Pinkas-notebook and pinkas-register book: evolution, structure, and composition

Minute books (pinkas) constitute one of the most valuable sources for studying the history of the Jewish communal institutions up to the 20th century. They comprise rich and diverse data on the everyday activities of the Jewish people. In the academic language, the word “pinkas” is applied not only to the communal minute books and minute books of the communal bodies but also to private minute books. The article deals with the development of this category of sources which evolved from private minute books dating back to at least the 11th century to the communal ones as well as the minute books of the communal bodies based on the dozen manuscript examples. These are mostly of European origin, however, with a few Eastern additions. This evolution process becomes visible as a result of the analysis of the manuscripts’ internal structure and composition. Special attention is paid to the techniques used to enforce this structure on codicological and paleographic levels. The data at hand suggest that at the beginning of the Modern period some of the minute books were shifted from private to the public domain. This was a response to the demand from the rapidly evolving communal institutions. To suit the widened audience of varying backgrounds the communal minute books compared to those for private use adopted a more uniform structure as well as with a set of “navigation” or referencing tools, such as captions written on margins. The early modern Italian communal minute books tend to be the most structured ones.

HUMAN-GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES OF FUNCTIONING OF THE BASIC NETWORK OF CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS OF TERNOPIL CITY TERRITORIAL COMMUNITY

The article is devoted to the human-geographical study of the basic network of cultural institutions of the Ternopil city territorial community. The parameters of the territory and settlement network of the community are considered, which are the determining conditions during the structuring of geospace. The legislative principles of creating a basic network of cultural institutions of the local level are analyzed. The modern basic network of cultural institutions of the Ternopil territorial community is a consequence of the reform of the cultural sphere and the implementation of the decentralization reform. It went through three stages of its organizational formation. The basic network of culture of the local level of the Ternopil territorial community includes 39 institutions. More than 56% of the network's facilities are located in the city of Ternopil. According to the form of ownership and organizational and legal form, they are divided into 9 communal institutions, 1 communal enterprise and 29 establishments that are directly in communal ownership. The component structure of the sphere of culture and art of the community is formed by the following types of institutions: club-type cultural institutions, libraries, art schools, orchestras and cinemas. Primary socio-cultural services of the basic network are provided by 13 club-type cultural institutions. They are represented by the palace of culture, houses of culture and clubs (branches). Library institutions are the most numerous in the system of the basic network, the share of which reaches 51%. Among all 20 institutions of the community, the main role in this area is given to the Ternopil city centralized library system. Primary art education is represented by 2 music schools and 1 art school. The only municipal enterprise in the field of cinematography is the Ternopil Film Commission. A special feature of the basic network of cultural institutions of the Ternopil community is the presence of two orchestras. A significant addition to the basic network of community cultural institutions are communal institutions engaged in similar or related activities. Governing bodies ensure the systematic functioning of institutions and the implementation of measures to implement a consistent cultural policy. The territorial organization of cultural institutions of the local level of the Ternopil city community is an orderly network, where the connections between them are manifested in the formation of various combinations. Within the community, the functioning of 6 cultural and artistic systems was identified, which are combined into three types of different hierarchical levels (1 urban, 5 basic and 5 primary). The geospatial specifics of the location of the elements of the basic network result in the indicators of providing the city and basic administrative-territorial units of the community with cultural and art institutions. They are sufficient to ensure the sustainable functioning of the network and the provision of socio-cultural services. In the context of the spread of innovation diffusion, the rural area of the community is cascaded into three suburban zones: near (up to 6 km), medium (7-17 km), remote (over 18 km). The first zone meets the criteria of the village of Kurivtsi, the second – Malashivtsi, Glyadky, Chernykhiv, Ivankivtsi, Pleskivtsi, Kobzarivka, the third – Horodyshche, Nosivts, Vertelka. Problems of the organization of rendering of cultural services are revealed: outdated material and technical base; outflow of highly qualified creative specialists; insufficient funding from the budget; conservative forms and methods of providing cultural services; the initial level of development of cultural and creative industries. An important feature of the network of institutions of the Ternopil community is the real prospects for its expansion and improvement of functioning through the opening of new modern institutions. An important area of constant activation of socio-cultural activities is the constant increase of various forms of cultural mobility and touring activities. Key words: institution, network, community, culture, art, city, geocultural space, decentralization.

Development Stages of Islamic Movements in the Pashtun Tribal Environment: The Case of the Rawshaniyya and Beyond

The Rawshani movement is the first well-documented example of supra-tribal unification and subsequent successful integration of the movement’s leaders into the alien state structures. But by no means is it an isolated phenomenon in Pashtun history. Similar pattern of religion-motivated supra-tribal unification, which should be considered as a product of historical relationships of power, remerged inter alia during more recent crises in the Afghan history. Due to the volatile nature of the Afghan state fluctuating between tribalism and ethnic pluralistic participation, military and Islamic dimensions have always been of paramount importance for state-community relations where religion, tribalism and ethnicity were often the means of state’s control of social resistance and its vehicles. In the time of crises, religion-inspired militia-type independent military formations were able to challenge the might of the state and occasionally even initiate the incipient state formation opposed to the communal institutions and those of the old regime. When this community-based military activity went beyond the scope of traditional annual cycle of violence it often acquired a supra-tribal or ethnic and regional dimension, which was legitimised by the Islamic ideology and institutions. This article offers some directions towards making a calibration tool or even identifying a pattern that may be used as an epistemological paradigm that may provide a sense of orientation and bearing in the intricacies of a complex historical interaction between Pashtun Islam, tribes and state.

A Route to Commons-Based Democratic Monies? Embedding the Governance of Money in Traditional Communal Institutions

The financial crisis of 2008 resulted, among other, on a popular awareness that the monetary system was not working for the interest of the many. The blockchain technology that was launched soon after offered monetary activists and entrepreneurs a tool to re-imagine, re-claim and re-organize money along a vague ideal of a commons paradigm. A wave of monetary experimentation ensued that took a most concrete form in two entrepreneurial spaces: crypto-currencies with global ambitions and local currencies based on communal democracy. Seemingly distinct on the outset, both strands share a determination to develop a monetary system that serves the many. This has led participants on both sides to reach out toward each other. The article looks at one such attempt: the Sarafu community crypto-currencies in Kenya. These currencies are embedding the creation of money in traditional community savings groups. Using Eleanor Ostrom’s framework and building on interview and ethnographic material, the article identifies the economic logic of mutualization proper of the savings groups as one that transforms private assets (one’s savings) into a financial commons for the group. To build on this logic, the Sarafu model in-the-making is embedding the production and governance of the new community cryptocurrencies in these saving groups. In that doing, Sarafu has the potential to advance a new architecture of money. However, findings suggest that the standardization and automation of the new monetary rules through smart contracts impose neoliberal ideas that slipped into the code, risking the erosion of the very communal decision-making processes that made savings groups interesting anchors of a money commons in the first place.

The hoa’s temples and huiguans in the cultural belief life of Hoian people (Quang Nam) in the past and present

Hoian (Quangnam) is the land of favorable natural conditions, a long – standing history and diversified culture, which shaped during different ages of rise and fall. In 17th – 18th centuries, Hoian was an urban center and a prosperous trade – port where the Hoa people has set foot and began their settling. At that time, the Hoa in Hoian built their own oganizations of five bangs (a type of self – governing institutions of Hoa people and approved by the authorirties), including: Guangdong (Quảng Đông), Jujian (Phúc Kiến), Chaozhou (Triều Châu), Hainam (Hải Nam) and Hakka (Gia Ứng) bangs. The bang, in its turn, has founded the communal institutions such as schools, hospitals, banks, pagodas, cimenteries, and temples and huiguans for the especials. At present, Hoian have a temple (Guangong temple at No 24, Tran Phu street, Minh An ward) and five huiguans of the Hoa. The each huiguan (one of these four huiguans) belongs to one concrete bang; those are Fujian Huiguan (No 46, Tran Phu street, Minh An ward) for Fujian group, Chaozhou Huiguan (No 157, Nguyen Duy Hieu street, Son Phong ward) for Chaozhou group, Hainan Huiguan (No 10, Tran Phu, Minh An ward) for Hainan group and Guanzhao Huiguan (No 176, Tran Phu street, Minh An ward) for Guangdong group. Chinese Huiguan (No 64, Tran Phu street, Minh An ward) is a common place for 5 bangs in Hoian. As for Hakka bang, they had joined in Chinese Huiguan because of having no their own huiguan. For the Hoa’s community in Hoian and Vietnam in general, the roles of temple and huiguan system represented via aspects of their cultural and belief life, economic activities and social organizational system. This case–study report will take an overview analysis of the importance of this communal building system in Hoian (Quangnam province) at the respects of culture and belief life.

Introduction

This volume aims to foster the dialogue between two usually distinct scholarly traditions: on the one hand, the studies revolving around cultural and political activity, as well as the didactic, theological, religious and pastoral initiatives undertaken by the Dominican Order in the urban context; on the other hand, the scholarship on the history of Florence between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, seen as a case study representative of the evolutions of late medieval communal institutions in the Italian peninsula. The essays focus on the reciprocal interactions and influences between religious and political cultures, along with those between mendicant and lay contexts.

The Venetian takeover of the Margraviate of Istria (1411–1421)

The paper analyzes the incorporation of the Aquileian Margraviate of Istria into the expanding Venetian state in the first half of the fifteenth century. By analyzing this modality of a passage and comparing it to the integration formulae Venice employed in the rest of the Patriarchate of Aquileia, the author uncovers similarities and contrasts between the two models of incorporation. It is argued that Aquileian communities in Istria underwent a remodeling of communal institutions in order to mirror the salient administrative aspects of other Venetian subject centers on the Peninsula. This process, dubbed regional homogenization, did not take place throughout Aquileian Friuli. Finally, the paper deals with instances of negotiations between the newly annexed Istrian communities and the central government in Venice, demonstrating that this interplay resulted in re-negotiated governmental hierarchies that benefitted both the state’s capital and the subject centers.

Good Governance and the Economy of Violence

This chapter describes the economy of violence. Through a theatrical form of ritualized peacemaking, Roman elites managed private violence, claimed justice and peace as characteristic of Roman political society, and claimed for themselves a unique capacity to sustain this rightly ordered social world. Such peacemaking was the domain of the political elite but under their guidance was participated in not only by prominent male citizens but by women, noncitizens, and even Jews. Performed on the city's streets, these rituals make clear the importance of the circuit between the Roman political elite and the city's diverse political society. They also reveal the gradual decentering of communal institutions. Nowhere is the legitimization of power in a political society that transcends the civic realm clearer. It is in these rituals that the transformative potential of Rome's new political culture becomes most apparent, as they gradually produced a distinct new Roman elite with a new kind of claim to the virtues of good governance.

Conclusion

This concluding chapter highlights Pope Boniface IX's engagement with Rome following his ascent to the papacy in 1389. Boniface's accrual of goodwill early in his papacy culminated in the concession to him of dominion over Rome in 1398. Ultimately, the production of social distinction and political legitimacy through the practices described in this book—practices not dependent on communal institutions—was so successful that Rome's political elites lost interest in defending the autonomy of the Roman commune, ceding power willingly to the papacy. It was this transformation of Roman political culture that ultimately enabled the transformation both of Rome and its place in future politics. Appreciating this frees one from a misleading sense of Roman history born from the pens of fifteenth-century humanists and, by so doing, fundamentally alters Rome's place in the political history of Italy and of Europe.