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Since the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 the former Communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe have been pushing for a quick 'return to Europe'. The project of 'expanding European unity' is in full progress, however, so far none of the former Soviet bloc countries have been able to join the European Union. Technical problems, related to financial management and administrative matters, still have to be overcome, but more fundamental issues are also at stake: what are the borders of Central and Eastern Europe? And will the eastward expansion of the European Union be conducted on the basis of western images and stereotypes of `the East'? This volume examines the state of affairs after ten years of attempts to further enlarge the Union. Written by authors from 'the East' as well as 'the West' some of the articles focus on the general issue of how to distinguish between Western, Central and Eastern Europe, while others discuss the specific situation of the countries that are closest to joining the European Union: Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary.
The high degree of internet penetration and its social (and linguistic) effects evidently influence how people, and especially the highly susceptible younger generations, use language. The primary aim of the book is not only to identify the characteristic features of the digital language variety (this has already been done by several works) but to examine how digital communication affects the language of other mediums of communication: orality, handwritten texts, digitally created but not digitally perceived, that is printed texts, including in particular advertisements (which quickly respond to linguistic change). Naturally, the book presents the characteristics of the digital language variety (and coins the term digilect) but only to give a framework to the impact analysis. It is important to document changes in progress and thus direct attention to potential outcomes. The current linguistic change is different from previous ones primarily in its speed and form of spreading, and it not only brings innovative grammatical forms and writing/spelling solutions but may also have far-reaching cultural and educational consequences in the long run.
"... excellent... " --Slavic Review "... displays a depth of scholarship and breadth of research which in the main is distilled into a fascinating read. At last Mészáros is getting the attention she deserves." --Sight and Sound "Drawing on personal reminiscences, interviews with Meszaros, and critiques of individual films, Portuges delineates in detailed and convincing fashion the cultural contradictions surrounding Meszaros and her art." --Signs "This book provides engaging insight to works by one of Hungary's best contemporary filmmakers, Márta Mészáros." --Canadian Slavonic Papers A fascinating exploration of the culture of post-Stalinist Eastern Europe through a detailed study of the achievements of its foremost woman director--and revealing interviews with the filmmaker and her collaborators. Márta Mészáros's visual representations of youth, sexual difference, and class conflict challenged official socialist versions of gender, family relations, and workers' lives. Her films include documentaries and features and the recently completed Diary of My Father and Mother.
Setting out the historical national and religious characteristics of the Italians as they impact on the integration within the European Union, this study makes note of the two characteristics that have an adverse effect on Italian national identity: cleavages between north and south and the dominant role of family. It discusses how for Italians family loyalty is stronger than any other allegiance, including feelings towards their country, their nation, or the EU. Due to such subnational allegiances and values, this book notes that Italian civic society is weaker and engagement at the grass roots is less robust than one finds in other democracies, leaving politics in Italy largely in the hands of political parties. The work concludes by noting that EU membership, however, provides no magic bullet for Italy: it cannot change internal cleavages, the Italian worldview, and family values or the country’s mafia-dominated power matrix, and as a result, the underlying absence of fidelity to a shared polity—Italian or European—leave the country as ungovernable as ever.
The story of the battle of Mohács and of King Louis II’s dramatic escape, only to meet his end by falling from his horse and drowning in the stream of Csele, is well-known. These traumatic events have been seen as symbolizing the fall of the independent Hungarian Kingdom and the dawn of an age of oppression. This volume presents new research on these events and their interpretation, focusing on topics such as battlefield reconstruction, troop involvement, firearm use, and later political use and abuse of the memory of the battle. Contributors are Pál Fodor, Péter Gyenizse, Erika Hancz, Máté Kitanics, Sándor Konkoly, Dénes Lóczy, Tamás Morva, Norbert Pap, Júlia Papp, Gábor Szalai, and Gábor Varga.
This volume remembers Géza Xeravits, a well known scholar of deuterocanonical and Qumran literature. The volume is divided into four sections according to his scholarly work and interest. Contributions in the first part deal with Old Testament and related issues (Thomas Hiecke, Stefan Beyerle, and Mattew Goff). The second section is about the Dead Sea Scrolls (John J, Collins, John Kampen, Peter Porzig, Eibert Tigchelaar, Balázs Tamási and Réka Esztári). The largest part is the forth on deuterocanonica (Beate Ego, Lucas Brum Teixteira, Fancis Macatangay, Tobias Nicklas, Maria Brutti, Nuria, Chalduch-Benages, Panc Beentjes, Ben Wright, Otto Mulder, Angelo Passaro, Friedrich Reiterer, Severino Bussino, Jeremy Corley and JiSeong Kwong). The third section deals with some cognate literature (József Zsengellér and Karin Schöpflin). The last section about the Ancient Synagogue has the paper of Anders Kloostergaard Petersen. Some hot topics are discussed, for example the Two spirits in Qumran, the cathegorization of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the authorship and antropology of Ben Sira, and the angelology of Vitae Prophetarum.
This timely Research Handbook provides a multidisciplinary overview of research on ethno-cultural minority issues at the supranational level of the EU. It delivers a state-of-the-art review of the EU’s approaches to development and institutional implementation of minority policies from the Treaty of Rome until today.