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The article attempts to consider the political and legal crisis that has been going on in Belarus for almost a year, in the context of the relationship between its causes and the quality of public administration. To this end, the authors identify modern approaches to understanding good governance. The indicators of management quality developed by authoritative international structures are indicated, on the basis of which it is possible not only to give an objective assessment of the quality of management in Belarus, but also to identify the most problematic positions. As shown in the paper, the main disadvantage of the quality of governance in Belarus is its authoritarian nature, which is manifested in the disregard for people's opinions and accountability. The process of gradual establishment of an authoritarian regime in the republic by means of the analysis of the chronology of the social and political events that took place in the republic during the last decades is clearly shown. In the final part of the work, the author draws attention to the factors that give stability to those regimes that can be attributed to information autocracies. In particular, it is the existence of state property and control over it as an instrument of power retention. The issue of its effectiveness (for example, state-owned enterprises) is not a priority for the country's leadership. The next factor is the presence of control over the political influence of deputies, checking the loyalty of people's deputies. In the system of government formed in Belarus, all elected officials, from village council deputies to parliament, are rigorously selected for their loyalty and lack of ambition. After that, they easily move from the vertical to the representative bodies (and back), occupying leadership positions in structures that mimic civil society. Finally, the third factor is the government's permanent desire to control the entire public sphere and the information space. The driving forces that have the potential to gradually weaken the ...

The purpose of the publication is to clarify the relationship between the Ukrainian state center and the city authorities of Gomel in the context of the accession of the Gomel region to the Ukrainian state. This issue is also important for studying the general experience of the city administration, as well as for the reconstruction of regional history, as Gomel demonstrated the case of the longest retention of elected city government in Belarus after October. According to the agreement of January 27 (February 9) 1918 between the UPR on the one hand and Germany, Turkey, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria – on the other the southern districts of Grodno, Minsk and Mogilev provinces of the former North-Western region with ethnic Belarusian population were annexed. Ukraine and included in the process of Ukrainian state building. Gomel, the largest industrial and transport center on the Belarusian-Ukrainian-Russian border, also became part of Ukraine. In the conditions of establishment of structures of the Ukrainian state management and administration in Gomel district the activity of zemstvo-city self-government which party structure and state-political orientations were formed after February, 1917 and remained during short (from December, 1917 to the end of February, 1918) domination in the city of the Bolsheviks. The problem of the relationship between the hetman's government and local authorities in the annexed territories has not yet found its special study. The author of this text had to consider some institutional and personal aspects of the functioning of the Ukrainian authorities in the annexed Belarusian counties, as well as the issue of state identification of the Gomel Directory. The factual and institutional aspect of the topic was reflected in a thorough reference book on various government agencies in Belarus during the military-revolutionary period of 1917–1920. New sources of information for the topic were created by the publication of reports of the highest representatives of the Hetman's power on the ...

Wieloautorska monografia poddająca oglądowi XX wiek z perspektywy jego znaczenia dla procesu samoidentyfikacji jednostek i/lub społeczności oraz – w przypadku tych drugich – umiejscowienia dwudziestowiecznych wydarzeń w strukturze pojęć kluczowych dla samookreślenia się Słowian. U podstaw prezentowanych tekstów leży założenie, że przeszłość, postrzegana jako ciąg wydarzeń, jest jednym z czynników determinujących tożsamość i definiujących system narodowych wartości, znajdujących odzwierciedlenie w kulturze. Autorzy, odwołując się do narzędzi z warsztatu literaturoznawcy, semiotyka, historyka i kulturoznawcy, dążą do umiejscowienia wydarzeń XX wieku na mapie pamięci współczesnej Europy. Poddają oglądowi zarówno te wydarzenia, które napiętnowały dzieje najnowsze, stając się przyczyną narodowej (lub światowej) traumy (rewolucja lutowa, wybuch II wojny światowej i in.), jak i te, które są wartościowane pozytywnie (zakończenie II wojny światowej, upadek muru berlińskiego, pielgrzymki Jana Pawła II i in.), stając się powodem do dumy. W centrum uwagi znajdują się nie tylko wydarzenia określające obraz Europy w wymiarze polityczno-geograficznym, wyraźnie obecna jest również perspektywa mentalna, która sprzyja dotarciu do źródeł narodowych fascynacji oraz narodowych traum, a także pozwala zrozumieć mechanizmy rządzące tworzeniem mitów i wskazać narzędzia do ich odczytywania, którymi są – często pozornie ukryte – treści odwołujące się do przeszłości. ; This multi-author monograph looks at the 20th century from the perspective of its role in self-identification of individuals and/or communities as well as – in the latter case – of the place occupied by events of the 20th century in the structure of concepts that are key for the self-identification of Slavs. At the heart of each of the presented papers is the premise that the past, seen as a chain of events, is one of the factors determining identity and defining the system of national values which find their reflection in culture. Drawing on the tools of literary studies, semiotics, historiography and cultural studies, the authors undertake to put 20th century events on the map of contemporary European memory. They examine both the events that left a dreadful mark on contemporary history, causing a national (or global) trauma (like the February Revolution or outbreak of World War II) and those seen as positive (like the end of World War II, fall of the Berlin Wall or John Paul II's pilgrimages) and evoking the feeling of pride. At the centre of attention are not only events defining the image of Europe in terms of political geography. Also clearly present is the mental perspective, which fosters recognizing the sources of national fascinations and national traumas, helps understand the mechanisms of myth-making, and points to the tools for reading myths that are constituted by, often seemingly hidden, references to the past.

Lisbeth S. Fried's insightful study investigates the impact of Achaemenid rule on the political power of local priesthoods during the 6th-4th centuries B.C.E. Scholars typically assume that, as long as tribute was sent to Susa, the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, subject peoples remained autonomous. Fried's work challenges this assumption. She examines the inscriptions, coins, temple archives, and literary texts from Babylon, Egypt, Asia Minor, and Judah and concludes that there was no local autonomy. The only people with power in the Empire were Persians and their appointees, and this was true for Judah as well. The Judean priesthood achieved its longed-for independence only much later, under the Maccabees

The article summarizes the results of the lexical studies of the Belarusian business monuments from the middle 16th to 18th centuries. The studies found the following results: 1)lexical units noted in business monuments of different genres can be divided into eight large thematic groups (legal, social and political, clerical, economic, household, professional and industrial, natural science vocabularies, and vocabulary that characterizes a person physically, mentally, and intellectually); religious, military, medical vocabularies, and lexical units from other spheres are represented to a lesser extent; polyfunctional vocabulary is highlighted separately; 2)taking into account the materials of the "Histaryčny sloŭnik bielaruskaj movy" ("Historical Dictionary of the Belarusian Language"), some innovations are determined, namely a) lexical units that were fixed in business writing during the specified period for the first time, b) previously known lexical units that implemented new meaning / new meanings in business writing during the specified period; 3) the dominance of certain thematic groups or their subgroups in each specific monument depends on its genre; 4) by style, one can distinguish lexemes, which were fixed in monuments of a) business content, b) business and secular-artistic content, c) business and religious content, d) business, religious and secular-artistic content during the period from the middle 16th to 18th centuries; 5) the extremely wide representation of Latinisms, the penetration and consolidation of which was influenced by extra- and intralinguistic factors, is a characteristic feature of the business writing vocabulary of the specified period. The results of the research will be important for the preparation and creation of scientific and theoretical works devoted to the evolution of the lexical system of the Belarusian language in general and its stylistic and genre varieties, in particular, to the characteristics of the vocabulary features of different Old Belarusian monuments; when compiling special lexicographic reference books, for example, a consolidated dictionary of business texts of a specific chronological section / local fixation / specific genre, etc. ; У статті узагальнено деякі результати вивчення словникового запасу старобілоруської ділової писемності середини XVI – XVIII ст. щодо його тематичної характеристики, поповнення, стилістичного та жанрового розподілу, представлення в ньому слів іншомовного (латинського) походження; також запропоновано напрямки для подальшого використання результатів дослідження.

The article summarizes the results of the lexical studies of the Belarusian business monuments from the middle 16th to 18th centuries. The studies found the following results: 1)lexical units noted in business monuments of different genres can be divided into eight large thematic groups (legal, social and political, clerical, economic, household, professional and industrial, natural science vocabularies, and vocabulary that characterizes a person physically, mentally, and intellectually); religious, military, medical vocabularies, and lexical units from other spheres are represented to a lesser extent; polyfunctional vocabulary is highlighted separately; 2)taking into account the materials of the "Histaryčny sloŭnik bielaruskaj movy" ("Historical Dictionary of the Belarusian Language"), some innovations are determined, namely a) lexical units that were fixed in business writing during the specified period for the first time, b) previously known lexical units that implemented new meaning / new meanings in business writing during the specified period; 3) the dominance of certain thematic groups or their subgroups in each specific monument depends on its genre; 4) by style, one can distinguish lexemes, which were fixed in monuments of a) business content, b) business and secular-artistic content, c) business and religious content, d) business, religious and secular-artistic content during the period from the middle 16th to 18th centuries; 5) the extremely wide representation of Latinisms, the penetration and consolidation of which was influenced by extra- and intralinguistic factors, is a characteristic feature of the business writing vocabulary of the specified period. The results of the research will be important for the preparation and creation of scientific and theoretical works devoted to the evolution of the lexical system of the Belarusian language in general and its stylistic and genre varieties, in particular, to the characteristics of the vocabulary features of different Old Belarusian monuments; when compiling special lexicographic reference books, for example, a consolidated dictionary of business texts of a specific chronological section / local fixation / specific genre, etc. ; У статті узагальнено деякі результати вивчення словникового запасу старобілоруської ділової писемності середини XVI – XVIII ст. щодо його тематичної характеристики, поповнення, стилістичного та жанрового розподілу, представлення в ньому слів іншомовного (латинського) походження; також запропоновано напрямки для подальшого використання результатів дослідження.