Publisher: Central European University Press

64.00 €

With Their Backs to the Mountains. A History of Carpathian Rus’ and Carpatho-Rusyns

With Their Backs to the Mountains. A History of Carpathian Rus’ and Carpatho-Rusyns

Author(s): Paul Robert Magocsi / Language(s): English

Keywords: Carpatho-Rusyns; ethnic relations; history; Eastern Europe

With Their Backs to the Mountains is the history of a stateless people, the Carpatho-Rusyns, and their historic homeland, Carpathian Rus’, located in the heart of central Europe. A little over 100,000 Carpatho-Rusyns are registered in official censuses but their number could be as high as 1,000,000, the greater part living in Ukraine and Slovakia. The majority of the diaspora—nearly 600,000—lives in the US. At present, when it is fashionable to speak of nationalities as “imagined communities” created by intellectuals or elites who may or may not live in the historic homeland, Carpatho-Rusyns provide an ideal example of a people made—or some would say still being made—before our very eyes. The book traces the evolution of Carpathian Rus’ from earliest prehistoric times to the present, and the complex manner in which a distinct Carpatho-Rusyn people, since the mid-nineteenth century, came into being, disappeared, and then re-appeared in the wake of the revolutions of 1989 and the collapse of Communist rule in central and eastern Europe. To help guide the reader further there are 39 text inserts, 34 detailed maps, plus an annotated discussion of relevant books, chapters, and journal articles.

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49.00 €

The Green Bloc. Neo-avant-garde Art and Ecology under Socialism

The Green Bloc. Neo-avant-garde Art and Ecology under Socialism

Author(s): Maja Fowkes / Language(s): English

Keywords: Communism and ecology;ecology in art;modernism;Eastern Europe;socialism

Expanding the horizon of established accounts of Central European art under socialism, this book uncovers the neglected history of artistic engagement with the natural environment in the Eastern Bloc. The turbulent legacy of 1968, which saw the confluence of political upheaval, spread of counterculture, rise of ecological consciousness, and emergence of global conceptual art, provides the setting for Maja Fowkes’s innovative reassessment of the environmental practice of the Central European neo-avant-garde. Focussing on artists and artist groups whose ecological dimension has rarely been considered, including the Pécs Workshop from Hungary, OHO in Slovenia, TOK in Croatia, Rudolf Sikora in Slovakia, and the Czech artist Petr Štembera, The Green Bloc: Neo-avant-garde Art and Ecology under Socialism brings to light an array of distinctive approaches to nature, from attempts to raise environmental awareness among socialist citizens to the exploration of non-anthropocentric positions and the quest for cosmological existence in the midst of red ideology. Embedding artistic production in social, political, and environmental histories of the region, this book reveals the Central European artists’ sophisticated relationship to nature, at the precise moment when ecological crisis was first apprehended on a planetary scale.

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52.00 €

A Contemporary History of Exclusion. The Roma Issue in Hungary from 1945 to 2015

A Contemporary History of Exclusion. The Roma Issue in Hungary from 1945 to 2015

Author(s): Balázs Majtényi,György Majtényi / Language(s): English

Keywords: Romanies in Hungary; Romanies—Social conditions; Minorities—Government policy—Hungary; Hungary—Ethnic relations; Hungary—Social policy; Romanies—Legal status

This book discusses the history of the Gypsy/Roma issue in the context of Hungarian history, relying on state policy documents. The authors track events and narratives from the historical turning point of 1945 to the present. The volume argues that despite various political changes, official policies towards the Roma have been characterized by continuous exclusion. Written from an equality and human rights perspective, the volume breaks with the dominant discourse that has constructed the Roma from the viewpoint of the state and which, further, has long determined scholarly discourse.

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48.00 €

The University in the Twenty-first Century

The University in the Twenty-first Century

Author(s): Yehuda Elkana,Hannes Klöpper / Language(s): English

Keywords: Philosophy of Higher Education; Aims and objectives; Teaching; Digital Age

This book is a collaborative effort between two partners: one experienced and seasoned veteran, the other an energetic young novice. The core thesis of this book rests on the emergence of a “New Enlightenment,” which requires a revolution in curriculum and teaching in order to translate the academic philosophy of global contextualism into universal practice or application. Comprehensive reform with this in mind means no less than a revolution in the history of thought. The university as an institution is asked to revamp teaching in order to impart a new understanding of knowledge to students so as to foster critical thinking that would serve them their entire lives.

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57.00 €

Czechoslovak Diplomacy and the Gulag. Deportation of Czechoslovak Citizens to the USSR and the Negotiation for their Repatriation, 1945-1953

Czechoslovak Diplomacy and the Gulag. Deportation of Czechoslovak Citizens to the USSR and the Negotiation for their Repatriation, 1945-1953

Author(s): Milada Polišenská / Language(s): English

Keywords: World War II, 1939–1945; Deportations; Czechoslovakia; Labor camps; Czechs; Slovaks; Soviet Union; Foreign relations; Repatriation; Stalinist repressions

After the entry of the Red Army into Czechoslovak territory in 1945, Red Army authorities began to arrest and deport Czechoslovak citizens to labor camps in the Soviet Union. The regions most affected were Eastern and South Slovakia and Prague. The Czechoslovak authorities repeatedly requested a halt to the deportations and that the deported Czechoslovaks be returned immediately. It took a long time before these protests generated any response. Czechoslovak Diplomacy and the Gulag focuses on the diplomatic and political aspects of the deportations. The author explains the steps taken by the Czechoslovak Government in the repatriation agenda from 1945 to 1953 and reconstructs the negotiations with the Soviets. Polišenská tries to answer the question of why and how the Russians deported the civilian population from Czechoslovakia which was their allied country already during the war.

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45.00 €

Free Speech and Censorship around the Globe

Free Speech and Censorship around the Globe

Author(s): / Language(s): English

Keywords: Freedom of expression; Press and Media Laws; Media Freedom; Journalism; Right to Information; Hate speech;

Free Speech and Censorship around the Globe contains stories about how imagination and rational thinking in wildly different cultures capture, imagine, and conceptualize what freedom of speech means. This book treats the reader not as a tourist, but as a traveler. It does not stop at every famous tourist site that have been the most visited. Instead, it goes up many side streets. It provides an opportunity for curious people who would like to understand whether free speech can be contextual to take a journey of exploration. It draws a map of the concepts and contexts of free speech in the second decade of the 21st century. 1989 and 2011 are only two recent turning points when freedom of speech and freedom of the press emerged, or at least powerful efforts were made to support their emergence, although disheartening backlashes followed in several countries. The book also tells many other free speech narratives that emerged, or evolved outside the frames of 1989 and 2011, also with several troublesome repercussions. Reborn restrictions to free speech—as have taken place, for example, in some Central European and East European countries, such as the backlash in Hungary that received broad international attention—make the critical assessments presented in this volume especially timely. Comparative studies must help to avoid such backwards steps and to create enabling environments needed by any culture in order to develop and sustain the spirit and practices of freedom of speech.

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13.95 €

Three Chestnut Horses

Three Chestnut Horses

Author(s): Margita Figuli / Language(s): English

Keywords: Slovak prose; naturalism; Figuli; CEU Press Classics

This gem of Slovak naturalism was written in 1940. The story takes the reader to a mountain village. The protagonist narrates the vicissitudes, suffering, and success he experiences as he pursues a love affair, resulting in the triumph of pure love. Peter has been in love with a girl—Magdalena—since childhood and asks her to marry him. But he is too late, because a rich man, Jano Zapotočný, has already proposed to Magdalena, a proposal that her greedy mother promptly accepted on her behalf. Magdalena, out of respect for her mother's wishes, accepts the engagement. However, Magdalena promises Peter that she will put off marrying Jano and will marry him instead if he can prove that he truly loves her. He must build a house and earn a living. After almost two years Peter returns to show her that he kept his promise. But Magdalena is already married; Jano has raped her and she is pregnant. Desperate, Peter is tempted to take out his anger on Jano, nevertheless he resists the impulse. In the end, the author finds a way to reward Peter's faith in love and morality.

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13.95 €

The House of a Thousand Floors

The House of a Thousand Floors

Author(s): Jan Weiss / Language(s): English

Keywords: science fiction;Czech literature;

A man with no memory wakes up on the deserted staircase of a gigantic building. Gradually he learns about his identity and mission: he is Petr Brok, a detective sent to rescue Tamara, the princess kidnapped by the ruler of the monstrous Mullerdom, the house of a thousand floors. Ohisver Muller is a ruthless tyrant with many faces, eyes and ears in the most remote corners of his empire. But a revolution is spreading through the floors. Yet Petr Brok soon realises that, parallel to his Mullerdom adventure, he is living another life into which he keeps drifting against his will. What is dream and what reality? What is the flickering light inside a skull he sees in the darkness? And what is Mullerdom, a nightmarish reality or a figment of a fevered imagination, an allegory of the capitalist world or a dystopian vision of the future? With its humanistic message and imaginative power, Weiss’s The House of a Thousand Floors, first published in 1929, is a masterpiece of many genres, both unconventional and still contemporary, that has withstood the test of time for close to a century now.

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52.00 €

Castle and Cathedral in Modern Prague. Longing for the Sacred in a Skeptical Age

Castle and Cathedral in Modern Prague. Longing for the Sacred in a Skeptical Age

Author(s): Bruce R. Berglund / Language(s): English

Keywords: Prague;Czech Republic;Religious life and customs;Sacred space;Church buildings;Pražský hrad;Prague castle

Six million people visit Prague Castle each year. Here is the story of how this ancient citadel was transformed after World War I from a neglected, run-down relic into the seat of power for independent Czechoslovakia—and the symbolic center of democratic postwar Europe. The restoration of Prague Castle was a collaboration of three remarkable figures in twentieth-century east central Europe: Tomáš Masaryk, the philosopher who became Czechoslovakia’s first president; his daughter Alice, a social worker trained in the settlement houses of Chicago who was founding director of the Czechoslovak Red Cross and her father’s trusted confidante; and the architect, Jože Plečnik of Slovenia, who integrated reverence for Classical architecture into distinctly modern designs. Their shared vision saw the Castle not simply as a government building or historic landmark but as the sacred center of the new republic, even the new Europe—a place that would embody a different kind of democratic politics, rooted in the spiritual and the moral.With a biographer’s attention to detail, historian Bruce Berglund presents lively and intimate portraits of these three figures. At the same time, he also places them in the context of politics and culture in interwar Prague and the broader history of religion and secularization in modern Europe. Gracefully written and grounded in a wide array of sources, Castle and Cathedral in Modern Prague is an original and accessible study of how people at the center of Europe, in the early decades of the twentieth century, struggled with questions of morality, faith, loyalty, and skepticism.

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57.00 €

On the Margins. About the History of Jews in Estonia

On the Margins. About the History of Jews in Estonia

Author(s): Anton Weiss-Wendt / Language(s): English

Keywords: Estonia;Ethnic relations;Jewish History;Holocaust

Estonia is perhaps the only country in Europe that lacks a comprehensive history of its Jewish minority. Spanning over 150 years of Estonian Jewish history, On the Margins fills this lacuna. Rebuilding a life beyond so-called Pale of Jewish Settlement, the Jewish cultural autonomy in interwar Estonia, and the trauma of Soviet occupation of 1940–41 are but few issues addressed in the book. Most profoundly, the book wrestles with the subject of the Holocaust and its legacy in Estonia. Specifically, it examines the quasi-legal system of murder instituted in Nazi-occupied Estonia, confiscation of Jewish property, and Jewish forced labor camps. One the Margins develops an analysis of the causes of collaboration in the Holocaust and explains the dynamics of war crimes trials in the Soviet Union since the 1960s and so-called denaturalization trials in the United States in the 1980s. The haunting memory of Soviet and Nazi rule, the book concludes, prevents a larger segment of the Estonian population today from facing up to the Holocaust and the universal message that it carries

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57.00 €

Isaac, Iphigeneia, Ignatius. Martyrdom and Human Sacrifice

Isaac, Iphigeneia, Ignatius. Martyrdom and Human Sacrifice

Author(s): Monika Pesthy-Simon / Language(s): English

Keywords: Martyrdom;Christianity;

What is the meaning of the martyr’s sacrifice? Is it true that the martyr imitates Christ? After the “one and eternal” sacrifice of Jesus why are from time to time new (and often quite numerous) sacrifices necessary? What is the underlying concept concerning the divinity? How do these ideas survive in present times?These are the kind of questions behind the inquiries in this monograph. The author investigates martyrdom as a (voluntary) human sacrifice and wishes to demonstrate how human sacrifice has been turned into martyrdom. The two emblematic figures of this transformation are Iphigeneia and Isaac. Pesthy argues that all the peoples in the environment in which Christianity came into being are characterized by a very ambiguous and hypocritical attitude toward human sacrifice: while in theory they condemn it as barbarian and belonging to bygone times, in concrete cases they accept, admire and practice it. The same attitude survives in Christianity in which martyrs replace the human sacrifice of olden days: they are real sacrifices, not symbolical ones. Our feelings about martyrs can be very different: we may admire their unbending courage and heroism or be irritated by their stubbornness, or even feel disgusted at the fanaticism with which they strove for death. But whatever our feelings may be, we must admit that a very strong motivation is needed to accept voluntarily or even seek death (and, in the majority of cases, a very painful death at that).

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57.00 €

Expanding Intellectual Property. Copyrights and Patents in Twentieth-Century Europe and Beyond

Expanding Intellectual Property. Copyrights and Patents in Twentieth-Century Europe and Beyond

Author(s): / Language(s): English

Keywords: Intellectual property;Copyright;Patent laws and legislation

The book deals with the expansion and institutionalization of intellectual property norms in the twentieth century, with a European focus. Its thirteen chapters revolve around the transfer, adaptation and the ambivalence of legal transplants in the interface between national and international projects, trends and contexts. The first part discusses the institutionalization of copyright and patent law in the frame- work of the bigger political and economic projects of the twentieth century. The second and third parts of the collection review relevant processes in the communist regimes and the post-communist societies, respectively. The essays point at processes of enculturation, trans-nationalization and universalization of norms, as well as practices of incorporation and resistance. The contributors lay a particular emphasis on the role and activity of social actors in the establishment and validation of intellectual property norms and regimes, from the function of experts and creation of expert cultures to the compelling power of popular street protests.

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64.00 €

Totalitarian Societies and Democratic Transition. Essays in memory of Victor Zaslavsky

Totalitarian Societies and Democratic Transition. Essays in memory of Victor Zaslavsky

Author(s): / Language(s): English

Keywords: Totalitarianism;Soviet Union;Politics and government;Russia;

This book is a tribute to the memory of Victor Zaslavsky (1937–2009), sociologist, émigré from the Soviet Union, Canadian citizen, public intellectual, and keen observer of Eastern Europe.In seventeen essays leading European, American and Russian scholars discuss the theory and the history of totalitarian society with a comparative approach. They revisit and reassess what Zaslavsky considered the most important project in the latter part of his life: the analysis of Eastern European - especially Soviet societies and their difficult “transition” after the fall of communism in 1989–91. The variety of the contributions reflects the diversity of specialists in the volume, but also reveals Zaslavsky’s gift: he surrounded himself with talented people from many different fields and disciplines.In line with Zaslavsky´s work and scholarly method, the book promotes new theoretical and methodological approaches to the concept of totalitarianism for understanding Soviet and East European societies, and the study of fascist and communist regimes in general.

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58.00 €

The Invisible Shining. The Cult of Mátyás Rákosi in Stalinist Hungary, 1945-1956

The Invisible Shining. The Cult of Mátyás Rákosi in Stalinist Hungary, 1945-1956

Author(s): Balázs Apor / Language(s): English

Keywords: Rákosi era;Political culture;Hungary; Politics and government-1945-1989;public opinion;

This book offers a detailed analysis of the construction, reception and eventual decline of the cult of the Hungarian Communist Party Secretary, Mátyás Rákosi, one of the most striking examples of orchestrated adulation in the Soviet bloc. While his cult never approached the magnitude of that of Stalin, Rákosi’s ambition to outshine the other “best disciples” and become the best of the best was manifest in his diligence in promoting a Soviet-type following in Hungary. The main argument of Balázs Apor is that the cult of personality is not just a curious aspect of communist dictatorship, it is an essential element of it.The monograph is primarily concerned with techniques and methods of cult construction, as well as the role various institutions played in the creation of mythical representations of political fi gures. Separate chapters present visual and non-visual methods of cult construction.The author engages with a wider international literature on Stalinist cults in an impressive manner. Apor uses the case of Rákosi to explore how personality cults are created, how such cults are perceived, and how they are eventually unmade. The book addresses the success—generally questionable—of such projects, as well as their uncomfortable legacies.

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62.00 €

Nationalism and Terror. Ante Pavelić and Ustasha Terrorism from Fascism to the Cold War

Nationalism and Terror. Ante Pavelić and Ustasha Terrorism from Fascism to the Cold War

Author(s): Giorgio Cingolani,Pino Adriano / Language(s): English

Keywords: Ustasa;hrvatska revolucionarna organizacija;Pavelic, Ante;WW II;Croatia;Politics and government;Atrocities

This book covers the full story of the Ustasha, a fascist movement in Croatia, from its historic roots to its downfall. The authors address key questions: In what international context did Ustasha terrorism grow and develop? How did this movement rise to power, and then exterminate hundreds of thousands of innocents? Who was Ante Pavelić, its leader? Was he a shrewd politician, able to exploit for his independent project Mussolini’s imperial ambitions, Hitler’s pan-German aims, and the anti-Bolshevism of the Holy See and the Western bloc? Or was he, consciously or not, a pawn in other hands, in a complex international scenario where Croatia was only arena among many? And after the movement’s collapse, how were several of the most prominent Ustasha leaders able to evade capture by Tito’s victorious army? The facts and documents confront us with the ambivalence of terrorism.The book places the appearance of the Ustasha movement not only in the context of the interwar Kingdom of Yugoslavia but also in the wider perspective of the emergence of European fascism.

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56.00 €

Regenerating Japan. Organicism, Modernism and National Destiny in Oka Asajirō’s 'Evolution and Human Life'

Regenerating Japan. Organicism, Modernism and National Destiny in Oka Asajirō’s 'Evolution and Human Life'

Author(s): Gregory Sullivan / Language(s): English

Keywords: Biology; Evolution; Japan; Oka Asajirō 1868-1944

As the first step toward a comprehensive reinterpretation of the role of evolutionary science and biomedicine in pre-1945 Japan, this book addresses the early writings of that era’s most influential exponent of shinkaron (evolutionism), the German-educated research zoologist and popularizer of biomedicine, Oka Asajirō (1868–1944). Concentrating on essays that Oka published in the years during and after the Russo-Japanese War (1904–5), the author describes the process by which Oka came to articulate a programmatic modernist vision of national regeneration that would prove integral to the ideological climate in Japan during the first half of the twentieth century. In contrast to other scholars who insist that Oka was merely a rationalist enlightener bent on undermining state Shinto orthodoxy, Gregory Sullivan maintains that Oka used notions from evolutionary biology of organic individuality—especially that of the nation as a super-organism—to underwrite the social and geopolitical aims of the Meiji state. The author suggests that this generative scientism gained wide currency among early twentieth-century political and intellectual elites, including Emperor Hirohito himself, who had personal connections to Oka. The wartime ideology may represent an unfinished attempt to synthesize Shinto fundamentalism and the eugenically-oriented modernism that Oka was among the first to articulate.

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50.00 €

Physicians, Peasants and Modern Medicine, Imagining Rurality in Romania, 1860-1910

Physicians, Peasants and Modern Medicine. Imagining Rurality in Romania, 1860-1910

Author(s): Constantin Barbulescu / Language(s): English

Keywords: Health; Medicine; Romania

This book provides a historical narrative about Romania’s modernization. It focuses on one group of the country’s elites in the late nineteenth century, health professionals, and on the vision of a modern Romania that they constructed as they interacted with peasants and rural life. Doctors ventured out from the cities and became a familiar sight on the dusty country roads of Moldavia and Wallachia, for new health legislation required general practitioners (medici de plasă) to visit the villages in their districts twice every month. Some of them were motivated by charity, and others by patriotism, as the rural world became ever more prominent in Romania's national ideology. Based on original research, including doctors’ public health reports and memoirs, the book describes the rural conditions in Romania between 1860 and 1910 and the doctors' efforts to improve the peasants’ way of life. The author illuminates a variety of aspects of social life based on the doctors' reports on the peasant and the rural world, including general hygiene, clothing, dwellings, nutrition, drinking habits and healing. He places official measures, laws, regulations, and modern norms about public health in the context of a broader modernizing process.

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62.00 €

Eurasian Integration and the Russian World. Regionalism as an Identitary Enterprise

Eurasian Integration and the Russian World. Regionalism as an Identitary Enterprise

Author(s): Aliaksei Kazharski / Language(s): English

Keywords: Regionalism; Supranationalism; Geopolitics; Russia

This volume examines Russian discourses of regionalism as a source of identity construction practices for the country's political and intellectual establishment. The overall purpose of the monograph is to demonstrate that, contrary to some assumptions, the transition trajectory of post-Soviet Russia has not been towards a liberal democratic nation state that intended to emulate Western political and normative standards. Instead, its foreign policy discourses have been constructing Russia as a supranational community which transcends Russia's current legally established borders. The study undertakes a systematic and comprehensive survey of Russian official (authorities) and semi-official (establishment affiliated think tanks) discourse for a period of seven years between 2007 and 2013. This exercise demonstrates how Russia is being constructed as a supranational entity through its discourses of cultural and economic regionalism. These discourses associate closely with the political project of Eurasian economic integration and the “Russian world” and “Russian civilization” doctrines. Both ideologies, the geoeconomic and culturalist, have gained prominence in the post-Crimean environment. The analysis tracks down how these identitary concepts crystallized in Russia's foreign policies discourses beginning from Vladimir Putin's second term in power.

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