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The EaP embodies a potent idea and a policy-framework that equips the EU with a set of tools to address the specificity of the EU’s eastern neighbours, certainly apart from Russia. The EaP presents itself in this context as a seminal, even if largely implicit, attempt to consolidate the idea of East-Central Europe as an entity that is culturally and politically independent from Russia. Paradoxically, the concept and, indeed, the idea of East-Central Europe have not been as firmly established in the popular consensus as the inhabitants of the area in question would have assumed even in the late 20th century. Indeed, following the collapse of communism in 1989, a simple mention by the political establishment, e.g. in Poland, of its prospective European integration, was received by many in so-called West with an unease. It has taken another nearly three decades for the idea of cultural and political distinctiveness of East-Central Europe to be recognized. Still, the case of Ukraine suggests that it is far from being consolidated. Therefore, if our concern today is Ukraine, but also Russia and its European vocation, it is necessary that the ideas that have shaped the prevailing conception of the region and its identity are re-thought. The objective of this paper is to do just that.
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The paper reviews publications by Latvian linguists looking at the main translation problems within the context of the EU between 2005 and 2010. The author analyses the publications from three aspects: general aspects of translation problems and practices within the EU context, particular translation problems, and methodological publications providing guidelines for translators working within the EU context. The author reveals discussions on the ways translation influences language in general, the role of the source language for the development of the target language, and the role and responsibility of a translator at the ‘historical crossroads’. The article discusses a number of EU-specific translation problems, including source language interference, problems of the translator’s visibility and a translation’s transparency, ‘false friends’, and linguistic and contextual untranslatability. The author briefly summarizes the contents of guidelines and manuals for translators working within the EU context, highlighting the main differences between English and Latvian written language practices, literal (word-for-word) translation and the translator’s relationship with the source text. The publications selected and analysed have been published either in conference proceedings or in academic journals from the leading Latvian institutions in the field of translation: Ventspils University College, the University of Latvia, the State Language Commission of Latvia and Translation and Terminology Centre of Latvia.
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The author presents the findings of sociological research on aspects of repurchasing tenancy rights in Croatia conducted May to June 1992 by the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Philosophy, Zagreb. The first research was carried out on 500 examinees, on a sample of Zagreb's inhabitans (three different city areas), and the second in four Croatian cities on a total sample of 1000 examinees. The findings indicate that the largest number of examinees are ready to repurchase their characteristics. The most accepted mode of repurchase is payment in instalments in local currency. The examinees are mostly not informed in detail about the process of repurchase, and they see the procedure as too complicated. The research has established that there are more levels of prepareness for the repurchasing of apartments in the population than it seems and is evident at first glance.
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An excerpt from the dissertation thesis History of the Slovak Television in the years 1989 −1998commemorates the upcoming anniversary of an important milestone in the history of mass media in Slovakia, when Slovak Television legally became a public broadcaster. The text deals with the dual broadcasting system in the Slovak Republic which was introduced in 1991. The study also focuses on complicated issues in the internal organization of the Slovak Television in 1991 and 1992, which, despite numerous changes of top management, led to modernization of the institution and determination of its employees in order to bring the good-quality content on air. In addition to the current discussions on the future of RTVS, it is therefore interesting to recall the starting points of the founders of public media in the Slovak Republic.
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The Croat-Bosniak war is one of the least researched episodes of the Bosnian war. I reviewed the recent works of two regional authors who had access to original war records of the Bosnian Croats and the Bosniaks and then compared their findings with some of the representative views of secondary literature. Among other things, I focused on the Vance-Owen peace plan and the initial hostilities in the central Bosnian municipalities. My chief conclusion is that the importance placed on the Vance-Owen peace plan in secondary literature is misleading as it ignores the local military and political dynamics.
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Я вспоминаю Бируте очень светло, благодарно, тепло. Но и щемящая нота боли не затушевывается, не уходит из этих воспоминаний, она звучит на какой-то глубине, как в стихотворении Лермонтова «Выхожу один я на дорогу…», которое она любила. Помните, там ведь мировая гармония, космическая: «В небесах торжественно и чудно / Спит земля в сиянье голубом», и вдруг сразу: «Что же мне так больно и так трудно…». Ушла молодая, талантливая, хорошая, и столько замыслов и планов было, и так любила жизнь.
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The paper overviews the trends of mutual economic relations in the post-Soviet space. It aims to assess the synergies of the Eurasian Union, as well as the potential of alternative regional groupings. Although mainly focused on trade and investments, it also shortly discusses the internal political developments of the different countries and their effects on their global position. Given their particular relevance, energy issue are granted a separate chapter at the end of the paper.
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The paper considers some principles of left-wing memory culture after 1989. How should the left remember its own past? It should define its own perception of time and its memory priorities. In dialectical memory one should remember historical antitheses. In the past, one needs to recognize the stronger or weaker internal tensions of certain time segments, not the glorious contents of one’s own past. In the interwar years, the left introduced a new organization of time. This paper views the evolution of the left-wing’s philosophy of history and gives a new definition of the relationship between past and present. It points out the defeated left's gnoseological advantage. Unlike the identity-based linear view of one's own glorious ethnic past, the framework of the left-wing's self-reflexive memory is temporal contingency. It contains the dialectical balance of the contradictions characteristic for the left-wing’s past.
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The short essay outlines some hypothesis in order to mark the shifts, but even more so the continuities in the Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav cultures of remembrance. In the first part, which focuses on the practices and cultures of war memory in socialist Yugoslavia, the main arguments of the authors’ monograph – published a decade ago – are summarized, including references to more recent research results. In the second part, which deals with the post-Yugoslav era, the contribution summarizes contemporary developments in the culture and politics of memory. The essay argues that the development of exclusive victim identities has prevented to this day a constructive understanding of the war’s legacies in this region in the 20th century.
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The article analyzes the features of the image of the leading TV-presenters of such channels as "1+1", "Inter", "STB" during 1991-2001. It describes Lyudmila Dobrovolska’s, Svetlana Leontieva’s and Irina Vannikova’s basic image characteristics.
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The article shows the growing interest of science fiction cinema in the human brain and related concepts, such as mind or consciousness. Nowadays, when distant space travel seems unreachable, artists find the exploration potential of the brain very promising. Thus, the main thesis of this analysis says that the brain has become for science fiction cinema the new universe. An excellent example of this paradigm shift is Inception (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2010). In the movie, the mind is depicted as a physical and accessible place, where we can find a lot of mysteries to solve. The characters travel to the deepest parts of subconsciousness because the processes inside the brain are the key to understanding and changing the real world. The article also shows how the director uses the achievements of science fiction cinema and, at the same time, that he postulates a new way of considering the issues relevant to modern neuroscience.
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For years, the birth rate in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been one of the lowest in the world. This fact suggests a need to approach the phenomenon analytically. The main goal of this paper is to present the changes in birth and fertility rates over the longer term in relation to the factors determining them. Two standard methods are normally used in analysing fertility rates, the transversal and the longditudinal. Applying them both, we have quantified the intergenerational differences in reproductive norms. The pattern of demographic transition seems to have been progressive in character, with the fall in fertility continuing past the point during the 1970s at which the threshold of simple population reproduction was reached (just more than two children per adult female). Entry into the late sub-phase of demographic transition was followed by a trend of more gradually declining natality. This lasted into the early 1990s. The 1992–1995 war saw the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina forcibly induced into a post-transitional stage of development, for which the social and economic preconditions were not yet in place. Entry into this phase of demographic development, whose major characteristics are denatality, an aging population, and a rising death rate, resulting in natural depopulation, has marked the onset of demographic winter.
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Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Moscow’s attention rapidly retreated from the Middle East, partly on account of a major drop in resources, and partly because of a devaluation of the region in political terms. Of the earlier client countries, Egypt had already distanced itself from the Soviet Union in the 1970s. As a consequence of Saddam Hussein’s confrontational politics Iraq, became such an uncomfortable partner that Gorbachev did not pose any obstacle at all to the forceful bridling of Iraq after it overran Kuwait in the summer of 1990. Thereon Syria remained – in addition to Iran – the only country in the region that continued to benefit from Moscow’s attention and support after the end of the Soviet Union. A number of circumstances contributed to this position: significant debts Damascus had stacked up towards Moscow; the use of Soviet arms across the Syrian army; the regional weight and importance of the country; as well as the fact that the only military base Russia finally kept outside of the CIS area was the Tartus naval base in Syria. After sketching an overview of the Soviet Union’s Middle East politics with special attention to its relations with Egypt, Iraq, and Syria, this study sets out to provide a detailed introduction to the role Putin’s Russia has assumed in the Syrian crisis since 2011.
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Imagining Bosnian Muslims in Central Europe, Representations, Transfers and Exchanges. Edited by František Šístek. New York–Oxford: Berghahn, 2021. 302 pp.
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The year 1993 in Lithuania began with the election triumphs of the post-communist leftist party. The emergence of a new system of political forces called into question the current direction of the country’s development. Contrary to some fears expressed both in the country and in the West, the new government did not aim at the recidivism of communism, nor did it want to force the country into the arms of Russia. From the beginning, the rulers focused mainly on improving the extremely difficult economic situation. On the other hand, the opposition was left with a great deal of activity in foreign policy. This situation was partly due to the lack of a clear strategy of the leftist party and the persistent use of political culture. Taking advantage of the situation, the centre-rightist parties for many months successfully influenced, in particular, the state of relations with Poland, and in the summer of 1993 also with Russia. However, the left-wing government also noted success in finalising the evacuation of Russian troops from the country and was able to take advantage of the Pope’s visit to Lithuania for propaganda purposes. In the fall of 1993, Lithuania found itself in a difficult position due to developments in Russia. In these circumstances, the Lithuanian elite decided, over political divisions, to take a pro-Western course in foreign policy. The intention was to rely on Poland to become a member of NATO and the European Union. For this reason, works on the treaty with Poland was unblocked.
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This article scrutinizes the plan for ending the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was in consideration from June to December of 1993. This peace plan was constructed by the United Nations and the European Union and its intermediaries, Thorvald Stoltenberg and David Owen. The search for a new peace plan came after the failure of the previous one (the so-called Vance–Owen plan), and the goal of the international community was to find a new solution that could end the war in Bosnia, which was becoming increasingly complicated due to the conflict between the Bosniaks and the Croats. The primary idea implied constructing three republics in Bosnia-Herzegovina, thus abandoning the multiethnic state concept. The emphasis was placed on analyzing the different points of view of the warring parties, including Serbia and Croatia, in order to examine if the plan had the capacity to stop the war and change the course of history of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The main problem was determining what part of the country each of the republics would occupy. The Serb Republic made the biggest compromise by agreeing to give up 20 percent of the area under its control. Parts of the plan were signed over the course of the negotiations from July to September of 1993. Although all three sides signed components of the agreements, the peace plan was rejected by the Bosnian Council in September of 1993. As negotiations continued, the European Union was directly involved through its foreign ministers, but the peace negotiations ended in failure on December 22, 1993.
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Slobodan Milošević, the former president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Serbia, was extradited to the representatives of the Hague Tribunal (ICTY) in Belgrade on 28 June 2001. He was transferred from the Serbian State Security headquarters in Belgrade to Tuzla air base in Bosnia-Herzegovina from where an RAF aircraft flew him to The Hague in the Netherlands. The article describes the activities of the Yugoslav Army, especially its Air Force and Air Defense, during the evening of that day. Some of those activities, especially raising the combat readiness of the missile and air surveillance units, had the intention of preventing Milošević’s extradition to the ICTY. On the other hand, the Serbian State Security took all the necessary precautions to carry out this important mission without being stopped by the Yugoslav Army. The article was written based on the still classified documents of the Air Force and Air Defense HQs and the published memoires of the participants in those events.
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With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the eastward enlargement of the European Union, Central and Eastern Europe has become a focus of social science interest. More recent publications go back to the myth of “Mitteleuropa”, which acquired a specific and provocative meaning in the discourse of prominent thinkers in the region in the 1980s. However, the analysis of recent publications also shows that the interpretation of contemporary processes in the region is based on social theoretical paradigms that are less able to take account of the region’s specific historical and cultural experiences. At the heart of these experiences is a woundedness, a traumatic memory. It is due to the collective tragedies of the 20th century and the geopolitical location of the region, its betweenness. Building on this fundamental regional marker, my study presents an interpretative framework of wounded collective identity and applies it to the analysis of the religious dimensions of the region.
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