Krista Kodres Livres

Edition Mare Balticum, Vol. 3 Böckler-Mare Balticum-Stiftung Uwe Albrecht, Ulrike Nürnberger, Dietmar Popp, Gerhard Weilandt. This third volume of the Edition Mare Balticum is a collection of articles which address many aspects of material and ceremonial church practices that were re-considered during the process of the Lutheran Reformation—the status of “indifferent things” in the historical context of the Reformation as adiaphora/Mitteldinge—as well as to inquire more generally into the existence and meaning of material objects in the evangelical sacral space. Of course, the problems concerning the adiaphora had their own dynamic in the Lutheran theological discussion, so the book describes how the process was reflected in different congregational practices, i.e. in “lived religion.” The questions fit in with key ideas about the relationships of objects and people in a culture that had arisen after the “performative turn” and “material turn”: a wave that had lasted for some time in the humanities. Hence, this book focuses on the relationships and networks of relationships through which the meanings and effects of “indifferent things” are expressed most clearly.

How did the Eastern European and Soviet states write their respective histories of art and architecture during 1940s–1960s? The articles address both the Stalinist period and the Khrushchev Thaw, when the Marxist-Leninist discourse on art history was „invented“ and refined. Although this discourse was inevitably „Sovietized“ in a process dictated from Moscow, a variety of distinct interpretations emerged from across the Soviet bloc in the light of local traditions, cultural politics and decisions of individual authors. Even if the new „official“ discourse often left space open for national concerns, it also gave rise to a countermovement in response to the aggressive ideologization of art and the preeminence assigned to (Socialist) Realist aesthetics.