Middle Europa: A Protest Contagion
Across Central Europe, doctors’ campaigns for better wages are spreading.
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Across Central Europe, doctors’ campaigns for better wages are spreading.
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Nowadays it seems that everywhere you look corruption is the buzzword of Czech society.
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The broadcast group with operations across Central and Eastern Europe is in another tight spot. No great loss for responsible journalism or intelligent programming.
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Before the financial crisis, renewable energy was a priority for the Kremlin. The trimmed-down plans now count on private investment into the sector. But where are the investors?
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Plus, Kyrgyz prisoners on hunger strike and will the EU bring back visas for Serbians? Around the Bloc is TOL's daily digest of the important, the trivial, the tragic, the weird, and the sober from its coverage region.
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Plus, a new report on Uzbekistan’s human rights abuses and Kazakh students demand the right to wear headscarves. Around the Bloc is TOL's daily digest of the important, the trivial, the tragic, the weird, and the sober from its coverage region.
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In her controversial directorial debut, Angelina Jolie examines the 1992-1995 Bosnian conflict through the eyes of those who lived it.
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Plus, Hungarian reporters go on hunger strike and another Russian transport disaster points to unsafe practices.
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Inflation and devaluation put even macaroni out of reach.
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English merchants and navigators began developing their skills in the late sixteenth century to reach Baltic shores and in the process birthed a distinct English nautical charting tradition which continued to service and reflect English interests for over a century. Specifically, the efforts of the Muscovy Company and the emergence of a distinct master-apprentice relationship of chart makers within the Drapers’ Company instigated the emergence of a modern maritime community in England replete with the financial structures, ships, and skills necessary to encompass the globe. As a result of various setbacks in the late-sixteenth century, English merchants and mariners shifted from coastal trading ventures to direct long-distance overseas commerce. This transformation was initiated through the efforts of the Muscovy Company and its accompanying introduction of marine charts for navigating distant shores. The introduction and expansion of direct long-distance overseas trade and modern navigational techniques then spurred the creation of a domestic charting industry to service these English navigational needs, the Thames School of English marine charting. Born out of a close association with English commerce to the Baltic, members of the Thames School continued to produce nautical charts of the globe that reflected ever-expanding English interests until the early-eighteenth century. This paper argues that trade to and from the Baltic acted as a proving ground, the venue, within which both the origins of English long-distant overseas trade and nautical cartography emerged—two fundamentally necessary components for the Empire which followed.
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The political changes of 1989 stimulated a new perception and perspective of the Baltic Sea Region. And this gained momentum with the Eastern Enlargement of the EU. The new situation encouraged research as well. In this context the “Baltic Sea” is not an unchangeable physical setting, but also a construction of different actors or protagonists. People and powers continuously reinvent the Baltic Sea Region. That is why; the following paper focuses on the different notions of the Baltic Sea Region from the Middle Ages up to now and also examines the recent EU-Strategy of this region.
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The Romanian Association for Baltic and Nordic Studies continued to organize in 2012 a series of events, one of the most meaningful of which was the third international conference on Baltic and Nordic Studies entitled European networks: the Balkans, Scandinavia and the Baltic world in a time of economic and ideological crisis opened on 25 May at Valahia University of Târgoviște and sponsored by the Romanian National Research Council, Niro Investment Group and other partners (http://www.arsbn.ro/conference-2012.htm). The main goal of the conference was to foster debate and academic discussion with regard to the challenges the Balkan and Baltic regions face today, within a time of severe global economic instability. The participants discussed and advanced solutions to problems such as the accession of Balkan states to the EU and/or NATO, with particular reference to the experiences of the relatively new EU and/or NATO Member States from South-Eastern Europe and the Eastern Baltic region; the economic, security or cultural threats posed by Balkan and/or Eastern European states or non-state actors to the Western or Nordic Europe as perceived there; the development of extremist movements and the Balkan organized crime in the Scandinavian countries; the Balkan Roma peoples as a “threat” for Western and Nordic Europe; strategies for integrating minorities in the Baltic Sea rim countries and the Black Sea areas.
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The last twenty years has seen an increasing presence of Balkan organized crime groups in security reports and newspapers' headlines. This does not mean that mafia groups did not exist during Socialist Yugoslavia – even if its collapse and the following war made criminals and smugglers useful for politicians and leaders to maintain their power; it rather means that Balkan organized crime came outside its traditional areas of action in Serbia, Montenegro and Albania: less territorial and nationalist than it was before, it is now gaining prominence in an international scenario, making agreements with Italian and South American mafias – the so-called Holy Alliance – to manage drug routes towards Western Europe. One of the most interesting factors concerning Balkan mafia groups today is their presence in countries which traditionally do not have a history of organized crime, such as the Scandinavian states. One of the reasons lies in the wide percentage of immigrants moving from Balkan countries to Sweden or Norway. Since the wars of the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia, war-crimes fugitives were able to become common criminals in these countries, such as the infamous Želiko Raznjatović (“Arkan”). However, year by year, these gangs grew larger, taking advantage of the “expertise” and the resources gained during the war. In particular, the most spectacular case – the Våstberga helicopter robbery in 2009 – showed how these groups operate with military-style precision, utilize a wide number of participants, and have at their disposal laerge amounts of weapons and money. This paper will draw on the importance of Scandinavian – Balkan mafia relations in relation to three main criminal areas: drug and weapon smuggling and human trafficking, in order to underline the role of diasporas in enforcing organized crime groups and the extent to which these mafias could be a threat for the stability in both Eastern and Western Europe.
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Lithuania became a European Union member in 2004 and it is intensively preparing nowadays to take over the EU’s presidency in the second half of 2013. As today EU’s agenda is oriented with priority to tackle the economic crisis, the survival of EURO zone and euro-scepticism, Lithuania’s foreign policy is focused, among others, on further development of the area of freedom and security, promoting further enlargement and development of relations with Eastern countries. In this respect, Lithuania is keen to share its integration experience with candidate and potentially candidate countries and to make the further enlargement of the E. U. in the Western Balkans countries a successful story similar to the 2004 enlargement campaign, with Croatia joining the EU on 1st of July 2013 during Lithuanian presidency and planning to have an impact on the finalization of negotiations with other candidate countries. Since joining the EU, Lithuania has experienced difficulties arising from its role as a destination, source and transit country for legal and irregular international migration. As Lithuania is one of the Member States that have external borders with non-candidate countries (Byelorussia and Russia – Kaliningrad oblast), it is as well concerned about security issues, migration and integration of minorities in the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy. Minorities account for 16% of the population of Lithuania, out of which Poles-6.1 %, Russians and Byelorussians-6% and Ukrainians-0.6 %. Other minorities such as Jews, Germans, Tartars, Latvians, Roma, Armenians etc. account together for 0.7 % of the total population. Lithuanians generally have a positive relationship with their national minorities and the integration of former may be regarded as somewhat advanced, but discrimination cannot be excluded, especially on the labour market. The juridical situation of these minorities and the issues concerning them is the focus of this article.
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This paper desires to draw attention to some stereotypes that simplify perception of historical reality, but nevertheless still prevail in historiography. There is a very common statement about the so-called second edition of serfdom (based on manorial-serve economy) that spread all around the Eastern Europe region in the 16th century. This turn in social development is usually explained as determined by internal as well as external factors. If the problem considered is placed under Marxist views, one can distinguish two extreme poles: traditional Marxism and world-system approach. Supporters of traditional Marxism emphasize internal factors while adherents of world-system attitude accentuate external factors. The author argues that the regime of serfdom established in Moldova until 1600 is not consistent with the classic model. In this case, one can talk only about another type of second serfdom that differs from that of Eastern Germany as well as from Central Europe. It would be also a gross simplification to claim that second serfdom phenomenon was caused exclusively by external reasons. Internal causes are not less but probably even more decisive, at least in some cases. As the work of Darius Žiemelis has showed recently, statements of world-system approach toward certain societies are worth of critical reconsideration.
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One of Nicolae Ceauşescu’s beliefs was that international security and cooperation could not rely on Cold War bipolarity, but on active involvement from every state in promoting its interests and points of view. In defending such policies, Romania sought not only to affirm its sovereignty in front of Moscow, but also to build bridges towards other countries sharing similar ideas. Starting from the early 1960s, Romania developed a coherent policy towards Nordic Europe, consisting in both economic and political cooperation. The neutrality of countries such as Sweden or Finland was regarded in Bucharest as directed against superpowers bipolarity which served as a common denominator. This paper deals with Romania’s relations in Nordic Europe during the 1960s, investigating the rationalities and factors which contributed to the emergence of constructive cooperation among countries with such different backgrounds.
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During the Soviet era there were no publicly available published literary representations of the Soviet deportations and imprisonment of civilians and Latvian Army officers to Siberia and the Far East. If there were any, these were very scarce and available to very few people. Deportations and imprisonments were marginalized and silenced themes in all possible respects – politically, socially and culturally. Many narratives (in books published in state publishing houses) emerged only in the beginning of the 1990ies when the Soviet Union collapsed and Latvia regained its independence. Those narratives were written secretly during the Soviet time, as the authors were or could be repressed for talking about forbidden topics. The female experience was not only totally silenced but it was also different from men’s experience of imprisonments and deportations as men and women with children were separated – men were sent to forced labour camps and women to places of settlement. Even when writing about deportations was dangerous, the narratives of that experience construct strong resistance to the Soviet repressions against Latvia and its people. Many female narratives about these experiences emerged later adding to the testimonials studies of archives and historical documents thus making resistance discourse more pointed and stronger.
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‘Europe’ and ‘Russia’ have historically been the most remarkable landmarks, playing geopolitical, cultural, and moral guide-role in the construction of national collective identities in the Central Eastern European countries, including Lithuania. This ‘civilizational identity’ helped to unite Lithuanian political elites as well as society towards the direction to West and Europe after the collapse of Soviet Union. The question article addresses is: does the factual belonging to the European Union after the 1st May, 2004 give the impulse to re-define ‘Europe’ and ‘Russia’ as the old essentials of collective identity of Lithuanians? The article presents the research based on monitoring of national public discourse (five Lithuanian national newspapers) in 2004-2007, i.e. enjoying three years of membership in the European Union and NATO. The main result is that the role of Russia in the Lithuanian collective identity has not changed and still continues to play the major threat. The membership in the European Union and NATO has not solved Lithuanian security problem. According to the perceived threat, Russia has started to penetrate softly into Lithuania’s economy (especially energy sector) and has silently begun to make an impact to the domestic political parties and political elite. The traditional role of Europe, however, is slowly but gradually shifting from mythical ‘Paradise’ image to more critical understandings about divided Europe and selfish member-states. Already being in the EU and NATO, Lithuania should balance sometimes unfriendly westerners’ reluctance to understand the situation and help against Russia with the economic power that Russia uses as a political instrument against Lithuania on the international arena, as well as in domestic politics. This results in the feelings of „lost and forgotten” between Europe and Russia. Nevertheless, Europe continues to earn a positive meaning in national collective identity of Lithuanians, but all these trends in public discourse show that the state and society have only just started to realize its interests and learn how to handle the major challenges through the cooperation within the European Union, i.e. to build integrational European identity.
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The circular of the Minister of Education Konstantinas Šakenis on the amendment to the 1925 Law on Primary Education, dated August 6th 1927 and the 1936 Law on Primary Education created the precedent demanding that children of mixed families (only one parent of Lithuanian nationality) should be taught at Lithuanian schools. As a result of this demand, the need to evade this provision arose because the contingent of pupils in Polish schools suffered losses due to this restriction. Polish organisations (“Pochodnia”) seeking to compensate losses due to restriction of spread of Polish people started organising illegal (secret) Polish schools. To contain their activities, official authorities used the mechanism of punishment, which partly suppressed that process. Polish organisations changed the tactics of their activities in seeking to maintain vitality of secret schools. The analysis of contents of some financial sources shows that almost the same amount of funds was allocated to both legal and illegal schools (the case of 1937). Establishment of diplomatic relations between Lithuania and Poland in 1938 activated secret education of Polish children, developed it even to a greater extent, and enhanced self-confidence of secret teachers in doing their work.
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