Is Russia threatening to disrupt more than two decades' of EU and US efforts to promote stability in post-communist Southeast Europe? Politicians and commentators in the West say, 'yes.' With rising ...global anxiety over Russia's political policies and objectives, Dimitar Bechev provides the only in-depth look at this volatile region. Deftly unpacking the nature and extent of Russian influence in the Balkans, Greece, and Turkey, Bechev argues that both sides are driven by pragmatism and opportunism rather than historical loyalties. Russia is seeking to assert its role in Europe's security architecture, establish alternative routes for its gas exports - including the contested Southern Gas Corridor - and score points against the West. Yet, leaders in these areas are allowing Russia to reinsert itself to serve their own goals.
Fully illustrated, Prehistoric Figurines brings a radical new approach to one of the most exciting, but poorly understood artefacts from our prehistoric past. Studying the interpretation of ...prehistoric figurines from Neolithic southeast Europe, Bailey introduces recent developments from the fields of visual culture studies and cultural anthropology, and investigates the ways in which representations of human bodies were used by the pre-historic people to understand their own identities, to negotiate relationships and to make subtle political points. Bailey examines four critical conditions: * figurines as miniatures * figurines as three-dimensional representations * figurines as anthropomorphs * figurines as representations. Through these conditions, the study travels beyond the traditional mechanisms of interpretation and takes the debate past the out-dated interpretations of figurines as Mother-Goddess as Bailey examines individual prehistoric figurines in their original archaeological contexts and views them in the light of modern exploitations of the human form. Students and scholars of History and Archaeology will benefit immensely from Bailey's close understanding of the material culture and pre-history of the Balkans.
Dr Douglass Bailey is Senior Lecturer at Cardiff University and a world authority on the prehistory of eastern Europe. He has conducted fieldwork in Romania and Bulgaria and written on a wide range of topics including art, architecture, and the politics of archaeology. His Balkan Prehistory (Routledge 2000) is the standard text on the southeast European Neolithic
1. Introduction 2. Miniaturism and Dimensionality 3. Hamangia 4. Anthropomorphism: Dolls, portraits and body parts 5. Cucuteni-Tripolye 6. Visual Rhetoric, Truth and the Body 7. Thessalian 8. Subverting and Manipulating Reality 9. Conclusions
‘There is certainly much of interest here, Many of the sources that Bailey brings to bear are completely novel to existing scholarship on prehistoric figurines, and they yield some real insights. The book itself is engagingly written and well illustrated. Discussions of the diverse sources make for a lively read.’ – Cambridge Archaeological Journal
'Whatever you know about prehistoric figurines, this book will open your eyes and make you think... Bailey halps the reader all the way, with a meticulously constructed tect, written in an absorbing style; it combines some closely observed descriptions of the forms of figurines with comprehensive syntheses of their archaeological contexts, critical reviews of previous studies and interpretations, accessible explanations of complex ideas about human representation, and a selection of photographs and line drawings that work actively alongside the text... this is an outstanding book, because it poses so many thought-provoking questions about the complex qualities of visual representations of human bodies in the past and their significance today. – Antiquity
'...engagingly written and well illustrated...Bailey makes a bold effort to open up interpretation of Neolithic figurines from southeastern Europe...provoking thoughts far beyond any traditional archaeological bounds.' – Richard G. Lesure, University of California
Balkan Legacies John Paul Newman, Balázs Apor / John Paul Newman, Balázs Apor
2021, 2021-06-15
eBook
Balkan Legacies is a study of the aftermath of war and state socialism in the contemporary Balkans. The authors look at the inescapable inheritances of the recent past and those that the present has ...to deal with. The book's key theme is the interaction, often subliminal, of the experiences of war and socialism in contemporary society in the region. Fifteen contributors approach this topic from a range of disciplinary backgrounds and through a variety of interpretive lenses, collectively drawing a composite picture of the most enduring legacies of conflict and ideological transition in the region, without neglecting national and local peculiarities. The guiding questions addressed are: what is the relationship between memories of war, dictatorship (communist or fascist), and present-day identity—especially from the perspective of peripheral and minority groups and individuals? How did these components interact with each other to produce the political and social culture of the Balkan Peninsula today? The answers show the ways in which the experiences of the latter part of the twentieth century have defined and shaped the region in the twenty-first century.
Mirroring Europe offers refreshing insight into the ways Europe is imagined, negotiated and evoked in Balkan societies in the time of their accession to the European Union.
This collection of essays locates, investigates and challenges the manner in which the Balkans and the West have constructed each other since 1945. Scholars from the two sections of the continent ...explore a wide range of fiction, film, journalism, travel writing and diplomatic records both to analyse Western European balkanism and to study Balkan representations of the West over the last fifty years. The first section looks back to the Cold War, examining the divergent, often favourable images of the Balkans that existed in Western culture, as well as the variety of responses that appeared in South-East European writings on the West. The second section analyses the transitions that took place in representation during the 1990s. Here, contributors explore both the harsh denigration of the Balkans which came to dominate western discourse after the initial euphoria of 1989, and the emerging tradition of contesting Western balkanism in South-East European cultural production. Through this dual emphasis, the volume exposes the representational practices that help to maintain a deeply divided Europe, and challenges the economic and political injustices that result. Despite the rise to prominence of postcolonial theory, with its awareness of global inequality, the current crises in many parts of South-East Europe have received scant attention in literary and cultural studies. The Balkans and the West addresses this deficiency. Ranging in focus from Serbian cinema to Romanian travel literature, from Western economic writings to Yugoslav fiction, and from public discourse in Albania to NATO's vast propaganda machine, the essays offer wide insight into representation and power in the contemporary European context.
Andrew Hammond is a lecturer in twentieth-century literature at the Swansea Institute, University of Wales, UK
Contents: Introduction, Andrew Hammond; Britain and the Yugoslav general election of November 1945, Jim Evans; Primitivism and the modern: a prolonged misunderstanding, Felicity Rosslyn; The rhetoric of economics: Cold War representation of development in the Balkans, Michael Haynes; 'The red threat': Cold War rhetoric and the British novel, Andrew Hammond; Seeing red: America and its allies through the eyes of Enver Hoxha, Timothy Less; Paradoxes of occidentalism: on travel literature in Ceausescu's Romania, Alex Drace-Francis; Images of the west in Serbian and Croatian prose fiction, 1945-95, Celia Hawkesworth; Western writing and the (re)construction of the Balkans after 1989: the Bulgarian case, Yonka Krasteva; Albanians, Albanianism and the strategic subversion of stereotypes, Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers; Albania after isolation: the transformation of public perceptions of the west, Fatos Lubonja; Between a Balkan 'home' and the 'west': popular conceptions of the west in Bulgaria after 1945, Galia I. Valtchinova; Miloševic, Serbia and the west during the Yugoslav wars 1991-95, Tom Gallagher; Savage tribes and mystic feuds: western foreign policy statement on Bosnia in the early 1990s, Riikka Kuusisto; The Balkans conflict and the emergence of the information operations doctrine, Philip M. Taylor; War in the hall of mirrors: NATO bombing and Serbian cinema, Nevena Dakovic; Bibliography; Index.
Living in one of the world's most volatile regions, the people of the Balkans have witnessed unrelenting political, economic, and social upheaval. In response, many have looked to building ...communities, both psychologically and materially, as a means of survival in the wake of crumbling governments and states. The foundational structures of these communities often center on the concept of individual sacrifice for the good of the whole. Many communities, however, are hijacked by restrictive ideologies, turning them into a model of intolerance and exclusion.InThe Sacrificed Body,Tatjana Aleksic examines the widespread use of the sacrificial metaphor in cultural texts and its importance to sustaining communal ideologies in the Balkan region. Aleksic further relates the theme to the sanctioning of ethnic cleansing, rape, and murder in the name of homogeneity and collective identity. Aleksic begins her study with the theme of the immurement of a live female body in the foundation of an important architectural structure, a trope she finds in texts from all over the Balkans. The male builders performing the sacrificial act have been called by a higher power who will ensure the durability of the structure and hence the patriarchal community as a whole.In numerous examples ranging from literature to film and performance art, Aleksic views the theme of sacrifice and its relation to exclusion based on gender, race, class, sexuality, religion, or politics for the sake of community building. According to Aleksic, the sacrifice narrative becomes most prevalent during times of crisis brought on by wars, weak governments, foreign threats, or even globalizing tendencies. Because crisis justifies the very existence of restrictive communities, communalist ideology thrives on its perpetuation. They exist in a symbiotic relationship. Aleksic also acknowledges the emancipatory potential of a genuine community, after it has shaken off its ideological character.Aleksic employs cultural theory, sociological analysis, and human rights studies to expose a historical narrative that is predominant regionally, if not globally. As she determines, in an era of both Western and non-Western neoliberalism, elitist hegemony will continue to both threaten and bolster communities along with their segregationist tactics.
The Cumans and the Tatars were nomadic warriors of the Eurasian steppe who exerted an enduring impact on the medieval Balkans. With this work, István Vásáry presents an extensive examination of their ...history from 1185 to 1365. The basic instrument of Cuman and Tatar political success was their military force, over which none of the Balkan warring factions could claim victory. As a consequence, groups of the Cumans and the Tatars settled and mingled with the local population in various regions of the Balkans. The Cumans were the founders of three successive Bulgarian dynasties (Asenids, Terterids and Shishmanids) and the Wallachian dynasty (Basarabids). They also played an active role in Byzantium, Hungary and Serbia, with Cuman immigrants being integrated into each country's elite. This book also demonstrates how the prevailing political anarchy in the Balkans in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries made it ripe for the Ottoman conquest.
Ochratoxin A: 50 Years of Research Malir, Frantisek; Ostry, Vladimir; Pfohl-Leszkowicz, Annie ...
Toxins,
07/2016, Volume:
8, Issue:
7
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Since ochratoxin A (OTA) was discovered, it has been ubiquitous as a natural contaminant of moldy food and feed. The multiple toxic effects of OTA are a real threat for human beings and animal ...health. For example, OTA can cause porcine nephropathy but can also damage poultries. Humans exposed to OTA can develop (notably by inhalation in the development of acute renal failure within 24 h) a range of chronic disorders such as upper urothelial carcinoma. OTA plays the main role in the pathogenesis of some renal diseases including Balkan endemic nephropathy, kidney tumors occurring in certain endemic regions of the Balkan Peninsula, and chronic interstitial nephropathy occurring in Northern African countries and likely in other parts of the world. OTA leads to DNA adduct formation, which is known for its genotoxicity and carcinogenicity. The present article discusses how renal carcinogenicity and nephrotoxicity cause both oxidative stress and direct genotoxicity. Careful analyses of the data show that OTA carcinogenic effects are due to combined direct and indirect mechanisms (e.g., genotoxicity, oxidative stress, epigenetic factors). Altogether this provides strong evidence that OTA carcinogenicity can also occur in humans.
Full text
Available for:
IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages stood at a crossroads of trade and crusading routes and fell within the spheres of influence of both the Byzantine Orthodox Church and Latin Christendom. This ...authoritative survey draws on historical and archaeological sources in the narration of 750 years of the history of the region, including Romania, southern Ukraine, southern Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania and Greece. Exploring the social, political and economic changes marking the transition from late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages, this book addresses important themes such as the rise of medieval states, the conversion to Christianity, the monastic movement inspired by developments in Western Europe and in Byzantium, and the role of material culture (architecture, the arts and objects of daily life) in the representation of power.
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