Sárospataki Füzetek 21. (2017)
2017 / 2. szám - ARTICLES-STUDIEN - INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE SINCE THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION-INTERKULTURELLER DIALOG SEIT DER REFORMATION - Nagy Károly Zsolt: Leaving a Mark: The calvinist landscapes of remembrance
Károly Zsolt Nagy Capital built on worship and piety. On the other hand, the organizing into a kind of order, and layering on top of each other — similarly to the lists put on display in the church space — may carry a message of integration and continuity, as the one giving the donation (or to whom the donation is tied to) is placed in the line of previous generations and confessor ancestors. It seems to be inconsistent (but for the same reason, also adequate) to call these objects clenodia andparamenta in the Calvinist context, given that the original meanings of these words are “relics” and “objects of worship”, as they connect their users with the transcendent the same way the relics of the saints do. While the latter do this directly, because the relic, as part of the saint, inherently carries the transcendent, the Calvinist clenodia and paramenta gain their sacral characteristics through the remembrance. As locations of remembrance, the accumulating experience of generations regarding the manifestations of the transcendent can be recalled through them, as the events captured on them give an account of these as obvious signs of God’s grace and providence. Not denying the rather great variability of the motives behind the scribbles, and emphasizing that the circle of Biblical quotations displayed on the paramenta can be very different in each community, so that the scribbles may be interpreted in different ways depending on the local context, I still think that we can expand the range of interpretations related to scribbles when putting them into these social and textual contexts. Let me raise now three of these, focusing on the communal existence. The first is the one of the symbolic seizure of space. Napoleon’s soldiers putting the date and their signatures on the Egyptian ancient works of art was part of the conquest, the occupation, and most probably the humiliation of the enemy. The changing of the doorplates signifying the change in ownership of an area, the attempt to delete the memories of events and persons related to the area via removing the objects of remembrance - or putting it into a different light, rebuilding the remembrance of the place, associating it with events and names, and by putting out signs signifying these —, that is, symbolically occupying the space, is part of the ordinary toolset of conquerors. In this context, putting up names and associated years in a given location may be signifying the fact of ownership as well. And in cases, when the historical consciousness of a community has it recorded that their church had already been taken away from them one or more times (or attempts have been made to do so), this may be viewed as a highly reasonable strategy for them. The second one is integration. Looking over the names and initials intertwining on the benches and backs of gallery parapets, together with the associated dates — possibly overarching several centuries —, they often seem to assemble into images of clouds. What does it mean to include our name with a date into such a cloud? For example, it can mean the integration into a status group, for example into the group of youth sitting on the gallery, or into the community of college students. On the other hand, this is also an integration into the chain of generations. Engraving my name onto the same board where my father engraved it thirty years before, or marking my 20 Sárospataki Füzetek 21, 2017-2
