Book
Испания и Европа в годы Великой французской революции
Anniversary Book dedicated to Professor Jan Kieniewicz on His 80th Birthday
The present book is a collection of papers offered to Professor Jan Kieniewicz by his friends, colleagues, and collaborators to celebrate his 80th birthday. Entitled Spain – India – Russia. Centres, Borderlands, and Peripheries of Civilisations, it corresponds only in part – in its thematic and geographical scope – to his research interests. Professor Kieniewicz is indeed a historia involved in researching the history of India, of the European expansion during the precolonial times, of the early modern times in Spain, as well as of the history of Poland and Eastern Europe, but he is also one of the most creative Polish humanists who seeks to synthesize thinking about the human beings, their history, societies, civilisations...
The article deals with the case of the Spanish missionary Francisco Xavier activities in Asia in the 16th century. The necessity of developing and approbating Western international strategies in the countries of the East led the Europeans to expand the study of the societies, cultures and religious practices of the peoples of the East, when contacts with "Others" demanded a comprehension and interpretation of the origin and nature of ethno-cultural diversity. The letters and reports to Europe written by Xavier gave a picture of Japanese life, and thus making the Spanish “construction” of Japan during the second half of the 16th century.
The book consists of chapters (articles) devoted the South-European constitutionalism of 1812, when two constitutions were adopted (in Spain and Sicily). Napoleon at that time not only won a few countries, but founded new states, gifted constitutions to some new and old states. Adoptions of constitutions in Cadiz and in Palermo in 1812, were events of extraordinary importance. They demonstrated a protest against Napoleonic wars and defense the right of nations to decide their future and way of development.
The article is devoted to the analysis of the attempt to transform the Spanish monarchy in the Federal Republic and its legal regulation in the constitutional draft of 1873. The establishment of republican form of government was due to the actual impossibility and uselessness to restore the monarchy. It was also considered to be a condition for the federalization of Spain, a contribution to the realization the principle of sovereignty. The constitutional design of the Federation was based on the historical features of states of the Iberian Peninsula and multidimensional understanding of sovereignty. The idea of vertical and horizontal separation of powers provided in the constitutional project of 1873 became the basis of the desired state organization and of the functioning of public power. A novelty of the application of principle of separation of powers is the introduction of the forth power named connecting power (besides three classic ones – legislative, executive and judicial), which belonged to the President of the Republic. It was established to perform in the system of state bodies the functions of a head of state and of a mediator. The importance of the experience of 1873 is found in the analysis of the state organization of Spain according to the Constitutions of 1931 and 1978.
The article determines the pole and place of Spain in the system of European security in the face of modern challenges and threats. In this regard, the author explores the developments of the Kingdom’s policy in the sphere of international security at the conceptual and practical levels. The attention is paid to the dynamics and direction of the process of armed forces building in Spain. The paper concludes on the perspectives of the country’s participation in the solution of the key problems in the sphere of international security.
This article analyzes how approaches and methods of the anthropology of time are applied to the Iberian and Latin-American university studies. Though Hispanic scholars interpreted and discussed European and North-American works on anthropology of time, they came to analysis of temporal structures and age rates of academic life basing on regional and national traditions of university studies. The article observes both peculiarity of approaches in various research centers (e.g. Spanish research group «History of culture and universities Alsonso IX» and Mexican Institute of university and education studies) and problems of discipline organization of studies (i.e. separation of history of universities and history of education). University time is studied in bound of various research guidelines, i.e. history of symbolic spatial and temporal categories, history of everyday practices and their regulation, history of rituals. Hispanic sholars analyze problem of academic age-ing in prosopographic studies and in investigations dedicated to collective memory and gaps of continuity. Methods of anthropology of time are also applied to the research of the youth as constructed subject of university social and political life.