Numerous Letters Research Articles

Missionary Writings During the Canton Exile (1666–1671): Controversies on the Inculturation of the Catholic Church

Abstract In the aftermath of the Calendar Case, 25 missionaries arrived in Canton in March 1666. Over the course of their five-year exile, they generated numerous reports and letters which, until now, have not been subject to systematic study. This paper delves into their writings concerning the establishment of three practical norms for the China mission: permitting Chinese Catholics to observe traditional rites honoring their ancestors and Confucius, allowing them to continue fasting under certain conditions, and instructing them to wear a Chinese hat during the liturgy. Though these norms were ratified by majority vote, they were immediately met with opposition. Although the controversy on the Chinese rites is well-documented, it is pertinent to examine these three controversies together, as they pertain to the issue of inculturation within the Catholic Church.

Habsburg-Lotaringiai Mária Leopoldina főhercegnő élete Brazília függetlenné válásának idején

This study aims to provide a Hungarian-language overview of the life and role of the Austrian Archduchess Leopoldina, who became the first Empress of Brazil and rained at the time of Brazil’s independence. Leopoldina’s marriage to Crown Prince Peter connected the houses of Habsburg-Lorraine and Braganza after the Congress of Vienna. The union aimed to strengthen dynastic, political, and economic ties during the period of monarchical restoration and the Holy Alliance. Leopoldina left behind numerous letters, which have become important historical sources. Despite several books being written about her life, no complete biography has been published in Hungarian. The aim of this study is to fill that gap by presenting Leopoldina’s life in Brazil, exploring her role in the independence struggles, and examining her influence on Austro-Brazilian relations. The study seeks to provide an objective assessment of Leopoldina’s role, avoiding both exaggeration and romantic nostalgia. It relies on international litera ture, letters, diplomatic reports, and other contemporary documents. By investigating the circumstances and experiences of Leopoldina’s trip to Brazil, her contributions to Brazilian independence, and the involvement of Hungarian participants in the expedition, the study aims to determine her impact on shaping political events, and concludes that her cultural influence and popularity still persist in Brazil and Austria today.

Visual similarity effects in the identification of Arabic letters: evidence with masked priming

Abstract Research using masked priming and parafoveal preview techniques has shown that visual letter similarity has an impact on word processing during the initial stages in Latin-derived scripts. However, these effects appear to be absent in Arabic. One reason for this discrepancy could be attributed to the distinctive features of the Arabic script, which includes numerous letters sharing a basic form while varying in the location or number of diacritics. To shed light on this issue, the present study employed Arabic letters rather than words in two masked priming experiments: an alphabetic decision task and a letter-matching task. Both experiments showed that visually similar letters were more effective as primes than visually dissimilar letters. These findings suggest that the processes of letter identification in Arabic and Latin scripts may be roughly alike, implying that differences in visual letter similarity across scripts may arise at later stages of processing.

Ranjana Script Handwritten Character Recognition using CNN

This paper proposes a public image database for Ranjana script Handwritten Character Datasets (RHCD), publicly available for Ranjana script researchers or anyone interested in the subject. To the best of our knowledge, the Ranjana script Handwritten Character Dataset (RHCD) is the first publicly available database for Ranjana script researchers. Ranjana script descended from the Brahmi script, consists of 36 consonant letters, 16 vowel letters, and 10 numerical letters. The focus of this research is three-fold: the first is to create a new database for Ranjana script Handwritten Character Recognition; the second is to test the character recognition accuracy of the created RHCD using existing CNN algorithms like LeNET-5, AlexNET, and ZFNET algorithm; the third is to propose a model by investigating different hyper-tuning parameters to improve the recognition accuracy of the created RHCD. The research method applied in this study is dataset collection, digitization & cropping, pre-processing, dataset splitting, data augmentation, and finally, implementing the CNN model (existing and proposed). Performance evaluation is based on the test accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score. The experiment result shows that our model ranks first, with a testing accuracy of 99.73% for 64x64 pixels resolution with precision, recall, and F1-score value 1. Creation and recognition of Ranjana script characters, vowel modifiers, and compound characters can be the next milestone to be achieved. Segmentation of words and sentences into characters and recognizing each character individually can be the next research domain.

Bringing Philo Home: Responses to Harry A. Wolfson’s Philo (1947) in the Aftermath of World War II

AbstractIn 1947 Harry Austryn Wolfson published his massive and revisionary Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. With the book, Wolfson aimed at proving that Philo was an innovative and highly influential philosopher—by no means an isolated Jew of no consequence to the history of philosophy. As becomes clear from numerous letters written to Wolfson on the occasion of the publication of the book and stored at the Harvard University Archives, for Jewish readers Wolfson’s proposed rehabilitation of Philo could provide a point of orientation. It served as a source of comfort and of pride in the post-war years. While the main thesis of Wolfson’s book, Philo as the precursor of medieval philosophy, was rejected by most scholars of Philo and ancient philosophy, the letters and notes discussed in this article show that much more was at stake than a purely academic discussion.

„Powolna sługa a siostra [i ciotka]”. Sprawy rodzinne w korespondencji Anny Jagiellonki

The article is dedicated to the analysis of family relationships in the correspondence of Anna Jagiellon, the daughter of King Sigismund I, and later Queen of Poland. Numerous letters addressed to the sisters (Sophie, Hedwig), brother (Sigismund August), and son-in-law (Sigismund III Vasa) reveal Anna’s concern for different aspects of family life: health, morality, the situation of the members of the dynasty. For Anna, correspondence was a form of confession, an opportunity to complain about various problems. The letters of the Infanta of the Kingdom of Poland contain, sometimes verbalized, sometimes hidden emotions and expectations. They certainly had a therapeutic effect and helped their author in struggling with everyday problems and replacing personal contacts with her family.

A Letter for Thomas Hoccleve?

When Henry V’s war machine trundled through France it was accompanied by a highly sophisticated mobile bureaucracy. Whereas earlier wars came with their own clerks, the extent and organizational depth of Henry’s overseas administrative structure was unprecedented. At its zenith the English government’s continental arm included a chancery branch in Rouen that supported a travelling royal council. The government branches most active in France were the Signet and the Privy Seal: in the years prior to Henry’s death in 1422, both writing offices had half of their staff in France, supporting the king and his lieutenants. There also exist numerous private letters sent to England by these clerks. One such letter was sent by John Offord on 6 June 1420 from the siege of Sens to an anonymous recipient in England. The original no longer survives; it was once probably contained in British Library, MS Cotton Caligula D. v. The manuscript was among those badly damaged by the fire of 1731 in Ashburnham House, where the Cotton Library was then located. Many folios in MS Cotton Caligula D. v. have survived, but all of them display burn marks around all four edges. However, Thomas Rymer transcribed and printed the letter in his Foedera.1 Occasionally, this letter is referenced in treatments of Henry’s marriage, Anglo-French relations in Paris, and the minutiae of the ensuing military campaign against the Dauphinist faction.2 The letter has been printed a number of times before, although it has never been edited.3

Bosančica (Western Cyrillic) through the selected border’s (krajišnik’s) letters

Bosančica (Western Cyrillic) through the selected border’s (krajišnik’s) letters The importance of the written word is immutable to humanity because it was the main driver and keeper of every culture. In this context, the paper also looks at letters that, upon the arrival of Ottoman authorities, were accepted as such as a means of communication between the Captain of Krajina and other Ottoman generals with Croatian officers and authorities ‘on one side of the border’;. They are written mostly in one type of Bosniancyrillic, mostly with an icicle, and only with some eyebrows. In these letters that we call the ‘signatures’, we see the respect of the culture of the recipients expressed through a properly measured amount of localizations, turks and other so-called. a stranger, who witnesses not only national, but also religious tolerance. These numerous letters in use from the 15th to the middle of the 19th century have great value for studying history, cultural heritage, politics and social and economic history. The author illustrated his conclusion with four such letters from the 18th century.

Henri Grégoire in Nice: The Communication Strategy of a National Convention Member in the Alpes-Maritimes Department, 1793

Drawing on the writings of Henri Grégoire, abbot and constitutional bishop, member of the French National Convention, and other sources, the authors of the article analyse various aspects of the religious policy of the French revolutionary authorities in the new French department of Alpes-Maritimes (until 1792 — the county of Nice within the Kingdom of Sardinia). In March — April 1793, members of the Convention, in their capacity as commissioners of Paris, were on a mission to Nice, where they were engaged in organising new institutions of power and dealing with other issues of social and religious life. In historiography there is a good tradition of research on the activities of Grégoire and Jagot in the Alpes-Maritimes Department (Henri Moris, Joseph Combet, Françoise Hildesheimer, Michèle-Helyett Siffre, Georges Doublet, Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall, Marc Ortolani). However, a number of important pieces of evidence have remained out of the historians’ view. As the authors demonstrate, in many respects the members of the Convention were successful. They reorganised all the municipalities, formed three new districts, organised the election of administrators, magistrates, judges and members of the Convention, settled relations with people’s societies which, during the breakdown of power, had tried to take over some of the administrative powers, and forced the enrolment of “new citizens” in the National Guard and as volunteers. Only the “question of religion” remained unresolved. Grégoire and Jagot avoided radical steps: the time for the total “de-Christianisation” that swept across France in waves in 1793—1794 was not yet ripe. Examples of a cautious “preaching” strategy in this matter are the numerous letters and instructions of the Convention commissioners, as well as Grégoire’s “Address” to the citizens of Nice, published in Italian, apparently at the end of April 1793, which, so far, has not been studied by historians. The Appendix to this article contains the first Russian translation with commentary of “An Address to the Citizens of the Department of Alpes-Maritimes by Citizen Grégoire, Member the National Convention and Commissioner of the Same in This Department. Nice, 1793” (“Indirizzo a’ cittadini del dipartimento dell’ Alpi Marittime del cittadino Gregoire deputato, e commissario della Convenzione Nazionale in questo dipartimento. Nizza, 1793”).

A Contribution to the Biography of Ivan Šalić

Contemporary historiography, so far, has not engaged in researching the biography of Ivan Šalić, the personal secretary of the Archbishop of Zagreb Alojzije Stepinac. Since the communist system was averse to Šalić and the Catholic Church in Croatia, it is not surprising that, to date, no one has made a critical review and analyzed his life and priestly service. This paper aims to show the life and significance of Ivan Šalić based on archival documents held in the Croatian State Archives in Zagreb and Šalić's birthplace in Bebrina (near Slavonski Brod). Numerous postal cards and letters testify to his life, especially the period when he was imprisoned in the Stara Gradiška Penitentiary (1946–1953). The paper will present his life from birth to death and analyze the correspondence with his family to emphasize his importance for the Catholic Church in Croatia.

«Художественные фуги» и «боевые рапсодии» 22-летней переписки (к выходу в свет переписки В. В. Розанова и П. П. Перцова)

This article is about the two-volume scholarly edition of the complete correspondence (499 letters) between Vasily V. Rozanov, a popular if controversial essayist and philosopher, and Pyotr P. Pertsov, a compiler, editor, and publisher of Rozanov’s four early books, which paved the road to Rozanov’s fame. The edition was prepared by Yelena I. Goncharova and Olga L. Fetisenko of the Institute of Russian Literature (St. Petersburg) and published by the Pushkin House Publishers in the series Russian Conversations in 2023. This publication of Rozanov’s largest correspondence is an important contribution to the research of his epistolary heritage and of the entire Russian culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Pertsov was not a famous person but a widely educated and independent critic, journalist, publisher, and thinker, who had his own opinion on all contemporary issues. His letters provide a “counterpoint” addition and often a friendly critical “correction” to the ideas of Rozanov, whose letters demonstrate all the brilliance of his boundless imagination and his daring, sometimes even shocking literary passages. The letters cover all the major phases of the creative paths of the two correspondents. This article also sheds light on various aspects of the literary life and ideological issues associated with the two Russian revolutions and demonstrates how these two political events affected the views of the corresponding writers. Although parts of these numerous letters have already appeared in different publications, this work is the first complete and thoroughly annotated edition that presents the epistolary legacies of Rozanov and Pertsov both within the context of the correspondents’ entire creative work and of the literary and philosophical thought of the Russian Silver Age.

«Авторские силы учеников»: М. Горький и начинающие писатели поселка Норское (Ярославская область)

Numerous letters of the writer’s correspondents are stored in the Archive of A. M. Gorky IWL RAS. They shared with the writer their impressions of what they had read, asked for help in literary endeavors, asked for advice, and sent their essays for review. Among M. Gorky’s correspondence there is a letter from a member of the editorial board of the school literary magazine, teacher and local historian Sergei Petrovich Suryaninov (Krasnoperevalskaya Factory school, Norskoye settlement, Yaroslavl region). Suryaninov attached two continuations of Gorky’s story “Mother” to the letter. “Pavel after the Tsar’s Trial” – works by 7th grade students Vladimir Tikhomirov and Mikhail Vereykin. Two essays are interesting for the students’ comprehension of what they have read, the desire to learn more about Gorky’s work, and the desire to change the fate of the characters. Students’ texts are artistically imperfect. The continuations of the original work demonstrate the students’ study of the plot of the story. Young authors borrow images of heroes and elements of the original text; events significant for plot-building unfold within a given chronotope, but students prolong the time thread and thereby weaken deep intertextual connections with the original. Creative works are examples of the activation of the children’s literary movement in the 1930s, the awakening of writing talents among active readers, as well as examples of “continuation texts” as a kind of secondary text. The article analyzes the work of methodologist M. A. Rybnikova, who was engaged in the development of children’s verbal creativity in the 1920s and 1930s. Her activity was in line with the Gorky strategy of educating writers. The responses of young readers to Gorky’s work “Mother” are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. Critical and emotional reviews were important for all participants in the literary process. They allowed the author to get a reaction to the work and feel his relevance. Reviews helped the reader to evaluate what they read and establish feedback with the author, they formed a readership. The appendix of the article contains a letter from S. P. Suryaninov and the writings of V. Tikhomirov and M. Vereykin as an illustration of the methodical and artistic work of the literary circle.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning Beverly Taylor (bio) The latest volume of The Brownings' Correspondence (Wedgestone, 2022) is once again the greatest boon of the year to Browning scholarship. The delay of volume 28, covering correspondence from both Brownings in the period spanning May 1860–February 1861, caused by a change in printers, kept students of the poets' works perpetually wanting more. Now it is here, and this volume does not disappoint. Superbly edited by Philip Kelley, Edward Hagen, and Linda M. Lewis, it provides authoritative texts, crucial and expert annotations, and in three very useful appendices, biographical sketches of correspondents not previously identified in the series (in this volume, William Cornwallis Cartwright, the Brownings' neighbor in Rome), quotations of relevant passages from supporting documents, and contemporary reviews of the Brownings' works published during the period covered (in this instance, EBB's Poems before Congress and Aurora Leigh). This volume ends with a unique contribution, representing forty-three images from EBB's "own" personal carte-de-visite album, which she purposefully collected after RB gave her the album in October 1860. RB's 1878 notation on the front flyleaf of the album assures viewers that all the photos were chosen and arranged by EBB herself. These include many participants in the complex events of the Risorgimento, most of them Italian patriots, military and political leaders, and supporters of the movement (including Napoleon III, Camile de Cavour, and Garibaldi)—what she called "the public men mixed up with the Italian question" (p. 202), though she also included Pio Nono (Pope Pius IX), whom she viewed as an impediment to unification. She wrote that these photographs were "the most deeply interesting of possible sights," insofar as "souls are seen in faces" (p. 202). A couple of the photographs seem to document personal friendships rather than roles in [End Page 348] the Risorgimento (such as Walter Savage Landor, who had come under RB's guardianship, and Seymour Kirkup, an English artist and art historian residing in Florence), and a couple of the images from cartes-de-visite have been lost (those of the opera composers Verdi and Rossini). EBB's focus on the Italian movement toward unification and independence as a nation-state occupies many of the letters in this volume, most of them concerned with attitudes toward Louis Napoleon, now the French Emperor Napoleon III: Was he a hero who risked much by daring to champion Italy militarily against Austrian forces? Or was he an untrustworthy ally, who merely feigned sincere support in order to grab Italian territory to aggrandize France? In numerous letters, EBB reports that she has been vilified for supporting Napoleon III: at one point, she remarks that in England, where her "A Curse for a Nation" was hotly deplored, "they pay me a good deal . . . with mud and eggshells" (p. 195). A couple of unusually long letters to EBB reveal critical friends attempting to argue with her belief that Napoleon III merited praise and trust. On 3 September 1860, her old acquaintance Robert Bulwer Lytton (Owen Meredith) wrote that while Louis Napoleon's ends were not necessarily "selfish," his means were "unscrupulous" (p. 129). Later the same month, Frederick Tennyson (Alfred's brother, who became a friend of the Brownings in Florence) wrote EBB a less reasoned and persuasive letter to argue that Louis Napoleon's name represented 666, the mark of the beast (a creation of the devil), in three ancient languages: Hebrew, Greek, and Latin (p. 168). Despite her resistance to complaints that she betrayed her Englishness by supporting Italy so passionately, and happy to be popular in America, she nevertheless remarked, "anti-English as I am said to be, I prefer an English audience very much" (p. 217). The other major focus of EBB's correspondence in this year is her grief over the suffering of her sister Henrietta with uterine cancer. Longing to help nurse her beloved sister, she both praises her other sister, Arabella, for caring for Henrietta and also expresses distress that Arabella is on-site to care for the patient while EBB is separated by great distance. Even as she acknowledges that Arabella and RB are correct in judging that the cold of...

Hugh Lenox Scott, 1853–1934: Reluctant Warrior by Armand S. La Potin

Reviewed by: Hugh Lenox Scott, 1853–1934: Reluctant Warrior by Armand S. La Potin James Bailey Blackshear Hugh Lenox Scott, 1853–1934: Reluctant Warrior. By Armand S. La Potin. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2021. Pp. 228. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.) In this biography, historian Armand S. La Potin details the life of a consummate military man of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Hugh Lenox Scott was born in Kentucky in the middle of the nineteenth century. His father, an educator and minister, died when he was eight. His mother then moved the family to New Jersey, where his grandfather, principal of the Princeton Theological Seminary, helped to shape Scott’s early years. La Potin points out that Scott’s growing up within this literate and well-connected family paid many dividends. Using numerous family letters, military correspondence, and government records, La Potin chronicles Scott’s rise from West Point cadet to military governor of the Sulu Archipelago during the U.S. occupation of the Philippines. The author also details Scott’s time in 1870s Dakota Territory, his interactions with Fort Sill Comanches, and his experiences as an officer during the Spanish-American War. The last half of the book looks at his military service during the twentieth century. Under Woodrow Wilson, Scott served as both acting secretary of war and army chief of staff. In the process of covering this soldier’s career, La Potin details Scott’s role in every major event in which the U.S. military was involved between 1877 and 1918. At the same time, as the subtitle indicates, this is less a history of tactics and battles than of one man’s earnest attempt at diplomacy and relationship-building. In clear narrative style, La Potin begins by following Scott away from West Point to the northern Great Plains. His posting to the Seventh Cavalry occurred soon after Custer’s defeat at the Little Big Horn. Under Colonel Nelson Miles, he was involved in the campaigns to reign in the remaining Lakota Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho who refused to live on reservations. Here, La Potin puts in place the theme that runs throughout the work: no matter what period or event, Scott was always interested in avoiding conflict and promoting peace among the peoples he was sent subjugate. At the same time, the author is quick to point out the contradictory challenges involved in such an undertaking. Another thread throughout is how Scott’s powerful East Coast connections helped to facilitate his rise within the army hierarchy. This, combined with his own ability to connect with his peers as well as the different cultures with which he came into contact helps illustrate his rise from frontier diplomat to military administrator. One of Scott’s longest postings was to Fort Sill, Oklahoma. There, the defeated Comanche and Kiowa held many of the same grievances and presented the same challenges that he had had to work through with the Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Nez Percé from his earlier posts. While in Indian [End Page 133] Territory, he dealt with the implementation of the Dawes Act, corrupt government agents, greedy merchants, Chiricahua Apache resettlement, and the Oklahoma Land Run. Land issues and Scott’s interactions with Quanah Parker are detailed here, as are his constant battles with local and national politicians, federal bureaucrats, and War Department supervisors. Later chapters on the Spanish American War highlight Scott’s time as Leonard Wood’s chief of staff and adjutant general. His relationship with the irascible Wood is expertly detailed, as is his subsequent role as the military governor of the Sulu Archipelago. Here, among a majority Muslim population, his skills as a negotiator are put to task. La Potin does not shy from the obvious. Scott’s attempts to ingratiate himself within a variety of subjugated societies reveals that his empathetic nature and efforts to do good were shot through with a paternalism that impacted every decision he made, whether interacting with the Sioux or the Moros. Such insight is found throughout this book. While reading this biography I could not help but liken Hugh Lennox Scott to the fictional Forrest Gump. From Red Cloud to Teddy Roosevelt, Quanah...

FAKES AND PROPAGANDA IN THE INFORMATION STRUGGLE OF THE SOVIET AUTHORITIES WITH THE OUN (B)

The purpose of the article is to analyze the content and methods of presenting fakes in the information struggle of the Soviet government against the nationalist movement. Dialectical, systemic, and structural-functional methods were used for the complex study of the research goal. The article analyzes the destructive use of the press as a tool of information warfare. The following components of Soviet propaganda were established: 1) the object of informational influence was the individual and group consciousness of the population of the USSR; 2) the goal was to neutralize the influence of the OUN and the planting of communist ideology; 3) fixed assets – propaganda, misinformation, manipulation, fakes. The content of the main propaganda narratives of the Soviet press is described. The press has become one of the means of manipulating and internally controlling the public opinion of the population of the USSR. In the information confrontation, the Soviet authorities formed a branching infrastructure. The means used by Soviet propaganda ranged from half-truths to outright lies. One of the principal fakes was identifying the Ukrainian nationalist movement with German Nazism, which aimed to create stereotypes in the minds of the Ukrainian population, an attempt to form an image of the internal enemy, which is under external control. This basic narrative was divided into narrower plot lines, including the «kulak» origin of the members of the OUN (b) and, accordingly, the hostile attitude of nationalists to the majority of the population of the USSR. One of the tasks of the Soviet press was to disorganize the OUN (b), which was achieved through the publication in newspapers of numerous appeals and letters from former OUN members, data on the successful activities of Soviet security forces with the nationalist movement. The specificity of Soviet propaganda was the consideration of the religious factor in creating fake information, which was to improve the perception of the population of Western Ukraine of the simplified and distorted information broadcast by the Soviet authorities.

GUI Based Optical Character Recognition using Neural Networks

The Optical Character Recognition (OCR) process means the transition from examined primer or written images to a machine- adjudged document. The American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) in cognitive processing uses OCR. The challenge is two primary clans word segmentation by letters and character recognition. Apply a new approach to include the two functions by Scale-Invariant Transforming Feature (SIFT) descriptors. To compare SIFT descriptors (RootSIFT), construct a new procedure, that offers outstanding results without accelerating calculation or repository conditions. In order to identify English characters, proposed system suggests that the reverse propagation neural network for bracket of character be employed. Conducted trials with further than 10 expedients aimed for every character and tried the delicacy for numerical figures, map letters, small letters, and alphanumeric symbols. The interpretation analysis of optimized neural network algorithm has attained an outside.

Državna politika razdvajanja službenika Islamske zajednice u Bosni i Hercegovini (1945-1963)

The attitude of the new authorities in Yugoslavia (and Bosnia and Herzegovina) towards the officials of the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, from the end of the Second World War to 1963, especially the state policy of separating „reactionary“ from „positive“ officials of this community, seems to be of the most important segments for the overall understanding of communist policy towards religious communities. So far, we cannot boast of fundamental work on this issue, not only because the original archival material is scarce, but also because there was a lack of good will to explain this problem factually and comprehensively. The issue of separating the „positive“ from the „reactionary“ officials of the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been the subject of continuous attention of the federal and republican commissions for religious affairs, as well as other authorities that more or less participated in creating and implementing state policy towards religious communities, including the Islamic Community. This paper contextualises the legal and political post-war circumstances in which the Islamic Community operated and analyses the manifestations and effects of the communist policy of establishing differentiation among the officials of this community. Religious rights and freedoms prescribed by the federal and republican constitutions did not simultaneously imply their concrete implementation in practice. The practical application of religious rights and freedoms on the ground largely depended on the will of party organisations and their political goals. In the category of those who should be disempowered, the communist government included the Islamic Community, which according to the ideological views of this government should have been economically weakened by a series of restrictive laws. That is why, in the first months after its liberation, AVNOJ'S Yugoslavia began to speed up the adoption of legal regulations that limited the property and rights of religious communities, including the Islamic Community. The new government did not respect the specific elements of religious communities, treating them in exactly the same way as other landowners and private entrepreneurs. By 1963, the communist government had adopted a set of legal regulations on the basis of which the state proceeded to confiscate the property of the Islamic Community through legal mechanisms of confiscation, nationalisation, sequestration and expropriation. Along with the disempowerment measures, the measures to bring this community under control by the government were also applied. For this purpose, the policy of separating „reactionary“ from „positive“ officials of the Islamic Community was used, among other things. Numerous reports, analyses and letters from the Commission for Religious Affairs pointed out that, unlike the leading representatives of the Islamic Community in the lower structures of this community, the readiness to cooperate with the authorities was not at such a level. Due to such assessments, the Commission considered that the officials of the Islamic Community on the ground were for the most part „reactionary“, and that „in a sense there is a danger of separating the top“ from the lower officials of this community. Numerous materials from the Commission on Religious Affairs from the 1950s and early 1960s stated that there were still „reactionary elements“ within the Islamic Community who were opposed to the socialist social order. However, especially since the late 1950s, it has been pointed out that such individuals are few and are unable to have any decisive influence on members of the Islamic community. Therefore, the governing structures in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the late 1950s stated that in general it can be concluded that the situation in the Islamic Community is „very favourable“. In their opinion, the officials and the vast majority of officials are patriotic and willing to cooperate, as well as to accept all proposals that are in accordance with the Constitution and laws. The state policy of awarding decorations was also in the function of supporting and affirming the „positive“ officials of the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Свобода вибору країни проживання: рееміґрація з Канади в Українську РСР (1955–1960-ті роки)

The article examines the peculiarities of the Soviet policy of return-to-the-homeland campaign from Canada to the Ukrainian SSR, which since 1955 was conducted by the Committee for Repatriation to the Motherland. The Ukrainian Diaspora in Canada occupied a special place in the committee’s efforts. The propaganda campaign for re-emigration was aimed at forming a positive images of the Soviet Union / Ukrainian SSR, in particular their economic achievements. The emotional component that was used to stir up nostalgia among the Diaspora was also fully used. The Ukrainian pro-communist press published numerous letters by Ukrainians who had lived in Canada but returned to their native land as evidence of the wonderful life in Ukraine. The return-to-the-homeland campaign was helped by leftist Canadian organizations (such as Association of United Ukrainian Canadians) through their own newspapers. It regularly published letters to friends in Canada from recent returnees. The return-to-the-homeland campaign was conducted in the context of the Cold War and the difficult relationship between Canada and the Soviet Union. However, re-emigration from Canada did not become so massive, as hoped for by its organizers, and by its scale was inferior to reminiscences from other countries (for example, from Argentina). The hundreds of Canadians who resettled in the Soviet Union in the second half of the 1950s represented only a small part of the Ukrainian origin community in Canada. But even in this situation, the Canadian government’s position on the return-to-the-homeland campaign was clearly considered too passive by members of the Ukrainian Canadian Committee. Canadians who returned to the U.S.S.R. felt duped and were not easily integrated into Soviet life. Those who succumbed to the manipulation of Soviet propaganda were quickly disappointed with the realities of life in the Ukrainian SSR and began to appeal for a return. Such persons immediately fell within the sight of the Committee of State Security, whose staff conducted “preventive conversations” with them. From the Canadian government’s perspective, there were no problems for people who had been born in Canada and they were eligible for Canadian citizenship. From the Soviet point of view, such steps were equivalent to political betrayals and were completely prevented. Separate cases of successful returns to the ocean were fixed at the beginning of the 1970s, which became possible due to the detente of international tensions during the Cold War and more persistent actions by Canadian authorities. A small number of repatriates managed with considerable difficulty to return to Canada. Some of them (N. Demydenko, E. Lenko) have been seeking permission to go to Canada for several years.

The everyday life of the Pskov borderland at the dawn of the Peter the Great era

The subject of the study is the daily routine of the Pskov border region in the description of foreign travelers who visited the Russian state at the beginning of the reign of Peter the Great. The testimonies of travelers, diplomats and the military allow to trace the first changes related to the road infrastructure, the attitude towards foreigners and the way of life of the local population observed in the last quarter of the XVII century. The impression that the Pskov road made on travelers often left its indelible imprint on the entire perception of the Russian state by foreigners, and through numerous letters, diaries and reports, the image of Russia in Europe was laid on the eve of large-scale Peter's reforms. Up until the beginning of the Great Northern War, the foundation of St. Petersburg and the expansion of the borders of the Russian state, the roads of the Pskov border played an extremely important role in maintaining contacts with European countries, which led to increased attention to them both from the tsarist administration and foreign travelers. The quality of roads and related infrastructure in the border region continued to improve during the period under review. Travelers compared the sections of their route to the roads after crossing the border. Many foreign travelers noted the best quality of the road in the possessions of the Russian tsar in comparison with Polish and even Swedish possessions.

Reakcje Stolicy Apostolskiej wobec wybuchu wojny na Ukrainie w 2014 roku

The article presents the results of research on the reaction of the Holy See to the outbreak of war in Ukraine in 2014. Numerous papal messages, letters, appeals, speeches and talks with representatives of diplomacy have been shown, which indicate active dialogue during the emerging conflict. The representatives of the Holy See initiated meetings in the international arena that dealt with the issue of peace in Ukraine. The publication also presents the dialogue and joint initiatives of religious communities in Ukraine, initiated by the Holy See. So is mutual teaching that unequivocally calls for a condemnation of violence and an end to hostilities in Ukraine. The implementation of the research process also shows the Holy See’s contemporary involvement in the current course of events and ensuring peace in Ukraine.