Transitions Online_Around the Bloc-14 January
Today’s regional roundup: Phishing for Burisma; Russia’s populationplummets; a U.S. ban for Plahotniuc; corruption in Croatia; and sheepsaved from slaughter.
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Today’s regional roundup: Phishing for Burisma; Russia’s populationplummets; a U.S. ban for Plahotniuc; corruption in Croatia; and sheepsaved from slaughter.
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Today’s regional roundup: Serbia, Kosovo on the brink of a breakthrough; bomb scares in Russia; the most innovative countries; music disputes in the Caucasus; and a Mongolian epic.
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Headlines from around the region: Polish judges; Bulgaria, Russia, and Skripal’s poisoning; a Russian culture minister who hates culture; a monument to Leningrad heroes; and Turkmenistan’s population.
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This article is a contribution to the biography of one of the more important insurgent commanders, the leader of the group “Middle” of the Insurgent Forces during the Third Silesian Uprising and a commandant of the Upper Silesia Gendarmerie. The figure of captain Maksymilian Żyła has been shrouded in oblivion so far. Even the place and date of his birth have been unknown. This text is based on archival sources stored by the Military History Office and the Institute of National Remembrance.
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The article provides the analysis of the place, the role and the significance of the memory of the Silesian Uprisings and the plebiscite for various groups of inhabitants, primarily minorities. The basic source is the press of a given group and the literature on the subject. The Silesian Uprisings became the Polish founding myth in the region as early as in the interwar period, despite sharp conflicts over the memory of them. For understandable reasons, a negative attitude towards them was expressed by Germans, who represented their own narrative concerning the victorious plebiscite of March 1921, disavowed by the decisions of the Geneva conference in October of the same year. After World War II, the People’s Poland took over the narrative about the victorious military act with slight modifications, having put emphasis upon the peasant-worker origin of insurgents. The German story of Upper Silesia was attributed to the complex of expulsion, and the occurrences of 1945 became its main point of reference. The third part of the series, based on the press of individual Silesian homeland associations, focuses on the manner and form of the celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the plebiscite in the Federal Republic of Germany, confronting it with the celebrations of the Uprisings in Poland. In its conclusion, it undertakes an endeavour to explain the influence of the celebrations on the remembrance of those occurrences in Upper Silesia.
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This contribution brings forward – based on the analysis of the magazine “Breslauer Sonntagsblatt” – the basic fields of analysis of the political and social situation undertaken by the diocese’s weekly with reference to the fall of the empire and the beginnings of the Weimar Republic. It focuses upon the depiction of the evaluation carried out by the magazine concerning the changes caused by the November Revolution, the attitudes of the Catholic church towards socialism and the democratic order. It concludes with an attempt at evaluating the social consequences of World War I.
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This contribution approaches a not widely known fact of the participation in the Third Silesian Uprising of volunteers from Russian formations that aided the Polish Army. The group of Cossacks came to Upper Silesia in June 1920. Within the 1st Battalion of Upper-Silesian Uhlans they formed the 3rd Ural-Cossack Squadron commanded by lieutenant colonel Filimonow. They quartered at Lubliniec and operated around Olesno. They left the territory of insurgent operations together with the rest of the cavalry formations on 30th June 1922.
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The Union of Supporters of Upper Silesia was founded after the Second Silesian Uprising. Its tasks included providing the Polish underground organisation in Upper Silesia with weapon and ammunition and creating the food supply and sanitary facilities on the Polish side of the border for the Polish underground in Upper Silesia in case of a possible armed conflict with Germans. An essential part of the Union’s activities was intelligence work, a source of valuable information about the situation in the Upper Silesia poviats. The Union cooperated closely with the Centre of Physical Education; subsequently, after the dissolution of the latter, it was absorbed by the Command of Defence of the Plebiscite. The seat of the General Office of the Union was Sosnowiec, later Częstochowa. The organisation had its branch offices located at the Polish and Upper-Silesian border in Sosnowiec, Częstochowa, Dziedzice and Praszka. The Union’s office in Praszka was managed by Jan Hupa. The organisation played a great role during the Third Silesian Uprising and afterwards. It was dissolved in October 1921.
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The Shooting Society in Opole belonged to the oldest organisations of this kind in Silesia. It was founded in the period of the Hussite Wars (1435), and its primary aim – like other shooting societies’ as well – was the protection of city walls. Over the centuries shooting societies became the medium of town tradition, and shooting houses were the venues for its cultivation. In the course of time, their military character became of lesser importance. In the mid-19th century the shooters’ movement became consolidated at the country level, as well as regionally. Apart from the German Shooting Association (Deutscher Schützenbund, 1861), there had been the Upper-Silesian Shooting Association (Oberschlesischer Schützenbund since 1849) and the Silesian Shooting Association (Schlesischer Schützenbund since 1862). The Shooting Society in Opole joined the second association in 1886, and the third one in 1876. Thanks to that membership, shooting societies from all Silesia – and beyond – were hosted in Opole during anniversaries in the years 1885, 1902, 1930 and 1936. Moreover, the Upper-Silesian Shooting Association held its celebration twice in this town (1894 and 1926). In spite of their rather conventional character, those celebrations attracted considerable interest and were important cultural events in Opole.
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The article undertakes – based on the already familiar archival sources and some more recent studies of the West European historiography – an analysis of the significance of the Locarno treaty for the German-French and German-Polish relations. The author emphasises that neither the German society nor the political elites recognised the loss of territories in the East, inasmuch as they did recognise the loss in the West. It was on purpose that the “Western Pact” concluded in Locarno, which confirmed the western borders of Germany, mentioned Poland only sporadically, thus facilitating the revision of that border. The author emphasises not only the political but also economic significance of the conference, as Poland was excluded from the agreements concluded there which pertained to the economic cooperation as well.
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From the documentation stored in the Federal Archives in Berlin (Bundesarchiv Berlin) an unequivocal conclusion is drawn that the idea to construct a motorway through Góra św. Anny was connected with the construction of the monumental amphitheatre and the “national” mausoleum in that area. Their grand opening in 1938 attracted crowds of inhabitants and invited guests, who had difficulty with arrival. Drawing the motorway closer to the complex was intended to solve at least a part of the transport difficulties and at the same time to connect the new object of national cult with a large-scale motorway project – the famed “Adolf Hitler’s Roads” (die Straßen Adolf Hitlers). Neither the proximity of the sanctuary at Góra św. Anny, nor pilgrim traffic had influence upon the decisions taken; with a high probability they might have led to the decision to draw the route of the motorway farther from the basilica. Generally, the increased influx of tourists arriving to see the new “attraction,” which reflected the pro-touristic offensive of the authorities in those times, was not taken into account. The landscape values of the planned RAB (Reich’s motorway) mentioned in the documents were intended to strengthen the tourist aspect of the investment, to break the monotony of the travel and to emphasise the beauty of the land, to which contemporary German planners attached considerable importance. Safety or economic aspects of the “transit” through Góra św. Anny were not raised extensively in the discussions, which confirms that the relevance of the “Third Reich’s pyramids” lay to a greater extent in propaganda rather than in practical assumptions. Like in all other parts of Germany, the segment of the motorway in Góra św. Anny was a prelude to a broader reconstruction of the transport system.
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The article brings forward the grounds, the principles and the propaganda use of “workers’ delegation journeys” organised in the interwar period by the Communist Party of Germany to travel from Germany to the Soviet Union. They were in the shadow of intellectuals’ delegation journeys, although they had similar and remarkable propaganda influence upon German workers through accounts in communist press. Those delegation journeys were object of close scrutiny by the state authorities of the German Republic, who apprehended that the journeys would be used not only for the purpose of propaganda, but also for intelligence operations.
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In June 1976, in the face of social protests, the authorities of Polish People’s Republic were forced to revoke the price increase they had introduced on food commodities. In that situation, they decided to undertake a different attempt at regaining control over the development of economic life in the country. This is how the so-called “economic manoeuvre” was introduced to correct the assumptions of the strategy of the dynamic development of the country, which had been in the process of implementation since 1971. A decision was taken that investment expenditures in economy should be limited to an indispensable minimum, with preferential treatment of undertakings aimed at meeting consumption needs of the society, as well as agriculture, power industry, transport and construction materials industry. An intention was to limit the volume of import trade and the expenses related to it. A more rapid growth of residential building industry was also a part of the plan. However, the “economic manoeuvre,” performed too late and under unfavourable external conditions, did not bring the expected results. Its consequence was, on the contrary, the waste of a large part of the investment expenditures that had hitherto been incurred. In 1979 Poland fell into the condition of an abruptly aggravating economic crisis.
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The aim of this article is to present – on the basis of the analysis of the Security Service files and the accounts of some participants of the strike at the mine “Julian” (Piekary Śląskie) – the reasons, the course and the consequences of the strike undertaken in response to the introduction of martial law. The article informs about the detention of the leading activists of the “Solidarity” structure at the mine, the initial, chaotic attempts at organising the strike, the increasing tension escalated by the authorities, and finally the culminating point when the news about the brutal pacification of the strike at the mine “Wujek” reached the participants of the strike at the mine “Julian.” There is also a presentation of the consequences for the leaders and participants of the strike: apart from the fact that the more active participants were discharged from their posts and called to account by misdemeanour boards, the leaders of the protest received suspended prison sentences.
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The aim of the paper is to analyse the mechanism of protection of persons reporting on breaches of Union law. Issues raised in the article concern personal scope of the Directive’s proposal, prerequisites of the protection and given the status of whistle blower, as well as the protection measures themselves including prejudicial stage of proceedings and judicial stage of proceedings
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The subject of the article is the instance and judicial control of settlements made on the basis of laws shaping the administrative status of a foreigner in Poland. The authoranalyzes the applicable legal regulations in the context of the good administration standards. The result of considerations is the thesis that the scope of protection and control of administrative decisions should be the same for citizens and foreigners. In addition, it is stated that the system of procedural guarantees should be similar regardless of whether they are European Union or non-EU foreigners.
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The local government units have many instruments that may directly or indirectly affect companies’ activity and the development of entrepreneurship in the region. The development of the local entrepreneurship requires to launch activities of a legal, administrative, organizational and social character. The aim of the development is to identify the instruments for supporting entrepreneurship by the local government units and the assessment of their use by municipal self-governments in the light of the previous researches. It is considered that attracting new entrepreneurs is determined by local government units activity and the ability to use available instruments of the support of entrepreneurship.As shown by the literature of the subject as well as by the available researches local government units, while supporting the development of local entrepreneurship, limit their actions mainly to budgetary and promotional instruments. The remaining instruments are used in a marginal way, therefore proving the limited knowledge of methodology and, mostof all, the lack of coherent and integrated policy of the development of entrepreneurship.
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The article is a voice in the discussion of the relationship between corruptionand government spending in rich European countries. Using macroeconomic data for rich European countries in 1996–2015, the correlation between corruption and the government spending rate was verified. Econometric research confirmed the impact of corruption onthe government spending rate. This dependence has the shape of a parabola with the arms pointing upwards, and the values of corruption indicators are on the declining part of the parabola, which means limiting the rate of government spending as a result of combating corruption. Research suggests that corruption-reducing countries will benefit – especially those that reduced corruption significantly.
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In particular countries of European Union tax systems there are various solutions related to preferential, family-friendly, income taxation or financial benefits related to raising children. They are the important, if not the basic element of the conducted social pro--family policy. However, the demographic problem of declining fertility is current for all countries, which means that the intensity and scale of pro-family activities is growing. The aim of the article is to present and evaluate the pro-family policy conducted in Poland since 2015 in comparison with the European Union countries. The choice of sucha period is not accidental, as for three years in Poland the new government has exercised power, which made a number of changes in social policy, with particular emphasis on profamily policy. The authors of the article have assessed tax reliefs and exemptions available in Poland and selected countries of the EU, as well as direct cash transfers. The analysis is complemented by literature studies in the field of family taxation theory, its income and support mechanisms for pro-family policy.
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