№ 4 (2024)

The article analyzes evidence from publicistic texts about the reaction of the Polish nobility of different confessions to the pogroms of Protestant churches in cities in the early 1690s, where the nature of interfaith relations differed drastically from their nature in many other European countries. A number of acts here sanctioned the legality of the existence in the country of Christian denominations different from the dominant Catholic faith. But in the 1590s, persecution of followers of Protestantism began. Particular attention in the article is paid to the reasons of the strong negative reaction of nobility to their «sbors» by supporters of the Counter-Reformation. Among them the author names the specific consciousness of the Polish noble society: both the Catholic and Protestant gentry perceived themselves as a single community interested in preserving and expanding their class rights.

The study attempts to investigate created within the framework of other denominations sources of Simeon’s Polotskij two sermons: «Slova o perenesenii Ubrusa iz Edessy» (Sermon to a feast of the Mandylion’s translation from Edessa) from sermon’s collection «Vecherya Dushevnaya», 1683 and interpretation of the evangelical parable of the Good Samaritan from collections of homilies «Obed dushevnyj», 1681. The study confirms existed in the literature disparate observations about the significant commonality of the sources of inspiration and factual material of Simeon’s collections and his poetic encyclopaedia «Vertograd mnogotsvetnyj» (A Garden of Many Flowers; Latin poetry sources identified by Anthony Hippisley); in particular, that in both cases Simeon used Latin collections of annual sermons by Bavarian Jesuit Matthias Faber (1586/87–1653). The techniques of translation of Latin sermons were also investigated: these techniques give the reader (researcher) the impression that in one case the biblical fragment of Song of Songs (5:10–16) acts as the structuring text for Simeon’s «Slovo», and in the other case – interpretation of the evangelical parable of the Good Samaritan by John Chrysostom, while Simeon both compositionally and textually reproduces homilies written by Faber and his elder fellow of the Jesuit Order, Spanish exegete Alfonso Salmerón (1515–1585).

Based on various sources of information received by Soviet representatives of the NKID and stored in the Foreign Policy Archive of the Russian Federation, as well as published documents, the author attempts to reconstruct the situation that developed in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and also in Slovakia in summer of 1944, and to analyze the ideas of post-war structure of the Central Europe, that were discussed at the last stage of the war. The chronological choice is not accidental – this is the eve of a powerful national uprising on the territory of Slovakia (part of the former Czechoslovakia), the beginning of armed mass Resistance in the country. Based on the study of sources, it can be concluded that, despite different conditions, both in Protectorate and in Slovakia, by the end of summer of 1944, the Resistance Movement intensified and sympathy for the USSR and the Red Army grew. The ideas of the post-war structure of Europe at this time continued to be actively discussed in various political circles in the West and within the country.

The article is devoted to a comprehensive analysis of the Bulgarian folk songs «Mother turns her son into a snake», which are distinguished by a unique mythological plot and describe the transformation of a person due to the magic activity of the mother into a hybrid creature – half-man, half-snake. The study focuses on the structure of the song and the combination of repeated and unique content blocks. A special place is given to mythological aspects – the description of gypsies as carriers of magical knowledge, herbs that separate spouses, preparation of a witch’s potion, the characteristics of how a demonological character is presented in the songs and in other folklore genres. The explicit didacticism of the song is shown – using the example of reprisals against the mother, the ideas are conveyed that slander, hatred in the family, and black magic are punishable. The conclusion contains the main ideas of the depiction of ethnographic reality with folklore poetic means.

The article explores the destructive effects of forced Bulgarianization on the identity of a national minority, illustrated by the life and career of Ahmet Şerif Şerefli, a Bulgarian writer of Turkish descent who endured the ‘Revival Process’ policies in the 1980s. The analysis focuses on excerpts from his memoir «We Were Born Turks and Died as Turks» and his essay collection «First and Foremost, They Shackled Our Thoughts». These works highlight the significance of the Turkish language and Turkish identity. Şerefli’s memoirs argue that maintaining one’s native language is crucial for preserving Turkish identity amidst attempts to distort it. The memoirs serve as a means of articulating, processing trauma, and striving to repair a fractured identity. The writer’s traumatic experiences are reflected both thematically and structurally in his memoirs, which resemble a series of short epic narratives without chronological order, forming a mosaic of stories about life in Bulgaria, imprisonment, and Şerefli’s musings on his craft, the fate of his people, language, and identity. This fragmented structure underscores how trauma influences the way memories are expressed.

The article is devoted to the problem of choosing a language among modern writers – immigrants from the countries of the former Yugoslavia and it presents four options for «life in another language». A number of authors continue to write in their native language, their works, however, are published, more often in translation into the language of the country of residence, the second category of authors are those who have completely changed their native language to the language of the country of residence, and still others begin their literary career in a non-native, acquired language – the language of the country residence, the last group, the smallest, are authors who began their literary career in a non-native language and, at the same time, not in the language of the country of residence. Loss of home, severance of ties with the homeland, isolation from «one’s own» culture and language are perhaps the most common motives in the texts of migrant authors. Creativity becomes for them a way to reflect on the events of the past (the trauma of war, loss of home) and the present (attempts to adapt to new conditions), which can be interpreted in terms of the therapeutic function of writing as an attempt to overcome trauma. The new space and time gap create a distance that allows one to turn to the inexpressible experience and try to narrativize it. Choosing a non-native language can also create (additional) distance, a mask.

The work is devoted to a critical review of the relatively recently published edition of the Scientific Center for Innovative Research of Croatian Glagolitic at the Old Slavic Institute of the Croatian Academy of Sciences, dedicated to the monument of the 15^th century – the Second Beram (Ljubljana) Breviary, consisting of two volumes of text publication (facsimile and set) and a collection of comprehensive studies on this glagolitic code. The collection includes articles by leading Croatian historians and linguistic philologists on paleography, illumination, textual and language codex, as well as the medieval history of the Beram region.