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The policy of the communist authorities towards writers and artists in the 1945 to 1989 period can be divided into several stages. The first lasted from the end of 1944 to November 1947. The second stage lasted from November 1947 until the end of 1949, when socialist realism was forcibly introduced into all areas of cultural life. The third stage ended at the beginning of 1955, when one could observe a weakening of the authorities (accused of violations of the socialist rule of law). The whole year 1955 and the turn of 1956/1957 is referred to as the “thaw” period. During Władysław Gomułka’s era (October 1956 – December 1970), the attitude adopted by the authorities towards artists remained mostly unchanged. It manifested itself as an ideological offensive and repression of any emerging signs of resistance in that community. When Edward Gierek was in power as the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party (1970–1980), the policy towards writers and artists evolved in two stages. The first (1971–1976) was characterized by liberalism and pragmatism, as part of a regime’s legitimization strategy. During the second stage, lasting from February 1976 to August 1980, preventive and repressive elements began to prevail in the position taken towards artists, who increasingly voiced opposition towards the authorities. Opposition was to be quashed by more stringent censorship, numerous searches, interrogationof artists and harassment. In 1980 and 1981, the authorities concentrated on ensuring that the managing bodies of the artist/writer associations had the right political credentials, although with no effect. They supported artists with communist party affiliations and unsuccessfully tried to attract the neutral centre and to exploit it. During the martial law period, the authorities adopted a repressive policy towards artists, but they failed to put an end to their boycott of public institutions. The attempt to use artists to legitimize the activities of the authorities in the perestroika period was only partially successful. Finally, the cultural policy of the authorities was put aside altogether after the political changes of 1989.
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The article describes diplomatic operations carried out by Poland’s MP and executiveminister in Sofia Adam Tarnowski, one of the leading representatives of Polish diplomacyin the Second Republic of Poland. He was the longest serving Polish diplomat in the Kingdom of Bulgaria (1930–1941). Later he emigrated to London to hold prominent functions: a general secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, an MP in the Czechoslovakiangovernment in exile, Minister of Foreign Affairs during and after the war in the governments of Tomasz Arciszewski and Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski. Chronological dividinglines of the study are: the fall of Poland in September 1939 and Bulgaria breaking off itsdiplomatic relations with Poland in March 1941. At that time, the Polish diplomatic post in Sofia was one of the very few legations which dealt with diplomatic issues despite the German seizure of Poland. When the war had broken out, Tarnowski began conductinga serious diplomatic campaign towards establishing contacts with his occupied motherland,helping people threatened by Nazi repressions, and informing foreign governments of crimes and destruction taking place in Poland. Tarnowski was supported by a group of Bulgarian diplomats sympathising with Poland. They stayed in Berlin and occupied Warsaw and provided priceless services to our country by carrying money, letters, and information about the Nazi crimes in the occupied Poland in their diplomatic bags. Our MP in Sofia would give shelter to Polish refugees, protect valuable objects belonging to the national heritage, and organize redeployment of Polish troops from Bulgaria into Turkey. The most spectacular operation managed by Tarnowski was the evacuation of a group of several dozen Polish airmen (in September 1940) by sea from the Black Sea coast to Turkey. A very important element of Tarnowski’s operations was the intervention with the Bulgarian government to help Polish scientists from the Jagiellonian University and the AGH University of Science and Technology arrested by Germans in November 1939. Tarnowski talked to Professor Bogdan Fiłow, President of the Bulgarian Academy of Science, a world famous archaeologist, who was about to become Prime Minister of Bulgaria. The sources of the article include: unknown historical documents from AAN, published diplomatic and intelligence documents, journals and recollections. Bulgarian sources and analyses, including video footage, were also used.
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After knocking down communism in 1989, Poland and other countries of Eastern Europe were burdened with a task of settling accounts with their totalitarian past both in institutional dimension – through legal compensation for the victims of crimes and persecutions, trying their perpetrators and developing institutional standards preventing functionaries of the former communist secret services and their co-workers from having an impact on public life (lustration) and also enabling the victims to have an insight into the documents collected in the past on them. Since, in the centre of the lustration debate an issue of exploring, developing and settling accounts with one of fundamental pillars of the totalitarian system i.e. former security forces was placed, one of the elements of settling accounts with the communist past was the creation of institutions responsible for taking over the archives of the communist special forces and revealing the network of agents of thepolitical secret service, as well, as conducting research and educational activities in that area. The text analyses the conditions in which that process occurred in Poland and her bordering countries: Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Russia.The concluding paragraphs of the article contain the assessment that the process of creating the institutions responsible for taking over the materials of the state security organs, their development and making them available was a part of a political ritual of transformation from totalitarianism to democracy. That transformation was experienced by all post-communist countries of Central Europe which chose a democratic variant of social development. The institutions established in order to accomplish that goal have similar competences apart from investigative functions possessed only by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance. Lesser successes were achieved as far as the attempts to legal persecution of the perpetrators of communist crimes were concerned and it relates to the entire geographical area. The state of law proved to be an inefficient tool in bringing the guilty ones to justice within the course of passing years. Settling accounts with communism was never done in Russia. One may think that Russian leaders came to the conclusion that society is not ready yet for such a move since it would entail huge social and political costs and that its full realisation would be possible only after the natural generation exchange has been accomplished. The author puts forward a thesis that a future researcher of the historyof the post-communist era in Europe will be able to clearly distinguish the borderlines of the countries which have settled their accounts with a totalitarian past and of those where this has not been done with all the system, social and moral consequences of that fact.
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The article presents a rebuttal to the belief that the crisis in the humanities is due to a lack of jobs for graduates of the humanities. The main argument is that the crisis affects the whole university and is associated with its place in relation to the state and the market. The author argues for the need to rethink the relationship between the university and society.
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Comparative studies show an ambiguous effect of the application of administrative controls on the level of migrant inflows, with the relative impact of the measures weaker than that of long-term economic or cultural factors. The case of Central Asian migration to Kazakhstan and Russia demonstrates the interplay of administrative measures and economic shocks with strategies of migrant groups and individuals. The review of recent surveys, interviews and focus groups with migrants from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan suggests that changes in the policies of destination countries have a limited impact on their own plans. The long-term determinants, such as the support provided by diasporas and the fundamental economic pull and push factors mitigate the effects of sanctions or facilitating measures.
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As the political centre of the World international stage gravitates toward East Asia, so does the political reality of the Post-Soviet Space. This process works in favour of the Peoples’ Republic of China, is a source of new tensions within the Russian Federation and undermines the effectiveness of US and European policies. The New Silk Road and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank initiatives show that PRC has both the means and the determination to actively broaden its sphere of influence. However, the Chinese patterns of expansion do not have to follow the nature of Russian-Western competition the World got used to after 1991. As the local players are increasingly assertive and PRC economy is slowing down, it’s also important to notice the first clouds gathering over Chinese aspirations in the region. The article presents an overview of the major approaches to political change, international competition and integration trajectories within the Post-Soviet space. It focuses on the major actors active within the Post-Soviet Space, namely the Russian Federation, the United States and the Peoples’ Republic of China, the strategies they follow, mediums they choose to execute their strategies and an evaluation of effects of their activity after the collapse of the USSR.
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This article aims to analyze the factors and significance of particular subjects and instruments of the Latvian ethnic policy. It will be examined in the context of relationships occurring between Latvia’s policy on ethnic minorities, the attitude of the Russian-speaking minority and the Russian Federation’s foreign policy on its fellow-countrymen abroad. We will also attempt to answer the question of how the Latvian ethnic policy influences horizontal interrelations between the state’s individual ethnic groups – whether it alleviates social tensions or intensifies them.
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The analysis of Ukraine’s dysfunction and dependence, both in national and international dimension, presents a clear picture that the dilemma of whether we are faced with a consolidation of a truly liberal democracy or its non-liberal (hybrid) variety, is still valid. Debates in political sciences are dominated by the view that independent Ukraine ought to be considered a specific case of the so-called “hybrid state”. Such countries are characterized by stagnation, corruption, and a dominant position of elites, who offer few benefits to the state and have little public support. In addition, the following are clearly visible in Ukraine: little representation of public interests by state institutions; little political involvement of the society and little social activity in between elections; no respect for regulations of the state under the rule of the law; little public legitimization in elections; little public trust in state institutions/the institution of the state; inadequate operation of the state in general. Therefore, the fact that transformation processes which have been emerging in Ukraine, ought not be considered linear, should be acknowledged. Consequently, describing the character of these processes in view of their complexity and multidimensionality seems more relevant.
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The aim of the article is to overview notification, i.e. a procedure provided in the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU that requires the EU member states to inform the European Commission about certain measures. The author introduces the legal basis and discusses procedure applied in four types of notification: notifying state aid, notifying adoption of harmonisation measures, notifying technical regulations and notifying draft legislative provision in the field of competence of the European Central Bank.
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On the 28th of June, 1914, a consumptive student, Gavrilo Princip, shot and killed prince Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The prince’s wife Sofia was also killed by a stray bullet. In the century that has passed since the assassination, the memory of Princip and the cult constructed around him has been distorted beyond recognition. As local and international politics were altered, so changed Princip’s image. The memory of Princip now evokes strong reactions not only in the South Slav lands, but in Hungary as well. In what follows, we will examine possible sources for the strong reactions evoked by Princip’s memory among Hungarians a century after his act.
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The article discusses the question why the German-speakers in Northern Italy’s South Tyrol province are only very rarely referred to as an Austrian minority, in spite of the fact that they were split off from Austria, and not Germany, in the aftermath of World War I. An analysis of the naming of German-speaking South Tyroleans in German, Austrian, Italian and English-speaking news media, which demonstrates a preference for terms such as “German-speaking minority” or “German minority” over “Austrian minority and equivalents, is followed by a discussion of three hypotheses to account for the situation. The author shows how the question of how to name the German-speaking South Tyroleans is closely intertwined with the issue of Austrian national identity and its re-orientation away from Germany in the aftermath of the Second World War. The author comes to the conclusion that the minority is not usually referred to as Austrian both due to the fact that it is difficult to include them in the young (civic) Austrian nation in a logically consistent manner, and due to the German-speaking South Tyroleans’ own inconsistent self-identification as Austrians.
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This paper addresses the issue of municipal real estate management, focusing on the disadvantages of management in the Polish public sector. The paper is based on the literature review, an analysis of the Polish Supreme Audit Office reports and on the results of a survey conducted among municipalities belonging to Krakow Metropolitan Area. The article is organised as follows. Firstly, the author provides a general overview of the main weaknesses of the municipal real estate management. Then, the paper presents an empirical analysis based on the survey research. Finally, the paper closes with a discussion of some methodological issues and recommendations for further study.
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The article is the continuation of the Author's previous studies on the reinforcement of Krakow economic functions. The main object of the research is one of the oldest leading functions of the city, namely science. The aim of the article is the analysis of the transformations of the land use in the area occupied by this sector of economy both in 1983 and in 2012, carried out on the example of the oldest part of Krakow, the former cadastral district - Śródmieście. As a result of the conducted research, field research in particular, an increase in the area occupied by science and higher education in this part of the city was noted, from 3.27% in 1983 to 4.03% in 2012. The research also showed the growth of the area occupied by other sectors of economy, also considered in the past as leading in the development of Krakow, namely culture and tourism, and a decrease in the areas used by industry, the function particularly developed in the period of the centrally planned economy.
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Workshop projektu KEGA 021TTU-4/2015 Jezuitské divadlo – integrálna vzdelávacia a výchovná metóda. Teologická fakulta Trnavskej univerzity, Bratislava 5. 11. 2015
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Many political changes during the last centuries caused that East Europe is inhabited bymany minorities. Early 90s brought many geopolitical changes in Europe, especially asa result of the collapse of Soviet Union independence were achieved Baltic Republics.These little countries with a small population have very high ethnic diversity. Nowadaysthe national minorities are quite important part of different societies but they have alsodifferent functional possibilities. In different countries they have different legal statuswhich influence on their situations.In the article, the author presents number and distribution of main centers of the Polishminority in the Republic of Latvia in the light of the results of 2011census. The studyalso shows the main activities of social organizations and the Polish minority schools inLatvia. In the research used the sociological method of in-depth interviews with theleaders of Polish organizations, which main aim was to find out the opinion of the mostactive and the most competent group of activists.
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Ten ex-cons are among the candidates running in the 2 October local elections.
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The first edition of the Democratic Audit of Poland is a pilot test aimed at understanding the dynamics of particular aspects of Polish democracy and shows that while Poland is in good standing compared to the rest of the region, it is still far from the ideal.
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