Próba interpretacji zjawiska rytualnego składania ofiar z ludzi na Słowiańszczyźnie Zachodniej

The subject matter of the article concerns on ritual sacrificial practices related to human sacrifices among the Western Slavs, including the Polish lands and the Polabia region. The chronological range covers the early Middle Ages, from the 7th to the 12th centuries. Considerations on this subject include the review of anthropological and philosophical disciplines research including R. Girard studies in this aspect, an analysis of written sources, and above all the analysis of the occurrence of victims and sacrificial sites from an archaeological perspective. The aim of the study was to identify archaeological remains related to sacrificial rituals by presenting the occurrence of victims and sacrificial sites at selected archaeological sites. The study aims to discuss the issues with interpretations of various aspects of the human sacrifices from the early medival Western Slavdom territory sites. The work is interdisciplinary, as it takes into account and integrates the results of archaeological research, knowledge in the field of history, philosophy and cultural anthropology. The article presents the effectiveness of interdisciplinary methods in expanding analytical and interpretative possibilities of archeology regarding the rituals of sacrifice and sacrificial sites.

Concussion treatment through Baria zasal: An exploration of Traditional Mongolian Medicine

There is no specific treatment for concussion in modern medicine; existing treatments are limited to resting and restoring cognition. For Mongolians, seeking concussion treatment from a bariachi, an advanced practitioner of the baria zasal traditional massage therapy, is very common. The baria zasal technique has been passed down the generations for millions of years, keeping with the Mongolian nomadic culture and way of life. However, this Mongolian treatment is little known or researched internationally. Due to the lack of literature on this subject, conducting a meta-analysis or systematic review was impossible. We reviewed the literature published in Mongolian about this technique. We also searched articles published from 1 January 1921 to 20 June 2021 in PubMed using "concussion", "baria zasal", and "Bariachi" keywords. Although informal observation indicates this is a commonly sought treatment among patients, there are very few published scientific articles about the practice outside the realm of cultural anthropology. This may be due to a few reasons: the informal, semi-religious setting in which the treatment takes place makes it difficult to conduct scientific field research; concussion is a mild traumatic brain injury, making it impossible to identify changes in the brain as a result of the treatment using imaging methods and therefore difficult to verify; and lastly, baria zasal is generally uncontested as a treatment even by Mongolian medical professionals, therefore it has not been the subject of empirical debate. Moreover, it is not classified under a specific system, each bariachi having its technique. As bariachis do not receive formal training, their treatments often depend on instincts, natural talents, and personal abilities. Therefore, it is recommended to study the techniques of baria zasal of concussion to explain its enduring popularity in Mongolia and to ascertain how it interacts with standard western medical treatment.

Human Being in the Dimension of the Psychosociocultural Matrix of Philosophizing

Purpose. The article highlights the demand for critical thinking in everyday life at the present stage of development of globalized culture and emphasizes the role of philosophy as a source of rationality. Philosophizing, which is determined by the psychosociocultural matrix, sets the toposes, vocabulary and rhythms of meaning making, their preservation and transformation. The purpose of the article is to concretize the practices of socio-cultural communication, primarily through the social institute of education, where individuals interact with the psychosociocultural matrix of philosophizing, which mediate the general and individual level in philosophical culture. Theoretical basis of the study are cultural anthropology and phenomenological methods. Originality of the study: based on the philosophy of intersubjectivity, we actualized the rational grounds for formation of adequate judgments in modern culture at the level of everyday life. This justifies the inevitability of the spread of various forms and types of philosophical education, philosophical thinking, ideas and values developed in philosophical communities beyond the narrow circle of professional philosophers. This implies the systemic involvement of philosophers as professionals of meaning-making in solving problems in various non-academic fields – politics, economics, law, etc. The formation of skills of philosophical critical thinking in the process of preparing young people for active civil life is no less important aspect of this. Conclusions lead to an understanding of the existential importance of philosophy and philosophizing and the need for organized forms of knowledge transfer such as the Faculty of Philosophy of the Classical University. There is a mutual interest and interaction of the general culture of society and philosophy as a special kind of culture. Because philosophy actively configures other forms of culture, contributes to the creation of sociocultural identities precisely because of its ability to conceptually reproduce the core of the psychosociocultural matrix that underlies the existence of all these different forms within one society. The sociocultural macro level of philosophical spiritual practices is formed by the psychosociocultural matrix of the philosophical tradition, which retains its longevity from the emergence of philosophy and goes through its history, demonstrating the features of the national reception of philosophy as a national-specific embodiment of sociocultural macro level of the psychosociocultural matrix.

Kartki z dziejów gdańskiego ośrodka etnologicznego

Ethnological Studies at the University of Gdańsk were established in 2009, making Gdańsk Ethnology Department the youngest department among anthropology-related researchinstitutions in Poland. The article discusses the history and development of Ethnology Studies in Gdańsk. It focuses on the academic profiles of scholars affiliated withthe Department, their research and the achievements of their students. In particular, the author discusses achievements of Father Wojciech Bęben (Professor of Ethnologyat the University of Gdańsk), who in 2009–2019 served as the Head of the Department of Ethnology (and Cultural Anthropology) at the University of Gdańsk.

Obrazki z terenu albo oniryczne reminiscencje Laboratoriów etnograficznych

I present multi-sensory memories from my field research that keep imbuing encounters with people and other beings with specific meaning. Such memories combine dialogues with pictures, sounds, smells and tastes, and can be conceived of as inspiration underly- ing ethnographic and anthropological research. In this context, I reflect on the method of teaching skills of ethnographic field research within “Ethnographic Laboratories”, a module introduced as part of the teaching curriculum at the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw.

A Study of Bagobo Tagabawa Folk Speech Using Murdock’s and Eugenio’s Classification

Around 60, 000 in number, the Bagobo people constitute one of the indigenous peoples in Davao, Philippines. This study analyzes the Bagobo Tagabawa folk speech, specifically their proverbs and riddles. Also, this study aims to help in preserving the Bagobo Tagabawa folk speech and fostering a better understanding and appreciation of their life, literature, and people. The researcher analyzed the 90 proverbs and the 97 riddles in form and style using the classification of the riddles of George P. Murdock and the category of proverbs used by Damiana Eugenio. The concept of cultural anthropology by Franz Boas was employed in the study to determine the cultural contents of each literary piece of the said indigenous group. Findings reveal that the Bagobo people have rich and varied folk literature, constituting an important part of Philippine national literature that could vanish amid modernization. This study has contributed to the preservation of the cultural materials of the Bagobo Tagabawa. Thus, it is hoped that it will make it easier for non-Bagobo Filipinos and the rest of the world to know and appreciate Bagobo folk speech. Furthermore, the researcher recommends that this study be disseminated among folklore enthusiasts to enrich the Bagobo Tagabawa folk speech analysis. This research can help the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) promote, protect, and recognize the culture of the indigenous peoples, particularly in the territory of Mindanao.

The Soviet Myth and the Making of Communist Lives in Italy, 1943–56

This article explores the emergence and consolidation of the Soviet myth, and the related myth of Stalin, within Italy's Communist culture, in the period between the upheavals of the Second World War and 1956. Countering the traditional top-down approaches, which have seen political myths as weapons in the political struggle and devices for deceiving ordinary people, it examines the Soviet myth as a narrative that encapsulated the meaning of the experiences of the Italian Communist Party rank and file, as well as its elite, in extraordinary times. Drawing on the social and cultural anthropology of Victor Turner, it examines the establishment and strength of the Soviet myth and argues that it emerged as a new marker of certainty for groups and individuals in response to the liminal conditions of political and existential uncertainty experienced during the Second World War.

Mental Map of Hryhoriy Galagan: Territorial and Ethnonational Structuring in Ukrainian Nobleman’s World View (mid-1830s — mid-1860s)

The article examines the spatial structures and related images of ethno-national communities in the world view of Hryhoriy Pavlovych Galagan (1819–1888), a representative of the Ukrainian local nobility and a prominent public figure. The research methodology includes the achievements of modern humanitarian geography, first of all the method of mental mapping, which allows to study the spatial structures in the world view of the individual, taking into account his socio-cultural environment. The research is based on ego-documents — diaries and correspondence from the Galagan family archive. Special attention is paid to toponymes and ethnonymes in these texts. It is shown that the spatial representations of Hryhoriy Galagan were a complex system that developed under the influence of the socio-cultural sphere in which he lived. Thus, humanitarian geography is represented as a discursive practice due to social and political interests. The article deals, in particular, with such spatial constructs as “Little Russia”, “Ukraine”, “Russia”, “Rus”, “Europe”, as well as related communities — “Little Russia people”, “Russian people”, “Europeans”. Galagan’s spatial and ethno-national ideas are shown as a very dynamic system that was constantly changing under the influence of socio-political and ideological movements, such as the Polish uprisings of 1830–1831 and 1863–1864, the rise of Slavophilia and Ukrainophilia. Attention is paid to the importance of travel for the development of the system of spatial and ethno-national structures. In addition, the conditionality of this system with ideas about history is proved. The issues raised in this article will contribute to further in-depth research in cultural anthropology, as well as be useful to historians working in the biographical genre.

Studying the Post-Socialist City in Yugoslavia: An Examination of Multi-Disciplinary Methodologies and Theoretical Approaches

Studying the Post-Socialist City in Yugoslavia: An Examination of Multi-Disciplinary Methodologies and Theoretical ApproachesSince the end of the state-socialist era in the early 1990s – and effectively, since the end of the Yugoslav federation and the subsequent wars that had engulfed the Western Balkans for almost a decade – the study of the twentieth-century South-Eastern Europe has intensified. The scholarship on the region’s twentieth-century architecture has been prolific since the early years of the new millennium, and the new generation of urban and architectural scholars has further amplified this trend. However, an inquiry into the post-socialist city in Western Balkans has been relegated largely to the secondary position to the study of the Yugoslav modernist architecture and its role within the socio-political mechanisms of the Cold War era. In this discourse, the study of the post-socialist urban space remains lacking in architectural and urban history – it is mainly conducted within the methodological and theoretical frameworks of sociology, socio-cultural anthropology, and urban geography.To bridge this scholarly gap and identify possible new trajectories of inquiry, I probe into the different scholarship dealing with the post-socialist city and the urban, ideological, and social remnants of the state-socialist era in former Yugoslavia. I argue that the study of the multi-disciplinary nature of the scholarship examining the state-socialist and post-socialist city serves as a vital step in the more comprehensive understanding of the (post-)Yugoslav architectural space, its particulars, and idiosyncrasies. Methodologically, I identify and outline the different disciplinary strands in the study of the post-socialist space in general, and post-Yugoslav space in particular, followed by an analysis of the established discourses and their points of interference and overlap. By investigating qualitative methodologies and different theoretical approaches in the study of the Central-East European and Yugoslav post-socialist city, I explore the post-socialist urban space in former Yugoslavia in a wide-ranging manner, ultimately identifying conduits for future research.Istraživanje postsocijalističkog urbanog prostora u bivšoj Jugoslaviji: analiza multidiciplinarnih metodologija i teoretskih pristupaOd svršetka perioda komunizma u Evropi u ranim devedesetima—i tehnički, od raspada Jugoslavije i rata koji je obilježio posljednju deceniju dvadesetog stoljeća na Balkanu—stručni istraživački rad na temu jugoistočne Evrope se samo intenzivirao. Tematski akademski projekti posvećeni arhitekturi dvadesetog stoljeća su prisutni u nauci još od začetka novog milenija, a nova generacija istoričara arhitekture i urbanizma dodatno naglašava i širi već postojeće teme. Ipak, studij postsocijalističkog arhitektonskog perioda u gradovima zapadnog Balkana zauzima pak sekundarni položaj u odnosu na istraživačke djelatnosti posvećene arhitekturi modernizma u Jugoslaviji te ulozi arhitekture u sociopolitičkim preturbacijama perioda hladnog rata. U okviru diskursa istorije arhitekture i urbanizma, studij postsocijalističkog urbanog prostora je tek minimalno zastupljen—stručno-istraživački projekti na temu se prvenstveno vrše u oblasti sociologije, sociokulturne antropologije i urbane geografije.Cilj stručnog rada „Studying the Post-Socialist City in Yugoslavia“ je analiza postojeće literature na temu postsocijalističke arhitekture te studij urbane, ideološke i sociološke baštine socijalističke Jugoslavije; drugi cilj rada je identifikacija mogućih pravaca daljeg istraživanja na temu. Tvrdim da studija multidisciplinarnih istraživačkih radova na temu socijalističke i postsocijalističke arhitekture služi kao krucijalan korak u razumijevanju jugoslovenskog i post-jugoslovenskog urbanog prostora kao i njegovih idiosinkratičnih karakteristika. Metodološki, „Studying the Post-Socialist City in Yugoslavia“ prvenstveno identificira pristupe temi različitih disciplinarnih oblasti i njihovih tačaka preklapanja te vrši analizu postojećeg diskursa. Dalje, kroz studije različitih metodoloških i teoretskih pristupa u već postojećem istraživačkom diskursu na temu postsocijalističke arhitekture gradova središnje Evrope, „Studying the Post-Socialist City in Yugoslavia“ predlaže i definira moguće pravce u daljim studijama postsocijalističke arhitekture i urbanizma u zemljama bivše Jugoslavije.Badanie przestrzeni miasta postsocjalistycznego na obszarze byłej Jugosławii: analiza wielodyscyplinowych metodologii i perspektyw teoretycznychOd upadku ładu komunistycznego w Europie na początku lat 90. XX wieku, czemu towarzyszył rozpad Jugosławii i wojna, która naznaczyła ostatnią dekadę minionego stulecia na Bałkanach, intensywnie rozwijają się badania naukowe poświęcone Europie Południowo-Wschodniej. Od początku nowego tysiąclecia pojawiają się projekty akademickie dotyczące dwudziestowiecznej architektury, zaś nowe pokolenie historyków architektury i urbanistyki z rosnącym zainteresowaniem rozwija poruszaną dotąd tematykę. Jednakże badania nad architekturą okresu postsocjalistycznego w miastach zachodnich Bałkanów odgrywają drugorzędną rolę w porównaniu z aktywnością naukową poświęconą architekturze modernizmu w Jugosławii, jak też miejscu architektury w przemianach społeczno-politycznych podczas zimnej wojny. Badania przestrzeni miejskiej w okresie postsocjalistycznym zajmują marginalne miejsce w dyskursie historii architektury i urbanistyki, zaś projekty naukowe o tej tematyce rozwijają się głównie w perspektywie socjologii, antropologii społecznej i geografii miasta.Celem artykułu jest analiza dotychczasowej literatury dotyczącej architektury postsocjalistycznej oraz miejskiego, ideologicznego i socjologicznego dziedzictwa socjalistycznej Jugosławii; przedstawione przeze mnie prace starają się również określić możliwe kierunki dalszych studiów nad tą problematyką. Uważam, że analiza wielodyscyplinowych badań naukowych dotyczących architektury socjalizmu i okresu post-socjalistycznego może być kluczowym krokiem w procesie odkrywania znaczeń jugosłowiańskiej i postjugosłowiańskiej przestrzeni miejskiej, jak też w próbach scharakteryzowania jej specyfiki. Pod względem metodologicznym artykuł rekonstruuje sposoby badania typowe dla poszczególnych dyscyplin oraz ich punkty wspólne, jak też dokonuje analizy istniejącego już dyskursu naukowego. Ponadto dzięki badaniu różnorodnych perspektyw metodologicznych i teoretycznych w studiach na temat miast Europy Środkowej w artykule zaproponowano możliwe kierunki dalszych prac badawczych nad architekturą i urbanistyką okresu postsocjalistycznego w krajach byłej Jugosławii.

Hearing the transformative potential of metaphor in scripture? Honouring J. Wentzel van Huyssteen

Christians worldwide are (re)discovering the power of scripture in their daily lives, especially in the context of the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic. The present turbulent time provides the biblical sciences an opportunity to support other theological disciplines and the church to search for ways scripture can give encouragement to people. The argument in this article is that the power of biblical writings lies in their metaphors which open an alternative moral world. For the appropriation of scripture in new contexts, the transformative potential of J. Wentzel van Huyssteen’s metaphorical hermeneutic is explored as a framework. The article gives a brief overview of the influence of his work as a mentor, colleague and friend.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The article focuses on the dynamic nature and intentions of New Testament Studies (intradisciplinary aspects), and uses the philosophical hermeneutic of a systematic theologian as well as insights from literary theory and cultural anthropology to support the argument and open up interdisciplinary discourse.