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Focusing on the early Middle Ages, Majewski compares the literacy practices of European scribes with those of East Asian calligraphers. His analysis is based on the principles of the psychodynamics of handwriting, both alphabetic and ideographic. Majewski attempts to find the same principles in sources that discuss the psycho-physiological states related to the discussed literacy practices.
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The material is part of the Ottoman customs register of Dupnitsa for financial year 1846–1847. The Register describes the goods that passed through the state land control – their type, quantity, value, the size of gyumruk (customs duty) and the market fee (bach). The names of the traders, the villages they came from and traveled to are also entered in the register. Dupnitsa is one of the few land customs stations in the Bulgarian lands in the nineteenth century, situated on strategically important country roads from Thessaloniki to Sofia and Europe and from the Adriatic Sea to Plovdiv, Odrin and Tsarigrad. The author presents a translation and commentary of the first 5 of the 20 pages of the register preserved in the Ottoman Department of the National Library St. Cyril and Methodius, Sofia. So far this is the only document of land customs checkpoints in the Bulgarian lands in the nineteenth century, which makes it a source of great cognitive significance, not only for goods flow and turnover at Dupnitsa, but also for documenting the Ottoman regulation policy of the urban economy in the Bulgarian lands at that time.
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The year 1989 marked a new stage in the Slovak historiography which allowed a new reinterpretation of the previous research and opened up topics which were considered taboo until then. This article discusses the results of scientific research in the field of Rusyns' history in the twenties of the last century. This later research showed that it was a crucial period for them. On the one hand, in this period began divergent development that separated Rusyns of eastern Slovakia from their countrymen in Ruthenia. On the other hand, while this development was initially perceived negatively, it is argued that of the entire homeland of Rusyns in the Carpathian Mountains, Rusyns in eastern Slovakia have probably the best prospects for their further national development.
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This article focuses on the content analysis of the theoretical concept of non-democratic regimes by Juan J. Linz in his major publication Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes (2000) and its application to the regime of the Slovak Republic in the years 1939 – 1945. The aim of this paper is to define the character of regime in Slovakia and determine whether the regime of the first Slovak republic was directed more to the totalitarian or authoritarian type of the non-democracies. The main aim of work is reflected in the structure of the paper, divided into two chapters. The first one describes the principal characteristics of totalitarianism and authoritarianism and difference between them. The second one analyzes threebasicfeatures ofauthoritarianism – limited political pluralism, mentalities and political mobilization – and applies them toSlovak terms in 1939 – 1945. The application has shown there were features which are identical with characteristics of authoritarianism specified by Linz. Therefore, we cannot say the regime of the first Slovak Republic was totalitarian, but it was regime which tended to authoritarian type of non-democracies.
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The paper’s main aim is to present two South-Slavonic translations of the Renaissance Greek drama Abraham’s sacrifice (I Thysía toú Avraám) by Vincenzo Cornaro; the first one was made by the Serbian man of letters Vikentije Rakić (1750–1818) at the end of the eighteenth century, the second one – by Andrey Pop-Doynov Robovski (1801–1858), a Bulgarian priest, teacher and activist for autocephaly of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. The different reception and spread of the two translation was probably due to their various cultural contexts and literary value. Rakić’s translation was widely disseminated in both printed editions and manuscript copies, two of which are described in detail in the present article.
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The article presents the results of author's research of the origins of the general concept of contract in continental legal science in the Middle Ages and early Modern Times. This general concept marks one of the key features of the legal style in civil law countries, unknown to Roman jurisprudence, Muslim fiqh or Anglo-American common law. The formation of the general concept of contract proves to be the outcome of several generations of jurists archived through the combination of two models of contract in the medieval ius commune: agreement-based (in the commentaries on Roman law) and promise-based (in the church canons). It is argues that the synthesis of the two models in the 16th century is due to the efforts to reduce the Roman classical law to an art (as in the case of the French humanists) or to explain every rule of positive contract law through the ideal concepts of natural law and commutative justice (as in the case of Spanish legal thinkers). In arranging contract law the French jurists (such as François Connan and Ugo Donellus) followed the intended project of Cicero (ius in artem redigere) by means of the methodology of Petrus Ramus. The representatives of the Spanish late scholasticism (Domingo de Soto, Louis de Molina, Leonard Lessius) aimed at explaining all the provisions of the positive contract law in the sense of the higher moral and theological principles of natural law, as it was laid out in 'Summa Theologica' by Thomas Aquinas. The author looks into the relevant works of the French and the Spanish jurists to analyse the definition of contract, its criteria, and to trace their origins in the legal commentaries of the medieval civilians and canonists, as well as in the medieval and antique treatises on moral theology and philosophy. The analysis allows for critical assessment of the inconsistencies and contradictions of the general concept of contract in the doctrines at the beginning of Modernity.
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The present study examines the causes, unfolding and outcome of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 from a cultural-structural perspective and argues that this revolution can be explained on the basis of a theoretical model which focuses on structural, conjunctural and nation-specific factors. This study concludes that, although an incipient “snowballing effect” did occur in 1956, the aggregation of the factors mentioned above did not lead to a regime change in Hungary, but to a communist counter-revolution conducted by Moscow. The long-term effects of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 were undeniable:in 1989, the countries which opened the sequence of collapse of the communist regimes in ECE were Poland and Hungary, that is, those countries that had already experienced a revolutionary situation in 1980–81 and, respectively, in 1956.
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Saint Theodore the Studite is undoubtedly one of the most prominent representatives of Orthodox monasticism. He is known primarily as an abbot of the famous Studion monastery in Constantinople, as a monastic reformer, theologian and ardent enemy of heretical iconoclastic policies in the Byzantine Empire. The sources about him emphasize above all his adamant character, his brilliant abilities as a preacher and his willingness to champion the rights of the church, even at the price of deep personal sacrifice. As a writer he is pointed out mainly with his polemic against Iconoclasme, but he is also the author of other sermons, letters and hymns. He is credited for the creation of important works of Byzantine hymnography. We especially highlight this aspect of the work of Theodore the Studite, because it turned out to be particularly essential in the representation of the saint in monumental painting. Our task here is to present the images of St Theodore the Studite in the monuments in Bulgaria as compared to similar images (mainly unpublished) from other churches in the Balkans from the period XII–XVIII c., as we add to the presented material in the study of Doula Mouriki. We have discussed the images of the saint in the Boyana church (1259), in the church of “St Stephan” (a New metropolis) in Nessebar (1599), “St Athanasius” in Arbanassi (XVII c.) and the church “The Nativity of the Virgin” of the Rozhen monastery from 1732. We pay special attention to the texts of the scrolls held by the saint. The texts inscribed on the scrolls held by St Theodore vary. This fact indicates that the image of this saint often was associated with a particular aspect of the iconographic program in which his portrait was incorporated. According to the findings of Doula Mouriki, which are confirmed by the reviewed by us monuments and texts written on the scrolls held by the saint “in so far as church decoration is concerned, Theodore appears in his role of great doctrinal personality in the icon controversy, the preacher of ideal life within monastic communities, and the composer of pertinent ecclesiastical hymns.” In addition to many new examples of frescoes in Bulgaria and other Balkan countries we should point out the especially included image of St Theodore the Studite with the corresponding hymn in the composition of the “Tree of Jesse” from XIII c. on.
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The Presentation of the Forty Martyrs of Sebasteia in medallions is typical for the monumental programs of Postbyzantine churches in the Balkans. In Bulgaria their images were especially concentrated in the church murals dated from 17th century located near old metropolis Turnovo, mainly in the village of Arbanassi. In St Demetrius church (1621) 9 images were remained and partly identified, in St Athanasius (1667) – 8, in the church of the Virgin monastery (between 1684 and 1692) – 17, in the old chapel of Kilifarevo monastery (second part of 17th century) – 24; probably in the Nativity church also some of the Forty Martyrs were depicted in medallions but without forming any detached rows. Functions of the presentations. There are three general types of functions of the painted images of the Forty Martyrs of Sebasteia in the monumental programs: 1. Liturgical; 2. Preventive; both of them are universal in the all Orthodox area; 3. Historical – it is peculiar to the mural decoration of the churches in Arbanassi, connected with the royal cult to the Forty Martyrs of Sebasteia in Turnovo dated from 1230 when in their holly day tsar Ivan Asen II won the battle of Klokotnitsa and ordered a temple dedicated to his celestial patrons to be built in his capital. Iconography and identification of the martyrs. There are a great many discrepancies of the names of the Forty Martyrs in all the Greek and Slavonic aghiographical and panegyric literature dated from the time preceding our depictions in Arbanassi up till now. Indications of the iconography of their images in the old Ermineias (16th – 18th cc.) are not in unity also. So the works of the painters in 17th century are full of contaminations and incorrect inscriptions. A brief attempt for identification of every personal image presented in medallion on the south wall of St Demetrius church in Arbanassi may be an illustration of the problems.
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The article discusses the possibility of the existence of images of St Parascheva of Epivates (St Petka) with wings. The question came up in connection with an image from St Petka Church (1636) in the city of Vidin, Bulgaria, which has been previously wrong identified by the author as winged St Parascheva. In order to clarify the problem, a brief survey of the development of the saint’s imagery is made with special attention to 15th and 16th century examples kept today in Polish and Ukrainian museums. Some details concerning the earlier stages of the visual aspect of St Parascheva’s cult are examined and a correction is made concerning the image from the church in Vidin and another image from St Petka Church (1580) in Trnava, Serbia, which was indicated in the literature as an image of St Parascheva with wings. As a result of the research it is established that to represent St Petka with wings has not been a common practice in Orthodox art. The one and only instance of the winged St Parascheva, known to the author, comes from a much later epoch, being represented in the 19th-century paintings of St Constantine and Helena Church (1865) in the city of Plovdiv, Bulgaria, but it remains an exotic exception even in the practice of those times. The hypothetic image of St Parascheva with wings is juxtaposed to the image of the winged St John the Baptist, which became something habitual in Orthodox art, on the basis of some common connotations of their images revealed in hagiography and hymnography. In addition, the text includes some considerations on the factors that trigger the emergence of a certain iconographic type and on the mechanisms of visualization of hymnographic motifs in medieval art.
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The article provides comparative perspectives on the development and dynamics of application of the housing rent control system in interwar Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. Specifically, the paper is focused on institutional shortcomings and anomalies of the system which came as a result of its long-term application. The paper will shed light on development of conception of tenancy right as confronted with previous conception of property ownership.
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Translations have been an interesting part of the history of literature. What has been their function and meaning in different literary epochs? Did they promote new tendencies or influence the creativity of the writers? What has been underestimated so far is the art of translation itself, that is, the development of techniques and styles of translation according to changes in the translator’s work conditions, especially the emancipation, secularization and professionalization of the profession, so that they have been seen as equal in importance to the writers themselves. What should be analyzed are the procedures and practices of translation, which can be interpreted according to contemporary textology. The history of the art of translation is also inspired by contemporary cultural studies, because it regards translation as an institution and focuses on translation discourse, that is, the complex of images, ideas and metaphors that each translator must respect when considering their readers. The tradition of translation is partly different from literary tradition in that the rules of ‘good translation’ promoted at certain times create a codex of a translator’s work.
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Gothic fiction in Argentina, represented by such famous authors as Borges, Cortazar, Bioy Casares or Silvina Ocampo has its followers in the 21st century. In our paper, we present one of the contemporary authors, Pablo De Santis, born in Buenos Aires in 1963. His novel “Los Anticuarios” (“The Antiquarian”) is about vampirism in the Buenos Aires of the 1950s. Following the tradition of Gothic literature, the main character is involved in the lugubrious story of vampires known as the antiquarians. Although these long‑lived creatures have adapted to living in our times, they must still feed on blood. However, they prefer a substitute in the form of an elixir which allows them to dominate their victims’ minds. Besides, being victims of unrequited love themselves, just like classic vampires, they have a predilection for female blood.
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In a recent article, Gh. A. Niculescu raises the question of the relation between culture-historical archaeology and the so-called “production of knowledge” on ethnic phenomena. He targets the works of Volker Bierbrauer, Sebastian Brather, and Florin Curta. At a closer examination, however, Niculescu’s paper is based on a distorted understanding of what culture history actually is, and on wrong assumptions about such fundamental concepts as ethnicity or (material culture) style. Besides flaws in this line of thinking, his paper reveals Niculescu’s dishonest citation practices, his efforts to create a straw man, and his weak credentials for assuming any critical position in terms of the “production” of archaeological literature in the culture-historical mode. Beyond rhetorical tricks and smearing tactics, Niculescu does not in fact advance any solution to the problem, and remains ambiguous, if not altogether confused about the role of “social sciences” in the archaeology of (medieval) ethnicity.
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