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.
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- Cultural basis of modern architecture in Yugoslavia 19451990
- Partisans' Square in Užice, designed by architect Stanko Mandić, opened in 1961. The project was designed in many layers which were deeply integrated into the life of the city. Therefore, it is necessary to analyse the fundamentals that were set before drawing the first line. This paper analyses the philosophical, ethical, aesthetic and sociological grounds which the author defined before he started designing. The paper analyses the following elements identified in the written sources of architects: the habits of the population during reconstruction of the city, inconsistency and disrespect of the adopted urban solutions, urban experience of the population and modern solutions, removing traces of Oriental and European dreams of the population, generators of change in space, architecture as the image of society, preserved and respected cultural heritage, engaging of vernacular tradition in the language of the Modern, local materials, local natural heritage, a new technical approach to design, topography of the terrain as a compositional anchorage, avoiding absolutist atmosphere of the market, appropriate measure of the memorial layer, careful creating of the vision and the atmosphere.
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- Cultural decentralization in the South-European context
- The process of decentralization is one of the most sensitive processes within cultural policy. Some positive experiences inherited from the previous periods are not regarded important or relevant for present day constitution of decentralized units. Consequently, they are designed according to present day political interests and priorities. According to the Croatian experiences from the last twenty years, number of regional units and especially those of municipalities and cities is too numerous and is not too favorable for cultural development. Though the country has approved the set of documents on decentralization, the former is a so called 'paper decentralization', because documents are not implemented in practice.
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- Cultural factors of karoshi and karo-jisatsu
- In this paper, cultural factors of overwork death in Japan are examined. The frequency of karoshi (death from overwork) and karo-jisatsu (suicide from overwork) tends to increase. Although these phenomena are somewhat present in other countries, they are the most frequent in Japan, which, for the purpose of explanation, imposes a need for examining its specificities. In literature, these phenomena are most often explained by economic factors. Although the cultural specificities of Japan may also represent important factors of these phenomena, their significance is not recognized. Therefore, some characteristics of the Japanese culture which may be important for overwork death are examined. In this sense, maintaining harmonious relationships with others (within the company) and loyalty (to the company) represent some of the key values of the Japanese (work) culture.
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- Cultural heritage as a political instrument
- The paper analyzes newspaper articles written towards the end of the 1980ies (1987-1988) about the so called Terazije fountain (which existed between 1927 and 1947 at the Terazije Square in the center of Belgrade, Serbia - not to be confused with the older Terazije fountain from 1860 that still stands). At first glance, this was an example of investigative journalism, where one searched for some lost (removed or destroyed) and 'forgotten' fountain, by using contemporary documents, photographs, recollections, eyewitnesses, etc. Speaking in terms of methodology, this investigation had a strategy to establish facts (descriptions of the fountain, chronology of its removal); to understand the fountain in its cultural and historical context and recognize the changes of its meaning and symbolism during 30ies, late 40ies and in the 80ies; to re-evaluate the fountain; to restore it as a piece of the national heritage and bring it back to the contemporary Belgrade. However, the investigation identified an enormous lack of knowledge in history, art history, architecture, urbanism, anthropology, technology, etc. It was carried out as a patchwork of anonymous comments, so the articles were inconsistent and displayed many controversies. The activity of the author therefore resembled pretty much the job of a moderator on the Internet-based forums or social networks. At the same time, opinions of experts and scientists were eliminated as irrelevant, their books considered as non-existing and cultural institutions as incompetent. The story of the fountain appears to be just a stone for a political stone soup; the point of the paper was to criticize the cultural policy, social policy, political leaders or the post-war basis of the socialist Yugoslavia and to promote a new ideology and a new political strategy that was fully introduced in the 90ies.
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- Cultural heritage in the digital world
- The aims of digitization are preservation, accessibility and popularization of cultural heritage. It raises consciousness about the importance of cultural heritage and preservation of cultural and linguistic diversity. It provides small communities with powerful, non-expensive tools to preserve and present their cultural heritage. Wider audiences can have easy access to the world cultural heritage as well as to the local ones. From the viewpoint of the audience, the most important traits of cultural heritage presentations are interactivity and personalization. Sociological approach to the digitization of cultural heritage is focused on two problems: content and access. Which contents will be digitized and who will have access to them depends not only on the cultural criteria (value of cultural contents and cultural needs) but also on technological, economic and social factors: development and spread of ICTs, digital divide (on the global level and within a particular society), IT companies' business policies, activities of cultural institutions and cultural policy. Several issues can be pointed out relating to digitization of cultural heritage: intellectual property issue, obsoleteness of the data carriers, and long-term economic support for repositories. When speaking about user experience, influence of different contexts on the reception and interpretation of cultural heritage should be discussed. Digital-born cultural contents as well as 'unintentional archive' made by internet users pose questions relating to selection, temporary nature of internet platforms, public versus private and commercial versus cultural issues. Digitization of cultural heritage is not a replacement for 'live' cultural participation; it is a new tool for the realization of cultural policy aims, as well as a new field of experience and creation of cultural contents.
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- Cultural life and needs of high school children in Serbia
- The research on cultural life and needs of the high school children in Serbia showed that the activities that can be listed under public cultural life domain are not favourite pastimes of high school children. They usually spend their leisure time in activities that take place in the so-called private sphere (watching TV and listening to music, doing sports and using computers) and require less financial resources. This is best illustrated by the fact that most of them very rarely or never visit museums (85.8%), book reading events (84.5%), galleries (79.0%), theatres (77.8%) or cultural- historic monuments and archeological sites (74.0 %). As major reasons for failing to participate they listed lack of interest, lack of free time, inadequate contents of the cultural offer and lack of money. In addition to this youth group which practically takes no part in the public cultural life, there is also a smaller group which frequents cultural institutions and visits cultural events, making about 8.5 to 10% of this population (statistical estimate). Among them, 3.5% to 5.5% participate in public cultural life at least once a month. Generally speaking, most of these young people do not participate in the public cultural life, although we still cannot speak of their total absence from the public cultural life in entirety. This trend of most young people in Serbia abstaining from public cultural life can have grave consequences for the future of this social group and the society as a whole. These consequences are not immediately 'visible' but emerge over a longer period of time in all segments of social structure, in different intensity and taking different forms. Naturally, these are by no means single- dimensional data but also indicate that part of this population finds cultural programs inaccessible or uninteresting, whether due to lack of interest, structure or conception of public cultural life, in financial or territorial sense. It should be underlined that the processes of globalization and individualization of modern society have a decisive impact on the participation of youth in cultural life. Also, we should not forget the great influence education has on creating a system of values and preconditions for reception of an art piece and various symbolic forms of artistic creation, as well as on the development of cultural needs. The role of a modern high school and a modern university cannot be reduced to mere professional education, since they also have a very significant, civilizational function in development of spiritual abilities and acquiring wider cultural knowledge. A continual education in the field of culture is necessary as the transfer of culture from teachers/ professors to pupils/ students cannot be a once in a lifetime educational event. This education has to follow the quickly changing civilization and knowledge. Marginalizing young people will prevent any society from developing and modernizing in accordance with modern times. Their participation at all levels of decision making and activities is of vital importance for initiating change and further social development. To accomplish this, young people must recognize themselves as fully valid members of the society. As of late, EU insists on development of national youth policies which support participation of youth in the society, especially their influence on the youth-relevant processes, decisions and activities. This involves taking a more active part in the family, school, faculty, cultural life and government. The fact should not be forgotten that the society we live in is determined by the future of our young generations.
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- Cultural nomadism as a defense of heterogeneity
- One of the important issues addressed in post-colonial studies is the antagonism that exists between the cultures of colonizers and indigenous peoples, i.e. the antagonism that divides the 'worlds' into the civilized and the savage, developed and backwards, sophisticated and primitive, rich and poor, and so on. Focusing on the post-colonial deconstruction of these binary oppositions imposed by Western culture, the text explores how such discourses have left the dominant structures untouchable, and have almost reified the otherness of 'subordinates'. On the other hand, the text shows how cultural nomadism, which is not concerned with the origin but the destination and the becoming, potentially creates a new heterogeneous culture. Through nomadic strategies, stable and conventional cultural codes are modified and inserted into new contexts ssemblages, producing an alternative space and time, as well as a multiplicity of meanings within the closed circles. Furthermore, the essay explores how the post-colonial deconstruction can be applied to the visual arts of the last few decades. In parallel to the new world division, destabilisation of the center, globalization and, finally, fragmentation of identity, changes have occurred in the visual arts as well, in terms of some new artwork organization and production models. With the specific way of functioning, nomadic artists give a new paradigm for alternative culture that respects cultural diversity without hegemonies, superiors and subordinates.
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- Cultural participation and consumption
- 'A vibrant, diverse and inspiring cultural life to which citizens of all local communities and subcultures have access and can connect with, makes up a substantial part of the social fabric that determines functioning and attractive living localities-the quality of life that a place offers'. The topic of this paper is the insight in the field of cultural participation and consumption; more concretely it focuses on the levels of participation and consumption development in four countries: Serbia, Croatia, Sweden and the Netherlands. The first two countries have achieved rather similar stages throughout history, and consequently, many areas of cultural policy are structured in the same way and these countries share rather low level of development due to a long-standing and severe economic and political turbulences they have been facing. As a result, participation and consumption of culture have been put aside, as peoples of both countries were concentrated on bare survival. Today, conditions are slightly changed, but there are still many obstacles that these countries must try to overcome. Intersectorial connections, integration of culture and arts in regular education, programmes aimed at developing the audiences are only some of the tasks that these countries should carry out in times to come. On the other hand, Sweden and the Netherlands are known for high standards of life, welfare and prosperity, and thus their cultural practices have been supreme. In terms of the area of cultural policy in focus of this paper, Sweden and the Netherlands are at the top of European countries, and thus their methods are used as examples for the previously mentioned countries to look up to. The only identified issue is relatively low interest of young population in traditional forms. Still, the possibility of interconnecting multimedia with traditional culture might be solution to this problem.
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- Cultural participation and cultural heritage
- Richness, quality, diversity and availability of different forms of cultural activities as well as mediation of cultural contents is of vital importance for children, because their age is optimal for adopting cultural values contained in various activities. Thus, the offer of cultural institutions designed for children is important for building attitudes towards culture, cultural production and cultural consumption in their adult life. Following the research of the Center for Study in Cultural Development - 'Cultural offer for the children of Belgrade' from 1983 - we initiated a project called 'Cultural heritage and cultural participation'. This project started in 2014 and it has two goals. The first goal is to form a database of cultural institution projects aimed towards children that would be available to researchers of culture. The other also important goal is to contribute to innovations in creating programs that cultural institutions would offer in order to foster active cultural participation. Digitalization of documentation about the Studio for creative upbringing (Školigrica) allowed us to treat this project as a folklore legacy that in its core implies understanding of folklore as artistic communication in small groups that leaves significant trace among people of different generations.
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- Cultural pattern and the reached degree of democracy in Serbia
- This paper deals with some important determining factors of influence in culture and the reached degree of democracy in Serbia. Understanding of the relationship between culture and democracy will assist in the fashioning of decisions that affects these areas. Democracy is a word we often hear and exploit, forgetting that democracy relies on the development of culture, so that, today, democracy indeed exists only formally and declaratively, as there can be no democracy without essential influence of culture. The basic problem of the underdeveloped culture in Serbia is not technological in nature: large quantity of carbon dioxide, global heating or waste materials are only the symptoms. The problem lies in the culture itself and in our mind mode. Efforts for the restoration of economic growth are essential, since they are replies to the questions like: what are really the future development targets; whether these are the goals of economic welfare, employment, environment protection and improvement of educational structure; and whether the cultural level in population is meeting new technological challenges. Investment in research, infrastructure and energetics, education and culture, would have multiple positive effect on the strengthening of competitiveness. The findings of this paper support the calls for a comprehensive reform, if we consider the fact that the market mechanisms operate in culture, that relativism is becoming the idea of culture, and that culture is identified with consumption, with an economic standpoint of value in culture. Maladjusted countries, under globalization conditions, would be the ones to fall behind evolutionally, technologically and culturally speaking, or the ones that do not have a development strategy and a social cohesion strategy, and particularly fail to sufficiently invest in education and culture. In the future, a competitive advantage will lie in development, knowledge, culture and technological progress. Societies must define their priorities and must relay a clear message what is important and what is not, what represents public interest, and what does not.
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- Cultural pattern of geopolitical parasitism
- This study analyzes the Yugoslav geopolitical transition and its impact on the rise of corruption in the Balkan region, with special reference to the role of the JNA. Geopolitical parasitism has evolved and taken root in the period 1945-1980 because the communist state has managed to provide international recognition and has won a large number of people to their side. Corruption was conceived in the centre of the military and state security apparatus. Shortly before the breakdown of Yugoslavia it has grown and has exploded into all the countries of the former Yugoslavia.
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- Cultural policy and contemporary challenges of financing culture
- Finding an appropriate model of financing culture, which will largely meet the objectives of cultural policy, cultural needs and expectations of cultural community, does not mean making a definite choice of some of the existing concepts of financing culture. It means finding different combinations of organizational dimensions that correspond to the state tradition, socioeconomic context, system of cultural institutions, relation between the state and culture, economic development etc. In the process of modeling an efficient system of financing culture the attention should be paid to both: the cultural and economic demands. The basic model of financing culture usually represents traditional practice that is difficult to change; reforms of the system of financing culture represent measures that have a prior corrective character, rather than radically changing pattern of financing culture. The paper discusses the various dimensions of relationship between the state and culture with a special attention paid to the genesis of financing culture. It will be examining different concepts of financing culture and socio-historical context of their emergence. The final paper section deals with historical context, current issues and perspectives of the financing culture in Serbia.