RUSSIA – NATO HYBRID CLASH: HISTORY AND LEGACIES

Author(s): Iulia Anghel / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

The break out of the Ukrainian crisis in 2014 acted as trigger for a major paradigm shift in an ostensibly pacified East European security architecture. Previous signals following a long-term reconciliation of security objectives of the two key regional actors,NATO and Russia, were soon forgotten, East European flank being trapped under siege of new hybrid warfare. Transformed into the key word of new geopolitical and security challenges, hybrid war made the subject of prolific inquiries, mostly highlighting themes as grey propaganda, subversive electoral interventions, cyber terrorism and, last but not least,the weaponization of culture, identities and discourses. Despite the tendency to associate the hybrid mutation to a reinterpretation of Russia’s Cold War security dogma, present ascent of ambiguous and non-linear conflicts could engage a more complex filiation. In this context, the article aims to briefly discuss the implication of Russia vs. NATO long-term hybrid clash,exploring topics as sources of Russian hybrid strategy and consequences generate dicreasing tendency towards weaponization of globalization.Keywords:

THE PRACTICAL REALITY OF CYBERWAR

Author(s): Sorina Ana Manea,Gelu Alexandrescu / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Do we really fight a cyber war? To see if that is as a reality we took another type of actions that was considered to be war some thirty years back, namely propaganda and subversion, and compared them to cyber war and, to gain more insight, we compared all of them to the concept of war. The insight offered by this approach shows that even though we live in a rapidly changing society, this change is often superficial and, as in other branches, the security environment tends to recycle a good idea. Many times we hear that cyber war affects our life by disrupting the normal flow of it. But is really a war what is causing this effect or the political rhetoric is using this stance to draw an alarm signal to the potential disastrous consequence of an attack carried out against the cyber infrastructure of a nation.

Dwa portrety: tanzańska magia lecznicza na wsi i w mieście. Obserwacje z terenu

Author(s): Olga Pawlik / Language(s): Polish Publication Year: 0

The article presents portraits of two Tanzanian witch doctors (healers, practitioners of healing magic), who practise respectively in the village Ngapa (Ruvuma region) and in Dar es Salaam, the biggest city of Tanzania. Using these two examples, the author analyses differences between the practice of healing magic in urban and rural areas of Tanzania, suggesting that the city enables witch doctors to shed some of the social roles expected of them in the country and prompts healers to adopt a business-like approach to their practice.

Reflectarea operei lui Clausewitz in Gândirea militară românească

Author(s): Adrian Lesenciuc / Language(s): Romanian Publication Year: 0

Bibliografie

Author(s): Adrian Lesenciuc / Language(s): Romanian Publication Year: 0

Case Study: Finland. Competing Narratives of War

Author(s): Kati Mari Johanna Parppei / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Compared to many other East European countries, the issue of history – or the history politics – in relation to Russia has never been such a central or openly disputed one in Finland. This is the case for obvious historical reasons. Russians have not openly accused Finnish historians for falsifying history, either; however, this does not mean that Russian attempts to control or use the past have not been a concern in Finland. Rather, such attempts have been quite subtle, playing with strong mental images favourable to Russia and offering competing narratives, or ‘alternative truths’, to the Russian audience, which has been their main target (presumably including the Russian minority in Finland). In this article, two recent or on-going cases of such falsifications of history, having taking place between 2016 and 2019, are briefly examined and contextualised. Both are connected to the Second World War and the hostilities between Russia and Finland. The first is the case of the shelling of Mainila. In this context, we are referring to the Russian attempts to challenge the established view of the Soviet Union having started the war against Finland on 30 November 1939, and arguing that, instead, it was a Finnish provocation, influenced and encouraged by Germany.

Case Study: Latvia. (Ab)use of History as a Russian Tool of Foreign Influence

Author(s): Edgars Engīzers / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

Varying, controversial and incompatible narratives on Latvian history have developed in Latvia and in Russia for several decades. On an academic level, they always have been analysed as part of a historiographical analysis. Usually, this has been done from a historiographical perspective, without going beyond it – into political constructions or aims set for the creation of such a narrative. Simultaneously, accusations in the falsification of history have mostly been perceived as simply a form of political expression by the Russian authorities, while wider analysis of usage and abuse of history for political aims is quite new. The aim of this paper is to show how Russian state policy abuses history to intervene in processes in Latvia by making accusations of the falsification of history. That will be done without going deeply into the research, either of the abuse of history by Russia to reach its foreign and domestic political goals in the broader sense, nor for domestic purposes, as in many cases, these are two outcomes that are both the aim of such abuse of history.

Case Study: Poland. Soviet Invasion of Poland on 17 September 1939

Author(s): Ieva Pałasz,Małgorzata Zawadzka / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

For the Russian Federation, the most important current issue in the scope of history is the strengthening of belief in the great victory of the USSR over Nazism and, as Jolanta Darczewska writes, a rehabilitation of the special services, as well as a change in the assessment of the deeds of Stalin. The issue of cooperation between the USSR and Hitler before 1941, which, in Russian historiography, is the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, has become quite a problematic question in this context. In this regard, we can observe a number of activities in Russia, the purpose of which is to relativise such events as the secret protocols to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact or the Katyń Massacre (the murder of Polish officers, non-commissioned officers and other individuals in 1940); ethnic genocide as a part of the ‘Polish Operation of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs’, i.e. NKVD (1937-38); the joint Soviet-German parade in Brest; and the NKVD–Gestapo methodological conferences (1939-1940). The same applies to 17 September 1939 – i.e. the aggression of the USSR against Poland. This text will be devoted to the methods of falsifying this event by the Russian Federation.

Conclusions and Recommendations

Author(s): Ivo Juurvee / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

As the previous chapters showed, Russia’s abuse of history to back its current policies is not something present in only one country, but is taking place in numerous countries in Central and Eastern Europe and beyond. This is not a new phenomenon, although lately, there has been more emphasis put on its research. Since changing public perceptions takes time, we may not notice dangerous trends until they have already taken hold, thereby delaying the start of possible countermeasures. The authors have each made recommendations at the end of their respective chapters and these are summarised here.

The Forgotten Thousands: The Historiography of World War II Rescues of Allied Airmen in Yugoslavia

Author(s): Robert J. Donia / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

During World War II, Allied bombing of German-controlled petroleum refineries in Ploesti, Romania, diminished Axis fuel production but cost the Allies hundreds of planes and thousands of lives. Crews of many damaged planes flew partway back to Italy but were forced to crash-land their craft or bail out over Yugoslavia, where many landed on territory controlled by Partisans or Chetniks. Local Yugoslavs (mainly peasants), as well as both Chetniks and Partisans, welcomed them and gave them shelter. They were then evacuated by Allied transport aircraft (principally C-47s) that landed on makeshift airstrips maintained by Partisans or Chetniks. The historiography of these rescues may be divided into document-based studies, prepared principally by US military personnel based on official records; and memory-based studies by pro-Mihailović authors based principally on participant memoirs. Whereas memory-based studies uniformly adopted a Serb nationalist viewpoint, document-based studies showed no favoritism and portrayed various factions working in parallel to rescue Allied airmen. After Milošević fell in 2000, the Foreign Minister of Serbia and Montenegro, Vuk Drašković, in cooperation with the US Embassy, united the movement to valorize downed airmen and local efforts to rehabilitate Mihailović. Whether deliberately or not, US officials thereby undercut human rights activists in Serbia, and non-Serbs throughout the former Yugoslavia, who saw Mihailović as a war criminal, collaborator, and inspiration for war crimes and genocide in the wars of the 1990s.

Zagreb u ratu, otporu, stvaralaštvu i pamćenju. Vodič po Zagrebu u Drugom svjetskom ratu

Author(s): Tena Banjeglav,Kristina Dilica,Alice Straniero / Language(s): Croatian

Pred vama je vodič po Zagrebu kojim želimo olakšati upoznavanje nekih ključnih mjesta stradanja i otpora u Drugom svjetskom ratu. Sažeti opisi povezuju povijesna istraživanja, odabrane ulomke iz književnih djela, dnevnika i osobnih sjećanja. U trenutku kad polako odlazi generacija koja je preživjela vrijeme najgoreg terora u povijesti grada nastojali smo stvoriti što više prostora za riječi i zapise svjedoka vremena i protagoniste povijesnih događanja. Razvoj ove publikacije podržalo je Veleposlanstvo Sjedinjenih Američkih Država u Republici Hrvatskoj, u sklopu programa "Osporavana povijest: novi pristupi obrazovanju o holokaustu". Documenta se pitanjem prezentacije ključnih događaja 20. Stoljeća bavi od svog osnivanja, tražeći najbolje načine približavanja prošlosti novim generacijama. Neki dosadašnji poduhvati uključuju obilazak mjesta sjećanja, počevši od 2010. i dokumentarnog filma Documenta Memoriae – Zagreb, redateljice Dijane Mlađenović dostupnog online na ovoj poveznici. U sagledavanju mjesta sjećanja i otkrivanju novih mogućnosti komemoriranja žrtava, posebno nas je poticao Saša Šimpraga, autor koncepta Virtualnog muzeja Dotrščina, s kojim od 2012. Sudjelujemo u organiziranju godišnjih memorijalnih intervencija dostupnim na poveznici www.dotrscina.hr. Paralelno s događanjima u prostoru parka, u javnom prostoru Trga bana Jelačića u rujnu 2012. mogao se razgledati prvi postav Virtualnog muzeja Dotrščina na temu Pisci I publicisti ubijeni na Dotrščini čija je autorica bila Nataša Mataušić, muzejska savjetnica Hrvatskog povijesnog muzeja.

Građanska čitanka

Author(s): Aleksandar Saša Zeković,Nikola Đurašković / Language(s): Montenegrine

Autori su u knjizi obuhvatili sve bitne i značajne pojmove, kategorije i institucije građanskog društva. U prvi deo knjige, u obliku eseja, uvrstili su pojmove, kategorije i institucije koje predstavljaju preduslove, uslove i principe dobro uređenog i razvijenog građanskog društva. Obrađena je demokratija kao vladavina koja odgovara i omogućava građansko društvo, lokalna samouprava na kojoj se temelje savremene demokratije i koja je od svih vlasti najbliža građanima i policija kao značajan i osetljiv organ bezbednosti zadužen za održavanje i garantovanje javnog reda i mira. Od uslova za utemeljenje građanskog društva autori su obradili ljudska prava na kojima se temelji građansko društvo i koja su smisao građanskog života, tržišnu privredu koja omogućava zdravu i ravnopravnu utakmicu u ekonomskom životu i nevladine organizacije kao udruženja koja neposredno artikulišu različite potrebe i interese pojedinaca i posebnih društvenih grupa. Takođe su obrađeni principi na kojima se zasniva građansko društvo - antimilitarizam, ravnopravnost polova, otklanjanje barijera za sve koji su u bilo kojem nepovoljnom položaju i suočavanje s prošlošću kao mogućem izboru nesporazuma u sadašnjosti i budućnosti.

Antiratni pokret u Bosni i Hercegovini devedesetih godina 20. stoljeća

Author(s): Edin Omerčić / Language(s): Bosnian

U tekstu će biti riječi o postojanju širokog kruga političke, intlektualne i kulturno-umjetničke opozicije koja je od kraja osamdesetih godina radila prije svega na iznalaženju rješenja izlaska iz jugoslovenske krize, potom na spriječavanju izbijanja ratnih sukoba, te na okončanju istih, odnosno kroz kulturno-umjetnički angažman tokom rata nastojala ukazati na stradanja civilnog stanovništva. Građom i izvorima koji se iznose i koriste u tekstu pokušava se tema osvijetliti iz više različitih perspektiva. U prvom dijelu teksta ukratko se izlaže kontekst u kojem su djelovale nenacionalističke organizacije i političke stranke, antiratna i građanska udruženja. Zatim će se ukazati na masovne antiratne proteste i na pojedinačne individualane pokušaje adaptacije stanovništva na novonastale ratne okolnosti.

Dosar Konrâd György - Viitorul are nevoie de aducere-aminte

Author(s): György Konrád / Language(s): Romanian Publication Year: 0

Casa, orașul, țara sunt bogate datorită istoriei care le încarcă. Aici sunt toți cei care au trăit înaintea noastră : cu noi, în noi, în jurul nostru. Nu ne putem șterge din minte imaginile întemeietorilor, ale constructorilor, ale proprietarilor de odinioară, ale celor care au locuit în aceste case. Călătorind în trecut, am dori să ascundem păcatul și penitența, și din cauza asta suntem tentați să reîngropăm mereu și mereu imaginile apăsătoare. în schimb, crimele trecutului revin la suprafață. Caietul scos dintre tăciuni începe să vorbească.

Protiv upravljanja traumom kroz politiku terora: ka emancipativnim intervencijama u kulturnoj produkciji i proizvodnji znanja

Author(s): Jasmina Husanović / Language(s): Bosnian Publication Year: 0

After the initial reflection on the governance of trauma and the politics of terror, as well as their culturalization in the everyday life in Bosnia and Herzegovina, this article aims to identify the following problems and questions concerning the politics witnessing to trauma: a) existing deadlocks in the institutional academic space caught in ethnonational and neoliberal matrix; b) possibilities for emancipatory practices in knowledge production and cultural production which resist the dominant political, as well as culturalised matrices of governing life, and which create new politics of hope and horizons of social change. The aim is to open up the space for different critical examination of key questions concerning past, present and future in BiH and its surroundings, through the nexus of art, politics and everydaylife.

Selbstreinigung durch Wahrheit / Самоочищение Правдой

Author(s): Leonid Jekel / Language(s): German,Belarusian Publication Year: 0

Gebrochene Geschichte — Der Streit um die Erinnerung / Порушенная История — Спор о Памяти

Author(s): Cordelia Kopsch / Language(s): German,Belarusian Publication Year: 0

Bekenntnis des Ostarbeiters Nr. 997 / Исповедь Остарбайтера N 997

Author(s): Leonid Jekel / Language(s): German,Belarusian Publication Year: 0

For half a century already, Vasily Semyonovich Boykachev is carrying pain in his heart like a splinter in his body. As a fifteen-year-old boy, he was deported to Germany for forced labor. He worked in a war factory where bullets were manufactured. He never told anything about it, not even to the wife and son who are closest to him. A strong feeling of guilt towards his wife, who was a front-line doctor, towards relatives, fellow villagers and simply unknown people because of his forced participation in the human-killing work always tormented him like a terrible nightmare. He thought with a pounding heart that the deadly bullets, which his child labor had also been involved in making, could have injured or killed his future bride, or killed or maimed his compatriots who were fighting for their homeland. For half a century he asks the Lord God to forgive him and take away this sin from him...

Und der Dritte Weltkrieg heisst Tschernobyl... / А Третья Мировая Война — Чернобыль...

Author(s): Astrid Sahm / Language(s): German,Belarusian Publication Year: 0

on the connection between war memory and disaster processing in Belarus and Germany

Stereotyping Estonian Pagans: Right-Wing Extremists or Tree Huggers from the Forest?

Author(s): Ringo Ringvee / Language(s): English Publication Year: 0

One of the stereotypes regarding contemporary pagans in Europe, especially in Eastern Europe, is that they adhere to right-wing extremist political views and are inherently racist. There is also the opposite stereotype of a hippie-style pagan who is profoundly spiritual and hugs trees to exchange power with Mother Earth. In the following, I will explore the ideological position of two pagan movements that emerged in Estonia during the 20th century. The main question is where do the native Estonian Taarausk and Maausk movements, stand on the ideological map, if they stand at all? Both ethnic religions emerged during the twentieth century when Estonians were establishing or reestablishing independent statehood, and both have had their roots in a broader intellectual and political movements. Both Taarausk and Maausk stressed the importance of Estonianness, resistance to cosmopolitanism and globalization, and finding the religious or spiritual dimension from the pre-Christian ‘golden age’ or from lived traditions of ancestors. Cosmopolitanism and globalization are seen as represented by the Christian Church and Christianity that was imposed on Estonians by Crusaders.