Journal articles on the topic 'Norway – Social conditions – 17th century'

17th-century whaler graves on Spitsbergen threatened by melting permafrost. Deterioration of the permafrost due to climate change could endanger the conservation status of 17th-century whaler clothing in an old burial ground on Ytre Norskøya, off the coast of the island of Spitsbergen (Norway). In 1980, during the Smeerenberg project, a unique collection of woollen and silk clothing was excavated, but more recent excavations of eroding graves on Spitsbergen did not find much clothing. Permafrost thaw may have accelerated the break-down of fabrics. An expedition was undertaken to investigate the permafrost and the surface conditions of the graves in the entire burial ground. The soil conditions were scanned using three geophysical techniques, the burial ground was mapped with a drone, and the graves were measured and described by archaeologists. In this paper, we describe our methods and show the first results.

Mukkutar Pallu was an anonymous poem which depicts the life of Pallar community in the Southern part of Tamil Nadu during 17th century. They were ancient tribes and have a glorious past. The Pallers were the prominent agricultural community in the Tamil society. In this poem the poet records various events which were took place the 17th century. Pallar and Palliyar were the main role in this work. The poem beautifully records various events in the life of Pallar community. The personal life, agricultural works, religious conditions, belives, economic states, social conditions were beautifly recorded in this work. The feudal conduction at that time and the untouchablity a cruel custom which dominates the society at the time were recorded in this book. This book has considered as a time and historical valuable record of 17th century Tamil Nadu. The dialet which was spoke by the Pallar community were used in this book was this was the speciality of this book.

Introduction. The first state educational institution for teacher’s training was the teachers’ seminary established in 1783. However, the teaching profession appeared in Russia long before that and was supported by social request. This fact builds questions about transformations of public expectations in relation to teachers, i.e. about the history of the social order to teachers. That order had not been realized and reflected in some documents for a long time, but its influence on education in Russia can be clearly observed already in the 17th century. Purpose setting. The article attempts to determine features of its becoming. Methodology of the study. The research is based on a large layer of literature, on the principles of dialectics and historicism, and uses comparative historical analysis, deduction, culturomics, content analysis, statistics and other theoretical methods. Results. Features of forming of a social order to teachers in the 17th and 18th centuries are identified and specified. The factors and conditions of its forming in the specified historical period are characterized; its structural components were determined, also patterns of changes in the social order for teachers and its actualization time were detected. Conclusion. In the 17th century, there was an order for teachers in the Russian Tsardom, the subject of which was the church, but partly also the state and townspeople. The state imposed requirements on teacher’s work, regulating some aspects of school organizing. The emerging in those times trend of transition from religious characteristics of the teacher to professional ones finally took shape at the beginning of the 18th century, when the state order for teachers had been formed. By the middle of the century, the image of the teacher had radically changed, and there were requirements of professionalism in the being taught science and of positive personal characteristics, which found its place in organizing of the first teachers’ seminary: the order for teacher’s methodological training began thanks to it. Patterns of formation of a social order to teachers (society always has high expectations from either professional or personal characteristics of the teacher; during periods of social conflicts and changes the requirements for his personal characteristics are actualized; that transfer depends on social stability) confirm that clearly it depends on historical periods and socio-political conditions.

English competition law before 1900 developed over many centuries and reflected changes in political conditions, economic theories and social values. It mirrored the historical movements in England, from the medieval ideal of fair prices and just wages to 16th and 17th century nation-state mercantilism to the 18th and 19th century Industrial Revolution and notions of laissez faire capitalism and freedom of contract. English competition law at varying times articulated three fundamental principles: monopolies were disfavored; freedom to trade was emphasized; and fair or reasonable prices were sought. The Sherman Act truly was a watershed that significantly took a different path from English law as it had evolved. In England, legal challenges to monopolization were limited to the royal creation of monopolies and were concentrated in the 17th and early 18th centuries. A prominent element of English competition law—bans on forestalling—was repealed in the first half of the 19th century. Enforcement of English law against cartels was largely emasculated by the end of the 19th century with the ascendancy of freedom of contract and laissez faire political theory.

Abstract This article deals with a critical analysis of the currently popular concept of “inclusion”. It wants to show that the idea of „inclusion“ is not as new as the term, thus trying to trace the roots of this idea to the 17th century. The article also shows that inclusion currently remains a social utopia whose implementation in the face of the prevailing conditions at schools and in society is still far away.

The article is devoted to the theoretical understanding of the history of colonial policy of the Duchy of Courland in 1645–1731 through the prism of the phenomenon of a “colonial reality” based on Fernand Braudel’s concept of three levels of historical time and Immanuel Wallerstein’s world-systems analysis. The article also examines with the help of the postcolonial approach the practice of applying a colonial episode of the history of Courland by some modern nations in the context of “postcolonial instrumentalization” of this issue. The following conclusions are as made: 1) at the level of “event history”, colonialism of Courland organized in a typical way of the 17th century in the form of “point” settlements in Gambia and on Tobago (it included also iron mines in Norway leased from Denmark) was part of Jacob Kettler’s (years of reign 1642–1681) project of turning his state into a “second Holland”; 2) within the “time of very long duration”, Courland had convenient geographic but unfavorable geopolitical conditions for the overseas expansion; 3) within the “time of long duration”, colonial policy of the Duchy faced insurmountable obstacles connected with its ethnosocial structure and its peripheral position within the 17th century world-economy; 4) from 1698 to 1731, Duke Jacob’s heirs contested vainly the Island of Tobago as part of the “Courland inheritance”; 5) at the present stage, we can see how some modern nations use this episode to overcome their “postcolonial syndrome” (Latvians, Belarusians) and justify their “imperial” ambitions (Poles). At both levels (“colonial reality” and “postcolonial instrumentalization”), attempts to escape from the periphery into the core are evident.

The start of the consumer society in Norway is examined by studying the increased imports of colorants and their constituents during the 18th century. Based on historical customs records, 82 imported pigments and dyes, 27 binders and additives and nine mordants and auxiliaries are presented. Imports increased significantly in the middle and at end of the century, representing two chromatic “revolutions”. This was especially evident for lead white and indigo; being the only particularly white and blue pigments used for painting and dyeing, respectively. Red dyes at different prices and properties (brazilwood, madder and cochineal) met the demands for red textile coloring in different social groups. The study presents a comprehensive overview of colorant imports and provides new insights in the development of consumption in Norway. Colorant imports were probably initiated by a supply-driven positive feed-back loop as a result of increased export trade. This was followed by a demand-driven loop, involving increased domestic trade, product preferences, “fashionability”, consumer culture, economic conditions and enlightenment. A model is presented that can contribute to a further understanding of the start of the consumer society in the second half of the 18th century in Norway.

The article analyses traveling conditions in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 16th–17th century. It is aimed at establishing the reasons for the mobility of the GDL citizens in the period in question which were affected by social and economic changes as well as those related to the development of the urban network in the country. Several types of journeys have been distinguished which is indicative of the intensity of population mobility. The general road condition was far from excellent which affected their usability, particularly in wet spells. Attempts to ensure road maintenance and repairs were not equally distributed and not always timely. This was one of the factors accountable for the pace and comfort of traveling. The research also dwells on the everyday life on the road that both the citizens of the country and its visitors experienced as well as issues related to attacks on travellers and highway robberies.

The historical aspect of the development of state social policy of social protection of children in Europe from the 17th to 21th centuries is considered in the article. The purpose of the article is to highlight the peculiarities of the historical development of the state policy of social protection of children in European countries of the 17th to 21th centuries and learning from the experience of social protection of children in the context of Ukraine's European integration. The regulatory framework of the system of social protection of children in Ukraine has been studied. The statistic on different categories of children in need of social protection by the state is analyzed. The structure of the system of social protection of children in Ukraine is considered. The research methodology is based on the principle of priority of universal human values. As part of the tools of the proposed work the theoretical one is the analysis and generalization of scientific sources, educational and methodological publications on the theme and synthesis, as well as comparison and generalization of data. Based on the analysis of materials on the peculiarities of social protection in the UK, Germany, France, Sweden and Norway, it was determined that the social protection of children in Europe is characterized by assistance to them in providing conditions for the realization of their rights and freedoms. Equally important is the setting up of various charitable institutions, schools, penal colonies that help children change, as well as the emergence of social services that protect the rights and interests of children. The authors suggest that in the course of the studying the history of the issue of state policy of children’s social protection, there is an opportunity for analogies, the implementation of already proven steps on the path of democratization of national social protection policy. The researchers see the prospects for further research in the study of global innovative forms of social protection and support for at-risk children.

Yusuf Nabi from Urfa is one of the important poets of 17th century Classical Turkish Literature. He is the pioneer of the hikemi style which is a leading literary school of 17th century and examples of which is seen from an earlier period in the field of Iranian literature. Within tent to leave a legacy to his son Abu'l-Hayr, the Poet wrote one of his important work "Hayri-name" or "Hayriyye" with his common name. The work of his was written in the style of pend-name, a style belonging to Ottoman field Classical Turkish Literature. However, his work was far from being understood in terms of content, style and language by Abu'l-Hayr who was only eight years old at the time. Due to being of a certain age, the Poet feared that he would be unable to guide his son in related matters, so he wanted to leave written advice for him as inheritance. Written to provide guidance and teach manners, the work contains some topics related to political, social, economic and cultural areas. The work, which Nabi formed according to mesnevi verse style, contained right at the beginning of it a detailed explanation in the issue of the Conditions of Islam. The Conditions of Islam are essential for each member in a Muslim society to learn and counted as the basis of Islamic religion. In this article, we aim to reveal the views of Nabi, who mentions in his work about the training of young Muslim men about the conditions of Islam.

The article deals with the historical and pedagogical assessment of women's charitable experience in education of Ukraine in the 17th century – the last quarter of the 18th century. The parameters of the assessment of women’s charity are chosen: a) the expansion of the network of schools, improving their material base; b) the ability of schools to provide high-quality training of students; c) the level of financial security of the educational institution; d) education of spiritual and moral values of the person, the formation of their internal needs and beliefs to develop education industry is based on the principles of charity and humanity.The determining of parameters and factors has an impact on their formation when the data are taken into account. They are: the level of development of the society, socio-political conditions, the state of the economy in the country, the identified priorities in education policy, the place of the state on the international arena. In the context of the stated, the modern assessment of the experience of the charitable activities of women in Ukrainian education in the 17th century – the last quarter of the 18th century is made from positions of comprehension: 1) the spiritually-moral phenomenon; 2) the historical-pedagogical phenomenon; 3) social- public phenomenon; 4) socio-economic phenomenon.The study highlights the fact of the historical existence of women’s charitable activities as an effective tool of the development of education in Ukraine testifies to the vitality and sustainability of this phenomenon, its ability to evolve, develop adequately updated and flexibly respond to dynamic changes in the socio-economic, cultural and spiritual life of the society.According to the prognostic-projective potential of women's charity, we believe in modern conditions of entering of Ukraine into the global educational dimension, it is the charity as a socio-civic, socio-economic and professionally organized force (along with the public programs support) has become an important means of building and development of the educational sector, which provides the personal well-being of the person, the economic prosperity of the state, its power and authority.

The article presents the analytical review of “Troubled Times in Russia in the Early 17th and Early 20th Centuries: Nature and Lessons” conference, dedicated to the jubilee of I.O. Tumentsev, which was held in Volgograd in October 2018. The aims of the conference were to conduct a comparative study of the two turning points in the history of the Russian state and society, to identify the patterns of systemic sociopolitical crises emergence and occurrence, to determine causes, factors, directions and boundaries of socio-cultural, economic and political changes that took place in Russia during the Time of Troubles of the early 17th century and the revolution and Civil War of 1917–1922. The conference takes an opportunity to analyze a wide circle of issues related to internal and external factors of the appearance of the Troubled Times in Russia, the specifics of social elevators functioning in the conditions of the system social crisis, the interaction between the elite and ordinary people in revolutionary times, the transformation of the state apparatus and service in the Time of Troubles, and the role of the Russian Orthodox Church at crucial moments in the Russian history. Scientists from Russia, England, Hungary, Italy, Poland, and the USA: historians, political scientists, economists, leading experts in these fields attended the conference. The article describes the content of the reports that were presented at the conference, analyzes the course of discussions, and presents the decisions that were made based on the results of its work. The scientific results obtained during the conference can be used in research on the history of Russia in the 17th and 20th centuries, the history of the national state and law, and in the analysis of contemporary social and political phenomena and processes.

The article presents the first attempt of a complete and systematic analysis of historic and theological publications of teachers and pupils of the Kyiv Theological Academy in the second half of the 19th – beginning of 20th century in the field of studying the history of relations of Catholicism and Protestantism with Orthodox on the Ukrainian lands. The specifics of Kyiv academic historians studies was determined by the social and-political circumstances in the middle of the 19th century and denoted by an attempt to comprehend this issue in the perspective of the history of interconfessional relations of two Western Christian traditions with the eastern tradition of Orthodoxy in the historical gap of the 16th – 17th centuries – the period of the largest confrontation in confessional relations in Ukraine. The author clarifies the characteristic features of researching the question of inter-confessional interaction in the 15th – 17th centuries, which are expressed in attempts to describe the coexistence of three denominations as multidimensional and provoking а variety of different interpretations. Historical studies present the attempt to show confessional interaction in the political and legal aspects and to provide historical interpretations to the ground of philosophy of history. The article proves the tendency of Kyiv academic researchers to move away from the established Russian historiography of the 19th century view at confessional relations in Ukraine through the prism of hard confrontation and outline in religious life Ukraine conditions and circumstances of inter-confessional dialogue. Also, historians in their studies repeatedly note the significant educational and outlook influence of Western Christian denominations on the formation of educational, cultural, theological, literary traditions in Ukraine.

Ernst Bjerke: A Danish-Norwegian provincial press. New perspectives on the establishment of the first printing press in Norway It is often stated as a matter of fact that Norway, independent only since 1814, was one of the last European countries to have its own printing press. That a press was finally set up in Christiania in 1643 is usually ascribed to the private initiative of the prolific theologian Christen Bang. However, Norway was at the time a province of Denmark, whose centralized government did not allow the establishment of provincial presses until the early 17th century. The first press in Norway must be viewed as one of a number of permanent presses set up in the provinces at this time. Furthermore, the decision to allow a press in Christiania is clearly connected with the foundation, a few years earlier, of a gymnasium, an academy of sorts, in connection with the old cathedral school. There are several examples of presses connected with institutions of learning in Denmark, and Christiania, with its gymnasium, conforms to this model. While Bang may have invited the first printer to establish his press in Christiania, he could not have done so without the express permission of central government, and were it not for the gymnasium, the printer would not have found work. Christiania’s first printer became entangled in a lawsuit against his patron and left town after only one year. When it came to appointing a successor, the sources reveal that government, both locally in Christiania and centrally in Copenhagen, took firm charge, in order to provide the press with tenable conditions. The printer was provided with a fixed wage, and there is even reason to believe that the Christiania press was exempted from centralized censorship in Copenhagen. The Christiania press ought not to be considered as one of the last national presses to be established in Europe (its influence, anyway, never reached far past Christiania’s walls), and not as the accomplishment of one private individual. It was in fact one of the earliest provincial presses in the Danish state, established as part of a general expansion of institutions of learning undertaken by the state at that time.

Industrial cleaning shares some common features across countries. Institutions for collective wage regulation are fragile, the market is highly price-sensitive and skewed competition has exerted pressure on wages and conditions. Increased cross-border mobility of labour and enterprises after EU enlargement brought new sources of competitive pressure, which was amplified by the subsequent economic crisis. We study changes in collective regulation in industrial cleaning in Denmark, Germany, Norway and the UK since the turn of the century, and find that the social partners have responded differently to the challenges. We discuss these responses in the light of national differences in industrial relations regimes and the regulatory tools available for the organized actors.

Introduction: The objective of this paper is to see if behaviours defined as pathological and maladjusted in certain contexts may produce adaptive effects in other contexts, especially if they occur in attenuated form. Interactions between environment and behaviour are studied from an evolutionary standpoint in an attempt to understand how new attitudes emerge in an evolving context. Methodology: Narrative review. Following an historical examination of how the description of depression in Western society has changed, we examine a series of studies performed in areas where great changes have taken place as well as research on emigration from Sardinia in the 1960s and 70s and immigration to Sardinia in the 1990s. Results and conclusions: If we postulate that mood disorders are on the increase and that the epidemic began in the 17th century with the "English malady", we must suppose that at least the "light" forms have an adaptive advantage, otherwise the expansion of the disorder would have been self-limiting. "Compulsive hyper-responsabilization”, as well as explorative behaviours, may represent a base for adaptation in certain conditions of social change. The social emphasis in individualism and responsibility may have changed not only the frequency, but also the phenomenology of mood disorders particularly the increases in bipolar disorders. From the sociobiological standpoint the conditions that may favour "subthreshold" bipolar or depressive features are to be considered in relation to the contextual role of gender and the different risks of the two disorders in males and females.

Abstract. Changes in climate affected human societies throughout the last millennium. While European cold periods in the 17th and 18th century have been assessed in detail, earlier cold periods received much less attention due to sparse information available. New evidence from proxy archives, historical documentary sources and climate model simulations permit us to provide an interdisciplinary, systematic assessment of an exceptionally cold period in the 15th century. Our assessment includes the role of internal, unforced climate variability and external forcing in shaping extreme climatic conditions and the impacts on and responses of the medieval society in north-western and central Europe.Climate reconstructions from a multitude of natural and anthropogenic archives indicate that the 1430s were the coldest decade in north-western and central Europe in the 15th century. This decade is characterised by cold winters and average to warm summers resulting in a strong seasonal cycle in temperature. Results from comprehensive climate models indicate consistently that these conditions occurred by chance due to the partly chaotic internal variability within the climate system. External forcing like volcanic eruptions tends to reduce simulated temperature seasonality and cannot explain the reconstructions. The strong seasonal cycle in temperature reduced food production and led to increasing food prices, a subsistence crisis and a famine in parts of Europe. Societies were not prepared to cope with failing markets and interrupted trade routes. In response to the crisis, authorities implemented numerous measures of supply policy and adaptation such as the installation of grain storage capacities to be prepared for future food production shortfalls.

Paradigms and vicissitudes in the perspectives of 20th century Nordic sociology Both as regards its own development and its cultural impact 20th century was an era of sociology. There was, however, in the central focuses considerable vicissitudes, clearly observable in the sociology of the Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. The de-velopmental patterns can be divided into three periods: (1) an emphasis on evolution and evolutionary explanations of social behavior up to the First World War, (2) a during most of the century prevailing dominance of a sociology emphasizing socialization and societies as wholes with their social structure, normative rules and social func-tions, and (3) at the end of the century an emerging rise of a new view of social life with an accentuation of uncer-tainty, agency, and semiotic interpretation. The institu-tionalization of Nordic academic sociology occurred in the 1940’s, 1950’s and 1960’s. Towards the end of this period reorientations and protests against the prevailing sociology began to emerge. The dominant research interests today may be summed up in the following four orientations:cultural sociology with an emphasis on semiotic constructions of reality, feminist studies with a special interest in gendered experiences of women, studies of the conditions of the Nordic welfare state, and historically oriented macro social science with a focus on large-scale both European and global trans-formations.

AbstractDrawing on a range of recent studies and original sources, this article calls for a revision of the usual paradigm of disease in Ottoman history by applying a more interdisciplinary approach and new insights from environmental history. The historiography of disease in the Middle East developed from the late 1970s to the early 1990s envisioned a steady mortality from inevitable cycles of bubonic plague supposedly accepted with pious resignation by Ottoman Muslims. Focusing on the period from circa 1500 to 1800, the article advances three arguments. First, Ottoman Muslims sometimes did take action to escape or contain epidemics. Second, the region actually suffered from a variety of other infections that together had an equal or greater impact than bubonic plague. Third, shifting political, social, and environmental conditions—especially Little Ice Age climate fluctuations and population movements during the 17th century—played a major role in disease mortality and Ottoman demography.

Introduction. This article deals with a pressing problem of historical science: the analysis of the social status of the parish priesthood in the South of Russia, and its transformations on the example of the Don Host region. Methods and materials. Some pre-revolutionary regional research works, as well as some published and unpublished materials, are used as references. This article is based on sets of documents of central and regional archives, most of which being introduced scientifically for the first time ever. The methodological basis for this article is made up of the principles which are traditional for this type of research: scientific objectivism, systematic approach and historicism, and the general scientific method of structural and functional analysis that allowed to determine the social position of the priesthood in the regional community of the Don region. Being guided by the historical and comparative method allowed revealing and specifying the peculiar conditions of the priesthood in the Don region against the background of the changes in the cultural and historical situation. Analysis and Results. By the middle of the 17th century, being part of the Don Host, the local priests had acquired a status that made them really different from priests of other provinces of the Russian Empire, for they only reported to the army authorities and were considered to be part of the Cossack community, without having any signs of making an independent estate. Since the establishment of the independent Don and Novocherkassk Diocese in 1829, the priesthood became subordinate to the diocesan archbishop, that allowed to speak about the initial stage of the formation of the priesthood and its social status that corresponded to it. In the period of the reforms introduced by emperor Alexander II, aimed at improving the social status of the parish priesthood of the Russian Empire, the social status of the Don priesthood, due to the completion of integration into the all-Russian practice, significantly increased and got unified with the all-Russian social status. The highest point of development of the social status of the Don priesthood is the time of existence of the All-Great Don Host (1918–1919), which, in accordance with its peculiar ideology, provided the priesthood with exclusive rights and privileges in conditions of the Civil war.

The article reveals certain aspects of Ukrainian Old Believer life in modern conditions. It is noted that Old Believers were formed as a result of deep moral and religious searches in the Russian and Ukrainian societies of the 17th century. For more than three hundred years of its existence, it has revealed significant spiritual potential and social opportunities and has become an integral part of Ukrainian society. With Ukraine gaining independence, the Old Believers were able to rebuild religious buildings closed during the Soviet era, freely send and attend religious services, open Sunday schools, revive national traditions, etc. Modern Old Believers on the territory of Ukraine act as a self-sufficient structural element of the religious culture of Ukraine, having significant potential not only for their own preservation, but also for further development. Today, the Old Believers are aimed at expanding their extra-cult priorities. In social life, such priorities are charity, philanthropy, education; in the political sphere - striving for freedom of conscience and cooperation with government and public institutions; in the cultural field - promoting the spiritual improvement of society, the development of national culture; in religious - active church life. The Old Believer Ukrainian Church, which is a part of the large Old Believer Church, immediately, after the large-scale invasion of Russia on our territory, took a patriotic pro-Ukrainian position and clearly declared its condemnation of Russia's aggression against Ukraine. Representatives of the Bilokrynytsia Metropolitanate were active participants in the resistance to Russian aggression eight years ago. Today, they also take an active part in the defense of Ukraine's independence. Despite their Russian ethnic origin, the Old Believers have no ties to the ideology of the "Russian world", they are aware of themselves as a part of Ukrainian society. They occupy a prominent place in social, spiritual and interfaith life and remain a dynamic Christian denomination, and strengthen their own positions in Ukraine.

The current manuscript aims to reverberate the ordinary past: intersubjective relations in the interior of African continent through commercial and diplomatic charters. The cultural symbol-code is reframed, owing to interrelationship with geographical, political and institutional circumstances and historical conditions that foster re-interpretation of code, focused on unveiling the subjectivation and individuation’s process of the African black during 16th and 17th centuries. The object of this study is commercial and diplomatic charters circulate during 16th and 17th centuries and three Ambaquistas’ charters or their disciples circulate during 19th century. In methodological terms, it has adopted a qualitative research, by review of literature, anchored on historical and anthropological perspective, to discuss, through bibliographical research, based on authors: Vansina (2000); Heintz (2005); Margarido (2000) e Santos (2004), the organization, social and political structure of the different temporalities of the event in a diachronic way. To describe the architecture of the epistolary genre of the Ambaquistas’ charters or their disciples was used the following categories: the textual elements and the paratextual elements subdivide into pre-text and post-text. To analysis the constitutive elements of textual materiality of the charters, it has used theoretical framework from Anthropology, Psychoanalysis and French Discourse Analysis for the purpose of indicating the subjectivation and individuation’s marks of the socio-historical subject, Angolan citizen. The author concludes that the charters’ discursive formation values hermetic cosmos in the subjectivation and individuation’s process of African black, makes him impossible not only for experiencing and living the symbolic interactionism, the cultural imaginary in the identity formulation, but also value his respective diacritic signals, because of tensions, identitary clashes and relations of power that profile the different temporalities of social, political and economic structure in the interior of African continent.

This special issue of European Comic Art presents articles on the diversity of contemporary feminist comics in the Nordic region. The Nordic countries have seen an explosion in feminist comics and graphic novels since the first decade of the twenty-first century. In Sweden, feminist comics have become commercial successes, winning prestigious prizes, and appearing in exhibitions, Instagram, and other social media. Recently, a new generation of artists has entered the scene with a renewed focus on queer and intersectional issues. This special issue directs attention to feminist comic art throughout the Nordic region—with representation from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden—by established creators as well as emerging voices. The history of feminist comics can be traced back to the social movements of the 1970s, but the energy and creativity of contemporary feminist comics is new, reflecting both international trends and conditions specific to the region and to each national context.

When reading in the 18th century became an activity common among an ever growing part of the European population and thereby a socially more visible cultural phenomenon, a need arose to create concepts and linguistic terms to refer to the new types of reading behavior. The new masses of readers did not seemingly have a rational goal for their reading, they just read for the sake of reading itself. Therefore, an explanation for their behavior was that they had a love of reading. To speak about people’s love of reading became a recurrent feature of the discourse on reading, a sub-discourse of its own, the discourse on the love of reading. The birthplace of the discourse may have been in 17th century France, wherefrom it was mediated into other countries and language areas. Even the contemporaries believed that the reading mania was contagious, and expected, feared, or hoped that something similar would happen in their own country. This caused debate and the use, even invention, of words and phrases that belong to the discourse on love of reading. Even the words and phrases used for speaking about reading migrated over linguistic, political, and social borders. The initiation, growth, and diffusion of the discourse can be followed by searching the typical words and phrases that indicate the presence of the discourse. Data were obtained from Google Books Ngram Viewer and national full-text databases of books and newspapers. A map representing the geographical diffusion of the discourse in Europe until the 20th century is constructed. The historical conditions for the diffusion of the discourse are discussed. Methodological problems are discussed and future research is outlined.

Summary The end of the 20th and the first decade of the 21st century are characterized by a technological development which could be described as having revolutionary speed. If we were to look back on the revolutionary events during the 17th and 18th century, in the domain of great scientific changes, changes in industry, agriculture, economy, the organization of social relations (democracy and socialism), we could say that we are witnesses to this sixth technological revolution. All these civilizational leaps forward have conditioned, quite expectedly, big changes in our profession. This has been reflected in the goals which have been imposed by social changes initiated by numerous revolutionary changes. Even though man and his need for physical exercise, as the nourishing food necessary for his being, have remained the same, the circumstances which have imposed different living conditions have required changes in our profession. Naturally, this was reflected in our science as well (which we refer to by different names today). The time we live in, caught up in this new sixth technological revolution, requires a different approach to man and his personality. Now, the question is not only how to “drag” him out of a sedentary culture, but also how to fight the increasingly present physical and intellectual inactivity. Through perfectly guided marketing activities which have been made possible by the implementation of new technological aids, man has been drawn into the hedonistic waters of his own inactivity. And unfortunately, he cannot free himself from this skillfully set trap. That is why physical culture and science must be included in finding a means of helping man find his way out of this hedonistic labyrinth and return to his roots.

Abstract. In the Northern Hemisphere, the mid-6th century was one of the coldest periods of the last 2000 years, which was initiated by volcanic eruptions in 536 and 540 CE. Here, we study the effect of this volcanic double event on the climate and society in Scandinavia with a special focus on southern Norway. Using an ensemble of Max Planck Institute Earth system model transient simulations for 521–680 CE, temperature, precipitation, and atmospheric circulation patterns are analyzed. The simulated cooling magnitude is used as input for a growing degree day (GDD) model setup for three different study areas in southern Norway, representative of typical meteorological and landscape conditions. Pollen from bogs inside these study areas are analyzed at high resolution (1–3 cm sample intervals) to give insights into the validity of the GDD model setup with regard to the volcanic climate impact on the regional scale and to link the different data sets with the archeological records. We find that after the 536 and 540 CE double event, a maximum surface air cooling of up to 3.5 ∘C during the mean growing season is simulated regionally for southern Norway. With a scenario cooling of 3 ∘C, the GDD model indicates crop failures were likely in our northernmost and western study areas, while crops were more likely to mature in the southeastern study area. These results are in agreement with the pollen records from the respective areas. Archeological excavations show, however, a more complex pattern for the three areas with abandonment of farms and severe social impacts but also a continuation of occupation or a mix of those. Finally, we discuss the likely climatic and societal impacts of the 536 and 540 CE volcanic double event by synthesizing the new and available data sets for the whole Scandinavia.

In the second half of the 18th century the Armenians occupied a special place in the ethnopolitical picture of East Transcaucasia. Despite a number of scientific studies carried out with the involvement of a wide range of historical sources and archival materials about the Armenians of East Transcaucasia, the subject can be still considered insufficiently studied. The choice of chronological framework is due to the fact that in the previous (16–17th centuries) and subsequent (19–20th centuries) periods, the history of the problem was comprehensively and properly covered in historiography. The present paper, by comparing Russian sources, manuscript materials of the Matenadaran archive, archival documents, based on the principles of historicism and objectivity, involving the study of the relationship of facts in specific historical conditions in chronological order, aims to recreate the most complete ethno-confessional history and the social and legal status of the Armenian population Eastern Transcaucasia in the context of political events of the second half of the 18th century. After the assassination of Nadir Shah (1747) and the collapse of his state in East Transcaucasia, a number of sovereign administrative and political units arose (Derbent, Quba, Sheki, Shemakha, Baku khanates), and the former Iranian rulers gained local power. The study shows that with the weakening of the central government in Iran in the second half of the 18th century, the ethnopolitical picture in East Transcaucasia changed. One of the consequences of these processes was the intensification of socio-economic and ethno-religious repressions against the Armenian population. The aggravation of the military-political situation in the South Caucasus at the end of the century (the invasion of Agha-Mohammed-Khan Qajar’s troops, the Persian campaign of the Russian army in 1796) led to the migration of Armenians from their places of permanent residence to the North Caucasus and the territory of the Russian Empire. As a result, the ethno-religious picture of Eastern Transcaucasia changed not in favor of Christians, in particular, Armenians.

This paper considers the phenomenon of personal identity development and democratization of the history of Russia during the Time of Troubles. D.S. Likhachev’s opinion on the discovery of a personality in the Russian literature of the 17th century is discussed. It is demonstrated that the problem of personal identity in the socio-political space of Russia was raised for the first time during the Time of Troubles. Hunger, devastation, deprivation, underestimation of the value of human life paradoxically promoted the development of a view on the personal identity as an important element of life. The historical and anthropological problem of studying the formation and development of self-identification in Russia under the influence of destructive and tragic events of the Time of Troubles is formulated. The above problem can be solved by carrying out a mass biographical research based on numerous sources and using the methods of prosopography and historical anthropology. The unremitting wars that took place in the second half of the 16th century favored the development of personal identity at the public level. A generation of nobles accustomed to making decisions under the war conditions emerged. In the Time of Troubles, other social groups adopted the behavioral strategies of the nobility. As a result, imposture, unregulated (both traditionally and legally) leadership in the Cossack hosts, robber gangs, and self-organized grouping became common. Under these circumstances, people were willing to actively participate in the events of the Time of Troubles and in the changes of the political course. Therefore, the historical sources confirm that the history of Russia exhibited the first sings of democratization during the Time of Troubles.

Droughts are probably the natural hazard with the highest socioeconomicimpact. Simultaneously, they are a very complex phenomenon; they are triggered by a diversity of physical factors and occur at a variety of time scales. Consequently, the instrumental record currently available is too short and the characterization of its multidecadal variability requires the use of natural proxies (tree rings, sedimentary records) or documentary sources. In this paper we analyse three documentary sources with potential to analyse the long-term variability of droughts: chapter acts, logbooks and chronicles. The chapter acts recorded discussions and decisions made during the assemblies of the local authorities and provide continuous and direct evidence on drought impacts. They are especially useful to study droughts between the 15th and the 19th centuries in Europe and the 17th to 18th in the former colonies. Logbooks recorded the meteorological conditions and the incidents occurred during navigation. They provide indirect information through the circulation indices that can be very helpful to understand the mechanisms and teleconnections associated to droughts. Finally, the chronicles are historiographical documents describing political and social events. They are secondary sources and the references to climatic events are discontinuous, thus their analysis must be extremely careful, but they are especially useful to study specific drought events especially prior to 15th century when no other sources are available.

The problem of production, export, import, and consumption of food was always topical for the long history of Georgia. At all stages of the society development, people need to take food and meet other of their elementary needs. Issues of food supply assurance of the Georgian population differ according to time periods. For example, in Shota Rustaveli’s poem The Knight in the Panther’s Skin it is described that the living standard in the 11th–13th centuries was quite high. At that period of time, Georgia was fed with its own grain. Along with wealth, Shota Rustaveli also characterizes poverty. Most of the state's income was spent on the poor people, so there was a large gap between the rich and poor population. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the problem of poverty and wealth of the population was highlighted by prominent public figures: Sulkhan – Saba Orbeliani and Vakhushti Bagrationi. Ilia Chavchavadze describes the problem of poverty in the country by the end of the 19th century. Poor living conditions of the population were noted during the initial phase of Georgia in Soviet Union and during World War II. Better conditions existed at the last stage of socialism.Meeting the population’s demand for principal foodstuffs and providing near-rational norms of such foodstuffs has always been a major objective of the governments of all times.The prolonged transformation process of the economy of Georgia with its social characteristics was particularly painful. A sharp decline in the standard of life started from the 1990s. Before the economic collapse, a monthly rated wage in Georgia with its foodstuff purchasing power parity almost equaled that of developed countries.

On January 21, 1727, the Irkutsk Diocese was established. Its opening was the result of Orthodoxy in spread in Eastern Siberia, which began in the 17th century. Irkutsk became the center of a new diocese. In 1727, there were 8 churches and 2 monasteries, while the city was developing dynamically while being the administrative center. In 1822, it included the territory of the Yenisei Province. The easternmost diocese of Russia turned out to be the largest in terms of territory – about 10 million square kilometers, occupying more than half of the entire territory of the country and extending over two continents. In 1826, the diocese was transferred from the 3rd grade to the 2nd grade, and its bishop became the archbishop. In the future, all the lords (church leaders) received the same rank, sometimes not immediately. An important event in its history was the canonization by the Synod in December 1804 of the first bishop Innokenty Kulchitsky. The most famous in Eastern Siberia was the Ascension Monastery, which became the spiritual center of the diocese. There were four churches, a chapel, a hotel, a school, cell buildings, and outbuildings. The high bell tower, the five-domed Ascension Cathedral, and other churches and buildings were distinguished by their beauty and richness. Dramatic events of the early twentieth century forced the Irkutsk clergy to take part in social and political life. In the emerging multi-party system, they relied on right-wing and centrist political parties. Under the Soviet regime, the Irkutsk diocese, as well as the Orthodox Church as a whole, was targeted by a wave of repressions (purges). The attitude of the state to religion began to change in the conditions of perestroika. This allowed the Orthodox Church to receive a powerful impetus for its development. The result of this was the establishment of the Irkutsk Metropolis, which included the Irkutsk, Bratsk and Sayan dioceses.

The Russian colonists, inhabiting southern and mid-taiga regions of Western Siberia since the 17th c., al-ways relied heavily on hunter-gathering in their subsistence. The reasons for this were the obvious difficulties of northern agriculture and the economic benefits that hunting, fishing and gathering brought, including their signifi-cant commercial value. The active development of the commercial harvesting among the Russian Siberians al-ready in the 19th c. was hampered by the inaccessibility of many valuable hunting and fishing areas – first of all, remote taiga territories, which were in patrimonial land tenure of the indigenous inhabitants. The process of set-tlers' penetration into such territories, which unfolded in the 20th c., still has not been considered in detail in his-torical and ethnographic literature. The paper discusses the free colonization of the Demyanka River basin (Uvat-sky District of the Tyumen region, Russia) by Russians in the first half of the 20th c. based on field and archival data, as well as publications of the 1900-1930s. The main research methods include systematic and comparative historical analyses. It has been concluded that migrants from the Middle and Lower Irtysh regions populated the neighboring deep taiga territory using different routes; they presented two noticeably different models of colonization. The migration took place in several waves, but the most significant happened in the 1930s. The majority of the migrants were Russian Siberian old-timers who had the necessary experience and knowledge of the local conditions. For a substantial number of the Russian Irtysh region settlers — peasants, hunters and fishermen — the departure to the taiga became an es-cape from the external social pressure and government control, allowing them to improve their economic well-being. In this regard, surrounded by swamps impassable and vast area of the Demyanka River basin for several decades repre-sented a reliable refuge for fugitives who wanted to be beyond the easy reach of the state.

Abstract An analysis of the relationship between Jan III Sobieski and the people he distinguished shows that there were many mutual benefits. Social promotion was more difficult if the candidate for the office did not come from a senatorial family34. It can be assumed that, especially in the case of Atanazy Walenty Miączyński, the economic activity in the Sobieski family was conducive to career development. However, the function of the plenipotentiary was not a necessary condition for this. Not all the people distinguished by Jan III Sobieski achieved the same. More important offices were entrusted primarily to Marek Matczyński. Stanisław Zygmunt Druszkiewicz’s career was definitely less brilliant. Druszkiewicz joined the group of senators thanks to Jan III, and Matczyński and Szczuka received ministerial offices only during the reign of Sobieski. Jan III certainly counted on the ability to manage a team of people acquired by his comrades-in-arms in the course of his military service. However, their other advantage was also important - good orientation in political matters and exerting an appropriate influence on the nobility. The economic basis of the magnate’s power is an issue that requires more extensive research. This issue was primarily of interest to historians dealing with latifundia in the 18th century. This was mainly due to the source material. Latifundial documentation was kept much more regularly in the 18th century than before and is well-organized. The economic activity of the magnate was related not only to the internal organization of landed estates. It cannot be separated from the military, because the goal of the magnate’s life was politics and, very often, also war. Despite its autonomy, the latifundium wasn’t isolated. Despite the existence of the decentralization process of the state, the magnate families remained in contact with the weakening center of the state and influenced changes in its social structure. The actual strength of the magnate family was determined not only by the area of land goods, but above all by their profitability, which depended on several factors: geographic location and natural conditions, the current situation on the economic market, and the management method adopted by the magnate. In the 17th century, crisis phenomena, visible in demography, agricultural and crafts production, money and trade, intensified. In these realities, attempts by Jan III Sobieski to reconstruct the lands destroyed by the war and to introduce military rigor in the management center did not bring the expected results. Sobieski, however, introduced “new people” to the group of senators, who implemented his policy at the sejmiks and the Parliament, participated in military expeditions and managed his property.

Drawing on the structure and contents of the extant manuscripts of Dušan’s Code, this paper attempts roughly to outline the history of its application and changes from the time of its promulgation in 1349 and revision in 1353–1354, a process that continued to the end of the 18th century. The scarce evidence about the application of the Code has been preserved in some charters issued by the emperors Dušan and Uroš, but since the 15th century the only evidence about its application is found in new copies or in the changes in its structure and in the phrasing of certain stipulations. The production of copies similar to the original version continued simultaneously with the revisions, with all sharing a single trait: the coalescence of Dušan’s Code with its codicological environment, whose first and fixed layer included the abbreviated Syntagma of Matthew Blastares and the so-called Code of Justinian. Along with these, other ecclesiastical-legal compositions were also copied, which suggests that the extant copies of Dušan’s Code were used in ecclesiastical courts or for the clergy’s everyday service needs. The signs suggesting that the Code was gradually adapted to suit different legal and social conditions are as follows: the exclusion of stipulations which were no longer up to date; a new systematization of stipulations according to subject matter; changes in penalties and sanctions; amendments and clarifications of some stipulations; and the modernization of the document’s language and legal terms. At a point no earlier than the second half of the 17th century, a separate recension of Dušan’s Code was created in order to facilitate the adaptation and use of its legal material for the regulation of those legal relations that the Serbian ecclesiastical hierarchy or the local self-governing authorities had kept within their own jurisdictions under foreign rule. The majority of the copies of this new, younger recension was created and enacted in the circle of the Serbian ecclesiastical hierarchy and the subjects of the Habsburg monarchy after the Great Exodus. Not only did the Code provide positive legal material, but its mere existence and authority also helped the efforts of the Serbian hierarchy in the Habsburg monarchy to emphasize the tradition of Serbian statehood, as well as its tendencies toward a renewal of state independence.

Wykorzystując zapis dziennikowy Samuela Pepysa z czasów zarazy panującej w Londynie w połowie XVII wieku, zadajemy pytanie o słabo i mocno wartościujące dyskursy tworzące podmiotowość jednostki w relacji do grupy. W istocie pytamy więc o warunki zaistnienia „osoby”, której życie zachowuje możliwość odwoływania się do „mocnych” pojęć moralnych, co wiąże się z konieczną fazą krytyczną wobec dyskursów hegemonicznych. Podczas analizy tekstu Pepysa postulujemy pojawienie się fazy „my”, umożliwiającej krytyczną refleksję i ocalającej nietrwale „osobę”, wydobywając ją spod petryfikujących dyskursów narzuconych przez społeczne „oni”. Pozwala to „osobie” zaistnieć, odnieść się krytycznie do „wszechrozumienia powszedniego mniemania”; dzieje się to za sprawą odwołania do silnej wartości, jaką jest sprzeciw wobec „okrucieństwa”, ale odwołanie to nie utrzymuje się długo i nie kontynuuje się w dalszych pytaniach. “I,” “We,” “They” – The Grammar of Self-Narrative: Reflections from the Times of Pandemic With the use of journals by Samuel Pepys written during the 17th-century plague epidemic in London, we discuss the issue of weak and strong evaluation discourses which create the subjectivity of an individual in its relation to a group. Our fundamental goal is therefore to discover the conditions indispensable for the emergence of a “person” whose life retains the ability to refer to “strong” moral concepts, which is necessarily connected with a phase of critical approach to hegemonic discourses. In our analysis of the text by Pypus, we postulate the emergence of a “we” phase which allows for critical reflection and temporarily frees a “person” from petrifying discourses imposed by the social “they.” This makes it possible for the “person” to come into existence and critically approach the “understanding of everyday estimations”; this takes place by referring to the strong value of opposition against “cruelty,” but this reference is fleeting and does not endure in further questioning.

The article highlights the problem of objectification of law arising in the context of the mostly widespread formally oriented version of the principle of supremacy of law which accentuates the idea of the rule of objective law instead of the rule of judgment-based will of interpreters of law and law enforcement officers. It is emphasized that the ontology of evenhandedness is based on understanding of law as a closed system of non-biased tenors seeking absolute completeness of social norms assigned by the social authority. If worst comes to worst, such a system envisages elimination of possible gaps with the help of tenors found with the help of purely logical methods applied by the system itself. The methodological source of the program of law as a closed system is the idea of mechanical application of standards, which includes evaluations made by interpreters of law and law enforcement officers. The article demonstrates the methodological genealogy of formal objectification of law going on in various socio-legal concepts, such as legal positivism, conceptual jurisprudence and the historical school of law – all of them being based on the methodology of the so called social physics (17th century) that sought to transfer cognitive tools of mechanics to the field of social sciences. Methodological opposition to formal objectification of law is presented by society-oriented teachings constituting the school of free law. They erode understanding of law as a self-reliant closed system of objective rules and concepts and permit construction of legal tenors in the process of interpretation and enforcement of law. These theories are accepted in the western doctrine and in case law. But they are not widely presented in the national science, in particular in dynamic and temporal theories of law. In complicated cases they provide the national law enforcement officer with an alternative in search of a decision under the conditions of legal ambiguity. It is revealed that the principle of supremacy of law determines extremely strict categorical requirements on non-deviation to enforcement of law. The ideal of legal objectivism specified in the principle of supremacy of law as the rule of law, not the rule of the individual, conforms to the popular understanding of the appropriate mechanism of law enforcement. However, it accepts exceptions when it comes to construction or sophistication of a particular legal tenor made by a law enforcement officer. These exceptions need careful handling.

First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan N. Nazarbaev noted that the roots of the modernization of society go back to a deep history. This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the life and activities of the sages, brilliant thinkers of the Kazakh people as a reflection of the worldview models of national consciousness. The main idea of the article is to study the work of Bukhar-zhyrau, one of the most outstanding personalities in the history of the 17th century, endowed with wisdom, poetic eloquence, and deep self-awareness. The historical, political and social conditions in which the Kazakh society lives are the basis for the development of the national worldview in the course of the centuries-old development of the desire for independence. The historical, political and social conditions in which Kazakhstani society lives are the basis for the development of the national worldview in the course of the centuries-old 232 development of the desire for independence. The author focuses on the fact that the transfer of such an archive fund to the younger generation is an actual problem of today. The main goal of the author is to show the dignity of our native language in the continuity of generations, popularizing the rich cultural and spiritual heritage of Kazakh wisdom. This, in turn, will become the main factor extolling the inviolability of the modern state from the point of view of educating the younger generation in the spirit of patriotism. And they are based on the desire for the future through reflection, conclusions, and drawing lessons from the past. The development and revival of our national culture, respect for the spiritual heritage and traditions of our people in history – is a testament of its independence in the global world. Spiritual heritage – is moral values, which are the core of the national mentality of any nation. The life experience of our ancestors, transmitted from generation to generation, is associated with the ability of a person to know and feel the world, to perceive the world around him. Historical time points that the heritage of their ancestors has become an inspiration for future generations. Spiritual heritage is the source of the development of moral values. The heritage of ancestors and morality are formed as a result of comprehensive relations in society. Morality – is the values and norms that govern people's behavior, exactly morality that reveals the innermost of human nature.

The paper examines the impact of signifi cant historical events associated with the Ukrainian National Revolution of the 17th century to changes in the legal sphere, which were the origins of legal norms that have a long-term eff ect. In Ukraine, the jump in interest in the history of socio-cultural and state-legal institutions in our country and on the European continent is largely due to the events of the late XX –early XXI century, formation of Ukraine as an independent state. The problem became even more relevant in connection with the events in Ukraine in 2013-2014, as well as the temporary loss of Crimea and the occupation of some eastern territories, the desire to rewrite the history of development and achievements of our country. In the history of Ukraine and many other European countries highlights the events of the midseventeenth century in terms of their then signifi cance and long-term impact on the development of social and legal institutions in the future: the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which was the source of modern international law; The English Revolution led by O. Cromwell; Ukrainian National Revolution led by B. Khmelnytsky. The aim of the paper is to study the impact of signifi cant historical events related to the B. Khmelnytsky Revolution on changes in the legal sphere, which were a source of legal norms that had long-term eff ect, as well as to compare the consequences of large-scale historical events in Ukraine and Europe to the development of the legal doctrine of the New Time. At the beginning of the XVII century in the Ukrainian-Russian lands there was a situation that can be called “revolutionary”. Legal sources related to the rule of Polish magnates, the Polish nobility and the Catholic Church in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth ceased to exist. “Cossack law” became widespread, which meant the system of customary law, which was formed in the Zaporozhian Sich and was integrated into public relations during the Ukrainian National Revolution. Zaporozhian customary law was perceived not only as local, but also as purely national. Deep religiosity was one of the hallmarks of the Cossacks, and the protection of the Orthodox faith of ancestors and the church was the basis of their lives. The National Revolution in Ukraine in 1648–1676 was related to large-scale sociopolitica movements in a number of Central and Western European countries. Its signifi cance lay in the restoration of state life, the formation of the Ukrainian state idea, and the development of national consciousness. As a result of the turbulent events of the Ukrainian National Revolution, the development of legal institutions took a diff erent path than the development of legal institutions in European countries associated with the end of the Thirty Years’ War and the adoption of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Unlike the transformations in European countries, the events in Ukraine have not become a direct source in the legal sphere; in this regard there are not yet suffi cient conditions for signifi cant changes. Considering the further historical development of Ukraine, these events were only a necessary impetus for such changes in the future. Key words: Ukrainian National Revolution, necessary and suffi cient conditions for changes in the legal sphere, the origins of law.

The article analyzes the problem of the formation of a historical scheme created by the Old Believers, to include the socio-religious movement in global Christian history. It shows that the monks of the Solovetsky Monastery reproduced the stratagem proposed by the scholars of Ancient Russia for incorporating of Russian history into the world history, accompanying it with the perception of events from an eschatological perspective. At the same time, they put an accent on the events that, in their opinion, led to the crisis of the Russian society. The next generations of opponents of the ecclesiastical reforms tried to improve this scheme, adapted it due to the changing conditions. By the end of the 17th century, internal church opposition began to turn into a broad religious and social movement, which divided into two groups – accepting priests and not accepting (“bespopovcy”), and each of them – into independent communities. The process of improving the historical scheme proposed by the Solovetsky monks manifested itself especially clearly in the works written in the center of the Pomor association of the Vyg community. Based on the results of the analysis of the Vyg historical narrative the article concludes that the Old Believers considered Russia failed as a stronghold of the true faith due to the actions of the reformers. They assumed the defeat of the monks from Solovetsky monastery, who advocated the preservation of the traditions of the Russian Church, as sign of the coming of the kingdom of the Antichrist. In this situation, the proclamation of Vyg as the successor of the Solovetsky Monastery meant that the Vyg Old Believers community inherited the function of preserving the true faith. The eschatological perception of reality, typical for the Old Believers, determined their view, that only the existence of the community was a guarantee of the continuation of the history of mankind. Such interpretation of history gave the members of Vyg community confidence in their own significance and a sense of responsibility for the fate to the world.

Keeping journalism socially relevant and financially viable is more challenging than ever. It might seem like a paradox, but in a time when news media is challenged by inadequate business models, precarious labor conditions and competition from platform companies, and contested by populist politicians, the public is consuming more news than ever before. The changing media landscape, technological platforms and structural conditions are influencing journalism, its practices and its roles in everyday life, society, culture, and politics—central topics when communication scholars gather at international and national conferences dedicated to media and communication research. The NordMedia Conference 2021 was arranged in the midst of an ongoing pandemic. It was supposed to be held in Reykjavik, Iceland, but was ultimately held virtually. Naturally, the topics tended to focus on how journalists were covering the pandemic, but they also included studies on truth, disinformation and facts as well as technology in journalism in the form of AI and automation. The presenters were later invited to participate in this special issue, which celebrates Nordic scholarship and the Journalistica journal. In this issue, we bring together three studies that each illustrate the current developments within Nordic journalism research along with a book review of a book on political communication in the Nordics. Ethics and trust are common threads that run through the three articles published in this special issue of Journalistica. The articles cover very different topics—from podcasting as a genre, alternative media and comment moderation to ethics in local news media — and ethics and trust are recurring themes in the discussions. What constitutes as news today is increasingly blurred as it mixes with commercial content (influencers and content marketing — commercial genres that look like news), opinions (comments appearing as news) or false and manipulated content (fake news or disinformation). Many people, especially young adults, get their news from social media, and the newsfeed does not differentiate between different types of content. News from respected newsrooms has the same design as rumors from a suspicious website. Thus, users have to pay more attention to differentiate between the trustworthiness of the information. This blurring of content and genres is challenging for journalism’s trustworthiness. The articles in this special issue touch on some of the challenges appearing as a result of this blurring despite the long tradition of strong ethical guidelines for journalism in Nordic newsrooms. Nevertheless, the users of Nordic news are still demonstrating high levels of trust, among the highest in the 45 countries of the Reuters Digital News Report 2022 track. Finnish news users report the highest trust in news (69%), particularly the news they use (75%), followed by Denmark (58%/63%), Norway (56%/63%), and Sweden (50%/56%). Iceland was not included in Reuters’ survey. One factor that can help maintain and strengthen trust in news in the Nordic countries is strong ethical practices in newsrooms. Since the early 20th century, Nordic newsrooms and journalism organizations have developed ethical guidelines for journalism that are continually updated to reflect developments in the profession and society at large: Norway:​​Code of Ethics for the Norwegian Press Sweden: Rules of Professional Conduct Denmark: Press Ethical Rules Finland: Guidelines for Journalists Iceland: Rules of Ethics in Journalism Ethical guidelines and their practical implementation in the newsrooms can help Nordic journalists navigate the challenges emerging from the changing media landscape, competition from technological platforms and structural conditions influencing journalism. The articles in this special issue of Journalistica each offer a unique contribution to address some of these challenges.

The historical attire of women from the Lithuania Minor (Klaipėda Region) has a characteristic practical detail: a textile pocket tied at the waist, which functionally corresponds to the modern handbag or pocket. Such textile pockets are called delmonai (pl.) and are usually decorated with colorful ornaments. The purpose of this article is introducing the prototypes of the ornamental motifs in terms of intercultural comparison, employing the visual materials collected by the author and historically formed intercultural contacts. While introducing her hypothesis of possible long-term influences, the author presents décor samples from identical or related textile pockets (from the 17th century until the middle of the 20th century), discussing the possibilities of their finding way to the Lithuania Minor. Researching the change occurring in the décor motifs, the author employs comparative analysis of the traditional (from the beginning of the 19th century until 1930s) and modern (from the beginning of the 21st century) textile pockets, still used as part of the national costume of the Lithuania Minor. The origins of several decorative motifs, e.g. the wreath, the crowned musical instrument, and the flower bouquet, are analyzed in more detail. The vegetal ornaments predominate in the décor of the textile pockets from the Lithuania Minor, including blossoms, branches, bouquets, leafs, wreaths and stylized trees. Certain modes of representation have been appropriated by the folk art from professional art or textiles. The most important centers of high fashion emerging in France, Italy, and Germany, exercised certain impact on tendencies occurring in the folk handicraft. Examples of textile pockets worn by the nobility were widely promoted by the periodicals. The surviving samples of embroidery patterns indicate one of the possible sources for the textile pockets’ décor in the Lithuania Minor: namely, the printed sheets with ornamental patterns, used by the nobility and lower social classes alike. Another likely source would be functionally similar needlework by women from the neighboring countries, since textile pockets make part of the national costume there as well. Sea trade created favorable conditions for commercial and cultural interchange between neighbors. The motif of wreath, rather frequently used in the Lithuania Minor, and the occasional motif of the flower bouquet also occur on textile pockets from Pomerania (the border region between Poland and Germany). Ornamentation of the pockets from Bavaria (in Germany) is also rather close in character to the décor of the Lithuania Minor. Such congruities may be determined by several reasons. Firstly, the producers of these textile works could have had interconnections (after the onslaught of devastating plague in Europe, numerous people from Salzburg moved to the fertile but rather wasted out territories of the Lithuania Minor). Secondly, the producers could have used the same original pattern, e.g. the printed sheet. However, although the mutual influence in the needlework décor of the neighboring countries determined by their economic and cultural connections is obvious, the décor of the textile pockets from the Lithuania Minor stands out in terms of its peculiar features (particular colors, modes of décor, etc.).In terms of spreading the regional ethnic culture, the problem of preserving the regional character of the folk art acquires special significance. Although separate parts of the national costumes inevitably change as result of the technical innovations increasingly applied to their production, these costumes should still remain recognizable as a continuation of the folk attire characteristic to the particular region. The patterns of décor used while making the textile pockets nowadays follow to some extent the traditional motifs of floral compositions. Although individual authors tend to create their original compositions, the majority of the textile pockets produced as part of the national costume of the Lithuania Minor still are easily recognizable as belonging to this particular region. The ornamental motifs are not especially distanced from the original ones as well, with embroidered flower bouquets and wreaths still making the majority. However, the motifs of the bouquet placed in a bag and the crowned musical instrument have lost their popularity. Rather than just making part of the national costume of the Lithuania Minor, the textile pockets increasingly appear as part of the modern clothing characterizing its regional peculiarity.

Quemoy is a famous overseas Chinese hometown in modern China. Since the 17th Century, Western colonial power expanded to South Asia, Southeast Asia, China and Japan, and drew these areas into the network of the global economy. The Quemoy Islands, situated outside Xinmen (Amoy)-port, were influenced by external and internal factors that shaped the region’s history of overseas migration. Emigrants from Quemoy brought radical changes back to their hometown, including social, economic, cultural and architectural impacts. These historical phenomena, usually described as expressions of “transnationalism,” are important foci of current research. This research tries to study the modernization of one overseas Chinese native hometown by investigating “Shining,” a monthly publication of Jushan village in Quemoy. “Shining” is one of the most comprehensive overseas Chinese publications and news reports in the world, however, it has received little academic attention. “Shining” published its first issue in September 1928, but publication was interrupted by the Second Sino-Japan War, between 1937–45. In April 1946, the publication resumed until the kmt retreated to Taiwan in 1949. The monthly publication had 21 volumes in total and recorded many historical materials, such as social life, overseas Chinese remittances, events, cultural changes and architectural activities during the 1920s–30s. It also reported political conditions and made criticisms of political issues between 1945–49. “Shining” conveyed progressive ideas and values to the people of Quemoy at that time. This paper will use “Shining” to study social change in the native hometown, including the economic connection between Quemoy and overseas areas, the formation and characteristics of overseas Chinese families, the interaction between folk society and colonial culture, the modification of everyday life and values, the changes in landscape and architecture. I attempt to examine the use of overseas Chinese newsletters to develop a new field of social history in the study of modern overseas Chinese native hometowns. 閩粵為近代中國著名的僑鄉，海外移民及歸僑眾多。華僑的出洋主要是經濟上的因素，他們匯款返鄉支持了家鄉家眷生計、教育、剬益、實業等層面的發展，促成了僑鄉社會的近代化。在昔日交通不便捷的情況下，海外僑居地與僑鄉之間的聯繫，經常必須仰賴僑刊或鄉訊的報導。這些刊物一般由各僑鄉宗族所辦，刊行於海外，讓華僑得以了解家鄉動態與相關事聞。不過由於國共戰爭、文化大革命之故，多數僑刊沒有保存下來。 本文擬以保存完整的僑刊福建金門珠山《顯影》（Shining）為例，一方面深入分析1928至1949年間（1937–45年間因戰爭停刊）《顯影》史料，一方面也從刊物內容中理解1920s–40s年代金門社會生活、治安狀況、海外鄉僑事蹟、僑匯經濟、實業發展、政治時局、文化變遷等主題。最後，進一步探究《顯影》的史料價值及其侷限，說明其對於僑鄉研究的重要性。 (This article is in English.)

Drinking is a community event among early Visayans. It is their binding force in achieving positive peace because it facilitates harmony and holistic view of life. Smooth interpersonal relationship and exchange of peace are realized in the toss of a glass and blood compact. The maganito ritual highlights drinking which brings their camaraderie and fellowship to transcendence and assures protection and blessings from above. In various cycles of life, drinking is at the heart of the celebration. It might be a small gesture of sharing life stories over food and wine, but it has big impact in the union of their buot (inner being) that assures support and advocates solidarity. The research utilizes primary sources from Spanish accounts written in the 16th-17th century. Their narratives showed condescending attitudes towards early Visayan beliefs and practices but they revealed the importance of drinking among our ancestors. The study uses Mercado’s buot to design a conceptual framework that would examine drinking among early Visayans in achieving positive peace where it is holistic and cohesive. The findings of the research could have implications to peace negotiation and integrated approach to peace that includes the physical, emotional, relational and spiritual dimensions. Positive peace promotes total well-being and allows people to engage into undertakings that propels a culture that is responsive to growth, sustainability and dialogue. Drinking is not just a gesture of cohesion that the community is one. It is also a discourse that brings people to a society free from all forms of discrimination and oppression.ReferencesAlcina, F. I. (1668a). Historia de las Inlas e indios de Bisayas. (Part I, Books 1-4). (V. Baltazar, Trans.). University of Chicago Philippine Studies Program (1962)An Editorial. (1964). Journal of Peace Research. 1(1). 1-4.Applied Philosophy. (1977). Divine Word University, print.Atay, A. D. (2020) Transcending the ‘Neoliberal Self for Positive Peace: A New Balance between individualism and collectivism. Journal of Transdisciplinary Peace Praxis. 2(1). 64-81. http://iletisim.neu.edu.tr/people/academic-staff/ayca-demet-atay/?lang=en.Blair, E. H. & Alexander, R. (Eds.) The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest conditions with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century. B & R. (1903-1909).Batoon, E. D. (2014) Tracing Mercado’s Anthropological Perspective (Second of Two Parts) http://www.kritike.org/journal/ issue_15/batoon_december2014.pdfBayarsaikhan, D. (2016). Drinking Traits and Culture of the Imperial Mongols in the Eyes of the Observers and in a Multicultural Context. Crossroads. https://www.academia.edu/3854 6942/Drinking_Traits_and_Culture_of_the_Imperial_Mongols_in_the_Eyes_of_Observers_and_in_a_Multicultural_ContextBoxer Codex. (2018). A Modern Spanish Transcription and English Translation of 16thCentury exploration accounts of East And Southeast Asia and Pacific. In I. Donozo. (Trans. & Ed.). Vibal Foundation.Chirino, P. SJ. (1603). Relacion de las Yslas Filipinas. (pp. 174-321). (Vol. 12). B & RColin, F. (1663). Labor evangelica. (pp. 38-97) (Vol. 40). Madrid.De Plasencia, J. (1589) Customs of the Tagalogs. (pp. 173-198). (Vol. 7). B & R.De San Agustin, G. (1698). Conquistas de las Islas Filipinas: 1565-1615. In L. A. Maneru. (Trans.). (Bilingual Ed.) San Agustin Museum. (1998).Elements of Filipino Ethics. (1979). Divine Word University, print.Elements of Filipino Philosophy. (1976). Divine Word University, print.Enns, F. (2011). The International Ecumenical Peace Convocation: Towards an Ecumenical Theology of Just Peace? Ecumenical Review 63(1), 44-53.Filipino Thought on Man and Society. (1980). Divine Word University, print.Galtung, J. (1996). Peace by peaceful means: Peace and conflict, development and civilization. International Peace Research Institute. Sage Publications. Gleditsch, N. P., Nordkvelle, J. & Strand, H. (2014). “Peace research-Just A Study of War?” Peace Research 51(2) 145-158.Grewal, B. (2003). Johan Galtung: Positive and Negative Peace. School of Social Science, Auckland University of Technology. Institute for Economics and Peace (2019). Positive Peace Report 2018.Ishida, T. (1969). Beyond the Traditional Concepts of Peace in Different Cultures. Peace Research. 6(2), 133-145.Loarca, M. (1582). Relacion de las Yslas Filipinas. (pp. 38-252). (Vol. 5). B & R.Lynch, J. (2014) A Global Standard for Reporting Conflict. Routledge.Mancenido, M. A. (2010) Filipino Philosophy According to Mercado and Timbreza, Dalumat. 1(1), 80-95.Mercado, L. (1972) Filipino Thought. Ateneo de Manila University, print.Pigafetta, A. (1522). The First Voyage Around the World. (pp. 24-266). (Vol. 33). B & R.Scott, W. H. (2015). Barangay: Sixteenth Century Philippine Culture and Society. (7thEd.), Ateneo de Manila Press.Shields, P. (2017). Limits of Negative Peace, Faces of Positive Peace. Armed Forces and Society. https://www.academia.edu/35995673/Limits_of_Negative_Peace_Faces_of_ Positive _Peace.The Filipino Mind. (1994). Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, print.Understanding the Philosophy of Buot-Loob-Nakem, (2017) Scientia. 7(2), Scientia San Beda College.

the middle of the 17th – 19th centuries. The author shows the peculiarities of the formation of legal education at the highlights universitiesthat nowadays hold leading positions in the world recognition, namely, Oxford, Cambridge, Melbourne and others. Therefore,their experience for the University of Lviv is extremely necessary. It shows that legal education was possible for the wealthy, but in theUK they managed to find a way to attract talented young people with different social statuses to get a legal education.In Great Britain between 1846 and 1855, the movement for the reform of legal education found its expression in a number of universitiesof Oxford and Cambridge, as well as in the state of legal education as such. At the same time, practicing lawyers got a higherlevel of training, which made them much more experienced than before the reform. As a result, the demand of employers for the wor -kers with a corresponding education increased.In 1846, a new English law classroom was established, making two courses a prerequisite for admission to the bar association.Unequal position of education at Lviv University for different segments of the population can also be seen at British universitiesas the conditions of admission and education itself were difficult, so many talented students could not pay for education because it wasexpensive. Consequently, mainly the children of wealthy families could receive education, including law. This approach to learning didnot always give the desired result. Due to such stereotypes that had emerged in the society, the process of development of legal educationslowed down. British universities realized the problem more quickly, starting to provide various types of scholarships and grantsfor talented applicants. Such things inserted the desired result, and those relatively young universities today are gaining internationalrecognition.Today, at the beginning of the third decade of the 21th century we see that Lviv University entered the ranking of the best universitiesin the world according to the «Times Higher Education Ranking» (receiving 1001st place). This indicates prospects and potentialfor improvement. But today’s result would not have been fixed without the work of the rector of Ivan Franko National Universityof Lviv Volodymyr Petrovych Melnyk, who has done and is still doing a lot on the way of recognition and entrance of the Universityinto the world rankings.In 1850 a school or a separate examination in law and modern history was established in Oxford as a part of reform movementthat raised the level of teaching at the university. In 1872 the law school was separated from modern history in the form of a higherschool of law (for a bachelor’s degree in the humanities). Even then, students mainly studied Roman law, jurisprudence and internationallaw, and learned about the history of English law, not the law of their time. According to a historian at Oxford Law School,«something less like a professional law school is hard to imagine». A separate examination for the bachelor’s degree in civil law, beforeits reform in 1873, contained little English law. Only few students passed it.In Cambridge, to get a bachelor’s degree in law, Roman law dominated, but some English laws were included for comparativepurposes alongside the history of law, national law and the philosophy of morality.

The majority of Croats in Montenegro are the native population traditionally living in the Bay of Kotor, the town of Budva and Bar and its surroundings. A minority of them are immigrants or their descendants. As early as during the Austro–Hungarian rule over the Montenegrin coast, and especially during the Yugoslav period, they inhabited the area of today’s Montenegro, mostly its inland towns. This paper primarily aims to present and analyse the size of the Croatian population in Montenegro in general and at the level of its administrative units. To do so, it uses data from the censuses conducted from 1948 to 2011, which recorded national affiliation, among other things. In the context of those censuses, one can argue that, during their conduct, it was possible to declare oneself as a Croat, and that a major share of the population avoided declaring themselves as such although they could, based on their ethnic characteristics. Accordingly, the second aim of the paper was to attempt to determine, in the context of the 2011 census, which is a source of plenty of relevant data, not only the number of declared Croats but also those who were undeclared as such, but could certainly be considered to belong to the same linguistic, religious and cultural community as Croats. For this paper, that wider unit was termed the Slavic Catholic community (Slavic–Catholic), which is already recognised in language as the Central South Slavic area (Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro), among other things as a certain “opposite” of the Slavic–Orthodox and Slavic–Muslim communities of the same spatial scope. To better understand the position of Croats in Montenegro, and especially their reluctance to declare Croatian national affiliation, which is more and more evident over time, an integral part of the paper is an appropriate presentation of historical circumstances that have framed their past and present identity positioning. The first data on the presence of Croats in today’s Montenegrin area refers to the period of Slavic settlement of South-east Europe, which took place until the beginning of the 7th century. According to the work of the Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus (945–959), “On the Governance of the Empire”, during their settlement, Croats occupied the former Roman province of Dalmatia (which, according to the author, “started from the surroundings of Durrës and Bar and stretched to the Istrian mountains and to the river Danube in width”), as well as Pannonia and Illyricum. According to the Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja, probably written by the (Arch)Bishop of Bar Gregory in the period 1177–1189, upon settlement the Slavs had founded a state, the backbone of which was on the coast, between Istria and today’s northern Albania. According to the Chronicle, that coastal belt was divided into White and Red Croatia, which stretched from Duvanjsko Polje further south. Besides, Byzantine 11th- and 12th-century writers mention Croats and Croatia in the context of the area of today’s Montenegro. However, from the beginning of the 9th century, that is, the point in time from which one can continuously follow the political development in the Adriatic–Dinaric belt, or the area of the former Roman Dalmatia, it is certain that four smaller Slavic principalities existed between the rivers Cetina and Bojana: Neretva, Zahumlje, Travunia and Duklja. In the mid 11th century, Duklja, Travunia and Zahumlje were united into a state at the initiative of the rulers of Duklja. The expanded state of Duklja, ruled by the Vojislavljević dynasty, gained international acknowledgement since the papacy recognised it as a separate kingdom and a strong lever for maintaining its own identity, manifested in the existence of a state religious centre in the form of the Catholic metropolis of Bar. Such circumstances could have suggested the emergence of a much wider state unit, located approximately between the rivers Neretva and Drim on the one side and the Adriatic and the river Tara on the other, which would have implied the formation of an ethnic body. However, events unfolded in a different direction. Since the mid 12th century the state of Duklja had been losing ever more power, completely falling under the ruler of neighbouring Orthodox Serbia at the end of the same century. During that time the Schism of 1054 acquired full significance. The 1204 establishment of the Latin Empire, with its seat in Constantinople, led to a strong polarisation between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. In such conditions, upon establishment of its own church in 1219, the Serbian dynasty of Nemanjić began to carry out mass Orthodoxisation of the Zahumlje and Duklja areas to ensure their loyalty. Primarily exposed to religious conversion were Slavic Catholic people, who, at that time, shared many similarities with the neighbouring Orthodox in the entire area of the Adriatic–Dinaric belt in terms of external manifestations of their Christian identity, significantly marked by the tradition of Cyril and Methodius. Coastal, communal centres in the area of today’s Montenegro, Kotor, Budva and Bar, at the time still largely Romanesque, but eventually Slavicised, and their “belonging” or gravitating Slavic population, as well as the Albanian population located next to gradually Albanianised Ulcinj, along the river Bojana and in Malesia, were left Catholics. The territorial relations between Catholics and Orthodox established at the time have largely remained relevant until modern times. In the area of today’s Montenegro, the Slavic Catholic population was in principle reduced to a distinct minority concentrated in and around the coastal communes. As the Serbian state weakened from the mid 14th century, those communes gradually merged with the western states, and ultimately with the Venetian Republic. They remained under its rule until the end of the 18th century. After that, they were mainly part of the Austrian Kingdom of Dalmatia until 1918. Under those conditions, sharing the social climate with the population of the eastern Adriatic coast, who spoke the same language and shared the same religion, from the mid 19th century the Slavic Catholic population of today’s Montenegrin coast became involved in the processes leading to the constitution of the Croatian nation. The political and social development of the Orthodox population in Montenegro took a different course. By integrating into the de facto Serbian Orthodox Church, they began acquiring Serbian ethnic characteristics. However, given the disintegration of the Serbian state on a part of today’s Montenegrin territory, a new state emerged in the form of Zeta, centred in sub-Lovćen Montenegro and ruled by the Balšić dynasty and the Crnojević dynasty. During the Ottoman rule, which began in the late 15th century, sub-Lovćen Montenegro retained a certain autonomy, which became the basis for the formation of the Montenegrin state close to its current borders in the late 17th century. While the Montenegrin population “remained” in the identity sphere of proto-national Serbs due to Orthodoxy, imbued with the cult of the Nemanjić dynasty, its peculiar development enabled them to acquire own ethnic consciousness. The dichotomy between the Montenegrin and Serbian sense of identity has not been overcome to this day, which is becoming increasingly clear in the division of the Orthodox population between the national Montenegrins and the national Serbs. With the disintegration of Austro–Hungary and the emergence of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, that is, Yugoslavia, the Slavic Catholic population in the area of today’s Montenegro found itself permanently separated from the political, or at least administrative framework defined by the Catholic majority, after almost five hundred years. Instead, it became a distinct minority group in an environment that was continuously exposed to strong Serbian influences, even after Montenegro gained independence. Over time, following the processes of migration towards the coast, it also became a minority in settlements where it once represented the only or majority population. Under those conditions, strongly marked by latent or real contradictions in the relations between Croats and Serbs and often radical manifestations of Serbian identity in their environment, for the Slavic Catholic population in Montenegro, the declaration of Croatian identity became a kind of burden that not everyone was ready or able to bear. In that context, among other things, it is worth looking at the data presented, which points to a decline in the share of Croats in Montenegro. Equally, attention should be paid to the data from the 2011 census, which indicates a kind of mass declaration of “alternative” forms of ethnicity on the part of the Slavic–Catholic population. According to the first census, the one of 1921, which covered the population of all parts of today’s Montenegro, 313,432 inhabitants lived on its soil, of which between 11,380 and 12,145 were Croats and other members of the Slavic–Catholic community. According to that census, which took no account of the national determinant, but recorded the religious and linguistic ones, the share of members of that community in the total population inhabiting the area of today’s Montenegro was between 3.6% and 3.9%. The censuses after 1945, which, as pointed out, covered the national determinant and were conducted in socialist Yugoslavia (1945–1991), Federal Republic of Yugoslavia / the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro (1991–2006) and in independent Montenegro (since 2006) recorded the following shares of Croats in Montenegro: 6,808 (in 1948), 9,814 (in 1953), 10,664 (in 1961), 9,192 (in 1971), 6,904 (in 1981), 6,244 (in 1991), 6,811 (in 2003), and 6,021 (in 2011). It is evident from the first censuses that part of the Slavic–Catholics in Montenegro did not declare themselves as Croats. This is primarily the case in Bar and its surroundings, where the declaration of Montenegrin nationality has permanently prevailed. Since 1971, a large number of people formerly declared as Croats began to declare themselves as “Yugoslavs”. Following the disintegration of Yugoslavia, in the 2003 and 2011 censuses, that type of declaration lost significance. However, no “return” to the declaration of Croatian national affiliation occurred, but rather the adoption of Montenegrin identity, rejection of the declaration of nationality, declaration of regional affiliation, etc. The analysis conducted in the context of the 2011 census shows that only a small part of the total Slavic–Catholic community in Montenegro declared themselves as Croats. Basically, only 5,931 people did so, if the total share of Croats (6,021) is reduced by 90 Orthodox who are probably registered as Croats for family reasons. At the same time, 29 Bosnians, 5,667 Montenegrins, 68 Yugoslavs, three Muslims, 569 nationally undeclared persons, 376 regionally declared persons, 112 Serbs and one Serb Montenegrin declared their affiliation with Catholicism. According to the insight into the share of the native Slavic Catholic population in Montenegro in 1921 and the share of Croats in the 1953–1971 censuses, it can be stated with a high level of certainty that those 6,825 respondents belonged to the Slavic Catholic population. The total share of the Slavic Catholic population in Montenegro in 2011 was larger than the sum of Croats (5,931) and the mentioned 6,825 persons, which amounted to 12,756, given that it should be increased by a certain number of respondents, primarily among Bosnians, Montenegrins, Yugoslavs, nationally undeclared and regionally declared who declared themselves as agnostics, atheists, unidentified Christians or refused to declare their religion. Primarily based on a comparison of the share of such persons within the municipalities of Boka Kotorska (Herceg Novi, Kotor, Tivat), where it is extremely high, with their shares in other Montenegrin municipalities, it could be argued that in 2011, the total share of Croats and other members of the Slavic–Catholic community amounted to approximately 15,000 or 2.4% of the population of Montenegro.

Collections of antiquities on Danish manorsBefore the establishment of the public museum system and during its first phase after 1807, important activity concerning the relics of antiquity was managed by the estates (fig. 3). This resulted in the creation of collections with varied contents, including Danish antiquities. These were either bought or found within the estate district as was the case with the pieces of ”danefæ”, which the peasants found and brought to the manor (according to a decree from 1737, all treasures found in the Danish soil must be handed over to the king or – later – the state. Such finds are called” danefæ”). It is notable that the collection of danefæ took place according to a decentralised structure, as described in King Frederik V’s public notice from 1752, which also stated that a reward is given in return. According to this, the king delegated his right to collect danefæ to counts and barons, who could then again pass it on and cash the reward. The danefæ became the nucleus in many collections (fig. 4). This category of landowners kept their central position to archaeological work for a long time. Their right to collect danefæ lasted until 1853, and the practice of delivering antiquities found on the estate at the manor went on until modern times.The early museum collections, the kunstkammers and collections of curios of the 17th and 18th centuries, are well described in the literature on museum history. However, only little attention has been paid to the collections of the 19th and early 20th centuries. For instance, the collections of Broholm on Fyn (fig. 9), of Nr. Vosbjerg in Western Jutland, of Brattingsborg on Samsø, and of Valbygaard (fig. 1) and Lerchenborg on Sjælland have all been thoroughly described, but only individually (note 5), not as a phenomenon. This article is based on information from a few selected archives supplemented by spot tests involving a number of manors and several museums in areas with many estates (note 14). ln spite of the limitations induced by the source material it is the aim of the article to throw light on as many collections as possible to reach a general view. The article focuses on the manor collections as a phenomenon and on the museum development and museum traditions to which these collections belong , with the emphasis on the 19th and early 20th centuries.The article is based on two archives,Victor Hermansen’s papers in the Royal Library, indicated in the lists I-V with the signature of ”gl. Bib. VH” and the part of the report archive in the National Museum / Danish Prehistory, listed as ”NM, Oldtiden”, which contains the private collections. The material has been described using five time references: Before 1807 (list I); 1807-1848 (list II); 1848-1892 (list III); and finally 1892-1919 and 1919- the present time (both in list IV) (fig. 2). The time divisions were the result of an overall evaluation of the material, the type of collections and the intellectual, mental and social motives behind the collecting activity. Although the types of collections from different periods overlap and late examples of early collection types do occur, it is still obvious that the ideal for collector’s activity changed in the course of time.The review begins with the period 1807-1848, at the start of which the ”Royal Commission to the Safe keeping of Antiquities” was to become the foundation stone of the public museum system.1807-1848: landowners and others put much work into the issue, which the ”Commission” had been appointed to safeguarding. Danish artefacts were collected as never before. A flow of artefacts arrived at the collection in the capital from several landowners on Fyn and elsewhere. As in the beginning of the previous period, the landowners were also taking part in excavations, in protecting relics of antiquity and in publishing archaeological treatises.1848-1892:The public museum services were established. The new keeper of the Danish antiquities, the archaeologist J.J.A. Worsaae travelled the country to collect information, and he specifically contacted the landowners, knowing that these were key figures within archaeological research (fig. 5 and 10). Consequently, the landowners changed the way they dealt with archaeology in line with the development of the profession as initiated by Worsaae, who went in the direction of a more scholarly method and a dissociation of philosophy and history, which had been closely connected to archaeology. King Frederik VII’s (1848-1863) personal interest in archaeology had a positive influence on the development of the profession and contributed to its growing popularity among the landowners and the public.1892-1919: This period began with the Old Nordic Museum changing its name into the National Museum, and Sophus Müller becoming its curator. The landowners continued their archaeological activity, especially on those estates, which had a tradition for this (fig. 6). However, in the correlation between these archaeologically interested and active landowners, the National Museum gained more authority due to its growing expertise. Not only did the museum engage itself in the landowners’ investigations, it also took over the work and continued it on its own terms. But at the same time the museum staff showed appropriate consideration to the landowners, who according to the constitution had the right of owners hip to extensive areas with artefacts and relics of the past. Cooperation was necessary for the growth of the profession. The landowners had unlimited rights to those finds of artefacts and structures that were not danefæ or listed relics. However, the registers of the National Museum from this time show that after the excavation, the landowner often gave the finds to the museum.This period also saw conflicts between the provincial museums and the National Museum, caused by Sophus Müller’s policy of a centralised museum structure, which gave the provincial museums little liberty of action (note 7). We lack a coherent description of the private artefact collectors’ part in this game. A closer examination of some of them, such as Beck on Valbygaard, the private collectors associated with the museum in Odense, and Collet on Lundbygaard suggests that they were sometimes on one, sometimes on the other front in this controversy (note 9 and 47).After 1919: In 1919, the privileges and special duties of the nobility were cancelled, a development parallelled in the rest of Central, East and Northern Europe. The advanced position in the government previously held by this social class had ended to be replaced by the public sector of the democratic society of which the modern museum system forms a part. However, some estates carried on the tradition of building up collections of artefacts even in this period, and a few landowners opened museums on their estates (fig. 7). These are late activities in the long tradition of archaeological activity on the manors. Both in this periods and the previous one, the interest in collecting artefacts spread down the hierarchy of the manors to the employees and to the farmers on the small holdings. Today almost every family holding owns a collection of artefacts found on the property.To throw light on the changing intellectual context of which the artefact collections on the manors formed part, from the collections of the late Renaissance until the present, the article includes the collections of curios and minerals from the 17th and 18th centuries (list I). Most royal and princely courts in Europe had a kunstkammer with a wideranging content. The archive information used for this article has shown that in Denmark in the 19th century, these collections were not exclusively connected to the nobility or the manors. It is a common trait that the collector was a learned person, an academic or a high official or a well- educated nobleman with or without property. To agree with this, both in Denmark and internationally, a well-equipped library was attached to the collection as a fixed element (fig. 8). Some kunstkammers were attached to grammar schools, orphanages and student hostels. Through purchase and sale parts of the collections changed owner and location from time to time, as for instance the collection of Jesper Friis, which can be followed in written so urces from the 17th century through the following centuries and for a couple of items even into the antique collection of the National Museum.Around 1800, the Romantic Movement and the national currents increased the interest in Danish arte facts and relics of the past. Via folk high school education, which was inspired by the Nordic mythology and attached importance to the prehistory and early history of the nation, this interest spread into the population. As opposed to the earlier collections, which formed part of a learned environment characterised by a classical, humanistic education, the many manor collections, which had their prime in the period of c. 1860-1919, formed part of a practical agronomy universe, where demanding farming techniques were pushed into effect and where hunting and outdoor life was an important part of life. At the same time the landowners put much strength into renovating buildings and erecting fine manor complexes, a natural consequence of the wealth that originated from the corn sales. In an era where natural sciences and practical trades were given pride of place, the turn of archaeology away from the old humanistic method and tradition within philology and history towards the exact sciences will have contributed to the populariry of the profession.The private collections of artefacts have a larger professional and intellectual value than what is usually attributed to them. They were made at a time when the creation of rype collections of artefacts, suites, were in fashion. Information on find conditions and contexts are therefore rare. In the 20th century, professional archaeologists valued these collections according to the presence of find information, and so many of them were split through exchange. The fact that many of these artefacts were from the time before the parish accounts (a registering of relics of the past initiated by the National Museum) and thus – when it comes to the local artefacts – told of the relics of the past that had been situated on the estate earlier, but had been demolished in the early, active farming years of the first half of the 19th century. Also, the ethnological value of these collections has been disregarded.The article ends with considerations as to the public / the private. Nowadays these two notions create two separate rooms. ICOM’s ethical rules for museums have a clear definition, stating that a professional museum activiry is in compatible with private collecting activity.The history of the private collections of arte facts throws light on the development from the time before the public sector, when landowners and other private persons were supporting archaeology and the public museum initiative economically, politically and professionally. The profession developed from here and in a continued interaction between the professionals and the private collectors. Even when today there is a clear distinction between public and private, there are some interesting reminiscences left. Without the contribution and support of the public, archaeology would have difficult conditions.Karen Løkkegaard PoulsenMariboTranslated by Annette Lerche Trolle

The layout and organisation of wooden houses in Aalborg from 1050-1600This analysis of the layout, organisation and use of wooden houses in Aalborg in the period 1050-1600 is based on the remains of 39 buildings from a total of 11 different excavations carried out between 1962 and 2008. Wooden houses have been excavated at 41 sites in Aalborg, but at only 12 of these sites was the level of recording adequate to permit inclusion in this analysis. In addition, Aalborg has 23 half-timbered houses dated prior to 1600, seven of which still stand on their original site. Out of this total of 62 wooden houses, 25 examples provide good information on layout, organisation and use and therefore form the backbone of this study.In terms of date, the main weight of the excavated houses lies in the 15th century, while the 14th century is poorest represented. Looking exclusively at the 23 best-preserved houses, the distribution is more uniform throughout the Middle Ages; however the 14th century remains underrepresented (tables 1 and 2).None of the houses in the present assemblage has been excavated in its full extent. Even so, it is apparent from the data that the width of the houses was very uniform: generally 5-6 m in the case of the excavated houses. The reason for this is probably that wider houses would require longer tie beams and thereby have a weaker construction. The houses were probably built with a framed construction that contained insufficient timber to stabilise a wider structure. The length of the houses varied as the timber-framed buildings have a modular construction made up of bays. The length of a house can therefore be increased as required by simply adding further bays.Regionality is a major question in the discussion of layout, organisation and use and as all the primary material for this study derives from Aalborg, it is possibly only representative of the situation in Northern Jutland. Studies of 18th century farmhouses show that regional differences do not necessarily follow the usual regional groupings and, moreover, that they can be quite considerable (fig. 4). Variation between houses can also be the result of the different housing requirements of the various social strata.If the study’s best preserved houses are examined in the light of the above, three things become immediately apparent: All the houses, with only two exceptions, are situated with their gable extending all the way out to the street, and secondly, also with two exceptions, they are located along Aalborg’s main thoroughfare. Finally, all the houses lie in a dense, intensive settlement. Despite the small sample size, the material reveals so many similarities between the houses that it can be considered to be homogeneous. Consequently, it is able to shed light on the prevailing conditions in the gable-fronted houses which faced on to Aalborg’s main street.A collective overview of the layout and organisation of the houses is best illustrated by figures 2 and 3, where the house outlines are arranged in chronological order. As is apparent, partition walls have exclusively been identified running across the houses, and the number of rooms in each of them is modest. In the houses dating from the period 1050-1300 it was apparently normal to have a large room out towards the street, and in several instances the presence of some form of hearth has been demonstrated here. The room behind this was generally slightly smaller or of the same size as that at the front. The houses from the period 1350-1600 are, as in the preceding period, very uniform. They all have a large room out towards the street, but it is not possible to demonstrate whether this room was heated. The most striking common feature of the houses is that there are hearth structures in the rearmost or middle room; these are interpreted as representing the kitchen regions in the houses. The layout and organisation of two of the timbered-framed houses match that of the two latest, excavated houses. In both cases there is a large room out towards the street; this room was heated by a jamb stove. Behind this room lies the room with the kitchen hearth arrangement. In general, it can be said that the layout of Aalborg’s medieval and early Renaissance town houses was not particularly complicated and there were only very few rooms. The differences between the two periods 1050-1350 and 1350-1600 lie primarily in where and how the hearth was situated in the house.The presence of fixed hearths can be relatively easy to demonstrate archaeologically, because charcoal and burnt clay are durable materials. Out of the 39 houses that were examined, a fixed hearth was not identified in only 12 cases, and of these houses without a recognised hearth, most had been only partially excavated. The evidence suggests that throughout the entire Middle Ages in Aalborg it was usual to employ stoves and open hearths side by side. This is in direct conflict with the accepted view that hearths were replaced by stoves during the course of the Middle Ages. It is not possible to ascertain whether this variation results from regional differences or a statistically inadequate sample (tables 3 and 4).If a stove is sited with the stokehole in one room and the stove chamber in the next, it becomes possible to heat a room without it being plagued by smoke (fig. 5). Some of Denmark’s earliest examples of jamb stoves were found in Aalborg and the two best examples were excavated at Algade 9. The two houses in question have been dendrochronologically dated to the 1120s (fig. 6) and the 1170s (fig. 7), respectively. One of them, house 8, was a direct replacement of the other, house 5. Both are well-documented with unequivocal traces of partition walls.The jamb stove heated the second room back from the street which, as a consequence, was warm and comfortable without the inconvenience of smoke. All the other hearths were located in the first room out to the street and activities which required a hearth must necessarily have taken place here. This way of organising the dwelling must, on the basis of the material analysed here, have been usual in the Early Middle Ages, up until the 14th century. Of the 15 houses dated to this period, the same pattern can be recognised, more or less, in eight of them. Probably the earliest house with a jamb stove was excavated at Bredgade 7 (fig. 2, house 2) and is dated stratigraphically to the end of the 11th century.In none of these Early Medieval jamb stoves has it been possible to demonstrate the use of “potkakler” – hollow ceramic tiles – in the stove construction. These tiles first appeared in Aalborg in the 15th century. Consequently, there is no connection between the introduction of “potkakler” and the introduction of jamb stoves to Aalborg.The evidence suggests that hearths after the 14th century, compared with the preceding period, were positioned further back in the house. The most marked traces of hearths are now to be found in the middle part of the house, corresponding to the second room in from the street. In houses 18, 20, 21, 22 and 23 on figure 3 there are complicated hearth structures which are, in all cases, interpreted as kitchen facilities (fig. 8). Consequently, the kitchen moved back in the house and it seems that this change took place after the middle of the 14th century. The position of the hearths in the two timber-framed houses 24 and 25 is almost identical to that seen in the houses from the Late Middle Ages. The kitchen hearth was located in the second room back from the street and was built up against the partition wall. The front room could thereby be heated with a jamb stove with a stokehole in the kitchen. This resulted in a heated but smoke-free room.In the two well-preserved houses 5 and 8, the presence of a door has been demonstrated between the front two rooms in the buildings, interpreted as the living quarters in the houses. As these buildings were gable-fronted houses, the main door must have opened to the street and access to the house’s second room, the one with the jamb stove, was therefore through the front room. This front room with the hearths was probably the most public room in the house. There are no traces of doors in the part containing the living quarters in the Late Medieval houses, but in the two timber-framed houses, a main door in the gable leads into the front room. This room was probably a more public room than the kitchen room behind it. There was direct access between the two rooms. In both houses, the kitchen room has a further outer door which must be perceived as a back door.In Denmark, fixed, raised wall benches are considered to be a completely standard fixture in the dwelling houses of Viking times and the Middle Ages. Their use ceased in Denmark during the course of the 13th century, a development which can be partially confirmed by the evidence from Aalborg. The wall benches probably went out of use because this was the time when movable furniture became more widespread.The excavated remains of the wooden houses in Aalborg demonstrate that, in the course of the Middle Ages, a change took place in the internal organisation of the houses. The main development was that the cooking hearth was moved from the front room further back in the house. As a consequence, cooking no longer took place in the first room encountered on entering the building. In the Early Middle Ages, a relatively standard pattern can be observed in the internal organisation of houses in Aalborg. At the front of the house, out towards the street, there was a room which contained all the house’s hearths. It was also from here that a jamb stove was fired, which heated the room behind. The smoke-filled front room would have been the first room people came into in the house, while the room behind would have been smoke-free. This latter, more comfortable room probably functioned as the house’s living-/bedroom. The fact that it was necessary to go through the first room in order to reach the more comfortable room behind suggests that the rear room was more private than that at the front. The room with the hearths was probably the place where externally-directed activities such as trade took place.In the excavated houses from the Late Middle Ages, the kitchen region is no longer found to be in the room out towards the street. It is unclear how the front room was used, but one possibility is that it had the same function as in the later timber-framed houses, i.e. as an entrance hall with externally-directed functions. The activities which took place around the house’s main hearth had possibly become of a more private nature and were therefore, together with the hearth, moved away from the front, more public, room.This change in internal organisation appears to have taken place during the course of the 14th century. If this is true, then it coincided with a series of other social changes and upheavals such as the agricultural crisis, the population decline, the plague epidemics and consequent changes in family structure. It is not inconceivable that the reason for the revised preferences with regard to specific types of dwelling organisation has its basis in these altered family patterns. The Late Medieval way of organising a dwelling next underwent changes at the beginning of the 17th century.Christian G. KlingeNordjyllands Historiske Museum

Introduction. Theoretical background. The territorial formation and economic development of Оlexandrivsk and the district is associated with the activation of social, including artistic, life all aspects in the Russian Empire. The creative potential of small towns, including Olexandrivsk, has become a fertile ground for the development of the principles and means of theatrical and stage creativity. Theater, as the most democratic form of art, is directly connected with changes in public life. The theater significant social role and insufficient knowledge on it in the Olexandrivsk conditions and its district determined the relevance of the research topic. The researches by S. Voitkovsky (2014), G. Dadamyan (1987), M. Yevreinov (2019) constitute the scientific and theoretical basis of the work. The study of theatrical art in the Oleksandrivsk (Zaporizhzhya) region is based on the works of O. Antonenko (2017), S. Grushkina (2011), T. Martynyuk (2003). The aim of the research is to study the theater art in Olexandrivsk and the district of the same name as an integral phenomenon of a certain time. The tasks of the work are determine the origins of the theater art in the region, coverage of the features of this phenomenon, identification of theater companies’ organizational forms, study of the theater groups’ repertoire and genre priorities, consideration of theater art professionalization issues in the region. The methodology involves the application of the basic dialectic principles (to reveal the internal contradictions of the research subject and the sources of its development); historical principle (to study the theater’ development as a process of changes in existence’ some forms); comparative method (to identify the theater art characteristics in the region); source study method (to create an archival and historical base for studying the problem); axiological approach (to identify of the theater artistic troupes’ value orientations in the region). Results of the research. Historical materials contain a few facts about the theatrical entertainment of the local population long before the foundation of Olexandrivsk. Similar to the more inhabited neighboring regions, in these territories the existence of a folk theater is likely, the roots of which M. Yevreinov sees in magical actions, rituals and buffoonery. The researcher considers the theater of Russia, the roots of which are in the theatrical art of Europe, to be a counterbalance to folk theater. At the state level, these traditions have been inculcated since the 17th century. This process in the region began from the time of Olexandrivsk foundation. There are two most stable groups of theater collectives in the theater environment of the region. Domestic and foreign drama and opera troupes, which were guided by the Western European theater traditions, are made up the first group. Ukrainian artists’ association and local amateur drama circles that further developed the traditions of folk theater consisted the second group. They united by the idea of national dramatic art. The factors of theater collective’ differentiation in this region are the form of organization of theater business, repertoire and genre priorities, issues of professionalization. The sole proprietorship form is characteristic for the Western European tradition collectives. In Olexandrivsk and the district, the private enterprise was the dominant form, as the most active organization type of theater business. This type of enterprise does not have the conventions of imperial, state, municipal and other theaters in terms of repertoire and personnel relations. This provided it with freedom, mobility and ingenuity. The organizational form of the partnership is characteristic for the troupes oriented towards the traditions of folk theater. Democracy of this form manifested itself in collective decisionmaking. The next factor in differentiating theater groups is repertoire and genre priorities. The Western European tradition troupes gave preference to the works of Western European and Russian authors. Ukrainian authors’ works, Ukrainian song and dance folklore dominated in the repertoire of Ukrainian associations, which continued the traditions of folk theater. These groups preferred works of a pronounced national orientation. The repertoire differences between the two groups reflected to the methods and skills of acting. It is necessary to master Italian vocal technique, classic instrumental technique, conducting symphonic skills in the Western European tradition troupes. In Ukrainian troupes’ music and dramatic performances, universal training actor is needed, equally skillful in stage speech, the folk dance, the style of folk singing. The theater groups’ genre preferences repertoire related to an orientation towards the original artistic traditions. The Western European tradition’ collectives repertoire abounded in dramas, operas, operettas and the romances, arias, opera scenes in the concert departments. The Ukrainian folk-theater tradition repertoire dominated by music and drama plays, simple Ukrainian opera and Ukrainian folk songs, romances by domestic composers in concert departments. In Olexandrivsk and the district, questions of theater art’ professionalization were not publicly raised widely. Some striving for the performances artistic level increase we can saw in the practice of inviting famous artists for touring performances. Thanks to this, acting skills, methods of working on the role and the performance as a whole enriched. Invitations to participation in the performance of famous performers of the folk-theatrical tradition to Ukrainian troupes were episodic. An indicative fact of development was the director’s position emergence in the Western European tradition troupes. Conclusions. The peculiarity of theater art in the Olexandrivsk region is the absence of a local professional theater, represented, on the one hand, by the work of guest domestic and foreign troupes, on the other – by Ukrainian artistic societies and local amateur associations. The dominant groups of groups embodied two types of theater: Western European tradition and folk tradition. These types of theater functioned in various organizational forms. Dramatic and operatic corpses of the European tradition were characterized by a form of individual private enterprise; Ukrainian groups that developed the traditions of folk theater – a form of acting society. Theater troupes of these two traditions distinguished by their repertoire priorities. The core of the repertoire of the Western European tradition groups was the Russian and Western European authors’ works. The groups, which developed the folk theater, staged mainly plays by Ukrainian and local authors. The vector of theatrical art development in the Olexandrivsk and region is not clear enough at the historical period under consideration. An organized and purposeful movement towards the theater art professionalization in the region of this historical period is not visible. Certain facts of attracting famous artists and interaction with other groups as well as the emergence of the directed theater can be considered as elements of а professionalization.

Statement of the problem. Nowadays, there has been a high demand for historically informed performance, including in the educational process. However, a young performer often faces not only technical problems, but also a lack of understanding of the performance style. So, the relevance of the topic of the article is caused by urgent needs of modern concert and stage practice related to historically oriented performance as well as by the task of modern music education to introduce the Baroque styles into the educational process of vocal performers. The article offers the experience of musicological reception of the early aria genre using the example of the French “air de cour” as the personification of European Baroque aesthetics. The genre, which is little known to both Ukrainian and Chinese vocalists, is considered from the standpoint of a cognitive approach, which involves a combination of practical singing technology with the understanding of the aesthetic guidelines of the baroque vocal style as an original phenomenon. One of the manifestations of it is the “sung dance” (singing in ballet) as the embodiment of artistic synthesis rooted in the musical and theatrical practice of France during the time of Louis XIV with its luxurious court performances, a bright component of which were “airs de cour”. To reveal the chosen topic it was necessary to study scientific literature in such areas as the issues of performing early vocal music (Boiarenko, 2015), the history and modernity of vocal art (Shuliar, 2014; Hnyd, 1997; Landru-Chandès, 2017); peculiarities of the air de cour genre, which are highlighted with varying degrees of detailing in different perspectives in the works of European and American scholars: 1) in publications on the synthetic opera and ballet genres in the time and at the court of Louis XIV, in particular ballet-de-cour (Needham, 1997; Christout, 1998; Verchaly, 1957; Harris-Warwick, 1992; Cowart, 2008); 2) special studies (Durosoir, 1991; Khattabi, 2013; Brooks, 2001); 3) monographs on Baroque music (Bukofzer, 1947); 4) reference articles by authoritative musicologists (Baron, 2001, the editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica and others). A study that would focus on the aesthetic principles of the modern vocal interpretation of air de cour as a sample of the early aria genre has not been found. Research results. Air de cour, the origins of which are connected with the secular urban song (voix-de-ville) in arrangements for voice and lute and lute transcriptions of polyphonic vocal works of the Renaissance, was popular in France, and later, in Europe at the end of the 16th and 17th centuries. As part of the popular synthetic theatrical spectacle – ballet-de-cour, which combined dance, music, poetry, visual and acting arts and flourished at the court of Louis XIV as an active means of sacralizing the king’s person, “air de cour” even in its name (which gradually replaced “voix-de-villes”) alludes to the social transformations of the French Baroque era with its courtly preferences. With the transition to an aristocratic environment, the link of the genre with its folk roots (squareness, metricity, melodic unpretentiousness) weakens, giving way to the refined declamation style of musique mesurée; the strophic repetitions of the melody with a new text are decorated by the singers with unique ornamentation (broderies), which is significantly different from the Italian. The poetic word and music complement the art of dance since air de cour has also adapted to ballet numbers, providing great opportunities for various forms of interaction between singing and dancing and interpretation on the basis of versioning – the variable technique of combinations, which were constantly updated. Vocal numbers in ballets were used to create various musical imagery characteristics. When choosing singers, the author of the music had to rely on such criteria as the range and timbre of the voice. As leaders, the creators of airs de cour used high voices. This is explained by the secular direction of the genre, its gradual separation from the polyphonic traditions of the past era: the highest voice in the polyphony, superius, is clearly distinguished as the leading one in order to convey the meaning of the poetic declamation, to clearly hear the words, turning the polyphonic texture into a predominantly chordal one with the soprano as the leading voice. Hence, the modern performing reproduction of air de cour, as well as the early aria in general, requires a certain orientation in the characteristics of the expressive possibilities of this particular singing voice; for this purpose, the article provides a corresponding classification of sopranos. So, despite the small vocal range and the external simplicity of the air de cour form, the vocalist faces difficult tasks, from deep penetration into the content of the poetic text and reproduction of the free declamatory performance style to virtuoso mastery of the technique of ornamental singing and a special “instrumental” singing manner inherited from Renaissance polyphonic “equality” of vocal and instrumental voices. Conclusions. What are the aesthetic principles of vocal music of the European Baroque period that a vocalist should take into account when performing it? First of all, it is an organic synthesis of music, poetry and choreography. The connection of singing with dance plasticity is inherent in many early vocal works. Hence the requirement not only to pay attention to the culture ofrecitation, pronunciation of a poetic text, understanding of key words-images, which precedes any performance interpretation of a vocal work, but also to study the aesthetic influences of various arts inherent in this or that work of Baroque culture. Air de cour differs from the German church or Italian opera aria as other national manifestations of the psychotype of a European person precisely in its dance and movement plasticity. Therefore, the genre of the early aria requires the modern interpreter to understand the socio-historical and aesthetic conditions of its origin and existence and to rely on the systemic unity (polymodality) of vocal stylistics. The prospect of research. There are plenty of types of vocal and dance plasticity in early arias; among them, rhythmic formulas and dance patterns of sicilianas, pavanes, and tarantellas prevail; movement rhythm (passacaglia). And they received further rapid development in the romantic opera of the 19th century. This material constitutes a separate “niche” and is an artistic phenomenon that is practically unstudied in terms of historical and stylistic integrity, continuity in various national cultures, and relevance for modern music and theatre art.

On 7 December 1569, the town of Merkinė received the Magdeburg Law from the Grand Duke Žygimantas Augustas of Lithuania. The newly granted rights of municipality allowed the local craftsmen to set up their guilds. It is known that the guild of shoemakers was established there in 1614, that of curriers in 1618, that of tailors in 1639, that of merchants in 1650. There is a mention of the head of the guild of butchers dating from 1707, but the date of the establishement of this guild remains unknown. The ruler used to confirm the statutes of the newly established guilds; some statutes were reconfirmed upon new accession to the throne. This article discloses the hierarchical structure within the guilds by discussing the appropriate paragraphs of the statutes; also, it demonstrates the basic conditions within which the members of the guilds took part in the social life of the town and the state. The relations among different guilds of the town are also discussed. After the town had been ransacked by Muscovite troops in 1655, the guilds disappeared for long. Some sort of recovery is to be seen in that King Augustus II reconfirmed the statutes of shoemakers in 1718. On that occasion, the ruler had also to fordid the Jews from trading in the imported goods of this sort, as the craftsmen of Merkinė were too weak to survive in the face of this kind of rivalry.