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11. The Domestication of an Itinerant Object: The True Cross Reliquary from the Louvre Museum

Author:
Zina Uzdenskaya
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Hiperboreea
Institution:
Balkan History Association
Abstract:
The Reliquary of the True Cross from the Louvre Museum serves as a good illustration of some key ideas which are of high interest for modern art historians studying medieval art. These ideas are: hybridity (syncretism, compositeness), portability (mobility), circulation, and transparency (crossing borders). The Reliquary is a product of a complicated cross-cultural exchange with more than one participant. First of all, it is a composite, or hybrid, object. The cross-shaped reliquary was produced in the Holy Land in the twelfth century, most likely in Jerusalem, while the casket, in which the cross is housed, was produced later, probably in a South Italian or Sicilian workshop of the late twelfth or early thirteenth century. Furthermore, the reliquary belongs to a big family of portable objects, which are defined by the feature of portability, and which add to its material value significant symbolical value when they are transported beyond the borders – geographical, cultural, or political – of the region of their production. In order to better understand the reliquary and its value, I answer two sets of questions. First is the set of “traditional” questions of Western European art history, namely authorship, style, date, and periodization. Then I consider this reliquary as an “object without borders,” in terms of Jennifer Purtle, and find answers to the kinds of questions related to the specificity of portable objects: What is the object within the context in which it exists? How and why does an object move beyond borders? What meaning and what cultural and economic value accrue to an object when it exists without borders? Answering these questions, I show how the reliquary moved from one cultural and political context to another, being re-shaped and re-considered on the course of its travels
Topic:
Religion, History, Arts, and Museums
Political Geography:
Europe

12. At the "Margin” of the Romanian Pre-Modern Society: The Jews

Author:
Carmen Alexandrache
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Hiperboreea
Institution:
Balkan History Association
Abstract:
This paper shows the attitudes of Romanian society regarding to the ethic category considered at the social margin. In this case were, for example, the Jews, “excluded”. Towards those “marginalized”, Romanian society in the 17th -18th centuries did not show the "Christian pity". Its attitudes were argued by the religious convictions ideas and by the transferring clichés from Western Europe to Eastern Europe.
Topic:
Religion, History, and Judaism
Political Geography:
Balkans and Romania

13. Perspectives for Researching British Appeasement of Nazi Germany in the Inter-War Years Using the Digitized Newspaper Collections of the British Library

Author:
Andrei Vasiliu
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Hiperboreea
Institution:
Balkan History Association
Abstract:
This paper aims to verify that the methods for researching the British appeasement policy towards Germany in the inter-war years can include the new method of studying the digitized collections of newspapers of the British Library. The policy of appeasement led by Great Britain during the inter-war years still represents a very attractive subject of research. The challenge lies not only in the new data harvested from primary sources such as documents and newspapers but also in the new methods of researching that may be applied, and that may increase the interest of scholars. Today, researching the digitized collections of archives are not even a futuristic resource, but a growing necessity. Accessing the British Library's digitized collections through the British Newspaper Archive website is often easier and more efficient than going to the archives. The site has more than 40 million digitized newspapers, mainly local periodicals, which can be accessed by searching for keywords, establishing filters and saving results to retrieve them later. The electronic resources of the digitized collections provide valuable help in my doctoral research on the Anglo-French appeasement reflected in the newspapers, which proves to be a great challenge, given the fact that the subject was widely covered in many of the central newspapers. But, of course, this method immediately poses multiple questions: is this method of research as rigorous as the traditional research conducted in the archives? Does this method provide the intercoder reliability framework required for such works? These are the research questions that remain at the center of this article. Previous research on the subject of digitized collections and also the analysis of the resources of the British Newspaper Archive in comparison with the traditional British Library resources can provide an answer.
Topic:
History, World War I, and World War II
Political Geography:
Britain, Europe, and Germany

14. Global Politics, Regional Competition: Great Power Politics in Central Asia

Author:
Artur Lakatos and András Kosztur
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Hiperboreea
Institution:
Balkan History Association
Abstract:
This paper deals with the issue of competing great power interests in Central Asia, known for specialists in international relations as the New Great Game. The focus is in first hand on interests of the “Big Four” global powers and secondly, on the interests of a series of regional powers which can bring decisive contributions to the New Great Game. The analysis has two directions: one concentrated on strategic analysis, and the second focused on economic interests.
Topic:
Power Politics, Military Affairs, and Strategic Competition
Political Geography:
Europe and Central Asia

15. The Name of Zalmoxis and Its Significance in the Dacian Language and Religion

Author:
Şerban George Paul Drugaş
Publication Date:
07-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Hiperboreea
Institution:
Balkan History Association
Abstract:
In order to write about the significance of the name of Zalmoxis in the Dacian language and religion, I begin with the displaying of the sources. Afterwards, there are presented three debates, about: (1) the relation between Zalmoxis and Pythagoras, showing that the philosopher was definitely influenced by the Thraco-Dacian beliefs which were also present in Zamolxianism; (2) “immortalization” as an initiatic mystery cult, shamanic practices; (3) an exploration of the forms Zalmoxis and Zamolxis.
Topic:
Religion and Language
Political Geography:
Balkans

16. The Church and the Romanians Religious Beliefs in the Early Modern Time: Perceptions, Convictions and Representations of the Foreign Travellers

Author:
Carmen Alexandrache
Publication Date:
07-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Hiperboreea
Institution:
Balkan History Association
Abstract:
he mentions of the foreign travellers about the Orthodox Church in the Romanian reflect the aspects which especially interested in the organization of the Church, in the relation with political power, in the hierarchies of Church and in their social role, in the political community attitudes towards religion, in the religious ritual and practices associated its.
Topic:
Religion, History, and Community
Political Geography:
Balkans and Romania

17. Romanian–British Commercial Exchanges at the Lower Danube: The Consular Report of Percy Sanderson on the Year 1883

Author:
Cristian Constantin
Publication Date:
07-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Hiperboreea
Institution:
Balkan History Association
Abstract:
Researchers consider that the slight increase in commerce through Brăila and Galaţi after 1883 was mainly due to the reorientation of Romanian foreign trade by the dualist monarchy towards other European states. The Danube route-way regained some of its importance, although the port of Galaţi still suffered after the loss of the rich region of Southern Bessarabia and because of the inconvenient manner by which the town was linked to the Romanian railway system. Thus, the paper insists on the quantity and value of commercial exchanges (exports, imports), the grains, the main economic partners and the specific character of Brăila, Galaţi and Sulina in the Romanian economy. This study analyses the results of this fact upon the foreign commerce of the ports, as there are opinions that it had positive consequences for development of commerce and navigation at the Maritime Danube. The text proper is preceded by a short historical comment on the activity of the International Trade in the Lower Danube region.
Topic:
Regional Cooperation, Maritime Commerce, and Trade
Political Geography:
Britain, Europe, Balkans, and Romania

18. The Romanian Journalistic Education–The History of a Polemic

Author:
Marian Petcu
Publication Date:
07-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Hiperboreea
Institution:
Balkan History Association
Abstract:
The present study introduces the reader to early approaches relating to journalists' education and accession to the journalistic profession. In Romania, the press was originally managed by writers, priests and teachers, who used to promote a rhetoric of talent, rather than one of competence in the trade of journalism. It was often said that talent was of prime importance here, and, since there was no vouching for talent in schools, journalism needed not to be taught in an educational format. However, Romanian intellectuals who had been schooled in Germany, France or elsewhere would plead for journalistic education. Unfortunately, all attempts in journalistic education failed in Romania until the communist regime came to power.
Topic:
Communism, Education, History, Journalism, and The Press
Political Geography:
Balkans and Romania

19. Regime Change and Shifting Modernization Patterns: Professional Trajectories in the Field of Psychology during the Twentieth–Century Romania

Publication Date:
07-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Hiperboreea
Institution:
Balkan History Association
Abstract:
Throughout the 19th and the 20th century the modernization process that Romania has undergone has revolved around two major poles, the Western pattern of development, and the Soviet one that has been enforced at the end of the Second World War. The regime change experienced after 1945 has shown however that the new leaders needed to rely on some of the existing administrative, technical and scientific cadres in order to implement the new political, social and cultural programme. The careers of Alexandru Roşca and Mihai Beniuc, two psychologists that have been trained in Western Universities and worked at the Institute of Psychology in Cluj, followed the same path that the country was on. Having manifested clear left-wing sympathies during the interwar period, they have managed to maintain their professional status and even gained access to important political positions; therefore, they have contributed to the implementation of two consecutive modernization projects.
Topic:
Education, Science and Technology, and Psychology
Political Geography:
Balkans and Romania

20. Suresvara’s View on Knowledge (jñāna)

Author:
Alexander Pereverzev
Publication Date:
01-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Hiperboreea
Institution:
Balkan History Association
Abstract:
The article deals with the soteriologic function of knowledge (jñāna), according to the non-dualist school of Vedānta (with a special reference to its classic author, Surevara) and with its phenomenological and semiotic aspects, in the view of the same school of thought. In its first part, it stresses on the role of knowledge in liberation, both in the system of Advaita Vedānta and in comparison with other schools of Indian philosophy. The second part deals with the great formulations of the salvific knowledge and with the attempts to analyze their meaning. Hence, the study also approaches the semiotics and the epistemology of Advaita Vedānta.
Topic:
Religion, Linguistics, and Philosophy
Political Geography:
India