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Transitions Online_Around the Bloc-Skopje, Sofia Sign Landmark Treaty
Long divided by divergent versions of history, the Balkan neighbors have now agreed to disagree while moving forward.
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Long divided by divergent versions of history, the Balkan neighbors have now agreed to disagree while moving forward.
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Review: János Tischler, I do szabli… Polska i Węgry. Punkty zwrotne w dziejach obu narodów w latach 1956 oraz 1980-1981, trans. Botond Héjj, Warszawa 2001.
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In 2012, as part of a team affiliated with the Institute for Folklore “Marko Cepenkov”, I conducted research in the Gora Region. We visited the following villages: Brod in Golo Brdo, Ljubovishte, Dolno Plachiste, Rechane, Jelovjane. In my exchange with the villagers, I researched their claim that their identity was linked to the identity of the Bogomils.
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The aim of the article is to analyze the national identity of the Polish politicians active in a self-governing Galicia who were supporters of the so-called Austro-Polish solution. This political idea was based on a plan to reconstruct Polish sovereignty in cooperation with the Habsburg monarchy. The majority of followers of the Austro-Polish solution were members of one political party: the Cracow conservatives. After the outbreak of World War I the idea was promoted by the Supreme National Committee, an organization that was created as a political and logistic background of the Polish Legions, the semi-independent Polish troops that fought as a part of the Austro-Hungarian military. The research is primarily focused on the question whether it is possible to describe the identity of these politicians as Polish or Austrian, or was it a kind of combination of the two? The paper analyzes the attitude of Władysław Leopold Jaworski, Leon Biliński and Michał Bobrzyński, three politicians who, between 1914 and 1918, played a crucial role in all attempts to realize and promote the Austro-Polish idea. Their dilemmas were precisely examined on the basis of memoires, spe¬eches and historical studies as well as the archives. The author claims that the attitude of the three politicians towards the Austro-Hungarian Empire undoubtedly contained an emotional component. It means that describing these politicians as Austro-Polish patriots seems to be absolutely justified.
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The article refers to the necessity of a scientific understanding of the concept of “political elites” in relation to the Ukrainian movement in Galicia in the 19th century. The author considers the concepts of identity which existed among the Ruthenian-Ukrainian elites in Austrian Galicia. These were: Austrophilism, Polonophilism, Russophilism and Ukrainophilism. The author argues that the only coherent criterion for determining the Galician-Ruthenian elites was the ability of certain groups and individuals to conceptualize the dimension of nationality, and also to deploy activities on behalf of the national community. The creation of the Galician-Ruthenian elites was a part of the wider modernization processes experienced by the Galician Ruthenians. These elites were forced to solve not only questions of national identity, but also ideological dilemmas that had arisen on the verge of tradition and innovation, conservatism and democracy. Therefore, the formation of Ruthenian political elites was related not only to the support of the existing environments’ influence on the government and society, but also to designing completely new units of public activity. The representatives of the new intelligentsia became the main figures in these cells, which consisted mainly of the clergy, peasants and unrich tradesmen.
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In this article, the author seeks to answer the question, since when the term gente Rutheni, natione Poloni was used in public space in Galicia. This is the starting point to search for the answer to the question of when the Ruthenians of Polish nationality in Galicia produced the idea defining their identity and worldview. The author tries to reveal when the Ruthenians of Polish nationality made an unsuccessful attempt to carry out their political demands, and how they were perceived in the Polish-Ruthenian society of Galicia. Eventually gente Rutheni, natione Poloni disappeared in the historical process because they had not created an explicit ideology and had not developed a compact elite representing the group of Ruthenians of Polish nationality in the public space. Outstanding individuals from this group functioned within Galician society, but they were more of a tool (the subject) of the Polish policy, rather than an entity.
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The article discusses the issue of peasants’ social and national awareness in Galicia in the first half of the 19th century. An important factor in peasants’ awareness was the feeling of loyalty towards the monarch and state duties. Peasants did not consider themselves a part of a larger community, either a state or national one. They were “imperials” or “locals.” “Imperiality” was expressed by loyalty towards the monarch and belief in his care and protection. “Locality” meant belonging to a local community – a family, a gathering, a parish, etc. Peasants were aware of the economic system they functioned in. They knew the regulations of inventories, the common law and new legal acts. They noticed the significance of a document, especially one that verified financial transactions.
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The essence of the article is the analysis and description of social problems accompanying the existence of the Turks and Poles on exile. There is shown a short history of mutual relations, the size of the Turkish population in Poland, their national identity and elements of cultural assimilation in the foreign environment related to their social and economic lives. Particular emphasis is put on presenting the Turks and Poles in a foreign cultural environment.
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The article discusses the reception of Tuwim’s manifesto in Israel, focusing in particular on the 1940s. The author analyses various critical reponses to the poem expressed by Jewish critics in Palestine. Tuwim’s reception in Israel is presented from a new perspective which has not been explore so far.
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african american political thinkers Frederick douglass and W.E.B. du Bois saw the United States of america and its mission and role in the world in almost diametrically opposite ways. For the former, the USa are—in a puritan national-messianic key—to become the beacon for all mankind, as a republic in which an individual, liberated from all chains, would have the opportunity to realise oneself according to personal abilities. Yet douglass did not remain on these positions without his doubts throughout his life. du Bois, however, saw the USa as a place of eternal struggle of african americans for their realisation and elevation of their unequal status; a struggle not only for their bare existence, but also for their identity, in a country which was made by and for the white founding fathers. He considered USa a place where the battle for emancipation would always be unequal and a country in which the status of african americans could gradually improve, but could never be fully and definitively improved. This paper is dealing with the essential search for identity of african americans in the USA, as well as with different approaches to and possible solutions for this problem.
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Should we read anything into the latest macho poses of the president?
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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, one of the most prominent and widely known authors of the 20th century, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and also significant political thinker, surely does not require an extensive introduction. For decades, his famous novels have enjoyed popularity among a massive base of readers. We know that Solzhenitsyn’s life journey ranged from a shift toward communism and involvement in operations during WWII to his experience in the gulag and his exile work, his departure to the West, and his return to Russia after the fall of the Soviet Empire, where he died in 2008. This paper does not focus on Solzhenitsyn’s work from a literary-science perspective; its aim is to characterize the most important elements of the author’s political thought, which is primarily present in a wide range of public political journalism articles. The first chapter of the paper focuses on Solzhenitsyn’s critique of the Soviet establishment, while the second explores the author’s attitude toward the West, liberalism, and democracy. In the last section of the paper, attention is given to the third important thematic field – Solzhenitsyn’s view of the relationship between Russia and post-Soviet states, evaluation of the legitimacy of their independence, and of Russian nationalism, which is unambiguously linked to this issue. As the author shows in this article, Solzhenitsyn’s political thought is nationalistic, conservative and related to Orthodox Christianity and idea of „Holy Rus“ and legacy of Kievan Rus. In his view here is no place for independent Ukraine and Belorussia. This idea is shared by number of Russian politicians. Knowledge of his political thought thus contributes to understanding the wider context of East European politics.
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Recent advances and innovations in media and information and communication technologies have raised extremely important issue of the necessity of rethinking what we study and how do research on political communication in the context of new media landscape. Thus, the challenge for the paper was to explore the research methods of the manufold studies on political communication in the new media environment and to systematize the results into a comprehensive methodological “state-of-the art” report. The theoretical-methodological study strives to comprehensively outline the utmost important methodological aspects of the research of a new, yet crucial facet of political communication – one that takes place online, through the new media, as communicating politics online has become an essential part of modern political campaigning and of the everyday lives of both politicians and citizens. The aim of the study is to delineate the methods and techniques of data collection and analysis used in this line of research and to point out and discuss new trends and tools equipped by political scientists. To that end, the study examines 180 articles published in nine selected scientific journals over an 8-year period stretching from the beginning of 2009 to March 2017. Moreover, examined is the application of these methods in relation to specific topics and research designs, and the limitations of such research of the new media are scrutinized as well.
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The identity strategies of the Jews, the non-Muslim minority perceived as the most stable group for integration into national identity during the Republican history, developed to integrate into the society and preserve their community identity at the same time have characteristics both similar to and different from those of the other minority groups. In this study, these strategies forming three different phases for the development of identity during three different periods will be discussed. Firstly, the Turkization effort that the Jews invested in order to be admitted as equal Turkish nationals during the single-party period, from the establishment of the Republic to 1942 when the Wealth Tax was enacted will be mentioned. As it is known, during the foundation period of the Republic, being a Turkish national was equated with being Turkish and/or Muslim; non-Muslims were not conceived as a part of the national identity. In this period where a series of anti-minority practices took place; the Jewish people, who had been banished from their homeland due to the Thrace pogroms of 1934, were deeply disappointed, in particular,at the Wealth Tax of 1942 based on ethnic discrimination. Believing that their Turkization efforts could in no way enable them to be “Turkish”, they entered into a long period of introversion instead of melting in Turkism. This long period, in which it was understood that introversion was unable to resolve problems, ended by the public gain of visibility for Jewish identity with lobbying activities that the Quincentennial Foundation conducted in favor of Turkey in 1989. Thus, a third phase which still continues has started. With this third phase started in 1990s where cultural identity movements developed and identity problems were publicly discussed; the Jewish community aims to integrate into society and avoid the symbolic violence towards them which is concretized as anti-semitism by following an extroversion strategy and by maintaining the Jewish identity. In other words, the community aims for integration by acquiring identity. The current study seeks to discuss each of the three strategies, with a special focus on the extroversion strategy, by explaining their social-political contexts, instruments, rhetorics and actors.
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We are in the 50th anniversary of the deportation of 1964 when Rum of Greek descent were deported from Turkey. The year of 1964 is the most important date accelerating the extinction of Rum minority in Turkey. In 1964, 12000 Rum nationals of Greek descent were deported and 30000 Rum of Turkish descent were obliged to migrate on account of family ties; but migration did not stop after that date. Because of the fact that living in Turkey has become more difficult for Rums and that the Rum community has been desolated, thousands of Rums remaining also migrated in the following years. In this way, the ancient Rum identity in Istanbul and in Imbros (Gökçeada) has henceforth kept alive in an entirely different place, especially in certain neighborhoods of Athens by first-generation Rum immigrants. This text, which is based on a field study1 realized in December 2013 in Athens by the method of observation and semi-structured interviews and on a literature review about the subject; is the product of an effort to understand how Rum nationals -forced to migrate in Greece- lived their identity in Turkey and also preserved it in Greece before, after and in 1964. In different words, this texts aims to transpose the efforts of Greek nationals for “being Rum” in Istanbul and in Imbros and for “tarrying Rum” in Athens by focusing on their daily lives and their experiences.
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Paul Bowles’ prodigious novel, The Sheltering Sky, is an epitome of a narrative about the Modern Man and his existentialistic dilemmas. After six decades from its initial publication, The Sheltering Sky, still, attracts multitudinous attention for its esoteric and abstruse nature of the occurrences. In regard to nomadic-diasporic lifestyle of the author, and his protagonists, normally, many critical approaches to the text have shifted toward hyper-textual perusals. By mentioning the noteworthy scholarly works which have been done hitherto, this article tries to be faithful to the text as much as possible, and elucidates the myth that, what has really happened in the Sahara which coerced the protagonists to forget their identities to this great extent; thus, hectic and deranged, divagating in the desert, inclining toward the destruction of their identities. In this article, in regard to textual substantiations, ‘Sand’ and ‘Time’ are adduced as the two crucial elements which balance two main protagonists’ state of semiconsciousness, in the inside journey of self. Also, the concept of ‘humanistic identity,’ from Bowles’ viewpoint, in connection to the setting of the novel, will be discussed.
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Identity is a complex phenomenon and so is conflict. When examining the two together we can understand why some of the world’s most difficult ethnic conflicts are long term and protracted. This paper aims to analyze how identity and conflict could prevent and manage conflicts, caused by different perceptions of the identity. After all, identity can be used to escalate conflicts and connected with power and resources, identity can also be used to de-escalate conflicts as well. The purpose of this paper is to make a comparative study of the relationship between identity and conflict.
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Abstract The main aim of this article is to research the role of Tsar Russia in spreading Armenian question which being artificial policy. It is noted that Tsar Russia had played important role political revive in the community of Armenian living in the Ottoman Empire. Additionally, it is studied Great Power’s economic and political policy in the Armenian question.
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Over the past ten year the academic researches and publications pertaining to the AKP (Justice and Development Party) power in Turkey has culminated into an immensely rich literature, but the main tenets of the nationalist character of this party have not drawn an adequate academic and intellectual attention for various reasons. In an attempt to contribute to this relatively unexhausted discussion, this article will seek to unravel and evaluate the ideational foundations and symbolic components of the AKP’s nationalist position through a close analysis of Stratejik Derinlik (Strategic Depth), a supposedly theory-oriented book written in 2001 by the current Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoğlu. This article argues that at the very crux of the foreign policy outlook sketched out in Stratejik Derinlik is a systematic nationalist doctrine that has been rather haphazardly represented and propagated by the AKP officials. In this respect, Stratejik Derinlik can be treated as a fertile point of departure for investigating the ideological roots of AKP’s nationalism and the role this nationalism plays in the ongoing struggles for political hegemony in Turkey. The fact that the thesis and discourses deployed in the Stratejik Derinlik have functioned in the last ten years as a prominent point of reference for the official foreign policy approach in Turkey also testifies to a dramatic transformation of the Turkish state’s official ideology along the lines of the AKP’s Islamic conservative nationalism.
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This paper analyses how Kurdish ethno-nationalism and nationalist identity have been predominantly promoted through the lyrics of popular Kurdish music, with performance, sounds and rhythms as strong support for lyrical narratives depicting Kurdish nationalism. The analysis of the lyrics is to evaluate the subject from a political science perspective, which limited the author’s methodological analysis of sounds, rhythms and performances which music anthropologists or cultural studies students often utilize. In this study, the author argues that Kurdish popular music is both constitutive and represents social positioning, in the form of Kurdish nationalism. Music is thus perceived as a means and a representation of the imaginary Kurdish nation and Kurdish popular music is a form of cultural resistance for Kurds, against Turkish state policies. This investigation firstly examines traditional and popular Kurdish music, evaluates such music in Turkey and the relationship between Kurds and the Turkish state. Secondly, musical structure in general and particularly lyrics of popular Kurdish songs, are analysed, to determine the boundaries of the Kurdish nationalist identity.
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