Cultural Borderlands Research Articles

Architekci pogranicza kulturowego: Julian i Alfred Zachariewiczowie, Iwan Lewiński, Tadeusz Obmiński

ARCHITECTS OF THE CULTURAL BORDERLAND: JULIAN AND ALFRED ZACHARIEWICZS, IVAN LEVYNSKYI, TADEUSZ OBMIŃSKIThis text has been dedicated to the four most prominent architects of the city of Lviv in the late 19th and early 20th centuries – the architectural «quartet» whose members are: Julian Octawian Zachariewicz (1837-1898), Alfred Zaсhariewich Jr. (1871-1937), Ivan Levynskyi (1851-1919), and Tadeusz Obmiński (1874-1932). These four carried out the most important architectural and construction projects of Lviv in the age of the greatest construction boom in the city’s history. The role of the «elder» in this group was played by Julian Zachariewicz – a professor at Lviv Polytechnic, the founder of Lviv’s architectural school of the latter half of the 19th century, its leader during the era of historical styles. The creative work of Julian Zachariewicz impresses with its style metamorphoses, which can be traced from the neo-Renaissance building of the Polytechnic (1874-1877), oriented to the Ringstrasse, up to the Julietka villa (1891-1893), its design reflecting the influence of the English concept of a reformed singlefamily house. In addition, Professor Zachariewicz devoted much of his time and effort to various projects outside of practical architecture, acting as a theorist, restorer, archaeologist, museum curator and public figure. His son Alfred left his mark in history as an outstanding builder of Lviv in the first third of the last century, a highly gifted representative of the local architectural school during the periods of Art Nouveau, early modernism, and Neoclassicism of the early 20th century, the initiator of promoting the reinforced concrete in the construction industry of Galicia. Alfred Zachariewicz became famous, in particular, for the projects of the buildings for the Lviv Chamber of Commerce and Industry (1907-1910) and the Land Credit Society (1911-1916). Ivan Levynskyi was a leading construction entrepreneur of Galicia in the late 19th – early 20th centuries whose firm erected the largest objects of Lviv architecture of the period, such as the Civic Theater (1897-1900), or the Main Railway Station (1901-1904). During the 1880s-1910s, Levynskyi, being a brilliant specialist in architectural planning, built numerous complexes of residential architecture – both single-family and multi-apartment. He also effectively served architectural and construction orders received from a number of Ukrainian institutions in Lviv. Tadeusz Obmiński entered the history of architecture as a researcher of folk wooden construction, and at the same time as a leading architect of Art Nouveau style, taking part in designing such objects as Segal’s house (1904-1905) or the Dnister insurance company building (1905-1906). The complex, multiple identities of the four creative professionals to whom this article is dedicated can be interpreted in various contexts: political, social, national, confessional, linguistic, artistic. During the fin de siècle and throughout subsequent historical cataclysms, each of these four was destined to a greater or lesser extent to experience a deep crisis, and even more so – a dramatic collapse of their mixed identity.

Lexical rarities of the ethnic cultural borderland

Lexical rarities of the ethnic cultural borderland

Food and the Habitus: Imaginary Homeland in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies

This study explores the role of food as a cultural borderland in Jhumpa Lahiri’ s Interpreter of Maladies. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, it analyzes how food functions beyond mere sustenance to reflect the complex identities of Indian immigrants navigating between tradition and assimilation. Food serves as a semiotic tool, revealing cultural nostalgia and the "struggle of memory against forgetting," as Salman Rushdie describes. Through characters like Mrs. Sen, food is shown to embody class distinctions and national identity while highlighting ambivalent feelings toward cultural adaptation. The preparation and sharing of food emerge as powerful expressions of belonging, yet simultaneously underscore the alienation experienced in a foreign land. This project suggests that foodways in Lahiri’s stories not only mark ethnic and social identities but also act as a poignant symbol of immigrants' fragmented sense of home, underscoring both collective memories and personal struggles within their adopted communities. By situating food as a central theme, the study reveals its significance in shaping social interactions and sustaining an imagined homeland, bridging past and present, familiar and unfamiliar, within the immigrant experience.

The Mysterious Glow of the Star: Stanisław Moniuszko and Kazimierz Lubomirski

The article is devoted to the analysis of vocal works by Polish composers of the Romantic period. The article reveals the closeness of ethical and aesthetic beliefs of Stanisław Moniuszko and Kazimierz Lubomirski. It has been found that the musical education in the German tradition received by the natives of the regions of the cultural borderland gave them an impetus to serve Polish culture. In the works of both authors, there is an image of a star, which they interpret in a romantic dimension. The song ‘Little Star’ by S. Moniuszko and the song ‘Star’ by K. Lubomirski bear the imprint of Polish musical folklore. The use of elements of the national musical vocabulary clearly shows the composers’ national identity.

Cultural Representations in Border Literature: Reflecting on Harka Gurung’s Vignettes of Nepal

This article explores the issues raised in Harka Gurung’s Vignettes of Nepal and analyzes them from historical perspectives. Cultural activities of the different geographical locations of Nepal that Gurung explores in the book are based on border, culture and the literature. Culture is a part of social practices interlinked to the cultural activities that connect people and literature of a society or a cultural community under a chain of social/socio-cultural activities. There might be different kinds of cultural groups within the same geographical border but they have the same kind of humanitarian values. However, they have some conflicting borders because of the space on performances and understanding of the cultural critics. Here, border refers to both the cultural community’s line as well as geographical territory. Many people respect to each-other’s culture but some of them disrespect borderland culture and literature that creates social disharmony in the name of cultural identity. Culture is a part of literary activities that helps to generate the literature and every literature is based on the culture. Gurung’s Vignettes of Nepal incorporates twenty essays based on different geographical borderlands, cultural practices and literature. He begins his essays from west of Kathmandu and concludes them coming to the east. In this study, this researcher selects particularly a few essays based on cultural borderland. Border, culture and literature are inseparable and so this study is on cultural cum ethno-geographical methodology as it studies the behavioral things of the people of different cultural communities. Objective of this paper is to show the connectivity of literature in the cultural borderland. To achieve the research goal, this study centers on historical places and observes cultural practices in Nepal. This researcher applies Mary Anderson and Dor Bahadur Bista’s ideas as supporting tools to the research in addition to Shalom H. Schwartz’s theory based on universal human values and cross-cultural psychologies. Finding of this paper is that the humanitarian cultures of the borders are key subjects to create the socio-cultural harmonies that help to generate the literature.

The Northern Borderland and Eastern Kujawy – Parallels: The Construction of Narrative Identity in the Cycle of Stories “Konopnicka’s Desk” by Maria Danilewicz Zielińska

Maria Danilewicz Zielińska was a writer from the region of Kujawy, but she spent her entire adult life in exile. Her autobiographical stories collected in the volume entitled Biurko Konopnickiej [Konopnicka’s Desk] are an example of constructing a narrative identity based on people rooted in their homelands and related events. The first of the local homelands is Kujawy: the author was born in Aleksandrów Pograniczny (today: Aleksandrów Kujawski) and lived there for the first twenty-one years of her life; the second one is the northern Borderland (Kresy) of the former Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth. Danilewicz had close family ties with the latter, as well as a living memory of its poets and writers. The family, historical and literary parallels connecting but also separating both geographical and cultural areas form pairs. The first one is Kujawy with its towns, nature, inhabitants and their customs, and, on the other hand, the Vilnius and Navahrudak regions, their poets, such as Adam Mickiewicz and Władysław Syrokomla, and ordinary people with their dramatic fate of being displaced. The second pair are rivers and stories related to them: the Vistula and the Nemunas. All these components are places of memory which constitute a hybrid identity of the émigré author from a historical and cultural borderland, an identity constructed by autobiographical memory. Weaving these parallels, she endows them with familiarity, avoiding pathos and mythologisation. Nevertheless, the overwhelming longing for the lost homeland is coupled with its idealisation, especially apparent in the descriptions of nature.

Kompetencje językowe bazylianów prowincji litewskiej w XVII–XVIII wieku

The activity of the Basilian congregation is crucial to understanding the cultural, social, religious transformations and relations occurring at the cultural borderlands marked by the Latin and Byzantine cultural circles. Based on the catalogue of Basilians studying at the papal seminary in Vilnius between 1611 and 1795, and a census of the monks from 1800, the paper analyses the linguistic competences of the Basilians of the Lithuanian province. The monks usually had knowledge of three languages i.e., Latin, Polish and „Sclavonica” or „Ruthenica”. In the second half of the 18th century, Basilians expanded their linguistic competences to include knowledge of modern languages: French, German and Italian. In response to pastoral needs, they used Lithuanian, Samogitian and Latvian. The monks used their linguistic competences in their pastoral and educational work. The monks in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, together with the Unitarian parish clergy, formed an environment that maintained the literary tradition of the Ruthenian language. Basilians’ linguistic competences shaped the forms of content and message in pastoral work, spreading faith and enabling correlations between the cultural heritage of various linguistic groups. The monks’ skills enabled them to act as content intermediaries between communities of different linguistic backgrounds and between elite and egalitarian culture.

ЧУДЕСА ВО ФЛОРИЩЕВОЙ ПУСТЫНИ И КОНСТРУИРОВАНИЕ НАРРАТИВА О ЧУДЕ В РОССИИ XVIII В.

In 18th-century Russia the Synodal Church and the secular authorities made considerable efforts to eradicate parishioners’ superstitions and impious practices. There were not only cases of magical beliefs and heresies that attracted the attention of investigative authorities and the inquisition court but also people divulging miracles and eschatological visions. The paper deals with 50 investigative cases (most of them have not been previously explored) from national archives in Moscow and St Petersburg, and the state archives of the Yaroslavl and Rostov regions. All these cases include stories about miraculous visions, revelations or healings. The study attempts to identify some typical traits of the structure, the figurative system of narratives about miracles, their etiological components, and their circulation in the borderlands of folklore culture and church literature.

Bosnian Multiconfessionalism as a Foundation for Intercultural Dialogue

Abstract Muslim communities in the Balkans where the practice of Islam had been developed in the European context, can be used as an exemplification of the bridge between the Islamic East and the Christian West. Although for over 400 years Bosnia was under the Ottoman rule, Muslims became one of the many first Yugoslav, and then Bosnian communities, contributing to the dynamic, yet moderate area of ontological and axiological negotiations within the cultural borderland, sharing the living space with members of the Orthodox church, Catholics, a small Jewish community, and even Protestants. The history of the Muslim-Christian contacts in Bosnia involves both the examples of collisions, as well as encounters, initiated both by Christians, and by Muslims. This article analyzes the religious diversity (multiconfessionalism) in the historical and contemporary cultural and social context of Bosnia-Herzegovina, revealing its specificity, dynamics and (often unsuccessful) attempts to conceptualize it from the perspective of the Eurocentric discourse. The aim is not only to portray this religiously diverse makeup, but also to emphasize its potential for establishing ground for intercultural dialogue.

Banksy’s Street Art

Internationalization of doctoral study means more doctoral writers working across language and cultural borderlands. How can their access to a self-reliant understanding of English language be enabled? How can they acquire the confidence to find their textual voice? How can academics supporting these writers help them to adapt to western cultures of thinking, learning, and communicating? Behind this article sits an extensive investigation into how to support international doctoral candidates to make such crossings pleasurably: eight doctoral candidates from across disciplines at the University of Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand, collectively close-read literary items, and Banksy’s street art. The purpose was to deepen understanding of argumentation, critical analysis, rhetoric that persuades, voice and creative positioning. Two interactive classroom sessions used Banksy’s street art to promote creative thinking about powerful communication. Here, we explain how Banksy’s graffiti gave a good foundation for the development of analytical skill, socio-political confidence, and cultural learning—and doctoral participants found the courage to be more creative thinkers and thesis writers.

Polityka pamięci na polsko-ukraińskim pograniczu kulturowym na przykładzie nazewnictwa ulic trzech miast Galicji Wschodniej

In this article the authors have attempted to juxtapose two historical periods in the context of the variability of street naming in the cities of Eastern Galicia, which is a cultural borderland. The analysis includes cities – Boryslav, Kolomyia and Drohobych, during the Polish (1919-1939) and Ukrainian (from 1991) administrations. The research results are the findings of comparative analyses of the studied towns’ urbanonymy, with a description of them, supplemented by cartographic studies. On the basis of these, it was concluded that both the former Polish and the current Ukrainian policy of memory often use the same mechanisms of ideological space appropriation, forming and deepening the historical narrative of a given nation.

Regional Education on the Cultural Borderland. Do Students Need Knowledge about Their Region Today?

The article addresses the implementation of regional education, a crucial component of socio-cultural identity. Its goal is to initiate a discussion on the essence of regional education in contemporary schools and present a pilot study on students’ knowledge about their region. The research shows that the role of schools in acquiring knowledge about the region is significantly smaller than that of the family environment, the Internet, or learning through social observation. The research indicates the need for broader studies on schools’ current curricula and educational offers in regional education. Its results also reveal the urgent need to restore the methodological foundations of regional education in Poland. It will help remind young people of the importance of local cultural heritage values and their own roots in their lives. A modern school also needs to restore the idea of regional education as civic education, which is necessary to shape competencies conducive to integration and openness to others. It is extremely important, especially in the current social situation related to the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Nowe obywatelstwo i patriotyzm na pograniczu kultur: międzykulturowy kontekst

The cultural diversification of states deconstructs the model of a homogenous national community, yet it requires the maintenance of the stability of democratic institutions in a situation where culturally different citizens are increasingly resistant to forced assimilation and subjugation. A multicultural state must actively protect the cultural identities of its citizens. Some dilemmas arise in the understanding of citizenship and patriotism, for which state multiculturalism and interculturalism at the level of an individual citizen become contextual references. Therefore, the subject of this article is the different types of new citizenship and patriotism, with model approaches to them. The author exposes multiculturalism, revealing the new citizenship and intercultural connotations of patriotism. She looks at these categories from a cultural borderland perspective. With reference to the pillars of coexistence identified on the basis of empirical research in this borderland, the author conceptualizes intercultural citizenship and patriotism. She also points to their multidimensional nature with an intercultural connotation. The author sees them as integrating factors of a culturally diverse society. Their national-cultural, identity, and community provenance gives an intercultural character to the integration process. Integration conceived in this way fosters the evolution of the nation-state into a heterogeneous national community operating within its borders.

Transforming Power Through Cultural Humility in the Intercultural Contact Zone of Art Therapy

This article conceptualizes art therapy as an intercultural contact zone or social ecotone, defined as the liminal space that emerges when two or more habitats overlap. In the unresolved tensions of their interaction, negotiation of power through cultural humility is an ongoing, profoundly ethical process. This premise is illustrated with examples from a high-contrast contact zone the author experienced as an art therapist in collaboration with a social justice-oriented organization serving marginalized communities in their emancipatory goals. The implications of cultural borderlands are discussed as transgressive zones of transformative power and exchange.

On the (Re)construction of Identity in the Conditions of Russian-Jewish Borderland (Based on the Story “Apples from Shlitzbutter’s Garden” by Dina Rubina)

This article is devoted to the issues of identity formed in the Russian-Jewish borderland. The study discusses Dina Rubina’s short story “Iabloki iz sada Shlitsbutera” (“Apples from Shlitzbutter’s Garden”) as an autobiographical tale that reflects the actual processes of reconstructing the identity of the author-hero, a representative of the Great Aliyah, a person living at the crossroads of cultures. The author concludes that there is no fixed and unchanging identity. Particularly in the conditions of a cultural borderland and in watershed moments (repatriation), identity evolves and is subject to constant reconstruction.

Decolonization: A Personal Manifesto

The author shares her decolonial journey in a personal manifesto. As a Puerto Rican born in the continental United States, but growing up in Borinquen (Puerto Rico’s Taíno name)—a colonized nation—the author embarks on a decolonial path addressing colonial mentality, coping in the diaspora, and thriving in the cultural borderlands. The author identifies social justice action as an antidote to coloniality and to oppression. Moreover, she discusses how her decolonization process helped her to develop and practice a radical feminist therapy. This healing approach integrates feminism of color, psycho-spirituality, and liberation psychology approaches.

Гуцульська «Весна народів» Каєтана Абгаровича: дискурс пограниччя як стану свідомості культури

This literary study of the Carpathian manifestation of The Springtime of Nations (1848-1849) is based of the short story “At the Hunting Campfire” from the collection “Rusini” [The Rusins] by Kajetan Abgarowicz (Abgar-Soltan), a Polish writer of Armenian descent of the late 19th - early 20th century. The imagological reflection of public sentiments of the 19th century is analysed through the lens of the discourse of the borderland as a state of culture awareness: the Polish (“ours” from the perspective of the Polish author) and “theirs” (i.e. Hutsul). The authors determine the Carpathian society before The Springtime of Nations as cultural borderlands of the Polish, Hutsul, German, Jewish, and Gypsy ethnic groups coexisted in daily life, with their fundamental values unchanged. They argue that the Hutsul community unconditionally accepted the imperative the Austrian highlanders, the model of neighborhood with the Poles, and trusting relations with the gypsies, but infernally mythologized of the Germans in the person of the local officer and his entourage. The focus is placed on the peculiarities of the Hutsul reception of news about the uprising against the Habsburgs outside the Carpathians and the development of the revolutionary events of the local “strange spring” in the contezt of the confrontation between the highlanders and the local authorities during the Carpathian stay of the Hungarian army, which rebelled against the Austrian emperor. The impact of revolutionary events on the HutsuL community is analyzed within their cultural identity awareness as of representatives of a separate ethnic group with its own history of resistance in in the context of opryshoks, an unusual, non-Polish cultural landscape, axiology, and ontology. In his “At the Hunting Campfire”, Kajetan Abgarowicz creates a literary version of the The Springtime of Nations in the Carpathians, with a new Look on the dialogue in the relationship between “our” and “their” cultural universes.

Biz birgemiz, or Revisiting the Diversification of Russian Language in Kazakhstan

The criteria for pluricentric languages, generalized by the Working Group on NonDominant Varieties of Pluricentric Languages (WGNDV), as well as our earlier condition of tightness, opacity, incomprehensibility of Kazakh Russian were used to discuss the possibility of its gradual formation. Two main conclusions were made: a) the Russian language of the post-Soviet space currently meets the criteria for pluricentric languages; b) the Russian language in Kazakhstan is going through rapid and noticeable diversification processes. The arguments of Kazakhstani linguists who assert (B.Kh. Khasanov, E.A. Zhuravleva, D.D. Shaibakova, etc.) or deny (Z.K. Sabitova, A.K. Kazkenova, etc.) the qualifications of the Russian language as variant in Kazakhstan - a country of long-term and massive Kazakh-Russian bilingualism. Generations of Russian speakers (monolinguals - ethnic Russians, Koreans, Ukrainians and others and bilinguals - Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Uighurs and others) with a dominant Russian or a dominant ethnic language - are involved in the processes of Soviet Russification and modern Kazakhization with different effects. Nowadays the diversification of the Russian language in Kazakhstan is taking place against the background of a fundamental change in the status and functional state of the Kazakh and Russian languages; reducing the number of native Russian speakers; fundamental changes in Kazakh-Russian bilingualism, reflected in the crisis of the linguistic identity of a part of Kazakhstanis, in a linguistic shift towards the Russian language (Koreans, part of Kazakhs, Ukrainians, small ethnic groups, etc.) and a turn of the linguistic shift of Kazakhs; strengthening the position of the Kazakh language in business, culture, education, mass media, interethnic communication; the changed vector of influence of languages (Kazakh Russian) and the openness of the Russian language for oral and written borrowings, especially in media texts; finally, new communication needs of Kazakhstanis. The long-term linguistic and cultural borderland, which forms the internalized conceptual-mental picture of the world inherent in Kazakhstanis, has become a fundamental factor stimulating the diversification processes of the Russian language in Kazakhstan.

Vilnius Alma Mater – Cultural and Scientific Link of Polish-Lithuanian History

The discussed monograph is an attempt to present Vilnius Alma Mater as a cultural and scientific link of Polish-Lithuanian history. The texts that make up the volume concern thematically Polish-Lithuanian relations from the 16th century to the present day, perceived in several aspects: historical and cultural, literary, linguistic and educational. The articles collected in the volume are arranged into specific five themes. These are: the heritage of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the works of 19th-century artists, The History of Stefan Batory University (1919–1939), The interpretation of the space of Vilnius and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the perspective of the 20th and 21st centuries, the study of phenomena belonging to the cultural and cultural borderland linguistic.

Three Strategies for Describing Social Interactions of Adolescents in a Multicultural Environment—Indicators for the Quality of Life Research

Background: The analysis has involved social interactions in a multicultural environment. The social context has been defined by the Vilnius region (Lithuania), where national, religious, and cultural differences exist across generations (multicultural community). The space of “social relationships”, as one of the modules of the WHO quality of life assessment, has been studied. An innovation of the research has been related to the analysis of the phenomenon of community of nationalities and cultures as a predictor of quality of life (QoL). The social motive of the research has been the historical continuity (for centuries) of the construction of the Vilnius cultural borderland. Here, the local community evolves from a group of many cultures to an intercultural community. Interpreting the data, therefore, requires a long perspective (a few generations) to understand the quality of relationships. We see social interactions and strategies for building them as a potential for social QoL in multicultural environments. Methods: The research has been conducted on a sample of 374 respondents, including Poles (172), Lithuanians (133), and Russians (69). A diagnostic poll has been used. The respondents were adolescents (15–16 years). The research answers the question: What variables form the interaction strategies of adolescents in a multicultural environment? The findings relate to interpreting the social interactions of adolescents within the boundaries of their living environment. The description of the social relations of adolescents provides an opportunity to implement the findings for further research on QoL. Results: An innovative outcome of the research is the analysis of 3 interaction strategies (attachment to national identification, intercultural dialogue, and multicultural community building) as a background for interpreting QoL in a multicultural environment. Their understanding is a useful knowledge for QoL researchers. The data analysis has taken into account cultural and generational (historical) sensitivities. Therefore, the team studying the data has consisted of researchers and residents of the Vilnius region. We used the interaction strategies of adolescents to describe the category of “social relationships” in nationally and culturally diverse settings.