This article deals with the origin, content and development of the collection of The Thousand and One Nights and its reception in the Western and Eastern cultural and literary environments. The collection has been evolving in the Oriental environment for more than a thousand years. Although the original core of stories was relatively small, as the collection travelled from territory to territory, more and more narratives of various cultural and geographical origins were being added to it. Editors and translators have been modifying and reshaping its content over and over and so its character has been constantly changing. While the Western writers have considered the collection a true repository of inspiration, the opinion of the Arab intellectual elite was not always that positive.
The article deals with the printer and Briefmaler (letter painter) Michael Peterle (1537-1588), who is also considered to be a woodcutter by Czech book scientists. It focuses on his pictorial broadsides and illustrated books and analyses the morphological features of the extant woodcuts. It has reached the conclusion that Peterle’s woodcutting activities cannot be proved. Apart from the art-historical perspective, it brings a number of new facts associated with Peterle’s printing activities: for instance, it documents the financial background of Prague printers in the 1570s and 1580s., Jana Tvrzníková., Obsahuje anglický abstrakt a shrnutí., and Obsahuje bibliografii
The study newly identifies a woman depicted in relief on a sandstone tympanum, walled-in secondarily in building Reg. No. 72 in Tišnov in Moravia. The tympanum can be assigned to the second half of the 1230s or to the 1240s, with its vegetable décor matching in detail a similar motif on the well-known western portal of the church of the Cistercian convent at Porta Coeli at Tišnov. Characteristic features establish the woman as being Saint Elisabeth of Thuringia (1207-1231), a major person in European spirituality of the 13th C., canonised in 1235. This is, then, evidence of very early reception of the new saint in the Czech Lands, clearly inspired by tight dynastic ties: the Czech queen - widow Constance of Hungary, who founded the Porta Coeli convent in 1232, was Elisabeth’s aunt by bloodline. The sculpture is at the same time one of the very oldest artistic depiction of Saint Elisabeth in the European context, with typical accent on the saint’s tight ties to the ideals of Saint Francis of Assisi. Nevertheless, we do not yet know the original location of the tympanum, but apart from the site of Porta Coeli itself the parish church of Saint Wenceslas at Tišnov does fall into consideration. and Jiří Doležel.
Recenzent podrobně komentuje práci dvojice chorvatských autorů (otce a syna), která pětatřicet let po smrti Josipa Broze Tita (1892-1980) jako první jeho životopis plně obstojí před všemi vědeckými nároky. Biografie podle něj imponuje nejen svým rozsahem, ale i komplexností, vyvážeností, faktografickou přesností, přesvědčivostí úsudku a v neposlední řadě čtenářsky velmi přitažlivým podáním. Recenzent vyzvedává širokou znalost a příkladné využívání pramenů, třebaže autoři neprováděli archivní výzkum, důkladnou pozornost věnovanou všem důležitým epizodám Titovy politické kariéry, citlivé vykreslení jeho privátního života a schopnost najít nesamozřejmé hranice mezi osudy a činy dlouholetého jugoslávského vůdce a poválečnými dějinami Jugoslávie, aby zůstal zachován biografický žánr. Respekt si podle jeho mínění většinou zaslouží i názorová nekonformita autorské dvojice, která nejednou směřuje proti většinovým, nacionálně zatíženým výkladům historie v současném Chorvatsku, třebaže jim v dílčích problémech podléhají. Přestože autoři řadu Titových činů a rozhodnutí hodnotí značně kriticky (například represe vůči oponentům po ustavení socialistické Jugoslávie, a zvláště konfliktu se Stalinem), představují jeho osobnost a historickou úlohu v zásadně pozitivním světle. Přisuzují mu rysy státnické velikosti, jako například mimořádnou politickou intuici, odvahu, schopnost sjednocovat etnicky různorodou společnost a vytvořit z ní funkční státní celek. Za vrcholné momenty Titovy dráhy autoři pokládají partyzánskou válku proti německo-italské okupaci a nezávislý politický kurz Jugoslávie navzdory nátlaku Stalina a východního bloku., The author looks in detail at this work by two Croatian authors, father and son, which, published 35 years after his death, is the first biography of Josip Broz Tito (1892-1980) to fully meet all scholarly standards. The biography, according to the reviewer, impresses the reader not only by its considerable lenght, but also by its comprehensiveness, balance, factual precision, convincing judgements, and, last but not least, readability. The reviewer praises the authors´ great knowledge of the topic and their exemplary handling of the sources. Although they did not work in archives, they have paid careful attention to all the important episodes of Tito´s political career, sensitively portraying his private life, and identifying the subtle boundaries between, on the one hand, the life and deeds of the man who held power in Yugoslavia for so many years and, on the other, the post-war history of Yugoslavia, while keeping within the bounds of the biography genre. The authors merit respect, according to the reviewer, for their mostly nonconformist opinions, which are frequently aimed against nationalistically burdened interpretations of the majority in Croatia today, though on some questions they too succumb to them. Although the authors are considerably critical of many of Tito´s actions and decisions (for example, his repression of opponents after the establishment of socialist Yugoslavia and particularly the conflict with Stalin), they present the man and his historiccal role in an essentially positive light. They attribute to him features of great statesmanship, for example, his extraordinary political intuition, mettle, and ability to unite an ethnically diverse society and make it into a functioning state. The high points of Tito´s career, according to the authors, were the partisan war against the German-Italian occupation and the independent political course for Yugoslavia in the face of pressure from Stalin and the Eastern bloc., [autor recenze] Jan Pelikán., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy