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Aspecte din activitatea pastorală a mitropolitului Gurie Grosu al Basarabiei (1928-1936)

Author(s): Lucian Corduneanu / Language(s): Romanian Publication Year: 0

This study covers the period of years 1928-1936, of the activity of Metropolitan Gurie of Bessarabia, under several aspects: pastoral, missionary, cultural, ecclesiastical, social and even political. Analysing the writings, speeches, sermons, documents signed by the great Bessarabian bishop within the church administration, we will see Gurie Grosu as a person deeply rooted in the realities of time, aware about the difficulties faced by his own believers, trying during his pastorate to respond and help them spiritually and materially in order to overcame the difficulties. As a pastor of souls, Bishop Gurie constantly emphasized in the holy services and speeches, the importance of living the authentic Christian life, keeping in touch with God and helping others. The church, in the opinion of the great metropolitan, provides support and blessing, confidence and strength in facing evil, despair and helplessness. By concrete social actions, Metropolitan Gurie permanently raised collections that he donated to needy people, important amounts of money to charities (it is known in detail the care he had for the Society of Disabled, Orphans and War Widows - I.O.V ) and many other deeds by which the Saviour’s command to do alms was materialized. During his pastorate, Bishop Gurie issued several circulars condemning societal vices (theft, alcoholism, deception), in which he demonstrated the harm these sins cause to Christians and society and the need to constantly fight against them. His pastoral activity included, also, visits to hospitals, orphanages, asylums, participation to conferences, meetings and discussions of several professional categories: physicians, psychologists, culture people etc. In the year 1928, the professional Congress of physicians held at Chisinau proposed as honorific president metropolitan Gurie, together with other personalities. But the metropolitan Gurie’s activity involved another important area, the cultural one. In his vision, raising the cultural level of the Bessarabian people involved a direct commitment on behalf of Bessarabian clergy and his own, personally. In this mean, he granted scholarships and amounts of money for the students and pupils with reduced material possibilities, he donated other important amounts for purchasing books to some educational institutions (especially those attached to churches) and for a better training of the clergy, he founded the Faculty of Theology from Chisinau in the year 1926, his merit in the establishment of this higher education institution, being indisputable.

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Problematika sýpky v teoretických projektech realizovaných na přelomu 30. a 40. let 20. století (s přihlédnutím k Domažlicku)

Author(s): Dana Motyčková,Kateřina Sedlická / Language(s): Czech Publication Year: 0

The Ethnographical Commission at the Czech Academy of Science and Art was established to utilize effectively the government grant on behalf of the Czech folk culture, especially the Czech folk architecture and folk songs. It worked from 1941 until 1946. With its activities and financial subsidies, it helped bridge the period of protectorate, not propitious for ethnography. In its work, it took into consideration the needs of ethnography in the wide sense of the word, as well as the social aspects. The proposals arisen from two architectural contests of the Ministry of Education were probably the first ones that solved the issue of new construction of farmhouses, taking into consideration the needs of farmhouses of different sizes; as well, they adopted a responsible approach to regional needs, including the outside appearance of the buildings. Because of the development of architecture in the Czech countryside, the above events placed high demands mainly on how to assert and link together the novelties with traditional processes in construction of the village and small-town house. One of the assessment criteria included a requirement for the previous study of local architecture in the field and the corresponding literature. The period of protectorate as well as the following short period of after-war renewal did not allow to use the submitted proposals in practice. The results of the subsequent Survey Action were used neither at that time, nor later. However, they retain a lot of important information for the study of folk architecture, because in many places they captured the last moments of existing traditional housing, especially the wooden one.

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What Is Mythical Hope in Children's and Young Adults’ Culture? – or: Sharing the Light

Author(s): Katarzyna Marciniak / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The chapter offers reflection on Classical Antiquity as a particularly important source for “Hope studies”. Beginning with Nathaniel Hawthorne’s retelling of Pandora’s myth, we travel beyond time and space – there and back again through poetry, prose, and art – in order to find the roots of Hope and to understand her multiple denotations. The chapter also introduces readers to the whole of the volume focused on showing how the authors of literary and audiovisual texts for children and young adults make use of ancient myths to support their young protagonists on the roads leading to adulthood and to create a powerful, uplifting message for the public.

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Playing with Life Uncertainties of Antiquity

Author(s): Véronique Dasen / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

A number of Attic and South Italian vases depict maidens playing various games together, with young men, or deities such as Aphrodite and Eros. The depictions convey a metaphorical discourse on the perception of love and marriage as risks for girls in prenuptial age. They are often based on verbal puns associated with the double meaning of paizô, ‘play’ and ‘play amorously’, or ‘toy with love emotions’. A divinatory dimensions appears in several games, reflecting the agency of maidens training to control their fate.

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“This Is the Modern Horse of Troy”

Author(s): Rachel Bryant Davies / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The preoccupation with playful pedagogy in nineteenth-century Britain, alongside the burgeoning publishing market, produced many products for children’s consumption in apparently transient formats such as board-games, theatrical souvenirs, and magazines. Classical myth, especially through cheap print, reached a wider social range than only those families with access to traditional, formal, classical education. Charting the Trojan Horse’s reincarnations across these media, this chapter examines how and why the Wooden Horse, usually symbolic of mythical destruction, became a quintessential toy: a hopeful symbol of the social and educational mobility promoted by children’s periodicals. The Trojan War myths were often retold in the guise of playful amusement. This chapter argues that, just as the mythical Horse smuggled Greek soldiers within Troy’s city walls, so entertaining accounts of the Horse secreted moral and ideological instruction, shaped by wider cultural discourses surrounding canonical epic literature and the accessibility of classical education.

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Myth and Suffering in Modern Culture

Author(s): Katarzyna Jerzak / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Using Cassirer’s fundamental ideas on mythical thinking developed in his "Philosophy of Symbolic Forms" (1923–1929), I analyze the persistence of myth in modern literature for children and youth. I focus first on two canonical authors, Oscar Wilde ("The House of Pomegranates") and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry ("The Little Prince"), and demonstrate how they both formulate a mythical chronotope that allows for a combining of the two traditional literary forms, the myth and the fairy tale, into a seamless new authorial genre in which great importance is attached to a particular spatiotemporal setting. The issues of overcoming suffering, loss, and death are at the core of the two authors’ oeuvre. I then turn to the contemporary expression of the mythical chronotope. I analyze the direct and somewhat reductive renderings of the ancient Greek myths in Katherine Marsh’s "The Night Tourist" (2010) and "The Twilight Prisoner" (2014), which make overt use of, respectively, the story of Eurydice and the myth of Demeter and Persephone, but stage them both in twenty-first-century New York City and its Underworld. Space is crucial in these texts and combined with an uncanny warping of time, points to a mythical chronotope. In psychological terms, the original novel and its sequel deal with loss and mourning as well as with the role of friendship in adolescence. Last but not least, I analyze the video clips and the lyrics of the French artist Woodkid’s album, "The Golden Age" (2013). The music and the imagery were used by Ubisoft in their video game series "Assassin’s Creed", thus reaching millions of young people and children. I demonstrate how the ostensibly ultra-modern medium employs the mythical chronotope and mythical thinking in the depiction and overcoming of violence, trauma, and addiction. Mythical thinking, it seems, persists up to our era and the mythical chronotope lends itself to the depiction of suffering, grief, and, occasionally, resilience that accompany liminal rites of passage from childhood into adulthood.

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“For the Children”

Author(s): Marguerite Johnson / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

This article explores the inclusion of more adult issues in retellings of Greek myths in children’s columns in Australian newspapers with a focus on the topic of the Great War. The case study here is from the column “For the Children”, published in the Australian Christian Commonwealth on 25 September 1914. This was a weekly newspaper from South Australia, first published in 1901, with its title reflecting the federation of the Australian colonies into one nation that year.

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Bandar-Log in Action

Author(s): Jan Kieniewicz / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The expression “bandar-log” was popular in Poland in the first half of the twentieth century among readers of Rudyard Kipling’s "The Jungle Book". Before WWI, in families of both the landed gentry and the intelligentsia, “bandar-log” served to describe unruly children. Thus, it referred to boisterous, frolicsome behaviours that clashed with the standards for proper child-rearing. Yet well-heeled children did have the right to vent their emotions – hence, the concept of “bandar-log”, borrowed from a “suitable” book, permitted acceptance, albeit fleeting, of behaviours otherwise frowned upon. The concept lost its meaning with the decline of good manners and the acceptance of a “playground model”, in which children’s behaviour was regulated not by readings, but by adaptation to their group. Nonetheless, “bandar-log” did persist after WWII in rump form, as an echo of a bygone world. My chapter addresses children’s behaviours during the wrenching transformations that are part and parcel of war and revolution, and their reflection in literature and mythology. Thus, I examine the loss of childhood as coupled with the destruction of the world – and its subsequent recreation.

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Mythical Delight and Hope in C.S. Lewis's "Till We Have Faces" and "Chronicles of Narnia"

Author(s): Simon J.G. Burton,Marylin E. Burton / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

C.S. Lewis’ acclaimed 1956 work "Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold" was his final novel. While not his favourite of his own works – that honour went to "Perelandra" – it was the one he considered his most mature and accomplished. "Till We Have Faces" presents a powerful retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche. One of its principal themes is that of innocent delight in the divine and the disastrous consequence of renouncing that childlike state in the name of a false, and ultimately cynical, maturity. Significantly, the work was published in the same year as Lewis’ "The Last Battle" and it clearly resonates with major themes in that book as well as in the "Chronicles of Narnia" more broadly. In particular, the story of Susan’s tragic journey from childlike wonder to adult cynicism inverts disturbingly the conversion narrative of Orual, Psyche’s jealous sister, without closing the door on the possibility of redemption. More positively, the simple delight that Psyche shows in Cupid finds many echoes in the "Chronicles", above all in the joyful, romping reunion with Aslan in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and the heaven sequence of the "Last Battle". For Lewis, Christianity was to be understood as the “True Myth” echoed and anticipated in all the other myths of the world. Drawing principally on "Till We Have Faces" and the "Chronicles of Narnia", this paper explores the way in which Lewis uses the vehicle of myth on multiple levels to engage adults and children in the fundamental questions of life.

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How to Become a Hero

Author(s): Nick J. Lowe / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Becoming a hero is the master plot of a popular modern (especially Hollywood) narrative, manifesting in such diverse contemporary forms as coming-of-age tales, superhero origin stories, monomyth quests of refusing the call and returning with the elixir, and “emotional journeys” of self-discovery and stepping up. Yet despite the widespread claims of mythological prototypes for this master plot, classical myth itself is only sporadically interested in its heroes’ childhood and adolescence – and the handful of exceptions, from the "Telemachy" to the "Achilleid", offer an instructive gallery of the narrative and ideological differences between ancient and modern notions of the narrativity of childhood and the agency of youth. Modern fiction for pre-adult readers and viewers has colonised this vacant space in a variety of ways, populating the adolescence of heroes with adventures which overlay classical myths and models with distinctively modern ideas of young-adult narrativity and the nature of heroic growth. Three notable extended cases include the "Young Heroes" series by Jane Yolen and Robert J. Harris (2002–2004), the live-action "Young Hercules" television series (1999), and Disney’s "Hercules: The Animated Series" (1999), all of which offer sustained measurements of the distance between ancient and modern popular conceptions of adolescence, and of how modern mythical constructions of a classical hero’s journey differ from their ancient prototypes.

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Joe Alex (Maciej Słomczyński) and His "Czarne okręty" (Black Ships)

Author(s): Robert A. Sucharski / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Maciej Słomczyński, writer, poet and playwright, a prominent translator of English literature and the author of the acclaimed crime fiction stories, published under the pseudonym Joe Alex, is also the author of the historical-adventure novel for youth "Czarne okręty" [Black Ships]. Originally published in parts as a series, the novel follows the adventures of a Trojan boy, entangled in the intrigues of Egyptian priests and conspiracies of the rulers of Minoan Crete, and finally going for a quest to the Far North in search of the mythical land of amber. The quest, resembling – due to its exoticism – the Expedition of the Argonauts, despite ostensible success ends in fact in a disaster, and the novel itself can be used as an example of a specific type of Bildungsroman dressed in ancient robes.

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From an Adolescent Freak to a Hope-Spreading Messianic Demigod

Author(s): Michael Stierstorfer / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

International fantasy literature for teenage readers based on motifs of the ancient Greek and Roman mythology often focuses on an adolescent protagonist, who has a lot of problems with growing up. Therefore a mythic narrative emerges in the plot to help the main character cope with his or her problems. This narrative, filled with supernatural incidents, is a vehicle for the protagonist to become a strong and self-confident adult, who saves the world from evil mythical creatures. This paper investigates the famous "Percy Jackson" series by Rick Riordan, the popular "Blue Secrets" series by Anna Banks and the blockbuster movie "Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge" by Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg to demonstrate how normal human protagonists are described as holy Redeemer-figures by being amalgamated with the mythic god Poseidon. In this way mythic motifs are mixed with Christian values to create a modern kind of superhero, giving people a new sense in life. This superhero spreads hope for the threatened mankind, which is very important in (today’s) dark times.

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Markus Janka, Heracles/Hercules as the Hero of a Hopeful Culture in Ancient Poetry and Contemporary Literature and Media for Children and Young Adults

Author(s): Markus Janka / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Since Greek and Roman Antiquity, Hercules has retained his power as the embodiment of heroism, constituted by qualities like superhuman strength and excessive emotionality, immense suffering and triumphant apotheosis. This ambivalence has become characteristic of the heroic temper established within Greek literature, above all in the epic cycle and in Attic tragedy. Apart from the manifold personality of the hero, a decisive element of hope lies in his stunning achievements as the cultural hero eliminating primordial monsters and dangers threatening civilization. This chapter first follows the traces of Hercules’ “mythopoesis” which made him a cultural icon in Greek and Roman Antiquity. It can be demonstrated that already then this was a multimedia process, since literary evidence, e.g.. from Sophocles’ or Euripides’ tragedies, is to be situated in a dialogue with visual art and other forms of self-representation of the polis. The postmodern reception of this multimedia Heracles myth(s) in Ovid’s "Metamorphoses" builds the bridge to examples of hopeful images of the ambivalent cultural hero in contemporary media for children and young adults. From this heuristic perspective we can follow the traces from the fallen hero of civilization in Attic tragedy to the messianic Hercules in contemporary blockbusters. Heracles/Hercules emerging particularly as the Hero of Hope in ancient tragedy and poetry had a recent and very impressive revival in children’s literature, namely in "Athena the Wise" by Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams within the "The Goddess Girls" series.

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Hercules

Author(s): Susan Deacy / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Where hope is brought up in relation to autism, it is often linked to its absence or loss, with the life of an autistic child regarded as one of suffering and hardship. This chapter introduces a programme of lessons for autistic children that move beyond such a deficit model to one grounded in a perception of autism as a way of being. I set out how the lessons are based on the character of Hercules, and in particular the choice he is tasked to make between two very different paths in life. I discuss how the lessons utilize Hercules as a “gateway” for autistic children to identify and contextualize themselves and others, and a “gateway” for neurotypical people into autistic ways of being and experiencing. Hercules, I conclude, is a “hope bearer” – for autistic children, and for all.

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Promoting Mental Health through the Classics

Author(s): Edoardo Pecchini / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The chapter discusses Hercules’ myth against the backdrop of selected psychological and pedagogical theories. The hero is compared with other characters, and the pros and cons of their use as models in psycho-educational situations are discussed. The author reflects on possible applications of Hercules’ Twelve Labours cycle in clinical and educational contexts, and particularly in cases such as disruptive behaviours and conduct problems.

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La Fontaine’s Reeds

Author(s): Krishni Burns / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

This chapter explores the behaviors and attitudes displayed by female characters in juvenile novelizations of Greek myths that promote psychological resilience. Four novels are analyzed using the American Psychological Association’s guidelines for the promotion of resiliency in children and youth. Two novels focus on the Trojan cycle, "Inside the Walls of Troy: A Novel of the Women Who Lived the Trojan War" by Clemence McLaren and "Goddess of Yesterday" by Caroline Cooney, while the other two, "Lost in the Labyrinth: A Novel" by Patrice Kindl and "Dark of the Moon" by Tracy Barrett, adapt the Minotaur myth. In each case, the female main characters experience traumatic events, but use recognized psychological coping mechanisms to endure with fortitude.

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New Hope for Old Stories

Author(s): Sheila Murnaghan,Deborah H. Roberts / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Myth may be a source of hope for children and young adults, but children may themselves be envisioned as myth’s best hope: fresh readers whose engagement with stories grants those stories continuing life. This hope is at the heart of the “Save the Story” series, in which noted authors rewrite literary works for children. Two books in the series retell ancient myths: Yiyun Li’s "The Story of Gilgamesh" and Ali Smith’s "The Story of Antigone". Both writers produce stories they hope will help their readers grow into admirable adults. Li recasts Gilgamesh as a child, his journey glossed as progress towards adult understanding; Smith uses animal intermediaries and flashes of irreverence to temper a story she presents as terrible yet nourishing. Their hope is that readers will so value stories that have made them who they are that they will in turn perpetuate those stories, keeping them safe from oblivion.

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Our Greek Tragic Hope

Author(s): Edith Hall / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Three years on from her debut novel "The Amber Fury" (2014), Natalie Haynes once again adapts Greek tragedy in ways designed to illuminate the psychological challenges facing teenagers and young adults. Where "The Amber Fury" is set in the contemporary world, "The Children of Jocasta" (2017) takes the readers to Bronze-Age Thebes. It retells the stories in Sophocles’ "Oedipus" and "Antigone" but from the perspectives of two women, Jocasta and Ismene, whose subjective experiences of trauma as very young women on the threshold of adulthood are too often overlooked. Colm Tóibín’s novel, "House of Names", is based on the myth of the house of Atreus and it uses the version told in Aeschylus’ trilogy "Oresteia". It is a masterpiece beneficial especially for those who have seen civil war or family trauma which are part of their experience of puberty and its aftermath. Both novels focus on the hardships and deprivations faced by the protagonists, with a ray of hope making the novels both therapeutic and emotionally sustaining.

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Turning to Myth

Author(s): Hanna Paulouskaya / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Soviet cinema for children experienced a shock in the 1980s when controversial films presenting a terrifying image of childhood were made in the USSR. These films put difficult questions of growing up and often refer to Classical Antiquity and mythology. I shall discuss two important films of this period: "Чучело" [Chuchelo; Scarecrow] by Rolan Bykov, 1983, based on a novel by Vladimir Zheleznikov; and "Дорогая Елена Сергеевна" [Dorogaia Elena Sergeievna; Dear Miss Elena] by Eldar Riazanov, 1988, based on a play by Liudmila Razumovskaia. Although the movies are far from being typical peplum films, they contain important echoes to Greek mythology and culture, referring to Antigone, Heracles, Christ, and Dionysus. Analyzing the movies in the sociocultural context and in comparison with the texts they were based on, I would like to determine how ancient elements of the movies and references to tragedy and mythology provide children with hope for the challenges of growing up.

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“I Found Hope Again That Night…”

Author(s): Katarzyna Marciniak / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The tale of "Beauty and the Beast", rooted in the ancient myth of Eros and Psyche, ranks among the most engaging stories of our culture, as the overwhelming success of its recent Disney version attests. It appeals to both young and old, because it deals with the timeless ideas of love, loyalty, courage, loss, and the search – beneath surface appearance – for authentic values worthy of the highest sacrifice. Among the myriad versions of the tale (Disney’s 1991 animation and 2017 movie being the most famous ones), a very particular retelling has been chosen as the subject for this chapter – the TV series "Beauty and the Beast" (1987–1990) created by Ron Koslow and his team. Deemed “too strange to succeed”, it was nonetheless broadcast globally and followed by more than 19 million viewers at its acme, and still enjoys hosts of devoted fans today. Set in New York, the global metropolis in the New World that has never severed its ties with the Old Continent and its ancient history, the series lifts contemporary civilization into the realm of myth. It universalizes the emotions of young and mature protagonists and acquaints the audience with classical culture – in the broadest meaning of the term – through numerous references to such authors as Virgil, Ovid, Shakespeare, Dickens, and Rilke, and to masterpieces of music by Schubert, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, and Vivaldi. The chapter offers an analysis of the ancient heritage present in the series, with a particular focus on the first season’s episode 8, “Song of Orpheus”, which deals with the most traumatic experience – the death of a loved one – and which shows how a seemingly devastating descent into the Underworld might turn into a quest for hope.

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