Search Results (86)

Background: Since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, countless forcibly displaced individuals facing not only material loss, but also deep psychological distress, have sought refuge across Europe. For those traumatized by war, the absence of a shared language in therapy can hinder healing and exacerbate suffering. While cultural diversity in psychotherapy has gained recognition, the role of native-language communication—especially from a person-centered perspective—remains underexplored. Methods: This narrative review with a thematic analysis examines whether and how psychotherapy in the mother tongue facilitates access to therapy and enhances therapeutic efficacy. Four inter-related clusters emerged: (1) the psychosocial context of trauma and displacement; (2) language as a structural gatekeeper to care (RQ1); (3) native-language therapy as a mechanism of change (RQ2); (4) potential risks such as over-identification or therapeutic mismatch (RQ2). Results: The findings suggest that native-language therapy can support the symbolic integration of trauma and foster the core conditions for healing. The implications for multilingual therapy formats, training in interpreter-mediated settings, and future research designs—including longitudinal, transnational studies—are discussed. Conclusions: In light of the current crises, language is not just a tool for access to therapy, but a pathway to psychological healing. Full article

The development of Daoism in Italy is deeply connected to how its classical texts were received and circulated. Although Italian Christian missionaries were among the earliest Western commentators on Daoism, significant Italian engagement with Daoist works only emerged in the 20th century. During the first half of that century, Italian publishers released six translations of the Laozi, three partial translations of the Zhuangzi, and several general works on Daoism. This surge of interest was influenced by two major 19th-century developments: the rise of sinology as an academic field in France, which spurred European scholarly interest in Chinese culture, and the spread of international esoteric and occult movements, which drew heavily from Eastern philosophies. This paper focuses on two important Italian translations of the Laozi from the interwar period—Julius Evola’s 1923 translation and Attilio Castellani’s 1927 version. These translations exemplify the dual influences of academic sinology and esoteric movements on the Italian reception of Daoism. By comparing these works, this paper highlights how Daoist ideas were introduced and interpreted in Italy, shaped both by the translators’ personal backgrounds and their distinct intellectual aims, thus revealing the varied contexts in which Daoism was received in early 20th-century Italy. Full article

In the present article we propose to analyse the link between Greek religion and philosophical concepts of the human condition as a problem of reconciling determinism and at the same time free will, with its existential and moral implications. This issue has remained a matter of revision and discussion throughout the ages and latitudes within philosophy, but also in the literature, where through myths, these questions reappear, although in very different historical and religious contexts. We propose to approach these themes through the myth of Oedipus, immortalised by Sophocles in his tragedy Oedipus Rex, which Jean Cocteau, in the tragic interwar period, rereads and resemanticises, but without losing the essential question of whether there is an insurmountable destiny that imposes itself on free will. Full article

Education-to-work transition among war-affected youth in post-conflict settings is fraught with challenges, not least compounded by the little attention placed on individual agency and mental health. This review examines the debate on war-affected youth skilling programmes in post-conflict settings, which neglect the roles of individual agency and mental health in the education-to-work transition. Building on Albert Bandura’s Self-Efficacy Theory (SET) and the Cumulative Stress Hypothesis (CSH), the review presents an integrated approach to skills development for improving education-to-work transition among war-affected youth. According to SET, the development of self-efficacy is anchored on enactive mastery, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological arousal. Moreover, individual agency factors such as motivation, aspiration, goal orientation, active efforts, and alignment of intentions with skills are protective factors for effective education-to-work transition, but they are also eroded by the adverse consequences of violent conflicts. Similarly, the CSH also suggests that the effects of exposure to protracted violent conflicts are cumulative and may lead, in turn, to a plethora of mental health problems in the aftermath of violent conflicts. Mental health problems like depression, anxiety, and PTSD are linked to, inter alia, behaviours such as aggression, substance abuse, and apathy, all related to poor employment outcomes. To increase the employability of young people affected by war, skills training institutions and work settings need to prioritise the mental health and individual agency of the youth, as well as skills acquisition for specific trades. Consequently, we propose an integrated model of reintegrating war-affected and vulnerable youth anchored on professional technical and vocational skills training; recognition of individual agency; provision of mental and psychosocial support; and life skills training, all nested within the local economic realities. Full article

Late contact-era depictions of inter-group conflict in southern African rock art include references to the image-makers and their opponents, who must also have been able to view the images. Performance theory allows researchers to go beyond the conventional question about who made the images by also addressing for whom the images were made. This case study uses performance theory to explore several details of the well-known conflict scene at Ventershoek (Jammerberg, Free State Province, South Africa). In it, ‘San hunter-gatherers’ appear to contest the possession of cattle, traditionally the property of ‘Bantu agro-pastoralists’. It is argued that, in addition to depicting conflict, the image-makers painted allusions to their ritualised, spirit-world mediation of conflict, their opponent’s use of protective war medicine and, potentially, lateralised symbols of cattle ownership that would have been comprehensible to audiences on both sides. It is argued further, from performance theory and the painted details, that the Ventershoek conflict scene contributed to the image-makers’ social construction of reality concerning their relationships with other groups. Full article

This article examines the complex process of establishing a unified structure for the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) within the post-World War II diaspora, focusing on the formation of the Bishops’ Conference and the concurrent pursuit of the recognition of patriarchal status. Building on earlier inter-diocesan meetings, efforts to create a coordinating body for the dispersed UGCC episcopate gained momentum in the 1950s, culminating in the establishment of the Episcopal Conference. However, these conferences progressively revealed significant internal disagreements, particularly concerning the scope of the Conference’s authority and its relationship with the Roman Curia. The release of Josyf Slipyj from Soviet imprisonment and his subsequent exile in Rome, coupled with the proclamation of the Decree on the Eastern Catholic Churches, dramatically altered this dynamic. Slipyj’s advocacy for ritual jurisdiction clashed with the Roman Curia’s desire for centralized control and the divergent views of individual bishops. Significantly, the growing activity of the laity, characterized by persistent demands for autonomy and patriarchal status, and fueled by disillusionment with Vatican policies, played a crucial role in shaping the UGCC’s trajectory. This analysis underscores the intricate interplay of canonical, political, and personal factors that influenced the UGCC’s attempts to forge a coherent identity and assert its rights in the post-war diaspora. Full article

The Mandate of the XXV World Russian People’s Council of 27 March 2024 framed the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine as a “holy war”. This paper presents an in-depth textual analysis of the Mandate followed by an extended thematic and contextual analysis. The findings indicate that the Mandate’s mainstream discourses of eschatological–apocalyptic holy war and katechon state were not previously expressed at the level of official church leadership. They contribute to the ideological escalation of the Russian confrontation with Ukraine and the West around declared traditional values and the holy mission of the Russian people, while the involvement of Orthodoxy in the Russian ‘holy war’ narrative is neither exclusive of other religious referents nor of disbelief in ecclesial doctrine. The main referent of the Self (and correspondingly, of the sacred) is the (Russian) ‘nation’ or ‘people’, for which ‘spiritual’ and ‘civilizational’ are comprehensive religious markers of cultural identity. While two religious adversaries of the Russian geopolitical agenda of Ukraine—the Ecumenical Patriarchate and Ukrainian Orthodoxy—are not directly mentioned in the Mandate, it nevertheless attempts to re-formulate an Orthodox ‘just war’ theory, intensifies antagonistic inter-Orthodox relations in the Russia–Ukraine dimension and strengthens the resolve of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and the Russian Federation to retain Ukraine’s Orthodox Church as an exclusively Russian space. Full article

Religion in international relations should not be viewed solely as a source of conflict or cultural differences; it also has a constructive dimension, as demonstrated by the international activities of faith-based organizations (FBOs). FBOs have benefited from the post-Cold War expansion of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in global affairs. Their growth is often linked to raising awareness among various social groups about security challenges or issues traditionally addressed by state and inter-governmental actors, as well as increasing international interconnectedness. While FBOs differ from classical NGOs in their strong religious motivation, they too often organize around specific missions or messages. The Community of Sant’Egidio (CSE) is a distinctive example of a faith-based organization that operates both as a religious community within the Roman Catholic Church and as an internationally active NGO. Unlike many NGOs, which are founded in response to a singular issue, CSE has broadened its scope over time, addressing a wide range of concerns, from poverty alleviation and peacebuilding to humanitarian aid and, more recently, environmental issues. This paper explores the process by which the CSE has discursively constructed its identity and examines how this process has contributed to its growing influence on the international stage. Full article

This study focuses on the broken world that the Prague German writer and musician Hermann Grab (1903–1949) first encountered in 1924 with his study of sociology at Heidelberg. While Grab initially sought to comprehend the new world and make an impact from a sociological perspective, he later embraced literature and music as a means of expressing a way forward. This text highlights Grab’s exploration of the dynamics of change in the modern world and their implications for a reformed approach to musical education. His work as a writer and music teacher is emblematic of Prague, where many authors uniquely integrated art and science. Alongside new forms of literary writing, he reflected on a renewal of music education as a reaction to the dissolution of values noted by others at the time, most famously by Hermann Broch. Building on this premise, Grab’s doctoral thesis, his novel, and one of his short stories, as well as his views on music education, are brought to bear in order to show how Grab turns the pieces of a fractured world into mosaic tiles whose combination in different art forms points to something beyond this dissolution of values. Full article

The architecture of Jerusalem has for centuries been defined by its being a space sacred to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The end of World War I marked the beginning of British Mandatory rule, which lasted until 1948. During this period, Jerusalem witnessed a proliferation of architectural projects that repositioned religion within modern typologies representing the city’s communities. This research investigates four such buildings: the British Rockefeller Museum, the Palestinian Palace Hotel, the American YMCA Building, which functioned as a community center and hostel, and the new Zionist Executive Building. The integration of religious elements into these edifices is examined using the concept of inter-religious engagement and by applying the theory of purification and hybridization. The research demonstrates that British and American Christians, Zionist Jews, and Muslim Palestinians, used different strategies to produce inter-religious engagement—either intentionally or because of British-dictated political constructs. British and American Christians embedded religious elements within modern typologies to reflect peaceful co-existence, while Zionist Jews and Muslim Palestinians used them to construct national identity. Although conceived as “purely” secular, these modern typologies were hybridized by the integration of religious spaces or emblems, revealing further dimensions to our understanding and assessment of 20th-century urban secular architecture and its intersection with religions. Full article

Tuberculosis has had a long-standing prevalence in Greece over the last century, going hand in hand with the country’s overall socioeconomic situation. The current study explores aspects of tuberculosis in Greece since the interwar period and up to the present. Apparently, ignorance of the nature of the disease coupled with false medical perceptions sealed the fate of patients while unwittingly influencing public opinion and making societies hostile toward patients. Such paradigms are of great and timeless value for the cohesion and functioning of societies, not excluding modern ones. Although the present-day situation in Greece is utterly different from that in the previous century, considering the limited number of cases and minimal impact of the disease, new challenges have emerged, such as the under-reporting of cases, the emergence of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, latent tuberculosis or the management of large refugee flows in the Eastern Mediterranean involving citizens from countries with a high prevalence of the disease. On the other hand, the study of tuberculosis is nowadays more urgent than ever, given the global concerns regarding the future of the disease in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has put enormous pressure on national health systems. Full article

This article discusses the Franciscan theme in Polish literature, which was apparent from the 19th century onwards, and especially towards the end of that century. This trend involves the works of many authors and an enormous variety of texts. Therefore, this article focuses on two writers—Józef Wittlin and Roman Brandstaetter—who clearly inherited the broad Franciscan tradition, and also developed and popularised the Franciscan message. The Franciscan revival in Polish literature was initiated by Protestants, which often meant a departure from the figure of St. Francis established by the Church in favour of an individual understanding and presentation of him. The first Polish centre of the revival of Franciscanism as a literary and cultural formation was Lviv. Józef Wittlin grew up in this environment; moreover, he authored, inter alia, the first Polish unfinished novel about St. Francis Salt of the Earth, which refers to Franciscanism, as well as a number of smaller texts with a Franciscan message. Wittlin was a mentor to Roman Brandstaetter, who, after World War II, became the greatest bard of Assisi and St. Francis in Polish literature. Unlike Wittlin, who was Protestant-inspired, Brandstaetter clearly placed the Assisi saint in a Catholic context. This writer greatly expanded references to Franciscan tradition and art in his work. He wrote essays on Assisi, wrote a drama about St. Francis, and combined Franciscanism with biblical themes, as evidenced by his Jesus of Nazareth tetralogy. Despite their differences, what both writers shared is that the saint from Assisi was neither an object of devotional worship nor an outdated figure, but a representative of ideas and layers of spirituality that had remained fresh for people living in that conflicted era. Although they emphasised other aspects of the Franciscan ethos, they both accepted it as a counterbalance to a cold and indifferent world, an idea for living addressed not only to Christians, but also to people of other faiths and agnostics. Full article

This article is a case study that illustrates the complex intersection of art, politics, and diplomacy in the interwar period. Based on Finnish and Soviet archival documents and press publications, it examines the entire process of organising a Finnish art show abroad. The exhibition, held from 28 November to 24 December 1934, in Moscow, was seen as a landmark event, drawing significant attendance and fostering Finnish–Soviet cultural exchange. By analysing various factors contributing to its success, we provide a detailed picture of both artistic and political influences, demonstrating how cultural events can transcend mere aesthetic appreciation to become significant diplomatic tools. Full article

This article explores the official exhibition of Austrian art held in May 1930 at The Society for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts in Warsaw. Showcasing 474 artworks by 100 artists, the exhibition spanned the years 1918–1930, a period marked by Austria’s efforts to overcome post-war political isolation. The article examines the exhibition’s rhetoric and its critical reception in Warsaw within the broader context of Polish–Austrian diplomatic relations, influenced by Austria’s challenging political and economic situation and the priorities of the Second Polish Republic. The introductory essay in the exhibition catalogue, authored by Hans Tietze, emphasized Vienna’s seminal role as a cultural center at the crossroads of European artistic trends. This approach aligned with the cultural diplomacy of Johannes Schober’s government, which aimed to underscore a rhetoric of openness to the cultures of other nations, particularly the successors of the Habsburg Empire. This contrasted with the later identity policy of the Bundesstaat Österreich, which elevated Tyrol as emblematic of the core German–Austrian identity constructed in the new state. The analysis reveals that the exhibition represented the peak of Polish–Austrian cultural relations during the interwar years, suggesting the potential for broader engagement. However, this potential was short-lived, ultimately thwarted by the Anschluss of Austria to Germany in 1938. Full article

This article examines the artistic contributions of two members of the ‘artes’ group, active in Lviv (Lwów during the interwar period) from 1929 to 1935: Aleksander Krzywobłocki (1901–1979) and Margit Reich-Sielska (1900–1980). Situated within the ‘artes’ milieu, which emerged as the most cohesive community among phenomena with a surrealist profile in the history of Polish art, their creative endeavors have faded from the collective memory of subsequent generations of art historians and critics, both within and beyond Poland. With the aim of elucidating the distinctive characteristics of Krzywobłocki and Sielska’s artistic attitudes, deeply rooted in the cultural landscape of interwar Galicia, this study explores their work as both manifestations of the avant-garde milieu in Lviv and contributions to the transnational surrealist movement. This examination takes a relational approach, considering their artistic output within a framework of trans-local and trans-regional connections. Drawing upon the works of various surrealists active in different European centers, I juxtapose the artistic approaches of Krzywobłocki and Sielska with other practitioners of the movement to highlight both convergences and differences in their expressions. By situating their artistic profiles within the broader modalities of surrealism as a polycentric movement and within the unique cultural context of Lviv—a city marked by its multiethnic, multicultural, and multiconfessional character—I argue that their imaginings should be classified as idiosyncratic idioms of surrealism. This hybrid expression, which developed on the peripheries of European artistic hubs, is primarily distinguished by an ‘archetypal load of tension’—a continual quest for archetypal content that has been lost in the modern world. Full article