INNS AS FORERUNNERS OF COFFEEHOUSES

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A coffeehouse, as its very name indicates, is a place for having coffee and smoking tobacco. The first coffeehouse in Serbia opened in Belgrade in 1522. Later, under the Turkish rule, various places were opened: taverns, pubs, caravansaries and hans (inns). When the Turks left, the coffeehouses that survived were those of social, economic, political and cultural significance. The medieval Serbia opened its inns in towns. The villages were expected to provide free meals, food and accommodation for people as well as oats for the horses. The goods that travelers were carrying were entrusted to the innkeeper who had to take care of them and return them to the traveler at departure. The Canon law forbade the clerics to either patron or possess inns. The most important guests were pilgrims and then merchants: they undoubtedly helped develop the hospitality industry. Statutes of the Serbian coastline towns differ: in Budva no inns are mentioned, in Skadar they were banned and in Kotor they had a specially prescribed legal status. The importance of inns and coffeehouses cannot be compared but it is certain that both had a great economic significance and that they were instrumental in the arrival of Roman Catholics in Serbia.

CULTURAL ROOTS OF THE SERBIAN TAVERN

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The introductory part of this paper examines the psychological and culturological background of catering facilities, aiming to place the original cultural phenomenon marked as the “Serbian tavern“ in a global context. Then, the main body of the paper analyses the origin of certain culture units representing the Serbian tavern as a complex and layered cultural fact, in order to discover its cultural roots. The analysis shows that it is a unique product as a specific combination of West European, oriental and autochthonous cultural elements from the Balkans, East Europe and Serbia. It is an institute of national importance, because of both its role in the national history and the fact that it is a tourist brand. This is why its nurturing, upgrading and tourist valorization need to be well planned.

TAVERN AND THE INTERNET SOCIABILITY: A COMPARISON

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Although the tavern as a social institution and the internet as technology do not constitute phenomena of the same kind, comparing them has sociological significance in the context of tavernology. In this paper, such comparison will include comparing the tavern and the internet sociability based on the functions that theorists attach to the one or the other phenomenon. The basic hypothesis is that most functions attributed to the tavern can be applied to the internet and vice versa, which points to the conclusion that what is at the core of the social aspect of the internet use is, in fact, the copying of patterns of sociability from a real into a virtual space. Consequently, the tavern and the internet sociability are not conflicting but complementary concepts. The internet sociability in fact represents “the version 2.0“ of its tavern counterpart, because it is derived from the patterns of social relationships peculiar to the period of modernity which the global social network upgrades, shifts to a virtual space, and at the same time, as each new phenomenon does, creates new controversies and dilemmas.

ROLE OF CAFÉS IN THE LIFE AND CREATIVE WORK OF THE 19TH CENTURY ARTISTS IN FRANCE

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The paper studies the role of the café as a specific social institution in the French culture and arts of the 19th century. In discussing the psychological and historical aspects of the café atmosphere and its influence on the appearance of revolutionary movements and new styles, historical data and available paintings have been used. In the psychological sense, cafés had a cathartic function and represented a specific type of protected locations providing support to artists in their expressing new and original ideas. The café was an alternative location for the restrictive and rigid École des Beaux-Arts, which did not accept any deviation from the classical principles of painting. The café is presented in the light of various characters of individual artists and also in the light of their artworks. In addition to the positive social role of the café, the paper also deals with its negative influences such as alcoholism and absinthism, and bases this discussion on the analysis of paintings and several individual artist careers. Particular attention has been paid to the connection between the changes in Van Gogh’s style of painting and the dynamics of his psychological crises. A short presentation is given of the results of an empirical study on the change in Van Gogh’s painting techniques from five distinctive periods, based on the Martindale’s scales of arousal potential and primordial content. Finally, the topic of the café is discussed in the light of psychoanalytic theories of art as sublimation, catharsis and regression in the service of the ego.

THIRD PLACES: GENEALOGY OF А HETEROTOPIA IN CIVIL SOCIETY

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The subject of research in this paper is coffee houses as third places. They are approached and defined from the sociological and the genealogical perspective. When observed as a spatialized history of places, genealogy provides an adequate theoretical and methodological framework for this research. The main task of such genealogy is to research the spatialization of a certain type of sociability and social capital in civil society. We have indicated broader social and historical circumstances in the genesis and development of third places as well as their contribution in the processes of developing a new type of sociability and public reasoning. The rise of coffee houses through history is contextualized: within the framework of a new type of critical public as opposed to the representative public; within the process of division between the private and public domain; as a kind of undifferentiated space/discontinuity/heterotopia that, in the social geography of the civil society, stands vis-à-vis the existing social stratums and the future spatial and class division. In conclusion we claim that, although the third places were privileged social spaces, they were not the only or fundamental places important for the genesis of rational discourse. However, third places were of key importance in the processes of forming urban institutes, development of public spaces, public speech, civil liberties and legitimacy of rationality in the societies of Western Europe.