Search

Presents an overview of articles featured in the special issue of "Studies in East European Thought," in 2002, devoted to the topic of nationalism in the Central and Eastern European context. Novel elements in the tradition of philosophical debate, in the issue; Schematics of the alternatives concerning the issue of nations and ethnicity which Central and East European peoples and states face at the beginning of the millennium; Papers concerned with supra-statal models.

As the literature on small state foreign policy predicts that smaller states of the international community attempt to enlarge their influence by seeking a constructive status or proving their adherence to positive norms, the cases in which small states use a negative image to better their international position are almost completely neglected. The article aims to assess how the status of Visegrád countries in interstate society changed since their accession to the European Union in light of the generally negative perception of their governments' ideological background connected to different kinds of populism and nationalism. Using the GDELT Database, the number of government-level interactions initiated towards the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia was analysed in a European context between 2004 and 2020. The results of the inquiry showed a drastic decrease in the interactions initiated towards the four countries between 2004 and the mid-2010s with a slightly higher ratio of confrontative interactions than in the case of other small and middle-sized states. Data show that Hungary, governed by populist parties since 2010, witnessed the smallest drop in attention in the last decade. These results defy the expectations of the small state literature and suggest a more complicated relationship between international status and the image of small states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the uncertainties of transitional periods, particularly in East Central Europe between 1918 and 1923, highlighting the intertwined processes of democratization and nationalism. It explores how the end of World War I led to a significant political and social upheaval, resulting in the emergence of new states and democratic forms of governance alongside challenges and conflicts at regional and local levels.

Taking the case of the interwar Yugoslav Sokol (Sokol Kraljevine Jugoslavije), this article examines the complex relationship between the discourses of organic nationhood and political socialization in what was the largest voluntary association in the country. While Sokol typically projected a vision of itself as an apolitical entity--as it claimed to represent the organic national body--this article will explore the dynamics, as well as contradictions, between such discourses and the socio-political reality they aimed to describe and eventually alter in their pursuit of improving the 'national body.' In conversation with scholarship on the conceptual history of modern East Central European nationalisms, including the social history of ideas and movements and political socialization more specifically, this article provides insight into the contextual, conceptual history of nationhood by focusing on selected thinkers engaged in Sokol, against the backdrop of particular mass practices and modes of political socialization in the organization. The tension between the involvement of the masses in the allegedly apolitical formations and the reality of subjecting them to political socialization en masse provides the central axis around which the argument is organized. The article concludes that their concept of nationhood was intimately intertwined with that of democracy and simultaneously posited against (party) politics and statism. Moreover, it demonstrates that Sokol was rooted in notions of civilizational hierarchies and directly linked to producing modern political subjects for the new Yugoslav state by means of the gymnastic and educational practices they promoted and conducted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents Central European perspective on why nationalism is not the right doctrine to combat climate change. Topics include nationalism the political doctrine that can help the world to deliver on the need to decrease greenhouse gas emissions; and ideas of ecological modernization that suggest to mitigate climate change efficiently through technological innovations and without reforms in the decision-making.

In Central and Eastern Europe populist regimes are attracting attention as a result of the traumatic legacy of communism, the subsequent overburdening reforms and exhausting systemic transformation, resurgence of ever-lurking nationalism, regional conservatism, parochialism and cultural chauvinism, and/or as an example of the structural shortcomings of young democracies at the borders of civilization. The subject literature also indicates numerous and universal elements of populist governments, present as well in this part of Europe. Without prejudging the aptness and strength of these various concepts and arguments, this article is an attempt to include in these wideranging themes a particular issue that absorbs conservative populists, namely "childhood" and "children". While the problem of children in politics has already received numerous interpretations, the importance of childhood in the right-wing populist discourse and politics has so far remained an issue discussed only occasionally. We put forward the thesis that children play an important and specific role in the right-wing populist superstructure - they constitute an illusory picture of the nation, an allegory of its renewal, as well as a convenient, though inconsistently used, instrument for achieving political, ideological and propaganda goals. Attitudes towards children can be an important characteristic of populism as such, and should be taken into account in research on the subject. We will illustrate these problems using the example of Poland and the populist Law and Justice (PiS) Party that is in power there now. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a comprehensive investigation into the relations between political elites and mass public opinion regarding attitudes towards European Union integration. The systematic study called the Intune project attempts to map the conceptions of identity and their multiple interconnections among elites, citizens, and the mass media considered crucial to the construction of a European identity. A comparison of Central and Eastern European post-communist countries and Southern Europe in terms of identity and representation as two basic dimensions of the European integration process is described.

This article outlines the contested nature of identity in Montenegro and elaborates on its phases of development. It also problematizes the nature of the efforts to create mechanisms of civil society in contemporary Montenegro. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the political development of antisemitism in Warsaw, Poland. Historical background of Warsaw; Progress of radical nationalism throughout Central Europe; Movements following the Revolution of 1905 in Russian Poland.