Marcin Sułkowski

#StypendiumMinistra. 👇 Stypendium Ministra Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego 🇵🇱 402 osoby, 17 000 zł dla każdego ze stypendystów.

#Serbia remains "partly free", according to the latest report by @freedomhouse 🔴The country scores 53/100 in 2025, down 3 points, one of the region’s #Balkans biggest declines. The report highlights a continued erosion of democratic standards. Key concerns: - Ongoing pressure on independent media, opposition & civil society. - Anti-government protests met with police violence. - Reports of attacks on protest supporters and pressure on teachers. - Allegations of surveillance targeting journalists and activists. Political rights: 18/40 Civil liberties: 35/60 (down from 39)

#DidYouKnow that the last time England was successfully invaded was 1066? For the first time since it was made, the Bayeux Tapestry is returning to England on loan to the @britishmuseum. This 70-metre tapestry provides a profound insight into life before and after the Battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest. To see this precious historical record, visit the link below. ⬇️ britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/ba…

Croatian women in Bosnia and Herzegovina displaying traditional tattoos known as sicanje or bocanje. These pagan designs were worn by Balkan Slavs to avoid forced conversion to Islam, 1930-1940... Sicanje tattoos were used by Catholic women to identify themselves as Catholics and thus save themselves from forced marriages, abduction into the harem, and rape during the Ottoman period. This method of tattooing in our country arose during the Ottoman occupation of medieval Bosnia and continued to be practiced extensively until the end of the Second World War. After the end of the Second World War, sicanje slowly disappeared into oblivion, but in certain areas, it can still be found. During Ottoman times, anyone who was marked in this way would be prevented from converting to another religion, that is, to Islam. However, this was not always the case. According to the traditions collected by Croatian ethnologist Ćiro Truhelka, there is evidence that some Catholic women who were tattooed, but who still converted to Islam so they could marry the man they loved. According to one of the articles in the Glasnik magazine, published by the BiH National Museum, Truhelka and Dr. Leopold Glück were the first to talk about “common” tattooing, as it was called then. Marking religious, ethnic, or any other affiliation with tattoos was common at that time, but much more so among Catholics than any other peoples. “When we were little girls, Mare’s aunt used to do it. That’s how it was in the old days, that’s what our people did to show that they were Croats during the Turkish occupation,” explained Marta, also a resident of Rumbok. The girls who decided to get sicanje tattoos mostly did so between the ages of 10 and 15. Those I spoke to told me that they had done it at the age of 15. “When I was little, this [tattoo] was done by your late relative,” Marta tells Mare, laughing. A question that really intrigued me was whether men also tattooed each other. The answer I received was “rarely,” to which Mare added, “It was so nice for us and us women wanted to do it.” They confirmed that while “almost every girl had tattoos,” it was rare for men. Later in the conversation, Marta mentioned that her late brother had tattoos similar to hers. Truhelka’s sources confirm that tattooing was more frequent among women. Both hands were tattooed, but according to Truhelka, the left hand was slightly more tattooed. Sometimes women had so many tattoos on their hands that the color of the hand wasn’t visible. Women tattooed their arms, above and below the elbow, as well as their hands. Chests were also tattooed along the sternum. Sometimes you could also see some simple design on the forehead. Truhelka says that in that period, it was mostly women from Central Bosnia who were tattooed, especially in the cities of Sarajevo, Visoko, Travnik, Fojnica, Prozor/Rama, Bugojno, and the Banja Luka area. The custom was slightly less common in Olovo, Vareš, Vijaci, and in the Neretvica river valley. When men decided to get tattooed, they would get a simple design above their right elbow or a cross on their index finger. The men also used to get tattoos under their armpits or behind their ears. They even got designs from stećaks or traditional tombstones. © Matija Krivošić #archaeohistories