Memory, historical policy and historical museums have become very popular in recent times – both in academic discourse and in public debate. The article describes the role of historical museums in collective memory and the infl uence of historical policy on them. The text includes a defi nition of collective memory, its traits and functions, a categorization of memory vehicles, as well as an explanation of the concept of historical policy and its positive and negative aspects. In the part dedicated to historical museums the author shows their importance for collective memory, their connections with historical policy, their beginnings and present-day importance in Poland, and provides a review of the last years’ main investments in Polish historical museums.

This article recalls a discussion about Barack Obama’s mother and her biography which emerged during the course of the American presidential elections in 2008. S. Ann Dunham was a cultural anthropologist holding a PhD from the University of Hawaii and specializing in Indonesian peasant blacksmithing and cottage industry. She passed away in 1995 relatively unknown to the American anthropological world and totally unknown to the American public. Interest in Obama’s family made Dunham and her biography as well as her anthropology appear publicly. Even though she was labeled an “uncaring mother,” who was to “abandon” small Barack, a biographical book by Janny Scott published in 2011 depicts a deep and complex portrait of Dunham which does not go along with popular opinions. It is interesting to observe how Dunham’s biography has been constructed and how her family history mirrors transformation of American society and reveals entanglement between private life and anthropological interests

Beginning form the 1990s the number of films about Romanies has been increasing rapidly. Especially noticeable are those touching the subject of the extermination of the Gypsies during the Second World War. Porrajmos in the Romany language means: the Holocaust of the Romanies. These events were completely absent from the public discourse for several decades afterwards. The key role in bringing this subject up was played by an explosion of memories concerning the Nazi genocide of the Jews observable since the 1960s. Porrajmos films are in all respects secondary to the representation of the Holocaust: they were made later, they use the same conventions, and their creators are mostly artists who stress their adherence to a "community of memory" of the Holocaust: the Jewish victims once, and now their descendants. That is how the discourse of the Holocaust became a "dominant culture", which allows for the story of the extermination of the Gypsies only as its inferior part.
The passage of time paradoxically strengthens the memory of these events, generating more and more new places, practices and other texts of remembrance. Currently the main reason for rescuing the Romanies Holocaust from oblivion is the direct threat of aggression experienced by members of this ethnic group.

I am going to speak about federative projects and plans, political initiatives and memoranda, reactions they caused in the Romanian intellectual and political environment, the way they were (or rather were not) included in the historical discourse, and will not tackle the “Central European set of mind” which is so difficult to identify.
It has to be mentioned that, for the Romanian culture, the acquisition of the Central European conscience, the conscience of the middle and its potential conceptualization are doomed to annihilation by the obsessive claim of “insularity”. The imperial legacy is only mentioned in negative contexts, various political and cultural personalities are incriminated for their cosmopolitanism, and for the “pro-Hapsburg”, “pro-German” activity which is equal to being “antinational”. Central Europe becomes a spectre, a bogey man shown every now and then to Romanians in order to reinforce the feeling of being “under siege”, the fear that the country could be dismembered by the “enemies from abroad and enemies within”.

Due to the historical and geopolitical context, Romanian culture developed in a hinterland between Eastern and Western Europe. The building of the modern Romanian state in the 19th century was accompanied by a programmatic denial or misrepresentation of its Oriental heritage. This denial began with the Latin-obsessed “Transylvanian School” (Şcoala Ardeleană) and remained an important element in the critical direction of “Junimea” (Titu Maiorescu).
In the 20th century, historian N. Iorga studied and evaluated more objectively the complexity and the impact of this heritage on the country’s cultural identity, while other intellectuals and theologians (for example N. Crainic, D. Stăniloae, S. Mehedinţi) proclaimed the genuine originality of Romanian culture and stressed the superiority of autochtonous values, based on the Romanian orthodox religion.
The Communist regime reinforced this tendency with its “protochronist” propaganda (which claimed Romanian pre-eminence in all aspects of life) with all its grotesque manifestations. The issue of the Oriental heritage has reappeared over the last decades in some debates in the media, in a few articles and papers, but Romanian intellectuals treated it in an inconsistent way and failed to produce a public discourse going beyond the cultural ambivalence or to reassess the role of the Oriental heritage in the Romanian cultural identity.

The category of time functioning in individual cultures, as well as calendars – the corresponding systems of time classification – can be perceived as examples of cultural phenomena. They prove to be extremely interesting, but at the same time difficult to analyze. In many cases the circumstances are quite complicated as there are various methods of measuring time within an individual culture. They correspond to the national, secular calendars, the official religion, the calendars of minority faiths, and the so-called folk tradition. The purpose of this article is to analyze the names of the months functioning in the Romanian folk culture in the context of the official names of months present in the Romanian language. Cultural anthropology, supported by the idea of research on cultural senses and meanings as well as the inter-translation among them denotes that the traditions presented vary, are incoherent and refer to various sources. However, for a few centuries they have been undergoing a process of formulation within one cultural domain. The fundamental issue for an anthropologist is to be convinced that a proper linguistic translation cannot be conducted unless the senses and meanings of a given culture are quite profoundly penetrated.
The ethnolinguistic as well as cultural analyses plainly indicate that behind the contemporary division into twelve months there might be another, even older tradition of time classification. A part of the folk nomenclature is of a very distant provenance; it is known to have been present in the religious texts around the Romanian land as long ago as at least the second half of the 16th century. The nomenclature corresponded to the phenomena observed in nature, the changes of seasons and the vegetation cycle of plants. Other functioning names mentioned household activities, agricultural labour performed in the fi elds and the village life. The names of the months and weeks within them encompass various mythological aspects. They refer to people’s beliefs and significant personas of the folk pantheon. The names also relate to religious attributes associated with saints from the liturgical calendar and the customs as well as rituals of the Orthodox Church performed at a given time of the year. They were a result of a different perception of time – not linear and historical, but rather cyclical, making a full circle during the year.
Despite the fact that folk culture is slowly disappearing and the global infl uence is gaining momentum, the folk names of the months are still present in the contemporary official language of the Orthodox Church as well as within the popular culture

In the given article we will analyze marriages between Romanians (Moldovans) and Gypsies, and present the legal juridical framework regulating the issue of such marriages as well as the actual situation recorded in Ţara Moldova in the eighteenth century, and in the territory between the Prut and Dniester rivers in the fi rst half of the nineteenth century. The documents presented will include the descriptions of research sources including the code of laws issued in Ţara Moldova, charters issued by the Prince of Ţara Moldova, Ukases (decrees) issued in the Russian Empire, permission requests for marriages, consult requests of the priests offi ciating mixed marriages, as well as documents of the National Archive of Moldova.
The marriages of Gypsies with Romanians can be examined simultaneously from two points of view: as mixed marriages from the ethnic point of view and mixed marriages from the social point of view. According to religious criteria, which were the basis for the legitimate family formation, the representatives of both ethnicities were to be Orthodox, so that there were no impediments to the marriage from the canonical point of view. Problems arised in connection with the social status of the Gypsies, who were considered to be subservient people.

„Funkcje muzeum współcześnie”, Malbork 25.10.2012 - relacja z konferencji

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Richard Florida, 2010, Narodziny klasy kreatywnej: oraz jej wpływ na przeobrażenia w charakterze pracy, wypoczynku społeczeństwa i życia codziennego, tłum. T. Krzyżanowski, M. Penkala, Warszawa: Narodowe Centrum Kultury, 414 s

Richard Florida, 2010, Narodziny klasy kreatywnej: oraz jej wpływ na przeobrażenia w charakterze pracy, wypoczynku społeczeństwa i życia codziennego, tłum. T. Krzyżanowski, M. Penkala, Warszawa: Narodowe Centrum Kultury, 414 s