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3079 results in Jagiellonian University Press

Page 72 of 154

  • Arǝdvī Sūrā Anāhitā: Considerations on the Greek ἀρχἡ

  • from Religion
  • Edited by Anna Krasnowolska, Jagiellonian University, Krakow
  • Book:
    Studies on the Iranian World: Before Islam
    Published by:
    Jagiellonian University Press
    Published online:
    12 January 2018
    Print publication:
    01 January 2015, pp 139-152

  • Summary

    SUMMARY

    In the Ābān Yašt, the description of the physical states of the water (liquid as in rain, vapor as in the winds and clouds, solid as in sleet) reveals an aspect of the Avestan ‘scientific thought,’ which anticipates the Milesian idea of ἀρχἡ in Thales doctrine. If the main goddess of ancient Iran was nothing but pure water, it would be worth wondering about the modalities according to which Greek scientific thought was not just the result of the direct observation of natural phenomena, but also the consequence of pondered assessments on the physical idea of the Avestic material universe. The hypothesis is that Arǝdvī Sūrā Anāhitā was never depicted. It would be useful to reflect on the potential historical and religious consequences of an absence of her images and to investigate how such a unique religious approach might have influenced the Greek scientific and philosophical thought.

    The case which undergoes your attention is the conception of water expressed by the Archaic Greece and the one present in the Avesta, more precisely the idea of ἀρχἡ in Thales and the notion of water narrated in Yašt 5.

    Concerning Thales, we do not have any original text and Aristotle is the only reliable source for the notion of the ἀρχἡ. In his physical doctrines, notably in Metaphysics, Aristotle considers Thales as the first philosopher. This opinion could be a distortion, an artificial construction made purposely by Aristotle to find in Thales the initiator of his philosophical conception. Modern philosophical criticism disagrees on the origin of the Ionian thinkers: most consider them the very first philosophers and scientists of the Greek world; some instead, cautiously trace in their works influences from the Near East; while very few are willing to see in the so called Schoolof Miletus the development and expansion of an older speculation which is rooted in the worlds of those considered barbarians.

    Regarding Yašt 5, we don't know the period of its composition, although according to Malandra its drafting is late Achaemenid. This hypothesis would place the text within a religious reform much wanted by Artaxerses II in order to harmonize new divine figures with others more archaic of the Iranian pantheon. The hymn possibly syncretises two divine figures: the older goddess of water and the Anāhitā of the Old Persian inscriptions.

  • 20th Century Theatrical Heritage: The Escape from Illusion

    • By Krzysztof Pleśniarowicz, Institute of Culture, Faculty of Management and Social Communication of the Jagiellonian University
  • Edited by Ewa Kocój, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Łukasz Gaweł, Jagiellonian University, Krakow
  • Book:
    Faces of Identity and Memory
    Published by:
    Jagiellonian University Press
    Published online:
    10 January 2018
    Print publication:
    01 January 2015, pp 141-150

  • Summary

    Abstract: In this article the author refers to the escape of illusion in the contemporary theatre as a result of the destruction of the Italian stage historical conventions in the series of the “theatrical revolutions” of the 20th century. The “anti-illusionist theatre models” of the greatest stage artists at the end of 20th century, Robert Wilson, Tadeusz Kantor and Peter Brook, are discussed as the examples of the post-modernist crisis in theatrical representation connected with the logocentric domination of the word and faith in the rational order of things. The 20th century “anti-illusionist” theatrical heritage is based not only on significant changes in the language and acknowledged conventions as well as styles, but mainly on the idea of a non-mimetic space of a liberated performance demonstrating “visual musicality” from the “intercultural” perspective.

    Key words: anti-illusion, post-modern theatre, theatrical heritage, Tadeusz Kantor, Peter Brook, Robert Wilson

    The post-modernist shift in culture (and ideology) over the last decades has resulted from the need to reject all models that “falsify” reality (born on the Italian stage from the spatial perception of the world). In return, we have been offered the transformation of the static space into a process, and have seen it given a temporal dimension (mutability, motion, etc.). This is different from the “spatialization” of time that could be identified as the essence of modernism.

    Constructing spatial models, the modernistic theories of the theatre have attempted to reduce live performances, with their excess of significance and impurity, to the purity and unambiguity of the “machines for the production of significance.” Post-modern anthropologists of the theatre have aimed at concentrating on whatever diverges from all rules, knocks down divisions and schemas, destroys pre-theatrical attitudes and all presuppositions… and thus everything that is the definition of performance as described by Chomsky (in reference to language), especially in a theatre that is fated to a game of chance.

    Against the Italian stage, “modernist” theatrology has invented the super- arbiter, a competent structuralist, semiologist and phenomenologist placed in the audience with all his apparatus for seizing and freezing the significances in a polymorphic, multivariant spectacle.

  • The Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974: 88 Stat. 1263 (1974)

  • Paweł Laider, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Maciej Turek, Jagiellonian University, Krakow
  • Book:
    Basic Documents in Federal Compaign Finance Law
    Published by:
    Jagiellonian University Press
    Published online:
    12 January 2018
    Print publication:
    01 January 2015, pp 40-43

  • Summary

    The limited success of the authors of the FECA, stemming from the ineffectiveness of its various provisions, mainly those referring to the public disclosure of financial documents from election campaigns, stimulated legislators to search for a quick revision of the document and insert necessary amendments. Such an approach was especially characteristic after the lack of pre-election disclosure of expenditures by President Richard Nixon in the 1972 campaign, when the public found out that the Republican candidate collected more than $11 million from various sources. Apart from the disclosure failure, even more decisive for congressional action was the outbreak of the Watergate scandal, which revealed the illegal activities of the Committee to Re-Elect the President, putting the whole problem of money and politics at the center of social concern.

    The authors of the amendment opted for strengthening the disclosure system, furthering limits to campaign contributions and spending, and creating a comprehensive system of public funding for presidential elections, based on the earlier provisions of the 1971 laws. The most significant aspect of the 1974 legislation, however, was the creation of an independent administrative agency, the Federal Election Commission (FEC), which would be responsible for administering and enforcing campaign finance laws, including oversight of the presidential election public fund. Prior to this the system had lacked such an institution; this was one of the major reasons for its ineffectiveness. Therefore, the creation of the Commission was aimed at enhancing the disclosure procedures, implementing further regulations on campaign finance, and investigating alleged violations of the laws concerning campaign finance by both contributors and candidates. Another important innovation was a limit on so-called independent expenditures. These were all the expenses made on behalf of the candidates by the political parties or the outside groups without the coordination with them, their campaign committees or political parties. Before the new law took effect, however, it was challenged in court, leading to the milestone Supreme Court decision on the scope of campaign finance regulations, Buckley v. Valeo.

  • 12 - Common values for people in an organization (corporate)

  • from SECTION ONE - MANAGEMENT OF VALUE AND BY VALUE. SURVEY RESEARCH
  • Andrzej Herman, University of Gdansk, Tadeusz Oleksyn, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Izabela Stańczyk, Jagiellonian University, Krakow
  • Book:
    Management by Values (MBV)
    Published by:
    Jagiellonian University Press
    Published online:
    12 January 2018
    Print publication:
    01 January 2015, pp 115-126

  • Summary

    Common values for people in an organization are a set of the values that the people associated with the given organization adopt, accept and want to execute together. Rather frequently, the values that are significant for the given organization are created by its founders who express in them their own hierarchy of values, as well as ideals and dreams, while also the desire to instigate in the organization and the world around it their own particle of good. They subsequently try to select such top-managers whose ideals are shared and create the impression of individuals capable and determined to realize them, together with the people selected by them.

    Such a perception of common values is more frequently termed corporate values even in organizations that are not corporations, or more seldom core values. If the process of selection of “adjusting to” and accepting common values in an organization is run skilfully, thus on a sufficiently wide scale, the common values may be an additional element that connects people that are associated with the given organization constituting one of the factors of motivational impact and a significant element of culture. Likewise, they may also facilitate management and make it both easier and more effective. The significant factors and conditions of success are as follows:

  • • sincerity of intentions;

  • • authenticity (values should be in accordance with the internal need and profound convictions of the people; shared, but not imposed);

  • • partnership of the managerial staff and employees;

  • • avoiding ideologization, temptation to utilize (overuse) the values for the purposes of image (PR) and manipulation of people;

  • • determination and consistency in their adherence, managing them, associating with a wide perception of personnel policy (recruitment and employment reduction, selection of people, evaluation, development, while also leadership, motivation and promotion).

    • The notion and values constitute the first element of the widely perceived mission of the organization at hand, “something for the spirit”. Of course, not all organizations formulate their missions in a broader manner (if at all), while not all work on educating and adhering to the common values.

Applying the Constitution of the Republic of Poland in Horizontal Relations
  • Monika Florczak-Wątor
  • Published by:
    Jagiellonian University Press
    Published online:
    10 January 2018
    Print publication:
    01 January 2015
  • This monograph comprises five chapters, in which I have analyzed the problem of the horizontal effect of individual rights within the Polish constitutional reality.
    This book is an abbreviated version of my monograph that was published in Polish in 2014 by Jagiellonian University Press under the title 'Horyzontalny wymiar praw konstytucyjnych', and its purpose is to make the results of my research known to English-speaking readers and to disseminate the approach of the Polish judicature and jurisprudence on the horizontal effect of individual rights beyond the boundaries of Poland.

  • Two procedures expanding a linguistic competence

  • Edited by Piotr Łukowski, Aleksander Gemel, Bartosz Żukowski
  • Book:
    Cognition, Meaning and Action
    Published by:
    Jagiellonian University Press
    Published online:
    10 January 2018
    Print publication:
    01 January 2015, pp 31-50

  • Summary

    Introduction

    On the ground of psychology there are many various theories explaining what a notion is. All these approaches can be grouped in three classes:

  • (A) classical theories which present a notion as a compilation of features in common for many particular objects.

  • (B) probabilistic theories in which notions are derived from the higher structure

  • – an individual theory of the world. Notions are elements of the structure.

  • (C) theories in which a notion is strictly connected with its references and with other notions.

    • Theories of the first class are a little bit naïve today, and theories of the second class fail because of the error of circularity – in order to explain what a notion is, we need to explain what a structure is, but in order to explain what a structure is, we need to know what a notion is (Maruszewski, 2001: 297–299). Theses of theories of the third class are obviously compatible with simple everyday observations and with the logical knowledge about the properties of natural language expressions. Thus, the approach presented in the paper coincides with the main ideas of the theories of this last class.

    Dialogue 1

  • During a stroll with his father a boy asks: – What is it, daddy?

  • – A building, honey – the father answers.

  • – Oh…

  • – And this is another building, isn't it? – after a while the child adds pointing at next object.

  • – No, it isn't. This is a shed.

  • – Why this is not a building? – the boy asks.

  • – Because it is much smaller than a building, it is constructed from ordinary boards, it is not for living, just for garden's tools…

  • – Uh-huh…

    • Dialogue 2

  • During a stroll with his father a child asks: – What color is this leaf?

  • – It is brown – the father answers.

  • – It's impossible! Your jacket is brown and the leaf's color is different.

  • – My jacket is brown and the leaf is also brown. Both colors are a little bit different but both are brown – the father states.

  • – And what about that car's color? – the boy asks.

  • – I'm afraid the car is not brown – the father answers – that car's color has a delicate red shade.

  • Some Comments on a Parallel Text in Dari, Tojiki and Farsi

  • from Linguistics
  • Edited by Anna Krasnowolska, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Renata Rusek-Kowalska, Jagiellonian University, Krakow
  • Book:
    Studies on the Iranian World
    Published by:
    Jagiellonian University Press
    Published online:
    12 January 2018
    Print publication:
    01 January 2015, pp 23-34

  • Summary

    SUMMARY

    An analysis of multilingual texts is an important tool in linguistic research. It is particularly valuable in the case of dead and forgotten languages, however, this is certainly not the only situation, in which this method is of use. In the present article, translations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into Dari, Farsi and Tojiki are analyzed. Historically, the three idioms are derived from one source, however, their present status is worth discussing, especially when considering the relationship between Tojiki and Farsi. The analysis presented in the article is focused primarily on differences in the lexica, phraseology, morphology and syntax.

    DARI, FARSI AND TOJIKI

    Dari, Farsi and Tojiki are three closely related idioms that belong to a vast continuum of varieties of Persian. Farsi (henceforth FA) and Tojiki (TJ) form the opposite extremities of this continuum, while the dialects of Afghanistan (i.e. Dari (DA) in particular) have an intermediary position.

    Historically, the three idioms are derived from one source, however, their present status is worth discussing, especially when considering the relationship between Tojiki and Farsi. As Perry notes, the emergence of spoken TJ as a separate ethnolect started around the 16th century, although the common literary standard was preserved well into the modern times.

    Whether or not the twentieth century concluded the process of the emancipation of TJ as an independent language is a question that cannot be solved in this short article. We may only note that the problem is not restricted to the field of linguistics as is the case with all the language vs. dialects controversies. This is why we will use terms like ‘idiom’ or ‘ethnolect’ instead of ‘language’ or ‘dialect.’

    THE ANALYSED TEXTS

    An analysis of multilingual texts is an important tool used when studying languages, particularly those that are forgotten. However, reading texts in dead and forgotten languages is not the only situation, in which an analysis of multilingual texts may be of use. We shall hopefully see that it can reveal interesting facts in relation to idioms which are still spoken and are well known.

    The texts we will analyse are three translations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

  • The crossroads of cognitive science

  • Edited by Piotr Łukowski, Aleksander Gemel, Bartosz Żukowski
  • Book:
    Cognition, Meaning and Action
    Published by:
    Jagiellonian University Press
    Published online:
    10 January 2018
    Print publication:
    01 January 2015, pp 7-10

  • Summary

    The monograph Cognition, Meaning and Action. Lodz-Lund Studies in Cognitive Science collects papers written by the members of two Cognitive Science Departments: of Lund and of Lodz. It presents a range of issues currently examined in both centers. Some texts are written in collaboration as the result of collective research.

    The opening article “Cognitive science: From computers to ant hills as models of human thought” (Peter Gärdenfors) offers an introduction to the history of ideas in cognitive science as it has been developing throughout last decades. Much of the contemporary mind theories derive from Descartes’ res cogitans and res extensa distinction, and to some extent they may be seen as a continuation of rationalist-empiricist debate. The dawn of computer science is kept in quite rationalist fashion. The fundamental concept of computer science is the theoretical construct of Turing's machine. Inspired by Turing's concept, John von Neumann proposes a general architecture for modern computer based on logic circuits. The transfer of these findings to a theory of how the mind works was only a matter of time. Soon after von Neumann's proposal, McCulloch and Pitts interpreted neurons as a logic circuits combining information from other neurons according to some logical operations. This leads directly to one conclusion: the entire brain is a huge computer – and so the foundational metaphor for cognitive science was born.

    Cognitive science can be said to emerge in 1956, the year in which Noam Chomsky, in response to the behaviourist concept of language, presented his proposition of transformational grammar. His central argument is based on the claim that processing the grammar of natural language requires a sort of algorithm as used in Turing machine. Also in 1956 Newell and Simon demonstrated the first computer program constructing logical proofs from a given set of premises and, finally, the concept of Artificial Intelligence was used for the first time. The philosophical assumption of the AI approach to cognitive processes is that the representation of mental content and processing is essentially symbol manipulation: only logical relations connect different symbolic expressions in a mental state of a person. The meaning of symbols is not part of the process of thinking, since they are manipulated exclusively on the basis of their form.

  • Pāikūlī in Its Geographical Context

  • from Archaeology
  • Edited by Anna Krasnowolska, Jagiellonian University, Krakow
  • Book:
    Studies on the Iranian World: Before Islam
    Published by:
    Jagiellonian University Press
    Published online:
    12 January 2018
    Print publication:
    01 January 2015, pp 267-278

  • Summary

    SUMMARY

    Starting in 2006, a joint team of Italian and Kurdish researchers has been working in the three provinces of Dahūk, Erbil and Sulaymānīyah in Iraqi Kurdistan. As part of this project, the team has investigated the monument that King Narseh built at the site of Pāikūlī from different points of view, archaeological, historical, epigraphical, etc. The present paper, read in the context of a panel presenting the different activities carried out in recent years by the Italian Mission in Iraqi Kurdistan, intends to highlight the historical importance that the territory where the monument is found has had throughout the course of the Sasanian era.

    The Pāikūlī tower was built by the Sasanian emperor Narseh (293–302 AD) in a narrow valley at the southernmost edge of the Qara Dāgh range in western Zagros, about 100 km south of Sulaymānīyah, not far from the town of Darband-i Khān. This commemorative monument marks the spot where, during a dynastic struggle which began after Wahrām II's death, Narseh, marching from Armenia to Ctesiphon, met nobles and grandees who had gathered there to pay allegiance to the future king. At that time the tower stood on the physical northeastern boundary of Asōrestān, being one of the main gates to the hinterland of capital city, a heavily urbanized lowland region known later in Persian as dil-i Irānšahr, ‘the heart of the Iranian Kingdom.’ This ridge of the Zagros chain represents a point of transition between two worlds, Mesopotamia and the Iranian highlands, and this applies during the great span of time from the Achaemenids up to the Mongol invasion, during which Mesopotamia and the Iranian plateau were joined in a single imperial entity, though with some ups and downs.

    Evidently with the intention of conferring a high propagandistic and ideological meaning to the monument celebrating his victory over Wahrām III and his allies, Narseh built the tower in a very evocative place, so that travelers crossing the Pāikūlī pass from the north saw it below them from a suggestive perspective and those coming from the plains found it on their way up to the mountain path (Fig. 1). The Qara Dāgh range rises like a great cliff of limestone; it measures, in its whole length, 128 km from the river Diyāla (SE), called in Kurdish Āw-i Sīrwān, to the Little Zab (NW).

  • On the Old Iranian Social Space and Its Relation to the Time Ordering System

  • from Religion
  • Edited by Anna Krasnowolska, Jagiellonian University, Krakow
  • Book:
    Studies on the Iranian World: Before Islam
    Published by:
    Jagiellonian University Press
    Published online:
    12 January 2018
    Print publication:
    01 January 2015, pp 177-190

  • Summary

    SUMMARY

    The Avestan socio-spatial ordering system comprised of four levels is discussed as a socio-ritual ordering system in this paper. It is proposed that its correspondence to the time ordering system, the watches of the day, in the Young Avestan texts is not according to the order of watches of day but is based on some ritual realities from this period. Furthermore, it is shown that the there is no evidence for a shift in the sequence of the watches of the day as it has been proposed so far. The evidence only suggests a change in the watch of the Yasna celebration from Ušahina watch to the Hāuuani watch.

    Social space is one of the significant categories of space in different cultures. In Zoroastrian, Young Avestan texts, it is mostly represented as a hierarchical structure comprising four levels nmāna-, vīs-, zaṇtu- and daŋ́hu-. In this paper, the structure of Young Avestan social space as a socio-ritual ordering system is discussed and it is proposed that its correspondence to a time ordering system in the Young Avestan texts is based on some ritual realities from this period.

    The Young Avestan Religious Leadership Structure

    The Avestan socio-spatial ordering system comprised of four levels is attested in Old Avestan texts: The four levels are designated either as nmāna-, vīs-, šōiϑra- and dax́iiu- or as xvaētu-, vərəzə̄na-, airiiamna- and dax́iiu-. From Old Avestan records, it arises, firstly, that Old Avestan society already had a socio-spatial ordering structure which was made up of four levels.

    The Young Avestan socio-spatial structure appears to have acquired political connotations, with a representative for each social unit: nmānō.pati-, vīspati-, zaṇtupati- and daŋ́hupati-. Parallel to this, a hierarchy of (prototypical) religious leaders with five levels is testified in Young Avestan including nmāniia-, vīsiia-, zaṇtuma-, dāx́iiuma- and zaraϑuštrō.təma-. In the opening sections of the Yasna and in the Gāhs, this hierarchy of the prototypical religious authorities is set in correspondence to a time ordering system. The time ordering system which is used in these equivalents is one that divides the day into five watches (see table 1). In the following, the list of the equivalents of the (prototypical) religious authorities of the socio-spatial units on the one hand and the watches of the day on the other hand will be called the matrix of the watches-ratus.

  • Mental Health in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

  • from III - PROMOTING OF RESILIENCE AND ASSISTED RESILIENCE
  • Tadeusz Marian Ostrowski, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Iwona Sikorska, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Krzysztof Gerc, Jagiellonian University, Krakow
  • Book:
    Resilience and Health in a Fast-changing World
    Published by:
    Jagiellonian University Press
    Published online:
    12 January 2018
    Print publication:
    01 January 2015, pp 153-166

  • Summary

    Abstract

    The purpose of this paper is to present an alternative approach to the psychopathology by presenting a model of mental health from the perspective of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) – a unified model of human functioning and adaptability called psychological flexibility, based on processes of acceptance, mindfulness, commitment and behavioral change (Hayes, Strosahl, Wilson, 2012). The article introduces philosophical (Functional Contextualism) and theoretical (Relational Frame Theory) basis of ACT and its implications to the model of psychological flexibility. Subsequently, the unified model of mental health is presented. The core psychological constructs – psychological flexibility and its six key processes: defusion, acceptance, flexible contact with present moment, self as context, values and committed action are defined and discussed. It is hoped that this paper will inform researchers, practitioners and patients about alternative approach to mental health and will encourage further studies on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

    Key words: mental health, ACT, psychological flexibility, human suffering

    The problem of mental health is an important and continuously analyzed issue due to the alarming statistics on the spread of disorders and psychological problems in modern society (cf. Cheng, Li, Silenzio, Caine, 2014). Effective prevention and treatment in this field requires not only effective techniques but above all, an integrated model of human functioning. However, despite the fact that according to the Preamble to the Constitution of the World Health Organization (1946) health is a “state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” traditional approaches to psychopathology treats mental health as a state of absence of symptoms (syndromal approach) or focuses on selected core processes disorder (biological approach) (Wilson, Hayes, Gregg, Zettle, 2001). Therefore, the aim of this article is to present an alternative, functional approach to psychopathology by presenting a model of mental health from the perspective of acceptance and commitment therapy.

    Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

    Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)1 is a behavioural psychotherapy developed in the early 1980s by American psychologists Steven C. Hayes, Kirk D. Strosahl and Kelly G. Wilson, classified as a part of the “third wave” (Hayes, 2004) of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) and a part of the Contextual Behavioural Science (CBS) approach (cf. Hayes, Levin, Plumb-Vilardaga, Villatte, Pistorello, 2013).

  • Alan Place-names in Western Europe

  • from Linguistics
  • Edited by Anna Krasnowolska, Jagiellonian University, Krakow
  • Book:
    Studies on the Iranian World: Before Islam
    Published by:
    Jagiellonian University Press
    Published online:
    12 January 2018
    Print publication:
    01 January 2015, pp 51-58

  • Summary

    SUMMARY

    Information about the Alans can be found in several sources of the ancient world, but also in medieval and oriental texts. Nevertheless, Alan history has been unclear up until now, especially the history of the Alans in the West. The first works on Alan history in Western Europe belong to the 20th century and it is not by chance that Rostovcev underlined that the role of the Alans in the conquest of the Roman Empire had been neglected for a long time. The Alan place-names in Western Europe help us to understand in a better way the role the Alans played in Europe during the so called Völkerwanderungen. The difference between the Alan place-names in Western and Eastern Europe also shows us that the ethnic situation in Northern Caucasus in the first millennium should be further investigated. This also assists us in working out if the ethnonym As is really only the medieval name of the Alans living near the Caucasian ridge or if a more complex situation, as Arabic sources seems to suggest, is to be considered.

    Very often place-names tell us much more than we previously thought. Sometimes they tell us about almost forgotten or not correctly understood pages of history. Alan place-names in Europe belong to this group; they tell us what history books often leave out: the real role the Alan people played during the period of the Völkerwanderungen. And it is really incredible that nowadays, while every schoolboy knows the important role played in Europe by Longobards, Goths and Huns during the last century of the Western Roman Empire, if we talk about the Alans – Great Danes (called Alan dogs in Italy) are the first and often the only thing that one remembers. But apart from the connection between Alans and dogs, we have to recall what Rostovcev wrote in Iranians and Greeks in South Russia. And not by chance did Thordarson begin a relevant article about Alan place-names in France using Rostovcev's words.

    Alan history is a long and very complex one; but it is, above all else, a history of migrations. If it is true that Alan's homeland is traditionally identified with Northern Caucasus, a place where, till now, the Ossetians – considered their descendants from the first half of 19th century – live, it is clear to everybody that the Alans are not natives of this region.

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