
Editor's Blog: Defining Identity
A few recent scientific, sociological, and political approaches to the issue highlight the best and worst uses of identity.
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A few recent scientific, sociological, and political approaches to the issue highlight the best and worst uses of identity.
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Plus, whispers of Russian-Georgian reconciliation and a presidential brother on the lam. Around the Bloc is TOL's daily digest of the important, the trivial, the tragic, the weird, and the sober from its coverage region.
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A Russian journalist offers a chilling portrait of the KGB officer turned politician.
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At some point, many Russian men will have a brush with the law.
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TOL slide show: Following Putin’s re-election, Russians pack a Moscow square to rally against the old new president.
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Plus, Moldova tries, again, to elect a president, and Albanians want their heroes' names on Skopje's streets. Around the Bloc is TOL's daily digest of the important, the trivial, the tragic, the weird, and the sober from its coverage region.
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Plus, Georgian billionaire eyes prime minister’s office, and Belgrade Roma kicked out of shanty town. Around the Bloc is TOL's daily digest of the important, the trivial, the tragic, the weird, and the sober from its coverage region.
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According to one insider, Bosnia supplied the swing vote during the UN Security Council resolution that authorized military intervention against Libya.
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Plus, a Belarusian Christian activist’s long hunger strike and a new power to reckon with in Russian opposition circles. Around the Bloc is TOL's daily digest of the important, the trivial, the tragic, the weird, and the sober from its coverage region.
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Plus, ethnic violence picks up in Macedonia and Kazakhstan frees striking oil workers’ lawyer. Around the Bloc is TOL's daily digest of the important, the trivial, the tragic, the weird, and the sober from its coverage region.
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Prime sources for the study of the history of towns at the time of the Ottoman rule are documents about endowments – vakufs (deeds of endowment - vakufnamahs, endowment registration in public records - defters, orders – fermans, decrees – berats, muhime defters). This paper brings information about the endowments of Gazi mehmed-beg-chelebi, isa-beg ishaković’s son, in Sarajevo. as his endowment deed has not been preserved, here we will present the information contained in the Bosnian Sanjak public records and the translations of the decree sent from Constantinople in the first decade of the month of Sha’ban 1192 (late august 1778), telling of the aforesaid endowment. Gazi mehmed-beg had a mosque with a stone minaret built at Bistrik in Sarajevo, in 1519/20, next to it a madrasa and a primary school; for their maintenance, he endowed a caravanserai and several shops in the Sarajevo craft and trade centre, and a piece of land called ”Gnojnica” in the Herzegovina Sanjak. He was a muteveli of his father’s endowment in Sarajevo, and then a sanjakbeg of Bosnia, Herzegovina, and then of kruševac. He is also known as the founder of rogatica, which used to be called after him – Chelebi Pazar. The information contained in the documents presented in this paper shows that mehmed-beg’s endowment used to yield significant revenues and that, over centuries, the major part of the endowed property fell into ruin. Only the mosque at Bistrik has survived to witness the people like himself, who with their property have contributed to the building of Sarajevo.
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Hasan kafija Pruščak wrote two works in the arabic stylistics, among others. One of them is the rewriting of the work Talhīs “al-Miftāh” (“Rewriting of the ‘Key’”), written by Gālāl al-Dīn al-Qazwīnī (d. 1338). Pruščak entitled this work Tamhīs “al-Talhīs” (“rewriting of the ‘Summary’”). The other Pruščak’s work in the arabic stylistics is Šarh “Tamhīs ‘al-Talhīs’” (Commentary on “rewriting of the ‘Summary’”). This paper brings a translation of the chapter on modalities of predication (al-isnād al-haberī) and utterance in Pruščak’s work Tamhīs “al-Talhīs”, and an analytical commentary on the issues dealt with in the chapter. Focus of the paper is on highlighting the issues treated in the cited chapter in the spirit of the classical arabic stylistics, Hellenic and Latin rhetoric and contemporary stylistics. The issues discussed are the relations of the literal and metaphorical logical meaning and modalities of their realisation within the predication; in this context given are explanations of structural and semantic aspects of grammatical-semantic transposition, modalities of realisation of semantic growth, etc. The issue of the relation between linguistic and intellectual trope, conditionality of such a division by non-linguistic factors, then the difference between utterance and clause of statement, the relation of the content of statement, of the one who makes the statement and its recipient, etc.
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This work represents an attempt to dectect manners through which local military élites in the adriatic hinterland ensured their sources of revenues, and to investigate how they influenced on shaping social and economic relations in the attempt to extract extra revenues. it is proved that central goverment could not bail material safety of the military-bureaucratic class (asker). although military class for its services was receiving less or more permanent incomes in cash or through prebends, the amounts were too low for ensuring daily existence or keeping social status. Timar-sipahi system in the adriatic hinterland never had characteristics of ”classical” Ottoman system. The economic imperatives forced the members of the military class to find alternative sources of revenues in robbery, plundering, trading, agriculture activities, smuggling, bribery, economic and financial malpractises etc. in this way individuals could obtain enormous richness while the state goverment was enforced to tolerate these practices. Because the members of the military élite became less depended on incomes from the state treasury, some of them with time gained great independance and almost dynastic position. They started to resist to central goverment’s tries to establish effective control over the hinterland. in the same time, the polarization and antagonism between ruling élite and poor military class (fortress crews) became deeper and it started to awake different social conflicts among askeri caste. many examples of misuses and ilegal treatments of the local administrators and members of military élite show not only the abusings of their’s own subjects as sources for the material gain, but the situation of total deconstruction of the Ottoman legal system in the adriatic hinterland. after all what has been said, it is clearlier why in these relatively poor sancaks very often started strong fights for rule, prebends and positions.
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This paper is an attempt wishing to give some new indications which will help perceive a more complete demographic situation in the mid-Dalmatian hinterland, roughly between the Cetina and Zrmanja rivers. although the study sometimes goes beyond that spatial frame and occasionally covers the Lika area as well, the main body of information refers to the area between these two rivers. The result reached by comparison of some other sources on which some other postulates are based, even those created on the Ottoman origins, indicate a significantly higher population density immediately upon the establishment of the Ottoman rule than shown by the common observations established in historiographic literature. a pale image of population density in the thirties, and even in the middle, of the 16th century is not only a result of the actual thinning of population as the first impression shows, but also of the incompleteness and absence of some sources which would fully reflect the actual state in the filed, as well as of the insufficient degree of their exploration. This is confirmed not only in the case of rural but of urban settlements as well. On the other hand, comparison of these with some other sources discloses certain exaggerations, especially in some reports dealing with the issues of this nature. Their content often departed significantly from the historical reality. The comparison of the states at the beginning of the two centuries, the 16th and 17th (1530 and 1604), cannot confirm big demographic changes to have taken place in that area in the given time period. at least this cannot be confirmed by the sources used in this study. On the basis of this information and comparison, the overall process of the demographic growth makes an impression of a natural course containing the elements of a natural growth rather than a demographic change produced as a consequence of great migration processes. Somehow by inertia, it was always attributed to big colonisation waves following the Ottomans’ occupation of the area. an impression imposes itself that a considerable number of vlachs had come to those parts earlier and they were actually found there.
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Nawåsi∂ al-ibtidå’ (abrogatives) is a specific type of verbs in the Arabic language which, when they precede a noun clause, transform its subject or predicate, or both, into the accusative. These verbs fall into three types: the verb kåna and the verbs similar to it (kåna wa a∂awåtuhå), the verb kåda and the verbs similar to it (kåda wa a∂awåtuhå), and the verb ùanna and the verbs similar to it (ùanna wa a∂awåtuhå). The verb kåna and the verbs similar to it have the function of a copula in a sentence ensuring predication between two noun forms which are in the position of subject and predicate. The subject of such a sentence is in the nominative, and the predicate in the accusative. These verbs are also denoted as af‘ål nåqi¥a (deficient verbs) because they express only tense deprived of the meaning of an action (õadaï), so that the predicate in this case comes as a substitution for the action which is not expressed by this verb. This is why the verb kåna and the verbs similar to it acquire the full meaning which includes the tense and action only with their predicate. Some of these verbs simultaneously express both specific meanings which may refer to a daily time frame in which the predicative relation is established, and the transfer of the subject into the state of its predicate or a period of duration of such a relation. With regard to the subject-predicate relation of deficient verbs, the rules of subject and predicate of a noun clause apply, since basically this is what they are. Thus, the predicate of deficient verbs can precede the subject if there is no particular impediment, such as the suffix invariability of the subject and predicate together and the absence of the context on the basis of which we could define their implicit flexion, which is why a change in their positions might lead to confusion in meaning. The verb kåda and the verbs similar to it express proximity of their predicate's content execution and this is why they are denoted as af‘ål al-muqåraba (verbs of proximity), then a hope, a wish or an expectation that the action expressed by their predicate will be realised, and they are denoted as af‘ål ar-raûå’ (verbs of hope), and the beginning of their predicate's content realisation and they are denoted as af‘ål aπ-πurú‘ (verbs of beginning). Both the verb kåda and the verbs similar to it, as abrogatives (nawåsi∂ al-ibtidå’), fall into deficient verbs (af‘ål nåqi¥a) because they are of incomplete meaning and, therefore, need a predicate complement in the accusative, while their subject retains the nominative endings, the same as with the verb kåna and the verbs similar to it. Because of this the rules relating to the agent of the verb action (få‘il), proagent (nå’ib al-få‘il) and the subject of the verb kåna (ism kåna) apply to the subject of the verb kåda (ism kåda) as well.
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Hasan b. ali al-Harsaki, whose literary nickname is Ziyayi Čalabi or Ziyayi al-mostari, is one of the oldest Bosnian divan poets (16th century). He was very educated, presented with calligraphy and inspired poet, who wrote the extensive Divan with poetry in Turkish and Persian languages (625 poems). So far, the only known copy of Divan there has been in the Selimiyya Library in Edirna (T. 811-2127). a qasida (27 verses), a qit’a and 14 gazels are included in his Divan in Persian language as well. after analysing of his poetry we can conlude that Ziyayi had a broad education and was well-acquainted with poetry of Persian classics, their style and metrics, values and characteristics of the poetry of each separated poet as well. The all Ziyayi’s verses in Persian language have been brought spirited, daring, with polished language and lightsomely, although they sometimes have a powerful presence of disenchantment of some kind lying behind and radiate resignation and show calming down, which points to his abiding longing for unrealized goals. This paper brings Ziyayi’s poetry in Persian from his Divan, which to date have not been translated into Bosnian.
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Phonetic realisation of nunation is a characteristic of the context form of the Standard Arabic Language, and its orthographic specificity is conditioned by the endeavour to escape the mixing with the same type of the final lexical or grammatical morpheme which is, for various purposes, suffixed to a word, and for the purposes of linguistic economy. At the phonological level and in the context form, nunation is an obligatory syllableforming element as a specificity of the Arabic language with respect to its orthography according to which it exists as one formally nonexistent consonant. From the aspect of meaning, nunation should not be interpreted as a standard mark of a non-definite name or as a case ending. It is a particular type of supplementary grammatical morpheme whose primary meaning is a three-case declension of a name, and it is only in form analogous to a case ending. At the morphological level of the word, nunation implies certain meanings on the basis of which its various types are defined, such as nunation of the three-case declension, of indefiniteness, correspondence, replacement, rhyme, information, need, excessiveness and the irregular nunation.
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In this paper, the vertical segregation in tertiary education is investigated by gender (the percentage of boys and girls in Bachelor’s and Master’s training is compared) first. Then the differences in social mobility are examined by gender in higher education. Finally, the acquired cultural capital of students is compared by gender. The research is based on new quantitative empirical research in a borderland Central - Eastern - European region, called “Partium”. Our results show that the vertical segregation at the two stages of tertiary education can not be detected, and the advantage of girls in participation is even larger in Master’s training than in Bachelor’s training in the “Partium” region. Furthermore, girls’ social mobility is higher at both stages of the training (but in Master’s training their advantage is slightly smaller). Finally, the girls’ acquired cultural capital is superior to the boys’ in accordance with the literature (but boys are in the lead in using ICT). Overall, our results show that boys are in a disadvantageous situation in tertiary education concerning several aspects.
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