Historical Transformation Research Articles

Infinite Judgment

The article uses the idea of “infinite judgment” (borrowed from the field of logic) to reflect on the narrative techniques employed in Ádám Bodor later works, with a special focus on the novel The Birds of Verhovina (2011) and the collection Nowhere (Sehol, 2019). In a formal sense, the idea of infinite judgment breaks down the duality of the so-called positive and negative qualities of logical judgments (assertion and negation) by introducing a negative predicate into the structure of a positive proposition. Applying the same logic to Bodor’s prose, we can also grasp it as a poetic principle: the process of fictional world-creation does not follow the logic of either negation or affirmation and, through a subtle logical negation, opens up a series of infinite possibilities. This rhetorical strategy, in turn, becomes the appropriate vehicle for the articulation of a specific type of historical experience that we could designate as “potential history” (in opposition to the “actual” history of Eastern European dictatorships in the second half of the twentieth century). Bodor’s prose forces a confrontation with this potential history through narratives of transience and historical transformation whose ultimate horizon is human extinction.

Domov jako turistický cíl v době studené války. Nostalgický turismus vysídlených Němců z Československa po roce 1945 a jeho konstrukce v sudetoněmeckém mediálním diskurzu

The study deals with the phenomenon of nostalgic tourism of German-speaking inhabitants who were forcibly displaced from Czechoslovakia after 1945 and travelled to their old homeland during the Cold War period. The first legal individual and later also organised trips to Czechoslovakia date back to the second half of the 1950s; these were a reaction both to the slightly liberalising Czechoslovak tourism policy and granting of entry visas to western-European foreigners, and to the improving economic situation of German expatriates in the Federal Republic of Germany. Attention will be paid to specific features of these travels, whose final destination was the former home behind the Iron Curtain, their historical transformations, and the media construction in the Sudeten-German discourse of that time, which reveals nostalgic tourism

The Change of Diplomatic Ideas in the Late Qing Dynasty (1840-1914): A Literature Review

This study delves into the evolution of diplomatic ideas during the late Qing dynasty (1840-1914), offering a comprehensive review of existing literature on this transformative period. It critically examines the established timeline, justifying the selection of 1840 as the starting point and 1914 as the endpoint for this research. The review further investigates the changing landscape of ancient Chinese diplomatic concepts, tracing their evolution during the late Qing Dynasty and their interactions with the emerging notions of sovereignty and national consciousness within modern China. Additionally, it constructs a chronological narrative from the extensive body of Chinese studies on the metamorphosis of diplomatic ideas in modern Chinese history. This literature review concludes by identifying crucial research lacunae and formulating three pertinent research questions, paving the way for a more nuanced understanding of this significant historical transformation.

Immigration rentier states

ABSTRACT Building on the notion of the migration state, this article introduces the concepts of ‘migration rent’ and ‘immigration rentier states’ to describe how states that rely heavily on immigration for their wealth derive unearned income from immigration. Both concepts contribute to better understand of the role of migration in the historical transformation of states and the relationship between state, market and society in rentier monarchies and non-rentier states. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative data, I show that the Gulf monarchies, and Saudi Arabia in particular, progressively governmentalized direct and indirect forms of migration rent through migration control and taxation of migrants, both of which were initially brokered by private actors, notably through the kafala or sponsorship system. In doing so, states institutionalise labour market segmentation and differential exclusion of migrants intersecting class, race, nationality, gender, and age. This produces a ‘skill-based order of things’. Rather than outliers, Saudi Arabia offers a magnifying glass that reveals global dynamics of state-led migration control and class-based differential exclusion. Beyond empirical findings, this article thus demonstrates the potential for theoretical innovation in the social sciences based on non-Western polities calling to test the notions of ‘migration rent’ and ‘immigration rentier states’ across contexts.

Becoming Awakened: Four Yue Opera Segments in Xie Jin’s Two Stage Sisters

Abstract: A major work of the renowned director Xie Jin, the 1964 film Two Stage Sisters (Wutai jiemei 舞台姐妹) has received popular reception and critical acclaim both domestically and internationally. Existing scholarship has interpreted Two Stage Sisters primarily through the film analysis methodology, which overlooks the critical component of the film’s aesthetics—the Chinese Yue opera performance. My analysis will shed new light on the film’s depiction of Yue opera actresses by examining details of Yue opera performances and their intermedial interactions with the film. Examination of the “drama-within-drama” device in Two Stage Sisters —in which several excerpted opera segments are inserted into the film’s narrative—reveals that it serves both political and humanistic purposes. Drawing on my fifteen years of personal experience with Yue opera theater, I analyze the film through a new methodological approach that takes into account the film’s transmedial and multimedia connections with the operatic lyrics, singing, music, costume, and movement. This paper invites a rereading of Two Stage Sisters by presenting an original decoding of four Yue opera segments, particularly regarding the parallels and tensions between the onstage opera world and the off-stage film narrative. I demonstrate that each opera segment directly matches one step in the four-step framework of “escape → anger → half-awakened → awakened” identified by Wang Hui as the construction trajectory of female protagonist Zhu Chunhua’s revolutionary subjectivity. In this, I hold that all the Yue opera segments are carefully chosen and crafted into the film holistically to bear meaning and purpose, both in relationship with each other and in relationship to the overall film narrative. I will argue that the selected opera segments serve three central purposes in Two Stage Sisters . First, they externalize Chunhua’s interiority in her becoming a revolutionary subject. Second, they showcase the historical transformation of Yue opera theater. Third, rather than posing a stark disconnect, the premodern opera segments speak to and connect with the historicity and sufferings of women depicted in the last two modern segments, thus integrating gender and collective consciousness into the overarching revolutionary discourse. Overall, this paper uncovers the unacknowledged subtleties and richness of the film owing to the Yue opera segments.

Transformations of the Creator Man’s image in art

Art is not only a form of self-expression, but it is self-knowledge and self-acceptance. From this position, the Creator Man’s image in art represents research optics in which the transformations occurring in human existence become visible. These transformations are connected by a person’s experience of the meaning and values of his own existence in their relationship with the world. Understanding art as an existential experience, and therefore understanding the image of the Creator Man as artistic existence, opens up the possibility of understanding the «human code» contained in artistic creativity. The Creator Man’s image is one of the main projects of art, which has gone through many stages during its implementation. The article consistently examines different historical periods of artistic creativity. Their analysis shows the gradual growth of the individual principle of the artist, which had its own version of the «counterweight» in different eras. On this basis, the author of the study puts forward a hypothesis: when a human artist first realized his exceptional creative capabilities in understanding and transforming reality, his individualized position of a creator (a thesis) always had its antithesis. At the same time, the thesis, which is a constant first established by Renaissance culture, could be modified depending on the dominant social, cultural and artistic meanings and values in a given era, but it never disappeared from art. While different antitheses dominated in different historical periods. The author examines various manifestations of this contradiction using the examples of baroque art, classicism, romanticism, realism and modernism. This allows us to fix the reference points in the development of the Creator Man’s image. Analysis of historical transformations of the Creator Man’s individualization in art makes it possible to trace the changes that took place in artistic consciousness, reflecting the image of the world with the anthropos operating in it.

Do the benefits of education for late‐life cognition change across birth cohorts? Assessing period effects in the Health and Retirement Study

AbstractBackgroundEducation consistently predicts late‐life cognition, but studies rarely consider the transformation of education that current older adults experienced across the 20th century. We assess whether the relationship between education and late‐life cognition remains constant across birth cohorts spanning over 40 years of changing social investments and progress.MethodUS Health and Retirement Study participants (age 50+) were enrolled at multiple points between 1998 and 2018, allowing for the study of participants of different birth years at the same age (n = 28,299 participants and 151,514 visits across all available data collection waves). US‐born participants with at least one memory measurement were stratified into eight birth cohorts of approximately five years each, spanning more than 40 years. Mixed models with random intercepts for each participant investigated the presence of effect modification across birth cohorts for the education‐dementia relationship. Age was not evenly distributed across birth cohorts; therefore models were additionally run restricted to ten‐year age groups. Secondary analyses investigated whether period effects further existed by race and gender. All models adjusted for age, quadratic age, gender, race, cognitive practice effects, childhood census region, and parental education.ResultEarlier birth cohorts showed larger associations between education and late‐life cognition, with each additional year increase in schooling associated with a 0.10 SD (95% CI: 0.09, 0.11) higher memory score in the earliest cohort compared to the latest (interaction p‐value <.0001). Findings were consistent when restricting analyses to age groups. Effects of education across cohorts also slightly differed by gender, with increased education being associated with larger gender disparities in memory of 0.04 SD (95% CI: 0.02, 0.06) more per year of schooling in the latest cohort compared to the earliest (interaction p‐value <.0001), and by race, with a narrowing of racial disparities in later cohorts for the cognitive benefits of increased education (interaction p‐value <.0001).ConclusionEach year increase in attained education had overall larger effects among earlier cohorts, though this may differ across sociodemographic and age groups. Future research is needed to examine whether differences arise from historical transformations of the educational experience or from changes in downstream economic opportunities across time periods.

A Digital Approach to Revisiting the Byzantine Past of Al-Madrassa Al-Halawiyya in Aleppo

The architectural complex of the al-Madrasa al-Halawiyya in Aleppo, Syria, remains one of the most remarkable monuments in the centuries-old city. First founded as the Church of St. Helen in the 6th century to serve as the Cathedral of Byzantine Aleppo, the structure preserves evidence of a complicated building history. For example, the Cathedral was converted into a mosque in 1124; later, parts of the church were integrated into a Madrassa. More recently, damage to the structure due to the war revealed information about Byzantine building methods. This research revisits the building history of the monument by relying on a parametric, Building Information Modelling (BIM) representation to compare the surviving structure with earlier reconstructions. This article addresses the following: (1) A survey of the building's history, topography, and architecture: Over the centuries, al-Madrasa al-Halawiyya has attracted Medieval monks, travellers, brigands, scholars, and more. Their accounts offer exciting opportunities to contextualise structural and functional changes to the complex. (2) An analysis of the historical structure, especially from the Byzantine period: The presented three-dimensional (3D) documentation of the site focused on historical transformations, which the authors then traced and compared by means of BIM to reconstructions proposed by Samuel Guyer (1911) and Michel Écochard (1950). This research demonstrates how a hybrid methodology can be used to establish building phases for comparison with historical and scholarly accounts, revealing new knowledge about building techniques and processes. The presented work started with a field survey of the monument, which was used to generate a hybrid 3D point cloud. Using the point cloud, the Byzantine church was virtually reconstructed and several construction phases were identified. At the same time, Heritage-BIM models were created based on the work of Guyer and Écochard. Finally, the Guyer and Écochard models were compared with the proposed Byzantine reconstruction and point cloud.

Internal control models: Historical transformations and development prospects

Subject. This article examines the issue of transformation of the system and models of internal control as a guarantor of the economic security of organizations, regions and countries in the historical aspect and in relation to global changes in the world economy. Objectives. The article aims to determine further ways of development of internal control models and their conceptual foundations, taking into account the realities of the time. Methods. For the study, we used case and chronological analyses, and data systematization. Results. The article finds that internal control models are subject to continuous transformation, taking into account external economic influences and the development of automation tools. This unlocks the process synergies, in other words, more complex processes taking place in the economy and crisis phenomena that affect the conditions for the functioning of companies, make it necessary to look for internal reserves to ensure the continuity of the activities of an economic entity through constant control of risks and the search for options for their minimization. Conclusions and Relevance. The article concludes that the most popular models of internal control are those that are based on a process-oriented approach and continuous analysis of business processes of an economic entity, with further processing of the information obtained and transformation into a system-oriented model of internal control aimed at finding internal reserves. The results of the study can be used in the theory and practice of internal control, as well as for further scientific developments and practical application.

We have never been human: Staging subjectivity from Diderot and Artaud to the aesthetics of the European refugee crisis

This essay explores the shifting matrix underlying the pervasive theater that enacts the making and unmaking of human subjectivity by focusing on key historical transformations and prominent contemporary manifestations. Offering a comparative analysis of Denis Diderot’s theory of the actor, and Antonin Artaud’s theater of cruelty, I argue that the paradox of the human had led to human–artwork hybrids well before the digital age of the posthuman recast the body as virtuality. Drawing on a broader understanding and scope of human–artwork hybridization, I examine two different yet equally memorable and infamous responses in 2015 to the European refugee crisis: the Petra László video and Norbert Baksa’s Der Migrant. The aesthetic and cultural practices revolving around the staging of the European refugee crisis constitute a key sphere in which this hybridization is tested, played out and in the context of East-Central Europe, calibrated to a ballad tradition whose generic conventions were reinvented in conjunction with a growing national identity in the 19th century. The ballad of ‘The Walled-Up Wife’ has enjoyed sustained popularity in East-Central Europe, ever since its anachronistic ‘rediscovery’ in multiple national literatures around the mid 1800s. It deserves critical attention, for its extensive cultural history as well as its rich vernacular heritage can shed new light on the ways in which the idea of material embodiment comes to bear extended meanings for a reconceptualization of the human in digital spaces of aesthetic rather than merely socio-political signification.

베이스 드럼 페달의 역사적 변천 과정에 관한 고찰

The purpose of this paper is to study the historical transformation process of the base drum pedal, which can be considered to have played a key role in the birth of the drum set. The invention of the base drum pedal changed from a form in which several players played one percussion instrument to a form in which one player could play multiple percussion instruments, and later, with the development of set drums, new types and mechanisms such as twin pedals and direct pedals emerged. The study of bass drum pedals is very closely related to the history of jazz music development. In the end, it can be judged that the development of bass drum pedals had a very great influence on the birth of modern popular music. We hope this study will help researchers and students in jazz music history, pop music history, instrumental theory and practical music understand the development and development process of bass drum pedals.

The Rule-of-Law as a Problem Space: Wāsṭa and the Paradox of Justice in Jordan

AbstractThis article explores structural entanglements between the rule-of-law, as a globalized aspirational horizon in post-Cold War politics, and corruption, as a highly salient malaise, by way of an ethnography of wāsṭa, an institutionalized practice of patronage in Jordan, and a salient object of corruption discourse in recent years. The article follows wāsṭa and anti-corruption practices in various sites where wāsṭa is most salient and most problematized and situates the contemporary practice in relation to historical transformations in Jordan’s political economy and global discourses on justice and development. While globalized anti-corruption discourses pit practices of patronage and brokerage like wāsṭa against the rule-of-law, an ethnographic and historical view illustrates how the latter is the condition of possibility of the former, the framework by which it is diagnosed, and its presumed cure. Thus, I argue that the rule-of-law should be understood as a historically specific “problem space” that posits corruption as a prime diagnostic of the ills of state and society while generating practical paradoxes and a perpetual sense of temporal out-of-jointedness for “developing” countries.

Татарская застежка-ожерелье яка чылбыры: вопросы генезиса и этнокультурных взаимосвязей

The article is devoted to the history of the formation of the ethnospecific jewelry of the Kazan Tatars – a collar clasp-necklace called yaka chylbyry. This piece of jewelry in its classic look had formed by the early-middle 19th century. However, the artistic image of the constituent elements of this multicomponent product, as well as the techniques of its manufacture, go back to medieval traditions. The publication focuses on an earlier constructive analogue of the yaka chylbyry – a clasp for a woman's camisole in the shape of double sheep larvae. The functional reorientation – the use of a clasp for a doublet as a collar clasp-necklace occurred at the turn of the 18th–19th centuries. The ram's face is considered by the authors as a result of the historical transformation of the "scarab" image typical for Russian caftan fasteners of the 16th–19th centuries. Echoes of the stylized motif of the ram can be seen on the classic yaka chylbyry up to the early-middle of the 20th century.

TERRITORIAL AND DEMOGRAPHIC TRADITIONS OF THE CHERNIHIV-SIVERSKYI REGION

Abstract. The article presents a generalized analysis of the published national historical and theoretical historiography of the process of establishing the territorial and demographic traditions of the Chernihiv-Siverskyi population as part of Kyivan Rus. The territory of their settlement, demographic composition, evolution of the life and lifestyle of the northerners, which have become common traditions of the Indo-European peoples, are determined. The research methodology is based on the heuristic method of systematization of classical and modern scientific thought, historical, geographical, artistic historiography and archaeological sources, which formed the cultural direction of systematization of the reconstruction of the holistic process of the problem. The main historiography to the topic was compiled by the editions of the classics of the historical school, which laid down the fundamental knowledge of social history and culture: from ancient times to medieval Ukraine-Rus, of which the Chernihiv-Siverskyi region was a component. An attempt is made to generalize the theory and historical practice of the transformation of the socio-cultural traditions of the Ukrainian population of the South-Eastern region on the basis of the created all-European and nationally original traditions of Ukraine-Rus. They laid common foundations for the life and livelihood of local tribes, the development of territories, agriculture, public organization, customary law, financial and trade relations, diplomacy, spiritual, cultural and artistic life. Because of the evolution of the development of the components of the Ukrainian nation, a historical transformation and socialization of the transmission of the main spiritual values from paganism to сhristianity took place. On these foundations, the national traditions of consolidating land allotment principalities – Kyiv, Chernihiv, Siver, etc. – have formed and entrenched; hereditary dynasties of the Riurykovych family, in particular the Chernihiv Olhovych, Davydovych; the corresponding composition of the population, characterized by the local climate, flora, fauna, which influenced the character and spirit of the people, proper names - ethnonyms, toponyms, hydronyms.

Study of the two-sided icon "Pieta" / "Holy Martyr Barbara" of the 18th century from the Church of John the Baptist in the village of Dorozhiv, Drohobytsky District, Lviv Region, in the context of the separation process of paint layers and transferring them to a new base

The study is devoted to the problems of restoration of the double-sided icon "Pieta" / "Holy Martyr Barbara" using the method of separation and transfer to a new basis of easel painting. Today, the main task of the restorer is the maximum study, research and preservation of the work of art, its history and transformation over time. The article presented the possible reasons for restoration and repainting of artworks of easel painting, as well as the most widely used methods of "preservation", fixing the layers of later repaintings, which lead to their physical loss due to the discovery of an older, original painting layer. Emphasis is placed on the expediency of applying the technique of layering and transfer to a new basis of easel painting, as an alternative in the context of maximum preservation of the entire structure of the artwork, including later historical transformations. The necessary conditions that precede the successful application of the technique of separation and transfer to a new base of artworks of easel painting are specified. There are presented the general conclusions about the state of preservation and the set of conducted physical-chemical and technical-technological studies of the double-sided icon "Pieta" / "Holy Martyr Barbara" of the 18th century from the church of John the Baptist in the village of Dorozhiv, Drohobytskyi district, Lviv region, and a program of restoration activities. Tests on separation of the paint layer of the 19th century from the "Pieta" icon are presented and the obtained results were analyzed, as a result was selected the optimal method of separation of this painting layer as one whole fragment. The entire process of conservation and restoration processes, including the application of appropriate restoration methods, as well as the specifics of the selection and use of restoration materials, is presented and illustrated. The result of this research using the technique of separation is the preserved painting layer of the icon "Pieta" of the 19th century and the painting of the icon of 1726, created by Ivan Seredyskyi, an icon painter of the Rybotytsky Center of Church Art, opened for further study. Attention is drawn to the study of this icon in the context of the work of Rybotyk masters in the monograph of Roksolana Kosiv.

Rituals Within Walls: Thinking Post-War Japan’s History through Cinematic Allegories of Everyday Life

Between the mid-1960s and the early 1970s, the quotidian dimension took political centrality in Japan thanks to the leading role of the New Left movement and its ideology. This went hand in hand with an appreciation of the philosophical approaches of Marxist intellectuals such as Jun Tosaka and Gorō Hani, who saw the quotidian as a fundamental space for historical transformation. We know how Tosaka and Hani developed an everyday-centred philosophy of history through their writings, but we know little about how formats other than the written word – such as cinema – contributed to thinking historical reality from the same ideological approach. To address this gap in our understanding, this article analyses the intersection of two highly representative films with Tosaka and Hani’s historical thought: Secrets Within Walls ( Kabe no naka no himegoto, Kōji Wakamatsu, 1965) and Ceremonies ( Gishiki, Nagisa Ōshima, 1971). These films’ cinematic allegorisation of post-war Japan’s everyday relationships was a way to reflect on the political character of that period.

Laws: historical transformation, modern understanding, classification

The article considers the historical transformations of the law, and argues that many contemporary scientists are wrong to ignore it. The paper criticizes the approach to the status of laws, which is determined by the degree of their compliance with the criteria of objectivity and rationality. Instead, a classification is constructed that includes the laws of logic and mathematics, natural sciences, technology, as well as social and legal. To consider the processes of unfolding laws in the evolution of reality, the concept of nomogenesis is used. The unification of laws is achieved due to the fact that they are all determined by the balance of their characteristic tendencies: objective / subjective, rational / extra-rational, determination / will. Special attention is paid to social and legal laws. The case of defining three social laws is offered.

Is China financialised? The significance of two historic transformations of Chinese finance

ABSTRACT This article tackles the question of whether financialisation is present in the Chinese economy by analysing two key transformations of the country’s financial system. The first was a state-led reform process through which the Chinese financial system introduced market practices, similarly to the rest of the economy. The second was a market-led process, reflected in the emergence and rise of shadow banking, which originates from within financial markets with the aim of bypassing loan restrictions. The article shows that despite the two transformations and the enormous growth of finance during the past four decades, the underlying character of the Chinese financial system exhibits remarkable continuity. Namely, it remains bank based – albeit partially liberalised – with a predominant role for bank credit and a strong presence for the state. The relational and government-controlled structures of Chinese finance have not been replaced by arm’s length and private mechanisms. On these grounds, it is premature to consider the Chinese economy to be financialised.

Сравнительное изучение антропологических аспектов греческой вазописи и этрусской живописи

Introduction. The fine arts of archaic Greece and Etruria experienced a noticeable influence of the East. The transition from archaic to classical time influenced the forms of depicting the morphological features of a person in antique art. Comparative study of the anthropological features of the antique population of the Mediterranean on the greek painted pottery and etruscan murals of the archaic and classical times was the purpose of our study. Materials and methods. The material was collected in the online-collections of ancient collections of museums. We used the method of a composite portrait in a digital version, the calculation of the frequency of features in our study. Studied features was – beard growth, hair color and nature of the hair. Results and discussion. On the etruscan murals of the archaic period, the frequency of depicting straight nature of the hair in women is the highest (7,7 %) in all samples; for different groups of painted pottery, it does not exceed 7 %. The degree of beard growth according to vase painting and etruscan murals is characterized by a strong and very strong growth. A greater manifestation of hair pigmentation polymorphism according to painted pottery is noted in the images of the classical period. Dark hair predominates in all groups, grey-haired was depicted only in male characters. Hair depigmentation on painted pottery is observed in images of the classical and late classical periods and did not exceed 6 % in the total sample. Pigmentation on etruscan murals indicates a lightening of the hair in the group towards reddish-red shades, depigmentation does not exceed 8%. Features of the depiction of pigmentation in to vase painting and murals, despite the different technique and coloring, reveal common tendencies of variability characteristic of the Mediterranean groups. Composite portraits based on painted pottery reflect the historical transformation of the anthropo-aesthetic ideas of the greeks through the fine arts of the archaic and classical times. Conclusion. Color in greek painted pottery performs not only a decorative function, but is also an artistic means of conveying morphological variability. Involvement of antique written sources of the description of population and the philosophy of color in antique culture can help in the anthropological reading of vase painting and further study of pigmentation polymorphism. @ 2023. This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 license

From “Sangha Forest” (叢林 Conglin) to “Buddhist Academy”: The Influence of Western Knowledge Paradigm on the Chinese Sangha Education in Modern Times

Drawing on Foucault’s theoretical framework of “space and power”, this paper examines the discursive construction of “knowledge” in the context of Chinese Buddhist education. It traces the historical transformation of Chinese Buddhist education from the traditional “Sangha Forest”(the monastic community; 叢林 Conglin) style education to the Buddhist Academy, and analyzes how modern Buddhism reshaped its social image and function from a faith-based to a knowledge-based culture. Furthermore, this paper explores the reasons why modern Buddhism requires “knowledge” as a bridge between its worldly and transcendental dimensions, and the roles of elite laymen and monasteries as “Buddhist Institutes” in the new discursive practice.