Ethnologia Europaea

What is the difference between a ruin and a badly maintained building? The question can hardly be answered, for what defines ruins is not material decay in itself, but a specific understanding of it. Today, the message of ruins appears obvious: Ruins are predictably fascinating, romantic and picturesque. This romanticism is not timeless but has its own cultural history. The murmur of ruins is the speech of modernity and the modern conception of time and history. It is about the development of a thoroughly modern subjectivity, centred on the emotionally competent individual, and the ethical values associated with this kind of personality and personal authenticity.

Nations and communities have always preserved and disseminated symbols of their identity in order to establish and consolidate their legitimacy; the changing appearance of cities and the configuration of public space through monuments and memorials have given increased visibility to such politics. This article analyses the relationship between the aesthetics of today’s Ukrainian monuments and the programmatic aims of Socialist Realism. It gives an account of the conflicts between different forms of remembering and the structural similarities in the hierarchies of those considered worthy of monuments in the Soviet Union and the independent Ukraine, thus contributing to our understanding of how national identity is marked in today’s Ukraine.

Turkish domesticity is often associated with lace doilies. While this decoration practice is diminishing, it can still be encountered in a large number of Turkish Dutch houses in the Netherlands. However, Turkish lace appears in avariety of other settings in the Netherlands as well, such as shops and exhibition spaces. In these diverse settings a wide variety of actors give it meaning. While notions of modernity, tradition and authenticity are present in all settings, they are understood in conflicting ways. Non-Turkish actors, handling this lace, co-define it, as well as a broader concept of Turkishness.

Based upon field research, interviews with participants and audience surveys, this paper shows how the Dutch game show Te Land ter Zee en in de Lucht is intertwined with other, non-mediated forms of entertainment. For its participants, this programme is part of a wider festive repertoire which celebrates and expresses a group identity. For the audience, the ritualized media use surrounding the programme provides an opportunity to create and experience an imagined, national community.

This paper investigates a little-known aspect of the German national stereotype in England: the German doctor as an ambitious scientist and magical healer. This image was widely spread in the literary, political and medical culture as well as in the commercial advertisements of the late seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. In terms of national stereotyping, the English regarded the Germans as their allies and near-family relations. The German stereotype functioned as an alter ego of the English: the magical qualities were out-sourced from the rational self-image and projected onto the image of the German doctor.