Around the Bloc: Georgian Anti-Hep C Project an Overwhelming Success
Large-scale elimination of virus is the result of pilot program launched by U.S. pharmaceutical manufacturer, which offered free treatment to hepatitis patients.
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Large-scale elimination of virus is the result of pilot program launched by U.S. pharmaceutical manufacturer, which offered free treatment to hepatitis patients.
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The article deals with the problem of overcoming a social and political division of the Ukrainian society by region, ethnicity and language. Having intensified during the years of its independence, the existing social and political division of the Ukrainian society suggests that the government's ethnic and national policy is ineffective, points to a segmental awareness of individuality and a conflict of interests of social and political groups, a stronger institutional representation etc. Today, the political elite fails to utilize the nation-consolidating potential and often ignores the objective of social, political and national consolidation of the society, enhances the imbalances in the system of values and standards, exacerbates interethnic relationships. In contemporary conditions, Ukrainian citizens from different regions have a different understanding of the past and the future development of their country, give preference to different political and geopolitical vectors. That Ukraine did not have statehood has made more complicated the evolution of sustainable national identification factors of the Ukrainian society, ultimately limited the natural development of interethnic and intergovernmental relationships and their impact on the formation of a nation, conditioned peculiar types of regional identity to a great degree. Remaining immature in most regions, the ethnic foundation of the national identity prevents the Ukrainian political nation from consolidation.It has been substantiated that the social and political division may, if escalated, provoke a nation's breakup which has two aspects – external (lack of the nation's unity is caused by certain geopolitical factors, interference of other countries or organizations in the constitution of the nation) and internal (by historical, cultural, religious, language-related, mental and other factors). Today, the breakup between the west and and east can be witnessed in Ukraine as it correlates with language-related and geopolitical reference points of Ukrainian citizens.The current social and political division of the Ukrainian society has been strengthened by internal political factors such as inferior public governance, ethnic and political management has failed to eliminate discontent of both the title ethnos and national minorities by developing their national cultures, and they have an increasing sense of neglect and humiliation. Unfortunately, most political solutions, official documents and declarations intended to promote national consolidation fail to achieve their functions and are of formal nature in that they fail to assist in overcoming regional disproportions and disintegration of the regions. Today, the ethnic and regional division is also based on the language because lingual conduct is the most prominent factor of regional differentiation. A further development of these tendencies poses a threat of having the existing ethnic and cultural differences between the regions transform themselves into an institutionalized territorial and political demarcation. When forming a language policy, the state should proceed from that the problem of protection of national minorities' languages should not threaten the national identity and national consolidation of Ukraine. This condition should be of top priority in the society that has set out for national consolidation instead of a breakup of the nation. It is improper and useless to treat national minorities' languages as an aspect of their 'survival'.It has been demonstrated that the social and political division of the Ukrainian society is also strengthened by external political factors such as the policy of Russia, which creates social and political organizations that raise territory claims against Ukraine; uses the dominant position of the Russian satellite and broadcast television in southern and eastern oblasts of Ukraine to reinforce pro-Russian sentiment among the population of these regions; promotes a negative attitude to the EU and NATO; creates centers of tensions over language-related and national issues, makes military intervention etc. Introduction of dual citizenship also has negative effects such as the exacerbation of interethnic relation-ships, a shift in the national identity or promotion of dual national identity.For national consolidation, it is crucial today to create a new system of values of the Ukrainian society, a nationwide idea which can consolidate the Ukrainian society. Of course, it is both unreasonable and ineffective to treat an individual factor as primary to national consolidation because national consolidation is a comprehensive and systemic process. National consolidation should be primarily founded on spiritual, social and moral values.The Ukrainian society can consolidate provided there is ethnic, social and national consensus – an agreement between policy actors on national matters based on fundamental values and standards that are common to all main-stream social and political groups of the society. National consolidation may evolve top down and vice versa, bottom up, as initiated by the people in the context of a developed civil society. During national consolidation of the contemporary Ukrainian society, it is important to create conditions for the establishment of institutions of political power and civil society which can maintain territorial integrity and unity of the country and guarantee its sustainable development.The consolidation of the Ukrainian society requires a number of transformations in the humanitarian area. These include developing integrative humanitarian policy intended to create a single political nation, the national identity; creating a single information space; resolving the language issue; reinforcing community ties between Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking regions. It is only when and if all internal and external political factors of the national consolidation of the Ukrainian society are taken into account comprehensively that an effective national strategy of consolidation can be developed and a sustainable development of nation building can be secured.
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This article explores the phenomenon of the ‘Green Cadres' at the end of the First World War in Austria-Hungary, with a focus on events in western Slovakia 1918-1920. The Green Cadres were bands of army deserters and radicalized peasants who hid in the forests and mountains of the monarchy during the last year of the war and then violently attempted to topple the social-political order in many localities as the state collapsed. The article suggests that they represented both the last major episode of peasant unrest in the region and a radical new attempt by the rural common people to influence the character of national and social politics in the interwar period. The nationalist dimension of this loose social movement appears to have been particularly strong in western Slovakia and may indicate some affiliation with the leaders of Slovak Catholic populism. On the other hand, the inability of nationalist elites to coopt the Green Cadres was in part responsible for their marginalization in narratives of Czechoslovak liberation as well as in contemporary historiography. On the basis of sources in Slovak, Czech, Slovenian, Serbo-Croatian, and German, this study argues that the Slovak case of the Green Cadres fits into a broader transnational phenomenon, which sheds new light on the history of East Central Europe in the twentieth century.
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In the article describe a short history of mutual relations Poles and Turks, their national identity and elements of cultural assimilation in the foreign environment related to their social and economic lives. Particular emphasis is put on presenting the stereotype of a Turk in the perception of the Poles and the feedback, namely the cultural characteristics of the Poles in the opinion of the Turks.
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The article aimes to outline the main ideas and strategies pertaining to the Russian information and propaganda campaigns waged against Ukraine within the period 1991-2013. Current research also aims to discuss the nature and main sources of Ukrainophobia in Russian society as a complex phenomenon that has deep histori-cal and cultural roots. Particular emphasis is made on various vehicles and tools extensively used by the Russian side in the process of creation of the enemy and its historical tradition in Russian society.
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This text analyses the arguments for and against shame penalties. A key reason why shame penalties seem unacceptable is their incompatibility with the right to dignity inherent to every human being: whereas guilt focuses only on the act, shame stigmatizes the whole person. The concept of ‘primitive shame’ reveals how the rationales behind the alleged moralism of shame penalties are driven by the narcissistic rage.
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This article examines relationships between humans and insects in the context of war. Drawing on both literary works and popular culture, Cembrzyńska analyses images of the enemy as an insect. She points out the conjunction between research on chemical weapons and on methods of pest control. Nature takes on the role of a history teacher (as in Walter Benjamin and W. G. Sebald). The article discusses the effects of progress and the blind force of history. These effects include the fauna of dirt and ruins (results of chemical and aerial warfare), the eruption of monstrosity in the form of a plague of crawling creatures, as well as the homeless life that Eric L. Santner described as ‘creaturely life’.
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This essay examines the pathologies of Polish memory through Melanie Klein’s psychoanalytical theory. Bielik-Robson suggests that the majority of what is seen as historical memory in contemporary Poland is no memory at all but a compulsion to repeat, reminiscent of the dark ritual of an ever-returning trauma. It is of course risky to extrapolate from psychoanalytical methods to collective subjects, but this essay attempts to describe the assumptive subject of the Polish collective as a Kleinian ‘angry infant’ in the paranoid-schizoid position. This arrested development results in a falsely passive experience of dependency as well as a complete inability to work through trauma. To develop this ability, however, turns out to be a necessary condition for the formation of memory in the strict sense.
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Starting from the history and definition of socialism, as well as various practices of this ideology, this paper deals with the adoption of socialist doctrines in Soviet and Yugoslav literature. The analysis of the novel Thirtieth Marina‟s Love by Vladimir Sorokin, paper attempts to show the utopian idea of socialist doctrine that aspires to impose their ideological matrix of artistic discourse. Skillfuly combining the utilitarian discourse and style of totalitarian communist manifesto with literature, Sorokin parody of the production of the novel indicates its inability to simultaneously satisfy the aesthetic qualities that are expected of true work of fiction and obvious of intent which, as such, can only survive in the milieu of a particular system which is creates.
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The widespread use of computer-based technologies, mostly the Internet, constitutes a new dimension in the study of virtual nationalism. The use of distance-and time-shrinking information technologies – such as social media, virtual communities and websites of nationalist groups – has changed the structure and context of nationalism as well as the scholarly discourse on related topics in the digital age. Social media enable identity expression, exploration and experimentation; phenomena that are considered natural for the human experience. It is necessary to acknowledge that there are many different factors which inspire and shape the Internet communities and interactions they make within themselves. It is essential to comprehend the motives behind these influences in order to understand the group interactions on social media platforms. In this study the authors focus on the nationalist discourse in virtual communities and on social media; mainly the opposition and resistance manifestations in the cultural and social contexts are discussed. The authors thus offer a set of theoretical outlines on the given topic and base their analysis of some nationalists’ social media posts on the inductive method of inquiry. The study also concentrates on the need to figure out the negative consequences of such social media sharing in relation to various virtual groups and general users.
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The Radcliffe Line at Wagah is now a world famous tourist spot where each evening thousands of tourists gather to witness the ritual of lowering the flags of India and Pakistan. Visiting the place is kind of pilgrimage for the Indians, (and must be for the Pakistanis as well), and the Wagah has gradually evolved into a shrine of patriotism. The ceremony of lowering the flag lasts about an hour when on both sides of the border there remain a kind of celebratory atmosphere—and the thing celebrated is nationalism. The patriotic frenzy, however, leads to a menacing display virtual violence as the cry varat mata ki jai ( victory to mother India) on the one side and Pakisthan jindabad(long live Pakistan) on the other bangs upon the ear and fills the air around. Each side tries to supersede the other; the cry gets louder and louder and the tension rises as if there will be an instant war. It leads the sensitive mind into troubled history of partition of India and to the indelible trauma of communal violence—the wound that the people of the subcontinent sustained during and in the aftermath of the partition in 1947. The paper will attempt to analyse the nationalistic ceremony at Wagah and will explore the problematic nature Indian nationalism and national identity. The objective is to examine the paradoxical nature of the Wagah rituals which though aimed at consolidating national identity ends up disrupting it. In the course of discussion, three cultural texts, namely, the ceremony at Wagah, the memoir of Sadat Hassan Manto‘s last days in Mumbai, and Shabnam Virmani‘s documentary film Had Anhad (Bounded Boundless) will act as intertexts of the article.
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The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians (1918–1929), really The Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1929–1941) has been constituted on the principles of unitary national state in the spirit of yugoslavian idea of ”three tribes of one nation” (Serbs, Croats, Slovenians). In this first yugoslavian state two censuses were conducted, 1921 and 1931. (census 1941. was disabled because of war and occupation). In keeping with yugoslavian integrationally national policy ethnonational structure of population was adapted on the basics of native language. By language basics the national minorities were censused, from which albanian, german and hungarian minority in 1931. had 10,6% from total population of Yugoslavia. Structure of the population by religious affiliation was adapted by details for Christian churches and israelians (Jews, by the type of religious rite). The confessional characteristics have a special importance for studying correlations and identification nationallity with confession. According to public data from national statistics four tables were composed showing structure of population of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia by native language and religious affilities.
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The constitution of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Kingdom of Hungary was established by the 1891-94 synod. This constitution had a tendency towards centralization and greatly restricted the autonomy of the church. The centralized administration rendered it possible for the leaders of the church to reduce the autonomy of Slovak Lutherans, who had majority in the Cis-Danubian district, by redrawing the borders of the districts. In the new districts the Slovak Lutherans found themselves in minority everywhere, losing their influence on decision making.This lead to the Žilina Declaration, which was signed by 68 north-west Hungarian Slovak congregations at the end of 1912 and the beginning of 1913. The declaration criticised the centralization and the concomitant tendencies towards Hungarian linguistic and the ideological nationalization of the church, and it even raised the issue of forming autonomous Slovak districts.The present study analyses the political context of the above mentioned document. The author uses primary sources because the topic lacks historiographical literature. The first research question of the study is whether the co-operation of the Slovak congregations was as an ad-hoc association or, rather, the result of the mobilisation of an institutionalized group. The second research question discusses the various representations of the relevance of the aforementioned congregational co-operation in the Slovak national narrative. In order to answer these questions the author relies on both political science theories and secularisation theories.
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Catherine Gibson - History, Memory, and Urban Symbolic Geographies: Recent Contributions to the Historiography of Vilnius Theodore R. Weeks, Vilnius between Nations, 1795–2000 (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2015), 308 pp. Dangiras Mačiulis and Darius Staliūnas, Lithuanian Nationalism and the Vilnius Question, 1883–1940 (Marburg: Herder Institut, Studien zur Ostmitteleuropaforschung, 2015), 236 pp.
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The article examines the process of national-cultural revival of ethnicity communities in Ukraine at present and defines aspects of ethnic culture and national identity in the development of ethnic culture. The author specifies theconcept of ethnic identity, determines the basic factors of association of ethnic groups on a way to development ofnational originality, analyses cultural and social activity of public organizations of national minorities which arose up and function in the regions of Ukraine. Modern Ukrainian society is determined as multinational. In him comparatively noticeable and proof development was got by most ethnic cultures. Multinational structure of our society shows up in that different ethnic cultures exist not simply, but develop within the limits of various cultural practices, leaning on legislative support from the side of the state. Gaining independence Ukrainian state has changed the social status of the Ukrainian nation and of all ethnic communities living in the country. Formed for the years of independence the political framework established a solid foundation for the harmonious combination of the interests of all ethnic the components of the Ukrainian society, equal opportunities for their active participation in the state building process, and to balance the needs of both the ethnic majority and ethnic minorities as [4]. A positive factor in the development of legal ethnic national scope is to create conditions and provide an opportunity for representatives of different nationalities revive, preserve their ethnic identity, language and culture, art, traditions, customs and ceremonies. The harmonious existence of multinational states is known to be possible only in a society that has a high culture. Building a civilized state is always accompanied by a process of intensification of interethnic relations, which involved Ukrainian, having the status of the titular nation, and representatives of other cultures. The representatives of all ethnic groups in Ukraine seeking to preserve their ethnic specificity: the native language, culture, art and spirituality. In the system of ethnic culture consolidating factor is the art. Ethnic, national and universal are its essential basis, reflecting the history and character of the community of people and types of artistic identity [1]. Increased interest to the ethnic culture and the arts – basic realities of the modern period. The basis of the scientific and ethnographic methods of collection and study of folk music led at one time of O. Alyab'ev, F. Kolessa, K. Flower, M. Maksimovic, N. Lysenko, S. Lyudkevych, J. Rosdolsky, A. Serov. Experience the music of folk art in a wide range of types and genres studied Gumeniuk A., S. Vasilenko, A. Ivanytskyi, V. Falcon. Each ethnic group and nation in the creation of a global culture embodies its inherent artistic traditions and forms. General interest to them it caused by the innate characteristics and experience, mentality, aesthetic and artistic world view [3]. Art of inherent indispensable quality – bear a concrete expression of artistic genius, artistic aspirations of the people. It also must have the appropriate cultural and historical ground on which thanks to the creators of germinating grain new achievements and accomplishments. Experience the music of folk art in a wide range of types and genres that often go along with the types and genres of professional art, best confirms this view [5]. Music Art embodies the dynamics of human emotions, the ability of creative thinking on the emotional perception of reality to a broader philosophical generalization. In the writings of ethnic music to reveal the nature, there are feelings, attitudes of people and through them – the essence of social life of a particular historical period and ethnic groups. The analysis of the modern state and basic progress of creative potential of national minorities, growth of their payment, trends in socio-political and spiritual life of Ukrainian society testifies that a national culture acquires new signs, enriched new artistic forms and offenses, that it can the process of interpenetration of ethnic cultures. European choice, that Ukraine did – it at the same time and motion to the standards of the real democracy, based on principles of supremacy of right and freedoms of man and citizen, including representatives of national minorities. And that is why effective realization of positions of Program of activity of Government needs improvement of national legislation in the field of internationals relations and adaptation of him position to the internationals standards of ES. Basic aspects are marked for consolidation round the idea of strengthening of the Ukrainian democratic state of all citizens, in spite of their ethnic origin. A process of cultural co-operation of national minorities is very important because through mutual cognition tolerant ethnical relations which are reliable foundation of national unity are formed.
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Mihály Csákó (Anti out-group feeling at the schooling age) analyses sets of data relating to ethnic and national intolerance among adolescents. Only one third of the sample can be considered fully tolerant, while a high level of intolerance is found against Gypsies, Jews and Romanians. Such attitudes are deeply embedded in Hungarian historical tradition, and no other group of nations emerges as a target of resentment in the same way. Attitudes are not inherited biologically; of course, they are developed by the operations of agencies of socialisation – such as family, school, and media. The strongest individual variable in this exposé is the type of school frequented by the young people in question. Gender and the cultural capital of the family may also contribute to variations. Further studies are needed for a deeper exploration of the issue.
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This paper is an assessment of Hungarian and Romanian degree-holder contingents of the Cluj/Kolozsvár university in times of spectacular political change and relative social stagnation. This university has invariably been localized within a higher educational market mostly limited to the needs of the ethnically mixed population of Transylvania, needs that were seldom, if ever, reflected in equitable ethnic enrollment ratios. Local ethnic competition in and through the academe was always conditioned by external centers of political gravitation. The integrative role of the university altered each time the center changed, and each time it was exerted not so much along socio-economic but along ethno-political lines. The late imperial educational commonwealth before World War I was largely dominated by the Magyar element. The subsequent nation-state framework reversed the situation to the advantage of Romanians in the inter-war period. This was followed by yet another turn-over between 1940 and 1944. All the while the university was less an agent of modernization than a fortress of survival in a continuous struggle for national dominance. Ethnic dominance tended to prevail over reform and social advancement, and repeated failures in the latter were ascribed to the presence of the rival ethnic other in the competition.
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The contradictory process and the ambivalent result of Jewish assimilation in Hungary between 1867 and 1944 were shaped both by the Neolog-Orthodox duality and the fast acculturation of the Neolog Jewry. The image persistently attached to the Jew in Hungary, the basis of any sort of anti-Semitism, was the denominational bound Jewishness; the identity created and sustained mainly by the urban Neolog Jewish bourgeoisie was, however, definitely Magyar. When image and identity came to be confronted with each other, then political anti-Semitism could get a firm footing; this had happened from just around the late nineteenth and especially the beginning of the twentieth century. Still, there is more than simply a continuity between the form of anti-Semitism characterizing the age of Dualism and the one accompanying the interwar period, when it even became a state policy. The former was rooted in the mental construction of a cultural code, while the latter was most closely associated with the cognitive construction of political code. This also meant that while the former was exclusively carried by some social movements hostile to the issue of Jewish assimilation, the latter led to rigid state discrimination applied against all those the image of whom was identified with Jewishness.
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Today, with the full benefit of hindsight, it would be redundant to write about the inevitability of the Stalinization of Hungary in the post World War II period. But to those who lived through this tumultuous time, it was a period replete with contradiction and uncertainty, when even the most astute political thinkers, such as István Bibó, were unable to predict what was to come. This work will explore Hungary's postwar period through the looking glass of the history and memory of NÉKOSZ, the National Organization of People's Colleges, a short-lived youth movement in postwar Hungary that fell victim to political purges but remains alive today in the memories of many of its participants.
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The animated debate surrounding an apparent migrant problem of the Western world, manifesting itself in either the immigration crisis in Europe or the progressing tendencies to isolationism both in Europe and in the United States of America, provides a good case to investigate the media representation of immigrants in the American context. The sometimes biased portrayal of immigrant communities in the contemporary American media, especially those with right-wing inclination, has been given a higher profile in the U.S. public discourse and bears a striking resemblance to the anti-Irish sentiment and press coverage that dominated in the U.S. in the 19th century. It is in the purview of the following paper to examine the media rhetoric and representation strategies that were used at that time and that are harnessed currently. The idea warrants discussion since the United States also prides itself for its multicultural and multiethnic heritage, which proves to highlight the polarized public opinion. In the author’s estimation, the anti-immigrant attitudes are a recurring theme in the American culture and have always divided the public.
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