Resetting Russian–Eastern European relations for the 21st century

2012 ◽  
Vol 45 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 389-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aurel Braun
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Missile Defense ◽  
East European ◽  
Defense Systems ◽  
Ballistic Missile Defense ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Unrealistic Expectations

Optimism and opportunity in Russian–East European relations just a couple of years ago, especially with the Obama government’s express desire to “press the reset button” with Moscow, generated much hope, but it seems now that this also camouflaged deep issues of structure and process. Beyond historical mistrust and fear, an increasing drift away from democracy by Russia, while Eastern Europe, (geographically more broadly defined than during the Cold War), largely has sought closer political, economic and military integration with their Western neighbors, appears to have created two solitudes that may be irrevocably moving in different directions. Further, Russian ambitions and unrealistic expectations of regaining superpower status together with the belief that there may even be a shortcut to that restoration by manipulating the Western European powers, encouraging divisions within NATO and the European Union and isolating Eastern Europe or at least some of the states in the region, not only increases regional mistrust but ironically also diverts Russia away from the much needed fundamental economic and political changes that could transform it into a truly modern and successful state and a better neighbor and partner. Add issues such as the deployment of anti-ballistic missile defense systems in Eastern Europe over which Moscow continues to express vociferous military alarm but which in reality disguises Russian hegemonic ambitions or at best political fear, as well as Russia’s political use of energy and pipelines, and we have a combination that makes regional relations increasingly acrid and thus does not bode well for the future.

Looking at European Sports from an Eastern European Perspective: Football in the Multi-ethnic Polish Territories

2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 595-610
Author(s):  
Anke Hilbrenner ◽  
Britta Lenz
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Initial Phase ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
European Perspective ◽  
Sports History ◽  
East European ◽  
Slow Diffusion ◽  
Sporting Culture ◽  
New Research

Until recently, sports history has largely neglected Eastern Europe. Yet new research has shown that historians need to embrace a perspective from the periphery towards the centre, and reach beyond the paradigms of modernization, Sovietization, and the nation-state if Europe's sporting culture is to be fully understood. Focusing primarily on Poland, this article outlines three features peculiar to the region. First, it stresses the importance of trans-national spaces and networks as well as European sub-regions. Missing out on the initial phase of sport's internationalization due to lack of independence, the development of Polish sport was regionally distinct. Sports flourished in Habsburg-ruled Galicia (in Cracow and Lodz especially) under relatively liberal political authorities, but developed more slowly and under different influences elsewhere. Second, the prominence of rural Galicia, inhabited by traditional groups such as Ukrainian peasants or Chassidic Jews, shows that Polish sport did not evolve in line with modernization and industrialization. The relatively slow diffusion of sport in industrial centres such as Warsaw or Silesia contradicts the paradigm of modernization and the notion of East European backwardness. Third, sport history sheds light on phenomena such as multi-ethnicity, migration, integration or disintegration.

scholarly journals Discourse Beyond Borders: Periodicals, Dissidents, and European Cultural Spaces

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Reijnen
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Spatial Perspective ◽  
Central European ◽  
East European ◽  
European Public ◽  
Cultural Spaces ◽  
The Cold War

Émigré periodicals in Cold War Europe have long been considered isolated islands of Central and East European communities with limited relevance. In the second half of the Cold War, some of these periodicals functioned as crucial intersections of communication between dissidents, emigrants and Western European intellectuals. These periodicals were the greenhouses for the development of new definitions of Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and Europe at large. This article studies Cold War émigré periodicals from a spatial perspective and argues that they can be analysed as European cultural spaces. In this approach, European cultural spaces are seen as insular components of a European public sphere. The particular settings (spaces) within which the periodicals developed have contributed greatly to the ideas that they expressed. The specific limits and functions of periodicals such as Kultura or Svědectví [Testimony] have triggered perceptions of Central European and European solidarity. The originally Russian periodical Kontinent promoted an eventually less successful East European-Russian solidarity.  

scholarly journals Economic Development and Growth in Central and Eastern Europe

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 69-84
Author(s):  
Csilla Polster
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
European Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Migration Activity ◽  
Member States

The study investigates the economic growth in Central and Eastern Europe in the last 25 years. The economy can be regarded as a substantial topic in any country, but it is even more interesting in developing countries. One of the basic ideas of the European Union is the convergence between member states, namely the reduction of development disparities, which can be achieved through faster economic growth in less‑developed countries. Growth theory is one of the main topics in economics. Its significant importance is because the desire for development is one of the main driving forces of mankind. The aim of the study is to reveal the crucial differences and common features between the growth paths of the eleven Central and Eastern European member states of the European Union. After presenting growth theories, the growth performance of the examined Central and Eastern European member states is pinpointed. During the research, GDP per capita, population, migration, activity rate, employment rate, unemployment rate, foreign direct investment and foreign trade openness are considered.

scholarly journals Back to the kitchen? Gender role attitudes in 13 East European countries

2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Éva Fodor ◽  
Anikó Balogh
Keyword(s):  
Gender Role ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
Important Determinant ◽  
Gender Role Attitudes ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Opinion Formation ◽  
East European ◽  
Material Conditions

This paper explores the determinants of gender role opinions in 13 post-communist Eastern European societies using survey data from the project EUREQUAL. Our main findings consist of two parts. First, contrary to the expectations of scholars who emphasize the lack of gender/feminist consciousness in Eastern Europe, we argue that gender indeed is an important determinant of gender role opinions in post-communist societies: as elsewhere women express more liberal attitudes than men. Second, we argue that the interaction of other determinants of gender role opinions with gender also follows patterns described in the literature for more developed capitalist countries. In this respect, therefore, East European countries seem to fit the general trends of gender role opinion formation. As explanation we point to a connection between women’s material conditions and their gender role attitudes, not denying the importance of cultural difference – if primarily as exception – to this process. Zusammenfassung Dieser Artikel untersucht, auf Basis von Umfragedaten des EUREQUAL-Projektes, die Determinanten von Einstellungen zu Geschlechterrollen in 13 postkommunistischen osteuropäischen Gesellschaften. Unsere Hauptergebnisse bestehen aus zwei Teilen. Erstens: Wir legen dar, dass – entgegen den Erwartungen von Wissenschaftler(inne)n, die das Fehlen eines Gender- oder feministischen Bewusstseins betonen – dass Gender in postkommunistischen Gesellschaften tatsächlich eine wichtige Determinante der Meinungen über die Geschlechterrollen ist: Wie auch anderswo bringen Frauen liberalere Einstellungen als Männer zum Ausdruck. Zweitens: Wir argumentieren, dass die Interaktion anderer Determinanten der Meinungen zu den Geschlechterrollen mit Gender gleichfalls den Mustern folgt, die in der Literatur im Bezug auf weiter entwickelte kapitalistische Gesellschaften beschrieben werden. In dieser Hinsicht scheinen die osteuropäischen Gesellschaften sich den allgemeinen Trends der Herausbildung von Meinungen zu den Geschlechterrollen anzugleichen. Zur Erklärung verweisen wir auf den Zusammenhang zwischen den materiellen Lebensbedingungen von Frauen und ihren Einstellungen zu den Geschlechterrollen, ohne jedoch die Bedeutsamkeit kultureller Unterschiede – wenn sie auch eher Ausnahmen sind – abzustreiten.

scholarly journals "FINANCIAL EDUCATION IN EASTERN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES"

2020 ◽  
Vol 13(62) (2) ◽  
pp. 125-132
Author(s):  
Nicoleta Geanina Bostan
Keyword(s):  
Financial Literacy ◽  
Population Policy ◽  
Financial Education ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
East European ◽  
The Status ◽  
Eastern European Countries

"In the context of economic disparities among the countries of the European Union, the paper analyses the status of financial literacy for people living in East European countries, the way to increase financial knowledge through financial education and finally leading to a higher and more effective financial inclusion. Economic gaps are a major challenge for Eastern European countries. Their recovery can be done through efficient public policies harmonized with actions to increase the degree of financial education of the population. Policy makers, public institutions and non-profit organisation involved in financial education matters can benefit from this analysis and conclusion just as much as researchers. "

Deutscher, Lenin and the East-European Perspectives

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-28
Author(s):  
Tamás Krausz
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Analysis ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
October Revolution ◽  
State Socialism ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
East European ◽  
Marxist Analysis

The article introduces the reception of Isaac Deutscher’s work in Eastern Europe in a historical context and shows how deeply this reception was connected to the various transformations of the system, which had been established after the victory of the Russian October Revolution. The author gives a Marxist analysis of the historical development of state socialism and the various changes in Eastern-European Marxist thought which accompanied this history. He belongs to that school of thought which defines this system as state socialism, and he gives a theoretical analysis of its main characteristics, adding that 1989 failed to fulfil the expectations and hopes of many Western and Eastern-European Marxists.

Memory Wars in the East European Frontier: In Search of Research Methodology

2021 ◽  
pp. 55-63
Author(s):  
Daniil A. Anikin ◽  
◽  
Andrey A. Linchenko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Politics Of Memory ◽  
East European ◽  
German Model ◽  
Western European ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
Soviet Legacy ◽  
The Impact

Within the framework of this article, the theoretical and methodological framework of the philosophical interpretation of the concept “memory wars” was analyzed. In the context of criticism of allochronism and the project of the politics of time by B. Bevernage, as well as the concept of the frontier by F. Turner, the space-time aspects of the content of memory wars were comprehended. The use of Bevernage's ideas made it possible to explain the nature of modern memory wars in Europe. The origins of these wars are associated with an attempt to transfer the Western European project of “cosmopolitan” memory, in which Western Europe turns out to be a kind of a “referential” framework of historical modernity, to the countries of Eastern Europe after 1989. The uncritical use of Western European historical experience as a “reference” leads to a superficial copying of the politics of memory, which runs counter to the politics of the time in Eastern Europe. In Eastern Europe, the idea of two totalitarianisms is presented as a single and internally indistinguishable era, and the politics of modern post-socialist states are based on the idea of a radical spatio-temporal distancing from their recent past. The article analyzes the issue of the specifics of the Eastern European frontier, the conditions for its emergence and the impact on modern forms of implementation of the politics of memory. The frontier arises as a result of the collapse of the colonial empires and becomes a space of symbolic struggle, first between the USSR and Germany, and then between the socialist and capitalist blocs. The crisis of the globalist project of the politics of memory and the transfer of the German model of victimization to the territory of the Eastern European frontier leads to the competition of sacrificial narratives and the escalation of memorial conflicts, turning into full-fledged memory wars. The hybrid nature of the antagonistic politics of memory in the conditions of the frontier leads to the fact that not only the socialist past, but also the national trauma of individual states becomes the subject of memory wars. The increasing complexity of the mnemonic structure of the frontier is associated with the emergence of a number of unrecognized states, whose memory politics, in contrast to the national discourses of Eastern European states, is based on a synthesis of the Soviet legacy and individual elements of the imperial past.

Telling Lies, Making Truth

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Feinberg
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
East European ◽  
Political Function ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter analyzes the political function of show trials in Eastern Europe. It argues that while show trials told lies, their primary purpose was to reveal new truths about the Cold War world to their East European audiences. Show trials described a world where the peace-loving socialist East was continually menaced by the imperialist West, which sent spies and saboteurs to wreck its economic development and plotted to destroy it in a nuclear war. These political plays told East Europeans how they should see the world and clarified the consequences of non-compliance. This chapter also examines how people around the region were required to voice their condemnation of the traitors on trial and dedicate themselves to the search for hidden enemies.

scholarly journals New Central and East-European Cinema

1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Stojanova
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
East European ◽  
European Cinema ◽  
Short Films ◽  
History Of

UNE NOUVELLE EUROPE: THE DOUBLE QUEST OF NEW CENTRAL AND EAST-EUROPEAN CINEMA The Berlin Wall collapsed some eight years ago, along with the repressive totalitarian Communist regimes it came to symbolise, thus neatly wrapping up half a century in the history of Eastern Europe. Little has reached our shores, however, about the effects on everyday life of this unprecedented change, brought about by mostly "velvet" revolutions across the region. In March of this year Cinémathèque Québécoise launched Une Nouvelle Europe: A Panorama of Central and Eastern European Cinema, featuring 28 feature and 5 short films from 8 countries.(1) The selection was also presented in Toronto (Cinematheque Ontario, April 4-May 1, 1997) and in Vancouver (Pacific Cinematheque, March 22-May 1), under the title A New Europe: Reeling After The Fall. The organisation of the event was an arduous and time consuming task. It took more than a year and a...

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