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Around the Bloc-Tuesday, 15 September
Regional headlines: Russia stands by Belarus; wolfish corruption in Ukraine; David vs. Goliath in Tajikistan; prisons and COVID-19 in Kazakhstan.
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Regional headlines: Russia stands by Belarus; wolfish corruption in Ukraine; David vs. Goliath in Tajikistan; prisons and COVID-19 in Kazakhstan.
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This article investigates how some prominent and less known Albanian activists perceived their Southern Slav neighbors at the turn of the twentieth century. The research explores the way in which the spread of nationalism conditioned the positioning of Albanians and Slavs in the process of identity construction and how such identities mirrored their reciprocal political claims. Recent scholarship has often emphasized that the affirmation of national ideas led to the fragmentation of Balkan communities by turning Albanian-speaking populations and their Slavic-speaking neighbors into “others.” My analysis expands this assertion by elaborating a theoretical approach that allows us to explore the impact of nationalism on the post-1878 Balkan context from a more dynamic point of view. National discourses did not only lay the foundation for a differentiation between the Balkan communities, but were also tools for promoting joint political activism. National activists often felt it necessary to cooperate in order to deal with the challenges posed by the surrounding environment, which was common to both Albanians and Slavs. Various contingent circumstances led Albanian activists to project long-term forms of coexistence with their neighbors, and to imagine forms of political, cultural, and social synthesis with the Slavs.
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Partly as a result of compartmentalized academic specializations and history teaching, in accounts of the global upheavals of 1968, Native Americans are either not mentioned, or at best are tagged on as an afterthought. “Was there a Native American 1968?” is the central question this article aims to answer. Native American activism in the 1960s was no less flashy, dramatic or confrontational than the protests by the era’s other struggles—it is simply overshadowed by later actions of the movement. Using approaches from Transnational American Studies and the history of social movements, this article argues that American Indians had a “long 1968” that originated in Native America’s responses to the US government’s Termination policy in the 1950s, and stretched from their ‘training’ period in the 1960s, through their dramatic protests from the late 1960s through the 1970s, all the way to their participation at the United Nations from 1977 through the rest of the Cold War. While their radicalism and protest strategies made Native American activism a part of the US domestic social movements of the long 1960s, the nature of American Indian sovereignty rights and transnationalism place the Native American long 1968 on the rights spectrum further away from civil rights, and closer to a national liberation struggle—which links American Indian activism to the decolonization movements of the Cold War.
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The article presents the perceptions of global and internal developmental hierarchies in Romania. According to our empirical results, the Western-centred developmental paradigm has deeply penetrated the worldviews of ordinary people in Romania. As a consequence, national self-perceptions, respectively, constructions of internal regional and ethnic differences in Romania, are powerfully shaped by the idea of East–West developmental hierarchies. Melegh introduced the concept of an “East–West slope” to denote a discursive construction used since the eighteenth century. This construction suggests that there is a gradual decline of development (or “civilization”) as one moves from the West (North West) toward the East (South East). The author argues that this framework not only defines how Romanians position themselves in the global developmental hierarchy but also how they define their internal (regional and ethnic) hierarchies. The article also discusses Todorova’s concept of Balkanism. This interpretive framework not only defines the perceptions of external observers but (following a process of cultural penetration) may also shape the self-perceptions of those involved. This article argues that Romanians have succeeded in avoiding—at least partially—the most severe consequence of the “Balkanizing gaze,” which is a constant sense of inferiority. It is also important, however, that this Balkanizing gaze can be reproduced at a national/local level and (in interrelation with other types of developmental discourses) can organize internal hierarchies.
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During the Second World War, the village of Pawłokoma, nowadays located a dozen kilometres from the Polish–Ukrainian border, was an area of conflict between the two nations. It has been almost ten years since a ceremony was held commemorating the victims of the conflict. The ceremony was attended by the Polish and Ukrainian Presidents. Today, the village is a symbol of reconciliation between the two nations. This article analyzes the dynamics of local collective memory about the conflict, using the “working through” concept and works on social remembering as a theoretical framework. In my discussion of the causes and effects of the changes in dynamics, I use data from individual in-depth interviews with three categories of respondents: the inhabitants of Pawłokoma, local leaders, and experts. The aforementioned ceremony was an opportunity for working through the traumatic past in the local community of Pawłokoma. Although social consultations were held in Pawłokoma rather than a comprehensive working-through process, we should be talking about a symbolic substitute for this process. Despite the fact that material commemorations of the Polish and Ukrainian victims were erected, some factors essential to accomplishing the working-through process were missed, such as complex institutional support, the engagement of younger generations, and empathy towards the “Others” and their sufferings.
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Much of the political science literature suggests that a cohesive political community is advantageous—if not a precondition—for a stable democracy. Forging a cohesive community is obviously a more complex matter in a multi-ethnic setting. This article will consider the prospects of building political communities in the Baltic countries—three countries that, to various extents, struggle to balance ethnic pluralism, nation building, and democracy. The article examines the relationship between political community and democracy from a theoretical perspective, followed by an outline of the nation-building strategies taken by Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania after re-establishing independence in the early 1990s. Drawing on survey data, we use territorial attachment to tap the sense of political community in the three countries. Notably, our figures disclose that most of the Russian-speaking minorities in Estonia and Latvia identify themselves as “Russians,” and not at all with the country they reside in. This suggests that the contested issue of citizenship rights in the two countries has not been particularly conducive for creating cohesive political communities. We then move to the political regime and set out to examine the character of regime support in the three countries. Can we envisage solid support for democracy and its institutions in the absence of a cohesive political community? As it appears, regime support is not contingent on territorial identity. Our data disclose that many Baltic inhabitants draw a clear distinction between their own experiences with different political systems and what they perceive as relevant regime options today.
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This article discusses the problem of neighborly coexistence in religiously and ethnically diverse settings. It tackles some widespread assumptions regarding the importance of religious/ethnic factors in shaping neighborly relations as well as the question of broader sociopolitical contexts and their impact on neighborly coexistence. In so doing, it argues against those approaches that place “neighborhood” at the center of debates on the breakdown of societal coexistence and use it as a tool of explanation of interethnic and interreligious conflicts. More specifically, the article engages critically with the way the idea of “neighborhood” is used in debates on Polish history. It argues that the idea of past harmony and peaceful coexistence in “multicultural” settings reinforces the image of the Polish society as tolerant and diversity-friendly and stresses that the harmonious neighborly coexistence was brought to an end by “outsiders.” As a result, not only does it serve the dominant group rather than minorities, but it precludes the understanding of the dynamics of ethnic/religious pluralism. The article therefore suggests that the studies of diversity in Poland should pay closer attention to the context of the dominant—Polish and Catholic—culture in which the diversity has been accommodated. Striving to address this problem, it presents some findings from an ethnographic study of a multireligious and multiethnic neighborhood in rural Poland and provides some comparative insights.
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The Ohrid Framework Agreement (OFA) was supposed to herald a new era of multicultural coexistence in Macedonia following a short-lived civil war. However, antipathies between the Albanian minority and Macedonian majority run as deep as ever, frequently erupting into rioting which threatens the fragile peace on which coexistence is forged. This state of affairs appears to affirm at least one commonly voiced criticism against the OFA, namely, that the pluralisation of public life it set in place would further fragment, rather than unite, Macedonia’s diverse citizenry. This article sheds light on the persistence of volatile ethnic relations in Macedonia despite more than a decade of multiethnic democracy. It argues explanations blaming the OFA are misplaced, and that the source of Macedonia’s fraying ethnic relations lies with each community’s ongoing struggle for recognition. Under this account, conflicts are the outcome not simply of each community’s incompatible wants around access to sovereign power, prized employment, and other distributable resources but unredeemed idealisations of how they would like to be respected and esteemed by others. The article contends that such struggles for recognition are bringing Macedonians and Albanians to interact in a manner that stimulates a sense of profound wrong-doing at the hands of the other, which, in turn, serves to fuel interethnic antagonisms and widen the social distance between each group.
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To legitimize separation from Moldova, Transnistrian elites have been constructing a civic Transnistrian nation, subsuming local ethnic Russian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan identities. This article first identifies changes to the Transnistrian nation-building strategy: from an emphasis on Moldovan nationhood in the early 1990s to oppose “Romanianization” in Chisinau, to Transnistrian nationhood mainly after Moldovanism was adopted in Chisinau in 2001. It then shows how this multiethnic nation is being constructed, with a particular emphasis on the place of Transnistrian Moldovans. While the Moldovan identity category is being institutionalized as a part of the Transnistrian civic nation, its ecological niches are being emptied of Romanian/Bessarabian attributes and invested with Russianness. As a result, “Moldovan” now seems an empty identity category in Transnistria.
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The purpose of the study is to analyze the cultural heritage of the Druids and identify common features in the Celtic pagan culture and the culture of the ancient Slavs. The research methodology assumes the unity of such methodological approaches as a system-historical and comparative analysis method. The system-historical method allows revealing of the cultural traditions of the Celts of the pre-Christian period. The comparative method helped to identify similarities in the cultural systems of the Celts and Slavs. Scientific novelty lies in an attempt to comprehend the religious and spiritual life of the Druids as part of the Celtic culture, as well as in substantiating the influence of the culture of the Druids on the culture of other ethnic groups. Conclusions. The origins of Celtic civilization are rooted in Indo-European antiquity. Druids are a symbol of Britain. Ancient authors, in their few historical works, consider the spiritual life of Celtic Druid priests through the prism of their own views and judgments, which does not give a complete picture of Druidism, in general. The Christianization of Britain led to the persecution and physical extermination of the Druids and their spiritual heritage. Celtic traditions were dissolved in the Christian religion. It was revealed that the Celts and the ancient Slavs had a similar picture of the creation of the world, solar symbolism, ritualism and the sacrifice system, which suggests that the pagan traditions of the Celts penetrate deeper into the European continent.
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In Israeli director Yael Bartana’s 2007 film Mary Koszmary—meaning “Bad Dreams” or “Nightmares”—a young Polish politician delivers a resounding speech to an empty, crumbling, communist-era Stadion Dziesięciolecia in Warsaw. The speech, he says, is an appeal: “This is a call. . . . It is an appeal for life. We want three million Jews to return to Poland, to live with us again. We need you! Please come back!” This article considers the powerful and perhaps disturbing premise of these lines and explores their possible meanings in a contemporary Polish context. What can it mean for Poles and Polish culture to need Jews—and in particular, to need those Jews who can never return? The complex phenomenon of Jewish memory in Poland and Eastern Europe cannot be contained within specific, present-day borders—whether of geography or of academic discipline: similar dynamics to those Bartana has identified in Poland exist throughout the region. Thus, against the background of Bartana’s film, the article considers the growing phenomenon and importance of local Jewish festivals in Poland and present-day Ukraine, focusing in detail on two specific festivals: the annual festival “Encounters with Jewish Culture,” held in Chmielnik, Poland, and the biannual Bruno Schulz Festival in Drohobych, Ukraine. The analysis explores ways that the memory of Polish Jews—and more specifically the figure of the absent Polish Jew—can function as a central element in the construction of new, communal Polish and Ukrainian narratives since the fall of Communism.
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Since its democratic revolution was set in motion, Poland has enjoyed tremendous progress in its degree of democratic consolidation. For example, significant institutional changes have taken place in the status of Poland’s ethnic, national, and religious minorities. Yet, institutional protections alone do not fully capture the extent of openness to diversity. More comprehensive depictions of the quality of democracy need to encompass investigations of the democratic citizens’ “hearts and minds.” In this article, using data from a recent nationally representative survey, the author examines the extent and sources of Poles’ tolerance of ethnic and religious difference. She focuses on social tolerance of difference, using questions about acceptance of interethnic and interreligious marriage as the dependent variables. As part of the inquiry, the author compares and contrasts the levels and sources of tolerance of interreligious marriage over time and discusses the political implications of the findings and future research directions.
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This article argues that the inclusion of ethnic Hungarian parties within the Slovak and Romanian democratic oppositions during the early years of democratic transition was a critical element for the peaceful management of interethnic relations in these two multiethnic new democracies. Contrary to what the existing literature suggests, violent conflict was averted despite the absence of institutions specially designed to manage interethnic relations, the exclusion of ethnic minorities from government, and quasi-majoritarian political environments. In the two studied cases, interethnic opposition coalitions resulted from the adoption of basic democratic political institutions, which constrained actors across the ethnic divide to cooperate based on a minimal consensus agenda. More broadly, this article questions the claim that multiethnic countries are unlikely candidates for peaceful democratization, and suggests that as long as participation in democratic processes, either in government or in opposition, is possible for ethnic minorities, violent conflict can be averted.
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In this article the author elaborates the aspects of ethnic distance between various national communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina as result of the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina of 1992-1995. He also analyses the issue of the attitudes of national communities towards the state through a comparison of this attitude in countries of Western and Eastern Europe to that of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Multi-ethnic structure of Bosnia and Herzegovina does not allow for a legislative state order structured in accordance to religious or language principles. A combination of national and republican models of political union is more appropriate for Bosnia and Herzegovina. Some examples of multicultural and multinational states which have successfully developed a transnational identity are also elaborated here. Thus, the citizens of Switzerland declare themselves as Swiss regardless of their belonging to various different national communities and regardless of the different languages they speak. The solution to problems which are inserted into Bosnia and Herzegovina from neighbouring states will initiate processes that will result in creation of a native nation. The issue of demystification of national identities will be solved by implementation of UN charter of Human Rights and by Bosnia and Herzegovina’s joining Euro-Atlantic integration.
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Die Zahl der französischen Schriften über die beiden Donaufürstentümer sowie über Siebenbürgen war im 19. Jahrhundert enorm hoch. Ihre Art und Qualität waren vielfältig: von aufwendig recherchiert und wissenschaftlich hochwertig bis zum skurrilen Reisebericht. Manche kuriosen Details wie die Beschreibung der Kutschfahrten sind schlicht von verschiedenen Autoren immer wieder übernommen worden und lassen Zweifel aufkommen, ob diese die beschriebene Reise tatsächlich unternommen haben. Das Ganze ergibt ein buntes und in jeder Hinsicht hochinteressantes Bild der Region und seiner Bewohner. Die Tätigkeit der französischen Publizisten setzte etwa in der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts ein und wurde bis in die Zwischenkriegszeit fortgesetzt, wobei die Veröffentlichung politischer Pamphlete über die genannten Länder ab der Wende vom 18. zum 19. Jahrhundert bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg am intensivsten war.
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Over the past decade, minority policies and minority demands in Eastern Europe have too rarely been considered against the framework of liberal democratic theory and European norms. The combination of the high degree of ethnic mobilization at the moment of transition and the horrors of the wars in the former Yugoslavia raised fears of wide-scale ethnic violence. Many western governments, international institutions, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) therefore encouraged states in the region to adopt generous minority policies in the name of ethnic reconciliation. As a result, they often endorsed, or at least acquiesced in, policies that institutionalized national and ethnic identities in the state. These approaches also were justified by a wide range of academic writings on nationalism and ethnic conflict, consociationalism, communitarianism, and accommodating difference. [...]
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Present developments in postsocialist Europe have, in many contexts, been interpreted as a "return" to some previous stages of the history of these societies, both by politicians of these countries and by foreign analysts. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, postsocialist politicians have nourished a tendency to refer to an allegedly democratic experience of the years preceding the Second World War. In their rhetoric, the "return" carries mainly positive connotations. On the other hand, many foreign theoreticians and journalists have interpreted postsocialist ethnic conflict and extremist movements as expressions of centuries-old controversies, only temporarily suppressed by the authoritarian state. [...]
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This paper provides an overview of project proposals for the Hungarian Culture and Education from the Bethlen Gábor Fund in Hungary. The Fund aims to support cultural, educational, publishing and other activities of Hungarian organizations abroad. The analysis is based on the lists of project proposals published annually by the Fund, and provides an overview of the application requirements and the changes in the budget. It also reviews the organizations that applied for assistance in the years between 2012 and 2019, the nature of their project proposals and the funding priorities of the Fund. The distribution of applicants, project proposals and of the funding by country, project type and applicant type is presented. Finally the data are used to provide a profile of the composition and structure of ethnic Hungarian institutional systems in the countries from which applications were received.
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The aim of this study is to analyse the operational characteristics of Hungarian nongovernmental organizations in Slovakia. The first part of the study provides an overview of the domestic and international trends; it elaborates on the traits of organizational culture and the emergence of the not-for-profit sector and aid policy. The paper then describes the research objective of the study and the methodology and research methods used. The last, most extensive part is devoted to a detailed overview of the research results and summarized the research conclusions. On the one hand, the study found mostly minimal differences between the members of the NGOs by sex, education and age. On the other hand, for each category, significant differences were observed based on the time spent in the organization.
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Hungarian regime change in 1989, the number of Hungarians in contiguous territorial areas has decreased by nearly three hundred thousand. This outmigration is even the case for youth with strong national identities in Székelyand. The target countries were Hungary first and then Western European states. The process is fueled not only by the hope of a better life abroad, but also by the current national policy in Hungary. Due to the latter, the self-determination of Hungarians in Romania is increasingly towards an independent Székely national identity, differentiating them from both Romanian and Hungarian national identities. The research focused on the three important elements of the emerging Szekely identity: language, lifestyle, and homeland. The research sought to isolate the role of territorial identity towards Székelyland, as a source of strong national and ethnic identity among Székely youth (18–35 year olds). The research, based on a secondary analysis of previous large-scale representative youth surveys and a recent questionnaire survey, provided the basis for a series of focus group interviews. The analysis revealed a particular interpretation of the Székely identity, which makes it impossible to develop a universally applicable method to promote the return. However, the strengthening of economic, service and cultural aspects of territorial identity can offer hope for reducing outmigration and promoting the return to the native land.
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