From Nowhere to “Partyslava”

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 299-320
Author(s):  
Peter Barrer
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Slovak Republic ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Cultural Perspective ◽  
Popular Imagination ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
The Past ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
English Speaking

Over the past two decades, Prague has cemented itself as a tourist hotspot in the popular imagination. But what of Bratislava, long considered a “poor cousin” to Prague? What images of Bratislava have foreign publics been presented with since the fall of communism in East-Central Europe and the establishment of the Slovak Republic? Building on previous research which has examined visitors’ historical perceptions of Bratislava primarily from a German-speaking perspective, this paper seeks to map the development of Bratislava’s image in media texts from English-speaking countries since 1989 by focusing on two central motifs: Bratislava as a post-communist space and Bratislava as a locus of touristic pleasures (“Partyslava”). The images presented herein will be evaluated and contrasted with local descriptions of Bratislava, thus offering a cross-cultural perspective which will contribute to the wider discussion of popular perceptions of post-communist urban spaces in East-Central Europe.

The Past, Present, and Future of Comparative History in East Central Europe and Beyond

2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 328-344
Author(s):  
Wendy Bracewell ◽  
Ulf Brunnbauer ◽  
Diana Mishkova ◽  
Joachim von Puttkamer ◽  
Philipp Ther
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Comparative History ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
The Past

Varieties of legacies: a critical review of legacy explanations of public administration reform in East Central Europe

2009 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 509-528 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan-Hinrik Meyer-Sahling
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Administrative Reform ◽  
Legacy Effects ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
East Central ◽  
The Past ◽  
Historical Legacies

This article examines the status of historical legacies in debates on the reform of public administration in East Central Europe. It identifies limitations of existing accounts and derives three dimensions for the further development of legacy explanations of administrative reform in East Central Europe. First, legacy arguments tend to zoom in on the negative effects of the communist past. Yet there is not one but many legacies that matter for post-communist reforms and these many legacies have to be carefully distinguished and conceptualized. Second, legacy explanations tend to search for broad similarities between the administrative past and the present set-up of East Central European administrations in order to demonstrate the importance of the legacy. The identification of similarities is, however, not sufficient for the identification of legacy effects. Instead, the article argues in favour of the identification of causal mechanisms of legacification to explain recent administrative developments in East Central Europe. Finally, the article draws attention to the interaction of legacy effects with other determinants of administrative reform such as European integration and political parties. Points for practitioners This article addresses primarily policy-makers who deal with the reform of public administration in Central and Eastern Europe. It addresses the issue of how administrative traditions and, generally, historical legacies affect the design of administrative reforms and the successful implementation of reforms. Conventional wisdom concentrates on the negative effects of the communist-type administration on contemporary reform in Central and Eastern Europe. This article advances a more differentiated perspective on the impact of historical legacies. It argues that communist administrations evolved over time and differed considerably across countries. The administrative experience of other historical periods further interacts with the communist legacy of the past. The article also identifies various mechanisms that help to ‘transport’ the legacy of the past into the contemporary administrative reform context. For administrative policy-makers this approach implies that they cannot take for granted that the effect of the communist legacy is identical across countries and they cannot even assume that the communist administration will be long-lasting after transition. Instead, it is recommended that the specifics of local administrative traditions and the kind of mechanisms that produce legacy effects in the context of contemporary reform efforts be examined more closely.

Foreign Debt in the New East-Central Europe: A Threat to European Integration?

1993 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
R A Gibb ◽  
W Z Michalak
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Economic Geography ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
English Language ◽  
Foreign Debt ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
French Speaking ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
Stabilization Policies

East-Central Europe (Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia—ECE) is one of the least known parts of the world in English-language geography. In spite of its proximity to Western Europe and the European Community (EC) it has received a very modest amount of attention from English-speaking geographers compared with that from German-speaking and French-speaking colleagues. Studies of political and economic geography of the ECE are also hampered by the lack of appropriate methodology and theory. Some of the most important issues involved lie in the economic sphere of transition from a centrally planned economy to a market economy. In the current paper, an attempt is made to survey and evaluate the size and character of existing debt stocks owed to the West by ECE and then to assess their likely impact on the political and economic geography of Europe and the EC. It is concluded that the international financial community is making it politically difficult for the countries in the region to persist with their structural reforms and stabilization policies. The future political and economic geography of ECE and EC depends, to a large extent, on the ability of the Western financial system to respond to the long-term needs of the region.

The Archaeology of the Northwestern Slavs (Seventh To Ninth Centuries)

2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-97
Author(s):  
Sebastian Brather
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
The Past ◽  
Contemporary Situation

AbstractTwenty years ago things seemed to be quite clear: several different groups of Slavs had invaded East Central Europe at some point during the sixth century, and all archaeologically identifiable, cultural characteristics pointed to a Slavic 'homeland' in Eastern Europe. More recent research, however, has shown this to be a rather simplistic view of the past. This paper is intended as an overview of the current archaeological research on the early Middle Ages that is responsible for the radical change of view of the last decade or so. Dendrochronology, new approaches, and the critical assessment of the historiography of the problem contribute now to a different understanding. The material culture - pottery, hillforts, settlement features, burials - can now be explained in terms of the contemporary situation in East Central Europe, i. e., the consolidation of settlement patterns, economic structures, and society. Exactly what that means for the debate about the 'origins' of the western Slavs remains a matter of further research and discussion.

scholarly journals Neighbourhood Policy vs. Remembrance Policy: Romania and Hungary

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-54
Author(s):  
Barna Bodó
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
European Situation ◽  
Determining Factor

Abstract In East-Central Europe, the past has always been a determining factor as a framework for interpretation: the social construction of the past often serves (served) current political purposes. It is no wonder that in the countries of the region, often different, sometimes contradictory interpretations of the past have emerged. In today’s European situation, however, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe are perhaps most keenly faced by the transformation of Europe, with unclear, chaotic ideas dominating political and intellectual markets instead of previous (accepted) values – in the tension between old and new, Europe’s future is at stake. The question is: what role the states of Central and Eastern Europe play/can play, to what extent they will be able to place the neighbourhood policy alongside (perhaps in front of) the policy of remembrance and seek common answers to Europe’s great dilemmas.

scholarly journals The Hungarian Atlas of Historic Towns

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 260-274
Author(s):  
Katalin Szende
Keyword(s):  
Best Practices ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
Central European ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Project Phases

This article surveys the work carried out in the past two decades on the Hungarian Atlas of Historic Towns in a Central European context. With its more than 550 atlases published in nineteen European countries in the last fifty years, the European Atlas of Historic Towns is one of the most comprehensive collaborative projects in the field of humanities. The countries of East Central Europe could join the project only after the fall of the Iron Curtain, and Hungary published its first atlas as late as 2010. In four subsequent project phases, the Hungarian atlas team has been working on nineteen atlases of eighteen towns, out of which eight have been published so far. The editors follow the standards set by the International Commission for the History of Towns and have adopted best practices represented by the Austrian, Polish and Irish atlas series. In addition to describing the source basis and the main methodological concerns, the article highlights examples of comparative urban research for which the atlases offer an unparalleled potential. The article also advocates a more extensive use of this exceptional resource.

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