By the end of the Greek Civil War (1946–1949), about 50,000 Greeks had fled to Eastern Europe. The complex conditions of this massive exodus have been thoroughly discussed by historians and social scientists. However, much less is known about the conditions under which a large number of political refugees eventually returned to Greece. The few available studies on the repatriation of such refugees have shown that returning home was a more complicated and demanding process than adjusting to a "host" country. Repatriation was the primary desire of the majority of Greek refugees. However, as the years in Czechoslovakia passed, the hopes of free repatriation diminished. What the refugees were most fearful of was dying in a foreign country, away from their homeland and relatives, something they considered to be a "double death". Thus, some refugees expressed a "last wish" that at least their bones would be taken back home. The work I present here concerns the difficulties that this kind of repatriation faced. I attend to the meanings as well as the hopes and fears attached to the notion of "home" as a place of origin to which one yearns to return.
The article describes attitudes towards death and funeral rites in contemporary Czech society. It begins by revealing the attitudes to death held by the majority of the Czech population - non-believers. The customary secular funeral ceremony, held in a crematorium, is not entirely well suited to meeting the needs of the bereaved, and this is borne out by the fact that about one-third of all cremations are held without a funeral ceremony. The author argues that the current situation is not solely the result of the economic situation of individuals but also stems from the deeply rooted attitudes and values and the approach to religion of the Czech population. The second part of the article is devoted to the attitudes towards death and the funeral rite preferences of believers, based on a survey conducted with members of three religious groups: Roman Catholics, Protestants (Church of the Czech Brethren), and Jehovah's Witnesses. Finally, the author compares the attitudes of the secular majority and believers, and also outlines the connections between conditions today and under the former communist regime regarding the general approach to death and funeral rites.
The plots of these two novels are built around the ostentatious murders of pets. Gombrowicz presents these acts, partly unexplained and partly inexplicable, as recounted by a bored and disturbed teenager, Kenzaburo Oe's narrator is a participant in these sadistic pastimes, who clearly brings out the perversity of his fellow inmates in a reformatory. In both cases, the narrative ends with a death; Gombrowicz leaves it unclear if it is a unexplained murder or unexplained suicide, in the Japanese novel, it is the suicide of the principal hero he kills himself in order to expiate his crime and to protest against the society and its failure to give him justice. It is unlikely that either writer influenced the other. Any attempt to interpret the plot by applying sociological or archetypal theory is bound to fail. The two novels differ in many respects. At the same time, they both deal with certain problems characteristic of our epoch and utilize a similar rare theme. So they can be compared as expression of the disarray of meaning and sensibility bound up with the moment in the philosophical sense. and Zápletka obou děl je konstruována kolem ostentativního zabíjení malých zvířátek. U Gombrowicze jde o činy částečně nevysvětlené a nevysvětlitelné, komentované znuděným a nezakotveným výrostkem, vypravěč japonského spisovatele, jeden z účastníků sadistické zábavy, nenechává čtenáře na pochybách o úmyslech zvrhlých chlapců. V obou případech vyprávění končí smrtí, která zůstává u Gombrowicze nevyjasněna (šlo o vraždu nebo sebevraždu?) a která má u Kenzabura Oe charakter očistného odpykání trestu. Nelze tu předpokládat ohlas jednoho spisovatele u druhého. S přístupem sociologickým nebo archetypálním se nevystačí. Srovnání textů odkrývá spíše rozdíly než paralely, zároveň se v nich však objevují různě pojaté prvky příznačné pro naši dobu, doprovázené neobvyklým ústředním motivem. Mohou tedy sloužit za podklad komparatistické úvahy, ve které je nutno vzít v úvahu funkci filozoficky chápaného času.
Zámer kontaktu s najnovšou tvorbou dvoch prozaičiek feministickej literatúry smeruje k vyme-dzeniu ústredných poznávacích stratégií vyhranených autoriek, z ktorých Farkašová sa uzatvorila do látky, tematiky aj problému mravného a myšlienkového vyrovnania sa s rodinnou empíriou a s faktom bolesti, neporozumenia aj smrti. Juráňová má širšiu látkovú aj tematickú základňu, obmieňa historickú postavu a historické spoločenské reálie s literárnou postavou, hľadá hodnotiaci postoj ženskej postavy k anonymite mesta aj jej straty na vidieku, uprednostňuje samotu, osamelosť a dôstojnosť v činoch svojej ženskej literárnej postavy. and The intention of contacting with the latest work of the two women prose writers of the feminist literature leads towards the determination of central cognitive strategies of well-defined women authors of which Farkašová is closed into the subject, theme and the problem of copying with the family empiricism, the fact of pain, misunderstanding and death in morality and reasoning. Juráňová has broader subject and thematic bases, she substitutes a historic character and historic social reality for a literary character, looks for the evaluating attitude of a female character to the anonymity of the city and its loss in rural environment, prefers solitude, loneliness and dignity in the acts of her female literary character.
"Jdu na chvíli ven a možná se zdržím," měl říci kapitán Oates (Scott, 1912), opustit stan a nikdy se nevrátit. Měl mít vážně omrzlé nohy, měl ztrácet síly rychleji než ostatní. Údajně žádal, aby byl ponechán svému osudu. Ostatní to odmítli, a proto odešel sám. Scott (1912) napsal, že věděli, že jde Oates na smrt, že to byl skutečný anglický gentleman. V diskusích o eutanazii je zmiňován argument, že je-li smrt na požádání povolena, mohou lidé dojít k závěru, že mají nejen právo, ale dokonce i povinnost zemřít, a to by byl nepřípustný výsledek. Povinnost zemřít je chápána jako něco nepřijatelného, nepřipustitelného. Nicméně existují případy, ve kterých tuto povinnost připouštíme. Oates opustil stan, odešel zemřít, protože kdyby zůstal, měli by ostatní velmi malou, žádnou, šanci na přežití. Nebyli schopni ho opustit, on je ale opustit musel. Zdá se tak, že měl povinnost zemřít. Stejně tak horolezci při pádu odříznou raději sami sebe, než aby vystavili riziku ostatní. Existují čtyři základní a obecné motivy, které jsou spojeny s rozhodnutím zemřít (Warnock, 2008). Lze je také rozdělit do dvou skupin: pro smrt se rozhodujeme ve vztahu k sobě, s ohledem k bolesti nebo s ohledem k důstojnosti, a ve vztahu k druhým, s ohledem ke svým blízkým nebo s ohledem ke společnosti. Pokud samotný člověk nechápe svůj život jako nejvyšší a nezpochybnitelnou hodnotu, pokud si nemyslí, že se může rozhodovat bez ohledu ke komukoli jinému, k čemukoli jinému, pak lze ukázat, že jsou chvíle, kdy máme povinnost zemřít. Máme povinnost zemřít, abychom uchránili právě to, o čem si myslíme, že je významnější než náš život, ať už se jedná o životy jiných lidí, či představu o nás samotných. Povinnost zemřít se tak nezdá jako něco, co by mělo zakládat důvody pro odmítnutí eutanazie, není něčím nepřípustným nebo nepřijatelným. and "I am just going outside and may be some time," said captain Oates leaving the tent to never come back. He supposed to have serious frostbites. He supposed to be losing his energy much faster than others. He asked to be left to his destiny, yet others refused. That is why he left alone. Scott wrote to his diary, that they knew Oates was walking to his death, that he was a brave man and an English gentleman. Can we have a duty to die? Is it possible for euthanasia to be not merely option but a duty? In discussion about euthanasia it is argued, that if we accept euthanasia, right to die can become a duty to die and this result is unwanted. Duty to die is something what is not acceptable, what is somehow wrong. Yet there are examples when duty to die is accepted. Oates left the tent and he went to death. Because he knew that if he stayed, the possibility for others to be saved, would be much lower (or there would be no chance at all). They could not left him behind, but he had to left them. It seems that he had duty to die. It is same when climber fall of and cut the rope, because he don't want to risk other's lives. There are four main motives connected with decision to die (Warnock, 2008). These motives can be divided into two groups; thus we chose death with regards to ourselves, in relation to pain or to dignity, and we chose death with regards to others, in relation to our close-ones or society. If man himself does not regard his own life as the highest and undisputable value, if he does not think that he may act regardless to others or to something else, than there could be moments when he has a duty to die. We have duty to die because we want to protect somebody or something, which is more valuable for us than our lives, and this could be lives of others or even the image of ourselves. Duty to die is not a reasons for rejecting euthanasia, it is not something unwanted or unacceptable.
The present article presents the population of the parish of Stařeč at the very end of the Old Demographic Regime. The main part of the article is based on the analysis of the data obtained from the study of the registers of the births, deaths and marriages. The parish Stařeč was chosen as representing the territory where has so far not been realized a thourough study of the development of population in the nineteenth century. This part of the Bohemian - Moravian borderlands belonged to the mostly agricultural regions, at the same time, however, with successfully developing light industry. Its inhabitants lived exclusively in the villages and small towns and were predominantly of Czech nationality. The parish was large enough to render the demographical analysis of the data meaningful., Vendula Krausová., and Obsahuje bibliografii
Between the Baroque and Romanticism attitudes to death and the discursive framework of the emotional experience of dying fundamentally changed among the Catholic high nobility. The ideal baroque death was supposed to take the form of an extreme point at which the dying person confessed their sins through theatrical gestures and utterances. The deathbed ritual explicitly confirmed the denominational and spiritual orientation of the family. In succeeding generations, both aristocrats and commoners were expected to be confirmed in that orientation by a written and iconographic testimony rich in symbols. Romanticism, on the other hand, imbued the process of dying with sentiment, loving care and family cohesion, which among the high nobility brought solace and a peaceful death. Finally, between the Baroque and Romanticism the relative status of private and public experience of the last moments changed. The Baroque "theatrical" deathbed, which was presented with the central figure of the dying individual and the priest, was a public event. Gradually it changed into a more intimate, quiet contemplation with only a few witnesses gathered in the family circle. Moreover, the doctor came to replace the priest as the chief attendant at the dying person’s bedside. What remained unchanged was the anxious determination to conform to expected patterns of behaviour. By trying to fulfil the contemporary ideal of a "good death", the counts of Martinice and the princes of Schwarzenberg tried to affirm their unique position in Bohemian (and European) aristocratic society. Their emotional experience of death was intended to serve as an example to their descendants and form one of the constitutive elements of the family’s collective memory., Václav Grubhoffer, Josef Kadeřábek., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy
Děti představují důležitou součást lidské společnosti, byť jejich hlasy se z dávné minulosti ozývají jen zřídka. V této monografii autorka odkrývá a rekonstruuje svět dětí římských občanů v období římského císařství. Zabývá se strukturou a společenským rámcem života dítěte v rodině a společnosti římské říše a jejich proměnami v čase, zejména potom problematikou násilí a smrti v životě dětí. Analyzuje setkání dětí s násilím a smrtí, zkoumá roli dítěte jako oběti v mezních situacích (při střetu s násilím či smrtí) i jako aktivního činitele, který sám může překračovat společenské normy a dopouštět se násilí či jiné formy trestné činnosti, nebo se musí vypořádávat se smrtí – vlastní i svých blízkých. ,Children are an important part of human society, although they are rarely heard from the distant past. This monograph explores and reconstructs the world of the Roman citizens' children and the structure and social framework of the child's life in the family and society of the Roman Empire, especially the issues of violence and death in the children's lives. It analyses children's encounters with violence and death, examining the role of the child as a victim in extreme situations (when confronted with violence or death) and as an active agent who may transgress social norms and commit violence or other forms of crime, or who must deal with death, one's own and that of the loved ones.