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In 2013, the European Union celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the entry into force of the Treaty of Maastricht, while the European culture, the cultural sector and cultural institutions – the twentieth anniversary of the birth of the EU cultural policy. Article 128 of the Treaty contained the first definition of the goal, powers and scope of activity of the Community in the field of culture. Currently, the EU’s competences in the field of culture are specified in Article 167 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (former Article 151 of the Treaty of Amsterdam). In the first part of this paper, the author outlines, in chronological order, the legal basis for the EU cultural policy laid down in each of the Treaties and analyses the ‘soft’ instruments used for shaping this policy that have determined its development in the years 1992–2013. The second part of the article focuses on the European Agenda for Culture, the first strategic document in which the EU has defined long-term goals and priorities of cultural policy. The document, adopted in 2007, was to become the response of the Community to new challenges in the area of European culture and to initiate the process of shifting culture from the periphery to the mainstream of EU policies. The article points to the importance of the European Agenda for Culture in the history of the EU cultural policy, not only because it shows a change in the EU’s rhetoric regarding the place and role of culture in the process of integration but mainly because the priorities adopted in the document, as well as new mechanisms of decision-making and cooperation between the EU, its Member States and the cultural sector, have determined the shape of the EU cultural policy, including the shape of EU programmes and the measures taken in the field of culture after 2007. The dynamism of implementing the objectives of the European Agenda for Culture also shows that – in the long run – the Agenda will have an impact on the future condition and development of culture in Europe. Will incorporating the EU cultural policy in the Agenda shift culture from the periphery to the mainstream of EU policies? What price will the cultural sector and culture have to pay for this shift and will it not be too high? What will be the impact on culture of the progressive economisation of culture and the introduction of new key words to the language of the EU cultural policy (creativity–innovation–growth), which have dominated the point of view on the role and place of the cultural sector in Europe after 2007. Can the EU find a balance in supporting the economic and social dimensions of culture, and can it support culture as an area of autonomous values, actions as well as complex identities that cannot be reduced to one common denominator? The conclusion ending the text concerns the future of the EU cultural policy and the paradox that it can become part of. Because what we are witnessing now is an attempt to negotiate a partial ‘soft’ communitisation of the EU cultural policy within the limits imposed by Article 167 TFEU. It is possible, however, that in the future the same limits, so fervently criticised over the years, will be the basis for insisting on the autonomy of culture and its values and needs not defined by the market.
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The article is focused on three important aspects of intangible cultural heritage: the designation of intangible cultural heritage and the meanings imparted to it; the spheres of cultural activity within its scope, and the safeguarding measures which are implemented by the state. On the basis of the definitions and statements from UNESCO’s 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, I offer an overview of the situation in Bulgaria: the growing usage of the new concept and the different contents attributed to it; the substantial discrepancies between the essence of intangible cultural heritage and the popular notions about it; some of the state’s cultural policies regarding the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage; and the increased media focus on these issues. In the analysis of the current situation, I draw on my comprehension and experience as a researcher and as an expert involved in the implementation of some of the state cultural policies in this sphere.
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This article offers the concept of folklore nostalgia, derived from Michael Herzfeld’s definition of structural nostalgia as an aspect of the broader notion of cultural intimacy. The concept is discussed in regards to the areas of fieldwork within Bulgarian ethnology and folkloristics. The aim of creating this juxtaposition is not to formulate theoretical propositions, but rather to discuss the extent to which and directions in which the use of this concept would be applicable for the methodology of anthropologically oriented disciplines. The place of the internet is of particular importance here as a ‘new’ field and, at the same time, a ‘new’ source for anthropological research. Studying the specific type of communication on the internet—the characteristics of which resemble the folk(lore) interaction—it is highly interesting to explore this private sphere where interpretations of the official discourse, as presented by the media, take place.
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This paper is dedicated to the legend of seven maidens connected to Yedi Kızlar Türbesi (the Tomb of the Seven Maidens) in Manisa, the Republic of Turkey. Two versions of the legend are discerned: one (pseudo)historical and one ritual-mythical. The author shows that the former version is not actually based on historical facts. The second version is compared to legends which were recorded among the Turks of the Eastern Rhodope Mountains in Bulgaria. In this way, the paper outlines similarities in how the Seven Maidens are depicted in both regions. A comparison with a legend from Ossetia confirms the hypothesis that the Seven Maidens were originally a personification of the Pleiades star cluster. Owing to its peripheral position in relation to central religious issues, this cult was preserved during the Christian (Byzantine) and Muslim (Ottoman) periods, thus providing an opportunity for a manifestation of religiosity among women.
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This article is dedicated to the New Age pilgrimages in Bulgaria in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It presents various types of pilgrim destinations: natural landmarks and cultural sites with a primarily religious character. Some specific aspects of the New Age pilgrimages in Bulgaria are outlined, such as the interest in ‘Thracian’ and ‘Proto-Bulgarian’ sites and beliefs, the influence of Dаnovism, and the inclusion of Orthodox religious centres in New Age sacred geography. The New Age pilgrimages are seen as a manifestation of postmodern religiosity, in which the leading idea is to acquire a personal experience of the respective sites of energy/power in the search for spiritual transformation.
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Radu Jude’s movie didn’t just arouse debate, it also did good box office.
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Leaving one’s homeland comes as a shock for an emigrant and his family. It is even more difficult when they decide to settle down in a country as far away from Poland as Australia is. Its exotic character, so different from European lifestyle conventions, can cause difficulties in adapting to the new culture and make the whole process last longer. Language and culture – the two elements closely connected with emigration are discussed in the article. On the one hand there is a need to preserve one’s own values, on the other, however at the same time, one must adapt to new values to avoid isolation.
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The Polish language keeps losing its position in comparison with other community languages. This is a result of new waves of immigrants arriving from China, Vietnam and Arabic countries. The article presents the current situation of Polish language in Australia referring first to the data gathered by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, then discussing factors that are crucial for language maintenance/shifting using the already existing models. The author divides the factors into ‘permanent’ and ‘dynamic,’ and then, in the second group he distinguishes between the factors that can or cannot be profiled. Such an approach reveals the areas where initiatives aimed at Polish language maintenance in Australia are most needed and can be the most effective.
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Organised education in Polish has existed in Australia since the middle of the last century. In terms of primary and secondary education, these extracurricular language classes are held mostly on Saturday mornings, rather than weekday afternoons. Some schools come under local Polish organisations such as Związek Polski (Polish Association), others are part of the Polska Macierz Szkolna (Polish Educational Society). There are also many independent schools which are governed by Parent Associations. These schools continue to gain in popularity – and have particularly done so in recent years. At tertiary level, the Polish language has also been offered at the Department of International Studies at Macquarie University in Sydney since the 1980s.
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In the article the subject of attention is the communication strategies of pupils in schools with Polish as the language of instruction in the Czech part of Cieszyn Silesia. The pupils know more than one language code – at a minimum, the local dialect, Polish and Czech, and they alternating between these codes in linguistic communication daily. The article presents excerpts from interviews with these pupils conducted by the authors (and researchers), in which the causes, methods and consequences of such specific communication strategies are revealed. The main triggers of code changes were found to be mainly changes of conversation topics and changes in the language of communication partners. The article also touches upon other issues: the conceptualization of the world through traditional dialect, the utility of dialects in the contemporary world of technological, scientific and cultural progress and the emergence of mixed supranational spoken languages, etc.
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The article treats the particular interweaving of continuity and discontinuity in tradition as a major paradox in Balkan cultures throughout centuries. Thus a paradigm in the cultural system is revealed as manifested in binary oppositions such as openness versus closeness, the East versus the West, the native as opposed to the foreign and the regional to the European, respectively. Certain clarification upon the age of Modernity and Europium of Balkan art creativity will be beneficial for the outlining of the unique essence of the cultural setting and the experience of Balkan men as a realization in a global world. As a key to the understanding of art and literature Europium is relevant to the disclosure of an aesthetic, spiritual and intellectual wealth and to the particular identity of the peoples on the peninsula. The article treats the particular interweaving of continuity and discontinuity in tradition as a major paradox in Balkan cultures throughout centuries. Thus a paradigm in the cultural system is revealed as manifested in binary oppositions such as openness versus closeness, the East versus the West, the native as opposed to the foreign and the regional to the European, respectively. Certain clarification upon the age of Modernity and Europium of Balkan art creativity will be beneficial for the outlining of the unique essence of the cultural setting and the experience of Balkan men as a realization in a global world. As a key to the understanding of art and literature, Europium is relevant to the disclosure of an aesthetic, spiritual and intellectual wealth and to the particular identity of the peoples on the peninsula.
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This paper deals with the topic of multiculturalism and multicultural competence in higher education. It summarizes the international project SOULBUS, whose goal is to meet current and future challenges of multiculturalism in the field of educational rehabilitation and social and health care through collaboration between higher education and the labor market. In relation to the objective of the project, this paper includes the results of research conducted at the Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Zagreb, which refers to the experience of teachers and students and their thoughts on multiculturalism in the context of international mobility. Generally, the results indicate positive experiences with and attitudes towards the internationalization of higher education and provide specific guidance for better reception of and communication with foreign students.
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The daily lives of citizens in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as prevalent commentaries on current political, social and economic affairs in the country, suggest that local people's day-to-day experiences are shaped by waiting – as both a condition and a practice. This article ethnographically explores and analyses how waiting became a central element in the experiences of young people living in Bihać, a town located in Bosnia and Herzegovina, near the border with Croatia. Importantly, this waiting, which in one way or another relates to personal (e.g., admission to university) and/or collective (e.g. European Union accession) “progress”, is defined and shaped by the deeds of others. I argue that one of the products of waiting is a sense that in the meantime each individual activity, or activity for the benefit of the collective, can be postponed, and legitimately so. While being a response to an overwhelming sense that waiting was consuming young people’s daily lives, the article also attempts to address, challenge and complicate the idea that young people in BiH are apathetic and indifferent to what is going on around them. Although the primary idea of the article is to examine and display experiences of young people who lived in Bihać during 2009–2010, the author also refers to the waiting experience of people who were in their teenage years after World War II. This “conversation” between older and younger citizens of Bihać is, at the same time, the product of ethnographic research as well as an indicator that waiting and hope in a given time are directly associated with narrower local and broader global contexts. The author argues that, in contemporary BiH, the experience of waiting among young people was primarily formed by an impression that hope – personal and collective – was geographically and temporally out of their reach. This impression was largely created by the sense that the everyday lives and the futures of BiH citizens were unpredictable. This unpredictability has created the impression among many young people that their “agentive capacity” (Greenberg, 2011) was limited and that, in fact, they were stuck. This sense of “stuckedness” (Hage, 2009) is linked to both the collective political, social and economic situation in BiH, as well as to all sorts of other uncertainties that concerned daily and often more personal tasks or aspirations. Meanwhile, the sense of “stuckedness” gave the impression that the only thing one could do is wait.
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In this article we explore the gap between the dominant discourse of transition/privatization and postsocialist living realities in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the process of economic and political transition is further complicated by the burden of war, so that in the Bosnian case we speak of a “double transition”: from war to “peace“ and from socialism to capitalism. Inspired by our ethnography of emptiness and by the photo essays “Junkyards of the Future Past” (De Genova, 1997) and “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt” (Hedges & Sacco, 2012), in this article we analyze the effects of the Bosnian “transition” through the prism – more specifically genealogy and biography – of one “empty” institution in Bihać. This building is a never completed retirement home in the center of postwar and postsocialist Bihać, a city on the northwestern edge of the country. The building remains eerie, semi-empty and skeleton-like, a shadow and a symbol of the unmaterialized socialist past and the corrupt, perpetually transitioning and privatizing present. Ethnographic focus on the building, and not on a “place” or a “population,” is conscious, and it reflects the importance of material objects in the context of larger transformations of collective and state ownership. Specifically, we place this huge, abandoned and ghostly building in the sphere of political economy, in the anthropological, therefore broad and contextualized, meaning of that concept. In short, we use an empty building as an analytical and hermeneutic “tool” with which to grasp, describe, and explain the effects of postwar and postsocialist “transitions” on “people and objects” in the context of Bihać and beyond.
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The discussion presented in this paper aims at a broadened reflection on the teacher and their role in conditions of the contemporary media culture, which constitutes a difficult-to-define blend of “the non-obvious and the possible.” The authors of the paper consider the relations between the teacher and the media culture, the manifestations and products of which can influence their stance on the world, art and profession practised. The assumed perspective leads to the outlining of the area of necessary changes in the whole educational system and raises the problem of the quality of cultural education of teachers.
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Modern man is exposed to countless images, mainly products of the pop culture. Generally, the reception of these does not require a great intellectual effort; visual content is easily absorbed by a mass recipient. Dominant in this visual content is the body whose “shape” is determined by social and cultural processes. A repeated exposure to images of an ideal body propagated by the western culture results in this image being internalized and conceived as a model, especially by young people. Consequently, young people define and evaluate themselves by the appearance of their body, simultaneously making many efforts to improve this appearance and social presentation. This behaviour can, however, cause various negative consequences both for an individual and society. The author’s awareness that the images of the body presented by the media usually do not reflect reality makes her emphasize the need to develop a strategy in media education promoting critical interpretation and evaluation of the visual coverage.
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Plan will likely elicit strong response from Moscow, which hasn’t been consulted.
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This paper discusses and critically evaluates the concept of the new spirit of capitalism as developed by Luc Boltanski and Ève Chiapello. Immediately following its publication, Le nouvel esprit du capitalisme [1999] became one of the most distinct points on the map of studies on the cultural transformations of capitalism, and it has attracted the attention of sociologists around the Europe. Nevertheless, in Polish literature the majority of sociological texts omit mention of this monumental work. In order to fill this gap, at least to some extent, this paper serves as an introduction to the ideas contained in Le nouvel esprit du capitalisme. It reconstructs the theoretical and methodological core of the book, the underlying concept of the relationship between the critique and ideology, as well as idea of historical phases in the alterations of the spirit of capitalism.
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