Search results for ""ibidem-verlag, jessica haunschild u christian schon""

This timely book seeks to contribute to the debate on the transfer of values, rules, and practices by European actors to former soviet countries. The actors in focus include multilateral organisations, such as the European Union, the Council of Europe, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, as well as European governments and non-governmental organisations. The contributions in this collection address different aspects of the export or transfer of values, such as democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, as well as rules and practices in the fields of education and migration management, examining motives, mechanisms, and effects of the European engagement.

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Skylarks and Rebels is a story about Latvias fate in the 20th century as told by Rita Laima, a Latvian American who chose to leave behind the comforts of life in America to explore the land of her ancestors, Latvia, which in the 1980s languished behind the Soviet Iron Curtain. In writing about her own experiences in a totalitarian state, Soviet-occupied Latvia, Laima delves into her familys past to understand what happened to her fatherland and its people during and after World War II. She also pays tribute to some of Latvias remarkable people of integrity who risked their lives to oppose the mindless ideology of the brutal and destructive Soviet state.

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The water resources of the Selenga River/Lake Baikal system are of fundamental importance for the ecosystems and socio-economic development of the region. In this large-scale river and lake basin, there are strong contrasts between regions of relatively pristine nature and massive anthropogenic impacts on the environment. Climate change effects are more pronounced than in most other parts of the earth, and the transition from socialism into a more market-oriented economy has led to a boom in mining but also to a partial collapse of environmental monitoring and urban waste water management systems. Moreover, the expansion of agriculture and mining has triggered a considerable land cover change, rising water consumption, and the release of contaminants that had previously been unknown to the region. The consequences for the water resources and the aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems depending on them have become increasingly visible in recent years. This book, which is based on contributions to the 2014 "Bringing Together Selenga-Baikal Research Conference", provides a multidisciplinary insight into current water-related challenges and strategies for their solution from the viewpoint of the international scientific community.

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The Helsinki Final Act of the 1975 Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) set the rules for legitimate changes in national frontiers: They must be accomplished by peaceful means and agreement. Together with the Charter of Paris for a New Europe of 1990, the Helsinki Accords paved the way for a peaceful coexistence of the West and the Eastern Bloc. The Paris conference ended the Cold War, issuing a "Joint Declaration of Twenty-two States," in which all member states of NATO and the Warsaw Pact affirmed they are no longer enemies. The Helsinki process, continuing in the form of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), resulted ultimately in the prevailing of pluralist democracy, market economy, and personal freedom. Today, it may serve as an example for how to deal with the current situation in Ukraine and crises in other regions of the former Soviet Union. John J. Maresca was a senior U.S. diplomat at the center of this long negotiating process. He was sent as the first, and only, US Ambassador to the newly-independent states after the break-up of the USSR-the American Ambassador to the "Near Abroad"-and started a negotiating process to try to end the one conflict in the region at that time. With this book, he presents his personal memoirs of how it was possible to reach the Helsinki Accords and following agreements. A story of astonishing change and evolution which is as eminently relevant today as it was 40 years ago.

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Across Europe, radical right-wing parties are winning increasing electoral support. The Dark Side of European Integration argues that this rising nationalism and the mobilization of the radical right are the consequences of European economic integration. The European economic project has produced a cultural backlash in the form of nationalist radical right ideologies. This assessment relies on a detailed analysis of the electoral rise of radical right parties in Western and Eastern Europe. Contrary to popular belief, economic performance and immigration rates are not the only factors that determine the far right's success. There are other political and social factors that explain why in post-socialist Eastern European countries such parties had historically been weaker than their potential, which they have now started to fulfill increasingly. Using in-depth interviews with radical right activists in Ukraine, Alina Polyakova also explores how radical right mobilization works on the ground through social networks, allowing new insights into how social movements and political parties interact.

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The introduction of consociational power sharing as a post-war political system has become one of the international community's preferred post-conflict devices. In situations where warring polities are internally divided by ethnic, religious, linguistic, or national identity, consociationalism guarantees the inclusion of all groups in the political process and prevents a 'tyranny of the majority over one or more minorities. However, if international actors keep intervening in the political process, the advantages of consociationalism are turned upside down. In this exceptional book, Adis Merdzanovic develops a theoretical and empirical approach to understanding consociational democracies that include external intervention. Using the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the consociational Dayton Peace Agreement ended the three-year war between Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks twenty years ago, it elaborates on the different approaches used in the past and gives practical recommendations for future state-building exercises by the international community.

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This unique book offers an introduction to the development of renewable energy in Australia in the early 2000s. Examining the rise of dispersed, embedded solar energy systems in Western Australia, it looks specifically at the Solex project in Carnarvon, WA, which pioneered the harvest of solar energy from what was once considered the pursuit of the lunatic fringes of society to a viable energy source for mainstream society and industry. In this fascinating case study Fullarton shows how a practical demonstration of innovative existing technology can have an incredible impact on a national scale. The ideas behind the Solex project slowly became adopted by the broader community and were eventually taken up enthusiastically by the general population of Australia. Analysing government and utility policies throughout the 2000s, the book traces how ambivalence was followed by whole-hearted incentives to the roll-out of alternative energy and subsequent active opposition to alternative energy in favour of traditional fossil fuel as government philosophies changed.

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The introduction of consociational power sharing as a post-war political system has become one of the international community's preferred post-conflict devices. In situations where warring polities are internally divided by ethnic, religious, linguistic, or national identity, consociationalism guarantees the inclusion of all groups in the political process and prevents a 'tyranny' of the majority over one or more minorities. However, if international actors keep intervening in the political process, the advantages of consociationalism are turned upside down. In this exceptional book, Adis Merdzanovic develops a theoretical and empirical approach to understanding consociational democracies that include external intervention. Using the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the consociational Dayton Peace Agreement ended the three-year war between Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks twenty years ago, it elaborates on the different approaches used in the past and gives practical recommendations for future state-building exercises by the international community.

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This monograph discloses the estate-based social structure of contemporary Russia by way of outlining the principles of the USSR's peculiar estate system, and explaining the new social estates of post-Soviet Russia. Simon Kordonsky distinguishes and describes in particular the currently existing Russian service and support estates. He introduces the notions of a resource-based state and resource-based economy as the political and economic foundations for Russian society's estate structure. His study demonstrates, moreover, how the method of inventing and institutionalizing threats plays a dominant role in the mode of distribution of scarce resources in such a social system. The book shows fundamental differences between resource- as well as threat-based economies, on the one side, and traditional risk-based economies, on the other, and discloses what this means for Russia's future.

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Witchcraft is very much alive in today's post-communist societies. Stemming from ancient rural traditions and influenced by modern New Age concepts, it has kept its function as a vibrant cultural code to combat the adversities of everyday life. Intricately linked to the Orthodox church and its rituals, the magic discourse serves as a recourse for those in distress, a mechanism to counter-balance misfortune and, sometimes, a powerful medium for acts of aggression. In this fascinating book, Alexandra Tataran skillfully re-contextualizes the vast and heterogenuous discourse on contemporary witchcraft. She shows how magic, divination, and religious rituals are adapted to the complex mechanisms of modern mentalities and urban living in the specific historical and social context of post-communist countries. Based on years of first-hand fieldwork, Tataran offers fascinating insights into the experience of individuals deeming themselves bewitched and argues that the practice can also teach us a lot about particular forms of adapting traditions and resorting to pre-existing cultural models.

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Collective action problems are ubiquitous in situations involving human interactions and therefore lie at the heart of economy and political science. In one of the most salient statements on this topic, Elinor Ostrom (co-recipient of the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences) even claims that "the theory of collective action is the central subject of political science". The current volume, Modern Dilemmas: Understanding Collective Action in the 21st Century, is a collection of essays which target the problem of collective action from both a theoretical and applied perspective. The volume consists of four parts, each of these providing insights into different research fields. Thus, the first part, Theoretical Approaches, offers a guideline to the study of collective action in public choice theory and rational choice institutionalism and shows how it can be connected to other research programs such as constructivism, social network analysis and contractualism. The second part, Collective Action and Responsibility, tackles issues specific to political philosophy such as collective and individual responsibility and the morality of free-riding behavior. The third part, Collective Action and Public Policies, presents empirical studies on collective action in relation to educational policies, health policies and policies which target food security. Finally, the fourth part, Collective Action, Political Institutions and Social Movements, consists of various studies on classical problems of collective action such as political protests and revolutions, but also problems which are not traditionally associated with collective action such as party funding and the role of international organizations in economic recessions. The multidisciplinary character of the volume therefore makes it an interesting reading for students and scholars working in a number of different areas of study, such as political science, economy, political philosophy, public policies, comparative politics and international relations.

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The Russian war in Ukraine has been accompanied, fuelled and legitimized by a Russian information war campaign that is unprecedented in its scope and nature. Increasingly lurid in form, sometimes surreal, the Russian state-media propaganda campaign has been surprisingly successful in disguising and distorting the nature of the war and shaping the way it is perceived and understood, both in Russia and beyond.This special issue sets out to launch an interdisciplinary discussion on the Russian information warfare being waged in parallel with the military war in Ukraine. How is the war being packaged and narrated for domestic and international audiences? How are these narratives being received in Russia and in the West? How do we interpret and explain the imperial hysteria and hatred currently on display on Russian TV? What are the appropriate responses? How can we avoid the trap of allowing Kremlin propagandists to shape the terms and language in which the war is viewed? The JOURNAL OF SOVIET AND POST-SOVIET POLITICS AND SOCIETY is a new bi-annual journal about to be launched as a companion journal to the Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society book series (founded 2004 and edited by Andreas Umland, Dr. phil., Ph. D.). Like the book series, the journal will provide an interdisciplinary forum for new original research on the Soviet and post-Soviet world. The journal aims to become known for publishing creative, intelligent and lively writing tackling and illuminating significant issues and capable of engaging wider educated audiences beyond the academy.

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Projects can go over budget, exceed deadlines, or deliver restricted features and quality. This can result in economic damage for companies and their clients. The difficulties arise at source. Established metrics and management methods slow projects down by creating conflicts in operations and decision-making. A radical new approach is needed; one that features: simple, constraint-oriented management; clear, robust priorities; company-wide rather than locally focused optimisation; focus on speed and ProjectsFlow. Discover how you can: complete more projects with the same amount of resources; reliably deliver all projects to specs; significantly shorten project lead times.

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This astonishing book explores the delusional imaginings of Russia's past by the pseudo-scientific 'Alternative History' movement. Despite the chaotic collapse of two empires in the last century, Russia's glorious imperial past continues to inspire millions. The lively movement of 'Alternative History', diligently re-writing Russia's past and 'rediscovering' its hidden greatness, has been growing dramatically since the collapse of Communism in 1991. Virtually unknown in the West, these pseudo-historians have published best-selling books, attracted widespread media attention, and are a prominent voice in Internet discussions about Russian and world history. Alternative History claims that Russia is much older than Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome; that the medieval Mongol Empire was in fact a Slav-Turk world empire; and that, in the twentieth century, duplicitous foreign powers stabbed Russia in the back and stole its empire. For its followers the key to Russia's greatness in the future lies in ensuring that Russians understand the true wealth of their past. Alternative history has become a popular therapy for Russians still coming to terms with the reality of Post-Soviet life. It is one of the forces shaping a new Russian nationalism and an important factor in the geopolitics of the twenty-first century.

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This book offers an interdisciplinary and multicultural approach to fiction, reality, and narrativity applied to television series from all over the world. Dissecting the almost invisible barrier between fiction and reality in TV series from various perspectives, the chapters cover a wide range of contemporary classics from the post-network age. From "The X-Files" and "Desperate Housewives" to "The Wire" and "Breaking Bad", the chapters sketch TV series' development from the lowest form of mass entertainment to the sophisticated vehicle of highbrow intertextuality on a global scale. Also covering many international cases from Brazil, Serbia, Romania, and Turkey and locating them in the global web of puzzle narratives, the unique contributions draw connections between the most diverse audiences and the way they receive modern storytelling in a culturally globalised world. This timely volume is a great resource for anyone interested in contemporary mass culture.

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This ground-breaking book shows how innovative microfinance solutions can help billions to avoid 'poverty traps' and escape atavistic misery. While the success of microfinance has globally exceeded even the wildest expectations, there are still many obstacles, above all the lack of proper business planning on the side of the borrowers. Here Moro Visconti's important book comes to aid, offering bottom-up development strategies for micro-credit-driven startups and beyond. His forceful analysis of poverty traps and the practical guidelines given (including business plan templates as Excel sheets) are designed to help practitioners and analysts alike in understanding and reaching the true potential of microfinance.

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This engaging and insightful book is the first historical study in English portraying the lives and fates of Czech women. The seven life stories, ranging from the late 19th century to the present day, expose the often cruel political history of Bohemia (19th century), the Czech lands in Czechoslovakia (20th century), and the Czech Republic (20th-21st century) through the eyes of prominent women whose acts and deeds on behalf of their fellow citizens remain unforgotten in the Czech collective mind. The three chapters and four oral history interviews offer a captivating insight into how the situation of Czech women in society has changed during a most eventful period of history. This book has been preceded by a first volume on Slovak women (ISBN 9783838206387) whose lives have been of the same singular importance for Slovakia as their Czech counterparts were for their country. The two volumes are separate entities in their own right, but together provide the reader with a comprehensive picture of women's lives in the Czech lands and Slovakia, stressing the distinct political circumstances Czech and Slovak women have faced in recent history.

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This timely collection offers fresh perspectives on the analysis of the "New Great Game" -- the fight for access to the former Soviet Union's energy resources. Thus far the export of crude oil and natural gas has only been assessed through a geopolitical lens, which oversimplifies the political dynamics of the region and neglects to acknowledge the post-Soviet countries as actors in their own right. Broadening the scope of analysis, this volume brings together insights from various different angles, including the securitisation of energy issues, the formation of post-Soviet energy policies, and the motives of local business and political actors.

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Considered to be sub-ordinated and sub-prime to the city, sub-urban areas receive little attention by researchers and designers. However, it's the rapidly growing areas outside the central cities that pose the biggest questions of the urban millennium: How can the scattered patchwork of urban areas and social spaces linked by networks of highways and public transportation function as a sustainable and livable urban environment? Answering this question requires understanding suburban spaces as heterogeneous urban areas with distinct local characteristics, qualities, and problems. Following this path, Variations of Suburbanism explores formation, characteristics, and trends of suburban areas all over the world. It provides insights on common features and differences of suburban governance, design, and infrastructure and discusses strategies to understand and design suburban areas in an increasingly sub-urbanizing world.

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What kind of public sphere is possible in the European Union with its considerable diversity of national identities, languages and media systems? Against the backdrop of debates about a fundamental European community deficit and the possibility of post-national democracy, this book explores the role of a European public sphere not only in bridging presumed gaps between citizens and their representatives in the European institutions, but also in creating transnational communicative spaces that contribute to the politicisation of EU politics. Drawing on Deweyan pragmatism, social constructivism and the Habermasian notion of constitutional patriotism, this book moves beyond the conventional wisdom that a European public sphere necessitates the existence of a sense of European "identity light". Arguing that a political sense of community along the lines of a European constitutional patriotism can only emerge out of the democratic process itself, Maximilian Conrad looks at the role of daily newspapers not only as framers of public debate, but also as actors with distinct normative views regarding the future of the integration process, both in terms of the nature of the EU as a polity and the nature of democratic rule in this polity. The crucial empirical question addressed in the book is: Do newspapers with a pronounced preference for more democracy beyond the nation state also play a more active role in providing forums for transnational debate?

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The status of Ukrainian as the sole state language of Ukraine has been challenged by various post-Soviet political forces since it was established in 1989 and enshrined in the Constitution in 1996. Since President Viktor Yanukovych came to power in February 2010, the President and the Party of Regions have put forward several initiatives to promote the Russian language at the expense of Ukrainian as well as the minority languages of Ukraine. Paradoxically, their most important instrument has been the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. However, the Russian language in Ukraine does not meet the criteria of a regional or minority language according to the Charter nor do those politicians who struggle for the "rights of the native Russian language" in the name of Russkiy mir represent the democratic values upon which the Charter is built, as perfectly reflected by the history of the unconstitutional language law of 2012.

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This timely book examines how the regime of President Aliaksandr Lukashenka has used the 'Great Patriotic War' (1941-45) as a key element in state and identity formation in Belarus. The campaign was discernible from 2003 and intensified after a rift with Russia that led to a re-examination of the earlier policy of close political and economic partnership. David R. Marples focuses in particular on the years 2009 and 2010, which commemorated two 65th anniversaries: the liberation of Minsk (3 July 1944) and the end of World War II in Europe (9 May 1945). Using a variety of sources, this unique book critically examines the official interpretations of the war from various angles: the initial invasion, occupation, the Partisans, historic sites and monuments, films, documentaries, museums, schools, and public occasions commemorating some of the major events. Relying on first-hand research, including books recommended by the Ministry of Education, state-controlled media and examinations through personal visits to the major historic sites and monuments of Belarus, Marples explains and measures the effectiveness of Lukashenkas program. In outlining the main tenets of the state interpretation of the war years, the book highlights the distortions and manipulations of historical evidence as well as the dismissal of alternative versions as 'historical revisionism'. It assesses the successes and weaknesses of the campaign as well as its long term effects and prospects.

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Paola Brusasco's study offers an original insight into Sri Lankan literature in English and an exploration of cultural, social, and linguistic issues at the basis of the country's ethnic conflict. By focussing on two distinctive and representative writers, both Burghers, yet with different personal histories, Brusasco confronts issues of cartography, history, and language, all contributing to a specific definition of identity. Both Ondaatje and Muller are "outsiders", the former because of his diasporic existence, the latter because of his eccentricity within the reality of a divided country where the legacy of British colonialism and the process of redefinition following independence in 1948, as well as matters of geography and history, become crucial to writers.

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The contributors to this book discuss the new conjunctions that have emerged between foreign policy events and politicised expressions of Russian nationalism since 2005. The 2008 war with Georgia, as well as conflicts with Ukraine and other East European countries over the memory of the Soviet Union, and the Russian interpretation of the 2005 French riots have all contributed to reinforcing narratives of Russia as a fortress surrounded by aggressive forces, in the West and CIS. This narrative has found support not only in state structures, but also within the larger public. It has been especially salient for some nationalist youth movements, including both, pro- Kremlin organisations, such as "Nashi", and extra-systemic groups, such as those of the skinheads. These various actors each have their own specific agendas; they employ different modes of public action, and receive unequal recognition from other segments of society. Yet many of them expose a reading of certain foreign policy events which is roughly similar to that of various state structures. These and related phenomena are analysed, interpreted and contextualised in papers by Luke March, Igor Torbakov, Jussi Lassila, Marlène Laruelle, and Lukasz Jurczyszyn.

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In his study, Markus Jäger explores the coalescence of Joan Baez's work as a singer and songwriter with her endeavours as a political activist throughout the last fifty years. He illustrates an American popular singer's significance as a political activist - for her audiences and for her opponents as well as for those victims of politically organised violence who have profited from her work. Mingling popular culture with political activism can turn into a helpful means when it comes to a non-violent progress of society. Joan Baez's work offers an excellent example for this hypothesis.

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Since 1991, post-Soviet political elites in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus have been engaged in nation -- as well as state-building. They have tried to strengthen territorial sovereignty and national security, re-shape collective identities and re-narrate national histories. Former Soviet republics have become new neighbours, partners and competitors searching for geopolitical identity in the new Eastern Europe," i.e. the countries left outside the enlarged EU. Old paradigms such as "Eurasia" or "East Slavic civilisation" have been re-invented and politically instrumentalised in the international relations and domestic politics of these countries. At the same time, these old concepts and myths have been contested and challenged by pro-Western elites. The main subject of this book is the construction of post-Soviet borders and their political, social and cultural implications. It focuses on the exemplary case of the Ukrainian-Russian border, approaching it as a social construct and a discursive phenomenon. The book shows how the symbolic meanings of and narratives on this border contribute to national identity formation and shape the images of the neighbouring countries as "the Other" thereby shedding new light on the role of border disputes between Ukraine and Russia in bilateral relations, in EU neighbourhood politics and in domestic political conflicts. The study also addresses "border making" on the regional level, focusing on the cross-border co-operation between Kharkiv and Belgorod and on the dilemmas of a Euro-region "in absence of Europe". Finally, it reflects the everyday experiences of the residents of near-border villages and shows how national and local identities are performed at, and transformed by, the new border.

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Following Einstein's sentence: "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough," this book puts a spotlight on the complex marketing ecosystem from a physicist's point of view. Today's marketing world is overcomplex; CMOs face the challenge to transform their current target operating models towards a 100% customer-centric and data-driven way of working. A journey from good old mad-men toward math-men marketing. This book consists of three parts: The first part strips down the complexity of the marketing universe to the leanest frame of reference and then brings back the complexity, step by step, in single dimensions. Part two and three just follow these thoughts and provide a detailed description of 56 small atoms that can be used in a maturity assessment of your marketing. How to use them in a broader transformation concludes the book. In summary: An end-2-end guideline how to pursue and master the transformation from mad-men towards a math-men marketing operating model.

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For many people, Pakistan is a rogue state, but for those who think of it as Pakistani citizens do, it is the place where they are confronted with dangers and issues to which they answer with incredible courage and dignity. This volume, a reflection on Pakistan's history from a compassionate insider's perspective, pays homage to the many Pakistanis who face with a generous and open heart the problems created by a complex geopolitical context, many ethnic and religious contradictions, a tormented path towards self-definition, independence, democracy, and freedom.

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This anthology of seminal texts documents the development of the post-war anti-Soviet Ukrainian dissident movement. The collection is designed to introduce, via some crucial primary sources, Western and other non-Ukrainian readers to various forms of Ukrainian opposition to the communist regime. Stories of ideas and personal undertakings are unfolding before the reader in a vivid pulsation of texts that testify for themselves. The anthology gathers contributions from different genres. They range from poetry, public speeches, and samvydav -- uncensored, self-published -- texts to court speeches. They come from dissidents who were held in jails, special psychiatric hospitals (for not accepting the official ideology), and prison camps. Finally, they include self-reflections by dissidents on their personal experience of opposing the totalitarian system. This variety of contributions creates a multidimensional picture of the Ukrainian dissident movement -- a generation of prominent Ukrainian public and cultural figures who, in one way or another, insisted on their freedom of speech and made history by daring to challenge the official ideology and culture. This remarkable book about the struggle for freedom has been compiled by Oleksii Sinchenko, Dmytro Stus, and Leonid Finberg. Scholarly reviewed by Myroslav Marynovych.

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This volume focuses on political and social expressions in contemporary art of Ukraine, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia. It explores the transformations that art in Ukraine and the Baltic states has undergone since their independence in 1991, discussing how the conflicts and challenges of the last three decades have impacted the reconsideration of identity and fostered resistance of culture against economic and political crises. It analyzes connections between the past and the present as seen by the artists in these countries and looks at their visions of the future. Contemporary Ukrainian art portrays various perspectives, addressing issues from controversial historical topics to the present military conflict in the East of the country. Baltic art speaks out against the erasure of past historical traumas and analyzes the pertinence of its cultural scene to the European community. The contributions in this collection open a discussion of whether there is a single paradigm that describes the contemporary processes of art production in Ukraine and the Baltic countries. With contributions by Ieva Astahovska, Svitlana Biedarieva, Kateryna Botanova, Olena Martynyuk, Vytautas Michelkevičius, Lina Michelkevičė, Margaret Tali, and Jessica Zychowicz.

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David Satter arrived in the Soviet Union in June, 1976 as the correspondent of the Financial Times of London and entered a country that was a giant theater of the absurd. After 1982, he was banned from the Soviet Union but allowed back in 1990, and finally expelled in 2013 on the grounds that the secret police regarded his presence as undesirable. From 1976 to the present, he saw four different Russias, which differed from each other radically while remaining essentially the same. From 1976 to 1982, the Soviet Union was at the height of its world power and its people were in thrall to an absurd ideology. With the advent of Gorbachevs perestroika, the Soviet population was liberated from the ideology and the state hurtled to its inevitable collapse. When independent Russia emerged from the wreckage, the failure to replace the missing ideology with genuine moral values led to Russias complete criminalization. The articles in this unique collection are a chronicle of Russia from the day David Satter arrived in the Soviet Union until the present. Emigres from the states of the former Soviet Union often despair of their inability to convey the true character of their experiences to the West. Penetrating the veil of Russian mystification requires effort and the ability to understand that seeing is not always believing. The Russians have created an entire false world for our benefit. This collection reflects David Satters 40-year attempt to see them as they are.

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This collection of essays and articles, written between 2019 and 2023 for such outlets as The Daily Beast and The Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), illuminates recent Russian international affairs through the lens of Moscow's propaganda tactics. For more than two decades, the Kremlin's agitators have been tasked to lay, in advance, the groundwork for various domestic and foreign actions by the regime of Vladimir Putin. Thus, Russian state-controlled media provides crucial clues for deciphering theoften sinistergoals that the government of Russia was and is planning to pursue abroad, from election interference to military invasions. The goal of the sum of these activities is the establishment of a new world orderwith Russia at its helm. Before the large invasion of 24 February 2022, Russian state media portrayed the West as incapable of opposing Russian aggression. Putin's propagandists cheered for war against Ukraine, predicting it would be quick and victorious. Misreading th

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Michael Thumann has been reporting from Eastern Europe for the leading German intellectual weekly Die Zeit for more than 30 years. His book chronicles Russia''s descent into an increasingly totalitarian dictatorship and the path leading to the escalation of Putin''s imperialist war in 2022. The dictator and his entourage want to take revenge for the democratic opening after 1991 and supposed humiliation by the West. Putin''s rule is becoming more radical. It is the most threatening regime in the world.

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This book comprises a collection of essays that shed light on some of the key humanitarian issues that have emerged in independent Ukraine since the fall of the Soviet Union. With a strong empirical focus, the chapters explore pivotal events such as the 1990 Student Revolution on Granite (referring to the stone of Kyiv's Independence Square), the 2004 Orange Revolution (named after Viktor Yushchenko's campaign color), and the 2013–2014 Revolution of Dignity (also known as ?Euromaidan?). The book examines the evolution of a robust civil society, the emergence of a Ukrainian political nation, and the ultimate achievement of national unity among Ukrainians.These developments are not only analyzed in the context of Ukraineʼs recent state-building successes but are also viewed as a continuation of the countryʼs longstanding national liberation struggle for independence from Russia. Of particular note, the book highlights the ongoing re-evaluation of established stereotypes surrounding the roots of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, which the author, Kvit, presents as a clash of civilizational values.These thought-provoking essays by one of Ukraineʼs most prominent political intellectuals will prove valuable not only to those with an interest in Ukraine but also to scholars across a range of disciplines, including mass communications, political science, philosophical hermeneutics, history, and higher education.

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This revised and updated version of Chris Webbs comprehensive 2016 book covers the development and history of the first death camp in Poland within the Aktion Reinhardt mass murder program. Webb outlines the construction of the death camp in Poland by the National Socialists and provides a comprehensive account of who built the death camp and how the mass murder was perfected by Christian Wirth, the first Commandant, who was well versed in the mass murder by gas, from his days in the T4 Organization. The history of the death camp is retold with eyewitness testimony of some of the Jewish survivors, the Poles who helped build the death camp, and former SS members of the Garrison and German visitors to the camp. The book includes an updated and revised Jewish Roll of Remembrance, with sources provided to verify each entry. This includes the handful of survivors as well as a comprehensive record of the victims, Polish and Czech Jews, and those deported from the Reich to Belzec. The book also provides a detailed record of the leading figures of Aktion Reinhardt, including Odilo Globocnik, Christian Wirth, and Hermann Hofle, and members of the SS Garrison who served in Belzec. The biographies record their histories, what they did at Belzec, and their fates, where known. Also covered are the post-war testimonies, trials, and excavations. A number of historic and contemporary photographs, some of which have never been published before, and documents and drawings enhance this edition.

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This book examines the recent rise of the radical right in Italian politics in the years 20182022. The authors set the rise of the radical right within the context of electoral volatility and fragmentation that has underpinned post-1945 Italian politics and examine right-wing party competition between the two main radical right parties, Lega and Fratelli d'Italia, alongside the important shifts that have transformed the traditional center-right coalition (coalizione di centro-destra) in Italian politics. The volume concludes with implications for the global trajectory of the rise of different populist and radical right parties across Europe and the European Union, with many of these radical right parties now becoming significant political players across the world.

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In our daily lives, the rule of law matters more than anything and yet remains an invisible presence. We trust in the rule of law to protect us from governmental overreach, mafia godfathers, or the will of the majority. We take the rule of law for granted, often failing to recognize its demise -- until it is too late. For under attack it is, not only in the growing number of authoritarian countries around the world but in Europe, too. As a citizens guide, this book explains in plain language what the rule of law is, why it matters, and why we have to defend it. The starting point is to ask why EU efforts to promote the rule of law in candidate countries have succeeded or failed, and what this tells us about what is happening inside the EU. The authors move on to suggest ways of strengthening the rule of law in Europe and beyond. This book is a call to action in defence of the most precious human invention of all time.

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This innovative book offers a fresh perspective on the national work culture of Russia and the substantial role foreign institutional and cultural impact has had in shaping it. Russia's contemporary work culture is understood as a national system supplemented by new values and attitudes that have been adopted through the mediation of foreign individuals and corporations or in response to the challenges of Western competition. The book argues that the foreign factor triggers change in the landscape of Russia's work culture, the scope of which depends on the type of influence. However, there is a certain core of the work culture that remains resistant to any external impact.

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As Germany fought the Soviet Union during World War II, a much smaller but equally vicious struggle was unfolding in southeastern Poland, fueled by longstanding ethnic and territorial conflicts between Poles and Ukrainians. Both sides organized large partisan armies and sought control over territory each deemed integral to their postwar national visions. The violence reached a fever pitch in the years immediately following the war. This comprehensive study surveys Polish-Ukrainian relations dating back to the tenth century. Rapawy follows centuries of ethnic strife, population shifts, and the formation of national states after the First World War on multi-ethnic territories, illuminating the long-term historical processes that informed later events.

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This book is a comprehensive account of the Belzec death camp in Poland, which was the first death camp to use static gas chambers as part of the Aktion Reinhardt mass murder program. It covers the construction and the development of the mechanisms of mass murder. The story is painstakingly told from all sides-the Jewish inmates, the perpetrators, and the Polish inhabitants of the village of Belzec, who lived near the factory of death. A major part of this work is the Jewish Roll of Remembrance, which covers the few survivors and the lives of some of the Jews among the many hundreds of thousands who perished in Belzec. The book is richly illustrated with historical and modern photographs, some of which are previously unpublished, as well as documents and drawings.

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Until the February 2004 gas crisis when Gazprom cut off all gas flows via Belarus, the issue of Belarus as a gas transit route was not addressed seriously despite this country's transiting around 20% of Russia's gas exports to Europe. The gas crisis threatened the reliability of gas supplies to Europe. It demonstrated the necessity of bringing Belarus back into focus, explaining how and why the seemingly amicable Russian-Belarussian relationship had deteriorated to such an extent, and suggesting how the problem might evolve in the future. This book shows that the reliability of the Belarussian gas transit routes is influenced by changes in the intensity of the Russian-Belarussian integration and explores whether Belarus is in a position to manage (or, indeed, survive) within the new, 'commercial' framework to which the gas issues had shifted following the failure to establish political union. The book predicts that the mainstay of Belarussian welfare is bound to deteriorate as Russia continues to increase its domestic gas prices at 20% annually as part of its energy strategy and in line with WTO requirements - thus, also making Belarus's independent stance vis-a-vis Gazprom unsustainable. In order to secure gas prices at the level of, at least, Russian domestic prices, Belarus is likely to return to negotiating a joint venture operating the Belarussian transit network together with Gazprom. Yet, even if such a joint venture were to be formed, it would not eliminate the main reason of the unreliability of gas transit via Belarus - the weakness of the national economy. Therefore, unless Belarus embarks on reforms leading to substantial gas conservation, it will continue to be tempted to resort to unauthorised gas off-takes and non-payments undermining the reliability of transit.

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Gödel Forever takes a critical look at several foundation claims on Gödelian incompleteness that have appeared in the literature over the years, strictly adhering to mathematical details.Rephrasing the words from Torkel Franzén: Ken Williams presents a new book on Gödel's incompleteness theorem for a general audience since no existing book both explains the theorem from a mathematical point of view and reflects his experiences over the years of reading and commenting on references to the incompleteness theorem on the Internet.The range of critical review on the one hand and its elementary, if detailed, derivation of Gödel's Result (on which it is based) on the other makes Gödel Forever a must read for the serious study of the meaning and consequences of Gödel's Incompleteness.

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Issue 2023:1 of In Statu Nascendi comprises, amongst others, the following articles:? Ethics of AI and Robotics from an non Anthopomorphical and Zoomorphical Perspective? The Self and Mental Health Studies: A Postmodern Introduction? Ethics of AI and Robotics from an non Anthopomorphical and Zoomorphical Perspective? Gödel's non-completeness theorems as hermeneutic questioning in Mathematics? Integrating Ontology in statu nascendi in the Main Currents of International Relations TheoryContent analysis through text mining: an empirical approach of understanding international political integration theories in practice

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The East European nations' common past in the Soviet Union connects them in terms of both their political histories and the evolution of their philosophical thought. The USSR's dissolution created new opportunities, domestic and international, in science, politics, and business. De-Sovietization meant for philosophy that it lost its former significance as a political-ideological tool of the authorities, and its previous role in society. Philosophers of the former Soviet bloc now found themselves able to communicate with colleagues around the world.This volume's chapters analyze the renewal of the philosophical enterprise over the last thirty to forty years, in Belarus, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. Among its authors are Yevgeniy Abdullaev, Viktoras Bakhmetjevas, Alexandru Cosmescu, Maija Kule, Denys Kiryukhin, Giorgi Khuroshvili, Mikhail Maiatsky, Tatyana Shchittsova, and Mikhail Minakov.

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