Kultura liberalna wobec wyzwań współczesności
Debates / Debaty: Prof. Piotr Bartula, Prof. Andrzej Szahaj and Prof. Janusz Majcherek.
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Debates / Debaty: Prof. Piotr Bartula, Prof. Andrzej Szahaj and Prof. Janusz Majcherek.
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The article deals with the relevance of both anthropological and folkloristic methods as “action-based” and “text-based” approaches in the study of two regional traditions in Coastal Karnataka, India – the theatrical tradition yakshagana and the ritual-performance daiva-nyama or kolam, bhoota-kolam. Both are living, orally-transmitted traditions. They are interconnected to religious culture in different ways (temple festivals, spirit worship, possession, impersonation) and both provide “mirrors” of the local social set-up. Both are based on epic traditions—pan-Indian in case of yakshagana and local in case of kolam. The paper is based on the fieldwork conducted by the author in the time period from 2013 to 2015. It addresses the distinction between these different research methods and the need to combine them when applied to this complicated reality. The author discusses some of the social and cultural aspects of yakshagana and kolam analysis, including their origin, classification and stratification. She offers a cultural interpretation of repertoire and action, describes some of the social characteristics oftroupes and of the performance context, explores their interconnection, and enquires into their social functions. The related problems of sponsorship, patronage, and gender are also described. The author argues that yakshagana and kolam appear to be an “intermediary” cultural phenomenon that connects the area’s pan-Indian heritage with local performing practices. This performance tradition is also expressive of local musical, literary, poetic, theatrical and expressive knowledge. As a drama, yakshagana is based on a written text (prasanga) and many orally transmitted elements. Kolam is enacted according to strong ritualistic vernacular plot lines and is particular to a certain place and deity. Apart from re-enacting the story, kolam appears as a peculiar social expression of joint concerns, an institution for inter-caste communication, mantic practices, etc., with a strong aesthetic overderlay. However, both enjoy certain spontaneity and both are pregnant with unpredictable turns. Both serve as an instrument of socialization, as a form of preserving and enactment of local historical memory, as a way to overcome difficulties, etc. Being cultural tools with multiple purposes, both yakshagana and kolam need to be studies from a range of different angles and perspective.
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Joanna Sobczykowa’s article deals with Latin as a sacred language in the Polish cultural area in history and today. Sobczykowa outlines the situation in other areas of culture, Semitic or Slavic. She examines the status and functions of liturgical Latin in history and today, by looking at opinions of speakers, theologians, linguists, and philosophers of religion. She also looks at documents in the form of Latin works by medieval Polish preachers and their concern for the understanding of the Latin liturgy by the people. Finally, she shows and stresses the difference between verbal and spiritual understanding present in meditation and that between the tendencies towards sacralization and desacralization.
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The aim of the paper is to demonstrate the formulas of the aspiration prayers from a historical, theological and linguistic perspective, in order to outline a complete picture of these religious texts. The discussed phenomenon, whose origins date back to the first centuries of Christianity, is widely represented in the Italian tradition, both in past centuries and today. The aspiration prayers from the prayer manuals of the 17th–19th centuries, as well as the texts of the prayers printed on sacred images, were subjected to a multidimensional analysis, focused on linguistic, functional and textual specificities. The research made it possible to contextualize the aspiration prayer in the frame of the model prayer text, first of all exposing its rich expressive values. The analysis of the linguistic material has proved a stability of the form of the aspiration prayer over the centuries. All the prayers analyzed have a strictly personal character, which results among other things from the strong expressiveness of the formulas, achieved with the adoption of terms usually associated with amorous confessions.
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In man's attempt to decipher the mystery of death he wanted to understand the meaning of life. Life and death are connected, if life is the beginning of the line, death is its end. But the line is the same, the beginning and the end are part of the same process. Death is and remains an incomprehensible, undeciphered phenomenon, a great mystery, a great secret that only leaves room for the imaginary. If we can understand man's attitude towards death, we understand his attitude towards life. For the traditional man, who is himself a religious man, death is not just an end, but a life within another life. Death is even represented as a path to true life. He prepares for the great journey from his lifetime and makes sure that he lives in a faith-based way to secure a good place for himself in the next world. Thus, death is not seen as final or meaningless, but on the contrary, it brings with it a rebirth to another level of existence. The three great thresholds in every man's life are birth, marriage and death. Of these three great thresholds, the last threshold is of special importance because it, more than the others, brings to light all the beliefs, feelings and thoughts of man.
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Almost the entire Romanian religious creation is based on folklore, especially in terms of sound and rhythmic structures. When we formulate this statement, we have in mind scholarly music as a whole, from chamber music, symphonic music, opera, operetta and choral works. The Romanian musical creation from the beginning of the 20th century represents the decisive historical moment for the upward evolution of the Romanian musical culture, through the permanent stylistic searches for the formation of a language appropriate to our spirituality. In this article I highlighted the contribution of some representative creative personalities who evolved differently, either by continuing some traditions of the 19th century, or by consolidating some original and relevant languages, which determine the outlining of the originality of national folk music cultures.
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In this article we will identify and develop some aspects regarding the magical objects, found in the fantastic folk fairy tale Petrea Voinicul and Ileana Cosânțana. The text is part of the volume Romanian Folk Stories and Poems, published in 1971, Bucharest. The volume includes both folk material from the props of the popular epic, prose and popular lyricism, collected by I. G. Sbiera, from the Bukovina area. In general, folk tales show us the journey of a hero, usually the positive character, on a mission, more or less complex. The supporting text, which we choose for a mythological and symbolic discussion, includes a series of elements that are the subject of our research.
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Our approach includes, on the one hand, the meeting point of customs in the cross-border area of the Danube and, on the other hand, it aims at the common points and the differences that they imply. The cross-border region of the Danube in the Bulgarian region, the holidays over the year have certain corresponding elements in the existing customs and traditions and in the Romanian cross-border space. There are not so many written references about the folklore of this area, which is at the center of research in this area. They were reduced after the 40s of the 20th century, after the establishment of communism. "After a hiatus of several decades, only since the seventh decade have several anthologies of prose and popular Aromanian poetry been published," as Iulia Wisoşenschi states.
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At the beginning of the 15th century, Castile, like other countries located on the Iberian Peninsula, was struggling with a range of internal problems. Before it reached – together with Aragon – greatness as the Monarchy of the Catholic Kings, it had already taken an active interest in far-away lands, and its representatives made distant journeys, which they described in detail in their travel accounts. Over the course of the 16th and 17th centuries, Spain became a great power both externally and internally, and this period is often called the Golden Ages (siglos de oro) of Spanish literature. This was undoubtedly the period in which literature written on the Iberian Peninsula itself reached its highest level of excellence. Moreover, some literary genres, especially historiography and accounts of travels, conquests, and discoveries, became a tool of Charles V’s and Philip II’s official propaganda: they glorified their empire and passed on the message of Spain’s special role in the world and the greatness of its discoveries and conquests. Against this background, the article discusses the role and history of the publication of two fifteenth-century Castilian travel accounts, or libros de viajes, which report the expeditions of Ruy González de Clavijo and Pero Tafur. Their narratives were key elements of the image Spanish rulers crafted for themselves during both the Habsburg dynasty of the 16th and 17th centuries and the Bourbon dynasty of the 19th century.
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The folk song titled “Besa - Besë” was initially a lyrical song titled “Lulja me erë/Fragrant flower” and was composed by a prominent Albanian ethnomusicologist R. Sokoli from Shkodra during 1940s. This song is recently most recognizable as a song marking Kosovo Football Representation and their fans named “Dardans”. The path from being a love song to a song representing Kosovo Football Club is quite complex as is the history of Kosovo Albanian People. Therefore, in the first part of this paper, which is mainly based on the work of Kosovo ethnomusicologist Rexhep Munishi, as well as other historical books related to Kosovo, is explored how Kosovo Albanian audience has used and transformed the text of this once lyrical love song in different historical contexts relevant for their national awareness and mobilization, including the context of sports and “Plisa”, i. e. fans of Football Club Prishtina. In addition to this the second part of the paper is focuse again on the song Besa Besa but now mainly used in the context of sports, identification and nationalism. This way in these two parts are juxtaposed different theoretical standpoints on nation research; in the first one events could be explained as essentialist and ethno-national (Anthony D. Smith) based interpretations of national awareness, while in the second part will come to prominence constructivist (Benedict Anderson) interpretation of national building as well as new “cognitive turn” in nation research (Rogers Brubaker) in which is also included a sub-national concept (Michael Billig). So, by trying to explore and find out: What are the changes in the song? What are the contexts in which it is used? How was it used by different artists/singers? How is it used interchangeably by rivalling fans? What is the role of media and advertising? How and when national and sub-national connotations are intertwined?, is facilitated better nderstanding of this song’s fluidity over time.
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Historical scholarship, as well as other sciences concerned with illuminating the human past, usually devotes its attention to written sources and neglects other types of sources, such as narratives or memoirs, oral, photographic, etc., wrongly considering them to carry less data and thus to be less valuable for study. However, photographs, either as material within an archival fund or as part of a special collection of photographs held by private owners or collectors or in archives, represent important documentary assets for identifying and illuminating the cultural heritage of a community or country, and as such are a valuable source for research in the field of history in general and ethnography in particular. The Archive of Kosovo has a rich collection of photographs of personalities, events, monuments and various objects, neighbourhoods, bazaars, houses, streets, crafts and artisans of the time, which provide us with important data for research and studies in the field of cultural heritage in general. Considering this fact, in our article we will treat and consider those photographs from the collection of Kosovo Archive that provide us with information and help us in further research in the above mentioned areas.
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The article discusses regulations concerning the crimes of killing and abusing animals in the Polish legal system. The provisions of the Regulation of the President of the Republic of Poland of March 22, 1928 and the Act on the Protection of Animals of August 21, 1997 are analyzed. The following topics are discussed: the history of the provisions on crimes against animals, the subject of protection of the provisions of the Act on the Protection of Animals, along with considerations regarding the subjectivity of animals. The subject-matter of crimes that fall within this category is also considered, i.e., a description of the premises which make it possible to classify a given act as a crime. The subject of prohibited acts as well as the subjective side in the form of the perpetrator’s motivation are analyzed as well.
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The text is a review of Aleksandra Ubertowska’s book, Historie biotyczne. Pomiędzy estetyką a geotraumą [Biotic histories. Between aesthetics and geotrauma]. The starting point becomes the biocentric lens applied by the researcher and the geo-story behind it. Equally interesting and important are the possibilities of ecocritical theories in interpretation and their application in the Polish ground.
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After Nigeria became independent in 1960, the divisions engendered by the long history of colonialism as well as the artificiality of borders imposed by the British led to a three-year civil war following the Igbo-led military coup in 1966. In her novel Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie depicts the events leading to the Biafran war and the horrors of the "war of starvation" through a polyphony of voices from different social backgrounds as well as through a metatext, a book called The World Was Silent When We Died, excerpts from which are inserted at the end of certain chapters as a comment on colonial and postcolonial politics. Thus, the novel turns into a large-scale historiographic metafiction that documents the transition from the early postcolonial state to what philosopher and political theorist Achille Mbembe called “necropolitical” systems of domination.
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In this contribution I apply the semiotic method of Juri Lotman to a specific physical location – a significant Bulgarian religious monastery, in order to elucidate the Bulgarian metahistorical tradition. Any process of communication with a religious text involves a complex relationship with the reader. A readership image hidden in the Bulgarian religious text has played a central role for many generations; therefore, in addition to analysing a physical location, the method of communication in the area of “cultural centrality” has also been examined. The discussion focuses on a specific metahistorical text, the Testament of John of Rila, and the ways in which it interacts with important geographical and cultural areas and their hidden dimensions of “semiotic spheres”. The Testament is a part of Bulgarian cultural legacy and its role in the area of the “extra-cultural” and “cultural periphery” is remarkable.
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This paper considers the topic of sacred spaces in North America through the vantage offered by Chacoan roads, monumental avenues constructed by Ancestral Four Corners people of the US Southwest from ca. AD 850–1200. I begin with a critique of the concept of the “sacred” as applied to the Chacoan past, suggesting instead that the Indigenous North American concept of power (in the sense of potent, generative force infused throughout the environment) offers a more culturally relevant framing. Next, I present three examples of locations along Chacoan roads that I argue were recognized as places of power due to the inherent landscape affordances of these locales. I close by briefly describing some of the practices carried out along Chacoan roads and drawing a connection between the understanding of “sacredness” evidenced through the archaeology of Chacoan roads and contemporary Native American activist efforts to protect landscapes of great power and meaning.
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The term “ancient Indian burial ground” holds bifurcated meaning for Indigenous and mainstream populations. What one group may respect as sacred ground where their ancestors rest, another sees the mystical –and frequently evil– site of forces beyond their knowledge influenced by an ethnic Other. This paper explores this dual labeling of North American Indigenous burial sites through media by looking at representations of Mi’gmaq burial gravesites. In director Jeff Barnaby’s 2013 Rhymes for Young Ghouls, main character Aila (Devery Jacobs) confronts two burial sites that turn the mainstream stereotype on its head: that of her mother which situates Indigenous burials in a contemporary context and that of a mass grave of children at her residential school which places malintent on settler colonial practices. The film highlights Indigenous ways of coping with these practices including violence, substance abuse, and art. Dissimilarly, Pet Sematary’s (1989) plot involves no Mi’gmaq representation but follows non-Indigenous Louis (Dale Midkiff) as he interacts with a stereotypical Indian burial ground imbued with evil, unknown magic that leads to the inevitable downfall of his entire family. Both films interestingly include zombies, and they portray Indigenous burial spaces similarly as shot from above and filled with fog. However, their conclusive statements placing the blame behind the horror are vastly different.
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This article addresses verbal means of denoting ALCOHOL in the context of the “mythic space”. Mythic space is regarded as the focal segment of a language worldview, the container of irrational axiomatic data quanta that function as basic categorization operators at different stages of civilization’s development. Primal “nano-myths” are reconstructed via etymological analysis of alcohol-containing beverages’ names in different European languages. The article discusses semantics and linguo-cognitive premises of the language signs denoting alcohol beverages in archaic Germanic worldview and in the presentday English-based pop-cultural worldview. The paper suggests a synthetic interdisciplinary interpretation of linguo-cultural implications of the said semantic and cognitive models.
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The text presents the newly published book by Prof. Anatol Anchev (2022) – content, composition, style, author’s self-assessments.
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