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.
Balkan endemic nephropathy is a chronic tubulointerstitial disease with insidious onset, slowly progressing to end-stage renal disease and frequently associated with urothelial carcinoma of the upper ...urinary tract (UTUC). It was described in South-East Europe at the Balkan peninsula in rural areas around tributaries of the Danube River. After decades of intensive investigation, the causative factor was identified as the environmental phytotoxin aristolochic acid (AA) contained in Aristolochia clematitis, a common plant growing in wheat fields that was ingested through home-baked bread. AA initially was involved in the outbreak of cases of rapidly progressive renal fibrosis reported in Belgium after intake of root extracts of Aristolochia fangchi imported from China. A high prevalence of UTUC was found in these patients. The common molecular link between Balkan and Belgian nephropathy cases was the detection of aristolactam-DNA adducts in renal tissue and UTUC. These adducts are not only biomarkers of prior exposure to AA, but they also trigger urothelial malignancy by inducing specific mutations (A:T to T:A transversion) in critical genes of carcinogenesis, including the tumor-suppressor TP53. Such mutational signatures are found in other cases worldwide, particularly in Taiwan, highlighting the general public health issue of AA exposure by traditional phytotherapies.
Imagining the Balkans Todorova, Maria
2009, 2009., 2009-04-30, 2009-03-18, 20090101
eBook
Maria Todorova, who was raised in the Balkans, is in a unique position to bring both scholarship and sympathy to her subject, and in a new afterword she reflects on recent developments in the study ...of the Balkans and political developments on the ground since the publication of Imagining the Balkans. The afterword explores the controversy over Todorova's coining of the term Balkanism. With this work, Todorova offers a timely, updated, accessible study of how an innocent geographic appellation was transformed into one of the most powerful and widespread pejorative designations in modern history.
Advertising, Sex, and Post-Socialism explores the role of advertising and the consumption it promotes in changing cultural perceptions of sex and femininity across the Balkan region. Elza Ibroscheva ...theorizes how the marketing of gender identities that has taken place in the years of post-socialist transition has fundamentally affected the social, economic, and political positioning of women. Advertising is one of the major “factories” of cultural signification, and as such, serves as the most ubiquitous vessel of global norms of gendered selves. In addition, advertising serves as a literacy tool for learning the grammar of consumption, studying the ideologies of femininity and sex before and after the collapse of the socialist project, as well as the prevailing portrayals of femininity in advertising in present day Bulgaria. This book provides a revealing look at the mechanisms of how post-socialist norms of sexual behavior are being engendered, and what role media play in this transformative process.
We, the People Mishkova, Diana
2009, 20090101, 2009-01-10
eBook
Analyzes the processes of nation-building in nineteenth and early-twentieth-century south-eastern Europe. A product of transnational comparative teamwork, this collection represents a coordinated ...interpretation based on ten varied academic cultures and traditions.
"This book represents the first attempt to analyze historical and cultural developments in late medieval and early modern southeastern Europe as a set of mutually intertwined regional histories, ...burdened by the strong dichotomy between the almighty center--Constantinople--and the periphery that is rarely visible in both contemporary sources and modern scholarship. This mosaic of original studies is devoted to various regions of the Byzantine Balkans and their historical, artistic, and ideological idiosyncrasies, mirroring the complex character and composite and fragmented structure of this vast region. The focal points of the book are the two captures of Constantinople in 1204 and 1453, and the contributors analyze the significance of these catastrophic events on the political destiny of medieval Balkan societies, the mechanisms of adapting to the new political order, and the ever-present interconnectedness of a lower, regional elite across southeastern Europe that had remained strong even after the Ottoman conquest"--Provided by publisher. This volume offers new perspectives on the history of the Byzantine Balkans and beyond-regions that lived for centuries under the long shadow of Constantinople-as well as unique insights into the complex world of late medieval and early modern southeastern Europe during a period of catastrophe.
Up in the Air? Jusic, Tarik; Puppis, Manuel; Herrero, Laia Castro ...
2021, 20210601, 2021-06-01
eBook
The agenda for transition after the demise of communism in the Western Balkans made the conversion of state radio and television into public service broadcasters a priority, converting mouthpieces of ...the regime into public forums in which various interests and standpoints could be shared and deliberated. There is general agreement that this endeavor has not been a success. Formally, the countries adopted the legal and institutional requirements of public service media according to European standards. The ruling political elites, however, retained their control over the public media by various means. Can this trend be reversed? Instead of being marginalized or totally manipulated, can public service media become vehicles of genuine democratization? A comparison of public media services in seven countries (Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia) addresses these important questions.
Balkan endemic nephropathy (BEN) is a unique, chronic renal disease frequently associated with upper urothelial cancer (UUC). It only affects residents of specific farming villages located along ...tributaries of the Danube River in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Romania where it is estimated that ~100,000 individuals are at risk of BEN, while ~25,000 have the disease. This review summarises current findings on the aetiology of BEN. Over the last 50 years, several hypotheses on the cause of BEN have been formulated, including mycotoxins, heavy metals, viruses, and trace-element insufficiencies. However, recent molecular epidemiological studies provide a strong case that chronic dietary exposure to aristolochic acid (AA) a principal component of
Aristolochia clematitis
which grows as a weed in the wheat fields of the endemic regions is the cause of BEN and associated UUC. One of the still enigmatic features of BEN that need to be resolved is why the prevalence of BEN is only 3–7 %. This suggests that individual genetic susceptibilities to AA exist in humans. In fact dietary ingestion of AA along with individual genetic susceptibility provides a scenario that plausibly can explain all the peculiarities of BEN such as geographical distribution and high risk of urothelial cancer. For the countries harbouring BEN implementing public health measures to avoid AA exposure is of the utmost importance because this seems to be the best way to eradicate this once mysterious disease to which the residents of BEN villages have been completely and utterly at mercy for so long.
Drawing upon previously unpublished commercial ledgers and correspondence, this study offers a collective social biography of three generations of Balkan merchants. Personal accounts humanize ...multiethnic networks that navigated multiple social systems - supporting and opposing various aspects of nationalist ideologies.
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