. The first is that there is no ideal way of digitalizing an art work, in a way that it is fully and a hundred percent transferred and preserved the same – all kinds of digitalization inevitably influence the original work of art. Secondary the technology changes rapidly and every time the analogue source must be digitalized again. The following paper is concentrated mainly on photography and cinema, and occasionally in other arts. It looks and analyses the different kind of digitalization processes, mainly through my own photography experience, but also mentioning and giving the results of other researches like Guy Burns and his “The Art and Science of Reproducing Kodachrome”. All the results are compared and carefully analysed – the classical flatbed scanners, specialized film scanners, the photo lab machines and the duplicating principle of DSLR. As photography deals with quite many techniques and variety of forms, not all digitalizing ways are applicable for every source. Despite that, they all show without any doubt that the art works change when digitalized. Even more – there are certain art works that particularly could not be digitalized, at least with satisfying results. That is the reason to call it impossible digitalization. Although it is more accurate to say that digitalization has infinite options possible. And when distributing the result, there are even more variety of reproducing the image, which are totally out of control of the author. The digitalization today is unavoidable, but still we have to have in mind that relativity.
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The design and presentation of the production of rose water and attar of roses at international expos in the early twentieth century are under consideration. Art processes, displays of various historical styles in their local specifics, and the creative contribution of their authors, paramount to the history of fine arts, are traced from showcasing of vials to the ‘revolutionary concept of fountains of rose water to dioramas. Written records on this topic of international events held prior to 1900 are adduced. A Fountain of Industries mounted at the Universal Exposition. St. Louis, USA, 1904 by Boris Schatz is examined. The art concept and design of rose water dioramas by Charalampi Tatchev at the expos in Liège (1905), Milan (1906) and the rose water fountain at Balkan States Exhibition, London (1907) are analysed. The sculpture Nymph by Zheko Spiridonov is of special interest in this context and his career in Bulgarian fine arts is traced. The Nymph was conceived in Munich to be executed in Prague and exhibited in Sofia, Munich and Paris, was put on display in Belgium (1905), Italy (1906) and Great Britain (1907), becoming part of this country’s cultural heritage as a museum exhibit (1919); yet the sculpture left Bulgaria decades after touring Europe. This country’s participation in the expos in Thessalonica (1926, 1927, 1930) is also examined. Rose water fountains have also been recorded at the expos in Paris (1937) and Vienna (1954). Rose water fountains in various combinations of varying quality of their designs were a constant element of Bulgaria’s presentation regardless of the political governments, style movements or their designers
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The paper gives in broad strokes the inconsistency of drama with performance in the period of Romanticism as evidenced mostly from the history of English theatre. The period of Romanticism movement in theatre is less well explored. Typical of this movement is the gap and inconsistency between drama and its performance. The fact that a good part of the plays by Romanticists have not been staged at all, is really telling. The authors’ dramatic fantasies went beyond the conventions of the coetaneous theatre practice and a major part of texts that have been meant for the staged, proved inadequate or went beyond its capacities. That was rather in tune with the Romantic perception of Shakespearean oeuvre, which began to be deemed as too good for the harsh materiality of theatre. Romanticists’ dramatic pieces drastically changed the conventional idea of action, composition and personages and as such they aroused anticipations of the development of drama in modern and post-modern times. On the other hand, these were highly charged with sensuous and visual imagery, which could be deemed to evidence that these texts held a potential for being much more than just ‘plays for reading’ and were potentially stageable.
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The paper draws attention to the ideological and aesthetical prerequisites for a new line of development of industrial photography in this country: images free from pathos, narrativity and emotionality. Bulgarian photography as presented in the 1950s images, where the question ‘what’ that has inherently accompanied artistic tools, has been replaced with the more vital to the authorities ‘why’ and ‘how’. Arts, including photography, ought first and foremost to have ideological nature. A decade later, in the 1960s, the reality has changed, which called for changes in the photographic imagery. The authors and author’s own interpretations of the subjects were increasingly featured. Impressive construction sites and enthusiastic workers still occurred in the pictures but along with industrial buildings presented as metal monsters or lonely creatures, isolated in the wilderness of lunar landscapes without any evidence of human presence. Geometricity, pure forms and emphasised lines in the pictures were seen as an expression of this country’s technological revolution and industrial progress.
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The Society of Bulgarian Women Graduates of Universities, established in 1924, was the first ever association of such women in this country. In 1928, a Section of Female Artists was formed within the Society, the first union of female painters in Bulgaria. Establishing an independent community of female artists was a major step towards the mass inclusion of women in the country’s art life, providing them with an opportunity to stand up for their professional interests in arts. The process may well be defined as the first focused attempt to integrate ‘female art’ into Bulgaria’s cultural life. Most of the practising Bulgarian female artists joined the Section (1928–1941). The Section’s art activities were random. The initiatives of the members were reduced to mounting an exhibition on a yearly basis. During its thirteen years of history, the Section staged twelve exhibitions in Sofia, one in Plovdiv and one abroad. The collective events staged by the women drew many visitors, igniting heated public discussions about women and their creativity.
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The paper deals with a monument, sporadically mentioned in scientific literature, of the earliest period of the Bulgarian National Revival: the Church of St Nicholas in the village of Katunitsa near Plovdiv. Decoration of the church––an iconostasis, icons and murals––has been commissioned on a regular basis well until the end of the period of the Bulgarian National Revival by a number of church donors living mostly in Katunitsa. The iconostasis and the icons in the Deesis tier painted by Zachary Zograph in 1834–1835, were dated to the earliest stage in the decoration of the church coetaneous with the construction of the building. Decades later, the Feast tire of icons were commissioned to be executed by different icon-painters along with the mural paintings at the naos of the church made by Alexy Athanasov. The latter were precisely dated to 1852. The same icon-painter painted the murals flanking the north entrance to the church in 1866. A thorough presentation of the church of the village of Katunitsa is of paramount importance not only because no attempts have been made to record it comprehensively, but also because it adduces examples of the earliest oeuvre of two of the most renowned and prolific icon-painters working in and in the vicinities of the city of Plovdiv, i.e. Zachary Zograph and Alexy Athanasov.
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The article deals with contemporary puppetry theatre stage practices in the light of the strategies of the interplay between three theatrical phenomena: a dramatic work/text, performance and its reception. What are the different modes in-between the extreme of the ‘theatre of a text’, where a performance is a visualisation of a play/text and the opposite extreme, which may be defined as a ‘theatre beyond text’? At the turn of this millennium, Bulgarian puppetry theatre stage practices evinced classical and innovative quests of both the generations with established creative activities and new creative drives forming together the present situation in Bulgaria. Following the turn of the twenty-first century, the potential of puppetry theatre occurs in various aesthetical and idea-driven pursuits, which could be generally classed in three groups: two of those are defined as belonging to the classical puppetry theatre––its homogenous and heterogeneous forms––and the third is a more experimental new use of nonliving matter onstage such as the theatre of material. The topic suggests a focus on the quests for artistic inspiration and stage practices of Slavcho Malenov, Peter Pashov, Bonio Lungov, Katia Petrova, Teddy Moscov and those debuting after 2000: Veselka Kuncheva, Mila Kolarova, Bozhidar Alexandrov, Magdalena Miteva, Peter Pashov Jr and Milena Milanova through an analysis of their creative laboratories, theatrical expressiveness, visual stage solutions and their reflection on the text-performancereception strategy.
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