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Jan Skórzyński, Krótka historia Solidarności 1980–1989, Europejskie Centrum Solidarności, Gdańsk 2014, 190 s.
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The first four decades of the twentieth century represented the period with the most radical transformations that Europe had ever experienced. The metamorphosis – whether political, economical, cultural, ethnical or scientific – was often extreme, radical and profound. Social sciences were no exception, being usually involved in the front line among the determining factors of change. The new political, economical and social systems benefitted from the ideological support that these sciences could eventually put into practice. This was also the case of interwar Romania, where the ideological movements were a constant source of friction and rupture between the various segments of society. Historians, philosophers, theologians and men of letters were involved in a confrontation with clear political and social connotations. Each side was claiming the supremacy, superiority and importance of their vision, demonizing any opposing attitude. One of the Romanian key figures of this period was Dimitrie Gusti. As a philosopher, sociologist and professor of ethics, Gusti founded the Romanian Sociological School and the Romanian Social Institute together with other numerous scientific institutions from Romania. As a student and disciple of key figures in the study of social sciences such as Emil Durkheim and W. Wundt, Dimitrie Gusti was an adherent of multidisciplinary monographs regarding rural communities. Thus, with the support of King Carol II of Romania, he developed a pioneering project between 1925 and 1948 concerning the systematic research of the Romanian villages, which remained an unfinished work due to the installation of the communist regime. His pioneering research was doubled by the completion of a video monography, whereby the most important aspects of rural Romanian life were revealed. Gusti’s endeavours were not entirely scientific, being mostly aimed at implementing a much vaster political and social vision. During the authoritarian regime of King Carol II, Europe was the campsite of strong radical movements: fascism, nazism and communism. The Romanian Legionary Movement promoted an extreme nationalism based on fundamental values such as mother country, orthodoxy, antisemitism, appeal for popular traditions. Extremely influent among the young, a part of the intellectuals, the clergy and the peasantry, the legionaries entered an ideological conflict with the regime of Carol II. Thus, the monarch assumed the messianic role as saviour of the Romanian people and found an ally in Dimitrie Gusti through the implementation of the Romanian developement programme. The changes were going to take place through an intervention programme for the rural society, which was still anchored in the mainstream of the Middle Ages. Gusti’s system of thinking “Sociology- Politics-Ethics” strongly connected social science with political action. Influenced by the French philosopher Saint-Simon, Gusti was certain that the scientist’s mission was to research social reality and to transform it. For Dimitrie Gusti, the King’s intervention could have been of conservative nature (in the sense of granting the rights acknowledged for the existing social categories) or of social nature (when it aimed at improving the status of the lower classes). Thus, Gusti promoted the ideal of a social Monarchy concerned with the faith of the Romanian peasantry, where King Carol II became the “King of peasants and of Romanian villages”.
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The article evokes the 50s and the 60s in communist Romania, years marked, initially, by the Soviet social and political model, but later, by a detachment from this model, which meant a “thaw” in the cultural field and in daily life, the society even showing signs of de-Russification and Russophobia. The text describes many moments of the life Romanians were leading then.
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The text recalls the ‘60s, when, on a social and cultural level, Romania is relaxing and the restrictions of the communist regime are „melting down”. The „thaw” was started by Gheorghiu-Dej and boosted by Ceausescu. There was a lot of printing and reading. They allowed significant works of writers to be published, or high quality cultural shows to take place, and daily life was going on almost normally. The causes of this „thaw” are related to the political context of that time.
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One can observe as studying the political and intellectual debate on representing the Hungarian national minority in the Romanian state, that already in the interwar period there had been the elements of a plural debate, several models, different perspectives and political agendas entering the public scenery, which was still trying to survive in the times of the establishment of the Communist regime. After the consolidation of the new regime, the political realities, the economic and social transformations, the opportunities and restrictive dimensions as well, all had been the results of the political inputs of a single party-state, aiming the entire society as a whole. The first part of the present study is dedicated to the specific way of political integrating of the Hungarian etno-cultural community in the Romanian state, after 1944 and up to 1960’s, a period of time that was marked also by accumulating specific experiences, that defined the Hungarian elites’ perspective upon the community’s vital interest. The second part is dedicated to the defining moment of 1968 and its impact upon the Hungarian intellectuals’ own perspective over the realities they had to meet by their public agenda. The third part is an analysis of the two different pannels of interaction between the Romanian socialist state and the Hungarian intellectuals who tried to present the options and outcries of their community in the years between 1969- 1989: on one hand, it was aimed to influence the political regime’s decision making centre through the acting of Hungarian personalities integrated in those cadres of the regime; on the other hand, one have to address also the protest groups, the phenomena of intellectual resistance, expressed also in the samizdat publications edited in Romania between 1982-1989, in Hungarian language. The above mentioned pannels of interaction had influenced also the perspective of the immediate post-1989 elites upon the solutions for the problem of integrating the Hungarian minority in the new Romanian political reality.
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At a first glance, the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 erased all social, political, and economic differences between the Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. Instead of growing together as one community, however, young unionists in particular have developed a strong sense of their particular socio-cultural identity which leads to recurring outbreaks of violence. The changing attitudes to the peace process by unionists’ will be outlined in this paper, followed by a closer look at unionist identities and their construction, in particular the minority aspect and the differences in identity between the generations. The underlying question is whether the Good Friday Agreement really helped to ease the tension between the communities – or has its approach to appease everyone created an identity group which suddenly feels more disadvantaged than ever?
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The word “crisis” (appearing in various forms due to the multi-lingual nature of the age) turns up quite often in texts written at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. This poses a couple of questions to the historians of the era. The paper attempts to show how the concept of crisis was used at the turn of the century, and looks for examples of phenomena that can be interpreted along these concepts of crisis. The concept of crisis had had quite tangible meanings ever since antiquity, but in the 18th century it was gradually transformed first into a social-political and then into more of an economic concept. This transformation process can also be observed in the Hungary of the time. The dilemmas of the usage of the concept are apparent until the middle of the 19th century in texts related to medicine, literary criticism and later to politics. Looking at the translations of the era, we can also observe that the word did not have a well-defined meaning in contemporary Hungarian, its conceptual boundaries were not sharp, and coexistent word forms were continuously competing with each other. In the end, “crisis” gradually lost its original meaning, and the Latin form was slowly replaced by the Hungarian term “válság” (depression). In connection with the temporalization of certain social concepts, it gradually spread from the areas of medicine (and literary criticism) to the areas of politics and society as well as to economy, in many cases following a certain cyclicism. But defining the concept of depression and formulating a “tipology of depression” is a difficult task: probably scholars themselves need to define the concept of depression with which they plan to work in a historical perspective, when discussing either economic, social or mental historical questions.
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The myth of Lucretia, the wife of Collatinus, raped by Sextus Tarquinius – the son of the last Roman king – is very influential in the Classical and Medieval literature, likewise in the Modern times in the different fields of science and art. Its pristine form is now lost in the distant past and it is possible to compare the sources to see several layers of its political, legal, and ethical interpretation. Following these elaborations, we find a history of different legal institutions and rhetoric argumentation. However, with the help of archaeological findings some elements of its historical image starts to appear being the model family values and religious beliefs built in the foundation of common cultural forms in Italy.
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Position of women in Roman law differs in various aspects. Reasons for such differences are often traditional; in some cases, they can be regarded as manifestation of sometimes exaggerated protectionism or paternalism, which could be regarded as unlawful discrimination. The aim of this paper is to analyse the terminology which sources of law use to refer to the position of women.
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Although the history of European law of succession is colourful, changes in its conception have been continuous, especially in case of transferring the claims. They have not been adopted equally consistently by all states in which the monarchy order is still an integral part of the legal system. We can find out the trend of transition from more rigorous forms (such as Salic or Agnatic law) to the current absolute primogeniture, which is gradually applied across whole continent. In some countries there we can find significant divergence between this successor order and older nobelmen orders. The status of women became over time more equal to the status of men, but at the same time women gradually lost their exclusive position that was reserved for them by previous orders.
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This paper focuses on the historical backgrounds of the marital power in the marriage legislation in the French Civil Code via the works of Robert Joseph Pothier. The legal status of the husband and wife and their mutual relationship as regulated by the first Dutch Civil Code of 1838, which was inspired by the French Civil Code, is also discussed. In the final part of this paper the latest reforms of the marriage legislation are analysed.
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The paper deals with the changes in the position of the wife in law of succession (both as an intestate heir and as a person entitled to the forced share) in the Czech lands from the middle of the 18th century to the present day, and also with discussions about the adjustment of her inheritance-legal position in Czech-Austrian jurisprudence at the beginning of the 20th century (during the recodification of ABGB) and in the 1920s (in connection with the interwar recodification). The evolution of law of succession in the Czech-Austrian area and in the European context is characterized by the strengthening of the position of spouses; in the domestic regulation of law of succession as a whole and especially in the intestate succession, we can see a shift from “consanguinity” to consideration of “needs” and “merit”. In the Czech lands, however, there is a different approach in the intestate law, where the position of the wife was gradually strengthened (the turning point was in particular the 1st sub-amendment of the ABGB in 1914, inspired by the German BGB in 1896), and when regarding the forced share, where her position (unlike in Austria) has not yet been improved (despite repeated efforts at the beginning of the 19th century during the finalization of the ABGB, at the beginning of the 20th century during the preparation of the amendment of the ABGB, in the 20s of the 20th century in connection with the interwar recodification, and at the beginning of the 21st century during the preparation of the 2012 Civil Code).
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Women have generally been permitted to study law properly at university since the late 19th century. The first country to allow women to study at university level was the United States of America. In Europe, it has been possible for women to study law at the universities and practise it, particularly as attorneys-at-law, later than in the USA, but with equal success.
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In the study, the author focuses on the various assassinations that are connected with the Czechoslovak history. The term „assassination“ has no legal definition, so in the beginning of the study we will first think about its content. Based on the definition, we will identify the assassinations in every period of Czechoslovak history. The body of the study is divided into four parts, derived from effect of the Criminal codes and from the constitutional development in the state. The primary aim of the study is the analysis of assassinations, especially from a legal point of view, i.e., from the point of view of legal responsibility or the impact of assassinations as material source on the origin of law. The secondary aim of the work is to approach several interpretations that relate to assassinations and the impact of the analyzed events on historical memory.
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The submitted paper examines the so-called Kharkov trial, i.e., the trial that took place before the military authorities of Soviet Union in December 1943 and which is often described as one of the first trials of Nazi war criminals. The causes of the trial, as well as its course and subsequent national and international responses to it are analyzed. The aim of the article is to present the information about the above-mentioned trial and to point out some procedural elements that could have served as inspiration for future trials of war criminals, but also to recall the terrible crimes committed in the Kharkov region at a time when Ukraine is facing another unjustified invasion and aggression.
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The paper focuses on the first phase of women’s efforts to gain the right to vote. There had been discussion over the preparation of the Second Reform Act about widening the franchise. In 1866, a group of women gathered in the Kensington Society came up with an idea to create a petition which called for right for women householders to gain right to vote on the same basis as men did, without the distinction of sex. The petition of 1866 reached an unexpected number of signatures and MP John Stuart Mill presented the question of women’s suffrage in the House of Commons. The paper follows the arguments for and against the women’s suffrage in the 1860s. The 1866 petition was an important step in the women’s emancipation movement as it started a broader movement to gain the suffrage.
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The paper analyzes the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and its four key clauses – the citizenship clause, the priviliges or immunities clause, the due process clause and the equal protection clause. Special attention is paid to the debates of the members of the 39th Congress which offer an insight into the original understanding of terms and phrases used in the text of the Amendment and that make possible to understand the context of its origin. The paper tries to describe the most likely original meaning of the individual clauses of the first section and analyze their possible various interpretations that often stand in direct opposition. While it can be reasonably assumed that during the times of the passing and ratification of the Amendment its objective was fairly limited, reflecting the post-war political reality in the United States, during the decades following ratification the Amendment started to be applied to issues that until then had been completely in the hands of the legislatures and depending on the democratic discussion on both federal and state level. The authors quoted in this paper can not be assigned to just one method of interpretation and legal philosophy, to the contrary, the paper aims to confront different views on the Amendment and its original meaning and based on it reach a conclusion; therefore both the view seeing the meaning of the Amendment as limited, held for example by professors Charles Fairman and Raoul Berger, and the perspective that sees its objectives as broader, represented for example by professors Michael Kent Curtis and Randy Barnett, are mentioned.
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This study presents the destruction of the Hungarian currency caused by the Second World War. The devastation caused by Nazi collaboration and the Soviet Red Army had an impact on the Hungarian “pengő”. The occupying Soviets tried to take advantage of all this and interfered with the circulation of money to increase their own political influence. They printed their own banknotes, which were later used to pay by the Hungarian National Bank. The Provisional Government tried to stop inflation after the war and then tried to resist Soviet pressure and to restore cash flow in Hungary, as well.
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The article analyses the development of agreements on work performed outside employment relationship in the Czechoslovak and Czech legal system on the background of the contemporary context. Agreements on work performed outside employment relationship are a traditional institution of Czech and Slovak labour law, which is not found anywhere else in the world. The reason for their creation is related to the economic needs of Czechoslovakia in the socialist era. The article discusses the contemporary context of the creation of such agreements, their original legal regulation in the previous Labour Code (Act No. 65/1965 Sb.), important amendments and the reasons that led to them, and the legal regulation of agreements in the new Labour Code (Act No. 262/2006 Sb.). The knowledge gained from the study of agreements on work performed outside employment relationship is used to present de lege ferenda considerations.
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