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Constructing the Limits of Europe
This comparative study harks back to the revolutionary year of 1989 and asks two critical questions about the resulting reconfiguration of Europe in the aftermath of the collapse of communism: Why did Central and East European states display such divergent outcomes of their socio-political transitions? Why did three of those states—Poland, Bulgaria, and Russia—differ so starkly in terms of the pace and extent of their integration into Europe? Rumena Filipova argues that Poland’s, Bulgaria’s, and Russia’s dominating conceptions of national identity have principally shaped these countries’ foreign policy behavior after 1989. Such an explanation of these three nations’ diverging d...
On the Verge of History
Rural women have not had a formative role in the public histories of Central Eastern Europe. Izabella Agárdi aims to correct that by concentrating on their life stories and their connections to general histories. She investigates how Hungarian-speaking, ordinary women in rural contexts born in the 1920s and 1930s remember and talk about the twentieth century they have experienced, and how, through their stories, they articulate historical change and construct themselves as historical subjects. In her analysis, Izabella Agárdi traces the interactions between micro- and macro- narratives as well as the specific tools women of this generation appropriate to talk about personal memories of their often traumatic past. From these stories, a particular mnemonic community emerges, one that speaks from a highly precarious position 'on the verge of history'. It is up to future generations whether these women's experiences will be remembered or forgotten.
Germany as a Culture of Remembrance
An acknowledged authority on German history and memory, Alon Confino presents in this volume an original critique of the relations between nationhood, memory, and history, applied to the specific case of Germany. In ten essays (three never before published and one published only in German), Confino offers a distinct view of German nationhood in particular and of nationhood in general as a product of collective negotiation and exchange between the many memories that exist in the nation. The first group of essays centers on the period from 1871 to 1990 and explores how Germans used conceptions of the local, or Heimat, to identify what it meant to be German in a century of ideological upheavals. The second group of essays comprehensively critiques and analyzes the ways laypersons and scholars use the notion of memory as a tool to understand the past. Arguing that the case of Germany contains particular characteristics with broader implications for the way historians practice their trade, Germany as a Culture of Remembrance examines the limits and possibilities of writing history.
The Russian Path
The politico-economic reforms launched during the late twentieth century in post-Soviet Russia have led to contradictory and ambiguous results. The new economic environment and mode of governance that emerged have been subjected to serious criticism. What were the causes of these developments? Were they unavoidable for Russia due to specific factors grounded in the country’s previous experiences? Or were they an intended result of actions taken by the leaders of the country during the last few decades? The authors of this book share neither a deterministic approach, which implies that Russia is bound to fail because of the nature of its economic and political evolution, nor a voluntarist approach, which implies that these failures were caused only by the incompetence and/or malicious intentions of its leaders. Instead, this study offers a different framework for the analysis of political and economic developments in present-day Russia. It is based on four ‘i’s—ideas, interests, institutions, and illusions.
Power and Identity in the Post-Soviet Realm
With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the demise of the Cold War’s bipolar world order, Soviet successor states on the Russian periphery found themselves in a geopolitical vacuum, and gradually evolved into a specific buffer zone throughout the 1990s. The establishment of a new system of relations became evident in the wake of the Baltic States’ accession to the European Union in 2004, resulting in the fragmentation of this buffer zone. In addition to the nations that are more directly connected to Zwischeneuropa (i.e. ‘In-Between Europe’) historically and culturally (Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine), countries beyond the Caucasus (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia), as well as the state...
Life After Death
This book offers a novel approach to the cultural and social history of Europe after the Second World War.
Explaining Russian Foreign Policy Behavior
This book aims to explain the reasons behind Russia's international conduct in the post-Soviet era, examining Russian foreign policy discourse with a particular focus on the major foreign policy schools of Atlanticism, Eurasianism, derzhavniki, realpolitik, geopolitics, neo-Marxism, radical nationalism, and post-positivism. The Russian post-Soviet threat perceptions and national security doctrines are studied. The author critically assesses the evolution of Russian foreign policy decision-making over the last 25 years and analyzes the roles of various governmental agencies, interest groups and subnational actors. Concluding that a foreign policy consensus is gradually emerging in contemporary Russia, Sergunin argues that the Russian foreign policy discourse aims not only at the formulation of an international strategy but also at the search for a new national identity. Alexander Sergunin argues that Russia's current domestic situation, defined by numerous socio-economic, inter-ethnic, demographic, environmental, and other problems, dictates the need to abandon superpower ambitions and to rather set modest foreign policy goals.
Three Revolutions: Mobilization and Change in Contemporary Ukraine II
The second part of this multi-volume project assembles a series of recollections and debates on the Ukrainian revolutions of 1990, 2004, and 2013–2014. After an introduction to the methodology of oral history, it presents twenty interviews with participants and eyewitnesses of the events in Ukraine, and documents a series of workshop discussions conducted at a symposium held in 2017. In these workshops, activists and observers of each of the three revolutions exchanged and compared their memories, analyses, and evaluations. This volume thus not only provides a comprehensive collection of firsthand accounts of the three historic Ukrainian upheavals, but also reveals the interrelations between them. The volume documents assessments from Barbara Krauz-Mozer, Markiyan Ivashchyshyn, Natalia Klymovska, Vakhtang Kipiani, Mykola Kniazhycki, Natalyia Zubar, Yulia Tymoshenko, Aleksander Kwaœniewski, Viktor Taran, Markiyan Matsekh, Yulia Tychkivska, Leonid Findberg, Yulia Mostova, Oksana Zabuzhko, Eduard Drach, Michailo Cherenkoff, Andriy Dudchenko, Oleg Mahdych, Rebecca Harms, Herman van Rumpoy, and Jacek Saryusz-Wolski.
Diversity in the East-Central European Borderlands
Built on up-to-date field material, this edited volume suggests an anthropological approach to the palimpsest-like milieus of Wrocław, Lviv, Chernivtsi, and Chişinău. In these East-Central European borderline cities, the legacies of Nazism, Marxism-Leninism, and violent ethno-nationalism have been revisited in recent decades in search of profound moral reckoning and in response to the challenges posed by the (post-)transitional period. Present shapes and contents of these urban settings derive from combinations of fragmented material environments, cultural continuities and political ruptures, present-day heritage industries and collective memories about the contentious past, expressive ar...
How Corruption and Anti-Corruption Policies Sustain Hybrid Regimes
Leaders of hybrid regimes in pursuit of political domination and material gain instrumentalize both hidden forms of corruption and public anti-corruption policies. Corruption is pursued for different purposes including cooperation with strategic partners and exclusion of opponents. Presidents use anti-corruption policies to legitimize and institutionalize political domination. Corrupt practices and anti-corruption policies become two sides of the same coin and are exercised to maintain an uneven political playing field. This study combines empirical analysis and social constructivism for an investigation into the presidencies of Leonid Kuchma (1994–2005), Viktor Yushchenko (2005–2010), and Viktor Yanukovych (2010–2014). Explorative expert interviews, press surveys, content analysis of presidential speeches, as well as critical assessment of anti-corruption legislation are used for comparison and process tracing of the utilization of corruption under three Ukrainian presidents.
