Byzantino-Slavic and Bulgarian Middle Ages in the Recent Works by Scholars from the University of Lodz

The review considers the recent works by Polish academicians from two departments of the University of Lodz – History of Byzantium and Slavic Philology dedicated or related to the history and culture of medieval Bulgaria and the entire Byzantino-Slavic community of the 10th – 15th c. aiming to represent them to Russian audience, to reveal their contributions to the mentioned fields and to appreciate the current achievements of the forming academic school of the University of Lodz. Its beginning cannot be divided from the name of the disciple of prominent Polish Byzantinist Professor Halina Ewert-Kappesowa (1904–1985), Professor Waldemar Ceran (1936–2009), whose research and organizational activities led to the establishment of “Byzantina Lodziensia” book series (39 volumes published in 1997–2020), and in 2003 – to the Department of the History of Byzantium opening. These foundations met resonance and support from a new trend of the research activities in the University of Lodz – Old Slavonic literature studies – initiated by highly skilled paleoslavist Professor Georgi Minczew who began his work at the Department of Slavic Philology in the middle of the 1990s. The growing synergy of the Byzantine and Slavic trends resulted in the creation in 2011 of Ceraneum – the Centre of Research in History and Culture of Mediterranean and South-Eastern Europe named after W. Ceran (Centrum Badań nad Historią i Kulturą Basenu Morza Śródziemnego i Europy Południowo-Wschodniej im. prof. Waldemara Cerana, Ceraneum). Under its aegis the University of Lodz is editing annual scholarly journal “Studia Ceranea” (10 issues in 2011–2020) and since 2019 convenes in the historical venue of Bidermann Palace, the residence of the centre, annual international colloquium “Colloquia Ceranea” which attracts leading Polish and international scholars in Byzantine, Slavic and Bulgarian medieval history and culture. The author critically reviews monographs and miscellanies published by academicians of the University of Lodz in the recent five years and concludes upon the main research directions, results and perspectives of the University of Lodz school of Byzantine, Medieval Slavic and Bulgarian research.

The Worldwide Famous and Unknown to Us Philosopher Dieter Henrich (a brief Overview of His Creative Path)

The review briefly examines the main milestones of the creative path of the outstanding German philosopher Dieter Henrich (b. 1927), who in Germany is considered the greatest thinker of the post-war period, along with H.G. Gadamer and Yu. Habermas. Henrich is not only a deep researcher of German classical philosophy, but also the creator of his own original theory on the problem of subjectivity. This review pays special attention to this problem. Henrich had a great influence on many fields of knowledge – sociology, psychology, literary studies, and others. His works have been translated into many languages around the world; in July 2020, an international colloquium dedicated specifically to his work was held in Bielefeld. However, in Russia, due to historical and socio-political reasons, Henrich was almost unknown to the Russian reader. Only in 2018, one of his books, “Thinking and Self-Existence”, was published in Russian. In addition to this book, the review also mentions major works of recent years – “Being and Nothing” (2016), “This is Me and this is all said. Reflections on Fichte’s Insight" (2019). They develop the ideas contained in many of his previous works, but also present a new argument that presents the problem under study from an unexpected, sometimes opposite side. The purpose of this review is to introduce the reader to this philosopher and to arouse interest in further research of his work.