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Lyubomir Miletich was the main initiator and organizer of the Macedonian Scientific Institute founded in 1923, whose Statute he penned himself.
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On 3 May 1990 Prof. Petar Shapkarov was elected President of the Macedonian Scientific Institute. The academic and organizational foundations of the Institute were laid in these first years of the restoration.
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The failure of the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising of 1903 inflicted serious damage on the conceptual and organizational state of IMARO.
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Research in non-European territories became an essential component of scientific life in Hungary before the First World War. A search for relatives by language and culture was the main motivating force that led Hungarian ethnographers to the East to accumulate knowledge about cultures of Ob-Ugrians and peoples in Central Asia. Others traveled to the Far East, to South Asia or other continents with different goals, but also contributed to knowledge about distant lands and cultures. These efforts resulted in a great tradition of interest in cultures of the world, which survived eras when Hungarian ethnographers had a very limited chance to do fieldwork outside Hungary, and its revival is demonstrated by a large number of fieldwork after 1990, when Hungarians had once again more freedom and means to travel and formerly closed regions became accessible. This revival involved a shift from an ethnology focused on the past and ethnic traditions to a sociocultural anthropology focused on the present and current problems.
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A specific economic and social realignment can be observed in Mongolia nowadays. Due to the rapid transformation in the last two and a half decades, the mentality and way of life of Mongolian people have also changed to a great degree and a specific national or nomadic ideology has appeared and gradually strengthened, which has become one of the pillar of national identity. This ideology is shared in many respects by Mongolians, living not only in Mongolia, but China and Inner Asia too. In the economic environment the Mongolian society is changing at an accelerated speed. The urban population is getting far from the nomadic way of life and has started to follow behavioural models that are very different from the traditional patterns. With the regression of nomadism one of the fundamental constituents of the Mongolian culture seems to disappear. Although in the last 25 years Mongolians have increasingly adapted to the globalized culture, the tradition of Genghis has not totally vanished, what is more, nowadays it revives. The need for independent cultural identity is getting stronger. It plays a role in elaborating economic strategies that are adaptable to the changed environment. It can be observed, for example, in turnout of shamans in the towns, in the changes of the Buddhist Church’s social functions or in the “pretended” nomadic lifestyle around the main destination of tourism.
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Ethnographic research that focused mainly on agrarian groups living at the lower level of society did not really seek or find a handle to approach Jewish culture in the late 19th and early 20th century. At the same time, for its part, the Hungarian Jewry made no effort to deal with its own culture from the viewpoint of ethnography. Although ethnographic and anthropological research has been conducted since then, and important results have been achieved, it cannot be claimed that the subject has been exhausted. That is why the Ethnography Museum’s exhibition Picking up the Pieces: Fragments of Rural Hungarian Jewish Culture was an important, unique and timely opportunity for both experts and audience. The exhibition aimed to conjure up an image of rural Hungarian Jewish life before the Holocaust based the materials in the museum. For the first time, the exhibition presented the Museum’s small but important collection of Judaica, Jewish implements, objects that entered the collection through art dealers and private collectors, not to mention the rich photographic material. In addition, local “case studies” were utilized to grasp the distinctive culture of the everyday life of the Jewish population, their position within the majority society, and the possible paths (mazes) of modernity. Various issues were discussed, not in general but through concrete examples (family histories, specific communities, local characteristics, etc.), and in this spirit, several specific themes were presented, such as weekdays and festive days, various situations, occupations and social strata. In the second part of the study, special mention is made of a few highlighted objects from the exhibition through the eyes of visiting American students.
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Ritual bread used to play a very important role in various annual and family rituals. In the Lublin region, korowaj – large round braided bread – as well as busłowe łapy, szczodraki, andrzejki or small breads from Wola Obszańska, piróg biłgorajski and the so-called crosses, baked during Lent in Michałówka, deserve special mention. They performed important ritual functions and could be considered in the contexts of religion, magic, mediation, sacrifice, initiation and integration. Changes that have occurred in recent decades in ritual customs and traditions caused the bread to lose its function of an important prop. The types of bread that survived until now have lost their magical and religious significance. In the author’s opinion, it is crucial that actions are taken to protect the still existing traditional forms of bread.
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The Museum of Applied Arts has the richest collection of Haban ceramics of any public collection in Hungary. The museum preserves close to four hundred items of Haban ceramics made before 1760: vessels, stove tiles, a stove and floor tiles. The article presents the history of the collection with special regard to the aims of the collecting, the circumstances of acquisitions and the most important collectors. It cites the thought of Jenő Radisics, the director general who has made the greatest contribution to the museum, on collection building that can be regarded as the most up-to-date museum conception at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, particularly because his ideas laid the foundations for the 21st century philosophy of museums. These Haban ceramics intended for the use of aristocrats also served as a material relic of the national consciousness of European nation-states.
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The authors discuss a group of objects having specific or cultic functions in the late neolithic Lengyel culture, which had formerly been referred to as “lamps”, “clay lamps” or “small clay altars”. These objects have been known from the entire occupation territory of the Lengyel community. However, recent excavations uncovered similar finds in a few graves of the Lengyel cemetery at Alsónyék-Bátaszék, which represent new types of the discussed group of objects. The Alsónyék cemetery with the unearthed 2400 burials of the Lengyel period and the settlement with 90 houses are the largest cemetery and settlement of the Eurasian area to date. The authors describe and publish these objects and the crouched inhumation burials that contained them. They also classify the finds and determine their typological and chronological place first of all within the Lengyel community. The possible antecedents are also reviewed in the Central and SE European Neolithic and Early Copper Age. Based on H. Schwarzberg’s study of the Anatolian and SE European finds, they suggest the name “Kulttischchen” for the finds of the Lengyel culture as well. According to the anthropological analyses, these objects were placed exclusively beside women at Alsónyék and also in the Mórágy late neolithic cemetery, which indicates the role that women played in the cultic life of the contemporary communities.
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The author describes the late Copper Age finds that were recovered during the digging of a cellar at Vác, among them an amphora, which was decorated with a realistic cattle head. According to the ornaments and the shape, the vessel can be dated from the middle phase of the Boleráz group and it stands without analogues among the zoomorphic representations of the Baden culture. Its uniqueness underlines that it was prepared not with a profane purpose: it must have had a specific role, it perhaps contained corn offering. The cattle head representation is also linked with the important role the animal played in the life of the Baden population.
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Hallstatt period clay altar from Vát. Data on the cultic objects of the Eastern Hallstatt culture. A unique object was discovered during the excavation of a settlement of the Hallstatt culture at the Vát, Bodon-tábla site (Vas county, Hungary). The find, which the authors have interpreted as a “clay altar”, is in many respects similar to the firedogs of the Kalenderberg culture, yet it is different both in its size and ornamentation. The only real analogue to the object came from Styria, although clay objects that can be interpreted as altars can be found on the entire territory of the Eastern Hallstatt culture. Beside other similar altar fragments, the decorated baking surface of an oven was also found at the Vát site. The structure of the uncovered houses also attests to the uniqueness of the site.
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Near Csákvár, in the so-called Báraczháza cave there are relics of an antique Diana cult. A number of inscriptions can be found before and within the cave system, part of them known from the 18th c., part of them unpublished. The two main passages of the cave seem to have been the sanctuary. In the left passage the Diana idol carved into the stone remained, its iconography is nearly unique, and fits to a provincial cult based on pre-Roman, Celtic or Pannon background. At the end of the right passage there is a strange short inscription with a phallic symbol scratched into the wall, which may refer to the divine pair of the local Diana goddess, called most likely Silvanus. The statue and some inscriptions were made, and consequently the sanctuary was certainly used in the Severan Era, and probably remained in use until the later 4th c., when the spreading Christianity must have finished the cult, although the possible Christograms in the walls of the cave cannot be taken doubtless as signs for that; the cave contains some early New Age inscriptions too.
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Polished and perforated pendants carved from boar tusks, and jaws of boars and pigs are frequent grave furniture in the Late Neolithic and Early Copper Age cemeteries of the Carpathian Basin. Pairs of tusk pendants were generally placed beside the dead in the early phase of the Lengyel culture, especially beside high status males, who wore these objects as symbols. The 2500 graves of the Alsónyék-Kanizsa-dűlő cemetery represent the late phase of the Lengyel culture, where instead of the pairs of tusk pendants, a huge boar tusk or a tusk disc perforated at the wider terminal was placed on the skull or beside the skull. Pig jaw grave furniture is missing here. The authors examine the occurrence of these types of grave finds in the Neolithic of the Carpathian Basin and Central and South-Eastern Europe. They try to classify the finds and determine their chronology and function.
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N-S oriented grave group in the Gepid cemetery of Biharkeresztes–Ártánd-Nagyfarkasdomb. There was a grave group in the Hun period Gepid cemetery of Biharkeresztes–Ártánd-Nagyfarkasdomb that could be characterised by N-S orientation, drink offerings usually placed in a jug at the head and the special costumes. Both men and women wore buckled boots on the feet and two or three belts around the waists: one belonged to the trousers, one to the kaftan and one to the weapon. These burial customs were characteristic of the Alans of the Hun period.
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It is a well-known fact that organic remains represent only minute percentage of the archaeological finds from the 10th – 11th centuries due to the climatic and soil conditions of the Carpathian Basin. Most of the surviving objects are of small size and of poor condition. However, in order to shed light on the material culture of previous centuries, it may be of importance to re-examine this evidence.
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The district of Amuri was created when a heavily industrialized city required new workers during the latter half of the 19th century, a time when the shortage of housing was serious. Barrack-like, onestorey timber buildings were built in Amuri which had a typical communal kitchen, shared by four families. Amuri was in its bloom during the first decades of the 20th century. Reforms were made during the 1950s and 1960s. The decision of demolishing the district was made and one housing block was saved in order to be turned into a museum. Changing the housing block into a museum meant decorating and furnishing over 50 rooms into workers’ living quarters as well as shops, a bakery and a sauna. The living quarters were dated from the 1880s to the 1970s. This work required a wide knowledge of how the workers lived. Gathering material was sometimes like detective work. It was also necessary to get insight into the lives of various families who lived in different circumstances and times in history. The exhibition in the museum is a permanent one so new things have been introduced by providing special guided tours, activities and having different craftsmen demonstrating their work.
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