We kindly inform you that, as long as the subject affiliation of our 300.000+ articles is in progress, you might get unsufficient or no results on your third level or second level search. In this case, please broaden your search criteria.
When discussing this topic, it is worth starting with a brief overview of the historiography of the subject. This aspect is especially important because the cultural historical study of Western esotericism took a different course in Western and Eastern (ex-East Bloc) Europe.
More...
Alchemy is a special branch of learned magic. In Central Europe it was cultivated more than all the other offshoots of learned occultism. Alchemy, like the mentality supporting it, relied on Aristotelian principles. From the point of view of formal logic, the transmutation of metals was close to Catholic transubstantiation. It was close to the thinking of the early modern person whether from the Catholic or the Protestant environments. Experimental activity was cultivated in alchemy. It combined real and practical metallurgy with speculative metaphysics. There were extraordinarily many real stimuli for alchemy in the Habsburg Monarchy. For example, there were gold, silver and copper mines in the territory of present day Slovakia. These were notable for strange mysteries, for which the scientific knowledge of the time could give only speculative explanations.
More...
In the past few decades I have begun to examine the role that magic played in the lives of village and small town societies in the early modern period, in their mentality, religiosity and belief system. The examination was based on sources related to witchcraft. It is commonly known that the minutes of the witchcraft trials which took place throughout the 16th to 18th centuries are valuable sources with regard to the rural communities of the early modern period, in fact they constitute the only early modern source, which gives a detailed account of the communal role and social background of magic. The witness accounts of these trials reflect almost directly the ‘rural witchcraft’, which took place in the background of the official events and preceded these trials. Contrary to the accused, who may even have been forced by the expectations of elite demonology to make a false statement, the witnesses reconstructed the goings on of their village in the context of traditional witchcraft belief. They relate those of their memories, which can be interpreted as malefactions of a witch in the light of their beliefs. This allows us to gain what might near enough be called direct evidence regarding bewitchment (‘maleficium’) or black magic (or, in fact, its absence, as we shall see in what follows).
More...
“Be gone Satan from the body of this woman and make room for the Holy Spirit!” commanded Hildegard of Bingen, and on her words “an unclean spirit left the woman in a disgusting way through her sexual organs and with excretion. She was free.” Although this event occurred sometime in the 12th century, it faithfully catches the level of women’s medicine in the Middle Ages and several later centuries. It is not surprising, since the protection of human health was generally on a very low level in this period. This unfavourable situation was further affected by the fact that women’s medicine and obstetrics were not only not regarded as a separate branch of medicine, it was also undervalued. This is not contradicted by the fact that the medical school at Salerno probably also educated women during the period of its flourishing from 1150 to 1180. The most important female graduate was a certain Trotta or Trotula, a famous obstetrician, to whom the work On the pains of women before, during and after childbirth is attributed. At the end of the 13th century, many woman doctors also worked in Paris, but the members of the faculty of medicine there opposed them, and excommunicated them for illegal practices. All the actions around the birth of a new person were an exclusively female affair, with the presence of men wanted only at the beginning – for conception. This is also shown by the case of the Hamburg doctor Veit, condemned to death by burning in 1522, because he had dressed in the clothes of a midwife and wanted to assist at childbirths. It was only possible to help women theoretically, as the Worms town doctor Eucharius Roesslin did. In 1513, he published the book Der Swangeren Frawen und hebammen Rosengarten [The Rose Garden for Pregnant Women and Midwives]. In spite of the fact that the author did not draw from his own experience, but from ancient authors, it became one of the most frequently published books of the 16th century.
More...
Súčasný moderný historický výskum spoločenských elít a osobitne aristokracie v Uhorsku sa nemôže zaobísť bez bližšieho skúmania príbuzenských a rodinných vzťahov uhorských magnátskych rodov. Dôležitú úlohu pri objasňovaní týchto vzťahov má nepochybne vedecká genealógia. Napriek tomu, že genealogický výskum má u nás už úctyhodnú, vyše dvestoročnú tradíciu, nemožno konštatovať spokojnosť s dosiahnutými výsledkami. Najmä v slovenskej historiografii chýbajú genealogické pramenné edície, ako aj širšie koncipované analytické práce, ktoré by osvetľovali historické procesy cez zrkadlo rodových a príbuzenských väzieb. Prakticky neexistujú slovensky písané genealogické monografie, ktoré by súborne mapovali nobilitu na našom území a predstavovali ju cez genealogické tabuľky. Nedostatočne spracovaná je najmä aristokracia pôsobiaca na našom území v období raného novoveku. V poslednom období síce vzniklo niekoľko monografií o jednotlivých aristokratických rodoch, avšak ide zväčša o práce kompilačného charakteru, spracované na základe staršej literatúry, bez hlbších archívnych výskumov.
More...
The purpose of this study is to examine the political career of Edvard Kocbek (1904–1981), the internationally recognised Slovene writer, poet, Christian Socialist thinker and politician. Kocbek became well known in 1937, after publishing a long article about the Spanish Civil War, in which he raised his voice against the fact that the main Slovenian party and the Church leadership supported Francisco Franco. In World War II he and his Christian Socialists cooperated with the communists in the Liberation Front and Kocbek has received high ranking positions after the war, but as a Christian, he had no place in the new regime and was forced to resigne. After a decade, he could publish his literary works again. In the afternoon of his life, he raised a particularly unpleasant question for the regime regarding the massacres committed by the Yugoslav Communists after World War II, which was a taboo subject till then.
More...
Arthur Schnitzler was one of the most prominent representants of the so-called „Jung Wien”, i.e. the group of Vienna intellectuals, writers and artists around 1900. His dramatical and narrative works demonstrate characteristic traits, social, intellectual and aesthetical problems, and figu-res of the late k.u.k.-Monarchy, and although he was often considered as an author contributing to the „Habsburg myth”, he had a very sceptical and critical view about his time and the Vienna society of the turn of the century. Schnitzler’s works account i.a. for the ’language crisis’, the crisis of personality in a very special manner, and in his novellas he introduces experimental narrative tools (e.g. multiperspectivism, interior monologue, unreliability) which makes him to a prominently modern author.
More...
This paper focuses on a person being both a scientist and a politician who played a key role in socialist Hungary in the initiation of the opening towards the West. Ferenc Erdei (1910–1971) started his career as a soci-ologist in the early 1930s and was mainly involved in politics after 1945. Following the revolution in 1956, he drew back from his active political role. He established the Research Institute of Agricultural Economics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences which became the the most import-ant background institution of the Agrarian Lobby. My paper argues that the experience Erdei gained from his study trips in Western Europe in the 1930s served later as a basis for the „bridge-building” between the socialist East and the capitalist West. In my paper I investigate which western countries Erdei launched the opening towards and through which channels he started to build a network as well as the political and professional debates that followed this process.
More...
Life, later destiny, political and public work of Dr. Ágost Benárd, minister of welfare and labor and Alfréd Drasche–Lázár, extraordinary ambassa-dor and authorized minister, who were the signatories of the Peace Trea-ty of Trianon, on 4th June 1920 were beyond the scope of examination of the researchers and historians in the recent time. Present study is aiming to fill this gap, with presenting the two signatories’ political and public ca-reer. It covers their education, role in the First World War and their work between the two wars. It definitely refutes the allegations that Dr. Ágos Benárd and Alfréd Drasche–Lázár were weightless politicians who were willing to leave politics and who were voluntarily signatories of the peace treaty. By contrast, the study describes both politicians’ work after the signing of the peace treaty, and proves with persuasive arguments that they were two honest gentlemen, who were suffering of and said to be victims of the events, they were the formers of the 20th Century Central Europe.
More...
The text describes the use of Vassil Levski‘s portrait in the first episode “Guests” of the comic “The Unexplained” by the magazine “Rainbow” (1979).
More...
The topic of Franciscanism in literature is not reserved solely for Ivo Andric (although ‘Andric’s Franciscans’ have been extensively written about within literary criticism), nor is it reserved for Croatian literature in general. This work, from imagological prospective, offers the reading of fifteen texts from modern Bosniak literature that vary in genre and which remember Bosnian Franciscans – historical personalities (Anđeo Zvizdović, Matija Divković, Juraj Dragišić, Ivan Frano Jukić, Grgo Martić, Matheus Bartl (Mato Banjalučanin), Miroslav (Tomislav) Filipović / Majstorović, Ljubo Hrgić, Ivo Marković), but which also offer an image of Bosnian Franciscanism, in Bosniak visure. It has been shown that the ideas and images of Bosnian Franciscans in poems, short-stories, novels and dramas of Bosniak literature are mainly positive, but even when they’re not – they are understandable and expected if one bears in mind the questions that are the subject of imagological consideration of the text: WHO, TO WHOM, WHEN and HOW is one speaking. The work concludes that between several views of the ethnic (cultural) identity being realized (also) in literature (from Karahasan’s garden to Lovrenović’s rainbow colours to Spahić’s “poetry of kaleidoscope”) it is not impossible to talk about all of them within one text i.e. about Bosniak literature at the same time and that Bosniak authors too are meritorious for the symbolical imaginarium of Franciscanism within the identification fields of Bosnian-Herzegovinian literature.
More...
This paper treats on how the vocabulary of the ancient era of the written Polish has been analyzed. Its goals is showing the means available to a lexicographer carrying out research in the past century and pointing to the nowadays capabilities. Current technical measures make possible showing of an entire workspace of a researcher, what yields a possibility of verification of an analysis and taking up a discussion.
More...
The agrotechnical work by Crescentius (1571) includes a wide range of specialist vocabulary – one of the most important elements of the specialist language. The development of science, commenced in the 16th century, became reflected in the slowly created nomenclature. The article attempts to show its evolution. The starting point became the names of plants. The material was compared against the traditional nomenclature of the earlier times, the Polish language of the 16th century and the contemporary nomenclature. The examined group of words evinces the continuity of terms appearing in the early stage of shaping specialist languages. They illustrate the state of knowledge in the discussed period of time, the range and sources of specialist lexis; they even constitute the evidence of changes taking place throughout history.
More...
The paper verifies the 7 essential characteristics for understanding what it is that dialectology and historical dialectology: (1) geographic diversity, (2) social differentiation, (3) subject of study, (4) opposition ‘dialect-literary language’, (5) chronological aspect, (6) focus on Old Polish language, (7) irregularity of dialectal features. Author used the articles about the origins of Polish literary language. An additional aim of this article is to seek answers to the question: Does the history of dialects may be helpful in the diagnosis of the present situation?
More...
This article was written in connection with the Silesian University lecturing on the subject called the language as a cultural archive. The author shows how to use the text “Dworzanin polski” Ł. Górnickiego that students know already the first year of Polish studies to come to a synthesis of knowledge of the history of literature, history, language and cultural history. The author proposes to once again look at the patterns imported from Italy about perfect courtier and based on the analysis of the text to find the determinants of the ancient court culture. Furthermore, the text aims to give students information about courtly manners, inventory of court entertainments with their characteristics and old formulas honorific politeness and courtly language, which should be compared with the recommendations of today’s savoir-vivre civilities. In addition, the author points out certain variety of literature types, like a conversation, a dialogue, speech, dedication and anecdote. All these proposals are designed to help lecturer attractive objects of linguistics and realize the student functionality and complexity of Polish studies.
More...
The article presents the author’s book „Wyrażenia funkcyjne w średniowiecznej polszczyźnie z perspektywy składniowej” (Mika, Słoboda, 2015). This monograph is a syntactic addendum to the lexical research carried out as a part of the project “Polish functional expressions in diachronic perspective”. The problems discussed in this book are not homogeneous. Their different types are described in the subsequent chapters: at first the authors remind basic methodological difficulties in description of functional expressions, especially those appearing when you want to consider functional expressions in terms of syntax, not lexis. Then, there are indicated the problems with medieval source material and related interpretation difficulties. In the next part of the book the authors suggest their own methodology: the tendencies identified in „Składnia średniowiecznej polszczyzny” (Krążyńska, Mika, Słoboda, 2015) determine the direction of the interpretation of the processes, which functional expressions are subordinated to and participate in. These tendencies are: 1. Analytic tendency (from holism to analytism); 2. The tendency to autonomize the language (the disconnection of language and reality); 3. The categorization (from lexical to categorial semantics expressed in a specific form); 4. The structurization (from apposition to syntactic structures); 5. The condensation of content (from a very pure content of syntactic units to the cumulation of content in syntactic units). The authors interpret selected linguistic processes in reference to these tendencies. The processes include inter alia: the coexistence of casual and prepositional forms, and the occurence of original particles as appositions of conjunctive function (which indicates analytical tendency); the introduction of elements expressing relation between events, and metatext elements (being, in the authors opinion, the symptom of autonomization); the process of transforming particles into connection indicators, leading to multifunctionality of conjunctions; the process of transforming object-related expressions into determinants of communicative intention (both processes are typical examples of formal categorization); the process of shaping of new categorial meanings of prepositional phrases, leading i.a. to the occurence of case government of verbs (being the effect of renewal of the categorial semantics): the process of shaping of correlated connection indicators and reported speech (seen these processes as the symptoms of structurization); the development of hypotaxis, being the symptom of the tendency to condensation of the content.
More...
Jan Muthman, the first Lutheran pastor in Cieszyn is known first and foremost as the author of the book „The Allegiance to God and the Emperor in the Times of Pestilence…” published in 1716. This clergyman was also a translator of ecclesiastical writings intended for the inhabitants of the Cieszyn Silesia. One of such volumes was „A Hundred Rules for Living…” published in 1720. A linguistic analysis of this volume can provide significant insight into the regional variants of 18th‑century Cieszyn dialect of Polish.
More...
“Bogurodzica” has for centuries constituted one of the pillars of Polish culture. As the oldest religious song written in Polish, it designates avenues of interpretation of the medieval aesthetics both in literature and musicology. Moreover, its influence on society and the emergence of national identity cannot be overstated. Due to this monumental, sacrosanct nature, „Bogurodzica” has become an exhibit in the museum of medieval imagery. However, a song, even one which remains a symbol of the past, is always subject to revision during its performance. Thanks to its musical interpretation and reinterpretation, „Bogurodzica” can be read anew and made relevant, while those interpretations reveal hidden discourses. The following article aims at analyzing selected contemporary performances of the literary and musical relic, ruminating on its role in contemporary popular culture and the perception of the Middle Ages suggested by those performances.
More...