scholarly journals The national and the popular in Israeli cinema

Author(s):  
Ilan Avisar

Abstract. Avisar Ilan, The national and the popular in Israeli cinema. “Images” vol. XXV, no. 34. Poznań 2019. Adam Mickiewicz University Press. Pp. 29–44. ISSN 1731-450X. DOI 10.14746/i.2019.34.02. The article examines Israeli cinema as a critical participant in the local drama of national ideology and national identity. Israeli filmmakers have engaged in enunciating the national culture, in the context of the medium’s history, political ideologies, and the tension between high art and popular culture. The historical review of Israeli films shows dramatic changes over the years from nationalistic propaganda to radical critique and post-Zionism. Israeli cinema appears now to seek a constructive and fruitful dialogue with the viewers. In the recent wave of popular films, the national ideology is more conscious of its past mistakes and inherent deficiencies; its presentation of national identity is less narrow and more open to alternative types, thereby suggesting new vistas of national culture.

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 369-386
Author(s):  
Marta Saavedra Llamas ◽  
Nicolás Grijalba de la Calle

Cultural expression and creativity contribute to shape national identity; movie experience reflects society. The way in which Pedro Almodóvar’s films facilitates a greater understanding of Spanish culture is the main thesis in this research. This study follows a double methodology: a descriptive documentary phase and an analysis of the filmmaker’s work. The latter includes two substages: a qualitative analysis based on a pattern dealing with different variables related to stereotype perception of Spain abroad; and a quantitative one, which highlights further procedures to approach the national culture. The insight provided by this research proves that Almodóvar actually spreads Spanish identity through his creative universe and empowers its stereotypes, yet by making them more modern: he points out the role of family, but he goes against the traditional model; he turns Madrid, Spain symbolic sight in the international standard about Spanish identity, into the kernel of his work; and he introduces some elements of Spanish popular culture like folklore, gastronomy, bullfighting or rural Spain.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 459-464
Author(s):  
Alevtina Vasilevna Kamitova ◽  
Tatyana Ivanovna Zaitseva

The paper reflects the specificity of the fundamental ideas of the artistic world of M. G. Atamanov, which includes a wide range of literary facts from the content level of the text of the works to their poetics. A particularly important role in the works of M. G. Atamanov is played by cross-cutting themes and images that reflect the author's individual style and his idea of national-ethnic identity. The subject of the research is the book of essays “Mon - Udmurt. Maly mynym vös’?” (“I am Udmurt. Why does it hurt?”), which most vividly reflected the main spiritual and artistic searches of M. G. Atamanov, associated with his ideas about the Udmurt people. The main motives and plots of the works included in the book under consideration are accumulated around the concept of “Udmurtness”. The comprehension of “Udmurtness” is modeled in his essays through specific leit themes: native language, Udmurt people, national culture, mentality, geographic and topographic features of the Udmurt people’ places of residence, the Orthodox idea. The “Udmurt theme” is recognized and comprehended by the writer through the prism of national identity.


Experiment ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-144
Author(s):  
Wendy Salmond

Abstract This essay examines Russian artist Viktor Vasnetsov’s search for a new kind of prayer icon in the closing decades of the nineteenth century: a hybrid of icon and painting that would reconcile Russia’s historic contradictions and launch a renaissance of national culture and faith. Beginning with his icons for the Spas nerukotvornyi [Savior Not Made by Human Hands] Church at Abramtsevo in 1880-81, for two decades Vasnetsov was hailed as an innovator, the four icons he sent to the Paris “Exposition Universelle” of 1900 marking the culmination of his vision. After 1900, his religious painting polarized elite Russian society and was bitterly attacked in advanced art circles. Yet Vasnetsov’s new icons were increasingly linked with popular culture and the many copies made of them in the late Imperial period suggest that his hybrid image spoke to a generation seeking a resolution to the dilemma of how modern Orthodox worshippers should pray.


With its five thematic sections covering genres from cantorial to classical to klezmer, this pioneering multi-disciplinary volume presents rich coverage of the work of musicians of Jewish origin in the Polish lands. It opens with the musical consequences of developments in Jewish religious practice: the spread of hasidism in the eighteenth century meant that popular melodies replaced traditional cantorial music, while the greater acculturation of Jews in the nineteenth century brought with it synagogue choirs. Jewish involvement in popular culture included performances for the wider public, Yiddish songs and the Yiddish theatre, and contributions of many different sorts in the interwar years. Chapters on the classical music scene cover Jewish musical institutions, organizations, and education; individual composers and musicians; and a consideration of music and Jewish national identity. One section is devoted to the Holocaust as reflected in Jewish music, and the final section deals with the afterlife of Jewish musical creativity in Poland, particularly the resurgence of interest in klezmer music. The chapters do not attempt to define what may well be undefinable—what “Jewish music” is. Rather, they provide an original and much-needed exploration of the activities and creativity of “musicians of the Jewish faith.“


2004 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 485-505 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Teo

This paper focuses on the discursive strategies used by the Singapore government to construct national identity and solidarity on the basis of a ‘clean and green’ environment. By analysing the slogans used in the Clean and Green Week campaign in terms of the use of pronouns and the pragmatic notion of ‘politeness’, the paper shows that the people of Singapore are not only persuaded to ‘buy’ the idea of environmentalism, but also to buy into the ideology of national identity and unity being derived (in part) from the proper management and conservation of Singapore’s scarce resources and limited physical space. The paper concludes with a discussion on how national campaigns such as the Clean and Green Week constitutes a form of political discourse, where public educational discourse becomes a veiled medium through which socio-political ideologies are produced and propagated. With the government treading the fine line between information and manipulation where ‘greening’ a country becomes a scaffolding for building a nation, a study like this offers interesting insights into the interplay between the language of politics and the politics of language.


wisdom ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 146-161
Author(s):  
Tetiana URYS ◽  
Tetiana KOZAK ◽  
Svitlana BARABASH

National culture, especially literature, contains invaluable nation-building potential and is an effective factor in influencing the development of the national identity of the individual and the ethnic group as a whole. In the process of forming literary works, the author’s consciousness and subconscious play an im­portant role, so they are not only one of the best ways of expressing a creative personality and a form of its reaction to events occurring in the outside world, but also one of the most important means of forming the national identity of the recipients. Therefore, such a literary work contains a modus of national identity. The main content of this concept in the literature is revealed in the article. Its theoretical components and their functional aspects in the text are defined and analysed. The modus of national identity is formulated as a way of realising the identity of one with his nation through certain aesthetic elements and structures at all levels of literary work as an artistic system. Such element-dominants are motives, artistic imagery, lyrical character as the main expression of the author’s thoughts, as well as archetypes, symbols and place names.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksander Smalianczuk

In the Search for a National Idea: Krajowość in the Beginning of the Twentieth Century as an Attempt at “Lithuanian Poles’" IdeologyKrajowość as the national ideology of the “civil” (or “political”) type developed in Belarus and Lithuania at the beginning of the twentieth century. The adherents of krajowośćclaimed that all native inhabitants of historical Lithuania, disregarding their ethno-cultural identity, are “the citizens of the Kraj” [the Countrymen] and therefore belong to one nation. Some called them “the nation of Lithuanians.” The category of “the native inhabitants” was used in relation to the Lithuanians, Belarusians, Poles, Jews, and almost never to Russians. As the main criterion for a national identity they proclaimed patriotism and self-identification as citizens.The krajowość idea appeared among the nobility. Its representatives belong to the combined Polish culture in respect of their own Lithuanian and Belarusian origin. The former Grand Duchy of Lithuania was interpreted by them as a historical native land. It was the determining factor in the formation of a new identity.All adherents of krajowość (Michal Romer, Roman Skirmunt, Kanstancyja Skirmuntt, Ludwik Abramovich, etc.) belonged to the group of the “Lithuania (vel Belarus) Poles”. Despite their intentions, the krajowość idea was formed on the basis of the “Lithuanian Poles’” struggle for their own place in the new society. As a result, the ideology for “Lithuanian Poles” was created, but it could not neutralize the existing Polish-Lithuanian-Belarusian conflict. W poszukiwaniu idei narodowej: „krajowość” początku XX wieku jako próba ideologii „Polaków litewskich”„Krajowość”, czyli ,,ideologia krajowa”, została sformułowana na Białorusi i Litwie na początku XX wieku. Krajowcy stwierdzali, że wszyscy rdzenni mieszkańcy historycznej Litwy, niezależnie od ich etnokulturowej i stanowej przynależności, należą do jednego „narodu Litwinów”. Za główne kryteria owej narodowej przynależności uznano poczucie patriotyzmu w stosunku do Litwy historycznej. Jednym z celów krajowości było pogodzenie partykularnych interesów miejscowych narodów z ich ogólnym interesem, pod jakim rozumiano dobro wspólnej Ojczyzny, historycznej Litwy. Jednak mimo zamiarów ideologów, którzy mówili o „obywatelach Kraju”, krajowość wyrosła z poszukiwania przez Polaków litewskich swego miejsca w nowym społeczeństwie. Koncepcja krajowa była ideologią Polaków litewskich, stworzoną przede wszystkim dla nich. Z postanowieniami krajowców była związana przede wszystkim perspektywa polskości na Litwie historycznej.


Author(s):  
Dmytro Dzvinchuk ◽  
Iryna Ozminska

The article investigates the concept of “political nation”. The analysis of research studies and the generalization of domestic and foreign experience in the formation of political nation prove the relevance of the issues raised. The study of peculiarities of the political nation formation in the coordinates of the Modernist period enhances the understanding of processes in the socio-humanitarian sphere, makes it possible to outline the ambiguity of interpretations of the conceptual foundations of the political nation, and also helps to develop the effective state policy in this area. It should be noted that there are few studies that systematically analyze the domestic and foreign experience of forming the political nation and they need modernization. It has been determined that the identification of the sense of national identity is the result of the appropriate mental work, and external challenges greatly optimize this process. Different approaches to the content characteristics of the notion “political nation” have been considered and summarized. A number of factors (the need to preserve the integrity of state and its consolidation, the formation of civil society, hybrid aggression, etc.) have been outlined, which stipulate the necessity of developing the adequate policy on dealing with crisis phenomena, existing in the Ukrainian national identity. It has been established that the political nation forms a corresponding type of national culture, which creates a more systematic understanding of the genesis, ritual and strategy of national development.


1994 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-107
Author(s):  
Salustiano del Campo ◽  
Enrique Gil-Calvo

It may be argued that the solidity of a country's popular culture (and hence its capacity to resist penetration by foreign cultural forms) depends on its inhabitants' consciousness of sharing a common national identity: a highly nationalistic society will successfully repel alien cultural invasions while a society with a weak national consciousness will easily absorb extraneous cultural forms. It must be noted that the national identity referred to is a historical construction contingent upon the element of conflict, competition or opposition that has characterized the country's relations with its neighbours throughout generations.


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