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Post by Jaga on Jul 24, 2018 22:59:27 GMT -7
I found some interesting subjects in this Quora discussions. There is a truth to this.....
Especially Americans are incorrectly imagining that
Eastern Europe is a uniform area when it comes to the people’s prosperity, political opinions, history, religions etc.; in reality, Eastern Europe has very different countries (and sometimes even diverse parts of countries) that differ in the degree of religious belief, type of religious belief, positive or negative attitudes to Russia, independence from Russia during the Cold War, proximity to the Western and German-speaking Europe in recent 1,000 years, GDP per capita, degree of corruption, and in all other respects.
Eastern Europe is most naturally separated from the Western Europe by the Iron Curtain from the Cold War; in reality, the Cold War era is a chapter of the history (over 25 years ago) and it wasn’t a terribly long one, and lots of other, older divisions are becoming more important again, especially the divisions to the “Catholic” and “Orthodox” Christian Europe, and others.
Eastern (post-communist) Europe was directly controlled from Moscow during the Cold War and the populations were transformed to Russian speakers; in reality, this was only true for the Soviet Union, not for the Soviet bloc. Other Eastern European or communist countries were independent (except for geopolitical allegiance in which they were de facto subordinate), they had their own political bosses, spoke their national languages, and their learning of Russian wasn’t too different from their learning of English today – no one would use the Russian langauge outside the classrooms. In fact, even the Soviet Union itself supported the preservation of its hundreds of languages and some of them were given proper rules of grammar by scholars in Moscow etc. But the degree of independence of Poland or Bulgaria from the USSR was comparable to the degree of independence of West Germany or France from the U.S.
all of Eastern Europe speaks Slavic languages; in reality, none of the 3 Baltic nations are Slavic (although the two, L-starting, belong to the Balto-Slavic bigger family); Hungarians are Finno-Ugric, a completely different family, while Romanians (and Moldovans) speak a Romance language. Albanians have some Illyrian language which isn’t Slavic, either; Finland, Greece, Turkey, and some countries of the Caucasus may also be sometimes included in “Eastern Europe” and they’re obvious non-Slavic, too; so roughly 1/2 of Eastern Europe is Slavic
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Post by pieter on Jul 25, 2018 8:19:59 GMT -7
Good reply. In want to add one thing. Some countries are more religious and others more secular or atheist like the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
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Post by kaima on Jul 25, 2018 11:06:14 GMT -7
Jaga, I want to read and comment on your posting, but just ran across this quotation that seems to follow along the same theme, and I am wondering about your opinion and observations. From my outside (American) experience, I see it "could be" true, but it doesn't sound right -but I am NOT in a position to really know. Only a native who is involved or aware can really make this call. "In Slovakia and elsewhere in Eastern Europe after World War II, Communist governments promoted folklore revivals and staged performances of song and dance as representations of "the people." When the Communists fell from power in Slovakia in 1989, folklore was also discredited in the eyes of many. By the early twenty-first century, however, a new generation launched a movement to revive folklore's reputation and reintroduce it to a broad public." uwpress.wisc.edu/books/5691.htmFrom my view, most EVERY political movement takes advantage of opportunities to attract the Folk and play them along to let them know that the current elite are with the People and of the People, and the People should support the current government with enthusiasm. The governments did it between the World Wars and they did it after the world wars. It is a play on nationalism. We are going through that in America today with the current government. So do you - or any of the readers of this discussion board! - agree with this statement? Were the folklore revivals stained by the communist government support and propagation of folklore, dancing, costumes and music? Kai |
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Post by pieter on Jul 26, 2018 10:11:56 GMT -7
Kaima,
Sometimes I am called 'Mister knows it all' by some colleagues, familymembers and friends, because I like to read a lot of newspapers, magazines, blogs, encyclopedia (the Dutch Winklerprins, encyclopedia Britannica, encyclopedia Judaica and Wikipedia, and my own old 20 volumes compact 'Compact encyclopedia', and as a child my Dutch child encyclopedia). But in reality I know that my knowledge is limited, generalistic and somewhat artificial and superficial in my own opinion.
I was an article and essay collector from Dutch language, English language and German language newspapers and magazines during the ninetees. I had my country files, one of them was Poland, another one was the USA and a thrid one was Germany. Also during the nineties sometimes I ordered Clingendaele Institute of Foreign Affairs brochures about Poland (for instance about the process of NATO enterance of Poland, Central- and Eastern-Euroepan economies and the political process of democratization with the changing center right and center left government coalitions in Poland and other Central- and Eastern-European nations).
To make a long story short, from an empirical, Holistic and research journalistic (investigative journalism) perspective I agree with Kaima 200%. Actually sometimes I have the impression, idea or opinion that I shouldn't wite anything about Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, the Baltic states, Romania, the Ukraine, Belarus and the Russian Federation at all. Why? Because I can't speak, read, listen to and thus watch Polish-, Czech-, Hungarian-, Slovakian-, Baltic-, Romanian-, Ukrainian, Belarussian and Russian Press and media, nor archives, encyclopedia, historic data, news files, reports in these languages.
When I go on holiday, I avoid touristic masses (I hate them) and want to go to places where the native people live their ordinary daily lives to observe them and try to live like them.
So Kai (Ron), from my outside (North-West-European) experience, I see it "could be" true, but it doesn't sound right -but I am NOT in a position to really know either. Only a native who is involved or aware can really make this call. Only a native who knows the history, regional present situation, speak the national language -and sometimes even the regional language or dialecty-, who is born and raised, educated and experienced in a professional life in his or her country, can judge about the situation.
If I had the time, energy, budget, equipment, intellectual editorial backing, network, reliable sources, data, fact finding tools, and means to investigate all sides (for instance in the political sense (the far left, left, center left, centrist, center right, right and far right political sources, parties and movements) I could say something about let's say Poland, the Czech republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Ukraine and the Russian Federation.
My knowledge is limited and I only have some historical, cultural and personal experience and knowledge of some Polish sources today, and Russian, Ukrainian and Yugoslavian (Serb, Bosnian and Croat) in the past.
So to be honest Kai and true to my previous statement, "I don't know if I can agree with your statement about the Communist support for folklore revivals and the possible revival of Slovak folk culture in the early 21th century." Don't get me wrong, I do respect Joseph Grim Feinberg as a research fellow at the Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences, in Prague. He is a professional, expert and lives in the neighbourhood (Prague, Czech Republic, close to Slovakia and Bratislava and with a shared Czechoslovakian history and heritage). No doubt he has published numerous articles and opinion pieces in academic and popular media, but I would like to have more sources to be able to judge about Slovak folk culture. For instance another (native) Slovakian expert on Slovak Folk culture from the Comenius University in Bratislava (Slovak: Univerzita Komenského v Bratislave), another Slovak, Western slav languages and culture expert from for instance the Jagiellonian University (Polish: Uniwersytet Jagielloński) in Kraków, Poland; an export of the Slavic Studies department (Slavistik - Neuphilologische Fakultät; Lehrsprache: Deutsch und slavische Sprachen) of the Heidelberg university in the State of Baden-Württemberg in Germany and for instance a language scientist of the Russian and Slavic studies of the university of Amsterdam (UVA) next to the excellent findings, information and knowledge of Joseph Grim Feinberg.
Kai, you have the benefit of being a Slovak-American, with experience with Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland. So, I take you serious in your maybe limited experience with the Western-slav Czech and Slovakian people. But I know you have been to Bratislava, that you took an effort in learning Slovak, that you have an investigative, critical mind, and that you like Audi alteram partem, "listen to the other side", or "let the other side be heard as well". Not in the legal sense, but to hear different sides of a story, truth, supposed truth, reality and facts. Again I love reading Joseph Grim Feinberg's words, but looking at his name, I see an American fellow in front of my eyes. I also would like to hear Slovakian experts, or Western-slavic neighbours like Czechs or Poles with a profound interest, respect, historical, liunguistic, anthropological, sociologic, empirical, Newest history, ethnographic, scientific experience with the Slovak heritage, Slovak customs, Slovak people, Slovak society, Slovak governement policies in the field of culture and the Slovak people, the Slovak Folk culture itself (and maybe in that research comparissons with regional border Rusyn, Czech -Bohemian-, Goral people-, Ukrainian-, Hungarian-, and Polish folk cultures and the way the Czech, Ukrainian, Polish and Hungarian respective governments deal with their native European majority peoples and the cultures and folk cultures of their minority -Kashubian-, Ukrainian-, Goral-, Belarussian-, Russian- and Rusyn- peoples).
I feel very limited in that Kai, and so have to be extremely honest that I know very little about Western-slav, Eastern-Slav and Southern-Slav peoples.
Cheers,
Pieter
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Post by pieter on Jul 26, 2018 11:42:41 GMT -7
 TruthPHILOSOPHY AND LOGICWRITTEN BY: Simon W. Blackburn Truth, in metaphysics and the philosophy of language, the property of sentences, assertions, beliefs, thoughts, or propositions that are said, in ordinary discourse, to agree with the facts or to state what is the case. Truth is the aim of belief; falsity is a fault. People need the truth about the world in order to thrive. Truth is important. Believing what is not true is apt to spoil a person’s plans and may even cost him his life. Telling what is not true may result in legal and social penalties. Conversely, a dedicated pursuit of truth characterizes the good scientist, the good historian, and the good detective. So what is truth, that it should have such gravity and such a central place in people’s lives?  Scientific truthLouis A. GirifalcoDOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199228966.003.0023 Scientific truth is based on facts. Philosophy, religion, feelings, and prejudice have nothing to do with science. Only facts matter. Verified, reproducible facts are the bedrock of scientific truth. The facts are used to construct theories which describe the detailed relations among large numbers of facts and their origin from common roots. Each element of a theory corresponds to some part of nature and, in this sense, scientific theories describe nature.  Investigative JournalismInvestigative Journalism means the unveiling of matters that are concealed either deliberately by someone in a position of power, or accidentally, behind a chaotic mass of facts and circumstances - and the analysis and exposure of all relevant facts to the public. In this way investigative journalism crucially contributes to freedom of expression and media development, which are at the heart of UNESCO’s mandate. |
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Post by Jaga on Jul 26, 2018 19:43:59 GMT -7
So do you - or any of the readers of this discussion board! - agree with this statement? Were the folklore revivals stained by the communist government support and propagation of folklore, dancing, costumes and music? Kai Kai, yes, I agree with the statement that folklore and local traditions were often celebrated by communists. The free capitalist society does not promote masses, since they just care about business and myopic views..... but autocratic, populist and communistic governments do! This also help to relieve peoples' frustrations and build patriotism, without building religion. In Poland we had two famous folklore groups: "Slask" and "Mazowsze" and lots of regional ones. In Eastern Germany during communism the local Slavic community had lots of financial support, not anymore. Yes, communism was not only bad.... I agree with Pieter, that the folklore was preserved better during communism. Yes, it was a part of propaganda but with a positive outcome |
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Post by Jaga on Jul 26, 2018 20:32:01 GMT -7
Here is more about the main organization behind folk art, so called Cepelia, that existed in years: 1949-1990 pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cepeliaand also some info in English about Polish folk art: file:///C:/Users/Jaga/Downloads/04_Klekot.pdf page 78 In the late 1940s and the rst half of the 1950s, when the Soviet cultural ideology imposed the style of psocialist realismq, compulsory in all of cially approved artistic expression, sztuka ludowa (meaning at the same time pfolk artq and ppeoplegs artq) was considered politically correct and opposed to cosmopolitan modernism and avant-garde. However, since folk motifs had already been a preference for many designers before WWII, they just continued using them (Frćckiewicz 2009:18-19). Cepelia, established in 1949, actually monopolized folk art and craft, as well as handicraft production in general. It controlled all the co-operatives of handicraft and folk art and craft production, it re-created the âad co-operative; many private workshops were also transformed into Cepeliags branches. Aleksander Jackowski, writing more as a sympathetic witness than a systematic researcher describes the situation as follows: pCraftspeople were coming to Cepelia unable to pay the back taxes and offering their workshops for takeover. They preferred to see them pass into good hands than to leave them to decay. Many of them afterwards worked in the co-operatives. The authorities strived to eliminate private craft and commerce. The back taxes were freely imposed in order to hinder the work of private enterprises, or even make it impossibleq (Jackowski 1999:29). The operations of Cepelia prolonged the existence of many centers of folk art and craft production, and even revived some of them, like the pottery centre in Iãŧa or the tradition of glass painting in Podhale, non-existing at least since the 1880s (ibid.:12, 19). Among the initiators of this revival were ethnographers such as Tadeusz Seweryn, or Roman Reinfuss. It was the latter who persuaded the women from the village of Zalipie to decorate the exterior of their houses with ower paintings, thus creating one of the most famous phenomena of pfolk artq in post-WWII Poland (ibid.:12, 79 note 3). |
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Post by pieter on Jul 27, 2018 6:19:11 GMT -7
So do you - or any of the readers of this discussion board! - agree with this statement? Were the folklore revivals stained by the communist government support and propagation of folklore, dancing, costumes and music? Kai Kai, yes, I agree with the statement that folklore and local traditions were often celebrated by communists. The free capitalist society does not promote masses, since they just care about business and myopic views..... but autocratic, populist and communistic governments do! This also help to relieve peoples' frustrations and build patriotism, without building religion. In Poland we had two famous folklore groups: "Slask" and "Mazowsze" and lots of regional ones. In Eastern Germany during communism the local Slavic community had lots of financial support, not anymore. Yes, communism was not only bad.... I agree with Pieter, that the folklore was preserved better during communism. Yes, it was a part of propaganda but with a positive outcome Correction Jaga, You agree with Kaima, that the folklore was preserved better during communism, because I didn't knew that and only knew it after I read Kaima's posting in this thread. So, I learned something from Kaima and Joseph Grim Feinberg from Prague.    Thank you Kai! |
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