Annotations
| Nr. | Topic | Annotations |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | From Vienna to Constantinople and Back: Travel along the Danube in the Sixteenth Century | The research focuses primarily on the analysis of travel and of the various routes connecting the Habsburg Monarchy and the Ottoman Empire from 1526 until the end of the sixteenth century. Besides the modes and the course of travel, the study focuses on a comparison of navigation on the Danube as the main transport artery with different alternative overland routes. The comparison of river and land transport reveals not only the advantages and disadvantages of individual routes, but also identifies the factors that influenced the choice of route, such as security risks, the political situation, economic aspects, and the physical demands of the journey. The research also considers the influence of geographical and climatic conditions on travel, as well as on the transfer of goods. The main sources for the research are travel notes and memoirs of a travelogue and diplomatic character written by various travellers, diplomats, merchants, and pilgrims who undertook journeys between the main centres of both empires. |
| 2. | Plague, Fear, and Everyday Life in Seventeenth Century England: Society as Reflected in the Diary of Samuel Pepys | The project will focus on examining the plague epidemic in seventeenth-century England as a complex historical phenomenon that profoundly affected social structures, everyday life, and the emotional experience of society. The aim of the study is to analyse how the epidemic was reflected in daily practices, social relationships, and collective emotions—particularly fear—and what role mechanisms of power and social regulation played in this process. The theoretical framework combines a macrohistorical approach with microhistorical analysis and draws on concepts from the history of everyday life and the history of emotions. A key primary source for the research is the diary of Samuel Pepys, which is analysed in comparison with contemporary official regulations, statistical data, and printed sources. The project is based on the hypothesis that individual experience, as recorded in personal diaries, makes it possible to identify broader patterns of behaviour and perceptions of the epidemic in seventeenth-century London society and contributes to a deeper understanding of how society functioned under conditions of extreme threat. |
| 3. | Architecture of post-war modernism: personalities, typologies, context | The modern architecture of the second half of the 20th century is a significant part of the existing building stock, both in Slovakia and in Europe as a whole. In the four decades following the Second World War, thousands of healthcare, educational, cultural, recreational, sporting and commercial buildings were constructed which still form the basis of public infrastructure today. The construction of such public institutions in European countries was guided by two fundamental objectives. The first was the efforts of social democratic governments in Western European countries to establish a welfare state. The second objective was to build a socialist state, pursued by countries in Central and Eastern Europe. These two objectives had similar starting points, including post-war reconstruction, the modernisation of city centres, and providing access to healthcare, education, culture and recreation for large sections of the population, as well as eliminating differences between social classes. State or municipal management, planning and public financing played an important role in this. However, while this infrastructure was intended to strengthen civil society in Western European countries, its purpose in communist bloc countries was to reinforce the authoritarian position of the state. Despite these differences, post-war modernist architecture is an important part of Europe's shared identity and cultural heritage. Understanding and adapting this heritage for contemporary use is one of today's key social challenges. |
| 4. | Arabic Periodical Press in Palestine in Late Ottoman Era | The first privately printed Arabic newspapers and journals in Palestine were established during the Second Ottoman Constitutional Era. In the years following the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, a large number of periodicals were founded. Arabic newspapers and journals constitute an exceptionally rich yet underresearched source for the study of this crucial period. The aim of the dissertation is to examine selected topics discussed in the periodical press of late Ottoman Palestine. |
| 5. | Military defence of the north-eastern Delta and northern Sinai in the 19th and 20th dynasties of ancient Egypt | Polish-Slovak research at the Egyptian site of Tell el-Retaba has discovered several components of the 19th and 20th Dynasties' defensive capabilities since 2007. The research should focus on placing them in the context of defence capabilities explored in the north-eastern Nile Delta and northern Sinai and verify hypotheses related to the strategic importance of drinking water sources and their control in desert, semi-desert, and saline sea and lake water environments. It should also verify the methods of controlling drinking water sources by military garrisons, compare the construction of fortresses, their ramparts and moats, as well as defensive and logistical usage, based on archaeological, written and iconographic sources. |
| 6. | The Search for Canon in Ancient Egyptian Religion | Some roots of ancient Egyptian religious ideas might be found in the territory of today's Sahara in the 6th millennium BC. Climatic changes and migrations of the following millennia contributed to the emergence of a unique mosaic of ancient Egyptian society, professing a wide range of divine beings and cosmogonic myths. These beings and myths were also reflected in the formation of royal ideology, mythology and the state. Despite millennia of development of Egyptian society and the state, religious ideas remained decentralized and the pharaoh, as the high priest of all the gods of Egypt, delegated his powers to the priests of local and regional cults. The research should focus on the above mentioned elements of religious and social development and their influence on the eventual creation of a canon in ancient Egyptian religion. |
| 7. | Ancient Egypt in Slovak Culture in the Period 1843–1945 | The aim of this project is to collect, analyze, and evaluate original written, pictorial, and 3D source material from the period 1843–1945 with the theme of ancient Egypt, mainly from Slovak authors who lived during that period in what is now Slovakia, in the former Kingdom of Hungary, Austria-Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. This source material containing information relating in any way to ancient Egypt or its study may concern history, art, architecture, correspondence, travel, collections, education, etc., and has been publicly published/made available/exhibited (magazines, newspapers, letters, literature, postcards, exhibitions), or came from personal archives/collections/property. Such material and its evaluation should document the existence, diversity, and extent of individual and social interest in this ancient civilization in Slovak culture in the territory of present-day Slovakia during the historical period in question. |
| 8. | Selected Cultural Phenomena of the Indigenous Peoples of Oceania in Contemporary Sources | Reports concerning indigenous populations that reached Europe from the regions of Oceania during the 18th and 19th centuries helped to establish the intellectual and ideological foundations for the development of colonial policies, as well as for commercial and missionary enterprises. The aim of the thesis is to analyse selected cultural phenomena as documented in contemporary written sources, with particular emphasis on the cultures of pre-Christian indigenous communities of Oceania and their influence on the commercial, missionary, and colonial policies pursued by European imperial powers. |

