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Before the Second World War, the measures taken against revisionist states in the Balkans were insufficient. Greece and Turkey who wanted to address this issue, signed a new treaty in 1938, in addition to cooperation arising from the expansion of the Pact in the 1930 Treaty of Friendship and the 1933 Sincere Agreement. As a security system with political and military dimensions, the treaty was the culmination of Turkish-Greek relations in the Ataturk period. According to the provisions added to the existing regulations, the soldiers of the state attacking the other state under the conditions would not pass through the other state’s territory. If necessary, it would be countered with a gun and remain neutral. Thus, the two states strengthened the security of their lands against an attack from the middle of the Balkans. They would also prevent attempts to disturb each other’s security or change their government on their land. The alliance regime that was established aimed not only to be suitable for the spirit of the Balkan Pact but also to develop this spirit. Sincere Agreement Pact and Balkan Pact were the results of Turkey’s pacifism and Ataturk’s far-sighted policy. The 1938 Additional Treaty, has been an extension and also the furthest point of his policy.
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Economic diplomacy most often involves complex interactions between different levels of negotiation. When dealing with market globalization or environmental threats, negotiators operate at several levels, from bilateral and regional to international. In this process, the EU plays an important role both by shaping broader international norms through cooperation at the EU level and by adopting and implementing norms and standards developed in other forums or at other levels of negotiations.
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80 years after the German invasion of Greece, war and occupation are still an important topic for the German-Greek bilateral relations. Especially the question of war reparations is broadly debated and discussed among and between the societies. Especially after the German-Greek clashes over the right politics regarding the so-called Euro-crisis after the 2009 Greek bailout, the topic became relevant for headlines in both countries again. While German governments for decades were only roughly neglecting the Greek claims for a financial compensation of the state, now it is time to rethink this approach and to find anew way for a German-Greek rapprochement in history politics and to solve the historical and morale duties of Germany in a better, but realistic way.
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In the article, Michał Jerzy Zacharias presents the evolution of the political stance, especially the political thought of Milovan Đilas on the so-called ‘new class’ and the communist system: its origins, character, and inevitable collapse. This evolution concerns the formation, nature, transformations, and unavoidable – in the opinion of the Yugoslav analyst – collapse of this system. The author draws attention to the views and concepts of the ‘new class’ as depicted by his predecessors, starting with Nikolai Bakunin. He makes the readers aware of the fact that The New Class’ author was neither the first nor the only thinker to emphasise the negative role of the new ruling strata that emerged after the revolution and subjugated the whole society. Zacharias also provides facts proving that, according to Đilas, the ‘new class’, i.e. the party (communist) political bureaucracy, was a completely different phenomenon from the classes of the capitalist system. First of all, due to the power monopoly in every field: political, economic, and ideological. Đilas stresses that in bourgeois societies, individual classes and their emanations, political parties, always had to be content with only a partial share in power and only political. This monopolisation of power in all possible areas by the ‘new class’ leads Đilas to conclude that the communist system is truly “a power that has become an end in itself ”. Such an approach is entirely at variance with the theories of Karl Marx, and also others, in practice, all Marxist theoreticians contemporary with the Das Kapital’s author. All this, even though Đilas uses Marxist concepts, theoretical categories and Marxist, class-based analysis of economic, social, and political processes. Noteworthy is also his insightful analysis of the collapse of the communist system. Both in his The New Class and later works, he would write that it was the internal contradictions, the existence and operations of the ‘new class’ that became the fundamental reasons for the collapse of communism – its decay and self-destruction.
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Based on German archival materials, above all from the Political Archive of the Federal Foreign Office in Bonn and declassified materials of the Federal Intelligence Service, an attempt was made to answer three fundamental questions: Did the German government reckon with the USSR’s intervention in Poland? What conditions had to be met for the USSR to decide on armed intervention in Poland? Did the situation in Poland show similarities to the situation in Czechoslovakia in 1968? The analysis showed that from the first days of the unrest in Poland, Western countries considered the possibility of disciplining the Polish nation by force, according to the previous Soviet practice of pacifying rebellious people (Berlin 1953, Budapest 1956, or Prague 1968). The situation was assessed as very dynamic and encouraging to take decisive actions. The Polish reality showed certain similarities to the situation in Prague in the period preceding the Warsaw Pact interventions. In Germany, it was expected that both Soviet, East German, and Czechoslovakian troops might be involved in the intervention in Poland. A potential impulse triggering military action by Moscow could have been the threat of giving up the monopoly of power by the Polish United Workers’ Party or a decision on a genuine political pluralism in the Polish People’s Republic. After December 1980, top-secret work began in the so-called small NATO group on a scenario for the North American Pact’s reaction to a Soviet intervention or other war events in Poland (Eventualfallplan). These plans were primarily applied after the introduction of martial law in Poland on 13 December 1981.
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As early as in 1832, dedicated facilities for the exchange of fugitives (which had not been in operation during the Polish-Russian War of 1831) were re-established in the Kingdom of Poland, including, of course, on the Prussian border. In the spring of 1832, Field Marshal Paskevich ordered that a special “instruction for officers charged with the exchange of fugitives at border post stations” be drawn up and implemented. After the termination of the Russian-Prussian cartel convention of 17/29 March 1830, a new extradition treaty was concluded between the two countries on 8/20 May 1844. Later still, another Russian-Prussian cartel agreement was signed on 27 July / 8 August 1857. Both treaties strongly emphasise such issues as the limitations for prosecuting desertion or escape, the procedures for having deserters transported to a third country and, finally, the establishment of standing commissioners whose task was to resolve contentious issues and maintain “good neighbourly relations”. It appears that the Russian-Prussian extradition treaties of the 1840s and 1850s - despite the provisions concerning expulsion of “undesirable” persons - were free from overt political references.
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From 21 February to 21 March, Warsaw hosted the Fifth International Chopin Competition. A guest of honour was Elisabeth Queen of the Belgians, who spent almost two weeks (from 12 to 23 March) in Poland, listening to artists who were taking part in the third stage of the competition. For the Warsaw authorities, the presence of Elisabeth was meant not only to ensure “exceptional publicity” to the Chopin Competition, but also help improve the image of the Polish People’s Republic abroad. A surprise for the Polish hosts, and also the most “resounding political effect of the visit,” was the queen’s handing in of an aide mémoire addressed to the Polish government to Chairman of the State Council Aleksander Zawadzki, a move previously insisted on by Brussels. The document, handed in on the final day of the visit, contained a plea to allow Belgian wives of Poles, twelve in number, to visit their families in Belgium, to pardon Albert Snauwaert, who had been serving his conviction in the Rawicz prison for six years, and to give consent to members of Polish-Belgian families to leave Poland and reunite in Belgium. Ultimately, although the visit did not bring any tangible political results, the stay of the queen was expected to improve the atmosphere in political relations between Poland and Belgium in the longer term.
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István Bocskai (1557–1606) was an outstanding person of the Hungarian history at the turn of the 16th and 17th century, who is one of the greatest letter-writer in the early modern age. The total exchange of letters (about 500 pieces) has been scattered over 30 various source-publications and source-books, while the unpublished letters can be found in different Hungarian and foreign archives. In my paper I focus on the social network of István Bocskai in two less-known periods, using a special approach (ego-network). My research is based on the correspondence of István Bocskai, that is one group of ego documents. My aim is to present, by 134 records (letters and testimonies) clean-cut, main tendencies.
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The article focuses on the examination of three emissary diaries related to the Peace Treaty of Szőny (1627). These sources differ considerably from the most widespread sources used in the diplomatic history. The diaries were published earlier but have not been systematically compared yet. These diaries approach the treaty from different perspectives even though they touch upon the same affair. The emissaries arrived to the peace talks with various mandates, resided in different places, and exchanged their correspondence with different persons, thus gaining access to the same pieces of information at different times and/or in different places. Therefore, it is reasonable to pose the following questions: what kind of information was known by whom in a given moment; which specific aspect of the peace talks was concerned; who could exert an influence on the process; and, respectively, how and for what purpose the pieces of information were retrieved from a participant; or how these pieces of information were used by those who belonged to the participant’s network of relations.
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The article focuses on the career and activities of Johann Adam Lachowitz. In December 1707, the Commander of Pétervárad (present day Петроварадин (Petrovaradin) in Serbia) nominated him as the head of a committee which met with the Ottoman commissaries on the border between the Habsburg and the Ottoman Empire. The committee was created to negotiate in the case of 55 Muslim and Greek merchants who were murdered in Kecskemét on April 3, 1707. The negotiations took almost one and a half years and were his last completed assignment. He died a few months later, just after the consensus was reached in May 1709. Lachowitz did not have a violent death, but one can assume that the deplorable living conditions he had to endure his whole life, might have largely contributed to his indisposition and subsequent death. This paper shall provide an insight into these living conditions. The research on the career of the Turkish interpreter, later the Chief interpreter and then the secretary, can further enrich the academic narratives about the lives, services and office advancements of the lower officials in the Habsburg diplomatic organization. The interpreters (in the presented case, the interpreters of Oriental languages (dragomen)) assisted both courts with their services, which were arduous and often required personal sacrifices. They were the backbone of all the diplomatic structures in the Sublime Porte, in Vienna and on the Habsburg–Ottoman border as well. The outbreak of conflicts, the process of peace making and the corroboration of peace treaties were dependant on their contributions. Even though they were not soldiers, they nevertheless risked their lives while serving in an especially influential part of the Habsburg state structure.
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The aim of the paper is to provide a conceptual and theoretical framework for transcription of Latin historical texts based on the case study of the peace treaty of Passarowitz (1718). The article discusses some of the major works on editing Latin source publications concerning the scripts originating from the territories of the Hungarian kingdom. The paper attempts to provide answers for two major questions. Firstly, why should a specific sample-based guideline be elaborated on in case of the Ottoman-Habsburg Latin peace treaty documents and secondly, how should it be done. In accordance with that, the paper presents a sample guideline in the appendix, with transcriptional examples for the most of the relevant problems, covering the issues of transcription, editorial apparatus, problems of translation and indexing as well.
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After the First World War in Poland and Yugoslavia, organisations were established to foster relations between the two countries on various levels, from culture to science and tourism. In the Second Polish Republic, the largest organisations of such type were the Polish-Yugoslav Society in Poznań and the Polish-Yugoslav League in Lviv. Both of them operated within the national League of Polish-Yugoslav Societies, established in 1930 in Warsaw. Its chairman was Rev. Wacław Kneblewski. In Poznań, after Henryk Ułaszyn, a professor of Slavonic studies at Poznań University, ceased to be president of the Society, the leadership of the association was taken over by young supporters of national democracy. Some of them had been born in Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the other hand, Lviv had a scientific background and university traditions that influenced the intellectual character of the Polish-Yugoslav League founded there. This institution had been defending itself for several years against entering the structures of the League of Societies established in Warsaw. Still, in the end, fearing isolation, it had to join it.
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After the Second World War, one of the significant problems in Polish-Belgian relations was the problem of compensation for Belgian property, rights and interests, affected by Polish nationalisation and other property rights regulations. The Belgian authorities raised these issues since the 1940s. They have had a significant impact on Polish-Belgian negotiations on financial and economic matters. The failure to address the indemnification problems made it difficult for the Polish side to locate investment orders in Belgium and obtain loans for this purpose. An appropriate agreement between the governments of the Polish People’s Republic, Belgium, and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg was signed on 14 November 1963, and entered into force in November 1966.
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The contacts that Poles and “White” Russians established in 1918 indicated that finding an agreement based on their common dislike of the Bolsheviks would be very difficult. The basic condition of the compromise emphasised by the Russians was the Polish agreement setting the future border separating their countries in accordance with the eastern border of the Kingdom of Poland, which, before the First World War, was part of the Russian Empire. The Russian side eventually agreed to slight deviations from this line. “White” Russia’s politicians and diplomats were interested in incorporating Eastern Galicia (together with Lviv) into their country, which they treated as “perennial Russian” land. Th us, many Poles living in Vilnius, Lviv and Eastern Galicia, as well as in the region around Białystok, would have had to remain outside of Poland if the Polish delegates had yielded to their “White” Russian colleagues, with whom they also had political differences. Until the end of World War I, “White” Russians had counted on the help of the Central Powers in overthrowing the Bolshevik regime. At the time, the Poles fought against Germany and Austria-Hungary, regardless of whether they were supporters of Józef Piłsudski or Roman Dmowski. During the Paris Peace Conference, the Polish delegation talked primarily to the representatives of the Russian Political Conference in Paris (in Russian: Русское политическое совещание в Париже), which brought together representatives of various anti-Bolshevik forces. The Russians were interested in forming “White” Russian troops in Poland to fight against the Red Army, which Poles treated with great caution, because they were afraid Warsaw would not have control over these troops. The Polish side was strongly opposed to the formation in Poland of units composed of former Russian prisoners of war in the Central Powers, fearing that they would move to the Bolshevik side. In general, politically and militarily supporting “White” Russia was not in line with the Polish raison d’état. In the case of a “White” Russian victory over the Bolsheviks, the future of the Polish border would be sealed, as the Entente powers would have likely supported their former ally and agreed to the eastern border of the former Kingdom of Poland. After all, the infamous Curzon Line was determined in December 1919 and extended in the south to the Carpathians without the knowledge and consent of the Poles in July 1920. It remains doubtful whether a Poland limited to the Curzon Line in the east and to the pre-war western border would have been able to remain a real political subject or to consolidate its existence altogether.
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In order to increase the participation of the Russian Empire in international trade circulation, the Russian authorities decided in the 1840s to sign a number of international agreements of a commercial or navigational nature. These treaties include, among others, the agreements detailed in the present article, concluded with the governments of Great Britain, the Netherlands and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. The first of the above agreements was concluded with England, which took place on 11 January 1843. Subsequently, the Russians signed trade and shipping agreements with the Netherlands (13 September 1846) and Tuscany (10 April 1847). In practice, these treaties conferred on both contracting parties the status of their most privileged partners in their economic activities. According to the author of the text, the revival of Russia’s commercial relations with Europe was intended to achieve the modernisation of the Tsarist empire through participation in foreign trade, which would in turn boost, by way of competition, the modernisation of the state.
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Piłsudski saw France as an important power that could support the independence aspirations of Poles. Piłsudski travelled to Paris as Chief of State in early February 1921, shortly before the signing of the Polish-French alliance. The political and military alliance signed on 19 and 21 February 1921 fulfilled, at least until the mid-1920s, its assigned protective role-mainly against the German threat, but also, to some extent, against the Soviet one. However, its condition and role began to change under the influence of the shift in French foreign policy related primarily to the concept of collective security, as well as the shift in Polish foreign policy. In 1933, however, Piłsudski declared that Poland was always ready to fulfil its obligations towards France as its ally, and defined the alliance with France as a foundation of Poland’s “national policy.” While the Marshal appreciated the role of the League of Nations, he did not believe in the effectiveness of its procedures which were to ensure Poland’s security. However, he was determined to preserve the alliance with France. One might argue that after 1926 Piłsudski sought to strengthen this alliance. This turned out to be extremely difficult, as France actively sought to weaken it. The lack of success in the plans of strengthening the Polish-French alliance or positive prospects for the stability of the international system, as well as the need to ensure Poland’s security, resulted in the modification of the Polish foreign policy. In historiography, it is called the “policy of equilibrium” and involves the signing of the 1932 non-aggression pact with Soviet Russia and the 1934 declaration on non-violence with Germany. According to Piłsudski’s strategy, the alliance with France, as with Romania, continued to play a major role, but was complementary to the pacts with Moscow and Berlin.
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Augustinas Voldemaras went down into history as the prime minister and foreign minister of Lithuania in 1918-1920 and 1926-1929. Undoubtedly, a characteristic feature of Voldemaras’ policy was a special emphasis on the question of Polish-Lithuanian relations, mainly in the context of the Vilnius region. Equally important in Lithuanian foreign policy were secret negotiations with the Germans conducted with the aim to secure, among other things, additional financial support for the young Lithuanian state, and the policy of détente with the USSR which made it possible for Lithuania to gain a powerful ally in the argument with Poland. This two-way policy based on manoeuvring between the Germans and the League of Nations combined with clearly anti-Polish overtones of Lithuanian foreign policy had a negative impact on Voldemaras’ political image. This negative perception of his person in the international arena resulted in a gradual degradation of his authority and loss of confidence among the LN members, including Polish politicians. These questions are further developed in the article, shedding light on the aims and motivations of Voldemaras’ policy towards Poland, Germany, Russia, and the League of Nations.
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Under the influence of the economic crisis affecting the whole world in the 1930s, Turkey developed a range of solutions to mitigate the effects of the crisis. The Free Republican Party, which was established in August 1930 and closed in the same year, was actually one of the measures against the crisis. The Free Republican Party was established by Atatürk, and was also closed by him as the political power. In the days when there was an external pressure on the authoritarian appearance of the young republic, the party was established with the aim of changing this situation. There were also reasons for the establishment of the Free Republican Party except these two conditions. Searching for new sources for the economy, and meeting the credit need of Turkey which could not especially ensure the foreign trade balance were also effective external factors. There is no doubt that one of the most effective reasons for the establishment of the party was to prevent the growing dissatisfaction of the economic crisis after the Progressive Republican Party experience and to prevent this situation from turning into an oppositional movement. Established as a guided opposition party, the Free Republican Party created a profound influence on Turkish political life, despite its short 99-day life span. The party was intensely supported by the masses of and pushed for the power. It may even be mentioned by a Free Republican Party movement because of this influence. The establishment of the Free Republican Party and subsequent developments will be evaluated in the light of British archive documents in our work. The information and interpretations obtained from the documents will be compared with the existing literature on the Free Republican Party. Especially embassy officials followed the establishment of the Free Republican Party and the subsequent developments with interest and prepared detailed reports. The evaluations of the British authorities will contribute to the literature on the Free Republican Party by setting out new and different points of view about the subject.
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In early period of Ottoman Empire, vizier had an indisputable place. Viziers, especially after the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, liberated the empire, which started to be organized in the region of Bithynia, from the traditional Turkish Principality identity as well as its organizational structure. For this reason, it is not a coincidence that in the first period (1299/1302-1453), when poets like Ahmedi were sometimes satirized, the Ottoman Viziers were mostly dealt with in terms of their institutional aspects. Likewise, as researchers have revealed since the first years of the republic; while the Ottoman Viziers occupied important political positions in the Turkish states organized in Central Asia and Eastern Europe, they not only fulfilled the duties and responsibilities of these political positions, but also took initiatives to meet the military and parallel financial needs of the expanding empire. Undoubtedly, the most striking of these are the formation of the janissary corps and the financial system depending on it. On the other hand, there is no doubt that the military and financial revolutions that formed the cornerstone of Ottoman expansionism overshadowed the diplomatic mission of the viziers. Such that even in Fatih's Law, there are few clues regarding this issue, which is considered as the cornerstone of the institutionalization of the empire. The aforementioned code states that the vizierate is the most important position after the emperor, but this position is still an authority that is subject to control by various independent bureaucrats. However, the diplomatic mission of the viziers is uncertain in the early Ottoman perform works or studies, as in the royal decree. The aim of this perform works orstudies are to evaluate the first period Ottoman viziers with their diplomatic missions in the context of the conquest of Constantinople.
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