Klaipėdos universitetas

The paper deals with the problem of Slovak image abroad. Slovakia is a small country in terms of population and geographical size and despite its natural beauties and positive economic development it does not draw enough attention. The paper describes two main approaches to nation branding and outlines several typical branding strategies of chosen Eastern European countries. As there is a strong correlation between the image of Slovakia and Eastern Europe, the paper also studies the common characteristics of Eastern Europe image with specific focus on its reflection in popular culture. The final part of the paper summarises basic characteristics of the image of Slovakia in foreign press and briefly presents a new Slovak branding campaign Good Idea Slovakia.

The German army entered the Russian Empire in the spring of 1915, and by the autumn it had occupied most of the territory on which later the independent state of Lithuania was founded. For almost three years, from the autumn of 1915, the area was governed by the Supreme Commander in the East (Oberbefehlshaber Ost), i.e. military administration. Mainly on the basis of the newspapers published in the Ober Ost area in the years of the First World War, as well as other sources, the author seeks to show how German soldiers, and Germans in a broader sense, saw the area of the prospective Lithuania and its population that it occupied in 1915. The paper analyses the impression the land and its inhabitants made on German soldiers and commentators, and examines how those impressions combined with previous ideas about Eastern Europe.

Transversal arrowheads (trapezia) are a characteristic type of hunting implement of some Final Palaeolithic-Early Mesolithic cultures of Eastern Europe. These cultures were studied in the Volga-Oka basin (Ienevo Culture), the Middle Dnieper-Desna basin (Pisochny Riv Culture), the Lower Dnieper-Donets region (Zimivnyki Culture) and the Volga-Kama confluence (Oust-Kamskaya Culture). Issues of origin and fate still remain debatable. An interest in the formation and interaction of Volga-Dnieper cultures with transversal arrowheads in their inventory is induced by their specific geographical position as well as a permanent increase in data. Discussions of the genesis of these trapezium complexes has tended to focus on two variants: 1) within Post-Ahrensburgian industries due to some factors (natural or social); 2) from west Asian-Caucasian cultures with geometric tools. Probably the first variant is most likely to be attributed to Ienevo and Pisochny Riv, and the second is preferable for Zimivnyki and Oust-Kamskaya. Cultures in the Dnieper-Donets and Middle Volga basins, on the basis of the great variety of trapezia, are assumed to represent an area of crossing of cultural tradition. The forms of this crossing need to be concretised in the course of further research.

Today four different expressive versions of local Epigravettian industries represented by groups of sites can be defined in the Middle Dnieper basin: Mezinian, Ovruchian, Mezhirichian and Yudinovian industries. In addition, two other quite specific ones are represented by single collections: Eliseevichi 1 and Zhuravka.

Desna Culture fits the Tanged Points Culture standard perfectly. This culture is related to Tanged Points Culture in that it regularly yields shouldered points and oblique trapezes on flakes. Five types of single-barbed Havel-type harpoons were mapped. According to this mapping, Havel-type harpoons are divisions with three zones, which correspond to Swiderian, Ahrensburgian and Desnenian areas.