Search results for ""ibidem-Verlag, Jessica Haunschild u Christian Schon""

The whole Communist world is in the middle of a democratic revolution. Hall Gardner's novel depicts the protests taking place prior to the June 1989 Tiananmen Square repression-a subject still taboo in China.Hired to teach English, Mylex H. Galvin records his experience in his "Anti-Marco Polo" journal after he meets expats from around the world, while trying to come to grips with the Chinese language, history, and politics.Galvin becomes disillusioned with the poverty and environmental destruction that he finds in China; his barefoot doctor heroes are not capable of treating AIDS; Chinese and African students clash in Nanjing-with no sense of international solidarity.As the democracy movement heats up, he is torn between the love of Tao Baiqing, a Daoist, and Mo Li, a student of English Lit, and unwittingly betrays the ties between the journalist, Hayford, and the democracy activist, Chia Pao-yu-accused of leaking "top secrets" to Hayford.As Galvin studies China's relations with the Western world since Marco Polo, with emphasis on the "hundred years of humiliation," he becomes haunted by nightmares of a "clash of civilizations" and warns against a coming Apocalyptic Color War between the Balding Eagle and the Chinese Dragon-as the latter transmogrifies from Red into shades of Red-Brown-Black.

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Mustafa Kirca explores the dark sides of Alan Ayckbourn's comedy by comparing the playwright's characters with those of Chekhov's drama and drawing a parallelism in the character portrayal of both artists. The significance of Ayckbourn's plays, following Chekhov's footsteps, particularly lies in his vivid portrayal of characters from everyday life with psychological depth. Kirca shows that the fine mix of comedy and tragedy in Ayckbourn's drama is conveyed through his realistic characterization contrary to the farcical style of his plays. This kind of character portrayal in Ayckbourn's plays brings him very close to Chekhov and establishes the known equilibrium between comedy and tragedy in his theatre. The study covers Ayckbourn's Absent Friends, Just Between Ourselves, Joking Apart, Season's Greetings, Woman in Mind, A Small Family Business, and Henceforward. From Chekhov's drama, The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard are included to define the general Chekhovian character traits. The book is especially interesting for teachers, students, and for general readers who are interested in modern 'human comedies'.

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Noticing the importance of the fact that there is a growing interest in oriental countries and cultures, Hasan Baktir studies in his book the representation of the "Ottoman Orient" in 18th century English literature. He claims that a comprehensive understanding of the representation of the Ottoman Orient requires a new perspective; therefore, he investigates different aspects of the interaction between the Ottoman Orient and 18th century Europe. A number of questions continue to arise in the wake of Said's 1978 landmark study, Orientalism. How mono-directional was the flow of power in such representations? To what extent did the travelling observer also participate and become influenced by the phenomena he tried to depict without attachment? What variety of motivations lay behind the desire to know and represent the Oriental other -- was it simply a question of political control? Or were there deeper, more enigmatic factors at play -- sexuality, existential affirmation, even utter idiosyncrasy? How various and diverse was the Western response to the East -- can we discern degrees of sympathy, knowledge, and difference in the various Orients offered to us by the canonical and non-canonical figures of 18th century English letters? Baktir's study provides answers to many aspects of these questions, through a detailed examination of very different texts. Baktir does not completely reject Said's argument that European writers created a separate discourse to represent the Orient; rather, he shows us that there was also a dialogic and negotiating tendency which did not make a radical distinction between the East and the West. Relying his argument on 18th century pseudo-oriental letters, oriental tales, and oriental travelogues, Baktir demonstrates that the representation of the Ottoman Orient in 18th century English literature differs essentially from earlier centuries because a developing critical and liberal spirit established a negotiation between the two worlds. In his study he indicates how the critical and inquisitive spirit of the age of Enlightenment inter-animated Oriental and European cultures.

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How could an undemocratic regime manage to stabilise Russia? What is Putin's success formula? What are the symbolic and diskursive underpinnings of Russia's new stability? Many outside observers of Russia regarded the authoritarian tendencies during the Putin presidency as a retreat from, or even the end of, democratisation. Rather than attempting to explain why Russia did not follow the trajectory of democratic transformation, this book aims to attain an understanding of the stabilisation process during Putin's tenure as president. Proceeding from the assumption that the stability created under Putin is multi-layered, the authors attempt to uncover the underpinnings of the new equilibrium, inquiring especially about the changes and fixations that occurred in the diskourses on political and national identity. In doing so, the authors analyse the trajectories of the past years from the traditional perspective of transitology as well as through the lens of post-structuralist diskourse theory. The two approaches are seen as complementary, with the latter focusing less on the end point of transition than on the nature of the mechanisms that stabilise the current regime. The book therefore focuses on how nationalism became an increasingly important tool in political diskourse and how it affected political identity. "Sovereign democracy" is seen by many contributors as the most explicit manifestation of a newfound post-Soviet identity drawing on nationalist ideas, while simultaneously appeasing most sectors of the Russian political spectrum.

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Utilising a wide range of empirical cases, the contributions in this edited volume highlight the different aspects of the role, development and societal background of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe. The first part of the book deals with dissent under socialism. The second part of the book looks at the role of civil society in the Western Balkans in the context of the break-up of the former Yugoslavia and the related ethnic conflicts. The third part goes on to examine the role of civil society in the post-Soviet region, which is marked by authoritarian tendencies. The fourth part returns to Central Eastern Europe with an analysis of the impact of EU accession on the role of civil society and considers the underlying aspects of a 'common European memory'. The final section of the book looks at two cases - one from Central Eastern Europe, one from the CIS region -- of political participation and lobbying by civil society organisations. This book presents a selection of the papers diskussed at the Changing Europe Summer School on 'Civil Society in Central and Eastern Europe' held at the National University of 'Kyiv-Mohyla Academy' (NAUKMA), Ukraine, in July 2009.

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"The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist" is the first comprehensive and scholarly biography of the Ukrainian far-right leader Stepan Bandera and the first in-depth study of his political cult. In this fascinating book, Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe illuminates the life of a mythologized personality and scrutinizes the history of the most violent twentieth-century Ukrainian nationalist movement: the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and its Ukrainian Insurgent Army. Elucidating the circumstances in which Bandera and his movement emerged and functioned, Rossoliński-Liebe explains how fascism and racism impacted on Ukrainian revolutionary and genocidal nationalism. The book shows why Bandera and his followers faileddespite their ideological similarity to the Croatian Ustaa and the Slovak Hlinka Partyto establish a collaborationist state under the auspices of Nazi Germany and examines the involvement of the Ukrainian nationalists in the Holocaust and other atrocities during and after the Second World War. The author brings to light some of the darkest elements of modern Ukrainian history and demonstrates its complexity, paying special attention to the Soviet terror in Ukraine and the entanglement between Ukrainian, Jewish, Polish, Russian, German, and Soviet history. The monograph also charts the creation and growth of the Bandera cult before the Second World War, its vivid revivals during the Cold War among the Ukrainian diaspora, and in Bandera's native eastern Galicia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

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A number of books have been written on the death camp of Treblinka, but The Treblinka Death Camp: History, Biographies, Remembrance is unique. Webb and Chocolaty present the definitive account of one of history's most infamous factories of death where approximately 800,000 people lost their lives. The Nazis who ran it, the Ukrainian guards and maids, the Jewish survivors and the Poles living in the camp's shadow -- every angle is covered in this astonishingly comprehensive work. The book attempts to provide a Roll of Remembrance with biographies of the Jews who perished in the death camp as well as of those who escaped from Treblinka in individual efforts or as part of the mass prisoner uprising on 2 August 1943. It also includes unique and previously unpublished sketches of the camp's ramp area and gas chamber, drawn by the survivors. For this second, revised edition, the authors incorporated new information and provided sources for the Jewish Roll of Remembrance. A significant number of new entries have been added. The Roll of Remembrance has also been greatly expanded to include the names of Jews deported from Germany to Treblinka. In addition, more names have been added to the Perpetrators biographies, and other entries have also been enhanced with additional information.

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The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist is the first comprehensive and scholarly biography of the Ukrainian far-right leader Stepan Bandera and the first in-depth study of his political cult. In this fascinating book, Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe illuminates the life of a mythologized personality and scrutinizes the history of the most violent twentieth-century Ukrainian nationalist movement: the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and its Ukrainian Insurgent Army. Elucidating the circumstances in which Bandera and his movement emerged and functioned, Rossolinski-Liebe explains how fascism and racism impacted on Ukrainian revolutionary and genocidal nationalism. The book shows why Bandera and his followers failed-despite their ideological similarity to the Croatian Ustasa and the Slovak Hlinka Party-to establish a collaborationist state under the auspices of Nazi Germany and examines the involvement of the Ukrainian nationalists in the Holocaust and other atrocities during and after the Second World War. The author brings to light some of the darkest elements of modern Ukrainian history and demonstrates its complexity, paying special attention to the Soviet terror in Ukraine and the entanglement between Ukrainian, Jewish, Polish, Russian, German, and Soviet history. The monograph also charts the creation and growth of the Bandera cult before the Second World War, its vivid revivals during the Cold War among the Ukrainian diaspora, and in Bandera's native eastern Galicia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

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