University curricula of cultural studies at Polish universities : an attempt at assessment

The scientific world view which has been shaped since the Enlightenment influences the belief that man is the sole creator of culture whereas the main culture-creating factors are economic conditions and social relations. Therefore, management-economic or sociological approach are dominant ones in contemporary curricula of cultural studies. Christianity and other religions are not treated as ideological foundations shaping culture, but as a manifestation of human activity resulting from primal fear of incomprehensible phenomena which occur in the surrounding world. Hence, religion is understood not as a culture-forming subject, but as an object that is one of many elements of culture, a historical and transient phenomenon

Nikolaj Ul'ânov : istina i mify v russkoj istoriografii

Исторические работы Ульянова затрагивают следующие аспекты истории России: вопросы методологии изучения истории России; взаимоотношения историографии, историософии и культуры; проблемы этногенеза. В качестве ненаучной он рассматривал следующую терминологию: «законы истории», «причинно-следственная зависимость», «железная необходимость», «цивилизации», «формации», «идеальные типы». Ульянов придерживается антропологического метода изучения истории в противовес методологии , искусственно воспризводимой от естественных наук. Основоположником этой традиции, по мнению Ульянова, является Петр Чаадаев. Историк называет его самозванцем в истории русской мысли, ревизором русской истории. Ставит его в один ряд с декабристами, Белинским и Герценом. Он упрекает их всех в создании исторической идеологии. Две статьи Ульянова: «Ignorantia est» и «Басманный философ» в сущности предваряют дискуссию на тему глобализации: ее идеол огии и практики. Ульянов утверждает также, что ошибаются все, ктостарается в России подражать Европе. Проблема полиэтничности России является центральным вопросом в исследованиях Ульянова. Этой теме он посвящает наиболее известное исследование «Происхождение украинского сепаратизма ». Политическая игра с национальным вопросом, по мнению Ульянова, может оказатья роковой. Попытка расчленения единого культурно-исторического пространства россиян может сделать их непримиримыми из-за простого чувства самосохранения, - пишет он, - если половина окажется вдруг за границей.Ulyanov's historical works touch upon the following aspects of Russian history: Questions of methodology for studying the history of Russia; The relationship of historiography, historiosophy and culture; Ethnogenetic questions. As unscientific, he criticized the terminology: "the laws of history", "causal dependence", "iron necessity", "civilizations", "formations", "ideal types". Ulyanov adheres to the anthropological method of studying history as opposed to the methodology artificially reproduced from the natural sciences. The founder of this tradition, according to Ulyanov, is Peter Chaadaev. The historian calls him an impostor in the history of Russian thought, an auditor of Russian history. Puts him on a par with the Decembrists, Belinsky and Herzen. He reproaches them all for creating a historical ideology. Two articles by Ulyanov: Ignorantia est and Basmanny filosov in essence precede the discussion on the topic of globalization: its ideology and practice. Ulyanov also claims that everyone who tries to imitate Europe in Russia is mistaken. The problem of Russia's multi - ethnicity is the central issue in Ulyanov's research. He dedicates his most famous study, The Origin of Ukrainian Separatism, to him. The political game of the national question, according to Ulyanov, can be fatal. An attempt to dismember Russians could make them irreconcilable out of a simple sense of self-preservation, he writes, if half of them suddenly find themselves abroad

Alienation from the culture : interpretative dilemmas : on the example of the old believers

After G.W.F. Hegel's The Phenomenology of Spirit and Ludwig Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity, the issue of alienation is considered to be a significant object of study. Sociology - which attempts to dominate studies on this concept - is a discipline which rather single-mindedly interprets the phenomena rooted in the religious reality, and one should not rely solely on its analyses. By the same token, semiotics should be treated with similar distrust, even though the impact of Old Believers on the development of Russian culture is widely emphasised in the works of Russian semioticians. The reason for that stems from the claim for being a universal method - which hence is forced to refer to a universal object - that semiotics has shared; the mentioned object has been culture. The idea of subsuming phenomena of different categories under a common denominator in the course of interpretation has led to a situation in which the semiotic means have turned to be but metaphors, even though semioticians have argued for their ontological statues. Precisely this aspect should be noted, as it proves that semiotics - with its universalist claims - appears to blur the boundaries between sociological stratum, and the one oriented towards philosophy and theology. From the point of view expressed by Orthodox Christianity, the true tragic alienation relies not on the distance separating one from culture and society, but rather on the one which detaches one from God - the creator of being. The case of Old Believers exemplifies a convoluted situation, as the bone of contention has been provided by liturgy, which is, in other words, the space in which a human being encounters God. If, therefore, this issue is related to culture, then it is so precisely through its metaphysical aspect. Neither sociology nor philosophy - and even not semiotics, recently withdrawing from cultural studies, which it used to dominate - has been capable of interpreting the phenomenon of Old Believers as thoroughly as theology and history of Church. Relying on the scientist methodology, the former group of disciplines has not included such significant aspects of the culture of Orthodox Christianity as anthropology, dogmatics, state theology, or liturgics. Without those aspects, any attempt which aims at explaining the issue of Old Believers happens to be inaccurate