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As the First World War shattered the old empires, Orthodox Christians in former imperial territories faced a dilemma. Should they remain loyal to their Russian “Mother Church,” from which they were...

The main museums in Estonia and Latvia have lately staged new exhibitions that proceed from a contemporary museological approach and reflect the results of historical research. The article compares three cases which present alternative but complementary interpretations of the Soviet period. The authors pay special attention to the application of the biographical method prominent in contemporary cultural research, and the museological method of multivocality. They conclude that in the case of multivocality, effectively addressing different visitor groups is a great challenge to curators. There is a risk that the simplified mediation of contradictory memories and views will leave a gap for visitors with less prior knowledge about the subject of the exhibition. In large exhibition teams, the curator has a crucial role to play in negotiating with team members to prevent the concept from dispersing. In the cases studied, it is possible to observe the curators’ views and detect a similar attempt to interpret complex topics through biographies. The analysis concludes that in the context of contemporary museological approaches, the voice of the curator remains essential, especially when mediating exhibits, for they cannot speak for themselves.

AbstractIn this paper, the authors analyse the ambiguous political decision to ban the major Russian web resources from access to the Ukrainian market, in spite of heavy criticisms from local and foreign experts. While the supporters of the new internet policy claimed the new strategy to be coherent with cybersecurity priorities of the country, the opponents pointed out a set of legal and political limitations. Drawing on the setting and results of taking a new approach to information policy, we describe the fragility of Euromaidan democratic heritage and drawbacks of the current political regime. The logical method of legal interpretation has been applied to analyse the controversies of the current legislation on Russian internet resources restriction. The article concludes that Ukrainian post-Euromaidan governance model needs to consolidate the efforts in order to prove the commitment to freedom of speech as a core European value and replace spontaneous actions with an evidence-based approach to political decision-making.

In Treatise 2.3.4.5 Hume provides an explanation of why ‘we naturally desire what is forbid, and take a pleasure in performing actions, merely because they are unlawful’. Hume's explanation of this phenomenon has barely received any attention so far. But a detailed analysis bears fruit for both Humean scholarship and contemporary moral psychology. After putting the passage in its context, I explain why desiring and taking pleasure in performing certain actions merely because they are unlawful poses a challenge to Hume's theory of evaluation. Then I propose a solution of the challenge which draws on Hume's treatment of malice, and highlights the role played by comparison and the self in these apparently paradoxical passions. Finally, I distinguish three views in contemporary discussions of desiring something under the guise of the bad (negationism, parasitism, at-face-valuism), and I argue that Hume's account stands out as a particularly plausible version of the third view.

Abstract Although autosomal DNA testing has been available for a number of years, its use to reconstruct genetic profiles of people that lived centuries in the past is relatively recent and there are no published cases where it was employed to verify a kinship relation, likely to be an alleged paternity, that occurred one and a half century ago. DNA testing has already been employed to study the ancestry and posterity of Joseph Smith Jr., founder of the Latter-day Saint (Mormon) movement. Thanks to information found on the paternally inherited Y chromosome, a number of alleged paternities have been disproved, but obviously this analysis is not effective for alleged daughters. Likewise, his reconstructed mitogenome sequence, reported here for the first time, provides information about his maternal ancestry, but is useless in any paternity questions due to the strict maternal inheritance. Among all the children attributed to Joseph Smith Jr., Josephine Lyon, born in 1844, is perhaps the most frequently mentioned. In the current study, 56 individuals, mostly direct descendants of Joseph Smith Jr. and Josephine Lyon, had their autosomal DNA tested to verify Josephine's biological paternity. Nearly 600,000 autosomal SNPs from each subject were typed and detailed genealogical data were compiled. The absence of shared DNA between Josephine's grandson and Joseph Smith Jr.'s five great-grandchildren together with various amounts of autosomal DNA shared by the same individual with four other relatives of Windsor Lyon is a clear indication that Josephine was not related to the Smith, but to the Lyon's family. These inferences were also verified using kinship analyses and likelihood ratio calculations.

This article surveys the official narrative on representation of Estonian identity and Estonianness through the tourism strategy implemented by Estonia from 2007 to 2015. Gathering material from brochures and documents targeting foreigners produced by the Estonian Institute and “Enterprise Estonia” (EAS) and analyzing the logic behind the interior design of Tallinn Airport, we engage with current debates on identity construction in post-Soviet spaces. In particular, we suggest that along with an established body of literature looking at the role of state actors in the construction of identity, studies should consider the role of nontraditional or non-state actors in identifying and promoting identity markers.

Abstract Drawing on research for the Pilgrimage and England’s Cathedrals, Past and Present project, this article explores how the project’s medieval case study cathedrals – Canterbury, Durham and York – present their saints and shrines, and how visitors react to and interpret them. While looking at various narratives – predominantly about saints in historical and contemporary contexts – attached to these cathedrals, I also aim to offer some glimpses into how people interact with and relate to space. I argue that beliefs and narratives about saints play a significant role in the pilgrimage culture of the cathedral. I will also explore how the lack of a clear central narrative about the saint leaves a vacancy that will be filled with various other narratives.