The influential Czech-born editor Antonín Liehm was a pioneer of East-West intellectual exchange and an early advocate of the ‘European public sphere’. In 2009 he gave a memorable keynote at the 22nd European Meeting of cultural journals in Vilnius.
How do political interventions work in the troubled world of central eastern European journalism, arts and academia? Can professionals avoid self-censorship, or how do they decide what circumstances not to put up with? Watch our Budapest debates.
Natural disasters dissolve the fundamental distinction between the human and the natural worlds. At this moment, we discover that we are surrounded by silence. On art and philosophy amidst ecological crisis.
Anthropological studies conducted during the Russian empire categorized Estonians as Asiatic. But with the rise of nationalism, colonialism and eugenics, Estonians came to be classified – and to self-classify – as Nordic and European. Photography and painting provide a record of this visual whitening.
In 2020, the Republican Party continued to gain ground among voters identifying as religious – almost three quarters of the US electorate. The most dramatic shift was among Muslims. Why was this the case, given Trump’s irreligiousness and record of hostility towards Islam? And what does the trend have to do with race?
As local journalism disappears, polls replace knowledge about communities. Is this one reason why politics seems increasingly unpredictable? Also: why subscription content is making a comeback in central eastern Europe – and what that might mean for cultures of impartiality.
Sadopopulism and the politics of eternity: Shalini Randeria and Timothy Snyder discuss why it’s impossible to talk sensibly about Trump without invoking the history of fascism.
For the autistic mind, the world is a complicated tangle of signs that refuses its own decoding. If autism is construed as a source of power, however, frustration can be transformed into creativity and self-expression.
The description of Russia’s anti-Putin protests of 2011–12 as ‘middle class’ was only partially accurate and used to discredit them. The middle class label applies even less to the Belarusian protests of 2020, whose core message is that dignity and respect are not reserved for a privileged minority.
Biden’s victory was not the decisive win that the Democrats had been assured. So why did the polling failures of 2016, that so underestimated Donald Trump’s influence with voters, persist into 2020? Historian Claire Potter canvassed for the Democrats and has some explanations.
Pessimists fear that the Trump phenomenon has not so much derailed American democracy as revealed long-standing problems in the system itself. But if the causes of the crisis are apparent, prospects of a way out are lacking in a country bitterly divided.
The defence of democracy in France must continue to be a republican discourse, not one of libertarian nationalism. Critics of ‘Islamo-leftism’ engage in the very same process of blame-shifting that they accuse their opponents of – sometimes rightly.
Translation collaborations, philosophy parties, short videos, journals within journals – just some of the innovative means Glänta uses to reach beyond its base in Gothenburg, Sweden. Join Sarah Waring in peering around the cultural journal’s door with editor Göran Dahlberg in this episode of Gagarin, the Eurozine podcast.
Slapps – or strategic lawsuits against public participation – are a type of legal action undertaken not to be won but to intimidate defendants into silence or inaction. A report by Index on Censorship calls for measures, including an anti-Slapp directive, to be put in place to protect journalists from vexatious legal threats and actions.
Despite the ceasefire, Nagorny Karabakh’s status remains unclear. Any lasting solution must deal with the anxieties of precarious nations and unachieved statehood. On the historical roots of the long-standing conflict and the legal ambiguities of a war in contested territory.
Commemorating war is controversial. A global or even national consensus on which aspects of the past should be remembered and how is difficult to achieve. Taking World War II as the jagged case it is, Arnon Grunberg scrutinizes how to re-engage with disagreement over past injustices, enabling better, future political decisions.