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Kill the Wanderer. The Secret Archives of the Bulgarian State Security Services reveal the truth about Georgy Markov - murdered in London by a poisoned umbrella

Kill the Wanderer. The Secret Archives of the Bulgarian State Security Services reveal the truth about Georgy Markov - murdered in London by a poisoned umbrella

Author(s): Hristo Hristov / Language(s): English,Bulgarian

Keywords: investigative journalism;investigative reporting;documentary;Bulgarian Politics,

“Kill the Wanderer” is a documentary investigation into one of the most emblematic crimes of the Cold War – the murder of the Bulgarian dissident writer, Georgi Markov, in London in 1978. Throughout the whole world this case acquired infamy as the “Bulgarian umbrella” murder. The assassination became an emblematic example of “wet operations” involving the secret services of the former Eastern Bloc. It recently became the subject of commentary in the media throughout the world after the death of the former Russian intelligence officer from the Federal Security Service and political émigré, Alexander Litvinenko at the end of 2006 in London, due to many of the similarities between the two cases. Although 29 years have passed since the murder and Scotland Yard still has not discovered the perpetrator, the leading opinion in the West is that the murder of the Bulgarian dissident was carried out by the Bulgarian Security Services on the orders of the then head of state in Bulgaria, Todor Zhivkov, with the assistance of the KGB. “Kill the Wanderer” for the first time calls upon specific archive materials to confirm this thesis. Hristo Hristov (1967) is one of the best investigative journalists in Bulgaria and has researched the crimes of the communist regime. He has published documentary books on the murders in the communist camps in Bulgaria (1944–1962) and on the kidnapping of the Bulgarian émigré, Boris Arsov by the Bulgarian State Security Services from Denmark in 1974. Work on the “Kill the Wanderer” took him six years (1999–2005) and as a court reporter he has reported on the Markov murder case since 1991. His book is based on a number of documents hitherto unknown, many of which are from the secret archives of the former State Security Services.

The Macedonian Mosaic: Pieces of Insight from the Pre-Crisis Years

The Macedonian Mosaic: Pieces of Insight from the Pre-Crisis Years

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

Keywords: Macedonia; Greece; Macedonia name issue; Nikola Gruevski; Branko Crvenkovski; European Union; European enlargement; Skopje 2014; VMRO-DPMNE; SDSM; Ali Ahmeti; Zoran Zaev; geopolitics

Collected together into one comprehensive book, this compendium of field accounts, iterviews, situation reports and analyses chronicles the major political events in and involving Macedonia between 2009-2014. For anyone interested in the country, and in its subsequent political crisis, The Macedonian Mosaic provides valuable context, insight and historical data from a dedicated and ong-term investigative perspective.

The Neopopular Bubble. Speculating on "the People" in Late Modern Democracy

The Neopopular Bubble. Speculating on "the People" in Late Modern Democracy

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

Keywords: Democracy;Capitalism;Mass Media;

The common critique of media- and ratings-driven politics envisions democracy falling hostage to a popularity contest. By contrast, the following book reconceives politics as a speculative Keynesian beauty contest that alienates itself from the popular audience it ceaselessly targets. Political actors unknowingly lean on collective beliefs about the popular expectations they seek to gratify, and thus do not follow popular public opinion as it is, but popular public opinion about popular public opinion.This book unravels how collective discourses on “the popular” have taken the role of intermediary between political elites and electorates. The shift has been driven by the idea of “liquid control:” that postindustrial electorates should be reached through flexibly designed media campaigns based on a complete understanding of their media-immersed lives. Such a complex representation of popular electorates, actors have believed, cannot be secured by rigid bureaucratic parties, but has to be distilled from the collective wisdom of the crowd of consultants, pollsters, journalists and pundits commenting on the political process.The mediatization of political representation has run a strikingly similar trajectory to the marketization of capital allocation in finance: starting from a rejection of bureaucratic control, promising a more “liquid” alternative, attempting to detect a collective wisdom (of/about “the markets” and “the people”), and ending up in self-driven spirals of collective speculation.

At the Crossroads of Aesthetics. Rachilde and Her Novelistic Writing 1880-1913

Au carrefour des esthétiques. Rachilde et son écriture romanesque 1880-1913

Author(s): Anita Staroń / Language(s): French

Rachilde, qui a toujours aimé les poses et les effets théâtraux, a le don de se dérober à des affirmations catégoriques lorsque l’on en vient à l’analyse de son œuvre. Elle présente à ses lecteurs des visages multiples et contradictoires. Aussi n’est-il pas étonnant que les chercheurs arrivent, dans leurs analyses, à des conclusions très variées. En fonction de la perspective choisie, ils peuvent, en effet, découvrir une facette parmi plusieurs de cette personnalité miroitante. Cependant, l’œuvre de Rachilde est le plus souvent perçue comme représentative de la Décadence ; la présente étude entreprend de la montrer également tributaire d’autres esthétiques. Après des débuts décadents, la romancière trouva sa place au sein du mouvement symboliste, avant de s’intéresser au concept du roman d’aventure.

Looks at Oral and Written

Regards sur l'oral et l'écrit

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

Keywords: the oral; the written; liguistics; didactics of foreign languages; language learning; language teaching

This book contributes to the reflection around the problem of the distinction between the oral and the written. It is organized along two major disciplinary axes: linguistics and didactics of foreign languages, with their various fields of research, as the complexity of the subject is often at the crossroads of academic disciplines and different areas of the social and private life of language users.

SIBERIA. Country of Exile and of INdustrialisation

SIBÉRIE. Terre de l'Exil et de l'Industrialisation

Author(s): Ante Ciliga / Language(s): French

Keywords: GuLag;

Human Rights in the Shadow of Nationalism Serbia 2002

Human Rights in the Shadow of Nationalism Serbia 2002

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

Keywords: Serbia; nationalism; human rights; politics; democracy; 2002; omnibus law; government; Hague Tribunal; federal law; Vojvodina; human rights; minority groups;

The year 2002 is regarded by many as a year lost because nearly all of the political capital gained on 5 October 2000 was squandered: the coalition which had brought about the downfall of Slobodan Milošević bogged down in futile infighting and was becoming its own chief obstacle. Having been established for the specific purpose of ousting Milošević, the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) nevertheless went on to shoulder the formidable task of transition, a burden its heterogeneous political makeup proved ill-equipped to bear. For all the enthusiasm which characterized the political situation in 2001, it became clear that the prevailing concept of democracy as a multi-party system devoid of proper institutions and the rule of law alone could not change the general political atmosphere in the country weighed down by the Milošević legacy, institutions mired in old attitudes and methods, and resistance to reform. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia – now Serbia and Montenegro – was not admitted to the Council of Europe, nor did the DOS leaders’ promises of an association agreement with the EU materialize. Consequently, there was no appreciable headway in the domain of human rights.

Paris/Artaud/Bali. Antonin Artaud Sees Balinese Theatre at the 1931 Paris Colonial Exposition. Conference-Performance

Paryż/Artaud/Bali. Antonin Artaud ogląda teatr balijski na Wystawie Kolonialnej w Paryżu w 1931 roku. Prelekcja-widowisko

Author(s): Nicola Savarese / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: Antonin Artaud; Bali; theatre; dance; performance; Colonial Exposition; Paris; 1931; Orientalism; East; conference

Savarese describes the key events in the history of the 20th-century theatre and culture: when dance – and generally performance – replaced and superseded dramatic theatre, the neo-avant-garde began to separate itself from the avant-garde, social contexts of art began to prevail over its aesthetic autonomy, art regained its metaphysical dimension and took the place of religion, at the same time it immersed deeper in the life of societies, and finally the West blending with the Orient began its postcolonial penance.

BOHEMIA SINCE THE WHITE MOUNTAIN. Vol II. The Czech Renaissance. Towards Federalism.

LA BOHÊME DEPUIS LA MONTAGNE-BLANCHE. Vol II. La Renaissance Tchèque. Vers le Fédéralisme.

Author(s): Ernest Denis / Language(s): French

I intended to write a book in good faith. I always said what I believed to be the truth, even when I knew she would upset my dear friends; I have tried to judge without injustice the men who are most hateful to me. As for the serene indifference that a certain school claims to claim from historians, I do not believe it and I have never encountered it. Between executioners and martyrs, between tyrants and victims, it is not possible for me to remain neutral; I hate oppression in all its forms, I believe in the triumph of justice, and that is why the cause of Bohemia is dear to me. If she succumbs, which seems impossible to me, the share of inequity, already so great in the world, would be increased. // I did not cover up any of the mistakes of the Czech patriots; I still believe they wrote one of the most beautiful pages in human history. When the day comes when the nations, disillusioned with dreams of false glory, understand that the common interest requires respect for all freedoms, when enlightened consciences have broken the altars of false gods, we will place in the first row of evocative of the new world the Dobrovsky, the Havlíček and the Palacký. They taught us the power of law and the power of dedication; to triumph over the belated hatreds which persist in contesting a victory which is now certain, the Czechs have only to draw inspiration from their lessons. For me, I am convinced that by spreading their names and their doctrines, I will have contributed to uplift the souls of all who will read me and to free them from the prejudices of hatred and pride.

A Political History of Contemporary Europe since 1814. Vol. I

A Political History of Contemporary Europe since 1814. Vol. I

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

The task in hand, then, is to explain the political transformations of contemporary Europe during this period of eighty years. Being unable to deal with the whole movement of European civilization within the period, I have purposely confined myself to the political history. I have avoided all social phenomena that have had no direct effect on political life: art, science, literature, religion, private manners, and customs. I have sought chiefly to make clear the formation, composition, tactics, and policies of the parties, as being the capital facts determining the fate of institutions. But I have not thought it possible to limit political history to an account of strictly political events and institutions. Aiming above all to explain the phenomena by showing how they are connected with each other, I have reserved room for some non-political facts: local administration, the army, the church, the schools, the press, political theories, economic systems—in all cases in which they have reacted on political life. (extract from Preface)

Selected Texts

Odabrani tekstovi

Author(s): Nena Dimitrijević,Braco Dimitrijević,Branko Franceschi / Language(s): Croatian

Keywords: art; conceptual art; Zagreb conceptual art; art critique; art theory; art philosophy; modern art; contemporary art; abstract art;

The Selected Texts include critiques, essays, and interviews that the art historian Nena Dimitrijević and the artist Braco Dimitrijević have published both in Croatia and foreign countries during their prolific period that has lasted more than forty years. The significance of this book surpasses the effort needed to collect, and translate this bulk of material. Having in mind that the authors’ carriers, whose success is almost a precendent in the Balkans, have been built upon the international art scene, the Croatian readers have not been familiar with most of their textst published in foreign countries. This book will be very useful for those who shape the reality and future of the domestic art context today. It offers testimonies by the creators and participants of the most significant art phenomena from the second half of the 20th century. It also presents a critical and creative model, and criteria for actively influencing the found structure of a cultural system, which the authors of the book have applied in their performance. In the end, the book offers retrospectively a method for the objective viewing and verification of the highly esteemed conceptual art period, especially the art of the Zagreb circle, with both of them being its valued protagonists. Nena and Braco Dimitrijević are an unusually well-balanced creative couple. Nena Dimitrijević’s curating and critical work is renowned because she has consistently promoted, in print, digital media and exhibitions, the radical strategies of the artists of her generation. She has conceptually and linguistically modernised the media of visual arts critique, and the exhibition practice. Braco Dimitrijević has established himself as one of the leading innovators on the contemporary global art scene with his famous artistic actions and projects that reflect his radical attitudes on the fundamental questions about the art creation and its position in society, that is, the relation of an individual and the political power, or an artist and cultural system. Braco Dimitrijević created his status also by his essential separation from the dominating theoretical, historical, cultural and civilisational models. Nena and Braco’s works overlap in their stance that the sense of the artwork is its cognitive and ethical dimensions, which, articulated into an aesthetic form, operate beneficially and constructively inside the artistic, and wider social discourses. Artists, critics, curators, institutions, and collectors have their distinctive roles in their respective missions. Although the Dimitrijevićs are often percieved as a pair of creative people who are directed toward each other, their separate careers, that of a successful artist, and a successful critic, show the development of the same theoretical standpoint in different areas of work.

The Prose of Ken Bugul: Between the Real and the Supernatural

La prose de Ken Bugul : entre le réel et le surnaturel

Author(s): Anna Swoboda / Language(s): French

Keywords: Ken Bugul; African literature; Senegalese literature; postcolonialism; fantastic

The purpose of this monograph is to analyze the supernatural and real elements, which intertwine in Ken Bugul’s prose. The coexistence of the supernatural and the real constitutes the key to understanding the œuvre of this versatile Senegalese author, oscillating between the Western and the African culture. The publication presents the diversity and hybridity of the supernatural – fantastic, marvelous and uncanny – elements, as well as the protagonist’s lack of rootedness, her fragmented self and multiple identities. The proposed analytical approach is based on Western and African studies on the supernatural in literature, along with postcolonial, feminist and sociological theories.

Constitutional Barriers to the Applicability of Private Law in the Public Sector. A Comparative Study with Particular Emphasis on Polish and German Law

Constitutional Barriers to the Applicability of Private Law in the Public Sector. A Comparative Study with Particular Emphasis on Polish and German Law

Author(s): Rafał Szczepaniak,Katarzyna Kokocińska,Marcin Krzymuski / Language(s): English

Keywords: Law; Private (Civil) Law; Constitutional Law; Public Law; Administrative Law

The underlying assumption of this book is that in the special environment that is the public sector, certain features of what we call civil law manifest themselves with particular force through contrast. An analysis of the application of civil law in the public sector is somewhat akin to an intellectual journey to the source of the Amazon. If one seeks a new, fresher view on civil law institutions and the civil law method of regulation, then this possible precisely through observing how they are applied in this particular environment. Observation of the application of the institutions of civil law provenance in the public sector actually prompts one to conduct a detailed analysis, which can be described as a kind of anatomy of civil law. It involves analyzing individual civil law institutions and arrangements, discovering their nature and the fundamental elements they consist of, as well as identifying the axiological and praxeological foundations that contributed to their development. The analysis carried out in the monograph indicates multiple relationships between civil law and constitutional law. The authors hope that this monograph will contribute to clarifying the relationship between these two branches of law. In this monograph, the authors raise the question whether, in the light of the provisions of the current Constitution, there are barriers standing in the way of using private law in the public sector. The authors respond in the affirmative to the question formulated in this way. In their opinion, due to the specific nature of the State and other public entities, some of the institutions of civil law lose their raison d'être in the public sector, and the nature of others undergoes change to a lesser or greater extent. This phenomenon can be observed, for example, in the sphere of exercising subjective rights by public entities, in the sphere of their tort liability, in their legal capacity and freedom of contract, as well as in relation to such institutions of law as unjust enrichment. The legislator and the public bodies applying these laws, in particular the courts, should take this phenomenon into account. Otherwise, there may be violations of the standards of the democratic state of law, including the constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens. In conclusion, the authors consider the need for developing a sub-branch of civil law which would find its application in the public sector.

The Echoing Myth. British Biblical Rewritings in Context, 1980s–2010s

The Echoing Myth. British Biblical Rewritings in Context, 1980s–2010s

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

Keywords: British novel; Bible; myth; rewriting

This study concentrates on selected contemporary British novels which rewrite (or “echo”) two biblical myths and the myth of the Bible. It sees biblical rewritings by Winterson, Burgess, Roberts, Crace, Alderman and Pullman as critical reflections on the contemporary crises in the understanding of British national identity, women’s relationship and British liberal tradition. These novels examine and criticise biblical myths/the myth of the Bible, and rework them in “weak”, undogmatic ways to articulate a more fluid and fragile idea of community. Such weak, undogmatic, self-conscious and critical revisions of biblical myths offered in the biblical rewritings are called in this book “the echoing myths”.

The dancing state

Państwo tańczące

Author(s): Juliusz Grzybowski / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: Plato; dance; Laws; war dances; Corybantes; Pyrrhichios; Marsyas; Gorgon;labyrinth;

Dance is often neglected in studies on Plato, just as it is neglected in other situations, as an inferior art, to seme extent in keeping with the quasi-Platonic paradigm of the superiority of the soul over the body. Quasi-platonic, because in dance the body is endowed with a soul, and it even seems that it is in dance that we should look for the moment when the soul is most clearly present in the body. This is probably the reason why Plato eagerly turns to dance metaphors when he seeks the most appropriate way of talking about the soul. This is the case, for example, in the Phaedrus. Funnily enough, recently the discourse on dance has very often adopted an anti-Platonic formula, as if overcoming Platonism were an indispensable condition for a proper understanding of dance. Of course, there is a difference between Platonism and Plato, perhaps even an immeasurable one, but this anti-Platonic battle, which would like to present itself as an action or reaction that valorises the body, regardless of the nobleness of its intentions and perhaps of the benefit it brings with it, is something inelegant and quite possibly something that is simply unfair both to Plato and to dance. It is the case, rather, that the author of the book wishes to prove that Plato has much to say about dance. To my knowledge, nobody thought about dance as seriously as Plato, as evidenced by the omnipresence of dance in Plato's Laws dialogue. Plato initially classifies dance according to three criteria, and so we have wild and civilised dances, serious and frivolous dances, and war and peace dances. This somewhat technical outline of classification obviously raises a number of doubts and, let us add without further ado, doubts on the part of Plato himself. But this technical outline of the classification is also an interpretation of the state, and at the same time of what is human but nonetheless alien to the state. That which is alien still remains in relation to the state, even when it is a relation of an exile (wild dances) or of a disenfranchised citizen (frivolous dances).

History of Europe in the nineteenth century

Storia d'Europa nel Secolo Decimonono

Author(s): Benedetto Croce / Language(s): Italian

Keywords: History of Europe; 19the Century;

Censorship of Literature in Post-War Poland: In Light of the Confidential Bulletins for Censors from 1945 to 1956

Censorship of Literature in Post-War Poland: In Light of the Confidential Bulletins for Censors from 1945 to 1956

Author(s): Anna Wiśniewska-Grabarczyk / Language(s): English

Keywords: censorship; literature in Post-War Poland; confidential bulletins for censors; censorship offices

Wiśniewska-Grabarczyk’s monograph is based on rich source material and is of great intellectual value. The publication of the book in English will further research on communist censorship in Central and Eastern Europe in the context of comparative analysis.

From the Shores of the Others: New Narratives, New Aesthetics: Contemporary Authors of Subsaharan Francophone Africa from the Perspective of Migrations, Hybridity and World Globalization

Des rives des autres: Nouveaux récits, nouvelles esthétiques : auteurs contemporains de l’Afrique francophone subsaharienne du point de vue de l’hybridité, des migrations et de la globalisation mondiale

Author(s): Petr Vurm / Language(s): French

Keywords: Francophone African authors; Sub-Saharan Africa; migrations; globalization;

The aim of the book is to look closely at writings of contemporary Francophone African authors from Sub-Saharan Africa by providing their critical analysis in an appropriate historical, social, cultural and literary context. More specifically, on a well-delimited and logically justified corpus of texts it tries to shed some light on crucial contemporary issues of this writing such as postmodern hybridity, métissage, migrations and exiles on the background of contemporary globalized and increasingly interconnected world.

Implicating Environments: The Earlier Work of Paul Carter and J.H. Prynne in the Context of Related Aspects of Later Modern Neo-Pastoral

Implicating Environments: The Earlier Work of Paul Carter and J.H. Prynne in the Context of Related Aspects of Later Modern Neo-Pastoral

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

Keywords: Charles Olson; Edward Dorn; David Jones; J. H. Prynne; Resistance and Difficulty; Kitchen Poems; Day light songs; Into the Day; The Oval Window; Paul Carter;

The book seeks to examine and explore aspects of contemporary and historical natural, social and cognitive environments through a series of partly comparative readings of pertinent aspects of philosophy, environmental studies, literary criticism, poetry, cultural history and literary, cultural and spatial theory. Writers whose work is focused upon include Peter Ackroyd, Andrew Bowie, Paul Carter, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Edward Dorn, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, David Jones, Niklas Luhmann, Andrew McMurry, Charles Olson, Camille Paglia, J.H. Prynne, Baruch Spinoza, and Raymond Williams.

The poetics of migration. The experience of borders in Polish literature at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries

Poetyka migracji. Doświadczenie granic w literaturze polskiej przełomu XX i XXI wieku

Author(s): / Language(s): Polish

Keywords: Polish literature; poetry

Tom „Poetyka migracji” poświęcony jest zjawisku końca emigracji i skupia się na ostatniej polskiej fali emigranckiej – lat 80. XX wieku. Kolejne rozdziały dokumentują teoretyczne dyskusje nad pojęciami emigracji, postemigracji, migracji i pamięci. Do badanych zagadnień należą polemika z tradycją emigracji oraz kondycja (e)migranta. Literatura ostatniej fali emigracji prezentuje różne typy nowego bohatera: to m.in. wysiedlony, azylant i gastarbeiter. Jednym z centralnych zjawisk opisywanych w książce jest twórczość polskich (i pochodzących z Polski) autorów żyjących w Niemczech. Obok takich nazwisk jak Janusz Rudnicki, Dariusz Muszer, Natasza Goerke, Krzysztof Niewrzęda i Artur Becker mowa tu również o przedstawicielach tzw. pokolenia Podolskiego (Magdalena Felixa, Paulina Schulz). „Poetyka migracji” jest wspólnym polsko-niemieckim projektem naukowym i wydawniczym, to pierwsza tak szeroka publikacja na temat literatury „emigracji solidarnościowej”. W wersji niemieckiej ukazała się jako „Polnische Literatur in Bewegung. Die Exilwelle der 1980er Jahre” w 2013 roku w wydawnictwie transcript. Publikacja adresowana jest głównie do polonistów i germanistów, ale również do szerokiego grona czytelników zainteresowanych tematem (e)migracji.