Articles

Belarusian journalist and author Svetlana Alexievich was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature for her work documenting the lives of Soviet and post-Soviet citizens. Her latest project, about love, is the subject of a documentary film by Swedish filmmaker Staffan Julén. Here, Alexievich discusses with Julén why she chose the subject, and what drives her work.

A century after the Russian Revolution began there, Francisco de Borjas Lasheras reflects on a visit to Saint Petersburg – what is changing, and what stays the same?

German archaeologist Andreas Schmidt-Colinet worked at Palmyra for thirty years before the civil war in Syria. In an interview with ‘Wespennest’, he criticizes the international reaction to the vandalization of the ruins by IS and argues that the last thing the West should be doing now is reconstructing the site.

The more open discussion of sexual harassment in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal – even by those who belittle it – is to be welcomed, argues Irene Lozano. The more that everyone understands that it is not women who should be judged, the better.

Maths-based economics seems to be stuck in something of a rut. Almantas Samalavičius, editor of Eurozine partner journal ‘Kulturos barai’, spoke to Professor Joshua Farley, an ecological economist at the University of Vermont (UVM), about the failure of mainstream economic thinking to explain economic reality, and why the dominant discourse nevertheless remains so powerful in academia.

Nationalism, anti-liberalism and ultra-conservatism mark the political discourse in Central Europe today. What was once referred to as the ‘kidnapped West’ now seems to imitate its former captor. Jacques Rupnik seeks causes for the decline of the liberal consensus in Central Europe after 1989, following the trajectories of some of its major political thinkers.

The Russian region of Kuzbass is entirely dependent on the extraction and export of coal. But the environmental toll of coal mining there is heavy. Despite some resistance by local communities and indigenous peoples, there appears to be no will among the authorities to slow the spread of coal extraction, which has already devastated several towns and villages in the region.

Croatian war criminal Slobodan Praljak’s televised suicide at the ICTY has made him a hero in his home country and is seen as proof of his innocence. Unfortunately, Croatia’s revisionist attitude towards the recent past has precedents elsewhere in Europe, writes Slavenka Drakulić.

In his keynote speech to the ‘Dialectics of Liberation’ symposium, delivered in Vienna on 24 November 2017, theatre director Milo Rau describes a nightmarish global economic system that, paradoxically, ‘began with the demand for liberation.’ He asks: What is to be done?

Ukrainian media are forced to choose between ‘patriotic’ journalism and impartiality. Angelina Kariakina explains why having a public-service broadcaster can be a game-changer in Ukraine’s fight against Russian military aggression and ongoing corruption.

The idea of what employment really means, in the UK and elsewhere in the industrialised world, has undergone radical change. Now some thinkers are questioning whether it should exist at all, writes Rhian E Jones.

This year marks 100 years since the momentous revolutions in Russia in 1917. The Russian government’s stance on the anniversary is deeply ambivalent, but 2017 offers Ukraine a chance to explore its own centenary of (short-lived) independence, as well as other parts of its national story, as Tatiana Zhurzhenko explains.

Britain’s imperial cultural residue has always expressed itself through reluctance about Europe, coupled with an obsession with the idea of British international leadership. With Brexit, Britain’s ‘go-it-alone’ syndrome has returned with a vengeance, writes Anne Deighton.

Social media providers are currently faced with a dilemma: to take on an editorial role or respond to the demands of their investors. The revolt against fake news is part of a defence mechanism on the part of elites and poses a problem that we are far from resolving.

For all their importance, human rights have become ineffectual in the face of market fundamentalism, writes historian Samuel Moyn. In order to confront material inequality, human rights must overcome their individualist and anti-statist origins.