Prof. Wojciech Burszta from the PAS Institute of Slavic Studies discusses what has remained of the ideals of the cultural revolution that took place in the 1960s.

The male protagonists of Barbey’s Norman novel cycle are characterized by a strong, even steadfast will. Despite this, regardless of the circumstances, each of them is defeated, contributing to the misfortune of others. They fail to achieve happiness, fulfill even the most noble mission or achieve a goal. This is because their fate is inseparably connected with Barbey's vision of the world and the philosophy of history.

The aim of the article is to discuss the written legacy of Philaret Drozdov, the Orthodox Metropolitan of Moscow (lived 1782–1867), in the context of human freedom and the freedom of the imperial Russia’s system – the autocracy. The basic research material constitutes of four homilies by Philaret Drozdov written in the years 1849–1856. To present a certain evolution of the Russian thought the author of the article also cites works which were created in earlier periods, i.e.: in the Moscow Russia time and in the time of Peter I. First, the author presents the orthodox anthropology as the ideological base for Philaret Drozdov’s considerations of freedom and power. Then, individual texts are discussed in detail in order to define the view of the Metropolitan of Moscow on the foregoing issues. At the end, the author sums up the carried out analysis and presents conclusions.

The 2014/2015 revolution at the Kiev Maidan (and elsewhere in Ukraine) made a wide-ranging impact on the literature. In this paper I analyse diaries devoted to the events of the dignity revolution. I have selected three texts written in three different languages: “ Приватний щоденник ” by Marija Matios (in Ukrainian). “ Дневник Майдана ” by Adrjej Kurkov (in Russian) and “Ogień Majdanu. Dziennik rewolucji 22.11.2013– 22.02.2014” (in Polish). These texts are highly interesting mostly because they allow looking at the Maidan through the eyes of witnesses. Because of that we do not receive mere facts, but a testimony which tells us most about the people involved, represented by the specific author reporting their experiences, impressions, emotions, and thoughts. It is characteristic for the personal document literature that it is positioned somewhere between the events being described and the internal experiences, judgements and preferences of the author. It is shaped by their knowledge, experience, and moral code. These texts often con- centrate on the fates of specific individuals, their behaviours, the reasons and consequences thereof. They differ both in terms of the form and the motivations of the authors. They are all, however, rather unique, because they speak of the events of most recent history which so violently cut through the daily lives of Ukrainian citizens.

The claim of this article is to argue that the main thrust of Karl Marx’s philosophy was neither a critique of political economy, nor a critique of the bourgeois political system, but an anti-theistic raid of a metaphysical nature, and that this drive gave him the impetus that motivated his intellectual activity from the time when he had not yet had any economic theory and when the proletariat had not yet played a major role within the purview of his interests. Marx’ rebellion led him to a condemnation of the entire creation as a product of an evil Demiurge, who – to exacerbate the situation even further – was nothing else than a product of human false consciousness, manifesting itself politically as a division of any populace into friends and foes, who were subsequently conglomerated into antagonistic social classes but could be transformed in appropriate conditions into stateless community of friends.

In the article, I try to show the world of the past as the world of games. First of all, history appears as a game – the game of the historian with his subject of study or cognition. Secondly, history itself can be conceptualised by the metaphor of the game. The history of Portugal is treated as an example of the object of historical research, which changes along with the theories applied. The act of theorising sets the limits of the known past. On the basis of selected examples from the history of Portugal in the 20th century, I try to show how the use of various research tools allows us to ask new/different questions.

In the first part of these remarks I recall such examples from the past of the mentioned political agenda that might be a sort of warning for a too far reaching overtaking of higher education institutions by political powers. In the second part, however, I recall contemporary ways and forms of political agenda, which I call “velvet” revolutions and I also see them as threat to fulfill by universities their social missions. The remarks and evaluations formulated by me at the end are certainly not to be considered. These remarks are being treated by me as a voice in the discussion on the issue how much politics might be or has to be in the life of universities, what kind of politics do any good to them and what kind brings more damage.

Stefan Żeromski and Florian Znaniecki, perceived by many of their contemporaries as undisputed moral authorities, warned in the fi rst period of the existence of the Second Polish Republic against the danger of infl uence of Bolshevik ideology. They undertook issues of fundamental importance for the understanding of mutual relations and conditions between the socio-economic world, art, material prosperity, revolution and progress in the period after the First World War (1914–1918), when the power of the Bolsheviks had strengthened in Russia, and the Poles formed the foundations independent homeland. This text is an attempt to approximate the position of Żeromski and Znaniecki in this matter.

An interesting fact in the intellectual history of the fin-de-siècle and first three decades of the 20th century is that the crisis of modernity was understood in categories of sex and gender. In spite of the differences dividing the German intellectual trend of cultural pessimism, the conservative revolution, and Fascist thinking, all these paradigms are linked by the characteristic conviction that ‘modernity’, being the consequence of the French Revolution, was ruled by the ‘feminine principle’. This principle was supposed to represent what is anti-military, anti-state, and anti-cultural at the same time. Variations on the theory of male bonding (Männerbund) were the intellectual reaction to that ‘feminine principle’. The intellectual patterns described here find their continuation in contemporary conservative thought.

The article discusses views and the ideological evolution carried out by Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin, a Russian-American sociologist, philosopher and political activist. Influenced by his observations of the events of 1917, Sorokin radically reformulated his opinions about Marx and Marxism which resulted in his espousing of a traditionalist and anti-revolutionary position. He still shared with Marx his negative diagnosis of the modern world, but proposed a different solution as a remedy. His solution was a purification of the idea of equality by liberating it from reductive materialism. Nevertheless Sorokin’s concept of spiritual equality was as utopian as Marx’s. He presented his ideas in a littleknown novel titled: Предтеча (or Прачечная человеческих душ – ‘предтеча’ means ‘ancestor’ and is commonly referred to John the Baptist). This work is a signal for Sorokin’s denial of Marx’s ideas and his revolutionary zeal.

This text is devoted to selected questions on the border of the ethnography of Łódź and research into women’s issues, and thus joins the trend of women’s urban anthropology. The author reinterprets selected sources, such as various types of writings and field materials from the archives of the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology of the University of Łódź. Her aim is to reconstruct the local ‘herstory’ from the ethnographic-anthropological perspective. She therefore looks at certain aspects of the life of textile workers and locates them in the context of the perceptions of femininity and the work ethic around which Łódź’s image (stereotypical and auto-stereotypical) was created.

This paper analyses diaspora advocacy on behalf of Ukraine as practiced by a particular diaspora group, Ukrainian Canadians, in a period of high volatility in Ukraine: from the EuroMaidan protests to the Russian invasion of Eastern Ukraine. This article seeks to add to the debate on how conflict in the homeland affects a diaspora’s mobilisation and advocacy patterns. I argue that the Maidan and the war played an important role not only in mobilising and uniting disparate diaspora communities in Canada but also in producing new advocacy strategies and increasing the diaspora’s political visibility. The paper begins by mapping out the diaspora players engaged in pro-Ukraine advocacy in Canada. It is followed by an analysis of the diaspora’s patterns of mobilisation and a discussion of actual advocacy outcomes. The second part of the paper inves-tigates successes in the diaspora’s post-Maidan communication strategies. Evidence indicates that the dias-pora’s advocacy from Canada not only brought much-needed assistance to Ukraine but also contributed to strengthening its own image as an influential player. Finally, the paper suggests that political events in the homeland can serve as a mobilising factor but produce effective advocacy only when a diaspora has already achieved a high level of organisational capacity and created well-established channels via which to lobby for homeland interests.