Zdenko Roter, Pravi obraz. Neizbrisna znamenja resničnosti
Review of: Zdenko Roter, Pravi obraz. Neizbrisna znamenja resničnosti, Sever & Sever, Ljubljana 2017
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Review of: Zdenko Roter, Pravi obraz. Neizbrisna znamenja resničnosti, Sever & Sever, Ljubljana 2017
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At the end of the Second World War and in its immediate aftermath, Joseph V. Stalin discussed the issue of Slovenian intellectuals with Edvard Kardelj (1944) and Boris Kidrič (1946); he saw them as a homogeneous social group as the intelligentsia in Russia had been before the formation of the Soviet regime and believed them to be problematic as well as useful to communists, particularly while fighting for patriotic aims. It seems that he detected this as a problem mostly due to the situation in Italy, with which Yugoslavia was in dispute over a border issue. In spite of criticising J. V. Stalin, Kardelj later thought that the problem highlighted by the Soviet leader indeed existed.
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The Court of Slovenian National Honour was established in early June 1945. Until the end of August 1945, it tried those who had (allegedly) collaborated with the occupying forces during the war in any way. Senates consisting of five members held sessions in Ljubljana, Kranj, Novo Mesto, Celje, Maribor, Ptuj and Murska Sobota. In Novo Mesto, the first trial took place on 10 July, but the court ceased to operate as early as 14 July due to the dissatisfaction of the district committee of the Communist Party with the work of the jurist judges. The court treated the acts allegedly perpetrated by the accused very leniently and imposed fairly mild penalties. In nine trials, it sentenced 34 persons to the loss of national honour, 22 persons to light forced labour and six persons to a partial confiscation of property. After the court was abolished and a pardon was declared, the convicted were fully excused of forced labour. The legal implications of the penalty of the loss of national honour were limited to losing political and civil rights, including the right to vote. The penalty of property confiscation remained in effect.
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In Yugoslavia, the 1980s were a period of economic and political crisis, but also a time of a gradual liberalisation of the society and the start of its movement towards a multiparty system and breakup. By easing impediments of censorship in culture, which was the domain of the ruling communist party, the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (ZKJ), a space opened up for artists to raise some traumatic and problematic topics from the Yugoslav past, such as Goli Otok and the clash with the Cominform. The manner in which these topics were addressed in 1980s Yugoslav films suggests that the influence of ZKJ over cultural and social life was waning, but also that the Party still tried to promote its version of the past with propaganda films such as Visoki napon (High Voltage). Accordingly, this article represents a contribution to studying and understanding the social and political situation in the final decade of socialist Yugoslavia, as viewed through the lens of cultural history.
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Essay by Mădălin Bunoiu - "The Good Old Things"/ Essay by Vladimir Tismăneanu - "Vladimir TismăNeanu"
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The Râmnicu Sărat penitentiary, now abandoned, is a space with a long biography, starting at the end of the 19th century, linked since its beginnings to the repressive political actions of the Romanian state; a space whose dark reputation it is nowadays associated especially with the repression of the communist period, as one of the main detention centres that formed the Romanian gulag. After the fall of the communist regime in Romania in 1989, the former penitentiary was the subject of numerous memoirs written by former political prisoners incarcerated at Râmnicu Sărat, as well as subject of interest for historians, becoming one of the most important “places of memory” of communist political repression, hence the intention to be transformed in the near future into a memorial museum. Despite this interest, the knowledge about the former political prison in Râmnicu Sărat (but not only) has remained an abstract one, informed by the descriptions of former political prisoners and, eventually, the archival documents. The former political prison was reduced to a simple stage for the events that took place within its walls, the only ones considered to be relevant, its materiality being completely ignored. In order to contribute to the improvement of this situation, between May 11-19, 2021, we carried out archaeological research in the former penitentiary in Râmnicu Sărat. In the present text, a narrative composed of fragments and not a linear one, we present a series of preliminary archaeological reflections generated by this first encounter with the former prison – reflections on the bodily perception of the various prison spaces; materiality and time; the role of materiality in the construction of specific prison experiences; the layers of memory contained in the buildings; the relationship between written memory (e.g. memoirs, documents) and material memory; ruination and vegetation; as well as the relationship between the materiality of the prison and the wider urban landscape. Thus, we hope to go beyond the historical discourses about the Râmnicu Sărat penitenciary and begin to understand what the former prison means.
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This article explores scholarly literature dealing with the history of psy-sciences in Europe after 1945. It is interested, primarily, in historical and sociological research based on Michel Foucault’s genealogy of the self. The main aim of this article is to provide insights into current discussions in the history of psy-sciences in Europe after 1945, and to outline possible research themes in the history of psy-sciences in Czechoslovakia between 1948 and 1989. In order to do so, this article is structured as follows: the first part introduces research dealing with the relation between psy-sciences and neoliberalism in Western Europe; the second part analyses research focusing on the shaping of the socialist self in the Eastern Bloc; the third part introduces new studies in the history of psy-sciences that use the methodology of the material turn in their analysis. In conclusion, this article argues that the history of psy-sciences can contribute to the research about communist Czechoslovakia with several new research topics.
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Review of: DENISA NEČASOVÁ, Nový socialistický člověk, Brno 2018, Host, 272 s., ISBN 978-80-7577-185-8.
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Review of: JAN CHADIMA, Rudolf Slánský, Praha 2022, Vyšehrad, 447 s., ISBN 978-80-7601-623-1
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In evaluating and analyzing the events of Polish history, their international context is very often forgotten. The same applies to the May coup. Thus, the purpose of the article is therefore to outline the point of view of the USSR elites for the period preceding and immediately following the events of May 1926. As a result of the analysis of documents from the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History, collected and translated by the Institute of National Remembrance, it is possible to show that the most important politicians in Moscow were not indifferent to the seizure of power by Józef Piłsudski, on the contrary, they received it with concern. And the possible loss of influence on the activities of the Communist Party of Poland at some point was met with fear, which caused increased aggression and pressure on CPP activists, which in turn led to the imposition of this ideological line.
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The paper describes the ideological evolution of Władysław Bieńkowski (1906–1991) in the interwar period – in the Polish People’s Republic, he was first a communist activist and then a dissident. The author reconstructs the process of radicalization of Bieńkowski as an intellectual who was not a member of the Communist Party of Poland, but who after the Second World War found himself among higher-ranking communist activists. The thesis of this paper is that the dichotomy between individual freedom and participation in the communist movement, which was characteristic of Bieńkowski in the period of the Polish People’s Republic, dates back to his prewar ideas. The paper also contributes to the discussion on the attitudes of the Polish intelligentsia towards communism.
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The aim of the following paper is to analyze the theme of cruelty in what is considered to be the greatest novel written by Tadeusz Konwicki. The author argues that the way it is pictured focuses almost exclusively on imagery, as the theme itself is beyond traditional literary description (as stated before by the scholar Wolfgang Sofsky). The article focuses not the subject within this one single work only, but also introduces the reader to its evolution and later use in other novels (such as Nic albo nic [Nothing or nothing] or Kilka dni wojny, o której nie wiadomo, czy była [A Few Days of the War We Were Never Sure Actually Happened]) – which introduce the value of ‘hope’ within the theme. Additional attention is drawn to the ‘issues’ Communist Poland’s literary criticism had with the way the writer presented partisan movements during war in the Eastern Borderlands clearly avoiding in-depth analysis of the motif. Marcinów concludes that both Sennik współczesny [The Contemporary Dream Book] and the historical period the novel is set within share the significance of the theme of betrayal and links it with the fate of a prominent partisan leader in the Eastern Borderlands, lieutenant Antoni Burzynski, codename Kmicic.
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The theme of the dialogue is devoted to the image of the city of Bălți, as it is revealed through the results of studying the “small histories” of those who personally knew the period of deportations and whose victims they were. The experience of researching the memory of the victims of the totalitarian-communist regime in the Moldavian SSR and the analysing of new sources of historical research – the oral history testimonies – made it possible to investigate some undervalued layers, but with the deep potential to penetrate into the human dimension of history and the histories of those who have lived in Soviet-administered Bălți. The memory carried by the families that passed through the Soviet occupation in the city of Bălți in 1940–1941 and 1944–1991, respectively, is part of the today city’s historical heritage. By erecting monuments, organizing commemorative actions or thematic events, the places of memory will keep alive the memory of the victims of the Soviet occupation regime and the connection between the generations of Bălți residents. At the same time, these actions will build a European culture of memory, integrated into the European cultural heritage.
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Poland’s foreign policy in the years 1926–1933 has always been of interest to Polish histo- rians, journalists and politicians. While Poland’s internal issues in the interwar period have already been relatively uniformly and objectively reconstructed and evaluated, the foreign policy of the pre-September governments remains a topic of numerous debates and polemics. Already during the World War II, attempts were made to analyze some of the issues of Polish foreign policy of the interwar period. The politicians of the national camp criticized Marshal Józef Piłsudski’s rule, whereas his adherents (the “San- ation”) defended Polish policy of the interwar period.In communist Poland, only selected directions in foreign policy were explored in scientific literature due to restrictions on the freedom of speech, and none of the published works covered the entire realm of Polish diplomacy. The only exception were synthetic monographs describing the entire history of Poland, where Polish foreign policy was addressed in more or less detail. The works of Henryk Batowski, char- acterized by rich factography and synthetic form, are among the few monographs published at the end of communist rule in Poland. They were, however, written in a period when the freedom of publication was restricted.The collapse of the communist system in 1989 opened the door for unfettered research and the publica- tion of research findings. Due to length constraints, the author of this article had to focus on the studies that contributed most to this publication. For instance, the works of W. Materski, a renowned expert on eastern issues, provide valuable information on Polish-Soviet relations.The article discusses the period between the coup d’état carried out in Poland by Piłsudski on 12 May 1926 and the signing of the Polish-German declaration of non-aggression between Poland and Germany on 26 January 1934. The May Coup did not bring any change in Polish foreign policy, but it took place during a period of important changes in the balance of power in Europe, when the security system created by the Treaty of Versailles and the first alliances of the post-war years began to erode. On the other hand, the Polish-German declaration of non-aggression was a turning point in Polish foreign policy, marking a further cooling of Polish-French relations and a departure from the policy of rapprochement with the Soviet Union.
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Territory of borders and confluences, the Banat area has a history that confirms this state. In a geographical area that includes eastern Austria, south-eastern Hungary, Vojvodina and Banat, there are many similarities in terms of the traditional organization of urban and rural localities, as well as in the architecture of buildings and churches. In addition to these similarities, there are obvious regional differences, but they all converge and prove that the inhabitants belong to an impressive common fund of culture and art. Collectivization took over the lands, abolished private property and uprooted an essential category – the peasants. The elite of the rural population, regardless of language and religion, in Banat was destroyed by deportations, imprisonment, dispersal to other areas.
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The author’s intention is to study the “archival” vector of modern Russian literature. When the state archives were opened in the 1990s, it became a shock for those citizens who tried to comprehend the recent history of the USSR. Insight into these materials initiated a new vector in literature — “archival”. The article examines two contemporary Russian texts: Sasha Filipenko’s novel The Red Cross and Sukhbat Aflatuni’s novel The Earthly Paradise. All the plot twists in these texts are not the author’s invention, but the paradigm of the political investigatory records of 1937–1938: interrogation protocols, indictments, relatives’ statements, various kinds of certificates. The narrator fills in the gaps that are missing in documents: builds links between the interrogation protocols, restores the psychological context, the relationship between the accused and the investigator, — and the picture of the past becomes complete and convincing.
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The paper focuses on how modern playwrights portray the reality of the Soviet past which does not exist any longer. The choice of different approaches is not solely determined by the generation gap; it also depends on the practical purpose that a play is to fulfill on stage. For example, Nikolai Kolyada’s Time Capsule is nostalgic and sentimental in order to appeal to the viewers that long for the long-passed time when they were young. Yulia Tupikina had a specific task to write a play about building the Bratsk Hydroelectric Power Station ordered by the Bratsk Drama Theater, while Yaroslava Pulinovich’ Endless April focuses on the historical repeating trauma. What do these different texts and authors have in common?
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In 2022, we marked the 120th anniversary of the birth of Josef Plojhar, a sadly renowned Catholic priest and fervent supporter of the communist regime. This study looks into a hitherto neglected aspect of the life and work of Josef Plojhar, namely the church penalties that were imposed on him. First of all, the study gives a brief summary of Plojhar’s life and work, which is followed by a church-law analysis of the canonical penalties that applied to Plojhar according to the then applicable 1917 Code of Canon Law. The analysis also looks at the application of excommunication decrees that concerned, on the one hand, collaboration with the communist regime in its attempt to create the pro-regime Catholic Action and, on the other hand, the decree on the incompatibility of membership of the communist party and the sharing of its ideology with belonging to the Catholic Church.
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Book review on Placák, Petr. Gottwaldovo Československo jako fašistický stát. Litomyšl – Praha: Paseka – Ústav pro studium totalitních režimů, 2015, 192 s.
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Contemporary historiography, so far, has not engaged in researching the biography of Ivan Šalić, the personal secretary of the Archbishop of Zagreb Alojzije Stepinac. Since the communist system was averse to Šalić and the Catholic Church in Croatia, it is not surprising that, to date, no one has made a critical review and analyzed his life and priestly service. This paper aims to show the life and significance of Ivan Šalić based on archival documents held in the Croatian State Archives in Zagreb and Šalić’s birthplace in Bebrina (near Slavonski Brod). Numerous postal cards and letters testify to his life, especially the period when he was imprisoned in the Stara Gradiška Penitentiary (1946–1953). The paper will present his life from birth to death and analyze the correspondence with his family to emphasize his importance for the Catholic Church in Croatia.
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