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The paper is divided into two parts. The first part explains the concept of solidarity and fraternity on a theoretical level, especially in the light of Catholic social teaching. The second part analyzes the principles of solidarity and fraternity in Croatian society during the National Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In addition to solving the national question under a specific aspect of brotherhood, this term was understood in the spirit of the communist ideology of brotherhood and unity of the Yugoslav peoples, and the ideology of solidarity was present predominantly in the form of self-governing socialism. The paper, therefore, shows how socialist Yugoslavia had many characteristics of a totalitarian system defined by communist ideology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“Sociologists in Communism. The beginnings of a profession without status” is a collective volume coordinated by Sorin Mitulescu and contains the stories of some sociology graduates in 1975 and of some of their teachers at that time. The book is both an essay in sociology and a collection of oral history papers. We understand from reading the book that sociology was at that time the victim of the oscillations in Romanian politics between the desire for modernization (especially technological) and the fearful and dogmatic conservatism that had penetrated all social levels. Sociologists in communism want to be a starting point in a broader debate on the role of sociology and the sociologist, both in the past and in the present. He discusses several topics such as the relationship between sociology and power, the professional mobility of sociologists, the relationship between personal life and the career of a practicing sociologist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper discusses art as an environment for communicating meanings, as shared by the members of a community or culture in the late 20th and early 21st centuries; for this purpose, the paper focuses on the changes taking place in cultural production as well as the consumption practices of the digital age: more specifically, on the shift from a goods-centred economy to a service-centred economy, on the experience as a commodity, on interactive art and relational aesthetics, as well as on the emergence of a new way of production and consumption. The paper also discusses a possible modernity and the cultural differences that appear in the works of Eastern European artists (and Romanian artists in particular), works which reflect the transition from communism to post-communism and democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sets out the main perspectives and debates around art as they relate to the Italian Communist Party during the second post-war period (1944-1948). The paper has a twofold objective: to offer a historical explanation of the relationship between artists and communists in these years; and a theoretical explanation of the status of post-war Italian art based on the notions of abstraction, realism and commitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to investigate the ideological mutations that occur by turning the written text into an adaptation, using the protagonists that play the role of the marginal, both in the novel and in the movie, facilitating the breakthrough in the peripheral universe. Transmedia reveals the construction of the same fictional word, but the shift lies in the swinging between ideological isms: progressivism and conservatism, capitalism and anti-capitalism. This study is focused on recent literature and its adaptations. Characters have got the same name, they live in similar universes, but the main aim of this paper is to identify the shifts that result from turning the written message into a visual one. The same “story” can take a different ideological turn, therefore, both creations must be taken into consideration, in order to comprehend the global message. The ”double-creations” chosen to illustrate this point are: Love Sick by Cecilia Ștefănescu, motivating this choice by the progressivism of the adaptation in contrast to the conservatism of the novel, concentrating on the queer component; I am an old communist hag! by Dan Lungu where the focus falls on the anti-capitalist view, whereas the novel concentrates on an anti-communism ideology; Soldiers by Adrian Schiop, a case where the movie diminishes the focus on the progressivism, shifting the prespective on the universal love story between Adi and Alberto. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to examine the philosophies of the late Heidegger and the young Marx side by side to show how, while differing radically in some important aspects, both philosophies are motivated by similar concerns and are not so different as to preclude a productive dialogue between them. In so far as both thinkers can be said to have thought, taking the word in a Heideggerian sense, the "same", the way both philosophies diverge from each other can be especially illuminating when it comes to offering a clear interpretation of them (a task which is especially important to gain an understanding of Heidegger's philosophy which is often obscure). We'll see how Heidegger's notion of finitude implies a series of criticisms of Marx's philosophy. Finally, I'll pose a question regarding the limits of Heidegger's criticism of Marx, considering that this criticism goes as far as to criticize the idea that all human beings are equal and so implies a rejection of the idea of human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the symposium on historical geographies of modern southern Africa held at University of Sussex, Great Britain in April 2002. Analysis of developments in tradition of historical geographies; Effect of structuralist Marxist history on historical geography.

Fertility in Romania dropped rapidly after the collapse of the communist rule, placing the country among those with low fertility rates, and started to grow again after the year 2014. The paper approaches the dynamic of fertility in Romania, focusing on the period when fertility grew again. Using data from the semi-panel conducted by World Values Survey Romanian in 2012 and 2018, the paper looks at the changes in fertility in Romania based on micro-level data and studying trends in cohort fertility among women of fertile age and the drivers of these changes. The cohort analysis indicates that birth postponement is the main mechanism leading to the growth in fertility in Romania in the past decade. At the same time, the results provide support to the uncertainty explanation, the fear of job losing having negative impact on the number of children born by a woman. Altogether, the results suggest that Romania does not yet reach the second gender revolution, that has gender equality in private sphere at its core, fertility decision relying on traditional factors such as economic uncertainty and patriarchal model, with the male partner being the main breadwinner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to explore the discourse strategies of the Party of Labor of Albania to eliminate its enemies in the early years of establishing communism in the country. The contention is that PLA and its leaders made possible the elimination of thousands of people by normalizing the process. The enemies of the party were declared enemies of the people and as such, they had to disappear in one way or another, so that the integrity of the body politics could be preserved. The class enemy was considered a parasite that should be eliminated in the name of social prophylaxis. By using discourse analyses the paper will investigate the discursive strategies followed by the communist party and its leader when addressing the class enemy. Speeches of Enver Hoxha in Party Congresses, Plenums, and gatherings with people will be analyzed. Only by normalizing the process of elimination of everyone who was depicted as an enemy, did the communist party make possible the elimination of thousands of people. Normalization is understood as the standardization of the procedure so that everyone knew in advance what would happen if someone had to be declared an enemy of the people. The paper will analyze the vocabulary used to portray the class enemy and his/her destiny in specific cases. The study has analyzed the speeches given to justify the elimination of Patër Anton Harapi, Lef Nosi, Maliq Bej Bushat, dom Lazër Shantoja, dom Ndre Zadeja, and the sabotage group of the Maliqi swamp. The analysis covers the period immediately after the end of the IIWW when communists seized the power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jewish religious life in the Soviet Union is typically the subject of dichotomous depictions that offer only a superficial rendering of this rich and complex environment. This paper aims to complicate this image by pointing out several religious thinkers who engaged with Communist and Marxist ideas and incorporated them into their religious thought, while upholding rabbinic culture. Among the figures and themes examined are Alter Hilewitz's (1906–1994) Hasido-Marxism, Rabbi Avraham Yosef Guttman's (1870–1940) crisis of faith, and Shmuel Alexandrov's (1865–1941) use of Russian Nietzscheanism. Alexandrov was also the narrator who revealed these fascinating ideas to us in a rare collection of his letters, which possesses both a philosophical and a theological nature. These letters, which have received very little attention in previous studies, provide a small window into the conflictual world of rabbis and yeshiva students in the first decade of the Soviet Union. Reviewing the ideas generated in a struggle to make sense of one of the great crises of modern Judaism, and pondering questions of historical perspective and how empathy may distort it, this article wishes to go beyond the image of a defensive preservation of religious life and to re-envision this unique and innovative period of Jewish thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the communist regime seized power in Albania in 1944, the vilification, humiliation, persecution and execution of clergy of all faiths, including Muslim, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, were conducted publicly. Religious estates were nationalized in 1946, and around the same time, religious institutions were closed or converted into warehouses, gymnasiums, workshops or cultural centers. In the communist constitution of 1976, Albania became the first constitutional atheist state in the world. In Article 37 of the Constitution was stated "the state does not recognize any religion". Albanians were forced to deny their religion, change their belief system and adopt the new socialist way of life that praised secular gods such as the Communist Party and its leaders. The image of the party leader replaced religious icons. Young people were encouraged to follow worldly pursuits, including offering their life for communist deities. With the fall of communism, Albanian clerics and foreign missionaries encouraged the revival of religiosity in the country. Because in Albania, religious institutions and clergy did not exist for more than 3 decades, foreign actors played a major role in the return of religion to social life and among young people. Post-communist Albania represents a quintessential case study of importing religion into a formerly atheistic country that lacked qualified clergy, religious institutions and strong religious beliefs. In the permissive post-communist Albania, people, especially young people, attributed different meanings to religion and religiosity. Mere investigations and surveys of faith communities along traditional lines would fail to provide useful insights into the significant transformations that have impacted the religious field in Albania after the fall of the communist regime and the current challenges faced by new and "traditional" denominations. The post-communist religious context is dominated by two opposing currents: The first trend is marked by the legal organization of religious practice in the public space, which grants freedoms and equality to the "traditional" religions recognized by the state, but autonomous and independent from it. The other trend is shaped by the rituals and practices of believers from abroad who are pushing for the creation of new autonomous religious communities. This paper is not investigating religious "communitarianism" along traditional lines but rather examines salient religious identification and societal relationships and discusses their implications. This analysis rests on survey data and free-flowing and open-ended interviews conducted mainly with students of the Political Science Department of the University of Tirana and of the European University of Tirana, as well as research of different social networks. The article is divided into three parts, which present the following: literature insights, the historical background of Albania's secularization and current religious trends and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes a case for analyzing the way in which the novel of Communism is approached by Mihai Iovănel in his History of Contemporary Romanian Literature: 1990-2020. This is a topic that was intensely discussed by Romanian literary criticism in Post-communism and represents the weakness of Romanian literature, either by it not being able to give a sufficiently convincing novel, or by not being able to agree upon how this novel should look. Accordingly, the critics had difficulties in labeling any novel that had been published after ‘89s as “the novel of communism.” The first part of the article is a panning of recent discussions about this term in relation to the analysis made by Iovănel in his History. The second part aims to trace out a network of this type of novel in the literatures of Central and Eastern Europe and to try to identify its particularities through a comparative analysis. The last part consists of a study case of the novels Acasă, pe câmpia Armaghedonului [At home, on the Field of Armageddon] by Marta Petreu and Bureți de Fag [Oyster Mushrooms] by Mihai Duțescu. The latter has been published after the History and both novels are analyzed from the perspective of the novel of communism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates a communist plan in the 1920s to establish a Middle Eastern center in the port city of Thessaloniki. To explain this counterintuitive choice, the paper situates Thessaloniki within two radical spaces. First, it shows the importance of post-Ottoman radical networks in making Thessaloniki a critical point of liaison in the 1920s. Second, it discusses the radical connections across the Mediterranean and the agency of revolutionary sailors in establishing these linkages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to achieve their functional purpose – that of organizing the urban landscape and helping locating people and geographical objectives through an efficient addressing system – street names are bound to remain stable spatial landmarks. On the other hand, street names are also semiotic devices of signifying space with the political and commemorative agenda of the ruling power. This latter characteristic renders them vulnerable to successive renaming following important power-shifts and especially regime changes. What happens when the ideological imperative of politicizing the street nomenclature undermines its functional requirement of providing spatial orientation through extensive renaming? Such a tensional situation is examined in the case of postwar Sibiu between 1945 and 1948, when the city endured a thorough redefinition of its toponymy under the political regime of communist “popular democracy” in Romania. The paper quantifies the scope of toponymic revision and then evaluates the content of these street name changes in terms of three major concepts: class, ethnicity, and gender. Grounded on the results of this analysis, the paper advances the notion of “mercurial street names”. It concludes by arguing that such a concept should complement the existing metaphoricity underpinning the scholarship in place-name studies, which draw on “text”, “discourse”, and “palimpsest” to conceive of the processes of street (re)naming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the ideologically charged toponomastic policy of the Slovenian communist authorities in the Primorska region. As part of the establishment of a new political and social order, the communist authorities renamed many settlements in the area. This process can be understood as part of a wider cultural revolution, which was supposed to establish a new form of society. The renamings took place on the basis of the provisions of the Act on the Names of Settlements, which was adopted by the Assembly of the then People's Republic of Slovenia in mid-February 1948. The renamings mainly affected settlements whose names originated from the Catholic heritage, as well as toponyms with German origins. Despite the clear limits of ideological acceptability and the Communist Party's monopoly of rule, the process of renaming underwent several changes, and it cannot be characterized simply as a bare imposition by central state bodies. The original large-scale renaming plan was partially abandoned after the conflict between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. The renaming process then dragged on until 1955. In addition, local communities also actively participated in the process, which could at least to a certain extent influence the choice of new names, and in rare cases even represented the leading force in efforts to carry out renamings. It seems that the nationalist element of the communist toponomastic policy enjoyed a lot of support, while the confrontation with the Catholic-marked place names was met with less enthusiasm. The process thus shows the continuity of some elements of ideologically marked spatial policies in the border area of the northern Adriatic, which, despite slogans about a break with the past, continued even in the new political system after the Second World War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to outline recent trends in historical research on disability during state socialism in Eastern Europe. In doing so, it explores how an emerging generation of historians have investigated various aspects of disability in Eastern Europe before 1989 and raises the question of whether there was a distinct experience of disability under state socialism. Drawing on studies published in English and German, the paper traces both Soviet discourses and practices after 1917 and Central and Eastern European trajectories after 1945. It argues that disability policies and expert discourses were informed by a productivist logic as a governing strategy to increase work capacity and to integrate the disabled into socialist society. The paper concludes by discussing the need for a transnational, comparative approach for conceptualising how disability was construed during communism in Eastern Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the Danube-Black Sea Canal had been one of Ceaușescu's pet projects, used by the communist leader to enhance his image as a visionary prophet of the Golden Era of socialism, the idea of a canal that would connect the Danube and the Black Sea may have been as old as ancient Roman history. It is certainly along one of the lines of Trajan's Wall (Valul lui Traian), running along the Kara Su Valley, that the canal had been imagined, in the 19th century, by various adventurers and travellers. In the 20th century, with the development of technology, the idea turned into a project: in 1922 and 1923, two Romanian engineers (Jean Stoenescu Dunăre and Aurel Bărglăzan) came up with very definite plans of how to create a fourth arm of the Danube, which would help navigation by shortening the distance travelled by commercial ships with about 400 kilometres. The actual building of the Canal, initiated by Gheorghe Gheorghiu Dej at Stalin's orders, was less intended as a technological advancement and more as a pretext to exterminate the interwar elite in the forced labour camps established along the Danube. Work at the Canal began in 1949 and ended in 1953, after Stalin's death. Though only 20 km had been completed out of the intended 70 km, the legacy of the forced labour camps includes a large number of poems written by the detainees, detailing the inhuman treatment they received and making up a shattering testimonial of life in the Communist labour camps. My paper intends to present and analyse a selection of such poems, showing how they take up the myth of the exiled Ovid and mix it with symbols of Christian suffering. In most of the poems, the colour that is associated with life in the labour camps is black: the blackness of the Black Sea (the inhospitable Pontus, in Ovid's poetry) is thus transferred onto the traditional 'blue' Danube. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paperwork analyses motherhood as literary theme in Ioana Nicolaie's novel Cartea Reghinei (2019). The novel forms a trilogy together with Pelinul negru (2017) and Tot înainte (2021), but it also communicates on different levels with the author's other novels. The first part of the study focuses on the relationship between the narrative perspective and the authorial subjectivity, especially since the autobiographical vein of the novel is quite significant, while the main character is also built on this autobiographical foundation. The novel, however, makes possible several reading perspectives, and the experience of motherhood is particularized by the socio-political context. Therefore, the second part of the paper deals with this particularization, but demonstrates that the novel also emphasizes deeper meanings of motherhood as an essential experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the concept of “left-wing melancholia”, introduced by Enzo Traverso, this paper explores Eric Hobsbawm’s melancholic perspective on the short twentieth century. It evaluates Hobsbawm’s hypothesis about the role of fear of communism in social­‑democratic reforms and argues that social-democratic intellectuals, both in history and political economy, share his pioneering diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The situation in Hong Kong today is not dissimilar to the moral predicaments that Central and Eastern Europe had endured during the Communist era. Then, as now, state oppression and intimidation aim not only at generating a pervasive sense of learned helplessness in society but also incentivising political opportunism. This paper begins with a thorough examination of the relevance of the open society against the background of the regime's all-out attacks on the pro-democracy opposition and the civil society in the name national security following unprecedented protests in 2019. Civil society organisations are in retreat under the pressure of autocratic rule, but the normative appeal of the open society as a custodian for the city's distinctive values and identity is expected to grow against the backdrop of the moral and institutional decay of the official, 'Orwellian', realm. It then seeks to explain why the barriers against norm entrepreneurship – individual and collective actions resisting moral decline and decay – are not insurmountable as they first appeared. Three decades after the end of Communism in Europe, the moral commitment to the open society serves as rallying point against the rise of illiberal democracies or electoral authoritarianism. In any case, autocrats are not invincible and there is nothing inevitable about the authoritarian backlash. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a context in which traditional parties are losing popular support, minor parties stand as relevant components of contemporary democracies. Such relevance implies that research should approach their communication strategies as an object of study in itself. Ignored by mainstream media, minor parties need to take advantage of the Internet and social media to compete with major parties. This paper analyzes Spanish minor parties' social-media communication in the context of the April 2019 election. A sample of 1,498 tweets was content-analyzed, gathered from the official Twitter profiles of the by then four main national minor parties: PACMA, the Communist Party of the Spanish Peoples, Zero Cuts, and VOX. Results indicate a lack of party-citizen interaction and dialogue, as well as the fact that mobilization tweets focus on traditional campaign-boosting functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I investigate how the interpretation of the Romantic poet Mihai Eminescu’ work verifies the European transition from a rationalist conception of “genius” (according to which “genius” is a phenomenon subjected to the laws of nature/ society) to an irrationalist conception, where “genius” becomes a supernatural, transcendental, miraculous or inexplicable phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I investigate how the interpretation of the Romantic poet Mihai Eminescu’ work verifies the European transition from a rationalist conception of “genius” (according to which “genius” is a phenomenon subjected to the laws of nature/ society) to an irrationalist conception, where “genius” becomes a supernatural, miraculous or inexplicable phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the paper of Heitor de Paola, The Axis of Latin American Evil and the New International Order, a product of the Media Without Mask movement, led by Olavo de Carvalho. The paper claims that communism dominates the world and, based on the anti-communism and the apology of liberal capitalism, the author appropriates Marx and Gramsci, distorting the ideas of these authors, in order to disqualify the left and associate it with the creation of a privileged class and the defense of a doctrinal and authoritarian project. To this end, the author manipulates the concepts of communism, capitalism, metacapitalism and imperialism, to legitimize the conspiracyist thesis, inspired by the binary view of the world, in which capitalism would represent "good" and communism "evil", since it would claim world domination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses the scientific discourse that informed the Czechoslovak conceptions of development studies as well as the practice of development aid. On the example of scholarly outputs of two distinguished economists working at the Institute of International Politics and Economy — Blanka Šrucová and Jan Vraný — it explores the impact and process of adaptation of recent methodological influences from abroad onto the Czechoslovak development expertise. It situates the shifts in attitude towards the developmental assistance within the broader framework of Czechoslovak (economic) reform project as well as the global debates on the effectiveness of development strategies. The article claims that Czechoslovak economists used their transnational experience gained during missions abroad not only to “domesticate” recent trends in research and suggest more effective methods of Czechoslovak developmental assistance exported to the “Third World” but also to improve the conditions of national economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the anti-communist rhetoric of the popular Ukrainian video game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl which was developed by GSC Game World and released in 2007. In this paper I argue that, in order to mount a humanist critique against Soviet communism, the game borrows the anti-colonial discursive structure of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness filtered through the video game F.E.A.R. If colonialism is predicated on the juxtaposition of territorial expansion and a progressive temporality towards a civilizational ideal, then Heart of Darkness and F.E.A.R. convey a critique of colonialism by highlighting how spatial progress brings about temporal regression manifested as a dissolution of the self. To show this, they employ the doppelgänger convention. Both protagonists representing white civilization are on quest to find a character who has been ‘contaminated’ by the ‘heart of darkness.’ This latter character is eventually revealed to be a negative cultural doppelgänger of the protagonist who has assimilated otherness to the point of no return. By the same token, in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl the psychological regression of the protagonist is mapped onto spatial progress towards the heart of communism, in this case Reactor #4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. reworks the doppelgänger convention by identifying the protagonist with the character ‘gone native,’ i.e. gone communist, not only symbolically, but also physically. This enables the game to put forth two scenarios, namely one where the main character overcomes communism, and one where he embraces it. By offering both endings, the game maintains two contradictory views on the communist past. One ending suggests that communism can eventually be overcome, while the other postulates the communist past is here to stay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper aims to provide an overview of the evolution of the Romanian novel from the publication perspective between 1965-1989. Through the employed methodology, the quantitative analysis, it will be observed in which measure the events and the regulations from the political system influence the dynamic of the Romanian novel production. In addition to this, it will be observing the geographical distribution of the publishing houses and the modifications which appears about their editorial hierarchy as a consequence of the newly implemented rules of the political system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2018, the Fifth Amendment to China’s Constitution changed the name of the Law Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) to the ‘Constitution and Law Committee’. This involved more than a name change; rather, faced with a legitimacy crisis, the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) has a strong interest in augmenting the existing basis of legitimacy and creating a new source of power resting on popular sovereignty. The idea of popular sovereignty in the Chinese context is defined as the combination of sovereignty of the people and leadership of the CPC. As the central institutional device to guarantee people’s sovereignty, the people’s congress system has its own difficulties. Although it is the highest authority endowed by the Constitution, the NPC is actually a ‘strong on paper, weak in practice’ body. The creation of the Constitution and Law Committee, entrusted with the power of review by a decision issued subsequent to the Fifth Amendment, can contribute to enhancing the role of the NPC. This could be viewed as part of the CPC’s efforts to implement functionally the principle of popular sovereignty, which, in turn, can help uphold and safeguard regime legitimacy in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

this paper aims to discuss the relationship between workers' militancy and repression in Recife through the path of Júlia Santiago da Conceição (1917-1988). During the democratic period (1945-1964), Pernambuco witnessed a series of political and social movements, and as a result of this effervescence would emerge, for example, communist parliamentarians, the election of Miguel Arraes as governor by the Frente do Recife (Recife Front) and the Ligas Camponesas (peasants Leagues) of Francisco Julião. Julia Santiago, however, was constantly persecuted by her bosses and arrested by Recife's police as a result from her union activities and communist militancy. Despite being on the radar of the authorities - both factory's and State's - since, at least 1933, it was precisely after Estado Novo that she became the most watched and arrested. Reconstituting part of its trajectory, based on the principle of variation in the scale of analysis, it is intended to understand how militancy and repression in the workplace could coexist in the capital of Pernambuco, regardless of the current regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the content of the cadre file of Henri H. Stahl preserved in the Archives of the University of Bucharest’s Rectorate. In the form in which it has been preserved after 1989, the personnel file of H.H. Stahl seems, from several points of view, atypical. If we compare it with the cadre files of the 1950s, it surprises by the apparent “goodwill” of the communist cadres towards H.H. Stahl. This ideological solicitude is manifested in the interpretation given to main cultural and political events in H.H. Stahl’s life. In other circumstances such political past could be labeled as unusable in a communist context. Equally curious and noteworthy is the issue of the ethnic origin attributed (and not necessarily real or assumed by the one described in the file), more precisely the issue of Stahl’s nationality ( Jewish) which was recorded in the file. Analyzing Stahl cadre file we can wonder if the integrity of this dossier has not been compromised by removing, extracting or modifying documents by the personel staff services or by someone else. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to address the written and narrated memories of Henri H. Stahl who left behind two memorial works: Memories and Thoughts from the Old School of “Sociological Monographs”, published in 1981, and the collection of interviews from 1985-1987, which appeared in 2000, under the title Monography as Utopia. Although they were conceived only a few years apart, the two forms of memoirs show some significant differences. In the following study, I will present the specifics of each of them, in order to later propose a brief comparative analysis of the two texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Magorovy labutí písně ('Magor's swan songs'), a collection of poems by political prisoner Ivan M. Jirous, and an important example of Czech prison poetry from the second half of the 20th century. It was during his imprisonment in Litoměřice, Ostrov, and Valdice (1981-1985) that Jirous wrote the poems, which were smuggled out as motáky (clandestine notes written on rolls of paper) by his friend and fellow prisoner Jiří Gruntorád. The article first characterises the situation of Jirous and the Czech underground during the 1970s and 1980s. It then proceeds to analyse how Magorovy labutí písně represents a form of literary creation whose aesthetic specificity arises from the situation of extreme hardship -- the 'state of emergency' -- in which it was written. This specificity can be found in the authentic and even documentary aspect in which the poems reflect the time and place of the prison, as well as the broader, timeless, and more spatially expansive awareness of life that the poems express. What is essential here is not the contingent aspects of the writing, the fleeting influence of inspiration, but more broadly the conscious use of specific means and methods of poetic composition. It is thus a form of literary expression that confronts the characteristic aspects of prison time and spatial confinement by consciously exceeding the limits of the walls, reaching out into the diverse and varying temporal planes and shifting reality of the surrounding world -- an experience that is only intensified by its juxtaposition to the daily life of the prisoner from which these dimensions have been brutally stripped. This context-based interpretive analysis demonstrates, in conclusion, that the prison poetry in question here aims to define the effects of confinement and the prison environment by means of a complex gesture, one that is unified by a range of interrelated poetic devices: aural (sound and metre), figural, metaphorical, compositional, stylistic, etc. Prison poetry thus facilitates the survival of its creators and fellow (not only political) prisoners -- referred to colloquially as 'muklové' (an acronym for muži určení k likvidaci, or 'men destined for liquidation') -- not only in the physical sense, but above all spiritually, as integral, unbroken personalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Mosinger Villa in Zagreb (1930 - 1931, Pantovčak 112) was Vladimir Šterk’s first villa built with undecorated facades. This confirms Šterk’s commitment to modernism. Until the Second World War the villa was owned by Jewish families Mosinger and Mayer. After the founding of the Independent State of Croatia the villa was requisitioned and after the communist rule had been established it was divided into three apartments. A garage was added to the villa in 1966, and a second floor in 1982. The renovation and reconstruction project of the derelict villa, commissioned by its new owner, was commenced in 2019. The geotechnical and structural engineering surveys determined that the villa needed to be demolished. The conservation and restoration survey determined the original, first and oldest layer from 1930 - 1931 as the basis for reconstruction and presentation. The method of partial facsimile restoration was chosen, while the second floor will be designed in a contemporary manner. The external dimensions were retained in the existing condition in accordance with the set preservation measures for the Historical Ensemble of the City of Zagreb which the villa is part of. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A comparison of the former Eastern Bloc and China's ways of dealing with the social implications of rock music as an alien cultural import from the West reveals significant analogies. The paper traces the process of politicisation of rock music and compares the two different cultural spaces by mapping each space's state ideology, aesthetic traditions and identities, and discriminative political and economic tools used to marginalise rock. Here the term politicisation refers mainly to the polarisation between the communist regimes' restrictive policies, and the attempts of the rock scenes to sustain their discriminating characteristics and relationship to protest. While in European communist states rock played a relevant subversive role, conversely, in China any 'rocking' of the state has largely been averted. The Chinese rock scene as an off-mainstream urban subculture has received less popular support than its counterpart in Europe and has also proved less politically significant. This comparative case study discusses the relationship between popular music and politics by tracing analogies and differences between the former Czechoslovakia, where the ideologisation and politicisation of rock reached the highest point in the Eastern Bloc, and contemporary China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the authors analyze the emotions of survivors of the camp system Gospić-Jadovno-Pag, where people of Serb and Jewish ethnic descent were murdered during the summer of 1941, as well as communists and other political enemies of the ustashi regime. The approach to the study of emotions is based on the eyewitness accounts published by the historian Đuro Zatezalo. The paper starts with an analysis of the emotions in history with a particular emphasis on the testimonies of survivors as a distinctive and extremely important source in the studies of the Holocaust and genocide. Afterwards, the authors examine the intentions of those who collected the testimonies, as well as memories and emotions as aspects which a historian who researches testimonies ought to have in mind. A description of the impact of race laws issued by the Independent State of Croatia is provided together with an overview of the history of the camp system Gospić-Jadovno-Pag, followed by an analysis of the emotives expressed in the testimonies, with the focus on the emotions of fear, anxiety, hope and joy. The relation between recollection and emotions is also discussed, in addition to the way in which the flow of time can alter the intensity and the contents of emotion, which can provide a valuable methodological insight to the researchers focusing on the history of genocide and oral history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The presented study looks at the relationship of libraries as educational institutions that aim to form a wide group of readers. He attempts to show some sources of this socio-pedagogical practice in the First Library Act and then follows - on concrete examples and on a broader historiographical concept - the relationship of the phenomenon of mass work with the reader in the context of education of various target groups, especially young readers, workers and peasants. Design/Methodology/Approach -- The paper is based on archival research conducted by our students for many years as part of the history of specific libraries. These findings are analyzed on the basis of study of general historical sources and legislative changes. The results -- The paper follows creatively the mass work with the reader, as well as a certain socio-pedagogical project paid in the specific libraries and the legislative-value framework of these activities. Originality/Value -- The phenomenon of mass work with the reader is often studied by sociological or historiographical optics. The concept chosen combining the legislative, socio-pedagogical and historiographical regionalist concept offers new perspectives and possibilities of interpreting studied phenomena in specific libraries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the peculiarities of the socialist Yugoslav self-management system whose development took place in constant conflicts of political authority and critically oriented intelligentsia. The latter were under the strong influence of the West due to the openness of Yugoslavia. The focus is put upon the last critical decade of Yugoslavia after the death of Josip Broz Tito in 1980. The paper includes a wider overview on the problems of perception of self-management in the West and in the Yugoslav intellectual community as well as short insight into the economic and social issues related to self-management, especially in the period of severe crisis in the 1980s. The paper discusses the contributions of some of the leading international and Croatian experts such as Milton Friedman, Ljubo Sirc, Branko Horvat, Marijan Korošić, Slavko Goldstein and others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores Wiredu's critique of Marxism as a framework for a critique of "African Socialism," as conceived and propagated by three famous philosopher-statesmen of Africa - Nkrumah, Nyerere and Touré. The paper ultimately argues that"African Socialism," especially the variants espoused by the trio, may not after all hold the key to Africa's socio-political emancipation, as its proponents would want us to believe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the contents of a pocket-sized booklet entitled Ghidul ilustrat al comunismului românesc (The Illustrated Guide to Romanian Communism), which was published to counter growing nostalgia for the communist era that is popular among Romania's young people. Influenced by family members and the media, the postmemory of Romanian communism among the country's youth tends to focus on the positive aspects of the communist period and ignore the crimes of the postwar regime. The guide provides a selective reading of the history of Romanian communism and identifies repression as its main feature. The critical visual analysis of the images in the guide identifies the various forms that repression took during communist rule. It targeted not only individuals but also entire social groups, who faced imprisonment on political grounds. At the same time, the repression took quotidian form as the regime extended its control over people's private lives and even their habits of consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses an important aspect of André Scrima's writings: the way he uses history from the perspective of the theory of revelation. The paper presents some examples (communism, the situation of Jerusalem seen from the perspective of the conflicts in the Middle East), then analyses the main lines of the interpretive methods used by Scrima in describing and understanding these. The historical sense which observes in time, and through transient institutions, the forms of manifestation of transcendence works from this perspective as a critical and hermeneutic agenda related to events and historical figures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines politics of memory on the Second World War and its aftermath in contemporary Serbia, focusing on the people executed or sentenced after the war and their framing. Discussing the dominant narratives and institutional and legal frameworks of official memory politics, the first part of the paper is concerned with the dynamics between different mnemonic agents, including non-state actors. Namely, commemorations and memorials dedicated to victims of communism come from below, from the groups considering the state efforts in this sphere insufficient. They are, however, supported by some political actors, the church, and Karađorđević family. Finally, the paper looks at the perception of Bleiburg commemorations in media and political discourses in Serbia, placing it in the context of relations between the two countries concerning the memory of the war and its aftermath. As opposed to very similar tendencies in Croatia and Serbia, the political actors are concerned with their own victims respectively, framing them as the victims of communism. At the same time, the commemorations and rehabilitations happening in the other country are never acknowledged but condemned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

THE TOPIC OF THIS PAPER ADDRESSES AN INTERESTING AND AT THE SAME TIME DELICATE TOPIC: POST-COMMUNIST DIVORCE, AFTER 1989. DURING THIS ARTICLE WE WILL UNDERSTAND THE NOTION OF FAMILY, ITS DISSOLUTION AND HOW THE COMMUNIST REGIME EVOLVED AFTER THE YEAR. WE WILL ALSO DISCUSS HOW CEAUSESCU AND THE TOTALITARIAN REGIME APPROACHED THE ISSUE OF DIVORCE. THIS TOPIC BECAUSE IT IS INTERESTING IN TERMS OF HOW, IN A FEW DECADES, OPINIONS ABOUT THE GENERAL PATTERNS OF MARRIAGE HAVE CHANGED. IF IN THE PAST PARTNERS WERE MUCH MORE RESPONSIBLE AND MORE INVOLVED IN MARRIAGE, TODAY FREEDOMS HAVE EFFECTS ON FAMILY UNITY. ANOTHER INTERESTING ASPECT THAT CHANGED AFTER 1989 IN ROMANIA WAS THE RADICAL CHANGE OF POSITION OF WOMEN WITHIN THE COUPLE. IF THE TYPICAL IMAGE REPRESENTS HER AS A HOUSEWIFE, WITH RESPONSIBILITIES SUCH AS HOUSEKEEPING AND CHILDCARE, NOW SHE CAN EMBODY THE IMAGE OF A PROFESSIONALLY SUCCESSFUL WOMAN, CONTRIBUTING CONSIDERABLY TO THE MATERIAL WELL-BEING OF THE FAMILY, BUT AT THE SAME TIME MISSING MORE FROM THE BREAST. THEY. WE THEREFORE AIM TO IDENTIFY HOW ALL THESE CHANGES, AT THE LEVEL OF THE COUPLE, CONTRIBUTE TO ITS DISINTEGRATION OR CONSOLIDATION. THUS, WE WILL FIND OUT IF THESE RESTRUCTURINGS MADE WITHIN THE FAMILY ARE BENEFICIAL OR NOT, AND IF IT TURNS OUT THAT THEY CONTRIBUTE TO THE INSTABILITY OF THE COUPLE OR, MOREOVER, TO THEIR BREAKUP, HOW AFFECTED ARE THE PARTNERS WHO FACE THESE PROBLEMS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The end of the Cold War revived the national problem in Yugoslavia, which, together with the fundamental issues that remained unresolved after the death of Iosif Broz Tito, contributed to the outbreak of violence. The article examines three important periods for the evolution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, from the beginning of the wars in Yugoslavia, after the fall of communism and to the time of Bosnia and Herzegovinaʼs accession to the European Union, in 2016, focusing on the international communityʼs efforts to ensure transition and restoring balance in the region. The Dayton Accords have failed to ensure the transition to a state independent of international aid, leaving behind an ethnically grounded political system that slows the progress of reforms and the path to European integration. The article analysis the extent to which post-Dayton reconciliation and reconstruction between Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs have been achieved. Thus, the paper will highlight the extent to which the Peace Accords and international intervention have succeeded in ensuring the transition of Bosnia and Herzegovina into a modern, viable state with functioning institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses a major theme in the modern American novel: Conflict as a catalyst for constant change. Between the 1920s and 1930s can be traced a major paradigm shift from a post-World War I search for individualism and independence to one of a Depression-era emphasis on collectivism and solidarity. Analysis of several prominent literary works from this era leads to the conclusion that American fiction encodes American history and that conflict and contradiction explain the development of the modern American fiction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper examines the complex relationship between cultural association and spiritual dissociation in the works of expat author Petru Popescu. While it has often been argued that Popescu has perfectly adapted to the American publishing market by internalizing American cultural values, the interviews he conducted in Romania, as well as his novels in Romanian, which are far more complex than his American ones, speak for a different reality. What I have attempted to show is that Petru Popescu not only did not spiritually abandon Romania, but that his most complex works are tied to Romanian cultural, emotional and linguistic realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will study the communist leader Fernando Nadra's political stances with respect to Perón's third government and Héctor José Cámpora's previous presidency. Furthermore, on the basis of Nadra's editorial notes published in the oficial argentinian communist weekly, Nuestra Palabra, this work will focus in his conceptualization of violence in the years 1973 and 1974. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary intention of the paper is to show Communism organization, expansion and operation followed by Serbian Church magazines between 1920 and 1940 in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes / Yugoslavia. The author, will by analyzing all available and the relevant church newspapers from that period show how the Serbian Church magazines reacted to Communism. Special attention will be paid to the organization, expansion and (secret) action of the Communists since the founding of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPY) and the Young Communist League of Yugoslavia (SKOJ) until the beginning of World War II. Communism, at the time, was a new political philosophy which was developed as a child of socialism versus capitalism. Communism slowly came to the scene of the new state which was founded after World War I. Communism using the still young, economically weaken, and we can say insufficiently organized, multinational and multi-religious Kingdom, slowly, with a great discipline of his supporters and good organization expanded its field of action. In this paper, we will talk about it, whether, and how, Serbian church magazine recognized organization and expansion of the new political thinking and how it commented on itture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Romanian communist state constructed a public library system as one of its national propaganda instruments. Within the context that encouraged the development of a public library national system, this paper presents the history of library and information sciences education programs and directions established during the communist era. Using oral-history interviews with librarians who worked in the public library system in the 1970s and 1980s, the paper discusses the effects these programs had on the professional knowledge and practices within public librarianship. During the last decades of the regime, public librarians employed alternative practices and resources in their education as the state's official training became limited and eventually obsolete. However, these alternatives created only a narrow professional-development opportunity for librarians. In spite of librarians' personal efforts, there was no significant change in the way that public libraries were defined and used by the communist society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the image of the enemy firmly held by the Croatian Right and the consequences of this image for democratic political institutions in Croatia. The first part of the text reconstructs a) the public discourse of the former HDZ leader, Tomislav Karamarko, as well as b) the public discourse of the Catholic Church. With the help of theories of cultural trauma, as well as discourse analysis, the second part of the article demonstrates how the Croatian Right in fact interprets any kind of liberal attitude as a specific communist one. In that sense the proposed thesis is that in its campaign against imaginary communists the Croatian Right actually tries to oppose liberalism itself. In other words, this paper tries to answer the question, why the Croatian Right does not name its real enemy - liberalism, instead of repeating the buzzwords about the spectres of communism? The third part of the article analyses Chantal Mouffe’s theory of agonistic democracy, arguing its limits in the context of post-communist states. This paper shows that in deeply divided societies like Croatia the reduction of politics on the friend-enemy relation endangers the main liberal values of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the communist period in Slovakia (1948-1989), street toponyms and monuments were a few of the many realms of ideological infusion by the communist government. Renaming streets and establishing monuments in honor of local and international socialist figures was intended to have an aggregate effect on public consciousness in a way that helped legitimize the political rule of the communist regime. However, because the nature of socialist commemorations is fundamentally more complex that those of other competing ideologies like nationalist movements, these commemorations took on complex and sometimes contradictory meanings in the public memory that, in some cases, cause them to persist to this day. This paper utilizes Turner's (1975) concept of 'liminality' to examine elements of city text like toponyms and statues in the eastern Slovak city of Košice to demonstrate why many of these communist-era elements of city text remain as leftover landscapes of the communist period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]