The article deals with two issues: (1) the research method of father Georges Florovsky used in his study entitled The Ways of Russian Theology (1937), which is regarded a classic in its genre, and (2) the practice of scientific research conducted with the use of this method. The article is supplemented with Florovsky’s opinions, expressed in letters to his brother Anton, a professor at the Charles University in Prague, concerning the scientific achievements of the authors and scholars whom he met with or whom he came to work with after his departure to the USA (1948). The content of this correspondence has remained hitherto unpublished.

In this article, strategies and writing tricks (the trick of “defamiliarization”, imagery) which in Nabokov’s short story A Guide to Berlin serve to design the image of the city and simultaneously to explore the world of values (axiological map of Berlin/Eden) are being interpreted. The author of this article proves that the semantics of the title guide is connected with the strategy of transition from empirical observation and one “fragment of space” to expression of a situation in which the subject of speech has found himself. Moreover, it is shown that the subjectivity of the observer, his way of experiencing the world and his creative sensitivity seem crucial in the story, because he evaluates the surrounding reality and in the “act of individual creativity” builds upon it yet another space – an unusual, transformed one, close to the emigrant/the author of the guidebook. Attention is also paid to the differentiation of two ways of perceiving the world and two types of consciousness: the artist’s/narrator’s and his listener’s (“average consciousness”).

The present paper describes the Manchu Collection in the Jagiellonian University Library in Cracow which was a part of the former Prussian State Library in Berlin. The historical Manchu collection comprised over 300 items (call numbers, including “duplicates” of the same title). The paper offers a historical sketch of the forming of the collection as well as short description of some interesting items.

The main research question in this article concerns the factors responsible for development of Brandenburg in the last 15 years, which enable to divert the region from its previous development model. For answering this question the method of individual, in-depth interviews with the main actors on the regional scene was used, supported by desk research and statistical data analysis. The development of Brandenburg was strongly infl uenced by external factors as consequences of functioning under the conditions of centrally planned economy and façade democracy (as GDR), the unifi cation of Germany, the necessity of transformation and restructuring with strong support of external funding, finally moving the capital city of Germany to Berlin. However of crucial importance was a conscious, pragmatic and consistently implemented policy of the regional authorities based on the idea of territorial and sectoral concentration (instead of the idea Gieβkanneprinzip).

Children’s literature was the focus of much attention in post‑revolutionary Russia: new magazines, publishing houses, bulletins were founded which sparked debate both around the role of detskaya literatura and the reform of the education system. Also amongst Russian émigrés there was a felt need to provide “new books for younger readers” and intense discussions took place. Translated books played an important role within this “new canon” of children’s literature. This article focuses on the work of the writer Nina Petrovskaya, as a cultural mediator and translator of Italian children’s literature into Russian, investigating, in particular, her version of Luigi Bertelli’s Ciondolino.

The content of the article is a historical analysis of the presence, understanding and validity of the Iron Curtain metaphor in the field of social sciences. After 1989, it might seem that the fall of the Iron Curtain had lost its relevance and the metaphor had become dead. It’s recall by Władimir Załęski in connection with the war in Ukraine prompted a re-analysis of the sense, meaning and emotions associated with it. The question of how this commonly known metaphor influenced (and influences) our understanding of reality and to what extent it constitutes a reliable analytical category is subject to reflection.

The aim of this paper is to explain the meaning of two mural fragments housed in the Central Asian Collection of the Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. The two mural fragments under discussion, nos. III 9023a and III 9023b–c (Pl. 1, Fig. 1), were brought to Berlin by the 4th Turfan Expedition in the year 1914 from the Buddhist cave monasteries in Kizil in the area of Kucha on the Northern Silk Road, today’s Province Xinjiang, an autonomous region of the Peoples Republic of China. The murals show peculiar waterscape with persons trying to cross it; they can be compare with similar representations from the area of Kucha.