Search

The Russian invasion of Ukraine caused a flow of refugees to Poland on a scale unprecedented in Europe since Second World War. Polish civil society, soon joined by government institutions, responded by offering the refugees, who counted in millions, shelter, material and social welfare assistance and legal accommodation. The war next door turned Poland into an EU and NATO frontline country, which led to more intense contacts between the Polish government and its Western partners, including the United States. This, however, did not help the government, which had marginalized itself within the EU by its own past actions, to resolve its disputes with the European Commission and the Court of Justice. Similarly, the uniform condemnation of the Russian aggression by all major political parties did not bridge the gap between the governing Law and Justice party and the opposition or even reduce the intensity of political conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the Editors: I The 2023 Michael Henry Heim Prize in Collegial Translation is awarded to Christina Manetti for translating "Lustration: A Post-Communist Phenomenon" by Andrzej Paczkowski i . I The very title of Andrzej Paczkowski's essay "Lustration: A Post-Communist Phenomenon" perfectly illustrates the challenges its translator had to overcome. From the Translator: When Professor Paczkowski asked me to translate his long text on lustration, I didn't hesitate for a moment: having translated one of his books and other articles before, I knew that both the text and the author would be a pleasure to work with. [Extracted from the article]

The democratic backsliding, which began in Poland after the ascent to power of the Law and Justice/Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS) party in 2015, continued in 2021. The Polish government maintained its confrontational attitude toward European institutions, from the European Commission to the European Parliament and the European Union's Court of Justice. The latter imposed on Poland a daily fine of €1 million for the government's refusal to reverse reforms of the judiciary that put into question the independence of judges. On the domestic front, the ruling camp underwent a series of internal frictions that jeopardized its majority in the lower house (Sejm), but it preserved a slim majority by co‐opting dissenters from other parliamentary caucuses and independents. The government's actions on the Polish–Belarussian border to prevent Middle Eastern refugees entering the country, and hence the EU, were a serious departure from international law principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This symposium offers EEPS audience insights to the process of peer review to which manuscripts submitted to the journal are subjected. It is composed of the original paper (titled "Re-enchanting Modernity in the East and West: Comparative Perspectives on the Legacy of 1968"), reviews and additional comments by the three reviewers, and the author's response. It illustrates the variety of criteria typically used by reviewers – and editors – in their assessment of submitted research papers and essays, as well as the options available to their authors in response. The symposium is also a contribution to the ongoing debates on the topic of the manuscript in question: the legacies of the tumultuous year 1968 and the contributions of the generation defined by those events to the intellectual, political, and other dimensions of public affairs in the East and the West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neither in her cover letter, nor at any time during the long and laborious process of preparing this symposium for publication, did Nina Witoszek inform us of the previous publication of her paper. As we explain below in our editorial introduction, the idea behind the symposium printed in this issue was to give our authors, reviewers, and readers an insight into the peer review process. In our manuscript guidelines for authors, we state unequivocally: "We (...) discourage more than a minimal amount of "text recycling", the reproduction of an author's own text from a previous publication. [Extracted from the article]