Marta Rendla, »Kam ploveš standard?«, Življenjska raven in socializem
Review of: Marta Rendla, »Kam ploveš standard?«, Življenjska raven in socializem, Inštitut za novejšo zgodovino, Ljubljana 2018.
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Review of: Marta Rendla, »Kam ploveš standard?«, Življenjska raven in socializem, Inštitut za novejšo zgodovino, Ljubljana 2018.
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Review of: Zdenko Roter, Pravi obraz. Neizbrisna znamenja resničnosti, Sever & Sever, Ljubljana 2017
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The study focuses on the events in the period of so-called normalisation, specifically between 1972 and 1989. During this period, Alex Mlynárčik continued to cooperate with French artists and art critics, notably Pierre Restany. The study points out the importance of this leading personality of Parisian New realism in terms of the presentation of Jozef Jankovič, Robert Cyprich, Jana Želibská and the White Space in White Space project in Paris. It also focuses on lesser-known publications by Geneviève Bénamou, a French art critic whose thesis was based on research conducted during her stay in Czechoslovakia. As an editor, Bénamou also prepared a book on visual artists of Czech and Slovak’s origin living outside Czechoslovakia, including Vladimir Ossif. Another personality who considerably contributed to shaping the French-Slovak relations was a young philosopher Etienne Cornevin. Over the decade he spent in Slovakia as a French language teacher, he met the circle of visual artists of his generation, members of the unofficial art scene.
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The upcoming book by Zuzana Bartošová explores French-Slovak and Slovak-French relations in the area of visual arts in the latter half of the twentieth century. The paper “Between Paris and Bratislava I” is a segment of the upcoming book. It focuses on events in the period of 1960 – 1968 during which a crucial role has been played by Alex Mlynárčik’s initiatives directed towards a French art critic, Pierre Restany, a key figure of Parisian New Realism. The paper highlights Restany’s contribution to Slovak art scene, for instance during the preparation of international exhibition Danuvius ’68. It also deals with the AICA (Association internationale des critiques d’art) congress held in 1966 in Prague and Bratislava and with its resonance in Slovak environment.
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Stało się! Dopiero około godziny 10.00 dowiedziałam się z telewizji, że od północy mamy stan wojenny w całym kraju. A więc wojna z narodem. Jaruzel przemawia w telewizji.
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The article attempts to determine the usefulness of the concept of resourcefulness for research in the field of social history of the People’s Republic of Poland. On the basis of examples concerning problems with provisions, housing, professional work and retirement benefits, an analysis of specific issues was made, where this resourcefulness manifested itself particularly intensively. The research shows that in many cases it was pathological. It meant a strategy of behavior consisting in achieving the assumed goals by individuals or various groups of people using means that are in conflict with the norms, rules, procedures accepted as appropriate in a given political and socio-economic order.
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Numerous studies on the economies of socialist countries indicate that one of the main sources of their weakness was the attitudes and behavior of “socialist managers”. Contrary to the predictions (e.g. by Joseph Schumpeter), they were not characterized by entrepreneurship, innovation, the ability to lead changes or the ability to formulate strategies. This was due to the nomenclature system existing in all countries of the Soviet bloc. Nominations, promotions, but also dismissals were at the discretion of party bodies. It was the main source of the communist party’s dominance in the country and the fundamental factor guaranteeing control over all spheres of social and economic life. Determining why the nomenclature system turned out to be dysfunctional requires considering three issues: what were the goals of the communist personnel policy, what methods were used to implement it, and finally who were the people appointed to perform managerial functions in the economy. We will focus our analysis on the management of Polish industry in the years 1945–1956. This is because it was the most important sector of the economy of the People’s Republic of Poland, and the personnel policy mechanisms developed at that time remained valid until the end of the “real socialism” system.
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The unpublished testimony which is to appear in the “National Museum” renders, with serene detachment, a life started as a fairy tale and continued with a terrible adolescence marked by prison and horrible confinement.In an interwiev she gave twenty years ago, Măriuca Vulcănescu narrated the happy moments of her childhood emphasizing the loving figures of her parents and relatives. The atmosphere of the Vulcănescu family house in Bucharest and the Văcărescu manor in Văcărești, a place full of history and legends, are remembered with great delight. The main character of the interlocutions is Mircea Vulcănescu, important personality of the interwar period, whose destiny was broken at the age of only 48, in the communist Aiud prison. The personal dramas of Măriuca Vulcănescu starting with her arrest at the age of 18 and the sufferings during the Commnist era complete the portrait of a sensible lady who miraclously survived to a hostile destiny due to the moral values inherited from her family.
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Review of: Revolutions for the Future: May ’68 and the Prague Spring, (edd.) JANA NDIAYE BERÁNKOVÁ, MICHAEL HAUSER, NICK NESBITT, Lyon 2020, Suture Press, 321 s., ISBN 978-2-9569056-1-5.
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The article considers the legal status of the voivode in post-war Poland ruined by the Nazi occupation, deprived of its own administrative apparatus (from 1939) and the construction of this position from scratch under new rules dictated by Moscow (from 1944). This periodisation was not matched by the ability to preserve Poland’s administrative apparatus. In occupied Poland, this function was not fulfilled by the highest Polish authorities in exile and their expatriate branches in the country. This opened the way for Moscow (strengthened by an amenable attitude from the Allies) to build the ‘People’s Poland’ (1) with an apparatus of supreme power (in the period before and after the enactment of the February Constitution) and (2) local, decentralised power (from 1944 based on national councils, and until 1950, also based in general administrative bodies – voivodes, starosts and local government administration). The author refers to both spheres of legal activity in the process of constructing this administrative apparatus. In chronological order, she discusses the basic legal acts enacted by the supreme authorities of the time. She focuses her attention primarily on acts directly concerning local administration, with particular emphasis on the institution of the voivode, which from 1944 was incorporated into the system of national councils, following the example of ‘people’s’ states. This analysis enables the conclusion to be drawn that the legal conditions at the time changed the legal status of the voivode, who was nominated by the government (and thus not the head of state). Appointing the voivode required an opinion from the competent national council. The council was empowered with the right of social control over the activities of the voivode. In practice, the influence of the voivodeship national council on the activities of the voivode was weak. The voivode was still the main element in the organisational system of the state’s local administrative apparatus as the representative of the government at the local level, the head of the general (composite) administration and the chairman of the executive body of the local government. The voivode’s competences excluded that of supervising local government bodies. In the years 1945–1949, a different status applied to the governors of the Recovered Territories.
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Francisco Franco (1892-1975) was general and leader of the Nationalist forces that overthrew the Spanish democratic republic in a bloody civil war (1936-39); thereafter until his death he was the head of government of Spain. He ruled his country as dictator – called El Caudillo (the Leader) – for 36 years. In his essay, Ignác Romsics deals with the military carrier of the would-be dictator, the Civil War as an arena of social change where different political ideas and programs were forged, and finally the main characteristics and functioning of the Francoist authoritarian regime. The most difficult period of Franco’s regime began in the aftermath of World War II, when his government was ostracized by the newly formed United Nations. This period of ostracism came to an end with the worsening of relations between the Soviet world and the West at the height of the Cold War. His international rehabilitation was advanced further in 1953, when Spain signed a military pact with the United States. Later his domestic policies became somewhat more liberal, as well. Due to all these and the economic development during the 1960s, Franco’s image gradually changed from that of the rigorous generalissimo to a more benign civilian elder statesman. In spite of that, his legacy deeply divides the Spanish society even today. The essay is based on the available literature written in English, French and Hungarian.
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If the measure of success in politics is the acquisition and retention of power, leaving aside all moral considerations, Stalin undoubtedly was one of the most successful politicians of the last century. Neither his social background, education and intellectual preparation, nor even his early revolutionary activities predestined him to become the creator and leader of a superpower, one of the most ill-famed historical figures of the 20th century. By the end of the 1930s, not holding any official governmental position, Stalin managed to establish strict control over the party apparatus and state security organs and he built up unrestricted dictatorship that allowed him not only to defeat his rivals, but also to make his own allies and creatures obey him unconditionally. Stalin’s exercise of power was a unique combination of modern and archaic elements. Among his “teachers” we find, alongside Marx and Lenin, Niccolo Machiavelli, the author of the modern political manual of the exercise of power, and Gustave Le Bon, an expert in the psychology of the masses.
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Tekst poświęcony jest ekonomii abstrakcyjnych map-obrazów tworzonych przez Franka Bowlinga w latach 1968-1972. Mapy-obrazy składają się z dużych połaci koloru, które rozciągają się na płaszczyźnie pomyślanej przez Bowlinga jako ekwiwalent transatlantyckiej przestrzeni przepływu kapitału i jako medium osobistego doświadczenia malarza uwikłanego w te przepływy. Globalne doświadczenie wymaga tu dwojakiego rozumienia: jest to wspólny los czarnej transatlantyckiej społeczności oraz jego abstrakcyjna przyczyna, czyli zdekodowane przepływy (Deleuze i Guattari) globalnego rynku. W swoich mapach-malunkach Bowling przepracowuje te dwa znaczenia, które pozostają w stanie permanentnego konfliktu. Tekst skupia się na ekonomii historii zapisanej poprzez dystrybucję farby Bowlinga, ekonomii globalnych i intymnych historii kapitalizmu i ich ekspresji w wizualnym medium koloru.
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The early phase of Zygmunt Ziembiński’s theory of law interpretation was developed between the late 1950s and early 1970s. From the very outset, values would feature permanently in the theory as components of the axiological system of the legislator. Certain values, such as legal certainty and the correspondence between law and social life, became central to two interpretations: static and dynamic interpretation, respectively. Ziembiński was the first Polish legal theorist to define functional interpretation as a paradigm that invokes the legislator’s values. As he argued, two types of functional interpretation: analogia legis or extensive interpretation have their effect anchored in the adopted values, thus preventing cases which happen to be strongly justified axiologically by such values from being excluded from regulation. Values also enable identification of the norms-conclusions derived through analogia juris and argumenta a fortiori. By providing grounds for the postulation of the rule of law, values ultimately safeguard the legal system from abuse.
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Review of: Czy historycy prawa są już zbędni? Uwagi krytyczne na kanwie publikacji Marka Budniaka Wojskowy Sąd Rejonowy w Zielonej Górze 1950–1954 Marek Budniak, Wojskowy Sąd Rejonowy w Zielonej Górze 1950–1954 (Zielona Góra: Wyd. Archiwa Państwowe, 2022), ss. 396.
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Review of: Recenzja monografii Matěja Bílego pt. Varšavska smlouva 1985–1991. Dezintegrace a rozpad Matěj Bílý, Varšavská smlouva 1985–1991. Dezintegrace a rozpad (Praha: ÚSTR, 2021), ss. 512
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In mid-September 1979, negotiations on the normalization of relations between the two countries were started in Moscow after China, with its declaration of April 3, 1979 that it would no longer renew the Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance when it expired on April 11, 1980, cleared the air for a comprehensive reformulation of the mutual relationship. However, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan prompted the Chinese to let the negotiations rest since the beginning of January 1980. In addition to the negotiations on border shipping, which have been held in 21 sessions since 1951 and the border negotiations that have been taking place with major interruptions since October 20, 1969, this was the third negotiating table at which the Russians and Chinese sat without significant agreements being reached that go beyond purely technical questions. The following interview with Chang Chan-teh, who is directly responsible for border issues and border incidents in the Heilongjiang provincial government, is therefore to be regarded as a remarkable and revealing contemporary document summarizing the Chinese position on the border question and the first of its kind in years is.
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The author of the article, excerpts of which are reproduced below, deals with the theoretical and ideological foundations of the theme of the emergence of a “new type of community”, the “Soviet people” (sovetskij narod), which has been discussed repeatedly in the Soviet Union recently. In doing so, he emphasizes; that this development in the direction of “higher unity” in no way meant that the individual nations and nationalities renounced their own culture and language, but he left no doubt that “all-Soviet interests” should be given greater importance and “republic interests” on the other hand had to resign. In this context, it is emphasized that not only the Soviet Union as a whole is “multinational”, but also each individual republic, because, for example, not only Ukrainians lived in Ukraine and not only Kazakhs in Kazakhstan. Finally, the author points to the economy as an "integration factor" and advocates the "merging" power of multinational corporations. The "lingua franca" used, Russian, is considered - also for practical reasons - to be a supranational lingua franca that enables non-Russian nationals to access Russian and world culture.
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