The article is intended to bring out the basic understandings of 'tradition' as encountered in the social sciences and the humanities. The first might be termed functional since attention is focused on the function of transmitting in a given community certain elements of culture from generation to generation ('tradition' as transmission). The second might be termed objective since the researcher's attention shifts from the transmission of elements to the elements themselves ('tradition' as heritage). The third might be termed subjective since it is neither the operation of transmission nor the object transmitted that comes to the fore but the attitude of a given generation toward the past, its acceptance of the heritage or its protest against it (simply tradition). The present author is concerned above all with the subjective understanding of tradition that is with those elements of the heritage which are taken over from earlier generations with an emotional engagement on the part of those who adopt them.
The problem of tradition and modernity is one of the key themes of modern Polish history. It was caused by the strong and persistent dominance of political culture, which established itself on the basis of the norms of the noble society. In this form and for a long time it loomed over other opportunities for development as a possible inspiration and binding framework. A high frequency of political crises and a weak modernising balance contributed to the fact that these models remained functional well into the 20th century. There bearers were the political and cultural elite (inteligencja), which formed as informal structures, however, they operated in formal institutional frameworks. Owing to their origins, they prevented, to a certain degree, the process of modernisation, which infringed on their historical identity. Therefore, other social groups benefited from this process, which made it difficult for these groups to enter politics without direct ties to the elite or mental dependence on their models. Politics thus partially paradoxically contradicted modernisation because they were two wholes with different internal constructs.
Neo-pagan movements began to form in Slovakia in mainly late 90s of the 20th century. The main cause of new religious movements in our country has been releasing political situation after the ground-breaking 1989. This disruption and the transition to a free democratic society marked influx of new ideas and directions. One of the main elements of a democratic society is freedom of religion. Researched community brings together people who are interested in the restoration of pre-Christian traditions and material and spiritual elements of this period. We classify this community into groups which, although based on historical facts of Slavic culture, but are also supplemented by other particularly modern elements and elements of other cultures. Researched community is trying to protect the natural values and their distribution in modern conditions. This text addresses the transmission, interpretation and application of ideas leading person in the community and integrating it into everyday life members. It focuses on concrete manifestation of inventing of traditions.
The 20th century India witnessed a quite strong tendency towards the separation of philosophy from religion, regarding them as two autonomous phenomena. This tendency corresponded with a more general endeavour, namely getting philosophy closer to science. The author focuses especially on the new streams, which appeared by the end of the millennium and are still relevant today. These include philosophy of science, feminist philosophy, Gandhian philosophy, postcolonial studies (in terms of their importance for philosophy) as well as still reverberant existentialist and Marxist doctrines.
The idyll has an important position in Hollý´s poetic production. This type of poetry can be found throughout his literary activity. It significantly affects the way his poetic production is assessed as a whole, and it defines its place in the development of Slovak poetry. The Christmas idylls Miloslav, Vitoslav and Spasitel/Messiah are not only confined to the contemplation of the spiritual level of the Christmas mystery as the fulfilment of God´s plan of salvation, but they offer several interpreter levels. They also prove Hollý´s poetic craftsmanship satisfying the most stringent poetry criteria as well as his intense relationship to the domestic cultural and the literary tradition.
In the globalization era the problem of social interactions — especially of creating collective forms of social identities — has become particularly distinct. Buryats’cultural and national revival in the late 20th century referred to their past and attempted to base on the authority of tradition and history. The choice of traditional forms of self-identification made by contemporary Buryats depended on the latter’s — or to be exact their leaders’ — interests. The turn towards the former models of Buryat ethnic identity, which can be revealed while analyzing Buryat chronicles, is one of the keys to understanding contemporary Buryat identity practices. Studying the tradition of Buryat selfconsciousness reflected in chronicles proves fruitful from the perspective of a diachronic analysis. It enables a researcher to demonstrate new types of Buryats’ hierarchic ethnic-identity structure influenced by the 20th-century reality (especially among the Buryat diaspora groups in Inner Mongolia, PRC, and the Republic of Mongolia).
This paper depicts the mutability and malleability of the concept of tradition. Its development is illustrated in three examples from modern Latvian history: the Latvian national movement and the program of the cultural and social emancipation of Latvians as a modern people, the issue of tradition and modernity in interwar Latvia, especially during the authoritarian regime, and the confrontation between tradition and the Soviet model of modernisation. The cultural and social emancipation of Latvians as a modern people was a consequence as well as an inseparable part of the modernisation processes of the Baltic provinces and the tsarist empire. The program of the Latvian national movement was defined as an attempt to integrate Latvians into the changing social and cultural conditions not only in the traditional Baltic provinces, but, at the same time, the assertion of a modern nation within the wider context of the tsarist empire. The second section examines the issue of tradition and modernity in interwar Latvia, especially during the authoritarian regime, which single-mindedly and systematically attempted to justify historically the statehood of the young country of Latvia. The final section characterises the Soviet model of modernisation.
Since the 19th century the tension between modernizing processes and the terms like tradition, patriotism, and nation have become the constant feature of the development of modern Hungarian society. The dispute between 'modern' and 'traditional' culminated usually during great national crises. Paradoxically, the language of the dispute made possible the use of the word 'modernization' against real modernization, when the effort to raise the nation was undertaken in the name of defence of national values against 'cosmopolitan' modernity coming from abroad, or when the Hungarian nation was defending its 'traditional progressiveness' against the national demands of 'backward' non-Hungarian nations. The effort to find the balance between 'general' democratic and 'particular' national principles have permeated programmes of all significant political parties throughout the 19-20th centuries. The achieved consensus in this matter served also as one of the arguments supporting the decision to accept integration of Hungary into NATO and the EU, and, on the other hand, the Hungarians perceived both integrations as historically unique opportunity to resolve traditional tensions between 'progress and patriotism'.
The term New Age movement defines a heterogeneous, non-religious Western spiritual movement that emerged in the second part of the 20th century. It combines Euro-American spiritual heritage, widely understood Eastern philosophy, numerous native traditions, infusing this hybrid with elements of psychology, healthy lifestyle, as well as quantum physics. Because New Age spirituality is practiced occasionally on commercially held workshops, those kinds of seminars have soon become a lucrative business for its teachers and coordinators. The objective of the article is to follow the general history of New Age in the context of native Americans, provide its characteristics, and investigate the 'native American' threads within the New Age movement both in the United States and in Poland. The author focuses on the ethical aspects of commercial exploitation of native American heritage, examines native Americans' stand related to the misappropriations of their spiritual legacy for commercial purposes, as well as actions they take in order to restrict this procedure.
The Byzantine mission led by St. Constantine-Cyril and his brother St. Methodius, which reached Great Moravia in 863, had several dimensions. The central theme of this work is to look at how the message of Great Moravia and the Cyrillo-Methodian cult has been spread, mainly in the modern history of Slovakia. After establishing the Hungarian Kingdom, the relations of the local church representatives towards the Methodius‘s followers weakened significantly. By the end of the 10th century, there was again pressure aimed at eradicating the residues of their activities and influence. The Cyrillo-Methodian literary tradition came to a standstill and the application of liturgical habits introduced by the holy brothers was disrupted for a long period of time. It is commonly known that the whole era of the Slovak national revival was fuelled by the development of the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition. The cultural value cultivation of the Great Moravian figures in the religious, national, and cultural life of the Slovaks started already during the national revival and flourished in the 20th century. The intensity of spreading the cult of the Thessalonian saints has been different in various Slovak regions. Following the development of the Great Moravian era interpretations that were subject to political pressure, as well as to the limited actual knowledge, gave us the answers regarding the future orientation of the research.
The article presents an attempt to highlight the historical and cultural background of formation of Eliot’s canon, as well as to analyse certain aesthetic paradigms that formed its basis (the theory of tradition, the conception of impersonal poetry, and the concept of “dissociation of sensibility”). In the article, the key figures belonging to the canon are mentioned, and the reasons for their canonization are identified. A particular attention is paid to Eliot’s take on the problem of dialogue of cultures, and of acquisition of a foreign poetical tradition, as well as to the principles that, according to Eliot, should govern literary translation.
Does it make any sense today to look for the intersections between rationality and morals? Were the ancient and medieval philosophies, in which these intersections were present, wrong? And what led to the resolute divorce between these two phenomena? What is the justification for the latter? And is it reasonable? The aim of the author´s article is to provide answers to these questions, which would be based on a systematic study of the relationship between these two phenomena. Thus he goes back to the tradition of thought beginning with Socrates and reaching its peak in the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. This tradition was reintroduced into the modern philosophic discourse by Alasdair MacIntyre.
The article brings back to our memory the ideas of agrarism and the fates of political formation that tried to introduce these ideas into the public and political life of Poland after the Second World War. However, the ideas of agrarism and the political formation implementing its goals and values suffered a defeat in the clash with the doctrine binding in People's Poland. The author describes the way in which this important experience of Polish peasants was erased from the tradition and memory of the Polish nation. She points to the intentional character of the discontinuation of agraristic tradition and the role played in this process by reprisals of the Stalinist period. She shows the contemporary, complex consequences of the ennoblement of socialist solutions and the social costs of the marginalization of democratic, solidary solutions of agrarism that lost in 1947.
Reflecting on the Great-Moravian and Cyril-Methodius traditions in Slovak literature is proved by a number of various comments related to the particular period of time occurring in the works of the earlier provenance. The detailed registration of them is important, however, literary and historical research should also be carried out into writers´ strategies of using such information – the case of Bohuslav Tablic shows that incorporating the information in his reflections on literary history was influenced by certain factors which need to be closely examined.
Punch and Judy is one of a number of traditional popular glove puppet forms found across Europe. It is, by a considerable margin, the most numerous of these forms. This paper seeks to account for its relative success. It calls on research undertaken as part of an ethnographic study of contemporary performance undertaken between 2006 and 2007 towards a doctoral thesis. The research consisted of historical analysis and contemporary field-work. The article concludes that the success of the show in part depended on its emergence at a moment when late-modern class identity was coming to be constructed in Britain, that new class-oriented markets were emerging which commoditised cultural products, that performers adapted themselves and the show to these markets, professionalising themselves and, in more recent times, instituting organisations whose purpose was to secure the profile of the form. It goes on to suggest that current western preoccupations with heritage have provided a useful role for the form. The article argues that Punch and Judy puppet show has used the mechanisms of late-modernity to maximise its capital as an ostensibly traditional form.
This paper aims to introduce the historical traditions of Korean aesthetics, focusing on the views of prominent thinkers, and further examine the contemporary tasks of Korean aesthetics. Thanks to 'chinoiserie' and 'japonism', Chinese and Japanese aesthetics were introduced to Europe relatively early, but Korean aesthetics has received little attention until recently. Korea has developed a great art culture with a long historical tradition and unique language in East Asian culture, and has accomplished its own specific achievements in aesthetics.
The author of the paper asks the question why Slovak speakers use grammatical forms such as “budeme sa sústrediť” or “vidíme sa (zajtra)” in spite of their standard command of the grammatical rules. The linguists refer to this by saying that the speakers are under the influence of negative factors and the author draws attention to three reasons: the power of tradition, logic and ideology. A grammatical behaviour like this can be regarded as a cue that we have to do with two modalities of the grammar. However, the linguists and people under the influence of the school start from the assumption that the grammar exists only in the rational modality and they are reacting to the grammatical behaviour in the linguistic practice according to their assumption. This text is meant to encourage readers to overcome this convention and to pay attention to the grammar in the practical modality too. The author suggests that we could begin our exploration of the grammar in this modality by thinking about the grammatical disposition of fluent speakers and this can be done by starting with the theory of background of J. R. Searle.
Martin Chemnitz, an important second-generation, reformation theologian, combined Luther’s theological insights and exegetical skills with Melanchthon’s logical methods of argumentation in his patient search for ecumenical concord. His major theological contribution was his development of an historical method, which he used in his polemics, thus delineating the roots and context of legitimate ‘Gospel theology.’ This method is comprised of: (1) Biblical exegesis, (2) thorough research of the church’s tradition to guide exegesis (keeping the Scriptures as the ultimate authority in case of discrepancies or conflicting views), (3) dogmatic construction, and (4) apologetics. Chemnitz used this method in developing and using his Christological teaching in several key doctrines, including his doctrine of the Eucharist. Relying on what he called a “catholic consensus of the fathers,” Chemnitz extensively used the witness of the ancient fathers of the church – including Eastern church fathers, which distinguished him from other Protestant theologians of his time – as a legitimate source of Christology, as well as other important topics. This “catholic consensus” should be perceived as a further development of the tradition of biblical interpretation within the living organism – the ecumenical Body of Christ. The witness of biblical interpretation of the Christological passages as found in Cyril of Alexandria, John of Damascus, or Basil the Great is welded together with the words of institution, as found in the Gospels and in Paul, the apostle. Chemnitz’s approach carries a relevant ecumenical potential for the dialogue between Eastern and Western branches of Christianity.
The study is an analysis and interpretation of three short stories relating to the early creative period of Margita Figuli –' Vo vlnach Oravy' (In the waves of Orava River) (1931), 'Syn' ( Son) (1933) and 'Zem' (Earth) (1934). They were published as a changed version in a new collection of the stories 'Mamivy dusok' (Specious Taste) in the first volume of the Collected works of Margita Figuli in 1972. They are prose on the subject of rural environment and the theme of fatal relationship of a farmer to his 'land'. The author studies mainly the problem how this relationship in particular texts epically generates through plot and roles of female characters in it. In the short stories from 1931 the farmer hero had left his land because of his love to a woman and then he tragically died in the river rafting logs down the river. The analysis shows that conceptually the text is constructed in a way the balladic end manifested direct epic and semantic consequence of relational rupture to the tradition toward 'land'. Psychologically more complicated short story from 1933 bears as a theme instinct of keeping family and administration of property as moving power influencing the acting of a main hero instinctively and ramblingly manifested as a natural unlimited power - unlimited in a sense of social as well as the ethic limits. In the short story from 1934 a fatal bondage to his land dominates love of a farmer to woman and the love of woman is dominated by the same bondage, too. The author shows that M. Figuli had been building up the paradigmatic foundations of her works from her 'classical period' of writing earlier, in her creative early beginnings.
Folklore is coming into confrontation with other kinds of non – artificial music, which contributes to its perception and acceptance, for example through various forms of adaptation and other way of making use of them other than in the folklore genres. At presence a folk song is not related just to a particular locality or region; popular songs are sung in many places; in some case all over the country. Modern technologies are having an impact on the consciousness of the contemporary folklore (internet). This must be evaluated critically. For this is a system accessible and open to practically everyone. These transformations can be observed on the basis of contemporary research in the Czech lands; however, the situation may differ in other environments.
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