From Missionaries of Socialism to Spies of Imperialism: The Shifting Position of Soviet Women in Communist Albania

After the establishment of the communist regime in Albania, many Albanian students, mainly males, went to study in the Mecca of Revolution—the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR). Many of them fell in love there and married Soviet girls who returned with them to the tiny Balkan country to build socialism with their Albanian husbands. These women were considered as missionaries who were helping Albania to build a communist future. In 1960, however, their position changed when the Albanian leadership refused de-Stalinization and denounced the Soviet Union as an imperialist power. After Enver Hoxha’s split with Khrushchev, many Soviet women left Albania, but others decided to remain with their husbands in that country. Albanian authorities, considering Soviet women spies of the KGB (The Soviet Committee of State Security), persecuted many of them.

The Performativity of State Non-Recognition in Sports: The Case of Spain over Kosovo

This article focuses on the use of sport by the Spanish Government to perform its non-recognition of Kosovo’s statehood. Our main goal is to analyse the practices and narratives through which Spain’s public authorities have carried out this policy in the sporting arena. Likewise, we set two specific objectives: to examine the administrative measures adopted by the Spanish government when a Kosovan team has participated in an event hosted in Spain; and to describe the policies and discourses regarding the display of Kosovo’s national symbols in these competitions. The study is based on a qualitative approach of five major tournaments that have taken place (or due to) in Spain between 2018 and 2019. The documentation has been mainly gathered through desk-research. The three major data sources have been media press releases, Spanish Government’s communiqués and sporting federation’s statements. We underline that the policies adopted by the Spanish authorities respond to a systematic strategy to give no room for a potential understanding of Kosovo as a sovereign state. Likewise, we highlight that Madrid’s attitude towards the Balkan country must be understood keeping in mind its own internal politics, specifically the nationalist claims from Catalonia and the Basque Country.

Pharmacoeconomic Aspects of Treating Hemorrhoidal Disease - Cost of Illness Study Based on Data from Balkan Country with Recent History of Social and Economic Transition

The article's abstract is not available.

First record of Harpellales, Orphellales (Kickxellomycotina) and Amoebidiales (Mesomycetozoea) from Bulgaria, including a new species of Glotzia

This paper presents the results obtained from a short survey performed in Bulgaria, southeast Europe, where the trichomycetes (sensu lato), an ecological group of arthropod gut endosymbionts, were previously completely unknown. The present study initiates the comprehension of these cryptic organisms, members of the Kickxellomycotina (Harpellales, Orphellales) and the Mesomycetozoea (Amoebidiales), in this Balkan country. Eighteen new geographic records for Bulgaria are reported, including 10 species of Harpellales, three species of Orphellales and five species of Amoebidiales. Within the Harpellales, the species Glotzia balkanensissp. nov. is described. This new species is most related to the rare species G. centroptili Gauthier ex Manier & Lichtw. and G. stenospora White & Lichtw., but is differentiated by spore and thallial characteristics. Photographs are provided and biogeographic implications of these records are discussed.

On the Russian financial assistance to Montenegro: From the origins of Russian-Montenegrin relations to the beginning of the 20th century

In 1711, official relations were established between Russia and Montenegro. Since 1715, Russia began to pay a constant financial subsidy to Montenegro. Over the years, its amount was growing, more and more new items of expenditure were added to the main subsidy. Based on documents, we note a special increase in these payments at the period of the Great Eastern Crisis of 1875-1878, during the Montenegrin-Turkish War of 1876-1877 and the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878. Because of the latter, the Berlin Treaty was signed, officially securing the independence of Montenegro and its territorial expansion. In the post-war decade, Russia repeatedly provided loans to Montenegro for various needs, including military ones, and helped, almost annually, by sending foodstuffs. In 1889, two dynastic marriages were contracted between the Russian Empire and the Montenegrin principality. Before this, Petersburg had covered all the external debts of the Principality. Since 1895, Russia took upon itself the financing of one battalion of the Montenegrin army, and since 1902 of two battalions with a total cost of 331 thousand rubles. In our opinion, financial “injections” were an important measure of Russian-Montenegrin relations, which can be used to judge the interest of the Russian Empire in Montenegro, as well as the significance of this small Balkan country for the Russian Foreign Ministry’s policy plans.

“Perverting the Taste of the People”: Lăutari and the Balkan Question in Romania

??Perverting the Taste of the People?: L?utari and the Balkan Question in Romania? considers the term ?Balkan? in the context of Romanian Romani music-making. The expression can be used pejoratively to describe something ?bar-baric? or fractured. In the ?world music? era, ?gypsy-inspired? music from the Balkans has become highly regarded. From this perspective ?Balkan? is seen as something desirable. The article uses the case of the Romanian ?gypsy? band Taraf de Ha?douks in illustration. Romania?s cultural and physical position with- in Europe can be difficult to locate, a discourse reflected in Romanian society itself, where many reject the description of Romania as a ?Balkan? country. This conflict has been contested through manele, a Romanian popular musical genre. In contrast, manele is seen by its detractors as too ?eastern? in character, an unwelcome reminder of earlier Balkan and Ottoman influences on Romanian culture.

Oltre l’Adriatico

Albania joined the International Art Exhibition in Venice only in 2005, twenty years later the collapse of the communist dictatorship of Enver Hoxha. The building of a democratic state had consequences also on the expressive research of several artists who had to face a substantial change of their working environment. At the beginning of XXI century the artistic and cultural heritage of Socialist Realism was still the only relevant cultural reference for the construction of a new Albanian cultural identity. Reflecting on the troubled past of the their nation the new generation of artists focused their research on a intimate and personal elaboration concerned the current improvement of the Albanian society. The purpose of this essay is to illustrate the role that the Venice Biennale has been in the realization of the new Albanian artistic scene as landmark for the European and international contemporary cultural tendencies. All the exhibition settled in the Albanian Pavillion since 2005 reveal the different approaches to the national past and to the new cultural identity of the artist that have represented the Balkan country at the Venice Biennale during the last fifteen years.

Услови и ограничења реиндустријализације као стратегије изласка из кризе // Conditions and limitations of reindustrialization as a strategy for getting out of the crisis

Резиме: Стратегија реиндустријализације, поготово малих земаља, једна је од могућих стратешких радњи које би омогућиле излазак из кризе. Колико ће тај процес трајати и с којим ће се потешкоћама суочити, зависи од анатомије кризе сваке земље па и цијелог западног Балкана. Као лимитирајући фактори у раду су номинирани: глобални процеси, неуспјешна транзиција и неефикасне институције. Специфичност мале балканске земље, Босне и Херцеговине као и Републике Српске је: макроекономска стабилност и инсуфицијенција јавних финансија који угрожавају одрживост пензијског система, здравственог осигурања и дјечју заштиту, што у цјелини негативно утиче на демографску и економску слику Републике Српске и Босне и Херцеговине.Summary: The strategy of reindustrialization, especially of small countries, is one of exit strategies from the crisis. How long this process will take and what difficulties it will face with depends on the anatomy of the crisis of each country including the entire Western Balkans. The following factors are nominated as limiting in this paper: global processes, unsuccessful transition and inefficient institutions. The specificity of a small Balkan country, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Srpska is the macro-economic stability and the insufficiency of public finances that threaten the sustainability of the pension system, health insurance and child protection, all of which adversely affect the economic and demographic picture of the Republic of Srpska and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Balkan Countries in the World: Aging Process within the Age Structural Transition

This article intends to approach the phenomenon of population aging within the conceptual framework of structural transition. In this work the authors put forward a method of defining the variety of evolutionary trajectories – the result of different sets of fertility-mortality interactions – on the global level and hence identify the position of each Balkan country within the worldwide demographic order of the past four decades (1971–2015). The authors then propose a specific index – the structural dissimilarity index – to measure the corresponding transformations inherent to the population age structure and link the results with the prospects that emerge on the basis of the interaction between fertility and mortality. This has finally enabled the authors to formulate some broad assumptions regarding the current and future intensity and trends of structural transformations. For this purpose, the authors have gathered a sample of 142 national populations, including all Balkan countries, with the exception of Montenegro, and employed different techniques such as Partial Order Structuple (Scalogram) Analysis with Coordinates (POSAC) and the cohort-component population projections for the timeframes 1971–2015 and 2015–2060.