Quality Assurance of Higher Education From the Glonacal Agency Heuristic

In the era of globalization, higher education acts as a player in the game, presenting a vivid picture of how the system manifests the globalizing process of a nation. This chapter takes a critical look at quality assurance of higher education in a country, Vietnam, under the impacts of international organizations. Drawing on Marginson and Rhoades's glonacal agency heuristic, the chapter aims to argue that quality assurance has been prioritized as one of the core stepping stones for Vietnam to participate in international and regional educational space. It further explains while international organizations as global actors have set the foundation for quality assurance in Vietnam and introduced neoliberal ideas into the system including institutional autonomy, decentralization and social accountability, the national tradition of state-eccentric power, and the discrepancies among local institutions divert the quality assurance system away from such neoliberal ideas. The organizations that are the focus of the chapter include the World Bank, ASEAN, and ASEAN University Network.

LYUDMYLA OVDIENKO: BIOGRAPHY, AUTOBIOGRAPHY

The publication presents the biography and autobiographical motives of the lyrics of the Ukrainian writer Lyudmyla Ovdienko. The purpose of the article is to present a biography and analysis of the poetic heritage of a fellow artist in the autobiographical aspect. We came to the conclusion that Lyudmila Ovdienko’s lyrical cycle is not only a specific type of context, but also a special form of creativity, a type of integrity that differs from the usual collection of poems and is a sequence of texts formed by the author. We are convinced that motives-images are significant for the poet’s autobiographical lyrics. Of the many motifs that sound in the poems, the most prominent is the autobiographical. The emergence of the genre of autobiographical motives in the creative work of L. Ovdienko is determined by a special type of thinking of the author, the national tradition. The leading place in the consideration of lyric poetry is given to the study of motives-images (motive-family, motive-village). These motives the most significant for the autobiographical lyrics of our compatriot.

ON COGNITION AND PROVING IN CASES OF NON-CONTENTIOUS JURISDICTION

The article analyzes the general theory of judicial knowledge and proof, its capabilities and implementation in the consideration and resolution of cases of special proceedings in civil, arbitration, administrative proceedings. The approaches to cognitive and evidentiary activities in controversial (claim) and indisputable (special) proceedings are compared. The author considers the original system of collecting, presenting and evaluating evidences, created in the field of voluntary jurisdiction in the countries of civil law, its advantages and disadvantages in comparison with the national tradition of the unity of legal regulation of judicial knowledge and proof. An overview of the current state of the doctrine and practice of proving in special proceedings is given, an opinion is expressed about the need to refine the general provisions on proving in special proceedings. The prospects for the normative establishment of the limits of judicial research in terms of the volume of facts and the depth of their knowledge are outlined. It is stated that in cases of special proceedings, the “standard of proof” has always been higher in comparison with cases of claim proceedings. A number of new rules for establishing the circumstances of cases and proving are proposed: the priority of direct personal perception of the judge in the cognition of facts that are important for the case before proving them; freedom of means of evidence – the ability to use information about the circumstances of the case without restrictions on its sources (means of proof); freedom in choosing the rules for extracting information from a source (means of proof); different regulation of the burden of confirmation and the burden of proof.

Catholic and monarchist nationalism in twentieth-century Portugal

The subject of this article is Christian nationalism in twentieth-century Portugal in its two ideological and organizational crystallizations. The first is the Nationalist Party (Partido Nacionalista), operating in the late period of constitutional liberal monarchy, founded in 1903 on the basis of Catholic circles, whose initiator, leader, and main theoretician was Jacinto Cândido da Silva (1857–1926). The second is the metapolitical movement created after overthrowing the monarchy in 1914, aimed against the Republic, called Integralismo Lusitano. Its leader and main thinker was António Sardinha (1887–1925), and after his untimely death — Hipólito Raposo. Both organizations united nationalist doctrine with Catholic universalism, declaring subordination to the idea of national Christian ethics and the social doctrine of the Catholic Church. The difference between them, however, was that, although the party led by Cândido was founded, i.a., to save the monarchy, after its collapse, it doubted the sense of combining the defence of Catholicism against the militant secularism of the Republic with monarchism. Lusitanian integralists, on the other hand, saw the salvation of national tradition and Christian civilization in the restoration of monarchy — not liberal, but organic, traditionalist, anti-parliamentary, anti-liberal, and legitimistic. Eventually, the Nationalist Party gave rise to the Catholic-social movement from which an António Salazar’s corporate New State (Estado Novo, 1889–1970) originated, while Lusitanian Integralism was the Portuguese quintessential reactionary counter-revolution, for which Salazarism was also too modernist.

Hinduism in the Socio-Political Life of India

The article analyzes the importance of the religious factor in determining the ways of socio-political development of India. India remains a country with a multi-confessional population with a clear predominance of adherents of Hinduism. In addition to the infl uence of Hinduism on the life of orthodox society, where castes still play a special role, which determine the norms of behavior and rules of communication, the author analyzes the role of religion in the political agenda of the country. Under the conditions of colonialism, Hinduism was established as a national religion and the basis of a national tradition. The active involvement of Hinduism in political life began at the end of the nineteenth century, when such political parties as the Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha appeared. The task of the latter was to create a Hindu state in India. The author also pays special attention to the analysis of the formation of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is characterized as the political wing of a group of Hindu nationalist organizations. The growing popularity of this party, which won the elections in 2014 and 2019, indicates the strengthening of the positions of communalist organizations. These trends show that the active inclusion of religion in the political agenda aff ects the nature of the country’s democratic institutions, gradually transforming the popular thesis that India is a country representing “unity in diversity”.

Metamorphoses of Portrait Genre in Russian Art at the Turn of the 18th–19th Centuries

The article is dedicated to the research of changes in the development of portrait painting in Russian art at the turn of the 18th–19th centuries. A more common approach in the academic literature is a study of typological variants for the portrait image within the stable system, formed under the influence of classicism, or the review of a new concept in portrait painting, embodied by the artists of Romantic period. In that regard the transitional stage, related to the fundamental revision of portrait’s nature as a specific genre, lacks the close attention of researchers. The crisis of Enlightenment’s ideals at the end of the 18th century causes a rethinking of the relationship between a person and the outside world. This tendency directly influences the art of portraiture, which is now distinguished by more expressed dynamism of image. This is particularly important to the national tradition of portrait painting in the 18th century, which before showed the static approach for the representation of model and the moderation of portrait characteristic. Meanwhile, the fluidity becomes not only a method of artistic expression in a single work, but also a guiding principle for the modification of portrait painting at the system level. In other words, there is a new understanding of the fundamental categories inherent in the portrait genre: the popularity of more compact forms of portrait art, the ratio of ceremonial and chamber trends, new relationships between the master and the model, the active interaction of the individual and the surrounding nature. The interest in English culture also plays an important role in these processes. Despite the transitional nature of the era and external influences, Russian portrait painting at the turn of the 18th–19th centuries remains one of the main national features of genre — the prevalence of semi-ceremonial variants of image.

NJEGOŠOLOGIJA – NEPROLAZNI IZAZOVI NOVIH TUMAČENJA NJEGOSHOLOGY - AN IMPERISHABLE CHALLENGE OF NEW INTERPRETATIONS

Science has not yet written the last word when it comes to the complexity of the work and personality of Peter II Petrovic Njegos. His existence marked a short segment of Montenegrin history (1813-1851), but he established himself as an inviolable beacon of Montenegrin and South Slavic cultural heritage. The cultural-memorial reflection of Njegoš's oeuvre must include considerations at various levels. It embraces the role that his texts and political activity play in the formation of the national tradition, the relation of fictional discourse to the national past, the relation of the literary text to the cultural constructions of national identity, consideration of the representational role of the literary text as a constitutive part of the culture as a whole, problems of critical and historical literary canonization, etc. On the one hand, interpretation of Njegoš's legacy allows us to get a complete picture of the peculiarities of his poetic code. On the other hand, it enables us to see his work as a cultural-memory matrix without which it is impossible to imagine the coordinates of Montenegrin cultural identity. Within such research, the uniqueness of what was said gains its entire meaning through a network of attitudes towards language, tradition, ideology. On the intersections of these networks are projected many symbols fused into a matrix of timeless paradigms, i.e., all ethical, aesthetic, poetic categories and identity patterns contained in the whole of Njegoš's legacy. Although each of Njegoš's texts represents an ideologically and thematically independent semantic whole, by carefully reading his entire legacy, we come across intersection points, which opens the possibility of chaining the meaning and expanding the reference planes of the semantic constituents of the text.

Conspicuously Quotidian

The international style of Bauhaus was intended as a promotion of a new lifestyle and way of thinking. This promotional character of modernism, however, was an issue of critique and debate among the Danish modernist designers and architects over decades. They tried to define Danish modern design as product of a national tradition of modest, user-centred objects. As the Bauhaus directors also fought against the reduction of their project to a ‘Bauhaus Style’ or a commercial fad, this was perhaps a fight on words. Beyond the ideal of modest, no nonsense object convincing users through their mute form only, promotion did, of course, had to be part of Danish modernism as well. The design had to be conspicuous in its simplicity through some kinds of presentation to sell to a broader public. Especially in the writings of the Danish architect and cultural criticist, Poul Henningsen, we find a constant negotiation of the two sides of this issue, as he made rather advanced explanations and advertisements for his famous lamp system, the PH-lamp.

“Unexpectedly British”: accentuation of THE nationally English in Edward Elgar’s “Fa lstaff”

Statement of the problem. The relevance of the article lies in revealing the peculiarities of the composer’s way of appeal to the national cultural heritage. The aim of the study is to determine the principles of embodiment of “the nationally English” in the symphonic etude “Falstaff” by Edward Elgar. The main method of the research is drawing parallels, on the one hand, and between the embodiment of the English national character through the image of Falstaff in musical and dramatic works, on the other. Research results. A conclusion is made that the main factor creating strong ties between the “symphonic etude” and the national tradition is spectacular national characterisation. Moreover, for the sake of applying the “English” the composer consciously and significantly changes his musical language. The author turns to very detailed programme (unlike general type of programness in most of his works), and that allows him to scrupulously depict the plot of Shakespeare’s chronicle on which he focuses on. Elgar also portrays overtly humoristic situations, for the first time in his symphonic works, because it would be impossible to disregard this side of Falstaff’s character, as it is the contrast of comical in the beginning and solemn in the denouement that create the tragic effect. The structural side of the composition is also unprecedented as it is formally has one movement, but the composer himself divides it in four parts (ignoring the arrangement of events in “Henry IV” in two parts) while all the parts are connected in various ways. As a result of this, “Falstaff” becomes the longest single-movement symphonic composition of Elgar. The composer favours linear type of musical thinking, integrating it with sudden “flashes” of thematically significant elements in different strata of the texture, and this all combined provides completely lush, unpredictable sonority of the orchestra. On the top of this, the author extensively uses themes with obvious genre genesis, especially in order to depict Shallow’s Gardens, although it is possible to find more traditional for Elgar passages with generalised type of intonation. Such characteristic for Elgar principles, as multi-thematism and elusion of the tonal centralisation (while using quite traditional chords in every given moment) find their new meaning regarding illustrative role of the music. A conclusion is made that the “Britishness” of the symphonic etude lies not in the use of folk intonations or allusions to the past of professional music, but in meticulous attention to W. Shakespeare’s text: both on levels of portraying or interaction between the “characters” and form-creating according to the scenes. Despite the fact that E. Elgar’s musical language seems to be quite distant from Falstaff’s comical essence, the composer was able to find means adequate to the character’s image, such as “wandering” tonal structure; superficial, but rather important analogy between quite large scale of a single-movement work and Falstaff’s body image; narrative orchestration.

The War Requiem by Benjamin Britten in the Light of Intertextual Links

The theme of war and peace is one of humankind’s eternal problems and one of the most relevant topics in art at all times. On the 75th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War (1941—1945), the author’s research interest is focused on one of the rare works in terms of its power of influence, which tears the mask off the apologetics of war, uncompromisingly and honestly telling about the human price for the military madness. That is B. Britten’s “War Requiem”.The presented experience of art historical analysis is intended to explicate the intertextual connections of the work with a number of texts (verbal and mainly musical) inscribed in a wide socio-historical and artistic context of both the past and contemporary works of the English musician. This way of reading the opus allows to trace the role of dialogue with the European and national tradition in the birth of B. Britten’s text, which is original, innovative in style, highly outstanding in its artistic and civil-ethical merits. With the identification of intertextual inclusions — literary, ideological-shaped, story, genre, musical-lexical, intonational, and those at the level of musical thematism (from the works of Mozart, Berlioz, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich) — a number of new opportunities appear: to strengthen the emotional experiences of the recipient; to deepen the understanding of the meaning of both individual sections of the requiem and its general concept; to expand the content field of interpretations of the musical score; to ensure that cultural traditions are inexhaustible for relevant art creativity; and finally, to specify our ideas about Britten’s expressed humanist and anti-militarian aspirations, which were dictated not so much by the external reasons (the relevance of the topic during the Cold War, the Requiem’s being ordered for the opening of the cathedral in Coventry), but by his deep sufferings for the fate of the world and humanity. In general, according to the author, the analysis practically confirms the idea that semiosis — the process of interpreting signs and generating meanings in art (including music) — is unlimited, and can cease only with the termination of the existence of the culture itself.