Transitional Justice and Changing Memories of the Past in Central Europe

2013 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-44
Author(s):  
Roman David

Memories of wrongdoings are often viewed as an obstacle to reconciliation in divided societies. Is it due to the past or the present politics of the past? To examine the dilemma of essentialism versus presentism, this article investigates the impact of transitional justice on memories of wrongdoing. It theorizes that using different transitional justice strategies to deal with the same wrongdoing shapes memories in different ways. The theory is tested via vignette-based surveys in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, which adopted distinct lustration laws. The results show that wrongdoing is viewed through lustration laws, reflecting present power constellations, not history.

Sociologija ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 285-306
Author(s):  
Milan Cakic

The main topic of this article are the motives that led to the adoption of lustration laws in the Czech Republic, Poland, and Serbia, and their social functions. In the opening section, lustration is placed in the wider framework of dealing with the past and two possible approaches to the phenomenon are discussed: to take it as part of the broader process of decommunization, or a measure of transitional justice. In the next section an attempt at defining the concept of lustration is made, with a view to eliminating some ambiguities surrounding it. Subsequently, two partially complementary theoretical models explaining the occurrence, form and severity of dealing with the past and lustration are presented. After that comes the description of the socio-political context at the time of the adoption of lustration laws in the three countries and identification of political and ideological forces that have supported or challenged it. Finally, the article attempts to answer the question whether lustration is a legitimate measure of settling historical justice, overcoming the legacies of socialism, a way to strengthen liberal democracy, or merely a tool in political struggles for power.


2021 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 476-488
Author(s):  
Tomáš Suk ◽  
Martin Štroner

This paper presents the results of over a year-long experiment dealing with a temperature measurement to calculate the theoretical effect of the atmosphere on the measured zenith angle in engineering surveying. The measurements were performed to determine the accurate and specific temperatures (temperature gradients), which can be recorded in different seasons in the low level of the atmosphere (up to 2 m above the ground, where most Engineering Surveying measurements take place) for the geographical area of Central Europe - specifically the Czech Republic. A numerical model was then applied to the resulting determined temperature gradients to calculate the path of the beam passing through an inhomogeneous atmosphere. From these values, the apparent vertical shifts caused by refraction in a given environment and time were finally determined.


Biologia ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bohumil Trávníček ◽  
Radim Vašut

AbstractThe hamate dandelion section (Taraxacum sect. Hamata H. Øllg.) represents a morphologically tight group of taxa, distributed in the oceanic and sub-oceanic regions of Europe. In Central Europe, it is mostly confined to freshly moist meadows, as well as places in the shade within urban areas. The known distribution area in Europe until now extended towards the E part of the Czech Republic and S Poland. During the past six years, we have discovered an additional eleven localities of hamate dandelions in NW and N Slovakia, which represents a corrected south-eastern limit for the distribution area of this section. In this paper, we discuss seven recognized taxa (T. boekmanii, T. fusciflorum, T. hamatiforme, Taraxacum hamatum, T. lamprophyllum, T. pseudohamatum, and T. quadrans). We provide a determinative key to the Slovakian hamate dandelions, brief species descriptions, comments on their distribution, a distribution map of the section in Slovakia, as well as images of all of the newly found species.


Zootaxa ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4935 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-63
Author(s):  
PETR BOGUSCH

The genus Gasteruption (Gasteruptiidae) is represented in Europe by more than 30 species. Of these, twenty-one are recorded from the Czech Republic and Slovakia, with six being new records for the Czech Republic and eight for Slovakia. Three species are recorded as new for Bohemia (western part of the Czech Republic). Gasteruption goberti is excluded from the fauna of the Czech Republic because specimens previously identified as G. goberti belong to G. caucasicum. Four species (G. assectator, G. caucasicum, G. jaculator and G. nigritarse) are common and widespread in both countries, G. tournieri is very common but prefers warmer regions. Only G, subtile occurs predominantly in higher altitudes of mountain ranges, while the other species are usually restricted to or are more common in warmer regions. Gasteruption opacum and G. subtile are regionally extinct from the Czech Republic and G. paternum from Slovakia, with the the most recent records of these species are pre-1990. Gasteruption freyi, G. hastator and G. hungaricum are considered very endangered thermophilous species of loess walls and steppe habitats with a marked loss of occurrence records post-1990. Locally common but much rarer than in the past are G. erythrostomum and G. boreale. Due to the fact that recent determination keys are focused on other regions, a determination key for all species recorded in central Europe is presented. 


The extent to which history is determinative of, or even relevant to, the present is of course subject to an old and inconclusive debate. There seems to be no guarantee that great social traditions and achievements of the past will be preserved to the present day, no matter what the effort. Conversely, however, if a society works hard at destroying its institutions and persists with this programme for decades, it is quite likely to succeed, as evidenced by the sad story of private law in several jurisdictions in central Europe in the second half of the 20th century.


Ergo ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-9
Author(s):  
Jiří Vaněček

Abstract The Czech R&D underwent 2 major changes in the past 10 years. Evaluation of R&D institutions according to their results has been started in 2004 and the reform of the institutional financing has been announced in 2008. Starting from 2009, the institutional support has been distributed according to the evaluation. Our study analyses the impact of these changes on production of R&D results. Throughout the whole analyzed period 1996-2011, the numbers of publications in journal indexed in Scopus and of EPO patent applications grew faster in the Czech Republic than in 8 other European countries. The fastest growth occurred in the period 2004-2007 after the start of evaluation, but it slowed down after the announcement of the financing reform in 2008. It indicates that financing reform did not have the expected positive impact on result production. The increase of result number was probably due to the fast growth of the R&D financing. It is possible, however, that acceleration of the growth of R&D results could have been partly due to the evaluation of the institutions. Another problem is quality of the results. Citation impact of the Czech publications is the lowest of all analyzed countries. Numbers of the newly concluded patent license contracts and the receipts from them do not increase and are the lowest of all analyzed countries. It is therefore clear that currently used instruments do not fulfill their role and new stimuli supporting the growth of the quality are needed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 5355
Author(s):  
Vilém Pechanec ◽  
Ondřej Cudlín ◽  
Miloš Zapletal ◽  
Jan Purkyt ◽  
Lenka Štěrbová ◽  
...  

Global and regional biodiversity loss is caused by several drivers including urban development, land use intensification, overexploitation of natural resources, environmental pollution, and climate change. The main aim of our study was to adapt the GLOBIO3 model to the conditions of the Czech Republic (CR) to assess loss of naturalness and biodiversity vulnerability at the habitat level on a detailed scale across the entire CR. An additional aim was to assess the main drivers affecting the biodiversity of habitat types. The GLOBIO3 model was adapted to CZ-GLOBIO by adapting global to local scales and using habitat quality and naturalness data instead of species occurrence data. The total mean species abundance (MSA) index of habitat quality, calculated from the spatial overlay of the four MSA indicators by our new equation, reached the value 0.62. The total value of MSA for natural and near-natural habitats was found to be affected mainly by infrastructure development and fragmentation. Simultaneously, intensity of land use change and atmospheric nitrogen deposition contributed primarily to the low total value of MSA for distant natural habitats. The CZ-GLOBIO model can be an important tool in political decision making to reduce the impact of the main drivers on habitat biodiversity in the CR.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 222
Author(s):  
Miroslava Navrátilová ◽  
Markéta Beranová ◽  
Lucie Severová ◽  
Karel Šrédl ◽  
Roman Svoboda ◽  
...  

The aim of the presented article is to evaluate the impact of climate change on the sugar content of grapes in the Czech Republic during the period 2000–2019 through selected indicators on the basis of available secondary sources. Attention is focused on the developments in both the main wine-growing regions of Moravia and Bohemia. In the field of viticulture and wine-growing, the sugar content of grapes, as a basic parameter for the classification of wines, plays an important role. In the Czech Republic, the average sugar content of grapes has had a constantly growing trend. This trend is evident both in the wine-growing region of Bohemia and in the wine-growing region of Moravia. The impact of climate change, especially the gradual increase of average temperatures in the growing season, cannot be overlooked. It greatly affects, among other things, the sugar content of grapes. Calculations according to the Huglin Index and the Winkler Index were used to determine the relationship between climate and sugar content. These indexes summarize the course of temperatures during the entire vegetation period into a single numerical value. The results show that both indexes describe the effect of air temperature on sugar content in both wine regions of the Czech Republic in a statistically significant way. The Huglin Index shows a higher correlation rate. The Winkler Index proved to be less suitable for both areas. Alternatively, the Winkler Index calculated for a shorter growing season was tested, which showed a higher degree of correlation with sugar content, approaching the significance of the Huglin Index.


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