Thesis Propaganda in soviet and nazi biographical film of thirthies of 20th century: Specifics of film medium as an instrument of propaganda researches group of three soviet and three german Motion pictures. It focuses on nuances of using ideological meanings, creation of myths and sees examples of both cinematographies through Umberto Eco's Open work theory. It uses the methods of discurse and comparative analysis and compares few important aspects of main characters of analysed pictures. On this basis it creates generally valid conclusions.

The purpose of this paper is to study how some upper secondary teachers define and understand the terms New Religious Movement, New Religiosity and cult. We also look at what the teachers teach about and why they pick those specific parts of the course. Firstly, to get a wider view of this subject we looked at previous research about the teaching of New Religious Movements. In addition to the previous research we did our own research where we interviewed upper secondary teachers from two different schools. Secondly, for our results we analysed the transcripts by using two different theoretical frameworks: religious didactics in the form of abductive perspective in connection to the didactical questions - what, why and how? We have also used a hermeneutic interpretation when looking at the empirical material.Through our research we found that teachers have some difficulties defining the terms “New Religious Movements”, “New Religiosity” and “Cults”. They also have a problem with differentiating them from each other. The research shows that even the teachers’ selection, planning and implementation of their teaching varies between the schools for different reasons. Some of this stems from the teachers’ capacity within the subject, different interpretations of the syllabus and the influence that students have on the teaching.

The diploma thesis deals with the iconography and cult of St. Joseph in the Czech lands during the Baroque period. The first part of the thesis deals with the way St. Joseph is presented in sources, namely in canonical gospels, apocryphal gospels of childhood and in legends. The development of the cult and iconography of St. Joseph from antiquity to modern times is also outlined. The main part of the thesis focuses on the cult and iconography of St. Joseph in the Czech lands in the 17th and 18th centuries. The influence of the Habsburgs on the spread of this cult is taken into account. Attention is paid to the reception of St. Joseph among the patron saints of Bohemia and the introduction of his public holiday in 1654, which arose on the initiative of Emperor Ferdinand III. The next part of the thesis analyzes the responses to the reception of St. Joseph among the patron saints of Bohemia in art and also on the examples of his depiction in Baroque art in the Czech lands. The researched monuments include the fountain with the column of St. Joseph in the New Town of Prague, the statue of St. Joseph on Charles Bridge, painting of the Holy Family in the Church of Our Lady before Týn and the St. Joseph's painting cycle in Krzeszów in Silesia. Keywords St. Joseph, Baroque, Iconography, Cult, Habsburgs,...

Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att utmana tolkningar av arkeologiskt material som kan spegla rituella handlingar under yngre järnålder. Begreppet kult har blivit ett populärt samlingsbegrepp inom arkeologin men saknar ofta en tydlig definition. Religiösa tolkningar av rituellt material verkar ha företräde framför profana tolkningar – amulettringar tolkas gärna som religiös rekvisita istället för som objekt använda vid juridiciella aktiviteter. Uppsatsen kommer att belysa hedern och alliansernas betydelse i det forntida samhället som en motvikt till den fornnordiska religionen samt propagera för att en plats kan ha använts för både sakrala och profana ändamål. Fokus i studien ligger på kultplatsen Lilla Ullevi samt tingsplatsen Anundshög i Mälardalen. Det arkeologiska materialet jämförs och analyseras med hjälp av litteratur från arkeologi, ortnamnsforskning och religionshistoria. Resultatet visar att platsernas rituella funktioner inte kan åtskiljas genom det arkeologiska materialet. Kultplatsen och tingsplatsen passar båda in på den i norrön litteratur benämnda Vi-platsen, en fredad plats avsedd för rituella handlingar. / The purpose of this essay is to challenge interpretations of archaeological material that may reflect ritual actions during the Late Iron Age. The term cult has become a popular collective term in archeology but often lacks a clear definition. Religious interpretations of ritual material seem to take precedence over profane interpretations – amulet rings are often interpreted as religious props instead of objects used in juridical activities. The essay will highlight the importance of honor and alliances in ancient society as a counterweight to the Old Norse religion, as well as propagandize that a place may have been used for both sacred and profane purposes. The focus of the study is on the cult site Lilla Ullevi and the court site Anundshög in Mälardalen. The archaeological material is compared and analyzed with the help of literature from archaeology, place name research and religious history. The results show that the ritual functions of the sites cannot be separated through the archaeological material. The cult site and court site both fit into what is called the Vi-place in Norse literature, a protected place intended for ritual acts.

(in English): The Thesis focuses on analysis of characterization of Joseph Stalin in the novel Children of the Arbat dated 1987 by Russian writer Anatoly Rybakov (1911-1998). The first part of the novel is subject to A. Rybakov's biography, brief summary of the novel Children of the Arbat and found significant part in the works of writer. The second part of the novel is subject to explore emergence of Stalin's cult of personality and its consequences. In the third part, we focus on the fictional categories and literary character, define the basic concepts that make it possible to analyze a literary character. In the final part of work, the emphasis is on revealing the image of I. Stalin in the novel by analyzing the text of the work and drawning conclusions due to help to see the versatility of the characterization. The main objective of the Thesis is to characterize of Stalin as literary figure in the novel in the aspect of outward and explore what principles A. Rybakov used with the description of Stalin's inner world.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to an increased understanding of New Religion and how it’s portrayed in film. The source material is three different films, Midsommar, The Wicker Man and The Sacrament. The method is a content analysis with both quantitative and qualitative approaches and a coding scheme with the coding units, attire, choice of words, rite and context. Stark and Bainbridge's theory is essential, which defines New Religious Movements that focuses on their high tension with their socio-cultural environment. Previous research describes what new religion is, how to examine new religion in popular culture and how it is portrayed in film. The result of the study confirms that The New Religious Movements is portrayed negatively in the films, but the common factor is violence, violence as in human sacrifice and mass suicide.

A relatively unexplored phenomena of the Nordic Bronze Age is the occurrence where monumental cult houses of stone foundation are discontinued, instead smaller cult houses are constructed in wood. This change occurred during the middle of the Bronze Age, a time werethe Nordic society experienced extensive contact and trade with cultures on mainland Europe. Cult houses were misunderstood for the majority of the 20th Century and it was not until recent they were acknowledged, and this shift noticed. This paper will examine the mentioned change in cult houses with the hypothesis that they were of symbolic importance and use of the elites. It will be discussed whether the cult houses form is attached to the elites display of power and is dependent on a grander ideology in how the elites legitimize their privileged position in society. In essence the paper aims to investigate the two types of cult houses and see to what extent they can be derived to underlying institutions, set up by the elite as a strategy to stay in power.

The American Civil War is often framed as exclusively masculine, consisting of soldiers, god-like generals, and battle; a sphere where women simply did not enter or coexist. This perception is largely due to the mobilization of approximately six million men, coupled with the Victorian era which did not permit women to engage in the public sphere. Women are given their place however, but it is more narrowly defined as home front assistance. Even as women transitioned from passive receivers to active participants, their efforts rarely defied gender norms. This thesis looks at Confederate female camp followers who appeared to defy societal conventions by entering the male dominated camps and blurred the lines between men and women’s proper spheres. While camp followers could be expanded to include women of the lower class, including black women, laborers, slaves and prostitutes, only middle and upper class white women are analyzed because they were the ones required to maintain respectability. More specifically, I analyze unmarried women, female soldiers, bereaved women and nurses. Barbara Welter articulated and labeled the concept of public versus private spheres, plus the attributes necessary to achieve respectability as the Cult of True Womanhood. The Cult of True Womanhood demanded that women be pious, pure, and submissive within the domestic sphere. It is with this foundation that the camp followers can be analyzed. Their actions appeared to break with the Cult of True Womanhood, but when they explained in memoirs, newspaper accounts, and journals why they entered the camps, they framed their responses in a way that allowed them to appear to conform to the cult.

In this thesis, we focus on the Story of Euphemia and the Goth, a hybrid literary text written in the second half of the fifth century. Since there is no holistic work on the Story, we undertook the task of examining the text itself, as a systematic examination of the Syriac and the Greek versions of the text itself, as well as the last English translation of the Story, by Francis Burkitt in 1913. We focused on the philological features of the Story and tried to interpret them historically using the standard historical-critical method. By focusing on the philological elements of the Story, we aimed to connect the information with the historical context of the period that the Story allegedly describes (late 4th c.) and the period in which it was written (late 5th c.). Our contextual analysis, which is based on philological features, can be divided into three main aspects. The first aspect examines the historical, military and legal elements of the Story. The second focuses on two Syriac terms: the parmûnârâ' and the fixed expression bnay ḥi're'. More precisely, we attempt tried to recreate the profile of the author of the Story by examining the term parmûnârâ,' and we examined the term bnay ḥi're' both contextually and intertextually, arguing that the term designated people of higher social strata if not the nobility. In addition, we also focus on the socio-political conditions of the fifth century, arguing that the term bnay ḥi're' should not be interpreted simply as f r e e but rather as n o b l e, and we support this thesis with internal evidence from the Story, external evidence taken from the larger literary milieu, as well as the works of philologists and orientalists over the last three centuries. The third aspect of our contextual analysis is related to a philological element that had been overlooked by modern scholarship: the fact that the author of the Story calls Euphemia and Sophia qadîšṯâ', i.e. Saints. Focusing on the text, we examine the validity of this hagiographical feature by examining the Syriac liturgical works of the anti-Chalcedonian Syriac Orthodox Church, i.e. the Syriac menologia, edited by François Nau in 1912. Our discoveries prove the attestation of the Story. The two protagonists of the Story were venerated as Saints by the Syriac-speaking Miaphysites. Through this research, we also discovered that the two protagonists were revered as Saints on the same day that the Chalcedonians celebrated the so-called miracle of the relics of Saint Euphemia of Chalcedon. We argue, therefore, that the Story comes from a Miaphysite milieu. These three aspects form the explanatory framework through which, in the future, we aim to develop a holistic interpretation of the literary themes of the Story as well as the historical context that led to its composition.

Chinese translations of Buddhist sūtras and Chinese Buddhist literature demonstrate how stūpas became acknowledged in medieval China and how clerics and laypeople perceived and worshiped them. Early Buddhist sūtras mentioned stūpas, which symbolize the presence of the Buddha and the truth of the dharma. Buddhist canonical texts attach great significance to the stūpa cult, providing instructions regarding who was entitled to have them, what they should look like in connection with the occupants’ Buddhist identities, and how people should worship them. However, the canonical limitations on stūpa burial for ordinary monks and prohibitions of non-Buddhist stūpas changed progressively in medieval China. Stūpas appeared to be erected for ordinary monks and the laity in the Tang dynasty. This paper aims to outline the Buddhist scriptural tradition of the stūpa cult and its changes in the Chinese Buddhist Canon, which serves as the doctrinal basis for understanding the significance of funerary stūpas and the primordial archetype for the formation of a widely accepted Buddhist funeral ritual in Tang China.