Eastern European Studies

Cultures d’Europe centrale, n° 3, 2003, 247 p.

Territoires à la frontière, les confins représentent un ailleurs géographique mais aussi poétique, cristallisant et parfois renversant l’opposition entre le « centre » et la « périphérie ». Dans les pays d’Europe centrale, il y va souvent d’un mythe collectif : le rêve des Allemands et des Autrichiens sur la Galicie, des Polonais sur la Lituanie ou l’Ukraine, des Tchèques sur la Slovaquie, des Hongrois sur la Transylvanie, des Juifs assimilés sur le monde de la culture yiddish, pour n’en citer que quelques exemples. Le récit de voyage vers les confins, départ d’un centre oppressant vers un « ailleurs » salutaire, reposant sur la nostal gie d’un pays à la fois proche et lointain, d’une « patrie personnelle », exprime à travers un genre littéraire particulier cette aspiration au ressourcement géographique et spirituel. Études de cas d’artistes, d’essayistes et d’écrivains allemands et autrichiens (Döblin, Däubler, Franzos, Schnitzler), hongrois (Németh), tchèques, yiddishophones (Peretz, Anski), polonais (Schulz, Kossak-Szczucka), russe (Sigismund Krzyzanowski), mais aussi francophones (Simenon, Ritter).


Table des matières

Delphine Bechtel et Xavier Galmiche
Introduction ......................................................................................
p. 7

Andrei CORBEA-HOISIE : « Le voyage colonisateur de Karl
Emil Franzos en Semi-Asie » .........................................................
p. 23

Markéta THEINHARDT : « Jaroslav Čermák, un peintre
tchèque entre Paris et les Balkans » ...............................................
p. 43

Delphine BECHTEL : « D’Images d'un voyage en province (1891) de
Peretz à La Destruction de la Galicie (1921) d’An-Ski :
représentation des confins juifs entre expédition statistique et
littérature » ........................................................................................
p. 57

Thomas SERRIER : « L’Est commence au plus tard à la gare de
Silésie de Berlin : Voyages allemands dans la ‘Marche orientale’
autour de 1900 » ...............................................................................
p. 77

Wolfgang SABLER : « Le Chemin solitaire (1904) de Schnitzler et
les traces des expéditions archéologiques en Bactriane » ...........
p. 97

Catherine SERVANT : « Présences slovaques dans l’oeuvre de
Miloš Jiránek » ..................................................................................
p. 115

Xavier GALMICHE : « Europe centrale et patries personnelles
chez William Ritter » ........................................................................
p. 137

Marek TOMASZEWSKI : « Le voyage nostalgique dans les
confins ou la mémoire des lieux des romanciers polonais des
années 1920 et 1930 » ......................................................................
p. 153

Roman DZIERGWA : «Voyages, visites et confrontations
littéraires avec les confins orientaux de la Pologne de l’Entredeux-
guerres chez les auteurs allemands » .................................
p. 175

Luba JURGENSON : « Sigismund Krzyzanowski et le voyage
imaginaire de Münchhausen » ........................................................
p. 189

György TVERDOTA : « La ‘fraternité de lait’ des peuples
d’Europe centrale dans le récit de voyage en Roumanie (1935)
de László Németh » .........................................................................
p. 207

Boris CZERNY : « Confins et envers des confins dans
l’Europe des années trente chez Georges Simenon » ................
p. 225

Note des éditeurs .............................................................................
p. 243

Short of the war, the destruction, and the massive loss of life, Ukraine is in many ways similar to the Gulf crisis in which the UAE, together with Saudi Arabia, led a 3.5-year-long economic and diplomatic boycott of Qatar that, like the Russian invasion, was designed to hollow out the sovereignty of a neighbouring state.

The European Parliament (EP) adopted, between 2004 and 2009, a series of resolutions calling for recognition of Communist crimes and commemoration of their victims. This article focuses on an overlooked aspect of anti-Communist activism, the awareness-raising activities carried out by some Central European Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to perpetuate the cause through networks that enable them to exchange institutional credibility, scientific legitimacy, and policy-oriented knowledge with Institutes of National Memory, parts of academia, and victims associations. Although they use the techniques of expertise and scandalization that are often effective in European institutions, these memory entrepreneurs have largely failed to further their claims in the European Union (EU) after 2009. In line with the turn toward “practice” in EU studies and the increased attention paid to agency in memory politics, this article contends that the conditions of production of their narrativ...

In 1900, the German Empire was extremely shaken by a violent crime. To the east of the country , in the province of West Prussia in the town of Chojnice (Ger. Konitz), a junior high school student, Ernst Winter, was murdered. The circumstances of the case and the manner of the crime led the local population to believe that the boy had been killed by the Jews in order to win his blood for ritual purposes. The accusation of the local Jewish population resulted in a rapid increase in the hostility of Christians (Germans and Poles) towards their Semitic neighbours. The lie about the guilt of the Jews quickly went through the entire province, and then reached the furthest corners of Germany. In Chojnice, riots and numerous attacks on Jews and their property took place. Anti-Jewish excesses have spread rapidly in West Prussia. The course of the investigation and its relationship with the anti-Jewish riots was described by the main representative of the Polish press in West Prussia – Gazeta Toruńska. Słowa kluczowe: antysemityzm, mord rytualny, przesądy, Żydzi, katolicy, Chojnice, ekscesy anty-żydowskie, Prusy Zachodnie, oskarżenie, Rzesza Niemiecka, " Gazeta Toruńska " W XIX wieku prasa stała się głównym środkiem rozpowszechniania informacji. Było tak do czasu zmonopolizowania rynku medialnego przez telewizję w XX wie-ku. Za pośrednictwem gazet propagowano różne idee społeczne i polityczne, w tym antysemityzm, który wzmógł się w Niemczech po 1871 roku. Rynek prasowy w zjed-noczonej Rzeszy był jednym z najlepiej zorganizowanych w Europie – obok Anglii i Francji. Z każdą dekadą poprawiała się jakość i szybkość dziennikarstwa na szczeb-lach lokalnych, gdzie prowadzono dyskusje o palących kwestiach, opisywano afery kryminalne lub nawoływano do głosowania do sejmiku itp.

Con questa preziosa analisi Carlo Pallard tratteggia un vivace e puntuale disegno della storia più recente di questo complesso Paese, del suo tormentato percorso verso la modernità. Un cammino segnato da colpi di stato riusciti e da altri falliti, da processi riformatori e da regressioni autoritarie. Da aperture laiche e da chiusure tradizionaliste dell'ideologia islamica. Chiarisce quello che è stato il ruolo reale del potere militare nella vicenda storica della Turchia. Ruolo che spesso in Occidente è stato equivocato e addirittura mitizzato. Getta una luce sui passaggi cruciali della storia repubblicana della Turchia la cui corretta conoscenza è di fondamentale importanza per interpretare con fedeltà, senza distorsioni, anche questa fase politica transitoria dalle prospettive incerte per il futuro del paese. La Turchia, da quello che appare nei media è un paese di cui si parla molto, ma di cui si conosce molto poco... e si scrive altrettanto poco, in particolare in Italia. Ragion per cui il lettore in questo saggio troverà una utile e fedele chiave interpretativa dell'evoluzione del complesso quadro politico della Turchia dal 1960 ad oggi, utile soprattutto per comprendere quella che sembra essere la parabola discendente dell'era di Erdoğan e del suo partito.

(Dalla prefazione di Mariano Giustino)

The concept of intelligence and security adopted in post-1989 Poland has been characterized by redundant content, wide scope and a catch-all approach to state security. Similarly, Poland’s intelligence community has been dispersed, loosely coordinated, heavily burdened with political tasks and hardly efficient. At the outset, it was made up of four specialized services: The Internal Security Agency (ABW), the Foreign Intelligence Agency (AW), the Military Intelligence Service (SWW) and the Military Counterintelligence Service (SKW). However, as time went by, intelligence functions were granted to other institutions and
bodies in charge of internal and territorial security - like the police, border guards, financial intelligence units and anti-corruption offices. Furthermore, the absence of a clearinghouse meant that lots of information acquired from different sources was locked in separate institutions and left practically useless.
Explaining this state of affairs is not simple. In general, its causes and conditions can be found in two different bundles of variables, dealing with geostrategic determinants (cooperation with the US, membership in the NATO and the UE, Russian penetration) on the one hand, and several significant weaknesses
of the political system on the other, the latter manifesting themselves in politicisation, “party politics” and interpersonal animosities. While the burden of the Communist past was hard to throw off immediately and plans for building up a completely new intelligence community gave way to a cautious restructuring of
the security sector, the verification of secret services was selective and generally friendly for the “old guard”. These processes have resulted in overlapping competences,
institutional frictions and legislative incoherence.
In consideration of this overall context, the purpose of this study is threefold: First, to describe the evolution of the Polish intelligence community, starting from the assumption that since the fall of the Communist regime the secret services in Poland have suffered the chronic ailment of politicisation and instrumental treatment by subsequent governing coalitions. Second, to give a picture of the relevant organisations and structures which form the Polish intelligence community. Finally, to point out the relations to, and the activities of, the two most influential external powers on Polish security, Russia and the
United States.

ערב רב: פנים וחוץ בוויכוח הפרנקיסטי הוא ספר מרתק וחדשני החושף את סיפורה הייחודי של התנועה הפרנקיסטית, תנועה יהודית אפיקורסית שצמחה בפולין והתפשטה במרכז אירופה במחצית השנייה של המאה ה-18.

בעיני רוב היהודים פרנק היה 'משיח שקר' ידוע לשמצה. בעיני נוצרים נאורים ומיסיונרים מילנריסטים היה יהודי-נוצרי ואדם חופשי בדעותיו, שלו קשרים מסתוריים והוא משתמש במגיה ובמאגרי עושר סודיים. עבור מאמיניו היה למבשר שחרור מן המסגרות המקובלות המדכאות של מגדר, הלכה, מעמד, משטר ודת.

התנועה הפרנקיסטית עוררה הדים והיתה סלע מחלוקת גם בקרב גורמים דתיים ופוליטיים לא יהודיים: יוזף השני, קתרינה הגדולה, גתה, קזנובה ואחרים. תורותיו של יעקב פרנק, מנהיג התנועה, הציבו אתגר בפני היהדות הנורמטיבית, אך גם בפני האסלאם וזרמים בנצרות. הספר מברר מחלוקות פנימיות ביהדות המודרנית אך דן גם ביחסים בין יהודים לסביבתם במאות ה-18–ה-19.

ערב רב מבוסס על מקורות פנימיים שחיברו פרנק ומאמיניו, על מקורות יהודיים פולמוסיים אנטי פרנקיסטיים, ועל מקורות שכתבו גורמים לא יהודיים בני הזמן. דרכו המוקצנת של יעקב פרנק עוררה עניין רב בו ובתנועתו, ולקורא מוגש ניתוח מעמיק של פרשה היסטורית ייחודית זו.
המחבר, ד"ר פאבל מצ'ייקו מן האוניברסיטה העברית בירושלים, חוקר את תולדות היהודים בפולין-ליטא בעת החדשה. נולד בוורשה וקיבל תואר דוקטור מאוניברסיטת אוקספורד. פרסומיו הרבים זיכו אותו בפרסים, במלגות ובמענקי מחקר רבים. שימש מרצה אורח באוניברסיטאות שונות, בארצות הברית, בצרפת, בגרמניה ובפולין.

Audiences are among the dominant elements of courtly life and may be referred to as a central aspect of representation of power in many societies. Audiences also served as a stage for negotiation and political decision-making. Beyond that, the ceremonial of audience acted as an integrative factor, strengthening the connections between the ruler and his subjects, the élite and his dynastic background. It thus reflects the structure, or at least the intended structure of rule, and allows us to get insight into the perception of the ruler in the respective society. This volume offers an approach to forms and structures of audiences in different epochs and regions. Choosing a transcultural and diachronic perspective, it aims at delineating similarities and differences as well as possible lines of development of the ceremonial on a broad basis of case studies.

Slovakia’s relations with the states of Eastern Europe not only have a bilateral impact, but contain geopolitical, security and economic dimensions as well. This article analyzes the domestic, bilateral and multilateral aspects of relations between Slovakia and Russia before and after the parliamentary elections of 1998, when Slovakia adopted a pro-Western course aimed at EU and NATO membership. The article also focuses on bilateral relations with Ukraine, where Slovakia is among the most active supporters of Ukraine’s future EU membership. The final sections analyze the Eastern policy of Slovakia – particularly within the framework of the EU’s Eastern Partnership and the Visegrad Group – as well as Slovakia’s relations with the new Eastern European partners, such as Belarus, Moldova and Georgia, as target countries of Slovakia’s “soft power.”

There are more types of borders today than ever before in history. Borders of all kinds define every aspect of social life in the twenty-first century. From the biometric data that divides the smallest aspects of our bodies to the aerial drones that patrol the immense expanse of our domestic and international airspace, we are defined by borders. They can no longer simply be understood as the geographical divisions between nation-states. Today, their form and function has become too complex, too hybrid. What we need now is a theory of the border that can make sense of this hybridity across multiple domains of social life.

Rather than viewing borders as the result or outcome of pre-established social entities like states, Thomas Nail reinterprets social history from the perspective of the continual and constitutive movement of the borders that organize and divide society in the first place. Societies and states are the products of bordering, Nail argues, not the other way around. Applying his original movement-oriented theoretical framework "kinopolitics" to several major historical border regimes (fences, walls, cells, and checkpoints), Theory of the Border pioneers a new methodology of "critical limology," that provides fresh tools for the analysis of contemporary border politics.

The monograph dedicated to the analysis of the politics of history in Ukraine, 'Eastern Europe', and 'Western Europe' in the 1980s - 2010s. Rich empirical material, detailed analysis of roles and performances of state (President, government, local governing bodies, and non-governmental) actors (NGOs, political parties, media, historians),

Una versión reducida del texto “An Unexpected Twist of Ideology. Neoliberalism and the Collapse
of the Soviet Bloc publicado en "Praktyka Teoretyczna", núm. 5, 2012. Traducción de Luis Martínez
Andrade. Metapolítica: marzo 2013.
The full English version also at Academia.edu: https://www.academia.edu/11798198/An_Unexpected_Twist_of_Ideology._Neoliberalism_and_the_Collapse_of_the_Soviet_Bloc

This study analyzes controversies and public attitudes concerning the Bandera faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B), the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)
and Stepan Bandera in Ukraine. The research question is: Which factors affect attitudes toward the OUN-B, the UPA and Bandera in contemporary Ukraine? This article employs comparative and regression analyses of surveys commissioned by the author and conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) in 2009 and 2013 to determine the effects of regional and other factors on attitudes toward these organizations and the OUN-B leader. The study shows that regional factors and perceptions of these organizations' involvement in mass murder were the strongest predictors of the views concerning the OUN-B, the UPA and Bandera. Their public support is strongest in Galicia and weakest in the East and the South, in particular, in Donbas and Crimea, two major conflict areas since the “Euromaidan.”

The book discerns the rise and survival of Vladimir Putin as leader of Russia. The book will be relevant for those interested in Balkan and East European politics. To add, the book also reveals the secret relationship between the two super powers Russia and United States.

This study examines the role of political factors in attitudes toward World War II in contemporary Ukraine. The question under examination is which factors determine public views of the principal warring sides and their leaders in Ukraine. This paper uses a representative national survey specifically designed for this research project and conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in 2012. It analyzes the roles of regionalism, political party preferences, ethnicity, language, age, and sex in attitudes toward the Red Army, Soviet partisans, the German Army (Wehrmacht), and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) during the war, as well as toward the wartime leaders of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and the UPA. The analysis of the survey data shows that regional values, political party preferences, ethnicity, language, and age have significant effects on views of the Soviet Army and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army during the war and attitudes toward the wartime activities of Joseph Stalin and Roman Shukhevych. Public perceptions of the German Army and Adolf Hitler in Ukraine do not vary much across regions, political parties, and ethnic, language, age, and sex groups.

The European Union (EU) has closely correlated different aspects of the peace process in Bosnia with progress towards European accession. The ‘power of attraction’ of EU membership would presumably induce the Bosnian authorities to accept the adaptation costs of political and economic transformation. However, the Europeanisation approach has not produced the expected results. The track record of the EU’s policies towards Bosnia represents a paradigmatic case of what would happen if almost nothing works as efficiently as in the case of the countries that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007. The article investigates the causes of EU policy failure in Bosnia and claims that the EU has not effectively responded to three challenges: 1) adjust the process to the needs of an ethnically divided post-war state; 2) preserve the credibility of accession conditionality, and 3) convey the proper messages on how to comply with EU rules. Therefore, the article argues for a more cohesive and consistent EU approach towards Bosnia.

This is a discussion of the English version (2016) of C. Panchenko's book first published in Russian (Moscow, 2012). „Arab Orthodox Christians” is, in broad terms, a history of the Church of Antioch in relation with the Russian Church, with a secondary focus on related topics such as the historical background of these relations, the situation of the Catholic Church in the East, the Antiochians' connections to the Romanians, the Georgians, the Greek, the Vatican etc.

This study briefly presents the history of the radical form of Ukrainian nationalism, paying special attention to the geopolitical circumstances which formed this movement. Then, it analyzes some aspects of this phenomenon, such as its main ideologists, racism, antisemitism, religion, rituals, leaders, concepts of revolution, and the ethnic, political and mass violence conducted before, during, and after the Second World War. This short monograph argues that the extreme and genocidal form of Ukrainian nationalism did have a fascist kernel and should be considered a form of European or East-Central European fascism. Nevertheless, because of the specific cultural, social, and political Ukrainian circumstances the radical form of Ukrainian nationalism differed from better-known fascist movements such as German National Socialism or Italian Fascism, and thus it requires a careful and nuanced investigation.

This article, which introduces a Special Issue of the JCES on the challenges of EU enlargement policy towards the Western Balkans, critically examines the geopolitical turn of the EU’s institutional thinking on enlargement since 2017. After several high-ranked EU officials and leaders of member states more or less explicitly voiced their concerns about the declining influence of the EU in the Western Balkans, the European Commission – which has traditionally been responsible for carrying out administrative-technical aspects of the accession process – adopted a more geopolitical approach to enlargement policy in February 2018, and has since sought to advance Western Balkan accession more decisively. However, this geopolitical turn to the EU’s institutional thinking on enlargement has so far failed to translate discourse into concrete results. The article argues that the main reasons for this failure can be found in a lack of support by EU members, which either do not share the Commission’s sense of urgency, or are eager to use enlargement policy and the accession process to advance their national interests. The article concludes with a brief presentation of the structure of the special issue and introduces the contributing articles.

The visual reconstruction of shooting at Maidan protesters and journalists demonstrates that Maidan protesters were shot by snipers in the Hotel Ukraina and other Maidan-controlled buildings during the Maidan massacre in Ukraine on February 20, 2014. The bullet holes identified in government forensic expert reports, videos, and photos from directions of the Maidan-controlled buildings are in the area, height, and directions that match the shooting of the protesters.  The forensic examination reports by government investigators, videos and photos by journalists suggest that journalists from ABC (Australia), ARD TV (Germany) twice, Associate Press, BBC, Sky News, and RT in the Hotel Ukraina rooms facing Maidan were shot at from the Maidan-controlled areas. The visual reconstruction and the same data along with videos and media reports by journalists from these media suggest that ABC News (US) and TVP (Poland) journalists in the Hotel Ukraina were most likely shot at by snipers from the Maidan-controlled Bank Arkada. They suggest that a Ruptly reporter in the Hotel Ukraina was hit by a ricochet from a direction of a Berkut barricade. Russian journalists in other three locations of the Hotel Ukraina were shot at by Maidan snipers and/or by Berkut and Omega, which shot at snipers at the Hotel Ukraina.               

The visual reconstruction based on similar data shows that the Berkut police and Omega were generally shooting above protesters at the second and higher floors of the Hotel Ukraina and in electric poles, a flower box, and trees. Synchronized videos show that Maidan protesters in the massacre zone were in a blind spot below the line of Berkut police fire from behind a truck.             

This is an online appendix H of papers presented at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association in Boston and the “Regimes and Societies in Conflict: Eastern Europe and Russia since 1956” conference by the Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University and the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies in Uppsala in 2018.

Hillel Zeitlin (1871-1942) was the leading figure of what may be called philosophical neo-Hasidism among Eastern European Jews in the pre-Holocaust era. A tireless author, journalist, and polemicist, he published constantly in both the Yiddish and Hebrew press, offering a bold new vision of contemporary spiritual life grounded in his reading of Hasidic sources. But Zeitlin sought to become an activist as well as a literary figure. He was especially concerned with the situation of the rootless Jewish youth. Throughout his career as a public figure, beginning shortly after World War I, he issued calls for a new organization of Jewish life. In a series of articles published in the 1920s he sought to form an elite Jewish spiritual fraternity to be called Yavneh, the most fully elaborated of his attempts at intentional community. The present study collects together Zeitlin’s Yiddish writings on the Yavneh fellowship, which are here re-printed and translated for the first time. Alongside these we present a newly discovered manuscript signed by Zeitlin, a single-sheet four-sided signed text in which he describes more succinctly and clearly the nature of the group and its intended function.

The massacre of almost 50 Maidan protesters on February 20, 2014 was a turning point in Ukrainian politics and a tipping point in the conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine. This mass killing of the protesters and the mass shooting of the police that preceded it led to the overthrow of the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych and gave a start to a civil war in Donbas in Eastern Ukraine, Russian military intervention in Crimea and Donbas, and an international conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine. A conclusion promoted by the post-Yanukovych governments and the media in Ukraine that the massacre was perpetrated by government snipers and special police units on a Yanukovych order has been nearly universally accepted by the Western governments, the media, and many scholars. The Ukrainian government investigation identified members of the special company of Berkut as responsible for killings of the absolute majority of the protesters, but did not release any evidence in support, with the exception of videos of the massacre.
              The question is which side organized the “snipers’ massacre.” This paper is the first academic study of this crucial case of the mass killing. It uses a theory of rational choice and a Weberian theory of instrumental rationality to examine actions of major actors both from the Yanukovych government, specifically various police and security forces, and the Maidan opposition, specifically its far right and oligarchic elements, during the massacre.
          The paper analyzes a large amount of evidence from different publicly available sources concerning this massacre and killings of specifics protesters. Qualitative content analysis includes the following data: about 1,500 videos and recordings of live internet and TV broadcasts from mass media and social media in different countries(some 150 gigabytes), news reports and social media posts by more than 100 journalists covering the massacre from Kyiv, some 5,000 photos, and nearly 30 gigabytes of publicly available radio intercepts of snipers and commanders from the special Alfa unit of the Security Service of Ukraine and Internal Troops, and Maidan massacre trial recordings. This study also employs field research on site of the massacre, eyewitness reports by both Maidan protesters and government special units commanders, statements by both former and current government officials, estimates of approximate ballistic trajectories, bullets and weapons used, and types of wounds among both protesters and the police. This study establishes a precise timeline for various events of the massacre, the locations of both the shooters and the government snipers, and the specific timeline and locations of nearly 50 protesters’ deaths. It also briefly analyzes other major cases of violence during and after the “Euromaidan.” This study includes two video appendixes.
            This academic investigation concludes that the massacre was a false flag operation, which was rationally planned and carried out with a goal of the overthrow of the government and seizure of power. It found various evidence of the involvement of an alliance of the far right organizations, specifically the Right Sector and Svoboda, and oligarchic parties, such as Fatherland. Concealed shooters and spotters were located in at least 20 Maidan-controlled buildings or areas. The various evidence that the protesters were killed from these locations include some 70 testimonies, primarily by Maidan protesters, several videos of “snipers” targeting protesters from these buildings, comparisons of positions of the specific protesters at the time of their killing and their entry wounds, and bullet impact signs. The study uncovered various videos and photos of armed Maidan “snipers” and spotters in many of these buildings. The paper presents implications of these findings for understanding the nature of the change of the government in Ukraine, the civil war in Donbas, Russian military intervention in Crimea and Donbas, and an international conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine.

Since the ceasefire of the Minsk agreement (Minsk II), media, politics and scholars debate EU-diplomacy concerning the concessions Minks II made towards Russia.

Reflecting EU-Russia-relations, the Ukraine-crisis was not a surprise (see Mearsheimer 2014, Dias 2013). In a long-term perspective, a contradiction appears between Russia’s confirmations of EU-norms and values as mutually shared principles on one hand, and a “fundamental ideological difference” on the other hand (Faw 2010:40, see Monaghan 2013:5pp). Regarding academic research, the problem is not new but still relevant (see Timmermann 2005, The Council of the European Union 2010, Poyraz 2011, Maliukevičius 2013). The Ukraine-crisis challenges relations between EU and Russia. What path will EU and Russia tread?

Picking up on the hint at ideological differences, the thesis questions:

Why does the Ukraine-crisis challenge EU-Russian-relations? Where do the challenges originate? What are their underlying reasons?

The recent crisis in Ukraine can be seen as a challenge of EU-standards in EU-Russian-relations, regarding their implications for EU-diplomacy concerning power and balance of interests in a globalized world. The Ukraine-crisis underlines the role of the Ukraine as a buffer zone at the peak of mutual misunderstanding between EU and Russia.

In the theoretical framework of power/knowledge and discourse after Michel Foucault (1972, 1980), the Master Thesis analyses key concepts of official discourse in EU-Russian relations. With Foucault’s notion of power and picking up on the hint at ideological differences, core concepts of EU-standards, such as democracy, multipolarity, rule of law and modernization, can be “unpacked” in the logic of ‘truth of power’, comparatively or contrasting to the Russian ‘truth of power’.

The research design of qualitative discourse analysis focuses on official resources of EU- and Russian policies in the timeframe of Vladimir Putin’s first presidency in 2000 up to today, concentrating on values and norms as given EU-standard. The Ukraine will be considered in the context of analysis, while the role of the U.S. is given marginal attention, in order to keep the frame of a master thesis.

Michel Foucault himself gave methodological precautions, but not a methodology to put discourse analysis into practice (see ibid. 1980, see Jørgensen/Phillips 2002). Consequently, the methodology of this discourse analysis refers to Laclau and Mouffee’s conception of nodal points and floating signifiers in the framework of their discourse theory, which follows core aspects of Foucault’s approach (see Laclau and Mouffee 1985).1 In order to examine the core assumption, EU-standards, challenged in EU-Russian-relations in the course of the Ukraine-crisis, will be analysed.

EU-standard concepts chosen for analysis are: democracy, multipolarity, rule of law and modernization.

These will be analysed with Laclau and Mouffee’s conception of nodal points and floating signifiers. Data will be collected (official resources), the comprehension of the respective EU- standard concept by each side, Russia and EU, will be examined and verified by examples.

The outcome will be discussed against the theoretical background of a “truth of power”, regarding implications for EU-diplomacy towards Russia and Ukraine’s role as a buffer zone concerning power and balance in a globalized world. Future perspectives of academic research will be envisaged.

This essay interrogates the legal discourse of Shulḥan ha-Tahor, a curious-and curiously understudied-work of Hasidic halakhah written by Rabbi Yitzḥak Ayzik Yehudah Yehiel Safrin of Komarno. The book is, at heart, a systematic reformulation of Jewish law in light of Kabbalah, Hasidism, and the quest for personal mystical experience. Shulḥan ha-Tahor offers a rare case study for the interface of mystical experience , Hasidic devotional values, and kabbalistic doctrine as they explicitly shape the codified forms-and norms-of halakhah. The essay reveals a different side of Jewish modernity through a close reading of an exceptional nineteenth-century legal code.

The Year 1968 in Czechoslovakia – exceptional case from political, social and religious point of view in European context
This study presents specific moments of the historical development of the year 1968 in Czechoslovakia. Not only political, social and religious situation in this country differed in many aspects from other states of the soviet block but also the dynamic development of the year 1968 and his reception differed from westeuropean countries. Author analyses also bold experiments such as ecumenical and Marxist-Christian dialogs. 
1968, history of Czechoslovakia, ecumenical dialog, Marxist-Christian dialog

Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit der spezifischen Zügen der historischen Entwicklung des Jahres 1968 in der damaligen tschechoslowakischen Gesellschaft. Die politische, gesellschaftliche und auch kirchliche Situation in der Tschechoslowakei unterschied sich in vielerlei Hinsicht von der in anderen Ländern des sowjetischen Blocks aber auch von der Ereignissen in der westeuropäischen Ländern. Autor analysiert auch sehr interessanten Experimenten wie ökumenischen oder christlich-marxistischen Dialog.

ABSTRACT. In the years following the end of the cold
war in 1989, Western feminist scholars and activists
expressed disappointment in the failure of the newly
democratic Eastern and Central European countries to
sustain mainstream women’s rights movements and
achieve a marked increase in women’s participation
within the new political parties and political life in
general. The authors, historians of Hungarian women’s
movements with a broad East-West perspective, offer a
novel explanation for this phenomenon. Following an
outline of the main stages of Hungarian women’s
movements and women’s political participation, they
focus on two instances in twentieth-century Hungarian
history that resulted in a rapid transition from antidemocratic regimes to liberal, parliamentary systems:
the 1918 bourgeois democratic revolution and the
1990 re-introduction of free parliamentary elections.

DOI 10.1080/08038740410004623

The crisis in Ukraine, which began in 2013, has had significant implications for European security. Cristian Nitoiu identifies three perceived security threats implied by developments in Ukraine and how these threats may develop in future years: the threat of so called 'hybrid warfare' spilling over from the standoff between Ukraine and Russia; the threat posed by nuclear weapons; and the threat posed by more conventional forms of warfare. Perceptions of security threats are arguably more salient than actual threats, most times having a deep influence on the actions of states and other international actors. Hence, they play a key role in the way the EU, Kyiv and Moscow will shape their policies towards each other in the wake of the Ukraine crisis. While Russia can employ a wide range of capabilities, the EU and Ukraine have very few instruments to tackle security threats, be they traditional or non­traditional. In the case of Ukraine, but also more broadly the post­Soviet space, EU­Russia/Ukraine relations are affected by the perception of three types of security threats: so called 'hybrid warfare', nuclear threats and traditional military threats (i.e. territorial invasion). Hybrid warfare In the West and Ukraine the perception of the threat posed by hybrid war has recently increased sharply. The annexation of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine have put the spotlight on the way states engage in conflict by using a series of (sometimes innovative) tools and strategies. Hybrid war combines the use of conventional and non­conventional capabilities, the use of irregular troops, cyber­attacks, support for terrorist, rebel and criminal groups, or the use of the media and civil society for propaganda purposes. In eastern Ukraine in particular we have witnessed a combination of the use of both state and non­state actors by all the sides involved. States tend to use parts of this toolkit even in times of peace, however in such situations these instruments are not combined in order to pursue certain assertive foreign policy goals.

Trust is a key factor in the development of collective action, and thus in the performance of communities, institutions and society. Seminal scholarship has greatly valued the social virtues of trust and to a lesser degree those of caution. Consequently, scholars have expressed concerns regarding the socialist ‘legacy of distrust’, which have negatively influenced processes of democracy and development in the post-socialist states. While quantitative measurements of trust have become standard in cross-national surveys, in depth qualitative research has remained exceptional but helpful. By employing a mixed-method design of cross-national analysis of secondary data and qualitative examination of 69 in-depth interviews in a post-‘socialist city’, this paper investigates the determinants of (dis)-trust in post-socialist Romania. The analysis draws attention to the entwined social and rational origin of trust and distrust. Findings show that institutional trust has risen from practically zero due to better public management and freedom to express opinions. However, institutional trust has remained low due to perceptions of widespread bribery and favouritism – not necessarily experienced but reinforced through social learning and the media – and to a general discontent with some institutions, particularly the police, the political elite and the judiciary. Conversely, interpersonal trust has been rapidly declining though it had not entirely vanished and has remained generally confined to families and bounded groups. By growing social distrust, people have reacted to the increasing social inequality during the post-socialist transition and its associated figures of the insular individualist and predatory capitalist. This does not invalidate the thesis of socialist ‘legacy of distrust’, but significantly adds to it. Data quantification suggests that the effect of increasing social inequality during transition is six times stronger than the effect of persistent communist legacies on current levels of social distrust. This has important policy implications, which are outlined in this paper.

It is interesting what are the further developments in Daimler AG – Russia’s Kamaz deal? In February 2015 German Daimler entered Joint Venture with Russia’s Kamaz to build vehicles and EU Commission approved this deal. Perhaps this will help Russia to attract funds and to produce not only five Mercedes-Benz car models, including the S, E, GL, ML and A class (final decision about this is pending).