The Deepest Strand. Isiah Berlin and the Intellectual History of Russia

Isaiah Berlin’s essays on the nineteenth-century Russian intelligentsia throw light not only on their subject – the role of that group in preparing the ideational ground for the coming revolutions – but more broadly on Berlin’s central philosophical preoccupations and historiographical and hermeneutical assumptions and method. I try to show this – the centrality to his overall project of Berlin’s work on the Russians – by contextualising that work within the broader framework of his philosophical and historical thought.

Democracy Towards Authoritarianism Under Illiberal Populist Leaders in Hungary and Poland

A quarter of a century ago, the Soviet Union dissolved and the Cold War ended. Now the current political era involves a broad challenge to liberal democracy in the European Union. Central European countries such as the Czech Republic, Hungary, the Republic of Poland, and the Slovak Republic (‘the Visegrád Group’) joined the EU in 2004 with the hope that the post-Cold War era would be one of peace and stability in Europe, including (most importantly) the expansion of Europe’s democracy. A turning point came in 2014, however, when the Syrian refugee crisis hit the EU and caused a political ‘about face’. The European refugee and migrant crisis have strengthened right-wing populism among the European countries, including the Visegrád group. Obviously there are certainly similarities between the populist rhetoric of Hungary’s ruling party, Fidesz, and the Law and Justice party (known as PiS) which is governing the Republic of Poland. The two countries appear to be following the same path of becoming ‘illiberal democratic’ states. The templates of authoritarianism which both countries have adopted involve the following: the restriction of civil society and the independence of the media, control of the judiciary and the court system, together with the transformation of the constitutional framework and electoral law in order to consolidate power. This paper analyses two examples of authoritarian populist leaders: first, Viktor Orbán, the Prime Minister of Hungary of the Fidesz Party and, second, Jarosław Kaczyński, a leader of the Law and Justice Party (PiS) in Poland. A brief description of each is provided as a background for the discussion which follows.

Women Survivors of the Armenian Genocide: Liberation and Relief at the Aleppo Rescue Home

Genocide perpetrated against the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire was both gender-oriented and age-oriented. The Armenian male population was generally killed before or at the beginning of deportation, while women and children, as well as being massacred, were also subjected to different forms of physical and sexual violence during the death marches. Children were also forcibly transfered to the enemy group, while women were abducted or forcibly married. The experiences and fates of Armenian women and children offer a perspective on how complex and multi-faceted the phenomenon of genocide is. Based on the surveys of rescued Armenian women kept in the archives of the League of Nations, this article will present the fate of women during and after the Armenian Genocide.

Orwell’s List

Drawing on works of literature, especially ones written by Dostoyevsky and Böll, this essay discusses Orwell’s decision, at the height of the Cold War, to inform against suspected Leftist sympathisers.

Narratives of Nationalism and the Conflict in Eastern Ukraine: Myth, Religion and Language

This paper offers a multidisciplinary approach to the study of the current armed conflict in Eastern Ukraine as a way of understanding the dispute and the failure of the warring parties to broker a lasting peace. It examines the ideological background to the conflict by considering the most significant historical myths that inform both sides, especially the myths surrounding the medieval state of Kievan Rus’, and the religious, political and linguistic elements of those myths that contribute to mutual misunderstanding and heightened tensions. What is demonstrated is that the myths of each side are structurally very similar: one set is the mirror image of the other (with corresponding labels interchanged). This symmetry helps to intensify and maintain inflamed confrontation, so that there is a pressing need to move beyond these myths, if a lasting peace is to be achieved.