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Ball brooches make a difficult research theme in Denmark. This is mainly because very few of the hitherto published specimens were found in a context or under circumstances that help to shed light on their chronology. The most recently published study is a very brief paper by Jesper Laursen on the chronology and typology of ball brooches (Laursen 1984). Laursen’s paper was published at a time when hobby metal detecting was only at its early stages in Denmark. Therefore, this hobby had not yet had its impact on the material. Metal detecting favors objects with much metal and since cultivated soil contains a lot of iron waste most hobby detectorists tend to screen for iron. Consequently, objects of bronze, silver and gold will have a tendency to dominate the finds brought in by these people, and especially massive objects.

This paper aims to present a comprehensive and complete analysis of the separatist movements from the ex-Soviet space, especially in the Republic of Moldova. The paper focuses on presenting both the national and international context immediately after the fall of the USSR, as well as the factors that determined the apparition of the separatist movements. Multiple causes and effects are paired and presented to expose the chronology that followed the unfolding of those historical events. The paper is split into three main topics: the Transnistrian conflict and its consequences, the Georgian conflict, its aftermath, and the ongoing conflicts between Armenia and Azerbaijan. One of the most important aspects discussed is regarding the understanding of Russia’s foreign policy and how it contributed to an accumulation of tensions in the former USSR in the quest to consolidate its position of power in the region. The causes that led to the Transnistrian conflict, as well as the narrative of the situation and the current stalemate are provided.

The paper reflects the experiences of the social movements, civic initiatives and NGOs in St. Petersburg and other cities of Russia as well as in some other post-Soviet countries, aimed at the promotion and raising awareness of local populations about the World Heritage value in their cities. These efforts are needed, because the outstanding universal values of the historic centres of St. Petersburg and other cities are threatened by illegal construction, misguided urban planning, neglect and a lack of public attention; churches and cultural landscapes suffer from poor restoration, development pressure and an unregulated tourism boom. These effects are often possible because the almost most local population has no knowledge about the UNESCO World Heritage status and its implications. As a result, they are not sufficiently able to speak out for the protection of their site and do not know how the status of world cultural heritage can help them. Moreover, the population has little understanding of both the cultural value for their own community and what it means to be a World Heritage in general, leading to an insufficient realization of the potentials in the status of world cultural heritage. In this paper, we try both to show our previous research results and academic materials on the topic, but also reflect on our experience of participation in different activities, and especially within the recent project implemented in 2017 and aimed on intervention into the discursive and pragmatic space in the field of promotion and protection of St. Petersburg World Heritage site. However, to understand these experiences and reflections, it is necessary to present a historical context and conditions of the development of both the St. Petersburg World Heritage status and the St. Petersburg social movement for the protection of St. Petersburg world heritage.

The year 1987 represents a key-point in recognizing the universal value of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire, by inscribing Hadrian’s Wall into the UNESCO Heritage List. Followed closely by the Upper German-Raetian Limes (in 2005) and by the Antonine Wall (in 2008), the Frontier today is a single and complex monument of Roman Empire as a world state. The paper discusses the newly published volume – René Ployer, Marinus Polak, Ricarda Schmidt, The Frontiers of the Roman Empire. A Thematic Study and Proposed World Heritage Nomination Strategy (2017) – in the Romanian national context, as the State intends to nominate two segments of the Roman Frontier as UNESCO monuments until 2021. Besides presenting the content of the volume, with the intent of raising awareness upon the subject among different stakeholders, the paper also tries to reach out to the experts involved in the nomination process, by tackling the questions of if and how the study could be used as a tool in communicating nationally with all interested parties.

Estonia is often seen as a model student among the post-communist countries. Many renowned think tanks and organizations measuring the quality of democracy (e.g., Freedom House, Varieties of Democracy, Bertelsmann Foundation) often give Estonia the highest scores in the region. However, the seemingly spotless façade hides growing tensions and emergent contradictions. The current paper will focus on the two most worrisome trends that have become evident in recent years, if not even earlier: (1) the limited success in integrating the large Russian-speaking minority and (2) the rise of the populist radical right. The failure to integrate the ethnic minorities would increase frustration and political alienation among Russian speakers, making it more difficult to build a healthy, cohesive democratic community. However, the rise of the populist radical right, namely the remarkable electoral success of EKRE (Estonian Conservative People’s Party), has proven to be a bigger challenge because it demonstrates that many Estonians are deeply dissatisfied with how democracy works in their country. The article discusses whether it would be possible for dissatisfied Estonians and Russians to join forces to challenge the current liberal democratic model in Estonia. The analysis shows that even if the initial attempts have failed, one could not entirely rule out that prospect.

he events of the late 1980s-early 1990s played a key role in the history of Georgia. April 9, 1989, was one of the most important events in this respect. It defined the shared identity and memory for a long time and determined future developments in the country. April 9 proved to be a paradigmatic event in the recent history of Georgia. The narrative of trauma and triumph was formed, being reflected in historical, literary and documentary texts, as well as in different sites of memory. Two years later, at the very place of the tragedy, the restoration of independence of Georgia was declared. The paper deals with the process of the crystallization of April 9 as a paradigmatic event. Cultural patterns that played a crucial role in the establishment of the traumatic-triumphal narrative of April 9, 1989, and in the thirty-year dynamics of the attitudes towards this event are explored. The study presents how April 9 and its resonance influenced the perception of the past, as well as further developments. Theories of collective memory and cultural trauma serve as the theoretical framework for the research, while official documents, memoirs, literary texts and various types of media sources form its empirical basis.

The main goal of the paper is to analyze Swedish cultural heritage preservation policy, legal framework, and management practices. The work is based on the analysis of the legal framework, discussions and interviews with Swedish experts and scientific publications. The study discusses the transition from cultural policy to heritage policy, which makes Sweden one of the few states to have a special heritage policy. The paper presents the responsibilities of institutions in the field of cultural heritage: the Swedish National Heritage Board, the regional administrative councils, the inter- and intra-sectorial collaboration. The Historic Environment Act, which is the main normative act in this field, is analysed in detail. There is a summary of access to information, Data Bases and the communication system in the field of cultural heritage, as well as recent trends in the development of much more efficient Data Bases. Several specific issues, such as the export of cultural goods, the organization, monitoring, and reporting of archaeological surveys, research costs, compensation, and redemption, were also discussed in the study. The article also addresses issues of accountability for heritage crimes, appeals and a special emphasis on illegal archaeology: preventing, combating and punishments. Finally, the heritage police is discussed, a newly created unit under National Police, that deals with natural and cultural heritage crimes. Thus, the paper is a synthetic analysis of the cultural heritage protection system in Sweden, which can be a model for other states as well.

Are there connections between security policies, peacebuilding, and heritage politics? The first aim of this paper is to discuss how heritage policies sometimes are used to add to and reinforce security policies and practices. This issue is largely unknown and remains to be researched. Secondly, it would also be of importance to try to better understand how security policies may be influenced by notions of heritage and certain interventions on heritage sites. It is argued that it has become necessary to move beyond the study of wars to better understand how heritage affects security and vice versa not only in conflicts but also in peacetime and in “afterwar” periods. The paper builds on a critical reading of previous research mainly on heritage studies and partly on security studies, and on a case study of Swedish-led heritage interventions in the Balkans following the Yugoslavian wars. The case study discusses how issues of security and safety may become relevant in heritage politics in the Balkans following the Yugoslavian wars. It serves to demonstrate how heritage interventions can be seen as either providing security in a community or constituting a threat to its survival.

The aim of this paper is to present the pottery from Alba Iulia-Lumea Nouă (Pl. I-III, IV/2, V/8, VIII, IX/1, 3, X/1-2) and Petreşti-Groapa Galbenă (Pl. IV/1, 3-11, V/1-7, 9, VI-VII, IX/2, 4). The decoration is executed inside the incised parallel lines using the excision technique and consists in the ‘wolf ’s teeth’ and ‘chessboard’. The excised ‘wolf ’s teeth’ and ‘chessboard’ motifs are typical especially for phase I of Precucuteni culture. In the recent excavations, pottery fired using black-topped technique was discovered, also a fragment from a carinated bowl with rounded carina with ‘wolf ’s teeth’ decoration, all typical for the Foeni communities from Transylvania. Now, the repertory of Transylvanian discoveries comprises no less than 37 archaeological sites with Precucuteni-type pottery (Pl. XI). At the present state of research, we do not believe that all these artefacts can still be interpreted as merely Precucuteni imports in Transylvanian settlements. The lack of habitation levels or archaeological features that we can attribute to the Precucuteni culture, especially in the middle Mureş basin, makes it likely that there was a ‘fashion’ of decorating pottery among the communities of the early Eneolithic; thus, the typical decoration was taken up following some initial exchanges and contacts. In our opinion, the inclusion of the ‘wolf ’s teeth’ and ‘chessboard’decoration in the stylistic repertoire of the human communities living in the aforementioned geographic area, constitutes the main explanation of the large number of discoveries of this nature. We believe that especially among the large Neolithic settlements from the middle Mureş basin a significant percentage of the excised pottery had lost its initial ethno-cultural facet. For the moment, from the perspective of the pottery analysed in this paper, a separation between the group of settlements from South-Eastern Transylvania and the sites from South-Western and central Transylvania is taking shape.

The main research question of this paper is How the twentieth century leaders are treated in the History textbooks published within the last decade in the Republic of Moldova? The textbooks are a reflection of the History curriculum. Therefore, the analysis starts with the discussion of this document and its content concerning leaders and heroes. The main research sources are the History textbooks published in Moldova during the last decade that debate the events of the twentieth century. The paper analyses how the national, European and world leaders are treated in Moldovan textbooks, and how the discourse and the paradigm get changed depending on political regimes. Based on quantitative and qualitative methods, some conclusions have been made about various leaders, such as Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Antonescu or leaders from the Cold War era. At the end, the leaders of independent Moldova are briefly presented too. As a result of this analysis we could see how the leaders are presented in the Moldovan textbooks and could conclude that the policy makers, textbook authors and publishers have to pay more attention to this topic.

Public Education was an essential feature of nation-building throughout Europe during the 19th century. Nationalizing states designed school policies to transform peasants into nationals and citizens. However, kindergartens were primarily urban institutions. One of their goals was to teach young children modern languages. At the beginning of the 20th century, Romanian elites started to create and adjust them to nationalise Dobruja and Cadrilater, the two provinces integrated into the Old Kingdom. Both regions were ethnically diverse. In localities primarily inhabited by a minority population, the purpose of kindergartens was to spread the Romanian language and national culture. This article focuses on the national integration of South Dobruja through public kindergartens. It also examines the professional path of teachers serving in these regions until the end of the 1940s. Finally, the paper follows teachers’ interaction with the locals and their efforts to mediate between the pedagogical and national aims of Greater Romania and the local interests that sometimes collided with the state school policies.

This paper discusses the development of cooperation between the Orthodox Church and educational establishments in Belarus. The first Agreement on Cooperation between the Ministry of Education and the Belarusian Orthodox Church (BOC) was signed in 1994, several years before the adoption of a new Law on the Freedom of Conscience and the signing of the Agreement on Cooperation between the Church and the State. Although many objectives, stated in the first Agreement, were not met on time, there was a continuing and mutually beneficial cooperation between the Ministry and the BOC since then, with a series of Programmes of Cooperation, signed every 2-4 years. The Orthodox Church is the only religious denomination in Belarus which concludes Programmes of Cooperation with the Ministry of Education; however, one cannot claim that the general legislative framework is particularly favourable for this Church. Indeed, there are some restrictions, limiting the presence of the BOC and its representatives in educational establishments.

The ethnic political mobilizations, which were originally led by the non-titular nations of the Soviet republics, traced different paths at their latter phase, after the collapse of the USSR in particular; the emerging of de facto independent states inside de jure newly-established states (Moldova and Georgia), the political reconciliation by forming autonomy (Moldova and Ukraine), the uprising of the inter-state war (Azerbaijan and Armenia), and the ethnic tension toward improvement of minority rights (Lithuania and Estonia). The four casestudies presented in this paper demonstrate that rich material and immaterial resources increased the sustainability of ethnic political mobilization. The sustainability was an important factor in achieving de facto independent states after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This paper emphasizes that these material and immaterial resources were not valid for the mobilization until the appearance of political opportunity and political will for collective action by social political organizations. The political mobilization in Transnistria not had only rich resources, but strong political will among associates toward regional independence. The political actors discovered the resources, supplied the resources to the participants of collective action, motivated them toward political activity and increased the potentiality of immaterial resources.

The paper focuses on the myth of ‘Holy Russia,’ as restored and promoted by the Russian Orthodox Church under Patriarch Kirill (Gundiaev), and explores the new imagining identities and spatial configurations generated by this myth. While before ‘Holy Russia’ was a metaphor, associated with relics, deposited in Russian monasteries and churches, Kirill ‘geo-politicized’ it, informing it with practical political meaning, and as such it is viewed as including Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and on many occasions Moldova, and less often – Kazakhstan. The paper discusses the metaphor of ‘Holy Russia’ as a geopolitical utopia, as a postcolonial invention, and as a method of mental mapping. It uncovers Kirill’s modernist philosophy of history, based on Messianic meta-narrations of enslavement and subsequent liberation. As such, ‘Holy Russia’ does not stop colonial practices, but perpetuates them in many aspects. It continues the ‘internal re-colonization’ of the Russian population by ‘re-churchizing’ it, and by claiming to be the cultural center of the Western civilization.

In the paper the author analyzes different Russian international identities of the post-Soviet period. Stressing that the Russian identity discourse cannot be simply reduced to the Soviet one, the paper emphasizes the plurality of Russia’s identity discourses. At the same time the menu of Russian foreign policy identities to a large extent depends upon a variety of international structures in which Russia may imagine to engage with. The paper suggests that there are four possible types (models) of the international society, which different Russian identities might be inscribed in. The author seeks to explain the range of Russian international identities by the variety of the patterns of international society which co-exist and offer alternative policy strategies for Moscow.

This paper focuses on Ecoweek, an environmental project for young people in Moldova, in order to explore the themes of post-Soviet cultural identity construction and the adaptation of Western ideas to local contexts. It considers how Ecoweek participants’ establishment of international connections allowed them to create an environmentalism that was cosmopolitan, yet distinctly Moldovan. Their approach reflects the strong global awareness of many urban young people in Moldova, who often look outside of the country for opportunities. The paper argues that students’ participation in the project was related not just to a determination to solve environmental problems, but also to a desire to be part of a global trend, to gain experience, and to make useful contacts. Moreover, it suggests that the same factors leading the students to produce a globally informed environmentalism also made it difficult to build a lasting movement.

This article is dedicated to the analysis of the premises, causes, content, and impact of the 1992 war to defend the independence and territorial integrity of the Republic of Moldova, the effect of the Moldovan-Russian Agreement of 21.07.1992 on the principles of peaceful settlement of the armed conflict in the Transnistrian region of Moldova. The paper presents the chronology of historical and geopolitical events related to Bessarabia, annexed in 1812 by the Russian Empire, occupied by the Red Army of the USSR according to the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact of August 1939, subject to armed rebellion in 1990-1992, period of disintegration. of the Soviet Union and the self-determination of the Republic of Moldova as a sovereign and independent state. The author refers to the political-legal processes of becoming a sovereign and independent state of the Republic of Moldova, as well as to establishing a criminal, anti-national and separatist regime in the eastern districts of the Republic, supported by the 14th Army of the Russian Federation - the real war against the constitutional order of the Republic of Moldova.

This article explores the 1912 print media in Serbia in their relation to the Balkan Wars, comparing the nationalist topoi with the contemporary age and contemporary national groups. It analyzes the content of several articles printed in papers such as Illustrated War Chronicle (Ilustrovana ratna kronika) and the Serbian newspaper (Srpske novine), juxtaposing their discourse with contemporary Serbian nationalism. The primary sources from 1912 have not been discussed in scholarship, except a few mentions. It shows that after a century since the Balkan Wars has passed, the nationalist discourse has remained more than similar, using the same historical pathos of victimhood and “othering” of the Enemy.

The paper proposes to identify what the 19th century brought as novelties in the “life” of toys, seen as items dedicated explicitly to children; I have focused, naturally, on the Romanian case. By correlating the accounts to which I had access, I was able to outline certain evolutions in the manufacture, use, purchase, and characteristics ascribed to toys in that period. I have noted, first of all, the social differentiation in terms of toy consumption.

This text discusses Straja Țării, the Romanian youth organization patronized by King Carol II, and created in the tense social and political atmosphere of the The 1930s. While reinforcing the loyalty to the king, Străjeria aimed for an integral education based on moral values, religious and patriotic feelings, and physical training. Although active for a short time, Straja was one of the main social intervention institutions, with high autonomy during the royal dictatorship, mobilizing considerable human and financial resources. It developed specific mechanisms and tools for youth control, including discipline through physical education leading to the strengthening of the young bodies. The paper analyzes the multiple functions of these mechanisms using archival documents, legislation, and health surveys carried out in that epoch. The research builds on three levels of analysis: the regulation of physical education and public health in interwar Romania (1); the social control of young bodies through Straja Țării (2); the health deficiencies of the young generation (3). The main argument of this article is that Straja has built an overrated national prototype of the vitality of youth, without properly addressing the deficiencies and cleavages of a relatively healthy nation.

The current IT and digital technologies such as Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR) enable the overlap of digital and real world information in relation with a topic, in an engaging and efficient manner, and therefore can be used to store intangible heritage and to study it in the context as well. The current paper refers to such an augmentation of cultural information, performed at the Kallatis site, whose ruins, at present mostly covered by the modern town, do not offer sufficient information on the complexity of the Greek civilization. The implementation of a MAR application consisted in defining several points of interest of the important local archaeologic discoveries, which can trigger, for the visitors using our application, an augmentation of the historical site with images and videos. With the current research work, the authors propose and demonstrate that a mobile MAR application can constitute a modern method for providing visitors with an immersive and holistic experience for understanding the local material and intangible heritage.

Conservation of heritage sites is considered to be a vital component of their management since they are irreplaceable resources for the tourism industry. The present generation of human beings needs to be aware of the benefits and challenges of preservation and management of the cultural resources and the heritages. The process of managing the heritages of local or national significance has gained importance over the years to an extent that it has attained the status of an individual academic discipline. In an attempt to address this issue related to Sustainability, some appropriate measures should be taken. In order to obtain sustainable development, different Strategic management principles can be used. Strategic Management relates to the identification of the purpose as well as the plans and actions to achieve the purpose. This paper focuses on the benefits of the application of the principles of Strategic Management for the sustainable development of heritage sites of the Bishnupur district in West Bengal, India. From this study, it may be concluded that the multi-disciplinary approach is the need of the hour. By the way of integrating the two varied disciplines of heritage management and strategic management, it will be possible to achieve sustainable development of the heritage sites.

Sarmizegetusa Regia was included, together with the other five Dacian fortresses, on the List of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1999. They are a unique synthesis of external cultural influences and local traditions in terms of building techniques and overall, in the ancient military architecture, representing the grand expression of the civilisation of the Dacian Kingdom. These fortresses are the accurate expression of the exceptional development level of the Dacian civilisation, Sarmizegetusa Regia lying at the forefront of this fortified complex, epitomizing the evolution phenomenon from fortified centres to proto-urban agglomerations. As such, promoting these monuments and the numerous artefacts discovered by modern methods and techniques should become a priority. This paper presents a series of last generation applications and equipment that may be successfully used in promoting cultural heritage. Case studies include scanned artefacts and 3D reconstructions of the monuments in the site of Sarmizegetusa Regia, a monument on the UNESCO List of World Heritage Sites together with the other five Dacian fortresses (Bănița, Costești-Blidaru, Costești-Cetățuie, Piatra Roșie and Căpâlna). We present here the results obtained following the use of several hardware tracking systems, augmented virtual reality applications and haptic devices. One of the important aspects, when attempting to make enhanced on-line use of heritage good is the extent to which it is accessible and reusable by various categories of users, either specialists or the general public. Digitalizing a good in the cultural heritage is the first step for ensuring the broad access via the on-line medium, the quality of this process ensuring the electronic format artefact legitimacy and credibility, which means that it should be an electronic duplicate truthful to the real artefact.

The present paper deals with a recovered hoard of gold Hellenistic style jewellery, stolen in 2001 from the Dacian fortress of Căpâlna, archaeological site and UNESCO monument from Romania. After 7 years of illegal trafficking of the artefacts on the black market of antiquities, the Romanian law enforcements recovered the hoard from Germany, with the generous support of an expert from Frankfurt am Main. The items come from a Western Balkan workshop around the inhabited by the Danubian Celts, located on the northern territory of Serbia and the western part of nowadays region of Banat (Romania). Nevertheless, one should not completely exclude the possibility that the items were made in a roving workshop on the territory of South-western Dacia. The technique used and the style of decoration prove the assimilation of late Hellenistic and Italic influences. The composition of the gold alloy is similar to the one used by jewellers in the late Hellenistic and Roman imperial periods. An important detail is the reconstruction of the ”discovery circumstances” inside of the protected area of Căpâlna fortress, by the archaeological poachers from Deva (Hunedoara County). During the judicial and forensic investigations, from 2006 to 2018, the members of the law enforcement observed the ”evolution” of the actual state of the monument. The conclusion is that during the twelve years since the fortress was a UNESCO monument, its protection and scientific promotion was minimal.

With the increased interest in the commemoration of sites of memory, including battlefields and sites of genocide, UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre commissioned an expert study in 2018 to clarify the way criterion (vi) is applied to recognize the associative values at nominated properties. The study was intended to facilitate knowledge-based decision-making for properties with strong associative values. This paper outlines the lack of clarity and the World Heritage Committee’s concerns about the definition and application of criterion (vi). After documenting the evolution in the wording of criterion (vi), the article explains the important contribution of the 2018 report, in particular its analysis of 240 statements of Outstanding Universal Value that have used criterion (vi). It concludes that further studies should focus on the analysis of the 240 World Heritage sites using precedents from previous inscriptions and case studies to theorize the six associations of criterion (vi), namely events, living traditions, ideas, beliefs, artistic works and literary works. Such research should also address methodologies for protecting and managing the attributes of associative values. These additional studies would support more consistent and knowledgeable use of criterion (vi) and thereby enhance the recognition and protection of associative values at World Heritage sites.

The present paper deals with the problematic of the protection measurements for a UNESCO monument, the Dacian fortress from Căpâlna (Alba District), from a judiciary point of view. The cause of the approach is the recovery of a hoard of golden jewelleries, stolen in 2001 from the Dacian fortress of Căpâlna. After 7 years of illegal trafficking of the artefacts on the black market of antiquities, the Romanian law enforcements recovered the hoard from Germany, with the generous support of an expert from Frankfurt am Main. An important detail is the reconstruction of the ”discovery circumstances” inside the protected area of Căpâlna fortress by the archaeological poachers from Deva (Hunedoara District). The site of the Dacian fortress in Căpâlna was included into the UNESCO list of monuments in 1999, together with 5 other similar fortresses from Hunedoara District. The author describes how he personally saw the archaeological site during the past 12 years, since he has been involved in judicial investigations of the recovery of the gold jewellery stolen from there. Details of the access route, the monument marks, the history of the research, the presentation of the results of the archaeological research, the results of the illegal interventions carried out by the poachers of the archaeological sites are presented. The conclusions of the study are not encouraging, as the way in which the UNESCO monument is presented today is far from what it should be or what national and international laws in the field of protection of cultural heritage mention.

This paper aims to present the objectives of the “Ambulance for Monuments” Project. During the last two decades several NGOs, foundations, and private owners concerned with the preservation of monuments have provided financial support for research, restoration or monuments and revitalization or resurgence of traditional crafts. They have also carried out campaigns for heightening public and official awareness concerning the value of the architectural monuments and their economic potential. Even though official or academic reports are not yet measuring its effects, the phenomenon of civil society involvement in rescuing heritage is growing in several areas, such as the region around Bucharest, southern and central Transylvania, and the Banat. One of the associations operating in this field is Monumentum. In 2016, the association launched the project “Ambulance for Monuments”. In 2016-2018, this project carried out interventions, mostly repairs of wooden and tile roofs, to almost 20 monuments. In 2019, local communities and authorities requested interventions of this kind to 10-11 monuments. The project aims to expand its activities and capabilities by attracting specialists accredited by the Ministry of Culture, academic trainers, local authorities and private investors. Monumentum association together with its collaborators have gained a valuable experience, which has already been shared with other similar civic associations, such as the Association for Active Heritage (PACT) from Timișoara. Monumentum is looking forward to grant the rights of implementation and support to any organization intending to carry out activities according to its pattern, provided that it fulfills the conditions for successfully applying the model.

The Dacian Fortresses of the Orăştie Mountains are a series of six monuments dating back to the period of the Dacian Kingdom (1st century BC – beginning of the 2nd century AD) and located in Transylvania. They have been included into the World Heritage List since 1999. Unfortunately, at present only one of them has a site manager. The issues that all six are facing are highly difficult: they have a poor state of conservation, they are being affected by vandalism and poaching (even if at a lower level than in the past), and they are not promoted. There is a complex bundle of factors that has brought them into this situation. Some of them will be discussed in this paper, in order to identify the main causes and to provide room for reflection and finding solutions.

This paper examines the issues around selecting for archaeological archives, including the reasons for doing so, how selection fit into a project and the methodological framework. The context is ‘Making Choices’, a project of the Europae Archaeologiae Consilium that is looking at how all choices are made across archaeological practice, while the foundations are provided by existing standards for archiving and for selection.

This article seeks to understand the links between mining and archaeology in shell mounds of coastal Brazil, vastly used as lime sources since the early colonization. The shell mounds are the most ancient traces of the occupation of the Brazilian coast and many of them are extinct, because of the mining, which converted their shells into the cement of colonial buildings. Between devastation and cooperation, there are connected activities that were revealed by the scientific papers, published in the nineteenth century, and by the history of the public management of those sites through the twentieth century.

Nowhere else is there a creeping and slow destruction of archaeological monuments as in intensively used agricultural landscapes. Sites are still degraded by erosion, cultivation and pollutant inputs to the soil. But the implementation of concrete measures needs more than sensitive archaeological institutions. Without the cooperation with farmers, agricultural administrations, nature conservation agencies and organisations as well as the mobilisation of agro-environmental funds archaeologists will never achieve an efficient heritage management on intensively cultivated areas. In order to protect the rural archaeological heritage in Saxony, various strategies have been developed since 2000. The paper presents best-practice models of managing monuments in intensively used agricultural landscapes. The conversion of ploughed sites into grassland alongside with the application of precision farming systems are especially effective approaches to a better conservation of archaeological remains at risk.

This article discus, in general, the cultural heritage preservation legal framework, and, especially, the Law of the Republic of Moldova on Archaeological Heritage Preservation approved by the Moldovan Parliament in 2010. Since the beginning of its independency, Moldova has had a very poor legislation on cultural heritage, mostly based on the 1993 Law on monument preservation. But, during last decade the Moldovan legal framework on heritage it is the improving very much. The 2010 Law on archaeological heritage preservation is the first of its kind in Moldova and was established according to the principles of the European and International Conventions signed by the Republic of Moldova. This paper debates the content of the new law, and light some needs for near future improvements.

This is a paper on Summerschool „„Die politische Dimension sozialer Arbeit - Die Republik Moldau und Ukraine in der Östlichen Partnerschaft”

At present, in India, companies are funding different projects, vital for social and cultural development, in order to meet the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) norms. West Bengal, in the eastern part of India, has a deeply rooted culture and a rich archaeological heritage. It is a hub of tribal cultures. Along with the urbanization process there is a need to sustain our culture, societal values and preserve our cultural heritage, particularly when these parameters are changing rapidly. The present paper aims at highlighting the role of the corporate sectors in the preservation of archaeological and cultural heritage with the help of the newly adopted CSR principle.

Iron Age (500 BC-1000AD) settlements have been excavated in large numbers in Denmark and Scandinavia, and not only the houses but the layout of the farms and villages are well illuminated themes. Since this is not the case everywhere in Europe, this paper focuses on the important first step in order to get to grips with this problem; the archaeological prospecting. There are a number of methods at hand and they work best in combination. While prospecting, the archaeologist has to work in a source critical manner in order not simply to reproduce already known facts.

Paper on Conference „Educaţia privind drepturile omului/copilului: obiective, finalităţi şi realităţi”, ediția a II-a, Chișinău, 9 decembrie 2016

The paper on Summer Study Trip “The medieval fortresses in Germany: comparative analysis in the context of heritage preservation and museum education”, August 1-12, 2016

The objective of this paper is to show how the filmmaker’s genre of choice shapes the main discourse of the film. The author compares Helke Sander’s documentary Liberators Take Liberties (1991-1992) and Max Farberbock’s narrative feature A Woman in Berlin (2008) both dealing with the dramatic effect of the end of WWII, in particular with the instances of German women having been raped by the Allied troops, a theme first publicized in the anonymous diary A Woman in Berlin (1953). There is a clear connection between the book and the two films, but if Sander focuses on the rape itself and on the extraordinary female experience of war, Farberbock is more concerned with cross-national revenge. The author looks closer at the genre elements, particularly at the genres of the diary, the (feminist) documentary, and the narrative film. Then, the author draws some parallels between the Helke Sander film and the diary A Woman of Berlin and discusses the documentaries within the feminist framework inspired by Sander’s accomplishments.

The paper on Seminar of the Frozen Conflicts and Eastern Partnership, Moldova and Ukraine ...

In the framework of its Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), the EU opens up certain facets of its education policy for members of the educational systems of the direct neighbour countries. Bearing in mind the important role of education for processes of nation building and the related formation of citizens, I analyse the meanings of this expansion because the reordering of the relations with the new neighbours after the last enlargement of the EU is one of the main aims of the ENP. In the paper I would like to address this issue from two perspectives: Firstly, I want to take a look at the rhetoric employed in EU documents on internal and external education policy. Drawing on the concept of citizenship and its double role for differentiating between insiders and outsiders of a community and relating individuals to a political community, the question arises as to what kind of integration the EU intends for formal non-EU citizens by offering them certain opportunities of participation. The thesis is that the attitude towards participants from non-member states remains without a clear “finalite”, thus reflecting one of the overall problems of the ENP. Secondly, I want to look at the level of individual participants in the programme Erasmus Mundus and the meanings their stays abroad have for them. I will show to what extent their experiences abroad had an impact on their daily practices as citizens of their countries.

This paper attempts to investigate how and why after a twelve-years period of stability Putinist social contract seemingly broke down and Russia stepped into a new period of uncertainty and crisis. The author underlines that, unwillingly, Medvedev’s presidency paved the way for the protests from the winter of 2011-2012 and fostered the regime’s crisis of legitimacy. Specifically, Medvedev’s relatively liberal rhetoric led to rising expectations among the ‘winners’ of first Putin-Medvedev era and to a growing gap between rhetoric and delivery. Moreover, the ‘Putin consensus’ was also fraying from below during the 2000s, given the population’s fading memory about the 1990s, flourishing of corruption, and migration becoming a hot issue in a booming economy and collapsing native demographics of Russian society. Finally, Putin made several crucial tactical mistakes in the run-up to the Duma elections of the 2011, failing to provide a coherent narrative for the elections, loosing some leading manipulators of the political system, and ousting some powerful regional bosses that ran powerful local machines which traditionally delivered the vote.

This article analyzes the imagery shared by interwar Bessarabian peasants about their Jewish neighbors and traces the role that this imagery played in determining gentiles’ attitudes or behavior during the summer of 1941. It is built on a vast array of sources, including, over three hundred testimonies of Jewish survivors, and archival materials studied at the National Archives of the Republic of Moldova and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. During the start of the war, civilians had brief interregnum allowing them to act on their own, unrestrained by local authorities. At this time, robberies in Jewish towns and villages occurred on an unprecedented scale across the region, with open involvement of numerous groups of civilians; sometimes these robberies were accompanied by assaults and murders. This paper argues that the plunder of Bessarabian Jewry was something more complex than war banditry. For these peasants, the robbery of Jewish goods represented a ‘natural’ way to balance what they perceived to be an unjust economic and social situation that had lasted too long and which could finally be resolved. During the summer of 1941 the peasants of Bessarabia undertook, on their own initiative and for their own benefit, a mass plunder which had the effect of expropriating property from their Jewish neighbors. Men, women, and even children took part in this “mass operation.” The plunder recast the economic topography of Bessarabian society, anticipating the actions of the Romanian state, which joined this process by legally nationalizing all property and assets owned by Jews in Bessarabia on September 4, 1941.

This paper discusses the interaction between the discourses of empire and nation as it emerged in the debates about the proper object of research and the criteria for legitimacy of the newly founded discipline of ethnography in the Russian Empire in the last decades of the 18th and throughout the 19th century. A special emphasis will be laid upon the particular features of the appearance and evolution of ethnographic preoccupations in the Russian Empire starting with the second half of the 18th century, when the first attempts at the synthesis and classification of ethnographic enquiries can be discerned, and spanning the first half of the 19th century. In this context, the case of Bessarabia represents an illustrative example of the uneasy interaction between the specialized and supposedly “objective” knowledge of learned experts and the agendas of the central and local authorities and officials. My basic goal has been to uncover the relationship between the “imperial” and the “universalistic” dimensions of Russian ethnography.

In the first decade following the annexation of Bessarabia, the Russian authorities simoultaneously pursued two different approaches without fully realizing their contradictions. On the one hand, they sought to win support of the Bessarabian nobility by recognizing their land titles in the former Hotin reaya and proclaiming local autonomy based on the law of the land. On the other hand, they sought to colonize the underpopulated lands of Southern Bessarabia by inviting transdanubian Bulgarians and other ethnic groups. Although both approaches envisioned the transformation of the new province into a new homeland for the co-religionist Balkan peoples, their combination provoked social tensions between the the Bessarabian landowners and the colonists. The paper argues that the prolonged conflict between the two groups ultimately illustrates the uncertainty of Bessarabia’s status in the political geography of the Russian empire during the first decades after 1812. While the regime of the nobility-based Bessarabian autonomy was not unlike various schemes of indirect rule adopted in Russia’s Western borderlands, the invitation of colonists continued the colonization policies characteristic of New Russia. In this respect, the placement of the province under the jurisdiction of the governor-general of New Russia in 1822 emphasized colonization at the expense of local autonomy and prepared the abolition of the latter in 1828.

The paper on Conference „Republica Moldova și România: proiecte, interacțiuni, reprezentări (1991-2016)”, Chișinău, 9 septembrie 2016