Bücher veröffentlicht von Harmattan Hongrie

The present volume offers an interdisciplinary collection of twenty-four studies to readers interested in the religious, philosophical and artistic aspects of initiation. In itself, the concept of initiation presupposes that there is an initiator, someone to be initiated, and secret rite or knoweledge-in short, a mystery-into which the elect few would be admitted and which must not be revealed to the rest. Initiation is thus very personal, as it encompasses-in Christian theology at least-an encounter with God but also involves a communal experience.While in European context, initiation is an essentially Christian idea, not all the papers of the present volume turn to the Christian tradition for sources. Hermetism, Neoplatonism, pre-Christian paganism and Renaissance esotericism also find a place among the studies published here. Religion and philosophy are not the only viewpoints adopted by our authors, however; the section on art and litterature discusses initiation as it appears on stage, in novels, short stories, and drama as well as poetry, especially in modern European literature.

« Monuments in gratitude » to the Red Army in Poland are among the most numerous and well-known commemorative structures from the communist period. This does not mean, however, that the history of their construction and existence has already been extensively studied and described. In post-communist Poland, the « monument heritage » is regarded as an important part of recent history of Poland or of Central-Eastern Europe, even though the topic still gives rise to much controversy. Dominika Czarnecka's book is the first attempt at a synthetic presentation of the history of monuments to the Red Army erected outside of permanent cemeteries in post-war Poland. The work was awarded a distinction at the Wladyslaw Pobóg-Malinowski Contest for the Historical Debut of the year (2014). The Polish-language edition was also among the nominees of the Polityka News Magazine History Award (Polish History Book of the Year) in the debut category (2016).