Articles

Memory as source of personal and collective resistance: on Yuri Dmitriev’s effort to document the history of the Mordovian GULAG while himself imprisoned in one of the penal colonies in the region, by a member of the Memorial Society.

How can a captured state be democratized? Who invented postmodern corruption? What does political humour have to do with political analysis? A Polish, a Romanian, a Slovenian and a Hungarian editor walk into a cooperative bar in Kraków to talk professional responsibility and personal survival tactics.

Ranging from influencers to opinion leaders and self-proclaimed experts, pro-Russian communities are consolidating in Poland. The Russian Federation not only supports these groups through the Polish-language sources it runs, but also has an influence on the activity of some of the people operating within them.

Even though socialist internationalism was the official ideology in communist Hungary, popular media at the time was teaming with nationalist narratives, hidden in plain sight. What does this contradiction explain about today’s politics?

The Eurozine series ‘The writing on the wall’ provides insights from analysts in Europe’s east into the political situation in their countries, over a year into Russia’s attack on Ukraine.

The success of recent protests against extractivism and ecosystem degradation in Serbia and Albania highlights the potential for democratic reinvigoration around ecological issues in south east Europe. But the EU has yet to prove it can act as a credible partner in this process.

Reforms that would bring Albania further towards EU accession remain hampered by corruption and lack of political will. Prime minister Edi Rama, now into his third term and without a serious challenger, embodies the contradictions of the West Balkan country’s hybrid democratic system.

If racism is ineradicable, as critical race theory argues, then combatting it cannot be about winning equality. No issue expresses this better than the controversy over ‘cultural appropriation’.

Spilne author Evheny Osievsky became a soldier in the Russo-Ukrainian war. Gwara Media editor-in-chief Olena Myhashko pays her respects to a colleague who put his research aside to go into battle, highlighting the weight of personal bereavement and Ukraine’s ongoing loss.

Romania’s anti-vax movement has mutated into a pro-Russian protest bloc. Representing a politically disenchanted online public, the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians is increasingly influencing the mainstream agenda.

Although it makes for a great dramatic effect, the theories of the sudden death of democracy disregard the gradual erosion and capture of institutions, and the role of the populace – argues political scientist John Keane.

On the occasion of Europe Day, Oleksandra Matviichuk, Ukrainian human rights defender and director of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Center for Civil Liberties, delivered this year’s Speech to Europe at Vienna’s Judenplatz.

Hopes raised in 2019 of municipal counter-hegemony in Hungary have been disappointed. But in Budapest, the idea of progressive local government is kept alive by the movement for housing justice.

Whether defending human rights on an international stage, checking facts from the frontline, processing traumatic experiences over a lifetime, or even questioning the language you have spoken since childhood – all matter in the collective fight for justice.

Defending territory in war expands beyond physical frontlines to include cultural ground. Reclaiming signature dishes, language and public space contests their colonial assumption. Upholding traditions and retaining small home comforts takes on greater significance.

The Czech Republic’s liberal government has taken up the Ukrainian cause as its own. But unless it starts offering solutions to a growing social crisis, labelling the opposition as Russia’s useful idiots may not be enough.