This study provides a comparative analysis of the teaching workload of physical education and sport (PES) teachers in 17 countries across Central, Eastern, and South-Eastern Europe: Romania, Hungary, Poland, Czechia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Serbia, Greece, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The research highlights significant differences between countries with sustainable educational policies (Estonia, Slovenia, Greece, Czechia, Croatia) and those where teachers are overburdened and poorly supported (Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina). The results show that teaching workload varies between 16 and 21 hours per week, directly impacting teaching quality, teacher health, and the social prestige of the discipline. Positive models are characterized by reduced workloads (16–17 hours), official recognition of extracurricular activities, and investments in modern infrastructure. In contrast, high workloads (19–21 hours), combined with the lack of recognition of invisible work, lead to professional fatigue, demotivation, and lower quality of education.
Article history: Received 2025 November 10; Revised 2025 December 30; Accepted 2026 January 05;
Available online 2026 January 30; Available print 2025 January 30
Erik Skovbjerg Rasmussen, Karen Dybkjær, Jørgen Christian Toft
et al.
The Neogene of the Danish North Sea is more than 1200 m thick. Despite being penetrated by numerous wells, formal lithostratigraphic subdivision of this succession has previously been restricted to the lowermost part. This monograph presents a comprehensive lithostratigraphy of the offshore Neogene of Denmark, in part extending recognised onshore units into the offshore realm. The mainly Lower Miocene deltaic deposits are referred to the Ribe Group, which is subdivided into six formations: the Klintinghoved, Bastrup, Arnum, Odderup, Dany (new) and Nora (new) Formations. The lowermost Miocene Vejle Fjord and Billund Formations known from the onshore lithostratigraphy are absent in the offshore wells. The dominantly fully marine Middle and Upper Miocene sediments are referred to the Måde Group, subdivided into the Hodde, Ørnhøj, Gram, Marbæk and Luna (new) Formations; the Luna Formation includes the Lille John Member (new). The Pliocene deltaic deposits are referred to the Eridanos Group (new), which is subdivided into the Vagn (new), Emma (new) and Elin (new) Formations.The depositional history of the Neogene of the Danish North Sea sector is presented based on a detailed reconstruction of subsurface morphology by the mapping of stratigraphical surfaces dated by biostratigraphy. During the Early Miocene, deposition in the Danish North Sea was dominated by progradation from Scandinavia; large deltas built out into the Danish onshore area from the north and north-east. West of the main deltas, muddy contourites periodically accumulated on the slope, accentuating shelf progradation. The Middle and Late Miocene period was mostly characterised by fully marine conditions and deposition of mud. By the end of the Miocene, progradation of delta systems from Scandinavia into the North Sea resumed, and the shoreline reached the westernmost part of the Danish North Sea sector. During the Pliocene, new source areas in central and eastern Europe, such as the Carpathian Mountains, were activated and a huge delta system, the so-called Eridanos Delta, began to fill the North Sea Basin from the east and the south-east. Due to increased subsidence of the basin associated with the loading of sediments of the Eridanos Delta, the northern systems were flooded. Although the Danish North Sea thus mainly received sediments from central Europe during the Pliocene, progradation from Scandinavia resumed at the end of the Pliocene.
Bedelbayeva, M.V., Novozhenov, V.A., Rogozhinsky, A.E.
et al.
The article is devoted to the analysis of petroglyphs-symbols founded in the figurative monuments of the Northern Balkhash Region and Betpakdala and having complex mythological content, which is repeated in the form of symbolic signs similar in iconography, found over vast geographical spaces. These include images of solar signs, labyrinths, lattices, as well as some animals, chariots, anthropomorphic characters and clan’s tamgas. The analogies proposed by the authors indicate the vast geography of their distribution and contacts of the local population with the southern regions of Central Asia both in the Bronze Age and in subsequent historical periods.
NOWE TENDENCJE W ROZWOJU WSPÓŁCZESNEJ LINGWISTYKI W SERBII
W zależności od teorii pochodzenia Rusinów/Rusnaków oraz ich języka w Baczce, baczko-sremski wariant rusińskiego był traktowany jako dialekt języka rosyjskiego, dialekt języka słowackiego, dialekt języka ukraińskiego lub jako odrębny język rusiński.
W pierwszej części artykułu autor przedstawia przegląd dotychczasowych badań nad językiem rusińskim, natomiast w drugiej części zaprezentowane są współczesne badania, których przeprowadzenie możliwe było dzięki nadaniu kodu ISO (RSK). W wyniku uzyskania tego kodu stworzono warunki do przypisania językowi rusińskiemu kodu numerycznego, na podstawie którego bibliotekarze w kraju i za granicą będą klasyfikować książki w języku baczko-sremskich Rusinów. Havrijil Koljesar poświęcił się dostarczeniu niezbędnej liczby haseł do Wikipedii w języku rusińskim, a Mihajlo Fejsa zajmował się tworzeniem niezbędnej literatury leksykograficznej do tłumaczenia z angielskiego na rusiński i z rusińskiego na angielski. Na podstawie swojej dysertacji, w której porównał struktury czasownikowe w języku angielskim i rusińskim (Фејса 2005), Fejsa opublikował wyniki porównania konstrukcji zdań w języku angielskim i rusińskim (Fejsa 2015в), spełniając pierwszy warunek realizacji tłumaczenia maszynowego między językiem angielskim a rusińskim. Publikując Słownik angielsko-rusiński (Фейса, Шлемендер, Чельовски 2022), spełniono drugi z trzech niezbędnych warunków. Trzecim warunkiem jest publikacja „Słownika rusińsko-
-angielskiego”.
Two Japanese women’s organisations – Shufuren, founded in 1948 and still in existence, and Chūpiren, founded in 1972 and disbanded in 1977 – appear to be vastly different from one another. And yet, they had one critical similarity: their use of accessories to make a political point. Shufuren members were advocates for consumer rights (and in the immediate postwar era, for food availability). Since then, they have demonstrated for such political issues as food safety, recycling, environmental protection and anti-nuclear energy, all in the name of their roles as wives and mothers. When demonstrating, they always appear bearing large mock-ups of the rice paddle used in Japan to scoop rice from the cooking pot. The rice paddle was a powerful symbol of women’s domestic and political strength. Chūpiren women, on the other hand, distinguished themselves in their advocacy of reproductive rights not only by their forcefulness but also by wearing pink helmets. Chūpiren saw value in street theatre and sensationalism. No other radical feminist group in the mid-1970s wore uniforms. The media at that time mocked Chūpiren’s helmets and attention-grabbing tactics, and in the process disparaged contemporary feminism as a whole.
History of Asia, Unlocalized maps (Asian studies only)
The author of this article analyses the history of the complex and contradictory relations of Michel Vovelle (1933–2018), an outstanding French researcher of the Revolution of the eighteenth century, with Russian historians in the Soviet and post-Soviet times. It is noted that, unlike most French left-wing historians from A. Sobul’s entourage, cooperation with whom was a priority for Soviet researchers, Vovelle invariably maintained a certain distance in relation to the latter: he did not publish his works in the USSR and did not go there for regular Russian-French colloquiums. The situation changed only when Vovelle, after Sobul’s death, became head of the scholarly programme of the Bicentennial of the French Revolution. In this capacity, he made his first visit to the USSR in 1982. However, despite the warmest reception given to him by Soviet historians, he, as his memoirs demonstrate, still tried to keep a certain distance in his relations with them and was not much interested in the real situation in Soviet historical science, limiting himself to reproducing stereotypes common in the foreign press. Even less did Vovelle like his arrival in the USSR in the year of the Bicentennial of the French Revolution, when at a large conference in Moscow held at the height of Perestroika, the ideas of left-wing French historians were sharply criticised not only by their Soviet colleagues but also by the general public. The negative impressions left from that visit to Moscow were apparently so strong that in subsequent years, Vovelle refrained from any active cooperation with historians of post-Soviet Russia. And only a meeting with many of them at the colloquium in Visile (2006) showed Vovelle that, despite ideological and methodological differences with him, his Russian colleagues were infinitely far from the militant anti-communism that dominated in Eastern Europe and that they were open to fruitful cooperation with left-wing historians of France. He was finally convinced of this by a visit to Moscow in the same year, which, unfortunately, turned out to be the last for him.
History (General) and history of Europe, Language and Literature
The objects of study are the terracotta figurines, discovered in Tanais and on the periphery of Remontnoye village, Rostov Oblast, which are dated 1st c. BCE — 1st c. CE. Iconographic and morphological analysis interprets the figurines as depictions of Mēn, Mithra and Attis. Their syncretic cult found its way in the region from Pont in 2nd c. BCE. The connection of these cults with the Kabeiri’s earlier cult of agricultural deities can be clearly observed. As for the studied figurines, the fact that they were discovered on Lower Don, as well as in remote regions of Rostov Oblast, demonstrates that this Pontic syncretic cult was popular among settlers of the eastern periphery of Bosporan Kingdom and neighboring territories in 1st c. BCE — 1st c. CE.
For many decades, the Kampala City Council (KCC) tolerated street vending was as a positive livelihood strategy for many poor urban dwellers. In 2010, the Parliament of Uganda passed legislation that changed the management of Kampala city from elected (KCC) to central government-appointed officials (KCCA). The main argument given for this change was that it would reduce endemic corruption, improve working conditions of very poor groups, and streamline service delivery. However, Kampala witnessed an unprecedented increase in the number of street vendors between 2014 and 2019. The central government and KCCA officials framed vendors’ ongoing presence and refusal to vacate the streets as a suicidal problem. Ruthless eviction operations by KCCA law enforcement officers have yielded very limited success. This article argues that deliberate neglect of market vendors’ needs and corruption embedded in the process of demolishing, redevelopment, and management of redeveloped/purchased markets left thousands of low-income market vendors without adequate relocation alternatives. Many resorted to street vending thus, turning an already existing issue into a crisis. Having contributed to this street vending crisis, state actors used ruthless means to evict but without success. Street vendors have used defiance, building alliances with opposition politicians, and bribing some KCCA law enforcement officers to defy KCCA eviction efforts. Heightened fear by the central government that continued crude eviction of street vendors without any viable livelihood option would have serious political drawbacks combined with the other factors to further circumvent KCCA efforts to evict them.
History of Africa, African languages and literature
У статті розглядається явище радянської ідентичності у сучасному українському суспільстві. На основі проведеного опитування та інтерв’ювання представників різних регіонів України автором визначено респондентів-носіїв радянської ідентичності, проаналізовано їхні соціальні та політичні настрої, окреслено їх значення для формування або ж, навпаки, розмивання загальноукраїнської ідентичності, визначено основні чинники, що впливають на формування позитивного образу радянського минулого.
З’ясовано, що ностальгія за радянським минулим і тяжіння до радянських культурних та історичних наративів зумовлені такими чинниками, як: відчуття соціального захисту, матеріального добробуту та впевненості у завтрашньому дні; патерналізм; укоріненість ідеологічних штампів, системи цінностей радянської епохи; наповненість українського соціокультурного простору «відголосками» радянської культурної спадщини; спадковість «радянської пам’яті»; відсутність критичного осмислення радянського минулого та ін. Автор зазначає, що одним із чинників, який гальмує вихід українців з радянського історико-культурного простору, є гібридна постпам’ять, коли «забуття» про політичні репресії та розкуркулення розчиняється у пам’яті тих, чиї родини не постраждали від цих подій. З’ясовано, що попри високу зацікавленість у політичному житті країни опитані засвідчили низьку громадянську активність; це явище випливає з авторитарно-патерналістської моделі радянського суспільства, котра передбачає потребу бути керованим кимось, а відтак знімає персональну соціальну та громадянську відповідальність і перекладає її на когось, хто «наведе порядок».
Процес «переідентифікації» українського суспільства має повільний та подекуди гострий характер; особливо помітним це явище є у південно-східних регіонах України, де спостерігається сильний вплив російсько-радянських мовно-культурних та історичних наративів. Зокрема, результати дослідження засвідчили, що радикальні антиукраїнські настрої властиві тим респондентам, які визначили свою ідентичність як «радянську».
У статті розглянута історія Ізмаїльської старообрядницької єпархії в 1906-1919 рр. В цей період вона припинила існувати як самостійна єпархія, опинилася під тимчасовим управлінням різних єпископів – спочатку Іоанна Московського, потім колишніх неокружників Петра Бессарабського та Кирила Одеського і Балтського. Це викликало занепокоєння місцевих старообрядців, які майже щорічно подавали прохання Освяченому Собору старообрядницьких єпископів поставити їм власного єпископа, навіть пропонували кандидатури – Арсенія Уральського, Інокентія Нижегородського, Олексія Богатенкова, Михайла Семенова тощо, але безрезультатно. Відродження самостійної Ізмаїльської єпархії сталося лише після переходу Бессарабії до Румунії.
The history of communist rule is long and varied. Communism as a ruling system emphasizes on economy and balanced distribution of wealth and ownership of property among all the people. This system originated from the ideology of Karl Marx in 1845. Communist system in Eastern Europe was fostered by Soviet Union after the fall of Nazism at the end of World War II. This paper focuses on how the Eastern European states fell under the influence of Communist after World War II. It discusses how salami tactics were used by Soviet Union as one the methods to establish communist government in Eastern Europe. It also shows that Soviet Union’s position as a super power in Eastern Europe enabled her to spread communist ideology in the region.
Cesar A. Fortes-Lima, J. Bybjerg-Grauholm, Lilia C Marín-Padrón
et al.
Cuba is the most populated country in the Caribbean and has a rich and heterogeneous genetic heritage. Here, we take advantage of dense genomic data from 860 Cuban individuals to reconstruct the genetic structure and ancestral origins of this population. We found distinct admixture patterns between and within the Cuban provinces. Eastern provinces have higher African and Native American ancestry contributions (average 26% and 10%, respectively) than the rest of the Cuban provinces (average 17% and 5%, respectively). Furthermore, in the Eastern Cuban region, we identified more intense sex-specific admixture patterns, strongly biased towards European male and African/Native American female ancestries. Our subcontinental ancestry analyses in Cuba highlight the Iberian population as the best proxy European source population, South American and Mesoamerican populations as the closest Native American ancestral component, and populations from West Central and Central Africa as the best proxy sources of the African ancestral component. Finally, we found complex admixture processes involving two migration pulses from both Native American and African sources. Most of the inferred Native American admixture events happened early during the Cuban colonial period, whereas the African admixture took place during the slave trade and more recently as a probable result of large-scale migrations from Haiti.
Civil Croatia originated as a territory after 1577 and survived as such until the dissolution of the military frontier in the early 1880s. The term is therefore negatively connoted, since one always endeavors the reunification of the medieval Triune Kingdom. Civil Croatia has been practically the smallest territorial unit where Croatian state law was preserved over time. Opposite of it the Habsburg monarchy established the military border. Thus, Civil Croatia was not only a result of the Turkish invasion, but also a proof of the loss of sovereignty. Civil Croatia was thus conceived only in the absence of a better solution. The reliquiae reliquiarum formed the basis for the survival of historical state law and its institutions. The incorporation of those territories first meant the renewal of territorial continuity that had been interrupted since the middle of the 16th century. Croatia and Slavonia, together with Syrmia, now formed a whole, but in the eyes of the Croats it was not yet in harmony with their national requirements. Civil Croatia had to evolve into Greater Croatia, whose maximum extent would include Slovenia, parts of Inner Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, the successive territorial forms – except for the Independent State of Croatia under Ante Pavelić 1941–1944 – never fulfilled this ambition.
Auxiliary sciences of history, History of Central Europe