Kultura
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The Kultura Journal is an international scientific journal for the theory and sociology of culture and cultural policy, which follows culture in the widest sense of the word where science, education and all human activities are taken as its integral part.
It was started in 1968 courtesy to the efforts of Stevan Majstorović, founder of the Centre for Studies in Cultural Development, with the objective to encourage integrative, analytical and critical interpretations of the modern cultural phenomena.
At the time of its establishment, the Kultura Journal was unique in the domain of intellectual thought both in terms of its concept and its design. Since the first issue, i.e. over the fifty years of its existence, Kultura has been and has remained open to creative ideas from the country and the world, as seen from the texts of important foreign authors and contributions from professionals coming from the cultural centres of former Yugoslavia, as well as domestic authors who offered new ideas and approaches to culture. The recognizable design solution of the logo of the journal and its cover page were created by the artist and calligraphist Božidar Bole Miloradović, for the very first number.
As of 1971, the issues were edited thematically, which has been dominant practice to this date, with the aim of enriching certain thematic fields in our cultural and scientific community.
The first Editorial Board of the Kultura Journal consisted of eleven members, led by the Editor-in Chief Stevan Majstorović and Trivo Inđić, as conceptual instigators of the journal which heralded a new orientation in the intellectual field. Members of the Editorial Board were: Slobodan Canić, Dragutin Gostuški, Vujadin Jokić, Danica Mojsin, Mirjana Nikolić, Nebojša Popov, Bogdan Tirnanić, Milan Vojnović and Tihomir Vučković. Over the five decades of the Kultura Journal, editorial boards changed several times.
Kultura is issued every three months (four times a year) and its printing has been financed by the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia since 2001. With support of the competent ministry, all numbers of this journal, from the first to the last issue, were digitalized in 2009. As a result, a DVD containing digital form of the journal, was available with the issue No. 129, titled "Electronic libraries". A few years later, in 2013, Kultura switched to the Cyrillic script, with an important note that it still published in Latin script those authors from the region who originally use Latin script(Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia). With the issue No. 140, on the occasion of marking the 45th anniversary of the Kultura Journal, a special USB was made available, with all the texts from the numbers 1-137. The web page of the Centre for Studies in Cultural Development contains all the texts ever published in any issue of the Kultura Journal over half a century of its existence.
The Department for Registration of Journals of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia, the Kultura Journal was registered in 2005 (when categorisation of scientific journals started) marked as category P53. In 2010,it was registered as category M52 in the group of journals for history, art,history, ethnology and archaeology. At the beginning of July 2012, the journal advanced to the category of national interest, by Decision of the Ministry of education, science and technological development of the Republic of Serbia (M51).
Kultura is regularly deposited with the Repository of the National Library of Serbia, and since 2010, it has been included in the Serbian Quotation Index, where the texts published in Kultura can be found in full digital form. As of 2011, the texts i.e. scientific articles, apart from the regular UDK (universal decimal classification) also carry specific DOI (Digital Object Identifier) codes, that allow for their greater visibility and international indexing under international standards. In the meantime,electronic version of the journal was started i.e. the first steps were made towards electronic edition by CEON (Service for monitoring, measuring and valorisation of scientific journals) through Aseestant electronic editing programme. This has contributed to the quality of published articles, as the editorial board now have at their disposal adequate programmes for text checking in terms of correct citation sand listings of references as well as prevention of plagiarism.
Kultura is regularly delivered to the National Library of Serbia in Belgrade, Belgrade City Library,University Library "Svetozar Marković" in Belgrade, Library of Matica Srpska in Novi Sad, Library of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Belgrade, Library of the Rectorate of the University of Arts in Belgrade, University Library in Niš and University Library in Kragujevac. The Kultura Journalis regularly received by numerous interested institutions of culture (libraries, theatres, museums, culture centres) as well as individuals. The Journal nurtures professional exchanges with many similar institutions and magazines in the country, region and in Europe (Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia,Hungary, Bulgaria, Germany, Switzerland and other countries).
In addition to respecting scientific rules and standards for publishing scientific papers, Kultura has not lost the curiosity or the freshness of an avant-garde magazine dealing with both eternal and very actual topics.
Pages
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- The ideal of beauty and the subjective universality
- This paper considers the position of the relationship between the moral, the good, the beautiful and the arts in Kant's aesthetics. Its main assumption is that this relationship, which is very important for Kant, is not self-evident for a subjectivist understanding of the aesthetics phenomena and problems, and that its assertion implies a sort of reconceptualizing of the traditional understanding of the relationship between the good and the beautiful. The analysis offered in this paper aims to investigate the problem of subjective universality and sensus communis in Kant's understanding as a horizon which provides a backdrop for such re-conceptualization.
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- The importance of cultural policy supporting a sustained cultural activity case study Terra
- The paper focuses on the work of the Terra International Symposium of Sculpture in Kikinda and the way the state cultural policy regarding this cultural institution, its importance, functioning and its plans about sustainability and development. The first step was to analyse the cultural policy which needs to be implemented in order to enhance the country support to the culture (to its sustainability and development). Then the subject was considered by focusing on the current state of cultural policy in the Republic of Serbia. The level of the state budget income decides on whether a country will have long-term strategic plan on cultural policy to be implemented by authorities, or its tactical and operational decision making process will remain on an ad hoc basis. The latter represents the less favourable way, as the lack of strategic plan (even a short-term one) diminishes the chance for making a vision come true. The paper considers reasons behind the foundation and the activities of the Symposium, its basic engagements, mission, vision and strategic plan. It is concluded that in the most turbulent social circumstances Terra has managed to realize its goals and implement its adopted vision, mainly due to correct assessment of the state of play as well as of its own capacities. The high level of creativity in a global perspective proves the stability of Terra even in unfavourable conditions. Terra's plan on further activities shows a clearly determined multidisciplinary approach consisting of creative, educational and museology and tourism related activities. Realization of a strategic plan in terms of multidisciplinary practice at this moment depends on Terra's ability to obtain working space in a short time, by adapting of the venues that are already in its possession and also by including the cultural policy in the solution of this problem. The final part of the paper considers some possible actions of the state authorities that could be implemented in interdepartmental and intergovernmental cooperation on a municipal, provincial and state level. This intervention will enable Terra to achieve its sustainability and financial independence. A well-designed action plan will expand the Terra's influence in the region, make better involvement of adopted disciplines in European and world trends. Once the country joins the European Union, further vision development will be possible with the assistance of European development funds.
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- The importance of electoral political culture of developing and maintaining a minimum level of democracy
- In this paper, we will apply the theoretical framework of the minimal definition of democracy (electoral democracy) to the example of the Republic of Tunisia after the changes that have occurred after The Arab Spring. We wish to illustrate the hypothesis that democratic political culture, which has a permanent character, can play an important role in maintaining the nucleus of democracy - the electoral process. Also, we will try to show that specific (liberal and tolerant) cultural - historical heritage and political practice in Tunisia are important factors for the formation and maintenance of democracy in that country (at the minimum level). Our goal is to try to give a general evaluation of whether Tunisia, a few years after The Arab Spring, can rate as electoral democracy. Indirectly, we will discuss how Islam can be barrier to the democratization of society.
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- The influence of television on the development of interest of young people
- We live in a consumer society, which imposes conformism as a necessary and desirable characteristic of personality. Rare are those, both young and elderly, who follow and critically approach things, rather than blindly absorbing them. However, one of the aims of humanistic pedagogy is to develop self-actualizing personalities. It is essential for each person to develop a critical sense of consuming different contents, including the media ones. This paper emphasizes implications that television may have for developing interests of the young. Television is one of the leading factors that influence young people in the broadest sense, including their interests. This was merely an attempt to explain the influence of television on the young, development mechanisms and their periodization, as well as the link between television and interests. Our research confirms that television influences developing interests of young people and that the frequency of broadcasting particular content increases the amount of interest in that content. Furthermore, the young show a great amount of interest in television contents related to entertainment and sport. However, it is denied that interests in particular television contents reflect other interests of the young. Various matters still remain disputable, such as: critical opinion on different contents in the media, quality of television contents, passivity of the young, their interest in participating in entertainment shows, dilemmas on taking part in educational shows and using educational television contents as a motive for studying harder.
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- The internet and authenticity
- What would Kierkegaard think of the internet? His critique of the press is surely well-known, as is his attempt to awaken authenticity in his contemporaries through his writing. Which one of these two tendencies would take presedence in his account of the internet? We will challenge Dreyfuss' thesis that Kierkegaard would have hated the internet, arguing that the internet possesses possibilities of taking on what Dreyfuss calls 'risky responsibility and obligations', at least in as much as it is possible to take them on outside the internet. Finally, we will deploy a critique of that conception of cyber-obligations, which will at the same time be a critique of Kierkegaard's conception of authenticity.
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- The leadership of Mira Trailović
- This study explores the leadership style of a theater director, producer and manager, Mira Trailović (1924 -1989). Her personal story is one of professional development in the theatrical world of former Yugoslavia, but it is also a story about the social and cultural development of Belgrade and Yugoslavia from 1956 to 1989 (the period of her most intensive professional activity), to which she contributed a great deal. A major question of this essay is to what extent did Trailović's leadership capacities contribute to the development of new organizational forms in culture and new managerial methods (adaptable quality management) as well as to specific organizational cultures (Dragićević Šešić & Dragojević, 2005). In addition, there is consideration of the extent to which those leadership capacities contributed to the changing horizons of expectations in culture, as well as their impact on the opinionmakers and political leaders in the Socialist Yugoslavia (specifically expectations regarding the aesthetical and ethical values of theater performances). In this study we would like to investigate the actual power of the arts when they are 'managed' by a person with courage, vision and determination. We would also like to elucidate what qualities (values, knowledge, capacities, and skills) have distinguished Trailović and made her successful at a time when leaders were predominantly men, drawn from the ranks of the Yugoslav Partisans and the communist movement. The methods of research presented here will comprise archival analyses, bibliographic research (different publications on the history of the institutions she founded), interviews with key collaborators (34 interviews made and published by Feliks Pašić) and also the personal experiences of the author of this text (an internship 'diary' in a form of ethnographic research according to the then university curricular demands).
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- The lies of liberalism in Ian McEwan's novels
- The paper locates moments of exposure of ideological lies of liberalism on a corpus of three novels by Ian McEwan (Cement Garden, Black Dogs and Saturday). In spite of Ian McEwan's reputation as a liberal intellectual, the paper demonstrates that the novels which are often read as homage to liberalism can in fact be interpreted as a critique of liberalism. In McEwan's novels one can find moments of fierce critique of the nuclear family as the ideological bedrock of liberalism. Moreover, the novels also establish close links between liberalism and fascism and point to the existence of what Eco called 'ur- fascism' in Western Civilization. Also, the paper sheds some light on the paradoxical feeling of a chronic lack of freedom in liberal societies and ends by giving examples of McEwan's pessimistic attitude towards the future of the liberal society or the modern Western civilization encumbered by the historical baggage of fascism as well as the structural inability to overcome it within the bounds of liberal ideology.
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- The light of Alexandria beacons
- Information literacy is important for successful use of an electronic library to which users access by Internet. Application of information and communication technologies has been increasingly expanding and becoming part of everyday life in all developed countries of the world. Alexandria Proclamation on Information Literacy and Lifelong Learning proclaims that information literacy and lifelong learning are the beacons of the information society, illuminating the courses to development, prosperity and freedom.' Lifelong learning is the value that different countries and international institutions have set as universal and it is an important mission of every modern library. IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) recognizes information literacy as a 'basic human right in a digital world that promotes social inclusion of all'. The paper provides some definitions of information literacy, short review of the Alexandria Manifesto, as well as strategic documents of Serbia in this important domain.
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- The mask archetype
- Masking as a phenomenon is not only anthropological since identical mimicries in nature point to a universal life principle which also confirms itself in the social, cultural and spiritual reality of humans. In addition to its own meaning, a mask gains another meaning in this reality, as an archetypal expression of human desire to achieve greater eminence in the known world but also to push the existing limits. Masking has become a manner for exploring the possibility of being someone else or someone different in the process of asserting one's identity, where both a man and his shadow can be expressed. Reality of the virtual world proves that hiding behind a number or a password provides the necessary safety from aggression but also enables the masked aggressor to express their dark side, causing damage or harm to others.
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- The meaning of art and culture
- The paper critically assesses theoretical and practical differences between "an original" and "a copy" of an artwork, in the context of dominant strands of thought about cultural and creative industries. One strand refers to the Frankfurt critical theory, whereby the other refers to the theory of balancing contemporary European theory of cultural policy. The first favours authenticity in arts and duality between an original and a copy, while the other critically appraises most contemporary social dichotomies in culture and arts. The paper aims to examine basic strategical dilemmas of cultural policies regarding the meaning of art and culture in the context of development of cultural and creative industries. The research starts with an assumption that dilemmas stem from unsustainable dichotomies, particularly in the context of digitalization, which additionally encourages critical assessment of the reasons "for" and "against". It is placed in the context of comparative theory of democratic transition and consolidation, particularly referring to Serbia which is crossing over from the final phase of transition into a democratically consolidated society. The research results show that the difference between an original and a copy is not such a sharp line as the Frankfurt critical theory suggests. It is demonstrated that the disappearance of the original's aura is the most visible in creative activities of industrial type, more precisely cultural industries, whose expansion has marked the 20th century and which are completely based on technical reproduction i.e. copying of artwork. On the other hand, two other pillars of creative industries typical of the 21st century are not sensitive to the difference between an original and a copy. They involve significantly more from the contemporary artistic production, including creative activities of non-industrial type, such as various types of visual and performance arts, as well as business-like cultural and creative activities which use artistic creativity to bring about added value of products and services, that can be, but are not necessarily, artistic or cultural. This is why the debates about the original and the copy do not make much sense. Actually, because of the involvement of these two pillars of cultural and creative industries, the more pertinent issue is the decay of the artwork aura reduced to an aesthetical value, without a spiritual - theurgic dimension, which secular society refuses to pose in science and education, as well as art production practice, even though it is vital for the understanding of the meaning of culture and art in the contemporary society.
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- The measure of culture in cultural sections
- We live in a time when our lives are saturated with information. We daily receive numerous messages through various media outlets. For example, in the US, during one year, about 200 000 books are published, approximately 70 million hours of programs are broadcast by radio stations and about 58 million hours of television programs are produced. 'From the day of your birth until today more information was produced than during all recorded history before you, while half the total number of all scientists in history lives and produces information today.' Every year we publish more books. If you decided to read everything that has been published in one year, you would have to read one book every three minutes, which is about five hundred books a day. This, of course, only refers to the latest world production, and not the classics. Question is how many of the newly published books are read, how and how much the books and culture in general are covered in commentaries, how well the journalists are trained and if they are at all capable of selecting, clarifying and structuring such a horrific amount of information for us at a time of world crisis which has devastated Serbia as well in material, cultural and also media-related sense. A year ago results were published in Serbia of a study conducted by master student of the Faculty of political sciences in Belgrade who investigated the treatment of the book in Serbian media. These results were far from encouraging - apart from Radio Belgrade 2 and special weekend newspaper additions dedicated to book reviews, the book is generally neglected in the Serbian printed media, while the book reports themselves lack the necessary serious approach and deeper pondering. Focus of this paper is monitoring and analysis of cultural contributions in three daily newspapers, the Politika, the Večernje novosti and the Danas over a period 29.09.2012 - 2.10.2012. Its purpose was to show the content of these cultural sections , to make a comparative analysis of their content and quality of content, as well as to pinpoint the basic topics covered and pursue the question if the printed media create contents that raise public attention. The analysis had an empirical and conceptual approach, and covered quantity and quality baselines.
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- The media conglomerisation as part of global changes in corporative management and organization
- The circumstance of having the media ardently serving various sorts of globalization processes is neither new nor unknown. However, it is less obvious how the system of the media growingly mimics global corporative ways of organizing and leading business, which includes multinational and planetar widespread of not only media influences but capital influences as well. People who work for the media, just as those who work in other social fields, are also facing challenges of a new age.