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.
This study deals with selected findings from archaeological research in a part of the cemetery of the defunct parish church of St. Peter (Olomouc, Křížkovského Street Nr. 10). This cemetery was used for burials from the Middle Ages until 1784. The described findings include grave H176, in which an individual with a growth disorder (achondroplasia) was buried sometime during the Baroque period (1650–1750) and probably with the typical appearance of disproportionate dwarfism (shorter limbs, swaying or hunching of the back). In contemporary sources, these people were referred to as nanus, pumilio, pygmaeus (Latin), der Zwerch/Zwerg (German); piedimužík, mužíček, třpaslek (Old Czech). The aim of this study was to evaluate this uncommon archaeological find and to research whether a person who was different in some way also left a mark in contemporary written sources. The deceased was buried in a wooden coffin in a supine position with his head to the west and his feet to the east, his arms crossed down into his pelvis. The skeleton was well preserved, except for the facial part of the skull, which was damaged. The skeleton is that of a juvenile male with an estimated age of 15 to 20 years, with a gracile physique, marked shortening of the long bones of the limbs, and the spine exhibits excessive lordosis. A stature estimate of 130,95 ± 3,96 cm. The registries of closed parishes of St. Peter and Paul in Olomouc from 1667–1784 were chosen as the primary source of comparative information. An inscription was found for 24 March 1718 stating that a “Pigmeus” was buried from the house of the count and canon “Tuhrn,” who was Johann Matthias, Count of Thurn and Valesassina, the resident canon of Olomouc in 1706–1746. The Count was an important patron and collector of art with a European outlook, and therefore the presence of a dwarf in his court would not have been extravagant at the time. Although chronologically the archaeological find corresponds to the record in the parish register, these two individuals cannot be completely identified with 100% certainty.
More...
The special status enjoyed by the Romanian Principalities within the Ottoman Empire, the high intellectual level of the rulers and a consistent financial base allowed the materialization of large-scale cultural initiatives in favor of Orthodoxy. Thus, in the middle of the eighteenth century, in Moldavia, as in Wallachia, among others, printing activity in Arabic and the worship of monasteries to the Patriarchates of the East, in this case, that of Antioch, were supported by the ruling family of the Mavrocordati. At the same time, he became involved in the anti-Latin polemic waged in the East by Arab-speaking Christians threatened by Jesuit proselytizing, supporting Patriarch Sylvester of Antioch, present in Moldova several times. In Iasi, during the reigns Constantine and Ioan Mavrocordat, local private printing workshops were involved in organizing the Arab printing house at St. Sava Monastery. In the proposed material, we will highlight some of the main actors of this approach, who remained unknown until today, but who contributed to the success of the princely project. During the reign in Moldavia of the Mavrocordati brothers, Constantin and Ioan, the only printing workshop in Iasi was that of a Greek printer Duca Sotiriovici from Thassos. It seems that at that time, his printing house was the only functional printing house in the whole of Moldova. Following the analysis of Duca Sotiriovici's Arabic and printed books, we found his involvement in organizing the Arab printing house at St. Sava Monastery. In this topic, we discussed, first of all, the dispersal and reuse of the inventory of the Holy Sepulchre printing house at St. Sava Monastery in Iasi. I showed Duca Sotiriovici's involvement in organizing the Arab printing house at St. Sava, describing the Slavic-Romanian Clock, Iasi, 1743-1746 as a contribution to the Old Romanian Bibliography, a book published near the time of the establishment of the Arab printing house. We proved that Duca Sotiriovici did not stop printing new books after 1752 as all scholars have considered so far, stating that two Greek books: The Apostolic Nets (1756) and Light in the Darkness (1757) justify Duca S.'s purchase of a new letter for his workshop in 1751 and confirm the reality of the renewal of the princely privilege of 1756. Also now, we have described two new Greek titles that are added to the Old Romanian Bibliography: Sinopsis, Iași, 1757 and Ekloge..., The Great Lavra, 1759, thus having a total of 4 new titles, contributions to Old Romanian Bibliography. Therefore, Duca Sotiriovici's list of prints of 12 Romanian and Greek titles + 3 Arabic titles is now joined by 5 new titles, of which 4 represent contributions to the Old Romanian Bibliography. The present study also shows that Duca Sotiriovich was a talented engraver, and new engravings executed by him are now presented; this obviously proves that he was able to execute the set of letters for the Arabic printing house in Iasi and even to make a coat of arms for Patriarch Sylvester of Antioch.
More...
Calendarul pe 112 ani [The Calendar for 112 years] was printed in Iași in 1785 by Mihail Strilbițchi in his own printing press. He was considered an outstanding personality in the domain of the Romanian Printing in the 2nd half of the 18th century. The respective Calendar was the second one published in the Romanian area (the first appeared in Brașov in 1733) and the first that was decorated with woodcuts. The illustrations representing the seven planets are signed by Mihail Strilbițchi alongside his son, Policarp. The 12 signs of the zodiac (small-sized xylographs), as well as the Zodiac Wheel (image in full page), are not signed, but we assign them to the same authors. Among the calendars which were to be printed after 1785 in Sibiu, Wien, Buda, Iași and Bucharest, it was only the one issued in Bucharest in 1823 that was as vividly decorated as that from Iași. Wheares the Zodiac Wheel followed a certain Ukrainian source, the signs of the Zodiac and the seven planets, which were very frequent in the medieval and postmodern European area, are of German manner.
More...
Personalitatea episcopului transilvănean, cărturar iluminist și bibliofil, fondator al importantei biblioteci istorice Batthyaneum din Alba Iulia, a jucat un rol esențial în istoria culturală modernă a Transilvaniei, dar și a întregii Românii. Studiile și contactele sale științifice sunt legate de regiunea Ungariei Superioare - Slovacia de astăzi. În acest articol, ne concentrăm mai îndeaproape atenția asupra conținutului și analizei formale a uneia dintre primele lucrări tipărite ale lui Ignác Batthyány, panegiricul despre Ignațiu de Loyola - Panegyricus Divo Ignatio Dictus... (Tyrnaviae 1762), care se pare că a fost un discurs final solemn realizat de Ignác Batthyány după terminarea studiilor de retorică la Trnava și care trebuia să demonstreze abilitățile oratorice ale viitorului episcop. În el, Batthyány l-a lăudat pe Ignațiu de Loyola ca pe un erou demn de emulație. Pe de altă parte, el evidențiază și eforturile de recatolizare ale Bisericii Catolice. Deși tiparul examinat este unul dintre multele panegirice publicate de Tipografia Universității din Trnava, este un document care reflectă direcția ideologică a timpului său.
More...
When creating a new republic, the Foundings Fathers deemed it necessary to become well versed in the lessons of history, in order to avoid the fates of previous republics. Above all other historical corollaries, Americans evoked the example of the republican Rome that had upheld a system of government that aspired to ordered liberty as supported by a mixture of public civic virtue and effective institutional design for nearly five centuries. The comparisons were possible because the American colonies had kept the grammar school system of education then common in England, giving all educated Americans a basic grasp of Cicero’s reputation and writings, who represented eloquence, moral virtue and hostility towards tyranny. He thus became a source of inspiration for the Founders, and John Adams directly considered himself an American Cicero. In the article, the authors try to answer the question about the legitimacy of such a position of the 2nd President of the US. To do this, they compare the basic political categories of Cicero and Adams, pointing out their similarities and differences. They also examine to what extent Cicero’s thought could be applied to the reality of the young American republic.
More...
In our article, we refer to the first attempts for the birth of the Romanian theater. It is about the school of theatrical performances that took place between December 24, 1755 - January 6, 1756 in Blaj, Sebeş, Alba Iulia, Vinţ, Cut and was undoubtedly related to the name of the Greek-Catholic bishop, Grigore Maior (b. 1715 in Sărăuad, Solnocul de Mijloc county, today Satu Mare county - d. 1785, Alba Iulia). This is the one that organized the shows known as comoedia ambularia alumnorum and which represent the first attempts at cult school theater in the Romanian area. During his episcopate, the dramatic comedy Occisio Gregorii in Moldavia Vodae tragedice expressa (The murder of Grigore Vodă in Moldavia presented in the form of a play) was also written, considered the oldest preserved Romanian theatrical play.Related to the personality of Bishop Grigore Maior, it should be mentioned his contribution to the only translation of the Vulgate in our ancient culture, the “Bible of Petru Pavel Aron”, the creation of a dictionary and a grammar work, published under the title Institutiones lingvae valachicae, Lexicon compendarium latino-valachicum. Doctor in theology and philosophy of the “De propaganda fide” college in Rome, he became the first Transylvanian teacher, but also the first Romanian librarian, being given the care of the library of the newly founded school, which became famous, in Blaj. The Theological Seminary in Blaj, the cathedral (without the two towers), the Romanian-United Church in Sibiu, built at his expense, are also linked to his name.After the opening of the first schools in the Romanian language, being aware that the use of the national language is a main objective in the liberation and self-determination of the nation, Grigore Maior initiates the first performances in the Romanian language. He was helped in his endeavor by didascalus latinus Zacharias (Zacharia) and Basilius Caecus (Vasile Orbul), teachers and 13 students-interpreters.Therefore, we can say that the Romanian school theater in Transylvania, even in Romania, debuts precisely in Blaj, during the winter vacation of the school year 1755-1756, the town of Blaj, being able to be considered, on the basis of approved documents and research, as the cradle of the national theatre.
More...
In the strategies of building a socially recognized identity, the sclitada estate, which holds the central role in preserving, affirming and transmitting the name through a family heritage, has been not enough investigated. Starting from the documents identified and copied from the Iablaniţa estate Register (47) which describes the file of process claiming the right of protimisis for the redemption of an estate, Paia, we tried to investigate this subject. It is a case study, built on the basis of this 18th Century file, mostly composed of judicial documents and correspondence whose main recipient is the clucer Iordache Păianu, administrator (ispravnic) of Gorj county. The documents describe the patrimonial strategy of a young local boyar, a strategy focused on a campaign to recover primarily the inherited estates and on the mobilization of financial resources in a career as an official member of the administration, in relations with the central power, in asserting and recognizing one's own position at the local level. For a history of the Wallachian aristocratic family in 18th Century, his insistence on the recovery of the parental home estate, the one that gave the family name, was a last redeeming stage in a biographical path that had first included leaving the country, then a return, a recovery in parallel with a gradual construction of a prestigious identity among the social category to which he belonged. By winning in court the right to redeem his sclitada estate and land patrimony in general, Iordache reaffirms his identity as a nobleman (boyard), his membership of the local nobility that defined its power mainly through the control of the land. At the same time, the completion of an important cursus honorum, armaş, clucer, serdar, the holding of important positions such as the administrator of Romanaţi and Gorj, which he discharged honourably, according to the testimonies of the time, allow us to see how his administrative route serves to complete a biography carefully configured in which the Oltenian boyar knows how to build his relations at the local or central level, either with the local boyars or with the great boyars from the Princes’ court.
More...
The Polish monarchists presented a providence-based interpretation of the abduction of the king in November 1771 and his rescue. The trust in the authority of Providence, the manifestation of which was that the monarch guaranteed order in the state. Thanks to continuous confirmation of the royal anointing, the transfer of the relationship between God and the guarantor of the world order, and the relationship between the monarch and the guarantor of the state order might have been achieved. Such a perception of the anointing must have inspired great trust in the actions of Stanisław August.The process of sacralization of royal power was stopped by the expansion of Enlightenment rationalism. Polish theorists of state did not always follow the path of challenging the divine origin of power, which was set by Western European philosophers. In Polish political thought the idea of charisma was very rare, which does not condition its negation. We may venture a claim that in the period extending from Stanisław Konarski’s late works until the first works of Stanisław Staszic the idea of charisma as a feature of royal authority disappeared from the Polish political theory and reflections on the authority.
More...
The article discusses the memoirs of Moses Vasertsug (c. 1760–1832) – an extremely interesting historical source, brilliantly demonstrating processes and phenomena in Jewish society at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Vasertsug received a traditional religious education and performed related functions in Jewish communities, first in Pomerania (Karlino, Gryfino), and later in Greater Poland (Kórnik) and Mazovia (Płock). He continued to do so in the post-partition period, but the functions he performed took on a new, quasi official character. The memoirs show the transformation of the previous occupations performed by the Jews, as well as the new opportunities for settlement and economic activity that opened up for them during the post-partition period. The memoirs also show that Jewish autobiographical writing is not necessarily the result of acculturation and departure from Jewish tradition.
More...
Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign not only led to the discovery of the monuments of the pharaonic state, but also opened a new chapter in medical science. Encounter with many epidemic and endemic diseases has led to rationalization of views on the spread of infections. This was the case, among others, in the case of the plague, epidemics of which often broke out in the Middle East, practically at the gates of Europe. Creating a model of sanitary procedures contributed to reducing the risk.
More...
At the beginning of Louis XV’s reign only few educated Frenchmen knew English. Even French diplomats preferred Latin, Italian, Spanish or German. However, with the wave of popularization of English culture during the Enlightenment, knowledge of Shakespeare’s language became in creasingly fashionable and useful among the French. This article shows the process of popularizing the English language in France in the 18th century: how it could be learned and how the most important representatives of the French Enlightenment dealt with it.
More...
The Church of St. Anne was built between 1708 and 1719 as a single-nave, with a narrower and lower presbytery, which was closed on three sides. At present, it is a testimony to the Beskid wooden sacral architecture, despite its current location in Podhale. The temple was erected using the wood of the larch tree, ubiquitous in the forests of Zakrzów and Stryszów, in a log construc tion, with the entire building being embedded on a stone foundation. The idea for this article stems both from the growing interest in wooden construction in the Beskids, e.g. as a result of the establishment of the Beskidzkie Muzeum Rozproszone, as well as the conservation works undertaken at the church in question. The article aims to broaden the knowledge about the past of the former temple from Zakrzów. In respective paragraphs, the history of the wooden Church of St. Anne, its architecture and furnishings, as well as the social context of the church – which, during the efforts to obtain a separate parish, was considered an “ancient parish church,” and after the construction of a new one, stood empty and dilapidated.
More...
The article tackles the issue of monastic enclosure as a factor playing an important role in the process of information flow, subsequently recorded in various types of documentation. The study covers archives created by the Discalced Carmelite Monastery of St. Saint Martin that existed in Kraków in the years 1612–1787.
More...
Shehrengiz can be defined as a poetic genre that presents the beauties of a neighborhood, who are famous in various arts and professions, with the elements of social life and local beauties of that neighborhood, with vivid descriptions and colorful praises. Shehrengiz texts have an important place in terms of not only recording the famous tradesmen, but also shedding light on the socio-cultural structure of the period they belong to, containing information about social and economic life, and reflecting features of daily spoken language. When evaluated together with the poet’s style, shehrengiz works should be considered as socio-cultural keys that involve many clues in the context of the structure of the society and the historical texture of the place or places in question. In Turkish literature, the shehrengiz type, which was mostly written in masnavi verse, began giving examples at the beginning of the 16th century and continued until the late 18th century. The text, which is the subject of the study, is the Lâlezâr (Yenişehr-i Fenâr) shehrengiz consisting of 524 couplets, in which Vahîd Mahtûmî, one of the 18th century poets, describes the characteristics of the city of Yenişehir, which is located in the borders of Greece today. Based on the text written in the form of masnavi, the places where the poet gave place to his description and the atmosphere created from these places were evaluated and the literary features of the expression were emphasized. The aim of the study is to illuminate the image of the city in the period and to reveal the effects of the places whose atmosphere is reflected on the mood of the people and social life by reading the characteristics of the places mentioned from the style of Mahtûmî, who successfully reflected the folk language and daily life conditions into poetry in the 18th century.
More...