Bringing Order Out of Chaos: Stanisław August Poniatowski’s Political Patronage of Architectural Classicism in the Late Eighteenth-Century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

This article examines the political uses of classical architecture in the late eighteenth-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It focuses specifically on the direct connection between the rise of the classical idiom on the eve of the collapse of the Commonwealth and the ill-fated idea of political recuperation of the deteriorating and dysfunctional state under the aegis of King Stanis?aw August Poniatowski (r. 1764–95). In particular, it outlines the extent and character of Polish-Lithuanian architectural classicism’s political engagement in the last decades of the eighteenth century. It also underscores the specific role of this architectural idiom as a political symbol and instrument of propaganda, which served to represent the idea of restoring political order to the Commonwealth and building a strong and self-sustaining political community headed by the king. Finally, it presents a selection of characteristic buildings and publications that contributed to this political discourse, and examines the ways classical architecture retained a political importance in the immediate aftermath of the destruction of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795.     

Who ate the birds: the taphonomy of Sarakenos Cave,Greece

The taphonomic analysis of avian remains from Sarakenos Cave reveals that, contrary to previous suggestions, many bird bones excavated there represent food remains of the Eagle Owls rather than humans. The conclusion is based on the presence of traces of digestion, beak and claw punctures, and indirect evidence that includes relative preservation of particular elements, species composition, the lack of cut marks, and the absence of numerous traces of burning. Specimens with medullary bone and traces of digestion indicate that the owls killed breeding females in spring. Since it is unlikely that owls shared the cave with humans at the same time, it supports the notion based on archeological evidence that human groups did not inhabit it permanently.     

Late Middle Palaeolithic occupations in Ciemna Cave,southern Poland

Recent excavations in Ciemna Cave in the Pr?dnik valley near Ojców, southern Poland have brought to light new stratigraphic and techno-typological evidence concerning Late Middle Palaeolithic groups and their cultural affinities. In 2007, excavations began in the hitherto-unexplored main chamber of Ciemna Cave, with the goal of clarifying the results of previous work in other parts of the cave. During excavation the rocky floor of the cave was reached. About 1000 stone artifacts have been collected to date. Three cultural traditions have been documented: Mousterian, Taubachian, and Micoquian. Within the Micoquian tradition, three cultural levels were observed, which enriches the previous understanding of occupational phases at the site. These findings permit revision of the traditional terms “Pr?dnik industry” and “Pr?dnik technique.”     

Designing a socially efficient cultural policy: the case of municipal theaters in Warsaw

While public support for culture has become a less self-evident privilege than in the past, the economic evidence for benefits a society gains from these goods has become essential for both cultural economics and cultural policy. The aim of our study is to investigate socially preferred ways of allocating scarce public resources among municipal theaters in Warsaw. The problem investigated is a current issue for local policy-making, but in a broader sense, it illustrates how state-of-the-art stated preference methods can be employed to support cultural policy. We find that inhabitants of Warsaw assign a positive value to the broader accessibility of the theaters, and their willingness to pay for making them a truly public good (by introducing a program of highly discounted tickets) exceeds the costs of such a policy. However, we also find that the cost-benefit relationship varies across theaters with different types of plays in their repertories. Our results imply a different level of socially efficient support for experimental, drama, children’s and entertainment theaters.     

Modeling the state of agritourism in the Malopolska region of Poland

ABSTRACT

The Malopolska region of Poland is highly representative of the current state of agritourism in Poland. The level of agritourism services in this region is very high relative to the national average, the result of environmental and cultural values being incorporated into social and economic development practices. Based on evidence from 1259 agritourism-oriented farms collected from municipal and regional government bureaus, web-published data, and survey data from 575 farm owners in the Malopolska, this paper analyzes the spatial distribution of such farms and the relationship between agritourism and ‘regular’ rural tourism. The Malopolska Voivodeship is strongly diversified in terms of agritourism development. The largest number of agritourism farms is in mountain, piedmont, and upland areas. Research has shown that agritourism is pursued by farmers who own small farms and produce food only for their own use. However, 60% of agritourism farms were found not to engage in any agricultural production. The research also identified basic tendencies of agritourism development in the region. The following basic trends were observed – a shift from agritourism to rural tourism, an increase in the number of agritourist farms offering 10 or more beds, and an expanded service offering – yielding a targeted offering for a specific customer and an increase in the quality of services. This indicates that agritourism owners engaging in this form of business are investing to create more usable space for tourists. The authors’ findings and conclusions also cover the concept of a functional model of agritourism in the Malopolska region. This model shows the relationship between environmental value and the nature of agricultural production and type of tourism in rural areas as well as the diversity of tourist offerings. The model also shows the transition from agriculture and its close relative, agritourism, to regular tourism in rural areas.     

What drives export performance of firms in Eastern and Western Poland?

We use a unique firm-level survey dataset that draws from the EFIGE (European Firms in a Global Economy) questionnaire to unveil differences in factors driving export performance in the most structurally diverse areas of Poland. While conventional results regarding the role of size, foreign ownership and innovation activity are confirmed at the aggregate level, the picture breaks down when Western and Eastern macroregions are extracted. Our results suggest that the common perception of a more developed West (Poland ‘A’) and a backward East (Poland ‘B’) might be outdated. Rather, firms in both regions seem to follow distinct strategies for and have dissimilar success factors in competing internationally. Interestingly, export performance in the East is found to benefit from family ties in business, but also from product innovation and non-price competitiveness. In the West, it is associated mostly with size and foreign ownership. Overall, our results, on the one hand, add support to the ‘new’ new trade theory and the ‘new’ new economic geography’s premises related to the importance of microeconomic factors and, on the other, contribute to the discussion on the pattern of regional development in Poland. We also discuss some implications for policymakers and managers and suggest directions for further research.     

The Herme-Neutics of Χοιροκομεῖον in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata

The following paper discusses the meaning of the word χοιροκομε?ον and its function in a passage in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata 1073. Although its semantics became obscure as early as the time of Pollux, it almost certainly originally referred to a wicker-work pigpen. The fact that in the Aristophanic passage under discussion the Spartan delegates are said to be wearing it around their thighs suggests that the author meant it to be an obscene joke based on a stereotype according to which, unlike the Athenians, the Spartans were very likely to become sexual objects for other males. Within the reconstruction proposed below they wore χοιροκομε?α in order to protect themselves from penetration. This element, combined with the other aspects of the visual characteristics of the Spartan delegates, namely erect phalli and long beards, made them similar to the herms of Hermes.     

A TREASURE TROVE OF CHRONOLOGICAL LEARNING

The recent facsimile edition of Henricus Glareanus's Chronology of Livy, prepared by Anthony T. Grafton and Urs B. Leu, provides access to a primary source that is unique from the point of view of the history of science and scholarship and of the book and reading. The basis of the edition, a copy of Chronologia annotated by Glareanus's disciple Gabriel Hummelberg II, now preserved at the Princeton University Library, serves scholars both as a point of departure for outlining hypotheses on the teaching methods of early modern humanists as well as the role of chronology in the humanist curriculum. My reading of their edition is based on three points. First, I put the primary source of their choice in a context that includes provincial early modern educational centers as I believe that their enterprise could clear the way for future narratives on forgotten scholars who dealt with the issues of technical chronology. Second, I show the importance of Grafton and Leu's thesis on the procedures of transmission of teachers’ commentary, which, according to them, is documented by the Princeton copy of Chronologia. Third, I argue that the seemingly conservative decision to publish a paper edition of an annotated volume at the moment when state‐of‐the‐art digital tools for such editions are being tailored through the alliance of scholars and IT specialists should open a discussion among historians of the book and reading, science, and education that would lead to the determination of standards for scholarly editions of libri annotati.     

Clusters versus Cluster Initiatives,with Focus on the ICT Sector in Poland

The article focuses on the topic of clustering, which has become a popular concept, both from the academic and political perspective, and as an efficient business model. The distinction between clusters, understood as geographical concentrations of specific industries, and cluster initiatives, understood as more formalized actions undertaken by regional actors, is proposed. The primary objective of this study is to verify if these two types of structures are overlapping each other. This problem arises because the motivation for forming some cluster initiatives may be different economic policy instruments rather than existing market potential of a specific regional economy. The study finds that not all of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) cluster initiatives in Poland represent real concentration of ICT-related divisions included in statistical classification of economic activities in the European community Rev. 2 classification, as measured by location quotients (LQs) for indicators on employment, firms' incomes and number of enterprises. However, there is a visible pattern that the LQs are higher in smaller geographic areas (NUTS 4 (Nomenclature of units for territorial statistics)), which usually represent big cities, being the cores of cluster initiatives. The study also discusses the phenomenon of the internationalization of clusters and the value added to that process from forming formalized cluster initiatives, which create favourable institutional framework for transborder cooperation.