Political Life Events Research Articles

FOREFEAST AND AFTERFEAST IN THE CALENDAR PRACTICE OF PRE-MONGOL RUS’

The church calendar came to Russia together with Christianity and quickly came to be something more than a guide for organizing worship services. In the first centuries after the baptism of the Old Rus’, its elite began to systematically link the most important events of political and ecclesiastical life with the festive dates of the Menologion, Menaion and weekly liturgical cycles. The reasons for this can be both spiritual and symbolic as well as practical. The topic of such linking as a part of extra-devotional calendar practice in Russia has been actively studied in recent years, including the author of this article. For the first time in historiography, this paper raises the question whether Old Rus’ princes and bishops, when planning their public ceremonies, attached importance to the fact that many of the main celebrations of the church year, in addition to the main day of celebration, had the so-called fore- and aft erfeasts. The boundaries of these liturgical periods (like multi-day fasts) were regulated by church statutes, including the pre-Mongol Rus’ Alexios’s Stoudios Typikon. And although pre-Mongol sources do not provide explicit answers to the question posed above, they contain much evidence of the coincidence of these multi-day festive periods with princely and episcopal ceremonies, i.e. laying the foundation and consecration of churches, transfer of relics, entrances of bishops to their cathedral cities after their chirotony, intronizations of princes, their congresses, starting military campaigns and marriage rituals. Among these events, special attention should be paid to those which were not scheduled on the days often chosen when planning signifi cant public events, i.e. Sundays and the eve of holidays. The author came to the conclusion that pre- and aft erfeasts were indeed in the field of vision of the organizers of ceremonies and were apparently perceived by them as sacral and semantic “fields” of holidays. And this applies to the representatives of both church and secular elites.

SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND NATIONAL ACTIVISM OF CAPTURED UKRAINIAN SOLDIERS IN THE WETZLAR CAMP, GERMANY, 1917: CONTENT AND FORMS (Based on the Materials of the “Public Opinion” Magazine)

The purpose of the article is to analyze various manifestations of social, political and national activism of captured Ukrainian soldiers in the Wetzlar camp during 1917, when the Ukrainian camp community exerted a decisive influence on all aspects of the lives of camp residents and most effectively fulfilled its main mission – the formation of a developed national worldview among Ukrainian prisoners. The research methodology involved the use of problem-chronological, concrete-historical, and comparative-retrospective research methods, the combination of which made it possible to reveal the investigated problem. The scientific novelty consists in highlighting various aspects of the activism of captured Ukrainians based on the use of materials from the camp press. The prisoners of the Wetzlar camp in 1917 had the opportunity to show their activism in many spheres of camp life, in particular, by participating in meetings and elections to the representative bodies of the Ukrainian community in the Wetzlar camp, joining the ranks of politically engaged societies (“Volya”, “Independent Ukraine”, “Sich”), or helping the development of Ukrainian schooling in the Volyn lands through their donations. This, in turn, influenced the change in the worldview of the prisoners, who stopped using cultural and autonomist slogans for Ukraine, instead they declared their devotion to ideals of independence. This was especially evident in the initiative to hand O. Skoropis-Yoltukhovsky an additional “mandate” with the desire to entrust the decision of the fate of Ukraine not to the Russian, but to the national (Ukrainian) constituent assembly. Regular reading of the materials of the camp magazine “Public Opinion” (“Hromadska dumka”) was also one of the ways of forming an active pro-Ukrainian civic position – thanks to the publication's focus on the events of social and political life in Ukraine and Russia. At the same time, the newspaper tried to cover all significant news from the scope of life activities of the Ukrainian community in Wetzlar, which created a sense of belonging to the camp space among the campers. Due to the fact that the newspaper regularly published messages about national, political, and charitable actions planned in the camp, as well as informed about the content and consequences of the work of the elected bodies of the camp community, the captive Ukrainians felt that they were an integral part of Ukrainian society, capable of building their own national life even in difficult conditions of captivity.

Images of political figures in Anthony Trollop’s novel “The Prime Minister”

The paper, devoted to Anthony Trollope’s novel “The Prime Minister”, analyzes the author’s use of the fact for creating his personages, in particular, his making use of biographical facts of real political figures. The work traces historical events of British political life in the second half of the 19th century and lives of famous politicians – William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli. Special attention is paid to the images of political figures, both conservatives and the so-called new politicians, represented in the novel. The paper is focused on the author’s attention to the fact and his scrupulous depiction of political life, including facts from his own biography and his own political experience, which is a characteristic feature of the whole “parliamentary” series of Anthony Trollope’s novels. The work reveals analogues in the plot of Trollope’s novel, connected with the destiny of one of his main personages, with the destiny of Leo Tolstoy’s heroine as well as with the events that took place in Russia and in England in the end of the 19th century. The paper also focuses on the lives and things that motivate the actions of the rebel-characters in English political and social system in the Late Victorian period.

Portugal: Political Developments and Data in 2022

AbstractIn this article, the main events of political life in Portugal are discussed. It includes a report on general elections in 2022, the formation of a new Socialist absolute majority government led by Prime Minister Antonio Costa, and major parliamentary decisions and debates. The year 2022 started with early general elections, strengthening the ruling Socialist Party, which won a majority of seats in the national Parliament. However, it took some time for the new government to learn to govern in the new context.

Informative possibilities of materials on the history of the peoples of South-Eastern Europe on the site "Cossacks of the XV-XXI centuries"

An article, written on the basis of an electronic source base for researching the history of the South Ukrainian Cossack army in the last quarter of the 18th century (website "Cossacks of the ХV-ХХІ centuries"), examines the history of the close relationship of the Ukrainian Cossacks with the events of political and economic life and the national liberation competitions of the peoples of Moldova, Romania (Wallachia and Northern Dobruja), Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, Serbia, Turkey, Poland, Austria. At the same time, little-studied topics of the fate of the Zaporozhian Cossacks and Cossacks from South-Eastern Europe as part of irregular formations after 1775. The question is raised about the introduction of materials into scientific circulation from archival collections of Austria, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, Croatia, Turkey in order to create comprehensive generalizing studies on the issues under consideration.

Features of the Political Process in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (1997-2021)

The article contains analysis of political transformations in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) in the 1997-2021 aiming to identify its political process’ features within the framework of «one country, two systems» model. A brief description of Hong Kong’s political life events in preceding decades is given, which reflects the key tendencies of Hong Kong’s socio-political development under the British colonial rule. It is stated that establishing of the new political order in the SAR by PRC, intended to form a more accountable administrative model, is realized using the traditional Chinese scheme, which implies establishing China’s unconditional dominance and control over the local administrations’ activity. According to this, institutional transformations were implemented resulting in recentralization of power in the hands of the SAR’s government, also administrative model was changed. The consequences of this shift were series of mass protest actions and reinforcement of political discord in public and government circles. The authors come to the conclusion about conflictive character of Hong Kong’s political process, periodically proceeding on the brink of stability disruption. Currently, prospects of its democratization appear to be unlikely.

POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS OF STUDENTS AND ELECTORAL BEHAVIOR OF MOSCOW YOUTH

The purpose of the article is to diagnose the specifics of the political and electoral consciousness of Moscow students as part of a sociological survey. Research methods: analysis and interpretation of facts, analysis of scientific literature, sociological survey Study sample: 2 groups of youth representatives - students of Moscow universities (250 each) aged 21 to 23 years who had the right to vote during the elections to the Moscow City Duma of the seventh convocation on September 8, 2019. The first group is politically active youth; the second group is young people who have no experience of active participation in socio-political activities. Results. It was revealed that the priority attention of modern researchers on youth electoral behavior is focused on diagnosing the causes of absenteeism and protest behavior, while the issue of the influence of political events and, in particular, election campaigns on the political consciousness of young people is undeservedly overlooked. Based on the results of the author’s sociological survey of 500 representatives of Moscow student youth, it was concluded that young people who regularly participate in socio-political activities have a much more developed, logical, consistent political consciousness than those respondents who do not engage in socio-political activities regularly. Thus, according to the results of the study, politically active respondents are more often interested in the events of political life, are more consistent in their liberal or conservative political judgments and preferences, tend to take responsibility for their fate and well-being, defend violated rights and freedoms by legal methods than respondents who do not take regular part in political life. At the same time, politically inert student youth are more prone to political absenteeism, more susceptible to political manipulation and provocation. The article argues for the need to develop technologies to promote the constructive political consciousness of the youth of the capital, through civil law and patriotic education, educational activities in matters of participation in elections, as well as practical activities to protect the legal rights and freedoms of a person and citizen.

The Influence of Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, and Community Protective Factors on Hong Kong Adolescents’ Stress Arising from Political Life Events and Their Mental Health

Precarious political circumstances can take a mental toll on young people. Adopting a socio-ecological perspective, this study investigated the influence of stress arising from political life events, intrapersonal factors (i.e., meaning in life, resilience), interpersonal factors (i.e., social support, associational social capital), and community factors (i.e., perceived empowerment in the community, perceived opportunities for civic engagement) on the mental health of youth in Hong Kong. Furthermore, it examined the moderating effects of these factors on the relationship between stress arising from political life events and mental health. A cross-sectional quantitative survey with a stratified purposive sampling data collection method was conducted. A total of 1330 secondary school students were recruited for this study. Multiple regression analysis was performed to examine both direct and moderation effects. The results indicate that high stress arising from political life events, low meaningfulness in life, low resilience, low social support, low youth empowerment in the community, and high civic engagement in the community were related to high mental distress. None of the presumed moderators moderated the relationship between stress due to political life events and mental distress. Assessing and addressing stress due to political life events would be potentially important in mental health programs for Hong Kong adolescents in precarious political situations.

The importance of people's control in the implementation of environmental rights: theoretical and legal aspect

The problem of people's control, the importance of which is indisputable for the implementation of environmental rights in the state, is one of the most complex, significant and fundamental issues in the theory of state and law. Theoretical understanding and development of practical recommendations for solving this problem is a necessary condition for effective scientific management of social processes. Discovering the essence of the concept of "people's control" as a fundamentally new legal category for domestic science, as well as solving a number of other problems of theory and practice of such control requires a thorough study of its formation as a separate independent legal institution and approval and improvement of its forms. It should be noted that the control of the people is one of the types of public control, which consists in monitoring citizens over the activities of public authorities, their officials, as well as analysis and verification of these activities, aimed at preventing, detecting and stopping actions that cause violations and legitimate human interests, including environmental. In addition, control is an important factor in the formation of civil society and the element that ensures the relationship between government and the people, which in turn is a necessary condition for building a democratic and legal state. Thus, it can be noted that all the mentioned authors consider only certain areas of people's control, bypassing such an important factor as recognizing it as a separate independent legal institution that has an important impact on the implementation of rights, including environmental. The actualization of this provision is especially intensified in view of the fact that the process of institutionalization of civil society is underway in Ukraine, and the turbulent events of political life give it certain impulses. Thus, the importance of people's control in various spheres of state and public activity, including environmental, is not in doubt, and its level corresponds to the development of democracy, civil society institutions, their impact on public authorities. Public control is designed to increase the responsibility of the state to citizens for its decisions and for the achievement of state obligations, as well as to ensure the proper exercise of rights and freedoms, including environmental.

Effects of War and Armed Conflict on Adolescents’ Psychopathology and Well-Being: Measuring Political Life Events among Youth

ABSTRACT Although research on the consequences of war exposure on children’s mental health has made significant progress in the past decades, a lack of valid measures for quantifying the incidence, severity and variability of exposure can hamper identification of at-risk children and mental health delivery in conflict-affected areas. The present study investigated the psychometric properties of a new political life events scale for youth (PLE-Y) that comprehensively assesses personal political violence exposure history. The PLE-Y was administered to 6,254 adolescents aged twelve to eighteen in two large samples in a region in Israel that has been characterized by high exposure to political violence. Adolescents were assessed for political life events exposure, psychiatric symptoms, emotional and behavioral problems, and subjective well-being. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported a two-factor structure of the PLE-Y (severe and mild), representing the severity levels of exposure. Results confirmed positive relations between severity of PLE exposure and psychiatric symptoms, emotional and behavioral difficulties, and lower subjective well-being. This study demonstrated the importance of taking into account the personal political violence exposure history and the subjective interpretations of impact of the events to accurately identify the mental health risks to youth who are chronically exposed to protracted political violence.

POLITICAL LEADERSHIP AND MUHSIN YAZICIOĞLU AS A POLITICAL LEADER

Çalışmanın amacı, siyasi lider Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu’nun liderlik özelliklerini ortaya koymaktır ve çalışma nitel araştırma yöntemi esas alınarak yürütülmüştür. Esas alınan bu yönteme bağlı olarak Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu’nun siyaset içerisinde birlikte yer aldığı, kartopu örnekleme yöntemi ile belirlenen 20 kişi ile nitel araştırma yöntemlerinden biri olan yarı yapılandırılmış görüşme tekniği kullanılarak görüşme yapılmış, bu görüşmelerden elde edilen veriler betimsel analiz yöntemi kullanılarak analiz edilmiştir. Elde edilen bulgular neticesinde Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu’nun siyaset içerisinde yer aldığı dönemlerde sabit ve tek bir liderlik özelliği göstermediği sonucuna ulaşılmıştır. 1980 öncesinde ani ve tek başına karar almasıyla, teşkilata hizmet edenleri değerlendirip, hizmet etmeyenleri görevden almasıyla ağırlıklı olarak otoriter lider özelliklerini yansıttığı görülmüştür. 1980 sonrasında ise istişareye çok önem vermesiyle, çalışma arkadaşlarına karşı dostane davranışlarıyla, güvenilir bir lider olarak nitelendirilmesiyle, ülkücü camia nezdinde olumlu bir imaj yaratmasıyla, çalışma arkadaşlarının onun ideolojisini benimsemesiyle, siyasi başarıdan daha çok insanlara hizmet etmeyi kendine vazife edinmesi sebebiyle daha çok karizmatik, demokratik, paternalist, dönüşümcü ve hizmetkâr lider özelliklerini gösterdiği sonucuna varılmıştır.

Religious Metaphors in Public Speeches of Turkish Politicians

Religion is an integral part of culture of the Turkish people. An important feature of the cultural and socio-political sphere of Turkey is the frequent use of expressions with religious content, among which metaphor is prominent. This study investigates religious metaphors used by Turkish politicians. The data analysis is carried out on the basis of the material obtained by means of a self-compiled corpus, which consists of public speeches of Turkish politicians (e.g., the President, deputies, and leaders of the main political parties of Turkey) for the period of 2010-2019. The paper claims that the core religious beliefs of the Turks have a great impact on the way they see and perceive the surrounding reality, which is reflected in metaphorical expressions they use. Therefore, Turkish politicians often associate other political figures, political processes, and events of social and political life with religious characters, episodes, and phenomena. This principle formed the basis of the model of “Social and Political Reality is Religion” for its analysis on the metaphoric expressions. The analysis suggests that metaphor is a significant tool of representing Islamic ethics in Turkish public discourse. Despite the fact that a religious metaphoric model is often characterized by positive emotionality, the aforementioned model has both positive and negative connotations.

Surzhyk as a means of pejorative assessment in the language of mass communication

The article states that journalistic broadcasting is intended to create public opinion or to develop an exact attitude of society towards certain phenomena and events of internal political and international life. The Ukrainian-Russian surzhyk is not only focused on the linguistic taste and contemporaries’ sharp speech attention, but also on the position of cognition through its affiliation with another language, Russian in particular, because of its high frequency and semantic correction in accordance with fashionable communication. In the language of mass communication at the beginning of the XXI century, surzhyk often serves for the transmission of linguistic illiteracy, the absence of the language culture of the heroes of publications, as well as to attract the attention of readers to the person, events, phenomena referred to in the text. The Ukrainian-Russian surzhyk is basically the correspondence to well-known and widely used normative words. They are presented mainly in quotations of heroes of publications. It was found out that pejorative vocabulary means lexical units, the lexical meaning of which includes the connotative aspect (negative emotional sem), which expresses the negative attitude of a speaker to an addressee. That may be often vulgar, versatile, slang vocabulary. Researchers of pejorative vocabulary in the language of the press notice that the printed media texts are full of general neutrality of the narrative tone, but in recent times the use of lexemes with a negative assessment has significantly intensified. In the language of modern mass media among surzhykisms such thematic groups are distinguished: the words of politeness, tokens on the designation of food, names of household things, items of everyday use, personal things, also surzhykisms are used in the sphere of trade between the seller and the buyer; sometimes they have an ironic coloration, and so on. We consider that the surzhyk is a kind of Ukrainian national language that arose as a result of use of words of the Ukrainian and Russian languages by the speakers; it is created out of any norms and poses a threat to the national language. Surzhik has a number of objective prerequisites, the historical character associated with the Russian factor in particular. Many years of planting the Russian language could not but affect the purity of the Ukrainian language.

A crowning achievement

The wreaths were consistently used throughout the ancient Greek and Roman world, as well as later in Byzantium, in the major events of religious, political and social life. Crowning rewarded someone who successfully completed a difficult task, undertook an office or achieved a major victory. It indicated that the one crowned was purified and ready to transcend the mundane and ascend mentally into a morally and spiritually superior world.

Children Affected by War and Armed Conflict: Parental Protective Factors and Resistance to Mental Health Symptoms.

This study examined the role of parenting styles and parental warmth in moderating relations between exposure to political life events and mental health symptoms among 277 Israeli adolescents aged 12–14 and their parents, who had been exposed to protracted periods of war, missile bombardments, and terrorism. Adolescents completed the Political Life Events (PLE) scale, Brief Symptom Inventory and questionnaires regarding parenting style and parental warmth. The primary caregiver completed the Child Behavior Checklist for assessment of the child’s internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Results confirmed that severity of PLE exposure was positively correlated with psychological distress and with internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Maternal authoritativeness and warmth functioned as protective factors and had moderating effects on the relation between PLE exposure and mental health symptoms. In contrast, maternal authoritarianism exacerbated the relation between PLE exposure and children’s externalizing symptoms. Fathers’ parenting style and warmth had no significant relationship with children’s mental health outcomes. These findings have important clinical and practical implications for parental guidance and support during periods of war and armed conflict.

El proceso de construcción de la memoria de los años cincuenta en Colombia

Este artículo muestra en qué consiste el proceso de construcción de la memoria de La Violencia de los años cincuenta (el periodo del enfrentamiento a muerte entre liberales y conservadores), proceso que se llevó a cabo durante el Frente Nacional. El artículo parte de la idea de que desde el momento en que la memoria pasa a un primer plano en los ámbitos internacional y nacional es necesario leer con esta clave los acontecimientos de la vida política. Más aún, se considera que la memoria no es una simple búsqueda de la verdad de lo sucedido, sino una elaboración al servicio de múltiples intereses políticos, tanto de liberación como de dominación, en la que toman parte las víctimas y los victimarios. En este texto, se identifican tres campos de elaboración de la memoria y se definen tres formas de rememoración desde el Frente Nacional: la memoria de las múltiples recriminaciones entre conservadores y liberales; la representación de La Violencia como una forma de cataclismo social, a la manera de una fuerza impersonal y ciega; y la consideración de la época como una cruel dictadura, que funciona como un recuerdo encubridor de las atrocidades cometidas. En la construcción de esta última forma de memoria, la gran prensa desempeñó un papel fundamental, con el periódico El Tiempo a la cabeza. La conclusión es que La Violencia no ha encontrado una verdadera integración en la trama de la historia nacional y que el Frente Nacional puso en marcha un proceso de invención de la desmemoria que ha hecho ininteligible lo sucedido para las nuevas generaciones.

Active citizenship and austerity: A Dutch–French comparison of policy, civil society and education

Abstract While several analyses sustain that the declining support for democracy is related to ‘the very fact that external actors were imposing policies from outside’, this article comparing policy, civil society and education in France and the Netherlands emphasizes the role of national tradition in the ways this outside pressure is translated in the national context, and the ways the political effects are expressed. Before trying to assess the effects of the economic crisis on the policies and practices of active citizenship and showing differences between France and the Netherlands, the article sketches more precisely the main features and recent events of Dutch and French political life to understand the context and meaning of active citizenship and citizenship education in both countries.

The Resilience Function of Character Strengths in the Face of War and Protracted Conflict.

This study investigated the role of character strengths and virtues in moderating relations between conflict exposure and psychiatric symptoms among 1078 adolescents aged 13–15 living in southern Israel, who were exposed to lengthy periods of war, terrorism and political conflict. Adolescents were assessed for character strengths and virtues, political violence exposure using the Political Life Events (PLE) scale, and psychiatric symptoms using the Brief Symptom Inventory and the UCLA PTSD Index. Results confirmed that political violence exposure was positively correlated with psychiatric symptoms. Interpersonal, temperance and transcendence strengths were negatively associated with psychiatric symptoms. Moderating effects of the interpersonal strengths on the relation between political violence exposure and the psychiatric and PTSD indices were confirmed. The findings extend existing knowledge about the resilience function of character strengths in exposure to protracted conflict and have important practical implications for applying strength-building practices for adolescents who grow up in war-affected environments.

Gender differences in mental health consequences of exposure to political violence among Israeli adolescents

This study examined the role played by gender differences in the relation between political violence exposure and mental health during adolescence. Understanding these differences is particularly pertinent during the period of adolescence characterized as it is by processes of identity formation and gender role consolidation. Participants were 154 high school students recruited from two high schools in central Israel (78 males, 76 females; average age 16.54), who completed the Political Life Events Scale for measurement of political violence exposure, the Brief Symptom Inventory-18 for assessment of psychological symptoms and disorders, a risk-taking behavior scale, and the Posttraumatic Stress Symptom Scale — Interview (PSS-I) for assessment of posttraumatic stress symptoms. Results reflected high levels on many psychological indicators. The dose–response hypothesis was partially confirmed with adolescents' higher reported political violence exposure related only to higher levels of somatization and greater severity of posttraumatic stress symptoms. Contrary to the literature, only a few gender differences emerged and these showed mixed patterns. Females showed higher levels of anxiety than males, and males showed higher levels of risk-taking behavior. Females exposed to low political violence exposure showed significantly less substance abuse than males but those with high exposure reported significantly higher levels of substance abuse, equivalent to those of males. Findings show a complex constellation of gender effects on relations between political violence exposure and different psychopathological outcomes. Findings of this study indicate the necessity for more refined examination of gender differences in psychological processes in reaction to living in conditions of protracted conflict and war.

Psychiatric effects of protracted conflict and political life events exposure among adolescents in Israel: 1998-2011.

This cross-sectional study investigated relations between conflict exposure and psychiatric symptoms among 8,727 Jewish Israeli adolescents aged 12-17 years from 1998-2011. This 14-year span included periods of terrorism, missile attacks, wars, relocations, military operations, and relative quiet, reflecting a dynamically changing, primarily violent climate. Annual samples from the same cities, geographical regions, and schools throughout the country were assessed for personal political life events (PLE) exposure and for psychiatric symptoms using the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI; Derogatis & Spencer, ). Data were divided into 8 exposure periods: (a) pre-Intifada 1998-2000, (b) Intifada peak 2001-2003, (c) Intifada recession 2004, (d) evacuation 2005, (e) missiles and the 2006 Lebanon war, (f) peak missiles 2006-2007, (g) Operation Cast Lead 2008-2009, and (h) global terrorism 2010-2011. Results confirmed a relation between type of exposure period, PLE exposure, and psychiatric symptoms. In addition, PLE exposure was positively correlated with psychiatric symptoms (β = .49). A moderating effect of gender on the relationship between PLE exposure and the psychiatric index was found, with elevated symptoms among females (β = .30).