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For many Ukrainians, 1991 was a crucial point when their long-held dream of independence came true. The image of the future life in independent Ukraine was then almost identical to folklore images of Ukraine as the land of milk and honey. "Living the Independence Dream" takes a multi-dimensional look at the period of regained independence as a time of advancement towards the realization of collective dreams shaping the post-Soviet nation, even through everyday disappointments, anxiety, and uncertainty. The collection features personal accounts of several generations of Ukrainians who found themselves displaced by political upheavals in foreign lands, as well as the voices of recently displac...
Scholars and analysts seeking to illuminate the extraordinary creativity and innovation evident in European medieval cultures and their afterlives have thus far neglected the important role of religious heresy. The papers collected here - reflecting the disciplines of history, literature, theology, philosophy, economics and law - examine the intellectual and social investments characteristic of both deliberate religious dissent such as the Cathars of Languedoc, the Balkan Bogomils, the Hussites of Bohemia and those who knowingly or unknowingly bent or broke the rules, creating their own 'unofficial orthodoxies'. Attempts to understand, police and eradicate all these, through methods such as the Inquisition, required no less ingenuity. The ambivalent dynamic evident in the tensions between coercion and dissent is still recognisable and productive in the world today.
This volume launches the book series of “Inquire – International Centre for Research on Inquisitions” of the University of Bologna, a research network that engages with the history of religious justice from the 13th to the 20th century. This first publication offers twenty chapters that take stock of the current historiography on medieval and early modern Inquisitions (the Spanish, Portuguese and Roman Inquisitions) and their modern continuations. Through the analysis of specific questions related to religious repression in Europe and the Iberian colonial territories extending from the Middle Ages to today, the contributions here examine the history of the perception of tribunals and the most recent historiographical trends. New research perspectives thus emerge on a subject that continues to intrigue those interested in the practices of justice and censorship, the history of religious dissent and the genesis of intolerance in the Western world and beyond.
This lavishly illustrated book looks at the art and architecture of episcopal palaces as expressions of power and ideology. Tracing the history of the bishop's residence in the urban centers of northern Italy over the Middle Ages, Maureen C. Miller asks why this once rudimentary and highly fortified structure called a domus became a complex and elegant "palace" (palatium) by the late twelfth century. Miller argues that the change reflects both the emergence of a distinct clerical culture and the attempts of bishops to maintain authority in public life. She relates both to the Gregorian reform movement, which set new standards for clerical deportment and at the same time undercut episcopal cl...
A People's Church brings together a distinguished international group of historians to provide a sweeping introduction to Christian religious life and institutions in medieval Italy. Each essay treats a single theme as broadly as possible, highlighting both the unique aspects of medieval Christianity on the Italian peninsula and the beliefs and practices it shared with other Christian societies. Because of its long tradition of communal self-governance, Christianity in medieval Italy, perhaps more than anywhere else, was truly a "people's church." At the same time, its exceptional urban wealth and literacy rates, along with its rich and varied intellectual and artistic culture, led to divers...
With its reconversion to a mosque in August 2020, the former monastic church of Saint Saviour in Chora entered yet another phase of its long history. The present book examines the Chora/Kariye Camii site from a transcultural perspective, tracing its continuous transformations in form and function from Late Antiquity to the present day. Whereas previous literature has almost exclusively placed emphasis on the Byzantine phase of the building’s history, including the status of its mosaics and paintings as major works of Palaiologan culture, this study is the first to investigate the shifting meanings with which the Chora/Kariye Camii site has been invested over time and across uninterrupted alterations, interventions, and transformations. Bringing together contributions from archaeologists, art historians, philologists, anthroplogists and historians, the volume provides a new framework for understanding not only this building but, more generally, edifices that have undergone interventions and transformations within multicultural societies. The open access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation.
This volume explores economic, social, and political dimensions of three catastrophic famines which struck mid-nineteenth and early-twentieth century Europe; the Irish Famine (An Gorta Mór ) of 1845–1850, the Finnish Famine (Suuret Nälkävuodet) of the 1860s and the Ukrainian Famine (Holodomor) of 1932/1933. In addition to providing new insights into these events on international, national and regional scales, this volume contributes to an increased comparative historiography in historical famine studies. The parallel studies presented in this book challenge and enhance established understandings of famine tragedies, including: famine causation and culpability; social and regional famine...
The concept of a 'return to Europe' has been integral to the movement for Ukrainian national rebirth since the nineteenth century. While the goal of a more fully reformed politics remains elusive, numerous expressions of Ukrainian culture continue to develop in the European spirit. This wide-ranging book explores Ukraine's European cultural connection, especially as it has been reestablished since the country achieved independence in 1991. The contributors discusses many aspects of Ukraine's contemporary culture - history, politics, and religion in Part I; literary culture in Part II; and language, popular culture, and the arts in Part III. What emerges is a fascinating picture of a young country grappling with its divided past and its colonial heritage, yet asserting its voice and preferences amid the diverse and at times conflicting realities of the contemporary political scene. Europe becomes a powerful point of reference, a measure against which the situation in post-independence Ukraine is gouged and debated. This framework allows for a better understanding of the complexities deeply ingrained in the social fabric of Ukrainian society.
When religion is considered, the subjects are usually saints, heretics, theologians, and religious leaders, thereby ignoring the vast majority of those who lived in the communes. Drawing on many ecclesiastical and secular sources, this book aims to give a voice to the majority - orthodox lay people and those who ministered to them.
Catharism was a popular medieval heresy based on the belief that the creation of humankind was a disaster in which angelic spirits were trapped in matter by the devil. Their only goal was to escape the body through purification. Cathars denied any value to material life, including the human body, baptism, and the Eucharist, even marriage and childbirth. What could explain the long popularity of such a bleak faith in the towns of southern France and Italy? Power and Purity explores the place of cathar heresy in the life of the medieval Italian town of Orvieto. Based on extensive archival research, it details the social makeup of the Cathar community and argues that the heresy was central to t...