The Right to Self-Determination of Modern Secessionist Movements under International Law

States’ boundaries have changed to a large extent over the course of time, in fact, the world has not always been the same as nowadays. In place of archaic forms of social organisation, the universal order has appeared where determinate and inviolable borders play a crucial role in ensuring the stability of states and resisting separatist movements. At the same time, secessionist movements throughout the world continually aim to gain independence from the ‘parent’ state invoking the right to self-determination. In this paper, the researcher will examine whether a part of the population of a state or a sub-unit of that state has a right to secede and create a new state and/or integrate into another. The article consists of a strong theoretical part dealing with statehood, self-determination and secession with a view of the dynamic development of these notions since the rapid birth of many new states as a result of decolonization. Thereafter, the validity of the gathered results will be verified by a comparative analysis of the cases of Kosovo, Crimea and Catalonia with regard to the historical background of these secessionist entities.

Islam Reformed in Indian History: The Dynamic Sufi Heart in Vital Transition to Printed Scripture

Attempting to comprehend the controversial subject of Islamic reform, this study compares the development of Indian Islam to the Protestant Reformation. Seminal findings from social science aid in understanding religious reform as an evolving historical process. During the transition to colonial rule in India, Christian missionaries introduced a scripturally defined concept of religion that challenged the traditional worldview with Sufis at the heart of organic universal order. Shah Waliullah interpreted the social disorder as the historical operation of the transcendent and willful God, declaring Islamic scriptures as the only authoritative guide for believers. Reformers translated the Qur’ān, preached to the masses, and established independent Muslim schools. Scripturalism expressed as literalism became puritanical resulting in sectarian fragmentation and conflict with Islamic and Christian reform. But the most disruptive change agent was technological: the printing press transformed scripture from oral and manuscript traditions, and the pervasive printed Qur’ān in local languages shaped individual and communal Muslim identity. The profound historical impact of religious reform with printed scripture could portend a new era with digital scripture in cyberspace.

Articles from FiorettidiSanFrancesco in Russian collection VelikoeZertsalo (Speculum Maius) as an exemplum

Studying the Western European collection Speculum Maius (the Great Mirror) translated into Russian at the end of the 17th century involves identifying its plot-thematic connections with the ancient Russian written culture. Seven stories about Francis of Assisi († 1226) and his companions were discovered in the collection that were included in the medieval florilegium - he legends about the founder of a mendicant order called Fioretti (14th century). Their thematic and motif content and use of medieval genre forms in the narratives about the first Franciscans are close to the instructive accounts of ascetics from the translated and domestic paterics, the Prologue, the Menalogies for reading collections and hagiography, which, like the “floral” narratives, were in line with the material demanded in the moral and religious instructions of Christians. The articles from Fioretti in the Great Mirror have a small volume, a minimal number of characters, narrate the connection and interchange of the earthly and heavenly worlds. This brings them closer to the exemplum - the most famous Latin written culture phenomenon, serving as an instructive “basis” of medieval sermons and being an important part of collections of religious and secular content such as “zertsalo.” Summarizing theoretical experience, the author follows modern foreign and domestic scholars and understands an “exemplum” as a narrative of a small volume implemented in didactic discourse, with its reception using signs of medieval genres. “Flower” articles-exempla of the Russian Great Mirror, devoid of personalization and topological references, embody a universal order in a typical and generalized event.

Born in the body of beasts. Animals and the social order in didactic Buddhist literature of Buryat-Mongols (XIX- beg. XX century)

This paper engages with current discussions concerning the ways in which human cultures construct the sphere labelled as “social” against that of the broadly defined environment. I contribute to these discussions with an analysis of the didactic Buddhist literature of Buryat-Mongols (19th–beg. 20th century), focusing on the image of non-human animals and their position in the social/universal order. With the emergence of environmentalist trends in the humanities, pre-modern/“non-Western” inter-species relationships have often served as counter-alternatives to the problematic “Western” nature-culture dichotomy. While expecting to see the human being described as a part of “nature” in the analyzed texts, I found a different picture: the anthropocentric social sphere is clearly distinguished from animals, and in some fragments, the idioms used with regard to animals are reminiscent of European evolutionist discourse. Through an exhaustive analysis of Buryat attitudes towards animals is beyond the scope of this study, this literature gives insight into a particular cultural discourse as represented in reputed sources of the period.

Mõningad märkused nelja ilmakaare kuninga ja jumal-kuninga kontseptsiooni kohta Sumeris ja Akkadis 3. at eKr

This article is dedicated to the issues related to the King of the Four Corners and the God-King in ancient Sumer and Akkad in the 3rd millennium BCE. The author shows that the title King of the Four Corners has always deified the ruler, but the ruler who used the title King of the Universe never claimed divinity. What conclusions can we draw? Except in two cases – the case of Erri-dupizir and the case of Utu-ḫeĝal – all kings who used the title king of the four corners were deified. Erri-dupizir was a foreigner, more a warlord or tribal chief of the Gutians than a king, but he tried to legitimate his power by using Akkadian-Sumerian formulas, among them royal titles. Utu-ḫeĝal freed Sumer from the Gutians’ yoke and re-introduced old Sumero-Akkadian ideological elements, among them the king of the four corners, because he wanted to be as powerful and strong as the Akkadian king Narām-Su’en, who was an example for Utu-ḫeĝal. We do not have any proof regarding the deification of Utu-ḫeĝal, as he ruled only 6–7 years, and we have only a few texts from the time of his reign. More interesting is the fact that none of the Sumerian or Akkadian kings who used the title king of the universe in the 3rd millennium and even in the early 2nd millennium BCE (Isin-Larsa period) were deified (at least we do not have a firm proof). How to explain this phenomenon? Firstly, I think the title king of the four corners had a slightly different meaning than king of the universe; however, both are universalistic titles. The title king of the four corners was probably seen as a wider and more important universalistic title in the sense not only of universal rule, but also of ruling the divine universe and divine spheres (heaven, sun, stars, etc.). It seems that it included some kind of divine aspect, while at least the Sumerian version of the title lugal an-ubda-limmuba means “king of the heaven’s four corners”. The title king of the four corners was related to the universe order, to the sun and the cosmos, and to cosmic divine powers, and they were connected to the universal order. We can see that sometimes the title king of the four corners was used to refer to gods in Ancient Mesopotamia – for example in the case of the god Tišpak in Ešnunna – but never king of the universe. Secondly, early dynastic rulers (e.g. Lagash or Uruk), who never used universalistic titles for themselves, addressed universalistic expressions and epithets to the main gods – e.g., Enlil, Ningirsu, etc. For example, Lugal-kiğine-dudu of Uruk claimed: “Enlil, king of all lands, for Lugal-kiğine-dudu – when the god Enlil truly summoned him, and (Enlil) combined (both) lordship and kingship for him”. Thirdly, ruling over all the lands from east to west or over the corners of the universe – these epithets may be used for gods. LUGAL KIŠ (later Akkadian šar kiššati(m)) in its early original meaning was seen only as “ruler over Kiš (or ruler over (the northern part of) Sumer)”; it was an important though more regional and geographic title. Fourthly, only much later did it acquire the meaning king of the universe but I am not sure about that meaning at all. In that case, king of the four corners had a different meaning; the title designated not only ruling over the world but it probably included some kind of divine aspect as well (Michalowski 2010). In that case the title šar kibrāt arbaˀi(m) – king of the four corners could be seen as more universal than LUGAL KIŠ (šar kiššati(m)). There still remain several questions which need to be solved: * Was LUGAL KIŠ in its Akkadian form šar kiššati(m) a universalistic title at all? * Or was LUGAL KIŠ a hegemonic title showing certain hegemonic rule or lordship over (all) Sumer (and Akkad?) but not including the whole world (here: Mesopotamia)? * Could it be for this reason that the king who used the title king of the four corners had to be deified but the king who was LUGAL KIŠ had not?

Looking for wisdom in Wis 11:2–19:2: between universalism and particularism

The retelling of the exodus narrative in the second half of Wis 11:2–19:22 has often been treated as a thematic shift from sapiential universalism to Jewish particularism. The aim of this article is to contribute to our understanding of Wis 11:2–19:22 through a reappropriation of its universalistic outlook. I argue here that Pseudo-Solomon’s retelling of Israel’s Heilsgeschichte remains focused on the universal order of creation even when discussing themes, such as the punishment of the Egyptians in the exodus narrative, which would lend themselves to polemical and particularistic tones. Integrating creatively historical narrative and sapiential observation of nature, Pseudo-Solomon develops a reflection in which Israel’s particularistic “history of salvation” is at the same time a universal “natural history of salvation” in which salvation reveals itself in the very mechanics of God’s creation.