A Modern Interpretation of Marxist-Leninist National Policy (On the Example of the National Minorities Issue in Uzbekistan)

Author(s): Kamola Saipova,Usmonzhon Butaev / Language(s): English / Issue: Special 2/2019

The aim of the article is to present a modern interpretation of the national policy of the Soviet government on the example of the issue of national minorities in Turkestan in 1917. The authors analyze a large amount of scientific material, including the documentation of congresses and resolutions of the government of Turkestan. Based on the research results, the authors conclude that the policies on national minorities under the administrative command system was contradictory and inconsistent. In general, the dynamics of the impact of the system on the sphere of national life turned out to be negative. Due to false ideological attitudes, the domination of administration, the poor scientific basis of policy, the national policy of the administrative-command system was, essentially and objectively, a denationalizing policy. The authors present a modern interpretation of this issue.

A National “Struggle for Survival”? – The Badeni Crisis of 1897 in Cisleithania’s German-language Press

Author(s): Victor Jaeschke / Language(s): English / Issue: 49/2017

This article observes the role of Cisleithania’s (i.e. the Austrian “half” of the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy) German language press in the so-called Badeni Crisis of 1897 which was triggered by the issuance of two language ordinances designed to make Czech, together with German, an equally valid language in the inner administration of the Crownlands of Bohemia and Moravia. By comparing the reporting style of two newspapers from different regions – the Viennese newspaper Neue Freie Presse and the Bohemian newspaper Prager Tagblatt–this essay explores how interpretations of this serious political crisis differed in the periphery and the centre of the Habsburg empire. The author shows that, even though the Badeni Crisis directly affected mainly German-speaking Bohemians, the reporting style of the Prager Tagblatt was less sensationalist and its choice of words less nationalistic and militaristic than the coverage of the same events by its Viennese counterpart, the Neue Freie Press. In a second step, reasons for this surprising discrepancy are traced.

A nem-területi / nemzeti-kulturális autonómia

Author(s): David J. Smith / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 3/2017

A nemzeti kisebbségek kollektív jogait megtestesítő autonómia és önkormányzatiság problematikája a neoliberális globalizáció és a tömeges migráció viszonyai között

Author(s): Tamás Prugberger / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 3/2019

The study approaches Autonomy and Local Governments a concept of similar content, starting from the general notions and types of the concept of autonomy of national minorities. By examining its content, it points out how in some countries recognition and tolerance has been achieved and how national minority rights are not recognized in other countries, especially in Central Europe, or areas limited as possible. In the following, the study deals with migration from the Central and Pre-Asia, as well as from North Africa threatening the European Union and the United Nations, as well as Europe supported by Soros György. In this context, it points out that, if it managed to create an European mixed society, organized as a presidential republic, such as the United States, it would result in the end of European national states, that is to say, European languages, nations and nations and would affect minority nations. The final conclusion of the study is that, if European states unanimously grant autonomy to national minorities and thus collective minority rights, this would strengthen states in the fight against migration and would complicate the integration processes involved. By granting the autonomy and collective rights of national minorities, it could better close its European and national states against this current destructive process. The last part of the study attempts to outline a proposal for solving autonomy.

A nemzeti kulturális autonómia egy többnemzetiségű államszövetségben: Oroszország helyzete

Author(s): Federica Prina / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 3/2017

A népszámlálásokban megjelenő nyelvi kategóriák: vissza- vagy előretekintés?

Author(s): Dominique Arel / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 3/2015

A New Political Scarecrow? The Political Program and Activity of the ”Serbian Right“

Author(s): Srđan Mladenov Jovanović / Language(s): English / Issue: 11/2020

The organization known as Srpska desnica (SD; the Serbian Right Wing) during 2019 become increasingly seen in the Serbian media, as well as receiving augmented visibility on posters throughout the country. With their recent electoral success in the town of Medveđa, as well as their announcement that they are turning into an official party that would enter the 2020 parliamentary elections, coupled with the troublesome past of their leader, Miša Vacić, the situation calls for investigation. In this article, we are putting Miša Vacić’s public and political engagement under a magnifying glass, positioning him within the broader nationalist political spectrum of the country, engaging his official political program. We shall furthermore define the concept of the political scarecrow, a political party or figure that serves primarily to frighten, as shall be clear from the case study that this is the role of his organization.

A RADICAL REFORM PROJECT: FEDERALISM AND ETHNONATIONALISM IN THE THOUGHT OF A.C. POPOVICI

Author(s): Mihai Murariu / Language(s): English / Issue: 01/2020

THE AIM OF THIS PAPER IS TO PROVIDE AN OVERVIEW OF THE MAIN FEATURES OF THE RADICAL REFORM PROJECT PURSUED BY A.C. POPOVICI. A ROMANIAN INTELLECTUAL WHO BECAME KNOWN AS A CONTROVERSIAL, YET RESOURCEFUL POLITICAL THINKER IN THE LATE 19TH AND EARLY 20TH CENTURIES, POPOVICI’S MOST FAMOUS PROJECT CAN BE FOUND IN HIS PERSISTENT ATTEMPT TO CHANGE THE NATURE OF THE AUSTROHUNGARIAN EMPIRE THROUGH A PARTICULAR PERSPECTIVE. THIS WAS A PERSPECTIVE WHICH MIXED FEDERALISATION WITH NATIONALISM AND A CONSERVATIVE, ELITIST OUTLOOK WHICH WAS SIMULTANEOUSLY HIGHLY CRITICAL OF WHAT IT SAW AS THE LEVELLING EFFECTS OF WESTERN UNIVERSALISM AND DEMOCRACY. THE PAPER LARGELY FOCUSSES ON IDENTIFYING THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECTS IN THIS REGARD, SUCH AS FEDERALISM, ETHNO-NATIONALISM, AND RACE, WHILST ATTEMPTING TO INCLUDE SOME OF THE MOST RELEVANT SOURCES WHICH WERE INSTRUMENTAL FOR THE FORMATION OF POPOVICI’S VISION. MOREOVER, AS MOST OF THE AUTHORS WHICH HAVE APPROACHED POPOVICI IN ANY SERIOUS, SYSTEMATIC FASHION ARE HISTORIANS BY FORMATION, THE PAPER SERVES TO INTRODUCE THE STUDY OF HIS THOUGHT TO CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL SCIENTISTS. DESPITE THE INHERENT CONTRADICTIONS AND POTENTIAL ISSUES ONE MAY UNCOVER IN POPOVICI’S PROJECT, THE PAPER CONCLUDES THAT HIS THOUGHT, INVOLVING FEDERALISM, ETHNIC TENSIONS, AND THE IMPACT OF MODERNITY, IS WORTH REVISITING.

A REAL BRAIN TWISTER, OR, HOW TO OUTLINE THE EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPT OF NATION BETWEEN THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND THE YEAR 1939?

Author(s): Maciej Janowski / Language(s): English / Issue: 122/2020

Most historians studying the evolution of the concept of nation and national idea in East Central Europe, assume that through the nineteenth century the political meaning was gradually giving place to the ethnic understanding of ‘nation’. Without radically questioning this evolution of the meaning, I would like to stress that it is far from obvious. Starting with the Enlightenment, the term and concept of ‘nation’ were used so widely in the Polish public debates that it is relatively easy to find quotations to support any generalisation. Any decision about choosing some source materials and discarding some others is inevitably grounded in certain methodological and philosophical assumptions. Some assumptions have to be accepted (for otherwise, a historian would not be able to say anything), but we need to be conscious that their choice is, in the last resort, arbitrary.

A Reflection on the Survival of Fahrudin Meminović

Author(s): Keith D. Doubt / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2020

It is difficult to understand the executioners of the genocide in Srebrenica. What were they doing? Why were they doing it? What were they thinking? How could they have done what they did? In Srebrenica MCMXCV [2017], Emir Suljagić recounts a testimony from an executioner told to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia after a massacre near Srebrenica in July 1995: From that pile, that heap of dead bodies that did not resemble human bodies any more, a human being emerged. I said human being, but it was actually a boy, five or six years old. It was unbelievable. Unbelievable. A human being came out and started walking towards a path, a path along which men were standing, doing their job, carrying automatic rifles… And then, out of nowhere they all put their guns down and all of them were just paralysed. And it was only a child in front of them. . . . And this child was covered in the tissue and intestines of other humans . . . And this child emerged from the pile of executed people, calling: «Babo»…. this is their word for father. The boy said, «Babo, where are you?»

A struggle in the peripheries: a few remarks on devolution in the UK

Author(s): Łukasz Sorokowski / Language(s): English / Issue: 03/2014

The paper looks at the major issues underlying devolution in the United Kingdom, i.e. a process whereby the historically diverse areas and regions constituting the seemingly uniform state have been slowly striving for independence, along with the formation of local, regional and even national identities. Hinging on the idea of ‘multicultural citizenship’, the paper seeks to analyse the ongoing public discourse centered on the gradual transfer of centralized London-based power to local and regional bodies across the UK. This discourse forms the pivotal background of devolution, overtly pointing to the idea of the so-called ‘new opening’ of the entire British political scene, clearly promoting the notion of strengthening the position of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and English regions as increasingly autonomous geographical and cultural areas as part of a weakening monolith by the name of the United Kingdom. Resting almost entirely on historic tensions between British identity and Scottish identity, it is made clear that the Scottish public debate has basically neglected the issues of the assimilation of its cultural minori¬ties with the ‘post-devolution’ reality. The devolution discourse stems from the rancorous debates and polemics which have taken place throughout the three hundred years of the Scottish and English Union, covering several social and political contexts, including the growing demands voiced by the SNP. Indeed, it has a major impact on the formation of Scots’ national distinctiveness alongside Scotland’s gradual emergence as a separate part of the British Isles.

A Tale of Two Revolutions: Hungary’s 1956 and the Un-doing of 1989

Author(s): Victoria Harms / Language(s): English / Issue: 03/2017

This article investigates the evolution of Hungary’s memory of 1956, from the counterrevolution to the dissident struggle for rehabilitation in the eighties, its relation to the change of regimes in 1989, and its subsequent appropriation for nationalist purposes in defiance of a European memory regime. Mnemonic warriors like Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and historian Mária Schmidt have championed 1956 as a struggle for freedom and independence and symbols of Hungarian martyrdom and bravery. Only recently a new-found Central European unity in adversity has been observed: the “counterrevolution” against the European Union. Perusing interviews, samizdat articles, public appeals and speeches, and other documentary evidence, including historical analyses, this article identifies mnemonic actors and strategies to assess the intricate relationship between 1956 and 1989. The analysis of museum exhibitions, statues, monuments, and national symbols helps reveal the varying significance ascribed to 1956 before and after 1989. The study relies on the conceptual groundwork of Michael Bernhard and Jan Kubik. It contributes to arguments put forth by historians James Mark, Anna Seleny, Nora Borodziej, and Árpád von Klimó.

A választási rendszerek hatásai a közép- és délkelet-európai személyi elvű kisebbségi autonómiákban

Author(s): Balázs Dobos / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 2-3/2018

The paper was designed to address and highlight the question of whether and how some of the main functions of elections can be conceptualized and understood in special minority contexts. Concerning the five selected non-territorial autonomy regimes of Central and Southeast Europe (Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Serbia, and Slovenia), very little research has been carried out to explore the key and closely intertwined features and effects of minority elections on intra-community dynamics and voters’ behaviour such as special voter registration, electoral formula (proportionality/disproportionality), ballot structure, voter turnout, competitiveness, and electoral volatility – research that would take into account the sensitive nature of ethnic data and the relatively highlevel cultural-linguistic assimilation, too. Accordingly, the aim of this study was to fill this gap at least in part by identifying and examining their operation in practice, while a more in-depth analysis of the important elements of such processes needs further research. Taken together, these factors have a crucial influence not only on the public participation of the minority groups concerned, but on their future prospects as well.

A. D. Smith, (2008) Kombet dhe nacionalizmi në erën globale.

Author(s): Enis Sulstarova / Language(s): Albanian / Issue: 8/2009

Review of: A. D. Smith, (2008) "Kombet dhe nacionalizmi në erën globale"; Tiranë: Instituti për Studime Publike dhe Ligjore & Dudaj by: Enis Sulstarova

AB Sürecinde Türkiye’nin İnsan Hakları ve Milli Kimlik İkilemi

Author(s): Sertan Akbaba / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 20/2017

Fervent debates on human rights policies around the world have occupied the public opinion in Turkey especially in the post-Helsinki period. In the center of the debate lies the efforts to develop and expand human rights. However, Turkey’s efforts to improve its human rights policies in line with its EU membership goal also means Turkey’s trial with Turkish identity and Turkish nationalism. For the dominant nationalist perception, which has encapsulated the Turkish Republic since its establishment, is clashing with the EU values and human rights. The aim of this study is to discuss why social peace has not been established despite the improvements made via human rights legislation. It is observed that Turkey’s transformation that started with its EU candidacy and continued with the reform packages, constitutional amendments and democratization process has now slowed down or even has come to a halt. One of the primary reasons of this final situation is the lack of ‘overlapping consensus’ introduced by Rawls in his theory of justice. As a result, initiatives with good intentions reach the level of awareness of differences but not cause realistic steps to be taken for ‘recognition’. This study argues that, unless a citizenship model embracing all members of society is established, the cited initiatives will not result in lasting solutions.

Abbas Vali, The Forgotten Years of Kurdish Nationalism in Iran [Minorities in West Asia and North Africa.]

Author(s): Martin van Bruinessen / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2021

Review of: Abbas Vali, The Forgotten Years of Kurdish Nationalism in Iran [Minorities in West Asia and North Africa.] Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. XVI + 238 pp. ISBN 978-3-030-16071-5 (paperback); https://doi.org/10.1007/987-3-030-16069-2 (eBook).

Achieving Collaborative Aims through Multiple Identity Construction: Managing a public inter-organizational collaboration

Author(s): Isidora Kourti / Language(s): English / Issue: 1-2/2015

Although public inter-organizational collaborations can offer better public services, their management is a complex endeavour and they often fail. This paper explores identity construction as a key aspect that assists in managing successfully these collaborations. The study draws upon a longitudinal ethnographic study with a Greek public inter-organizational collaboration. The re-search illustrates that managers should encourage partners to construct collaborative and non-collaborative identities in order to achieve the collaboration aims. It also suggests that managers should seek both stability and change in the collaborative process and offers four collaborative patterns for the effective management of public inter-organizational collaborations.

Adam Mickiewicz: A European from Nowogródek

Author(s): Irena Grudzińska Gross / Language(s): English / Issue: 02/1995

Today's Europe is suffering from the unexpected resurgence of nationalisms and is divided by rival ideologies, one arguing the essential separateness of each nation and the other, constitutional, negotiated citizenship. The choices nineteenth-century writers and ideologues made between the two options-at that time less exclusive-were mainly based in historical circumstances. The writer whose nation had a state was opting for the idea of national citizenship; the stateless one had to build his nation's identity in a different, "extra-legal" way. The comparison of "nation-building" efforts by Adam Mickiewicz and some of his French contemporaries may serve as an illustration of this point. While each of the writers analyzed here is unique, they shared interests, images, and vocabulary and, indeed, were part of the same cultural landscape. This common territory of politics and imagination is the subject of this inquiry. [...]

Adepti moci a úspechu. Etablovanie elít v moderných dejinách

Author(s): / Language(s): Slovak

There has been always been a great buzz around Valerián Bystrický. It is not different even today. His study is almost continuously occupied by his friends, colleagues and pupils. They work not only at his household institution – the Institute of History of the Slovak Academy of Sciences – but also at other scholarly institutions and universities. They come to him for a friendly chat and to discuss their professional issues expecting his opinion and advice. Authors who participated on this publication represent a small sample of them. The topics included in this book represent a very broad and colorful spectrum and the same can be said about the view and professional erudition of Dr. Bystrický. It would be not very useful to list all the topics he has dealt with. They can be found in the selected bibliography of his writings at the end of this book. It doesn’t matter if he is dealing with European or Slovak history; the 1st and 2nd Czechoslovak republic or the war Slovak republic; politics, personalities or society – all his works are characterized by comprehension, detachment and great knowledge of sources. He doesn’t belong to theoreticians or speculative methodologists of various systems and –isms. He goes to the problem always in medias res. His method is the accurate documentation of historical processes and consistent knowledge about the searched topic and sources. That is how his pertinent works based on arguments had been created. Many of them belong to fundamental and pioneering works of our historiography. We must admire the curiousness and interest of Dr. Bystrický for new problems. We can say that a man with such an erudition and detachment can’t be surprised easily. It is a gift or a privilege that there is always something which he is interested in – he is still able to contemplate and to think intensely about historical and social problems. He is a proponent of the necessity to always take a clear and resolute stand to key questions. He is not shy to let his positive or negative attitude be known. The latter possibility brought numerous stories, occasional good-hearted acrimonies and anecdotes that are still very popular. They originated from the fact that he is a well-known enemy of smallmindedness and petty wars. As he often says: „Something is always going to happen.” For a scholar of his caliber, one must admire the graciousness of Dr. Bystrický which has an extra significance in the scholarly circles. In connection with his natural authority, it has a special value mainly for the middle generation of today’s historians. He has always treated them with human understanding and they have had the opportunity to cooperate with a wise and helpful man.

ADO GRENZSTEIN PÄEVALEHTE PÜÜDMAS

Author(s): Anu Pallas / Language(s): Estonian / Issue: 05/2018

In 1881 Ado Grenzstein started the weekly paper Olevik, which complemented Estonian press with various innovative features concerning language, contents and form. The article provides a survey of Grenzstein’s journalistic innovations, including one of the earliest Estonian evidences documenting an attempt to regulate the relations between a newspaper and its correspondents. Since the end of 1885 Grenzstein began to sense the need for a daily paper, which was expressed in his discussion over the possibilities of creating an integrated Estonian press. Karl August Hermann’s Postimees was released, since the end of 1887, three times a week, turning into a daily in August 1891. Press rivalry was gradually increasing in the context of internal reforms and strengthening censorship. Grenzstein’s need for a daily of his own grew ever more pressing. Although Olevik, as a paper opposing Baltic German privileges, enjoyed a wide readership and had an extensive web of correspondents all over Estonia, at the turn of the century both Grenzstein and his paper had to surrender to the conservative circle close to Jaan Tõnisson and his Postimees, which was supported by censor Jaan Jõgever. As Grenzstein made a point of playing by the rules and abiding the law he also lost the support of the radicals. An attempt is made to gauge the possible background of Grenzstein’s voluntary exile by examining his unpublished essay Uus hommik, where Grenzstein called on his sympathisers to unite. This text testifies to Grenzstein having developed a quite clear understanding of the changed power relations.