The genetic differentiation of Oxynoemacheilus bureschi (Drensky, 1928) from all three drainages (Struma=Strymon, Mesta=Nestos, Vardar=Axios) where this species occurs, as well as its phylogenetic relationships with other European stone loaches, was assessed using the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene. The phylogenetic reconstruction revealed two distinct clades within the European stone loaches with high bootstrap values. Very low genetic variability with no internal haplotypic structure has been found between and within all examined O. bureschi populations, indicated by low polymorphism and similar haplotypes. According to the nesting design and demographic patterns, the range of O. bureschi was not constant, but underwent expansion in the recent past. Lack of variation, a rather unusual phenomenon for fishes from the southern Balkans, is ascribed to facilitation of dispersal due to seashore regression, confluence events and river capture during the Pleistocene.
Since the fall of communist regimes in South Eastern Europe, local Muslim communities have experienced revival of different aspects of their religious life. This study examines the development of Islamic education, that has expanded since 1990 and that has affected a large segment of Balkan Muslim population. Islamic education represents a substantial and durable aspect of the re-Islamization process in Balkan Muslim communities. However, this “re-Islamization” must be understood in a local context, i.e. as an awakening and spreading of Islamic awareness and morals among Balkan Muslims and not as a demand for the introduction of sharīca laws as such.
The direction and level of sexual size dimorphism (SSD) was examined in fire-bellied toads from the central Balkans. Samples were taken from 12 populations: three Bombina bombina, three B. variegata variegata and six B. variegata scabra populations. Intersexual variation of 20 morphometric characters was analysed. In addition, correspondence analysis of eight qualitative characters was performed. The results showed that, though body length had an inconsistent pattern of intersexual variation across taxa, other traits contributed to statistically significant level of SSD. The analysis on multivariate level revealed a highly significant effect of population in all three taxa, and significant effect of sex on character variation. Discriminant analysis confirmed a higher level of intersexual differences in B. variegata compared to B. bombina. Correspondence analysis showed that females and males were similar with respect to qualitative traits in all three taxa. At the univariate level, the most prominent features were: significant differences in tibia length in all three taxa, and highly significant differences in head width in B. bombina and in humerus length in B. v. scabra. These results are discussed with respect to specific reproductive behaviour and possible ecological differences between sexes.
Th e image of a dismantled statue of Lenin from Ukraine being transported up the Danube in Th eo Angelopoulos’s 1995 fi lm Ulysses’ Gaze is the starting point for a discussion of the fi lm’s urgent resonance with the questioning of “Europe” in the present day. Th is image foreshadows the destruction of Lenin statues in Ukraine during the ongoing civil war and is more than a fortuitous indicator of the historical context of the present Ukrainian crisis in the aftermath of the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Exploring the territory of seven post-Cold War Eastern European states and ending amid the rubble and destruction of the besieged city of Sarajevo, Ulysses’ Gaze off ers a panoramic, yet highly subjective, depiction of a Europe undergoing a painful and as-yet-undecided transition. Th is article will show the strong connections between the understanding of Europe that emerges from the fi lm and that elucidated in the work of the Czech philosopher Jan Patočka. Both the fi lm and Patočka’s thought seek the European on a utopian level that transcends particular temporal and territorial borders, recalls Classical polity and philosophy, and consists primarily in introspective thinking. Th e recurrence, in today’s Europe, of questions from the immediate post-Cold War era indicates that the work of defi nition undertaken after 1989 is not yet completed and suggests that fi lms from that period may contain images that have the capacity to guide the process of understanding Europe in the present day.