ABSTRACT This article examines constitutional justice during the transition from a populist regime, using Poland as a case study. We argue that this transition differs from Poland’s post-communist transition to democracy in 1989. The latter exemplified legal continuity, in which courts and their judgements retained full legal validity, with specific rulings subject to invalidation on a case-by-case basis. In contrast, today’s legal landscape is marked by significant disarray, with political actors increasingly challenging the legitimacy of state institutions. We identify obstacles to the transition process stemming from the effort to reform the ‘captured’ Polish Constitutional Tribunal. We then analyse the approach adopted by the government, conceptualized as selective legality. It is based on sidelining the Constitutional Tribunal as an institution incapable of fulfiling its constitutional role, while simultaneously presenting proposals for its reform through statutory and constitutional amendments. The analysis then turns to the question of which strategy the government may adopt in light of the impossibility of carrying out institutional reform due to the presidential veto. We conclude with a general reflection on the challenges of restoring constitutional justice and an assessment of whether there is one universal approach towards the restoration process.

ABSTRACT Education is considered a key determinant of EU support, as higher-educated individuals are more likely to benefit from European integration. Exposure to pro-EU curricula and socialization into cosmopolitan and European values also play a crucial role. In Hungary, however, the educational landscape has been shaped by unique circumstances since the Fidesz government took power in 2010. Political pressure, restrictive legislation, reduced school autonomy, and alleged ideological shifts in curricula and textbooks raise concerns about the political and educational context in which Hungarian secondary students form their EU attitudes. The present study draws on qualitative interviews with educators from Hungarian secondary schools to explore these dynamics, with a focus on the country’s peripheries. Findings reveal a mixed picture. Discussing politics is widely seen as undesirable in the classroom, civic values and critical thinking receive little emphasis, and a pervasive fear of addressing politically sensitive topics is evident. However, there is no evidence of direct political control, and educators do not report feeling directly affected by curricular changes or textbook monopolization. These factors indicate significant obstacles to the development of informed EU attitudes but may also reflect broader systemic issues within Hungarian secondary education.

ABSTRACT This paper considers the extent to which Habsburg officials understood the Empire’s Slavic population in ‘Panslav’ terms. The contested word ‘Panslav’ has different meanings, but this paper follows the definition of Habsburg Panslavs themselves, as specifically articulated by Jan Kollár, the most famous Panslav poet and activist. Kollár believed that all Slavs formed a single nation spoke a single ‘language’. He saw Russians, Czechs, Poles and Serbs as ‘tribes’ of the greater nation and saw the distinct Russian, Czech, Polish, and Serbian literary traditions as ‘dialects’ of Slavic, and other Slavic varieties as ‘subdialects’. Habsburg officials, for their part, understood the ethnicity/nationality of the Empire’s Slavs in many different ways, yet a variety of official documents suggest that the imperial bureaucracy frequently and persistently employed the unitary category ‘Slavic’ until the late nineteenth century. The Panslav idea of a single Slavic ‘language’ regularly appears in Habsburg police reports, judicial documents, job adverts, and, perhaps most dramatically, in military paperwork. That Habsburg Officials posited the fundamental ethnographic unity of all Slavs suggests that the romantic pan-Slavism of Habsburg Slavic intelligentsias influenced Habsburg officials.

ABSTRACT The article examines the dialogue on the recent past between East and West during the Cold War. The scandal-ridden play The Deputy (1963) by the West German playwright Rolf Hochhuth about the ‘silence’ of Pope Pius XII in the face of the Holocaust provided the starting point for a debate with the Czechoslovak writer Ladislav Mňačko about the limits of de-Stalinization. The article reveals how the aim of the debate failed due to a tendency to mystify the respective ‘dark’ pasts of East and West. Although the reform communist Mňačko increasingly recognized the independent destructive potential of Stalinism, he nevertheless manoeuvred himself into attributing collective guilt to ‘the Germans’. The bourgeois idealist Hochhuth was only able to counter this with a vague analysis of National Socialism (and potentially also Stalinism) as a ‘collective madness’. The study examines this process by contextualizing the debate between the two authors and analysing their selected literary works.

ABSTRACT This article examines Patočka’s concept of Supercivilization: the idea that the atomized, lonely individual is a structural presupposition of today’s societies. It argues that in historically tracing this conundrum of modern societies, Patočka points to a displacement of humans from the world that is concomitant with the birth of modern science.

ABSTRACT The paper deals with Jan Patočka’s conception of modern civilization and the difficulties arising from modernity’s reliance on rationalization as the basis for achieving universality. More than 70 years after their formulation, Patočka’s most relevant warnings concern the widespread misunderstanding of two fundamental values underlying the modern and liberal form of civilization: the search for truth is subordinated to instrumental rationality, while the notion of human freedom is reduced to the protection of individual rights from the interference of others. While such self-understanding allowed Europe to spread its own specific civilizational formation throughout the world, it was also the cause of its decline and withdrawal from the world leadership. What lessons can be drawn from Patočka’s critical assessment of the role that Europe might assume in the post-European era? What kind of universalism can Europe promote today, when all claims of ‘universalism from above’ are viewed with justified suspicion?

ABSTRACT In this article I discuss the transformation of Romanian diplomatic relations with the successor states of the USSR in the aftermath of the collapse of the Communist dictatorship in both countries. Following the seizure of power by the council of the National Salvation Front on 27 December 1989, the new administration in Bucharest decided to replace its ambassadors in Moscow, Washington, and Paris as part of Romania’s new foreign policy strategy. Given the transformations of Romanian society in the early 1990s (including in Romanian diplomacy), and the collapse of the Soviet Union, this article examines several questions: To what extent were changes made at the level of the Romanian diplomatic corps, especially in Eastern Europe? Who were the Romanian heads of mission in the USSR/Russian Federation and in the capital of states that became independent following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, namely the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine, and the Republic of Belarus? This article also focuses on the process of establishing diplomatic relations in some of the successor states of the USSR against the backdrop of international dynamics in Eastern Europe.

ABSTRACT This volume examines Jan Patočka’s philosophical response to totalitarianism, specifically his views on both Nazi and Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. Rather than offering a direct political critique, Patočka’s approach is rooted in philosophical inquiry, focusing on the broader existential and ethical implications of oppressive regimes. Central ideas in his philosophy include supercivilization, care for the soul, and the crisis of modernity. Patočka’s critique of technoscience and rationalization echoes contemporary concerns about individual agency and political life. The volume also explores his philosophical connections to thinkers like Max Weber and Michel Foucault, situating his work within the larger context of European intellectual traditions. By including previously untranslated writings, this collection provides new insights into Patočka’s philosophy and its relevance to current challenges.