Cultural studies as a concept organising the experience of culture

Culture is constantly being created by man and is subject to change as a result of human self-reflection and self-identification. The cultural system does not exist in isolation, but interacts with other systems, which means that in the cultural system itself we may recognise decision-making processes, namely: what to accept, what to reject, how to include (or not include) new elements. Thus, it is necessary to organise our knowledge about the occurring processes and phenomena. The essence of cultural studies is expressed above all in the ordering of these processes and phenomena within the rich and dynamic field of culture

The conception of culture, values and identity of Iran in Shaykh Fazlallah Nuri's writings

The aim of this analysis of Nuri's writings is the creation of a model of culture which is based on the semantics of the notions qanun, eslam, mosvat, horriyat, mashrute/mashru'e, qanun-e asasi. Investigations into the model of culture proposed by Nuri will allow us to distinguish its specific features and to discover its roots and condition at the time of confrontation with an alternative model. The word qanun 'law' is the central one in Nuri's texts of the mashrute period. The history of its semantic transformation has its roots in the 1850s and the first contacts of the Iranian people with the West. Nuri inquired as to the semantics of the notions of qanun, mosavat, horriyat (azadi) and mashrute in discussions during the time of bast in Abdolazim mosque and in the conversations with representatives of the British embassy. He acted against these elements of law. He regarded himself as a religious leader for his community which, as a whole, constituted God's people whose final purpose was salvation

Friendship as a Value in Academic Ethos

The aim of the research work reported here was to clarify the semantics of the notion of “friendship”. The main research question is to what extent friendship is recognised by students and teachers as a value constituting the identity of the Jagiellonian University’s (JU) academic community. From it follows another one: what role does friendship play in the value system of the academic ethos– does it have the potential to clarify or transform values enshrined in documents and recognised as enduring? This study uses qualitative data generated from the collected research material: semi-structured interviews and online surveys with closed questions, single and multiple choice. Content analysis was used to examine the interviews by identifying words, phrases and sentences related to the research tasks. The conclusions can be summarised as: 1.Friendship functions in horizontal relationships; 2. Friendship is an essential value of university ethos, realised through its other, already recognised and acknowledged, values: fair treatment, kindness, responsibility and respect for the other; 3. Friendship evolves in the system of references; 4. Friendship realised as a value of the ethos leads to a merger of the professional and the private spheres; 5. Friendship is automatically excluded when a vertical relationship appears

A synthesis of the elements of the Orthodox Christian faith, Buddhism and the Enlightenment in Tolstoy’s moral-ethical doctrine

This article aims at following Tolstoy’s ideological growth and analysing the content of his most important texts in the light of the changes within the Russian culture of the second half of the 19th century. A selective synthesis of different elements in Tolstoy’s doctrine provokes a reflection about the consequences of merging ideas from different sources, sometimes fundamentally contradictory to one another.This article aims at following Tolstoy’s ideological growth and analysing the content of his most important texts in the light of the changes within the Russian culture of the second half of the 19th century. A selective synthesis of different elements in Tolstoy’s doctrine provokes a reflection about the consequences of merging ideas from different sources, sometimes fundamentally contradictory to one another

"Modernization" and "civil society" : the battle cries of the post-Soviet epoch

The concept of the words as “battle cries of an epoch” by Viktor Vinogradov constitutes theoretical frames for analyses of the changes that occur in linguistic-cultural space of Russia after 1991. The aim of the research is to create a linguistic map of the post-Soviet reality centered around the words: “modernization” and “civil society”. We will begin our reflections with a brief retrospective statement that the construction of the new order of the USSR, after the Bolshevik Revolution, began with a struggle for words. At that time, a new map of reality was created, in which some words were eliminated and others adopted changed semantics. The space of meanings defined the limits of the possibilities of the Soviet man. In the 1990s many of the earlier words lost their power to shape reality. The main hypotesis of this article is the statement that immediately after glasnost’ and perestroika, the words modernization and civil society became the main landmarks on the map of the new reality. The research material consists of the texts of the Messages to the Federal Assembly of Russian presidents: Boris Yeltsin, Dmitri Medvedev, and Vladimir Putin. The selection of the source material was made based on the criteria of rank, range, and repeatability

The image of Russia and Russians in the Krakow press in 1918 : a cultural perspective : encoding - decoding and re-coding

The years of dependence fixed a specific picture of Russia and the Russians. This was conditioned by enmity against the invaders on the one hand and - by the need of auto-creation and painting a positive picture by the very czarist Russia, on the other hand. Newspapers, as opinion-forming tools, became a stage for the struggle between such a creation of the image of the world in which Russia had a positive and prevalent role, and such forming the image in which freedom and patriotism were of fundamental significance.The year 1918 brought significant changes due to the fact that the qualities of the eastern neighbor were being transformed. The resurgent Poland created its identity upon the basis of the endogenous components which were known in advance, such as: independence, honor and freedom and struggle for it; and also by referring to the exogenous ones. The new Russia was one of them. A cultural perspective has been adopted in this paper. The applied methodology would help to reveal the mechanisms typical for a culture at the moment of sudden changes: to unveil the hidden codes, to confront their contents with the declared ones (official) and re-coding. The latter one is necessary to enable the culture to absorb or reject cultural influence from the neighbor who has changed some of its cultural patterns

Types of martyrs and patterns of martyrdom in the Shi’ite Islam

Celem rozważań w niniejszym artykule jest przedstawienie wybranych przykładów męczenników w szyickim islamie na tle przemian kulturowo-społecznych współczesnego Iranu. Idea szahadat jest jednym z najbardziej żywotnych wzorów kulturowych, aktywizujących się szczególnie w czasach uznanych przez muzułmanów za opresyjne wobec wyznawców islamu. Połączenie koncepcji męczeństwa z ważnymi dla szyickiego islamu pojęciami zolm (przemoc) i adalat (sprawiedliwość) generuje nowe treści słowa dżihad (walka). W artykule został omówiony podstawowy paradygmat: bitwa pod Kerbelą, a następnie - jego współczesne realizacje: w czasie dwóch rewolucji: konstytucyjnej (1905-1911) oraz islamskiej (1979) Wykazano, że to właśnie w atmosferze rewolucyjnego wrzenia, gdy społeczeństwo staje w obliczu krwawych aktów przemocy, ożywają wzory męczeństwa.The discussion over the chosen examples of martyrs in Shi’i Islam, upon the background of socio-cultural changes of contemporary Iran is the purpose of this paper. The idea of shahadat is one the most vital cultural patterns, that became activated in the periods regarded by Muslims as oppressive for them. Merging the concept of martyrdom with notions as zolm (violence) and adalat (justice), so important for the Shi’i Islam generates new content of the word jihad. The basic pattern of the Kerbela battle was discussed in the paper. Its contemporary actualizations: during the Constitutional Revolution (1905-1911) and the Islamic Revolution (1979) were then analyzed. It was proven that the patterns of martyrdom are activated in the atmosphere of revolutionary turmoil when a society faces bloody acts of violence

"Zabveniju ne podlezhit" : blockade of Leningrad in documents of the epoch and in contemporary public perception

Przywołany tytuł dokumentalnego tomu o blokadzie Leningradu w czasie II wojny światowej wskazuje na imperatyw pamiętania o wydarzeniach, które zapisały się w pamięci całego narodu. Rodzi też pytania o uzasadnienie nakazu niezapominania. Stawiane pytania badawcze mają prowadzić do zidentyfikowania kluczowych elementów narracji - emocji, które są aktywowane poprzez odwołanie się do konkretnych faktów historycznych. Wysnute wnioski mogą stanowić punkt wyjścia do refleksji na temat skutków pamiętania - niepamiętania traumatycznych wydarzeń w życiu jakieś wspólnoty: etnicznej, narodowej, religijnej itp. Mogą również dostarczyć przesłanek teoretycznych do badań nad funkcjonowaniem pamięci o tragedii jako narzędzia wywierania wpływu w relacji władza - społeczeństwo.The aforementioned title of the documentary volume on the blockade of Leningrad during the World War II emphasises the imperative to remember the events that were recorded in the memory of the entire nation. It also raises questions about the justification for the non-forgetting order. The posed research questions are meant to lead to the identification of key elements of the narrative - the emotions that are triggered by referring to specific historical facts. The drawn conclusions can be a starting point for reflection on the effects of remembering - not remembering traumatic events in the life of a community: ethnic, national, religious etc. They can also provide theoretical premisses for the research on the functioning of memory about a tragedy as an influence tool in the relationship between the authorities and societ

Irańska ropa naftowa. Znaczenie strategiczne i symboliczne

Abstract: The analysis of strategic significance of the Iranian oil needs to be supplemented with the profound research in the area of its symbolic meaning. Combining those two approaches is necessary regarding the fact that economy is interrelated with the condition of the political system. If the Islamic Republic of Iran is viewed as a set of three interdependent systems: a political, a social and an economic one with specific function for each of them, then the symbolic area turns out to be most active in the field of social bounds and contacts. The political system imposes pressure on the society by an application of symbols. In such a case the Iranian oil becomes not fuel, which can be sold or bought, but a symbol of struggle for political and cultural independence.Analiza strategicznego znaczenia ropy naftowej jako jednego z podstawowych surowców irańskiej gospodarki i czynnika regulującego w dużym stopniu stosunki międzynarodowe musi zostać dopełniona o dogłębną analizę ropy naftowej jako symbolu niezależności Iranu i jego walki o niezawisłość i ochronę dobra narodowego. Jeśli ujmiemy Islamską Republikę Iranu jako zbiór trzech wzajemnie powiązanych ze sobą i współzależnych systemów: politycznego, społecznego i ekonomicznego, z których każdy pełni określone funkcje, to sfera symboliczna okaże się być najbardziej aktywna właśnie w obszarze kontaktów i więzi społecznych. System polityczny oddziałuje na społeczeństwo za pomocą symboli, które mogą zostać odkodowane nieświadomie, lecz zgodnie z założeniami decydentów politycznych. W tym wypadku ropa naftowa stanie się nie surowcem energetycznym, który można sprzedać lub kupić, lecz symbolem walki o niezawisłość Iranu