Urania – Central European Interdisciplinary Journal

Innovation, Competitive Advantage and Audience Outreach in Cultural Institutions

2026-09-03T11:07:27+00:00

This study examines the institutional strategic conditions necessary for maintaining the competitiveness of the cultural institutional system, with a particular focus on the long-term potential for leveraging the digital and organisational innovations that have emerged during the pandemic. The central question of the authors is how cultural institutions can maintain their professional relevance, audience relationships, and operational sustainability in a media environment based on platform logic. The study reviews the challenges of platform homogenisation, as well as related approaches in innovation theory and technology criticism, and then provides a detailed analysis of the role of digital content delivery, which has gained momentum following the pandemic. It also examines hybrid event formats, site-specific performances, ticketing models, and organisational digitalisation. Drawing on domestic and international examples, this paper argue that maintaining the competitiveness of cultural institutions today is inseparable from the development of digital competencies, the creation of new forms of audience engagement, and the consistent strategic integration of institutional innovation.

Presence of the Painting Tradition in the Visual Language of Modern Film

2026-09-08T05:59:32+00:00

This study examines how modern film inherits and transforms the visual structures of the tradition of painting. The main thesis of the research is that film is not merely a representational medium, but a tool for structuring perception. Drawing on phenomenological and film-theoretical approaches, the article demonstrates how the film image becomes a reflexive, ontological and aesthetic problem.

From the Aesthetics of Hope to Crisis Aesthetics

2026-09-08T06:10:53+00:00

Jenő Király created a unique, unparalleled, and unprecedented film aesthetic. The outstanding result of this period was the description of the movement between cultural spheres, locating the place of popular culture and its emancipation. In his second artistic period, he created a collective philosophical art theory that fits into the framework of general anthropology, which originally stemmed from films. This period, most strongly influenced by psychoanalytic theories, develops a film analysis that transcends conventional film studies and explores the “deeper layers”. This illustrates a personal, societal, and even evolutionary crisis, thus, the philosophical stance of his second period is characterised by anthropological traits and his approach to aesthetics through metaphysical influences (crisis aesthetics). Both periods present the crucial role of critical intellect, whose principal motivation is to warn, teach and better humanity. The present study aims to highlight leading ideas and provide an overarching perspective of Király’s unprecedented work on film aesthetics and also hopes to encourage a critical discourse regarding it.

Institutional Identity and Genre Legitimacy

2026-09-08T10:36:28+00:00

The study discusses the 19^th-century ballet reception in Pest, examining the press reviews of the performances of Claudina Couqui, considering the institutional and cultural status of ballet within the context of the National Theatre (Nemzeti Színház). The analysis is based on a previous and thorough press reconstruction, though it presents the findings in an argumentative manner. It reasons how ballet became the touchstone of national art, moral norms and institutional self-definition. The study highlights how the critical discourse surrounding Claudina Couqui is not purely reflected in aesthetic differences and preferences but equally serves as the basis of norm-defining mechanisms. The conflicts surrounding the reception of the Budapest ballet offer insight into the workings of 19^th-century Hungarian cultural life.

A Semiotic Analysis of Giuseppe Verdi’s Operas

2026-09-08T05:59:18+00:00

In this study, I examine the works of Giuseppe Verdi, the 19^th-century genius of Italian opera, to explore how a particular concept and attitude towards life manifests itself in the diverse yet fundamentally similar life situations of the opera characters. I seek to answer how all this is reflected in the text and the music, and whether an interaction arises between them: do they presuppose and complement one another, and can the recurring, conscious/unconscious logic of meaning-making, signified and signifier, be demonstrated throughout the body of work? In my study, drawing on the tools of linguistics and semiotics, I seek to demonstrate that music and words are phenomena that presuppose and influence one another, capable of revealing the interconnections of meaning.

“The World Closed from the Outside, but Opened from the Inside”

2026-09-08T05:59:02+00:00

The role of the theatre director has undergone a significant transformation in recent decades. Whereas theatre directors were once viewed primarily as decision-makers in matters of dramaturgy and aesthetics, their work is now increasingly understood as a form of interdisciplinary meaning-making, in which knowledge of semiotics and psychology also plays a role. The director is not merely the creator of the stage world, but also the director of the audience’s interpretation and the psychodynamics of the creative process.

The Multifaceted Relationship between Museum and Theatre: Based on the Collection of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Asiatic Arts

2026-09-08T05:58:40+00:00

The initial section of the case study briefly discusses the relationship between theatre and other artforms, while the second half uses a national example, mentioning the relevant connections between museum pedagogy and drama pedagogy. My writing offers an insight into the collection of the Hungarian Ferenc Hopp Museum of Asiatic Arts (Hopp Ferenc Ázsiai Művészeti Múzeum), highlighting notable theatre exhibits and other relevant studies.

Preserving Hungary’s Intangible Cultural Heritage

2026-09-03T12:22:15+00:00

This article presents the historical and social context of the Eger Quartermasters’ Council, an institution dating back several centuries and forming part of Hungary’s intangible cultural heritage, as well as its contemporary role in community building and the preservation of values. The author attempts to describe the processes of cultural memory, identity, and the transmission of tradition through the practices of an active local community. The analysis also covers the sacral, charitable, and local patriotic activities of the quartermasters, highlighting how bringing the traditions of the past into the present can sustain a continuous sense of national and local identity.