European Culture Research Articles

The Influence of Calvinism on European Legal Thought and Jurisprudence

According to Theodor Heuss, the spiritual and cultural unity of Europe is built on three hills, the Acropolis, the Capitol and Golgotha. The Capitolium is one of the foundations of European culture, and one of the pillars of Europe's entity that represents law. The Capitolium, as interpreted by Theodor Heuss, is Roman law. For centuries, the concept of law was understood to mean Roman law, codified and compiled in the Justinian Corpus Iuris in the 6th century AD. The fundamental tenets of Roman law are inseparable from European civilisation. The Calvinist Reformation is inextricably linked to Lutheranism. It should be emphasised that the work of John Calvin, compared with the Lutheran oeuvre, has a greater legal dimension. For Luther is essentially a theologian who considers all legal phenomena as negative. John Calvin, unlike Martin Luther, is a lawyer (iurisperitus, iurisconsultus).

CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN THE GLOBAL ETHNO-POLITICAL SPACE

The modern world is faced with global instability, adaptation to which has become a motive for the transition to a new model of civilizational development. The key point of this model is the preservation of the entire cultural diversity of the world through a real mutually equal dialogue of cultures, taking into account the ethno-cultural diversity and national characteristics of peoples. The collapse of the USSR gave rise to a “fever of ethnocracy”, the desire of the new government to oust all representatives of foreign-speaking ethnic groups from the country at any cost, especially from the administration, education, ideology and spiritual life, the armed forces and law enforcement agencies, even regardless of their level of competence. The ongoing processes of systemic transformation were accompanied by a political, economic social and cultural crisis, which required national-state self-determination. It was necessary to quickly decide on filling the specific content of national sovereignty, decide on the Basic Law, deal with the “blank spots” of Belarusian history, decide what the essence of the Belarusian national idea, Belarusian identity is, how to live on, with whom to be friends, what model of development to follow. In the context of such dynamic changes and global challenges, finding an opportunity to protect traditional cultural values means protecting the national interests of your country. National identity is instilled and fixed in the cultural code of a citizen of a country that he wants to be proud of and accepts as his only homeland. People are led into the future by ideals associated with the dream of a fair society with ensuring stability and the hope of returning to national traditions. The Republic of Belarus is located in the border zone between two civilizational models of development, Western and Russian. Belarus received from each of them some features, which together formed a kind of cultural and historical unity, at the same time similar and unlike these civilizations. The rooting of the Belarusian statehood is characterized by the fact that the "European" component of the Belarusian identity is strengthened in comparison with its "Soviet" part. The formation of the national and civic consciousness of young people is quite contradictory and ambiguous. This is largely due to a certain deprivation of youth of "historical memory", the presence of "blank spots" in the history of the post-Soviet countries, and the inconsistency of the formation of a new statehood. The claims of any culture to the exclusive universal significance are counterproductive in this situation. Modern globalism is dangerous because it tries to instill in the consciousness the idea of the universal significance of only European culture.

From Symbol to Culture: Julia Kristeva’s Fascination with the Chinese Language

Kristeva has a close relationship with China. Not only has she obtained a degree in Chinese and been active in the “China Period” of Tel Quel, but she has also focused on the Chinese language, thought, and culture in both her academic research and her literary work. Kristeva’s early concern with Chinese primarily revolved around linguistics and semiotics. Influenced by the Chinese language, she proposed theories such as “logique poétique” and “le paragramme semiology.” After the 1970s, Kristeva began to introduce psychoanalytic and feminist perspectives into her research, focusing on understanding the Chinese language from the standpoint of Chinese thought, culture, and historical traditions and considering Chinese as a “tonal language.” Since the 1990s and especially in the 21st century, Kristeva further explored the potential for dialogue between Chinese and European cultures within the context of their “encounter.” Thus, Kristeva’s fascination with the Chinese language has become a prominent case of Western practice in the mutual learning between Chinese and Western literary theories.

IRANIAN ART OF THE QAJAR ERA: EUROPEAN INFLUENCES AND «PERSIAN STYLE» FOR EXPORT

The Qajar era (late XVIII-1925) gave the world a unique style, unmistakably recognizable in painting, crafts, and photography. Clumsy, striking the imagination with its amazing brightness of colors and bold artistic techniques, it was formed largely due to active interaction with European culture via respect for the Persian traditional styles. The article deals with the significance of Europe and the European in the formation and development of Qajar art, addressing two opposing processes. Borrowing Western methods and techniques, educational models and new products on the one hand, and European fashion for Persian things, which influenced local production and its transformation on the other. The first process is seen in easel painting and the fashion for "european«details in interior decoration, the second — in «re-creation» of an updated carpet and ceramic production in Persia. The illustrative effect will be provided by selected items from the collection of the State Museum of Oriental Art in Moscow, including court portraits, glass paintings, qalamkaras, tiles, etc.

Contemporary Music and the Methods of its Analysis

The article raises the question of what is considered to be contemporary music today. The author notes the variability of the interpretation of this concept, due to the change of the philosophical and aesthetic attitudes in recent art, emphasizing that the concept of “contemporaneity,” which has been developed in European culture, is now unable to reflect adequately the essence of what is happening. The article is devoted to the approaches of analysis of contemporary music that can be found in the Proceedings of the European Music Analysis Conferences (EuroMAC). Three conferences that took place in 2014, 2017 and 2021 were used as sources of information on analysis of contemporary music. A study of this body of texts shows that contemporary music analysis at the present moment has not demonstrated any fundamentally new means of study, but the present-day methods are numerous in their quantity, and the main process of their application is concentrated on the expansion of musical material.

Cultural diplomacy in the national construction of Brazil: the French artistic mission of 1816

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role played by Portuguese authorities alongside Joachim Le Breton in the establishment of the 1816 French artistic mission to Brazil, as an international movement that could be understood as a notable predecessor to what we know today as cultural diplomacy. Cultural diplomacy is a term that often refers to the instrumentalization and projection of culture into the international arena. In this sense, culture was leveraged as an international asset for the construction of the Brigantine monarchy in Brazil. In this article we propose a wider approach in which “European culture” is instrumentalized by a state to elevate a colony to an Empire, capable of accommodating its European ruling class and sovereign.

Regional extinction(s) but continental persistence in European Acheulean culture

Abstract Traces of early hominin cultural dynamics are revealed through the spatial and temporal character of the archaeological record. In the European Lower Palaeolithic, biface occurrences provide insights into episodes of cultural loss, persistence and convergence during the Acheulean, the longest known prehistoric cultural phenomenon. Here, the cohesiveness of Europe’s Acheulean record is statistically assessed under multiple spatial scenarios. Repeated cycles of cultural loss are identified in northern Europe, while southern Europe is demonstrated to have a continuous record of Acheulean presence. These data support longstanding hypotheses concerning an absence of Acheulean populations in northern Europe during glacial periods – a result that should increasingly be applied with caution. In southern Europe, Iberia displays the loss of Acheulean cultural information between c. 850 and 500 thousand years ago, with the Italian peninsula potentially acting as a source population for its later reintroduction. When investigated at a continental-level there are no clear episodes of cultural loss. Current evidence therefore suggests that once Acheulean cultural information was introduced to Europe, it never wholly left.

Происхождение и различия немецкой и японской культуры роботов и построение «Третьей китайской робокультуры»

With the rapid development of AI technology, robots are no longer restricted to industrial and social fields, and their cultural connotations should be paid more and more attention. The paper focuses on the robot culture within the scope of human culture and attaches importance to the inherent humanistic and cultural traditions of robots, which helps to understand the relationship between humans and machines and is also closely related to today’s robot application practice. Significant differences can be found in the robot culture between the East and the West. Germany（Europe and the United States）and Japan have formed anxiety- and visionary-type robot cultures respectively, which are closely related to their religious human relations and science fiction culture. In this article, using the example of the analysis of German and Japanese robotic cultures, the differences and specific features of literary images of robots are revealed on the basis of a direct dialogue between scientists of these countries. At the same time, the cultural roots of religion and science fiction, which have had a huge influence on the formation of German and Japanese robot culture, are explored. The attitude of scientists towards robots is rooted in their different cognitive attitudes regarding the nature of a human being and his interaction with the world. German robot culture represents classic anthropocentrism, in which humans occupy a central position in the universe. Japanese robot culture demonstrates a different - non-anthropocentric - concept of human beings, emphasizing the unity of technological artifacts and people. The study of robot culture is based on the method of cultural interpretation, data analysis and other methods. This article is based primarily on cultural components such as literature, religion, philosophy, as well as film and television. The discussion on the differences of robot culture can help to reflect on human nature and human culture. The discussion of robot ethics needs to have a cross-cultural perspective, and it can also bring inspiration to the construction of Chinese robot culture. Different from the European, the U.S. or Japanese robot culture, the “third Chinese robot culture” that is eclectic, pragmatic, active and emphasizes the coexistence of humans and machines is taking shape.

Life Wins in the West. Agnieszka Holland’s East-European Interpretation of The Secret Garden

The author of this essay interprets Agnieszka Holland’s cinematographic adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden as a work of an East-European creator musing on the essence of Western civilisation and comments on it in the context of the present-day questioning of the European unity, values, and standards in Polish culture. In the analysis of Holland’s cinematographic version of the novel, a special relevance is given to cultural (in)visibility of the dangers of pregnancy and childbirth. The East-West divide is interpreted in terms of divergent conceptualisations of the major human transformative actions: work and sacrifice. In the multimodal idiom of Holland’s film, the music composed by Zbigniew Preisner occupies a special place. The East-European interpretation of the children’s classic promotes a vision of Englishness (treated as a pars pro toto exemplification of the broader concept of “the West”) as a space of resilience and triumphant life, against manipulative messages presenting the West as a space of corruption and “culture of death”.

Author biographies for Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

Short professional biographies of the Contributors: Dimitra Andrianou, Giacomo Bardelli, Magali An Berthon, Tina Boloti, Cecilie Brøns, Ana Cabrera-Lafuente, Francesca Coletti, Roxana Coman, Catarina Costeira, Cristina Cumbo, Camilla Cziffery Nielsen, Klara Dankova, Anna Maria Desiderio, Kerstin Droß-Krüpe, Arianna Esposito, Astrid Fendt, Nade Genevska Brachikj, Francisco B. Gomes, Judith Goris, Audrey Gouy, Karina Grömer, Morten Grymer-Hansen, Mary Harlow, Susanna Harris, Sophia Larissa Hayda, Angela Huang, Floor Huisman, Alina Iancu, Zofia Kaczmarek, Marisa Kerbizi, Meghan Korten, Tetiana Krupa, Karolina Anna Kulpa, Lena Larsson Lovén, Ronja Lau, Yuliia Lazorenko, Susanne Lervad, Petra Linscheid, Christina Margariti, Maria João Melo, Elena Miramontes Seijas, Leyre Morgado-Roncal, Juliane Müller, Paula Nabais, Jasemin Nazim, Marie-Louise B. Nosch, Tim Parry-Williams, Irina Petroviciu, Louise Quillien, Marie-Alice Rebours, Kalliope Sarri, Kayleigh Saunderson, Francesca Scotti, Joana Sequeira, Agata Ulanowska, Magdalena M. Wozniak, Anna Zimmermann

Textile Crossroads: Exploring European Clothing, Identity, and Culture across Millennia

Research from COST Action “CA 19131 – EuroWeb” These essays on various aspects of textile research encompass a wide chronological perspective and vast geographical area, enriching traditional disciplines with innovative methodologies such as isotopic tracing of provenance, textile analysis, protein analysis, digital motion capture, and exploration of textile expressions in texts and folklore. All essays in this volume have been written by international teams of scholars from the participating countries. The anthology serves as a comprehensive and innovative resource, consolidating the research outcomes and insights gained from the interdisciplinary exploration of textiles in European history within the framework of EuroWeb. This volume has the potential to contribute to the advancement of European scientific excellence and competitiveness, fostering a deeper understanding of the cultural, technological, and societal significance of textiles and clothing in shaping European identity and heritage through the millenia. We hope that the anthology will find a wide and interested readership, and that it will inspire many new research projects in the field of textile history. Contributors: Dimitra Andrianou, Giacomo Bardelli, Magali An Berthon, Tina Boloti, Cecilie Brøns, Ana Cabrera-Lafuente, Francesca Coletti, Roxana Coman, Catarina Costeira, Cristina Cumbo, Camilla Cziffery Nielsen, Klara Dankova, Anna Maria Desiderio, Kerstin Droß-Krüpe, Arianna Esposito, Astrid Fendt, Nade Genevska Brachikj, Francisco B. Gomes, Judith Goris, Audrey Gouy, Karina Grömer, Morten Grymer-Hansen, Mary Harlow, Susanna Harris, Sophia Larissa Hayda, Angela Huang, Floor Huisman, Alina Iancu, Zofia Kaczmarek, Marisa Kerbizi, Meghan Korten, Tetiana Krupa, Karolina Anna Kulpa, Lena Larsson Lovén, Ronja Lau, Yuliia Lazorenko, Susanne Lervad, Petra Linscheid, Christina Margariti, Maria João Melo, Elena Miramontes Seijas, Leyre Morgado-Roncal, Juliane Müller, Paula Nabais, Jasemin Nazim, Marie-Louise B. Nosch, Tim Parry-Williams, Irina Petroviciu, Louise Quillien, Marie-Alice Rebours, Kalliope Sarri, Kayleigh Saunderson, Francesca Scotti, Joana Sequeira, Agata Ulanowska, Magdalena M. Wozniak, Anna Zimmermann 378 pages, color illustrations

ПАМЯТЬ О ХОЛОКОСТЕ: КОНТАКТ КУЛЬТУР В МУЗЫКЕ МИХАИЛА БРОННЕРА

The research focuses on the musical works of the contemporary Moscow composer Mikhail Bronner (b. 1952), which reflect the theme of the Holocaust: Jewish Requiem and Long Return (Book of Songs) for choral theatre. The article analyses the problem of the contact between European, Russian and Jewish cultures, which is manifested in these works on different levels: artistic content, genre definition (Jewish Requiem), thematism that defines the sound aura. It outlines the composer’s position in the choice of text language for his vocal and instrumental works, analyses the correlation between music and words: the lyrics of Yiddish songs (Long Return), Yiddish and Hebrew (Jewish Requiem — Chaim Nachman Bialik’s poem In the City of Slaughter, translated into Yiddish with words from The Diary of Anne Frank; Psalms in Hebrew). The analysis of the musical compositions reveals that in the Jewish Requiem the dominant culture is Slavic, and in the book of songs Long Return — Jewish. The forms of manifestation of the cultural contact in the Jewish Requiem were carried out by diffusion (“smoothing out” the sound formants), while in the choral opera Long Return — by transculturation.

«Только анархия может дать нам возможность победить советскую власть»: докладная записка генерала М. К. Дитерихса руководству РОВС (1930)

The article analyzes a memo from the head of the Shanghai branch of the General Military Union, General M. K. Dieterichs, to the leadership of the ROVS, which is practically unknown to domestic researchers. The document is kept in the collections of the Bakhmetyev Archive of Russian and Eastern European History and Culture at Columbia University. The text of the memo shows the discrepancy between the author’s realistic assessment of the international situation in the Far East, the situation in the Far Eastern regions of the USSR, where there was an increase in discontent with the activities of the Soviet government, as well as the state of White emigration in China and the presentation of the prospects of the anti-Soviet movement based on Dieterichs’ belief in the exclusively repressive and spiritually alien Russian people essence of Soviet power and readiness a significant part of the ordinary military emigration to sacrifice in the overthrow of the «Bolshevik yoke». In the end, this discrepancy had a negative impact on the course of the anti-Soviet struggle.

ISLAM SEKULER DI TURKI DAN PEMIKIRAN KEMAL ATATURK

There are three areas that can be observed in applying secularism in the era of the Kemalis reforms. First, is the secularization of the state, education, and the law in the form of attacks on the traditional power centers of the institutionalized clergy. Second, is the attack on the symbols of European civilization. Third, is the secularization of social life and attacks on Islam that its people adhere to. The aspects of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's thinking include those in the political system. At that time, Turkey was a very dictatorial one-party regime. Second, in religious reform. The state guarantees freedom of worship, for citizens, in its implementation carried out in the spirit of radical nationalism and imposed by Kemalis. And the third, in the field of education. Kemal's efforts in his policy showhow his desire should be completely sterile from sharia interference. 
 However, the author at this point agrees with Al-Attas's opinion that Islam rejects any application of a secular concept in any form. Because all of that does not belong to Islam and is contrary to everything.

Общество в поисках безопасной модели межкультурного диалога

The article is devoted to the problem of dialogue of cultures in the aspect of its security, ensuring the preservation of their integrity and survival. In the course of analyzing the history of European civilization, the authors identified three models of dialogue between cultures in the context of ensuring safe existence: 1. The ancient “separation” model; 2. Classical unification model of the New Age; 3. Modern open dialogue model. The main attention is paid to the analysis of the open model of dialogue of cultures, which is proposed as a model of security. The theoretical source of the research is primarily Russian philosophy of the second half of the 20th century, in particular the philosophy of dialogue by M. M. Bakhtin and V. S. Bibler.

ГРОШОВО-ВАГОВІ МІРИ КРАЇН СХІДНОЇ ЄВРОПИ ВІД ДОБИ АНТИЧНОСТІ ДО XIX ст.

The first European civilisations emerged in the third and second millennia BC on the island of Crete and other Aegean islands, as well as in the southern territories of the Balkan Peninsula. The first European systems of measures, including weights, were created here. The first European writing system, the linear syllabic A and B script emerged on this land. The syllabic writing of the Minoan civilisation on Crete and the Mycenaean civilisation in the territory of modern mainland Greece was completely original. It had a great influence on the first alphabet on Earth, which was created in Phoenicia in the middle of the second millennium BC. In turn, the weights and measures of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilisations were formed under the influence of the system of weight measures of Ancient Sumer of the third millennium BC. The use of the written language and its integral component, the number system, contributed to the spread of unified weight measures over large areas. Numerous weighing systems were created in ancient Greece in the first millennium BC. Thanks to trade, they began to be used in the Balkan Peninsula – in Macedonia, Thrace, Illyria, as well as in the Northern Black Sea region, where there were ancient Greek colonies. The incorporation of the Balkan Peninsula and the territory of the ancient Greek colonies of the Northern Black Sea in the second and first centuries BC into the Roman Empire led to the use of the Roman system of weight measures in these lands. In the IV–XV centuries, the Byzantine measures derived from the Roman ones influenced the formation of the systems of measures of the Eastern European states through political and economic relations. In the second half of the first millennium, the first states were created in Eastern Europe – Bulgaria, Great Moravia, Hungary, Poland, and Ancient Rus. In the first half of the second millennium, the states of Serbia, Lithuania, Wallachia, Moldova, and others were formed. The weight systems of these countries were formed on the basis of natural measures of the primitive era, as well as the weight units borrowed from international trade. In the Middle Ages, Eastern European measures of weight were significantly influenced by those of the Carolingian Empire, the Germanic Empire, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The conquest of the Balkan Peninsula by the Ottoman Empire in the XV–XVI centuries led to the spread of Turkish measures in this area. This article analysis the origins of the ancient weight measures of Eastern Europe. The degree which peculiarities of political and economic development of particular countries and territories influenced the formation of weight systems was determined. Special attention was devoted to the relation between weight measures and aspects of the emergence and development of money in circulation, and the interaction between historical metrology and numismatics in studying processes. The mutual influence between weight system of various countries and the borrowing of certain foreign weight units in the course of international trade was considered.

Who They Are, Where They Are, What They Are for and Why

The real battle to be waged is not between Russia and the West, but for the preservation of multifaceted European civilization as such (and all civilizations of the world) and against the de-civilizing of neoliberal globalism.

Crimean Tatars and Kazakhs: a Comparative Analysis of the Imperial Policy of Acculturation in the Management System, Social, Military and Educational Spheres

The article examines the acculturation policy pursued by the tsarist government and regional authorities in relation to nomadic, semi-nomadic and sedentary peoples living in the Black Sea and Central Asian regions. Crimean Tatars and Kazakhs were selected for comparative analysis. The study analyzes the main directions of state policy pursued to integrate the Crimean Tatars and Kazakhs into Russia. These areas of work define the management system, social, military and educational spheres. The article also raises the question of whether the tsarist government had a unified program according to which the integration of nomadic, semi-nomadic and sedentary peoples took place in the southern and south-eastern outskirts of Russia. The chronological framework of the work is determined by the end of the 18th — beginning of the 20th centuries, since it was during this period that the Russian authorities carried out the main activities aimed at integrating the Crimean Tatars and Kazakhs into the empire. Archival documents, legislative acts, statistical data and scientific publications were used to cover this topic. The article indicates that this topic has not previously been the subject of special study. The study showed that the tsarist government did not have a single program in accordance with which the integration of the newly annexed peoples living in the southern and southeastern outskirts of Russia took place. In each individual case there were regional peculiarities. It is noted that the acculturation of the Crimean Tatars and Kazakhs in the management system, social, military and educational spheres cannot be assessed unambiguously. Administrative acculturation led to the gradual replacement of traditional institutions of power and the introduction of a general imperial system of management. Legislative consolidation of the rights of new subjects representing different class groups contributed to their rapid incorporation into Russian society. Acculturation in the educational sphere cannot be viewed unambiguously. The main task of the tsarist government in creating Russian-foreign schools was the gradual Russification of new subjects. At the same time, Crimean Tatars and Kazakhs, studying the Russian language and Russian literature, became familiar with the achievements of European civilization.

ОСНОВНЫЕ ЭТАПЫ СТАНОВЛЕНИЯ ВОКАЛЬНОГО ИСКУССТВА В ЕВРОПЕЙСКОЙ КУЛЬТУРЕ: ОТ АНТИЧНОСТИ ДО НОВОГО ВРЕМЕНИ

This article is devoted to the development of vocal art from Antiquity to Modern times. The author analyses ancient sources from Greece and Rome, which for the first time in the history of European culture provide information about vocal skills. Particular attention is paid to the Middle Ages, when vocal and instrumental culture develops in parallel with sacred music. The Renaissance marks the emergence of new genres and forms of vocal music, such as opera and ballet. The author also draws attention to the formation of national vocal schools from the XVIIth century onwards, highlighting their unique technical and artistic features: Italian technical skill and expressiveness, French sophistication and clear pronunciation, German high technique and musical thinking, English appeal to madrigal traditions and development of the vocal ensemble. Thus, the article examines the evolution of musical traditions and performance schools in various countries, identifying cultural, religious and social factors that influenced the formation of local characteristics. This overview allows us to better understand the historical context and evolution of vocal art, as well as its impact on the cultural diversity of humanity.

THE OLD NUREMBERG CARNIVAL IN THE TRANSITION TO THE NEW TIMES

The article examines a striking phenomenon of European culture — traditional carnival. The historical perspective is coordinated by geographical and chronological localization: Nuremberg, 16th century. The object of the study, the Schoenbartbuch of the University of California Library, reflects the nature of the cultural and artistic process before and after 1539, when the last, especially spectacular procession of mummers, schembartlauf, took place in the city. Up to a third of the more than two hundred drawings in this book are devoted to it. It is a remarkable gallery of episodes and images, chronologically arranged from 1449, when the chronicle of the Nuremberg schembartlaufs was started. The analysis of images on the theme of carnival touches on aspects of basic content, attendant circumstances and objective changes. The brainchild of medieval urban culture, carnival became an instrument of its self-regulation due to the parodic reflection of the processes that took place in its different layers. In the Schoenbartbuch, the deep reality of life and historical psychology emerges behind the allegorical language of ornamental motifs, carnival accessories and props. The chronological principle gives the book the status of a document of the era, but the dating of 1590–1620 moves the drawings away from the last carnival depicted in them by at least half a century, and from the first — by a century and a half, so the use of chronicle and material evidence does not remove the question of the degree of documentary nature of these images and, accordingly, their value as a historical source. The value of the drawings was ensured by the concept embodied in them — an artistic reconstruction of the era in which the carnival achieved the full disclosure of its syncretic character, a bizarre combination of semantic and material, ritual and improvisational proto-­­theater, applied and visual creativity. The imitation of medieval style did not prevent the artists from capturing and conveying the subsequent increase in spectacle, thematic and staging fantasy, the desire for developed staging and the increased aestheticism of images, which foreshadowed the transition of the street carnival to a different level of theatricality.