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Since the reign of Peter the Great, Russia has identified itself in opposition to Europe. In the late 1980s, Michael Gorbachev and associates forged a liberal representation of Europe and initiated a Western-oriented foreign policy. Against this westernizing or liberal representation of Europe stood what was at first a makeshift group of old Communists and right-wing nationalists, who put forward an alternative representation that began to congeal around the idea that the quintessentially Russian trait was to have a strong state. This article traces how this latter position consolidated into a full-fledged xenophobic nationalist representation of Europe, which marginalized first other forms of nationalism and then, particularly since 2013, liberal representations of Europe. The official Russian stance is now that Russia itself is True Europe, a conservative great power that guards Europe's true Christian heritage against the False Europe of decadence and depravity to its west. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I analyze how the histories of the Baltic Sea region have been constructed and used in the post-Cold War period. After 1989, historians assumed the role of region-builders. Historical narratives were constructed based on a definition of the region as a place of networks, with the aim to break with the traditional historiography of the belligerent Baltic Sea region. This approach, which was most visible in the 1990s, was conditioned by political and economic processes; but it failed to encompass the whole region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Along the 20th century, Europe lost its preeminence in international affairs. It was no longer the epicenter of the world, but a mere shadow of its former self. This new Europe was most visible after 1945. During the Cold War, the old continent reached the threshold of its vulnerability, and needed American protection in order to survive, rebuild itself and prosper. After 1989, Europe suffers from security confusion, especially when it comes to its relations with America. Is contemporary Europe capable of ensuring its security without Washington's interventions? Is this scenario desired by the USA, or even by all the European countries? How can the former "axis mundi" redefine itself in terms of security? These are the main questions the present paper is trying to take into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article critically examines Pascale Casanova's recent theorization of the world literary space from the point of view of postcolonial and especially post-Cold War debates on global literary comparativism. It investigates whether her Bourdieu-derived 'field' approach, with its overwhelming conceptual dependence on 'market' and 'nation' metaphors, equips her to make valid qualitative judgements on vast swathes of 'non-European' and 'transnational' literary spaces. In annexing all literatures of the non-European, postcolonial world to a historiography of European literatures, Casanova's book, this article argues, is not well positioned to theorize contemporary forms of literary 'worldling' where Europe is but one node among many others and scarcely the 'Greenwich Meridian' of literary taste. Finally, the article discusses alternative ways of studying world literary spaces and histories that have emerged in recent years, especially in the works of David Damrosch and Franco Moretti. In the process, it also weaves in aspects of a post-1989 Anglophone world literature project the theoretical and geopolitical assumptions of which are in quite some tension with those of Casanova's book. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the idea of brands to debates about Nordic models and identity. Understanding brands to be more strategic and stable than identities, the article shows how a Nordic brand was marketed during the Cold War, but has since been challenged and undermined by a number of pressures. Central to the Nordic brand have been ideas of Nordic 'exceptionalism' — of the Nordics as being different from or better than the norm — and of the Nordic experience, norms and values as a model to be copied by others. In the post-Cold War period, key aspects of the Nordic brand have been challenged. On the one hand, elements of the Nordic elite appear to have forsaken the brand. On the other, broader recognition of a distinct Nordic brand is being undermined with the melding of Nordic with European practices and processes. The article concludes by asking whether the decline of the Nordic brand matters and further explores the link between Nordicity as a brand and as an identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]