scholarly journals Between Europeanisation and Local Legacies: Holocaust Memory and Contemporary Anti-Semitism in Romania

2020 ◽  
pp. 088832542090620 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raul Cârstocea

This article addresses the persistence of anti-Semitism in Romania, placed in the context of some recent debates concerning the memory of the Holocaust in the country, as well as in the area of Central and Eastern Europe more broadly. It argues that, despite significant improvements in terms of legislation, the memory of the Holocaust remains a highly contested issue in contemporary Romania, torn between the attempts to join in the European memory of the Holocaust and local legacies that on the one hand focus primarily on the suffering of Romanians under the communist regime, and on the other perform a symbolic “denationalisation” of the Jewish minority in the country, whose own suffering is thus excised from national memory. It does so by focusing in particular on the debates surrounding the adoption of Law 217/2015, meant to clarify earlier legislation on Holocaust denial, and comparing them with those prompted by the Ukrainian “memory laws” passed in the same year. Taking into account both the national and international reactions to these very different pieces of legislation, the article shows the still-persisting discrepancy between a (mostly Western) “European” memory of the legacy of the twentieth century and local memory topoi characteristic of the countries that were part of the former socialist bloc.

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valeriy Heyets

Nearly 30 years of transformation of the sociopolitical and legal, socioeconomical and financial, sociocultural and welfare, and socioenvironmental dimensions in both Central and Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, has led to a change of the social quality of daily circumstances. On the one hand, the interconnection and reciprocity of these four relevant dimensions of societal life is the underlying cause of such changes, and on the other, the state as main actor of the sociopolitical and legal dimension is the initiator of those changes. Applying the social quality approach, I will reflect in this article on the consequences of these changes, especially in Ukraine. In comparison, the dominant Western interpretation of the “welfare state” will also be discussed.


October ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 147 ◽  
pp. 95-116
Author(s):  
Martin Blumenthal-Barby

Michael Haneke's 2009 The White Ribbon is set in the village of “Eichwald.” Eichwald cannot be found on any German map. It is an imaginary place in the Protestant North of Eastern Germany in the early twentieth century. What is more, Haneke tells his black-and-white tale as the flashback narration of a voice-over narrator—a series of defamiliarizing techniques that lift the diegetic action out of its immediate sociohistorical context, stripping it of its temporal and topographical coordinates. Against this backdrop, is it possible to hear the name “Eichwald” without being reminded of, on the one hand, Adolf Eichmann, Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the key architects of the Holocaust, and, on the other, the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald? To be sure, Eichwald is not Buchenwald, and no 56,000 humans are being murdered here. Yet why this peculiar terminological fusion? What characterizes Eichwald, this model of a society in which adults have no names but merely function as representatives of a particular class and profession: the Baron, the Pastor, the Teacher, the Steward, the Midwife, etc.? What distinguishes this village that appears to be largely isolated from the outside world, this village that outsiders rarely enter and from which no one seems to be able to escape? What identifies this prison-like community with its oppressive atmosphere, its tiny rooms and low ceilings, its myriad alcoves, niches, windows, and hallways that evoke a general sense of “entrapment” and incarceration? This world in which even the camera appears to be shackled, to never zoom, hardly to pan or tilt, thus depriving the image of any dynamism, any mobility? Who—in this confining milieu—are the guards, who the detainees? And what characterizes the putatively illicit activities that appear to lie at its enigmatic center and around which the entire film seems to revolve?


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-144
Author(s):  
Tomasz Gajownik

The non-aggression pact concluded in November 1932 between France and the Soviet Union was on the one hand the peak achievement of French diplomacy in implementing the plan of strengthening influence in Central and Eastern Europe, and on the other the growing position of Moscow in the international arena. The signed document was the first inter-state agreement concluded by France and the USSR. From the perspective of the Second Polish Republic, the Franco-Soviet rapprochement could have had certain unfavorable consequences. That is why both civilian and military factors closely watched the negotiation process between both parties and tried to determine the actual state of bilateral relations.


2017 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 53-68
Author(s):  
Mihai Murariu

This article deals with the movement known as “Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the Occident,” or Pegida, focusing primarily on the nativist dimension which often takes centre stage in its ideological discourse. Pegida describes itself as a defender of Western Civilization and of its Christian legacy from what it sees as the perils of Islamisation on the one hand, and of globalist political elites on the other. In the context of the political changes and rise of alternative visions of civil society, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, Pegida should arguably be seen as a representative of a growing European nativist wave. Lastly, the article looks at the “Prague Declaration,” a document which was signed in 2016 by Pegida and a number of allied movements from outside of Germany.


Author(s):  
Dragana Ranđelović ◽  
Tadija Đukić

The emergence and development of a unified european market imposes a need  for harmonization financial reporting of business entites in the European Union. Directives and Regulations are the basic instruments for harmonization of national regulatory frameworks with aquaris, on the one hand, and for hamozication accounting practices among member countries, as well as those which are claiming membership, on the other. According to the model of financial reporting, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe belong or belonged to the mixed economy model. Our country belongs to the same model. In this paper, we will describe the reaches of certain Central and Eastern Europe economies in harmonization of financial reporting in relation to the current regulations of the European Union. Using comparative analysis, we will point out the essential features of the regulatory frameworks of certain national economises. Positive experiences of these countries in the development of accounting regulations could be applied in our country


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-52
Author(s):  
Mihai Adrian Panu

The primacy of totalitarian ideologies in interwar Europe represents even nowadays a major historiographical challenge due to its multicausal character and various forms of appearance. This paper attempts to analyze the anti-Semitic phenomenon in interwar Romania primarily by taking into account its determinant factors. We assume that the emergence of radical ideologies in Central and Eastern Europe can optimally be understood if both regional and systemic causes are properly highlighted. The regional causes include local societal predispositions, ethno-cultural cleavages and specific political movements. On the other hand the systemic causes imply predominantly geopolitical factors and the repartition of power in the international system. Moreover we assume that the emergence and manifestations of extremism can be considered a direct result of political disputes between ethno-cultural groups which were systematically exposed to ideological and propaganda pressure.


Author(s):  
JAROSLAVA VYDROVÁ ◽  

The collective volume Early Phenomenology in Central and Eastern Europe: Main Figures, Ideas, and Problems, edited by Witold Płotka and Patrick Eldridge, enriches the ongoing and highly topical research of the history of phenomenology with the thematization of a specific period and localization of phenomenology. The authors of eleven chapters explore the emergence of phenomenology in local traditions outside the Germanophone area, its appropriation and development, describing the unique forms it acquired in individual environments. The book clarifies the characteristics of the early wave of phenomenology and provides a list of Central and Eastern European phenomenologists who participated in it. On the one hand, the volume is a contribution to historiography, enriching the study of the history of phenomenology thematically and thus contributing to the development of phenomenology itself; on the other hand, it introduces its own set of philosophical problems. These concern methodology and the issue of the Central and Eastern European identity, which is examined through the prism of the development of local traditions of phenomenology. When exploring the latter it is useful to introduce the concept of the marginocentric. This concept, which originated in comparative literature, facilitates an understanding of the unique cultural configuration of a concrete tradition in its communication with internal and external environments.


2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 743-761 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raimondas Ibenskas

While pre-electoral coalitions have important effects on the functioning of democracy, their formation has only been systematically examined in the context of established democracies. This study examines the patterns and factors of electoral alliance formation in eleven democracies in Central and Eastern Europe by focusing on joint candidate lists. It finds that electoral coalitions are more frequent in newer democracies than in established democracies. The formation of alliances is systematically related to their potential costs and benefits. On the one hand, coalitions can provide small parties with legislative representation and larger parties with important government coalition partners. On the other hand, parties face costs related to their electoral compatibility and the sharing of election candidacies and office positions.


2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vesa Vares

The questions of national prejudices, xenophobia and enemy images have been lately popular issues. The creation of the ”Other” has been evident in racial issues, like in the ideologies of imperialism or anti-Semitism. However, it is important to see the same mentality inside the European political culture itself, because the images often did and still do divide the nations into different categories. This mentality gained even more impetus after the collapse of the empires in 1918 and yet again in the discussion about ”Old Europe” and ”New Europe”. My purpose is to study how Finland saw Eastern Europe and its political systems and national peculiarities between the World Wars. Finland formed an interesting hinge between Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. On the one hand it wanted to emphasize how Western its mental heritage was; on the other, it had to fight off assumptions that it was still ”half-Russian” and behaving in a ”Balkan” manner. In the early 1920s there were also ideas of similar interests in European politics and similarities of the social structure. In the longer run, the Finns saw Eastern Europe as an area which was not ready for democracy, because it lacked the elements of national cohesion and basic people’s education. Argumentation resembles the German one, but was not necessarily decided by it – rather by own experience or Scandinavian and sometimes Hungarian information. For the Finns, Hungary formed some sort of exception of the prejudiced view because it was considered to be a kindred nation, but the experts could see little similarities even between Finland and Hungary.


APRIA Journal ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-16
Author(s):  
José Teunissen

In the last few years, it has often been said that the current fashion system is outdated, still operating by a twentieth-century model that celebrates the individualism of the 'star designer'. In I- D, Sarah Mower recently stated that for the last twenty years, fashion has been at a cocktail party and has completely lost any connection with the public and daily life. On the one hand, designers and big brands experience the enormous pressure to produce new collections at an ever higher pace, leaving less room for reflection, contemplation, and innovation. On the other hand, there is the continuous race to produce at even lower costs and implement more rapid life cycles, resulting in disastrous consequences for society and the environment.


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