Central European Culture Research Articles

The grave of a known soldier. De-anonymization of war memorials and mass graves as a modernization process in Central and Western European culture

The grave of a known soldier. De-anonymization of war memorials and mass graves as a modernization process in Central and Western European culture

Cataloguing and mapping the Linear Band Pottery sites in Ukraine

Linearbandkeramik (LBK) is the most well-studied Neolithic culture in Central Europe. However, the easternmost part of its area is less known to European researchers. Addressing this gap, information on 175 reliable and 95 questionable LBK sites and six sub-Neolithic sites with LBK pottery in Ukraine has been collected, verified, and systematized. The precise mapping of these sites provided in this paper allows future analysis of their spatial distribution. Accurate contouring of the eastern boundary of the LBK area has revealed the exploitation and exchange of flint, graphite, and salt as a possible driving force of the first farmers’ mobility in the region.

Other "Hamlet" in Puppet Theatre: A Contribution to Central European Theatre Diversity of the 1980s-1990s

This study aims to address the stigmatization and reductionism of Central European culture by many scholars and to decentralize it. At the Crossing Borders with Shakespeare Since 1945 conference, the roundtable discussion raised questions about naming and defining “Central Europe” and revealed several discrepancies. However, the discussion lacked cultural, political, and historical context. To address this, the author examines a lesser-known artistic genre, puppet theatre, for answers and comparisons. Zlatko Bourek, a Croatian artist and director, offers a unique perspective on the theatre of the 1980s and serves as an example of the diversity and heterogeneity of Central European cultural expression. Bourek’s work draws from the tradition of Central European puppetry and explores connections between the Iron Curtain and Yugoslavia. His artistic style is exemplified in his adaptation of Tom Stoppard’s play Fifteen-Minute Hamlet, which masterfully condenses the entire plot of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet into a fifteen-minute performance. Bourek’s concept of combining Shakespearean tragedy with farce, presented through Japanese traditional Bunraku theatre, represents an important experiment of the 1980s. The use of syncretism and the aesthetics of ugliness are notable features of this experiment. It is a breakthrough in the perceived history of puppet theatre for adults and an aesthetic experiment in the era of Central European totalitarianism.

The Milky Way: Mobility and Economy at the Turn of the 3rd Millennium in Southern Central Europe

In the light of discussions surrounding the social changes attributed to the arrival of the Corded Ware culture in central Europe, here we investigate the economic strategies of one of the cultural complexes of the immediately preceding Late Neolithic. The Cham culture of southern Bavaria is characterised by a variety of economic choices but problems remain in synthesising and combining archaeozoological and archaeobotanical evidence. Using lipid residue analysis from Cham culture pottery excavated at the unenclosed settlement of Riedling, Lower Bavaria, we succeed in identifying a dairying economy at this time. Compound-specific lipid radiocarbon dates are then combined with other samples to provide a formal estimate for the duration of activity at Riedling and the first Bayesian chronological model for the Cham culture as a whole. Although data are currently not fine-grained enough to distinguish between competing models for site permanence, we suggest that the Cham culture pattern fits into a wider central European trend of greater mobility and economic flexibility in the pre-Corded Ware horizon, concluding that key economic strategies previously associated with ‘steppe invasions’ were already present in the preceding centuries. Finally, the demonstrated use of cups for milk-based products, as opposed to alcoholic drinks as previously suggested, leads us to propose possible alternative uses and users for these items.

Middle Neolithic agricultural and land-use models in southern Poland: A case-study of the long-term settlement in Mozgawa

Palaeoecological and archaeological studies conducted in Mozgawa (southern Poland) demonstrated a long-term sustainable land-use by inhabitants of a large settlement occupied during the second half of the fourth millennium BC. The Middle Neolithic society established a settlement that covered an area of about 30–35 ha and functioned during at least three centuries, as validated by the absolute chronology. A thorough analysis based on the fuzzy-logic principle combined with archaeobotanical and archaeozoological data showed that the subsistence model was based on agricultural practices, related with both crop cultivation and animal husbandry, together with an important component of hunting, fishing and gathering. Ecological requirements of plants and animals represented by fossil remains suggested that the exploited area included a variety of habitats. In the open landscape, wet and dry grasslands, used partly as pastures, cultivated fields and marshes were present. Wooded areas included deciduous lime-oak-elm forests, also of open canopy type, and riparian forests. This was due to the transitional location of the Mozgawa site on a loess-mantled hill, covered with fertile soils, but right on the border with a vast alluvial plain of the Nida River. Such ecologically diversified micro-region became a managed landscape, which provided rich resources for seasonal diets of the settlement’s inhabitants. The case study of the Mozgawa site offers a unique insight into the palaeoeconomy of the Funnel Beaker culture in central Europe.

Ritual and modern “politeness” in the Romanian Principalities during the Phanariot period

Abstract The paper focusses on ritual “politeness” in the eighteenth- and early-nineteenth century Romanian Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia from a historical sociopragmatic perspective. The analysis of ceremonial literature and memoirs aims to highlight the instrumental role that the performance of conventional gestures and the use of conventional formulae have in presenting the self/other image. The period under consideration attests to the prominence of the Ottoman cultural model in the Romanian Principalities; nevertheless, the conduct prompted by Western and Central European culture was also rapidly emerging in these borderlands at the same time. When Romanian participants shift their behaviour in intercultural interactions according to the Eastern or Western norms, the choices they make have profound implications (political, social, and cultural).

If you could recommend one book to an undergraduate student interested in Austrian Studies, what would it be, and why?

If you could recommend one book to an undergraduate student interested in Austrian Studies, what would it be, and why? JAS Editors For this issue's JAS Extra, we have something a little different that we hope will be not only interesting but also useful. If you're like us, you are always tinkering with your syllabi and looking for that book that will really get students excited about the material. And what better way to get new ideas than by asking our colleagues? So we asked our editorial board members the question posed at the top of this page: "If you could recommend one book to an undergraduate student interested in Austrian Studies, what would it be, and why?" You can find their recommendations below. Some of the titles will be familiar and may appear on your syllabi already; others may be less expected. Perhaps some will even inspire you to add them to your own (always growing) reading list or fill that gap in your own education of which you are guiltily aware. In any case, we hope there will be something here for everyone and are grateful to the colleagues who kindly shared their suggestions with us. Katherine Arens, University of Texas—Austin claudio magris, danubio Danubio (1986), translated from the Italian as Danube: A Sentimental Journey from the Source to the Black Sea (1988), is the book that introduces the various histories of the regions implicated by the Habsburg monarchy, cast as a travelogue of a journey from the river's source in Bavaria down to its delta at the Black Sea. Magris combines myths, fairy tales, histories of many countries and eras, and stories of encounters to show how the cultures of Central Europe are not a melting pot but rather a tapestry that needs unravelling. [End Page 71] In recapitulating a "grand tour," he shows how histories and studies create mythical lands with real lives. If you want to see a philosopher's version of the same trip, look for the 2004 documentary about Martin Heidegger called The Ister (available on DVD), made by David Barison and Daniel Ross. It shows how the philosopher used the river to tell stories about German nationalism, based on Friedrich Hölderlin's ode of the title. Steven Beller, Independent Scholar allan janik and stephen toulmin, wittgenstein's vienna Approaching its 50th anniversary, this book is still a—indeed, the most—highly recommendable introduction to the cultural and intellectual history of Vienna 1900, which remains a central topic of Austrian Studies. It was written under the influence of Carl Schorske's concept of fin-de-siècle Vienna (even though it preceded Schorske's own magnum opus of 1980). But by approaching the subject from a different substantial question (the deeper meaning of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Philosophicus) and with a somewhat different disciplinary approach (the much more context-based History of Ideas), Janik and Toulmin ended up presenting a different world of Vienna 1900 than that of Schorske. The dialogue between the two perspectives is one that has been a great motor for academic and intellectual insight and discovery ever since. I do not think one can really understand modern Austrian Studies without having read this book. Many of its details, and even some of its arguments (including those derived from Schorske), have been shown by later research to be imperfect or misleading, but its methodology of looking for connections between the thought of Wittgenstein and others within the context of the Habsburg Monarchy and Central Europe—and even beyond—is one that was immensely fruitful, and it remains a model for contemporary research. Michael Burri, Bryn Mawr College adam kożuchowski, the afterlife of austria-hungary: the image of the habsburg monarchy in interwar europe On November 11, 1918, the day that the armistice agreement formally ended World War I, Sigmund Freud wrote that "Austria-Hungary is no more. I would [End Page 72] not wish to live elsewhere. There is no question of emigration for me. I shall continue to live with the torso and imagine it is the entirety." In The Afterlife of Austria-Hungary: The Image of the Habsburg Monarchy in Interwar Europe (2013...

Origins of Cannabis sativa in Ireland and the Concept of Celtic Hemp: An Interdisciplinary Review.

Introduction: Ireland's agriculture has been shaped by Celts, Romano-British Christians, Norse-Vikings, Anglo-Normans, and subsequent migrants. Who introduced hemp (Cannabis sativa) to Hibernia? We addressed this question using historical linguistics, fossil pollen studies (FPSs), archaeological data, and written records. Methods: Data gathering utilized digital resources coupled with citation tracking. Linguistic methods separated cognates (words with shared etymological origins) from loanwords (borrowed from other languages). Cannabis pollen in FPSs was identified using the "ecological proxy" method. Archaeological reports were ranked on a "robustness" scale. Results: Words for "hemp" in Celtic languages are loanwords, not cognates. The Irish word cnáib is first attested in texts written 1060 and 1127-1134 CE. Old Breton coarcholion, corrected to coarch, is attested in a text from the 9th century. Pollen consistent with cultivated Cannabis appears in the Middle Ages, ca. 700 CE, at sites in the vicinity of monasteries. Archaeological finds (hemp seeds and fiber) date to later Norse-Viking and Anglo-Norman sites. Discussion: People of the Hallstatt Culture in Central Europe have long been considered speakers of the "Proto-Celtic" language. The lack of "hemp" cognates means a Proto-Celtic word cannot be reconstructed, which implies that Hallstatt people (with robust archaeological evidence of hemp) did not speak Proto-Celtic. Cnáib is absent in Old Irish glossaries, epics, and mythologies (600-900 CE). FPS data suggest that the onset of hemp cultivation correlated-chronologically and spatially-with the founding of Romano-British monasteries. Irish cnáib was likely borrowed from Clerical Latin canapis or canabus.

Identifying silver-coated surfaces on Early Bronze Age axes from Bohemia

Deposits of bronze and copper artefacts are a common feature of the developed Únětice culture in Central Europe. Hoards of axes are especially frequent in Central Germany in the area between Halle, Salle and Dieskau. From this area come the most impressive assemblages of axe hoards. In Bohemia, Czech Republic, a more distant area from Central Germany, the hoards are less frequent and less rich. Until recently the largest hoards came from Northwest Bohemia, which was explained by its geographical closeness to Germany. However, this changed due to a find in Kukleny in Eastern Bohemia of 57 axes; it is the largest axe hoard in Bohemia so far. In total, 65 bronze axes were analysed in hoards found in Kukleny and Kunčice, a smaller hoard found only several kilometres from Kukleny. Our multimethod analysis, based on electron and reflected-light microscopy, identified surprising data related to the axes’ chemical composition, including strong evidence of silver and gold coatings, and we analysed the use-wear of the majority of the found axes.

VI Conference as Part of the Interdisciplinary Central European Seminar «A Woman in the Heart of Europe: Non-Obvious Aspects of Gender Issues in the History and Culture of Central Europe and Neighboring Regions»

Dronov Aleksandr M.VI Conference as Part of the Interdisciplinary Central European Seminar «A Woman in the Heart of Europe: Non-Obvious Aspects of Gender Issues in the History and Culture of Central Europe and Neighboring Regions»

At the Crossroads of the West: the Problems of Borderzone in Russian and Central European Cultures

Proklov Ilia N. AttheCrossroadsofthe West:theProblemsofBorderzoneinRussianandCentralEuropeanCultures / eds. N.V. Zlydneva (editor-in-chief), Zs. Hetényi, P.V. Korolkova,A.N. Krasovets, A.P. Urakova.M.: Institute of Slavic Studies RAS, 2021.488pp.,ill.

Migration Discourses in Twenty-First-Century Central European Literature and Culture. Introduction

Migration Discourses in Twenty-First-Century Central European Literature and Culture. Introduction

Kto wyrzuca pieniądze przez okno – czyli potlacz w archeologii

The article analyses various archaeologically perceptible methods of withdrawing goods from circulation. This phenomenon is known as potlatch. Its social and economic context was considered on the basis of various prehistoric cultures in Central Europe. It is pointed out that this is a phenomenon typical of a peripheral economy and a hierarchical social structure.

Voices from Ukraine; Part 1

ABSTRACT This journal does not normally publish articles on contemporary politics. Its focus is the history, literature and culture of central Europe. Nevertheless, we believe that the voices of our colleagues in the Ukraine, whose lives have been transformed by this terrible war, have a right to be heard. We are, therefore, determined to bring to the widest possible audience their writings, which are rooted in the very history, literature and culture that is the focus of this journal.

The Polish Contribution to Central European Musical Culture in the Seventeenth Century. The Case of Marcin Mielczewski

The seventeenth-century Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania, embracing the lands of the Polish Crown (together with the territory of present-day Ukraine) and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, belonged geographically to both Central and Eastern Europe. It was a multiethnic and multiconfessional state, in which the Latin and Greek cultures were mutually interactive. With regard to the musical culture of the royal court, however, itwas the close ties with Italy that were of the greatest significance. The Polish kings of the Vasa dynasty (above ali Zygmunt III and Władysław IV) maintained music chapels consisting to a considerable extent of Italian musicians, among whom were Luca Marenzio, Giulio Cesare Gabussi, Asprilio Pacelli, Giovanni Francesco Anerio and Tarquinio Merula. Thanks to the Polish patronage, they not only composed newworks, but also trained musicians of various nations belonging to the royal ensembles. Among the composers trained at the Polish court was the Italian Marco Scacchi (d. 1662), chapel-master to Władysław IV, the composer of operas staged in the royal theatre, and also a music theorist – the author of a classification of musical genres which was produced during Scacchi's dispute over music theory with the Gdansk organist Paul Siefert. This dispute contributed to the popularisation across Europe of the works of Scacchi and also of other musicians associated with the court of the Polish Vasas. Extant handwritten sources of Silesian provenance (belonging to the Emil Bohn collection, currently held in the Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin) testify the considerable interest in this region (now within the Polish borders, but in the seventeenth century constituting a dominion of the Empire) in the religious compositions of Marcin Mielczewski (d. 1651), musician to Władysław IV (until 1644) and subsequently, until his death, chapel-master to Karol Ferdinand Vasa, Bishop of Płock and Wrocław. Of Mielczewski's compositional output for the needs of the Roman Catholic Church, copyists from Lutheran circles in Wrocław chose primarily psalms that were universal to the Christian repertory, furnishing those works whose texts chimed with the doctrine of the Augsburg confession with more appropriate texts of German-language contrafacta. However, this method was not always successful in eliminating traces of Catholicism, which remained, for example, in the melodies of works based on pre-compositional material drawn by Mielczewski from Marian songs that were popular in Poland (e.g. the church concerto Audite gentes et exsultate, also preserved in a version with the text of a German-language contrafactum entitled Nun höret alle, based on the song O gloriosa Domina, which in the former Commonwealth was treated as a chivalrous hymn).

Hegesias or Descartes: Jerzy Stempowski Reads Wacław Berent

The article analyzes Jerzy Stempowski’s text Skepticism in the works of Wacław Berent with regard to how the author’s understanding of Berent’s skepticism refl ects his larger view of Polish culture, perceived as a Central European culture. Berent’s novels Fachowiec and Próchno have been used as the literary material for analysis.

FLAT AXES-CHISELS OF THE TRYPILLIA CULTURE FROM THE DNIEPER REGION

Copper flat axes of the Szбkalhбt type are a fairly common type of tools in the contemporary withstages Trypillia BI—II, CI cultures of Central Europe. These tools are characterized by asymmetry of the profile — one curved side and a flat other. The collection of Trypillia metal of the National Museum of History of Ukraine contains five Szбkalhбt-type products from the excavations of V. Khvoyka. Due to the attribution, it was established that they originated from the settlements of Trypillia and Veremya (the last quarter of 5th millennium BC), Khalepya and Chernyakhiv (first half of 4st millennium BC). Flat axes from Trypillia, Veremia and Chernyakhiv belongs to the Szбkalhбt type, Vбroslőd variant. The axe-chisel from Halepya has no analogies.
 Remains of seams on the side surfaces are often shifted to a flat surface. indicating casting in a two-sided form, one of the sash of which had a deeper negative than the other. Regarding the type of mold for casting flat axes from Trypillia, some questions arose. The presence of dents on its curved surface, which have been cast from a mold, may indicate the use of a model made of either wax or fired clay. Only in such a way could similar marks appear on the surface of the casting. It is concluded that the flat axel from Trypillia may have been cast according to the wax model. This technology has been known since the time of Varna Culture (5th millennium BC). But we do not know yet whether it was known to Trypillia population.
 The tools are cast from copper, which contains minor impurities of other metals (from tenths to thousandths parts of a percent). This corresponds to the results of spectral analysis of the similar products from Central Europe.
 The blade part was formed using forging: it has expanded sideways, the blade was given a more rounded shape. Sometimes the blade part was formed by the sediment of the cutting edge (Trypillia). The technology of casting flat axes blanks from the Middle Dniprо, followed by blacksmithing, does not differ from the Central European ones and is typical for the period of existence of these tools throughout their distribution. Smaller sizes and new original shapes, inherent only in the Dniprо products, indicate their local production.

Ceramic Traditions in the Forest-Steppe Zone of Eastern Europe

Abstract Early pottery on the territory from the Eastern Caspian Sea and Aral Sea to Denmark reveals a certain typological similarity. It is represented by egg-shaped vessels with an S-shaped profile of the upper part and a pointed bottom. The vessels are not ornamented or decorated with incised lines, organized often in a net. This type of pottery was spread within hunter-gatherer ancient groups. The forest-steppe Volga region is one of the earliest centers of pottery production in Eastern Europe. The first pottery is recorded here in the last quarter of the seventh millennium BC. Its appearance is associated with the bearers of the Elshanskaya cultural tradition. The most likely source of its formation is the territory of Central Asia. Later, due to aridization, these ceramic traditions distributed further westward to the forest-steppe Don region. During the first half of the sixth millennium BC, groups associated with the bearers of the Elshanskaya cultural tradition moved westward. Significant similarities with the ceramic complexes of the Elshanskaya culture are found in materials from a number of early pottery cultures of Central Europe and the Baltic (Narva, Neman, and Ertebølle).

Human mobility in a Bronze Age Vatya 'urnfield' and the life history of a high-status woman.

In this study, we present osteological and strontium isotope data of 29 individuals (26 cremations and 3 inhumations) from Szigetszentmiklós-Ürgehegy, one of the largest Middle Bronze Age cemeteries in Hungary. The site is located in the northern part of the Csepel Island (a few kilometres south of Budapest) and was in use between c. 2150 and 1500 BC, a period that saw the rise, the apogee, and, ultimately, the collapse of the Vatya culture in the plains of Central Hungary. The main aim of our study was to identify variation in mobility patterns among individuals of different sex/age/social status and among individuals treated with different burial rites using strontium isotope analysis. Changes in funerary rituals in Hungary have traditionally been associated with the crises of the tell cultures and the introgression of newcomers from the area of the Tumulus Culture in Central Europe around 1500 BC. Our results show only slight discrepancies between inhumations and cremations, as well as differences between adult males and females. The case of the richly furnished grave n. 241 is of particular interest. The urn contains the cremated bones of an adult woman and two 7 to 8-month-old foetuses, as well as remarkably prestigious goods. Using 87Sr/86Sr analysis of different dental and skeletal remains, which form in different life stages, we were able to reconstruct the potential movements of this high-status woman over almost her entire lifetime, from birth to her final days. Our study confirms the informative potential of strontium isotopes analyses performed on different cremated tissues. From a more general, historical perspective, our results reinforce the idea that exogamic practices were common in Bronze Age Central Europe and that kinship ties among high-rank individuals were probably functional in establishing or strengthening interconnections, alliances, and economic partnerships.

BABYNE’S CULTURAL GENESIS

The problem of the Babyne Culture’s origin has been repeatedly raised by Ukrainian scientists. Thus, in the literature you can find about a dozen versions of Babyne’s cultural genesis (Братченко 1971; 1976; 1977; 1985; 1995a; 1995b; 2006; Березанская 1979; 1986; Писларий 1983; 1991; Pвslaru 2006; Дергачев 1986; Ковалева 1981; 1987a; 1987b; Черняков 1996; Отрощенко 1996; 1998; 2002; 2003; Grigoriev 2002; Санжаров 2010; Іванова, Тощев 2018). About half of these versions were born more as a result of the authors’ intuition than as a result of systematic, comprehensive and painstaking research. The author of these lines also devoted a series of publications to the problem of Babyne’s cultural genesis. This article summarizes the results of the author’s research of Babyne’s cultural genesis, which is not presented in full, but only in its key part — the origin of the primary of the structural units of the Babyne Cultural Circle — Dnieper-Don Babyne Culture (DDBC).
 The basic source of research is burial mounds, which, compared to settlements, are better and more fully studied, are more mass, diagnostic in chronological and cultural-taxonomic sense. The archeological ensemble of Babyne cemeteries was initially divided into structural elements at the level of mound construction, burial structures, remains of the deceased, funeral equipment, traces of additional ritual actions, etc. The assessment of the structural components of the DDBC cemeteries shows that this set of elements is not homogeneous and can be divided into three groups, different in origin: I) traditions; II) external influences; III) innovation (figure).
 
 Traditions are associated with the preceding local cultural component, mostly the Donets-Don Catacomb Culture and to a lesser extent the Ingul Catacomb Culture: burial «packages», «sets of tools», quivers with arrows, dice, animal «skins» («Head and Hooves»), certain types of metal axes and knives, stone maces and axes, wooden ware and boxes, wooden crooks, ceramic ware from a triangle-parquet-fir decor, ceramic amphorae and hemispherical bowls, faience beads with warts, bone ring buckles, etc. (figure: I).
 
 ІІ. External influences have no local roots in Eastern Europe but find clear complex analogies in the cultures / groups of the Early Bronze Age in Central and South-Eastern Europe. All these effects relate to certain features of the burial ceremony, the headset jewelry and clothing decoration: gender opposition of the dead, copper-bronze neck ring, arm-spirals, double spiral pendants, spiral and tin tubes, disc plate with punch ornament, hemispherical platelets with two holes, pendant of Canis holes, buckles with a hook, wrist-guards (figure: II). This subcomplex allows to synchronize DDBC with the cultures of Central Europe of the Reineke’s Br A1b—A2a.
 III. Innovations include such components of the cultural complex of DDBC, which can’t be associated with local cultural substrate and external influences: specific mound construction (long mounds, stone architecture), the location of secondary graves in the northern semicircle of the mound, wooden tombs and stone cysts, specific ceramic vessels, original system of ornament-signs, etc. (figure: III).
 The three selected blocks are different in nature and origins and are understood by us as constituent elements of DDBC genesis. The basic substrate for the formation of the DDBC was the aboriginal component of the late Catacomb Culture, which began to transform into the DDBC thanks to an external catalyst from Central Europe (Unetice culture and related groups). This impulse from Central Europe to Eastern Europe can be linked to either migration or missionary cultural leaders. It should be borne in mind that these processes took place against the background of a global climate catastrophe with its maximum around 2200 BC.