Communist Eastern Europe Research Articles

“We Are All Warhol’s Children”: Andy and the Rusyns

Andy Warhol is the world’s most famous American of Carpatho-Rusyn ancestry, and the icons of the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church were his first exposure to art. His unexpected death in 1987 was followed by the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the rise of the Rusyn movement for identity, which embraced the flamboyant pop artist, filmmaker, and jet setter as their iconic figurehead. From their own idiosyncratic perspective, the traditional, religious, provincial Rusyns have reconstructed the image of Andy Warhol, pointing up aspects of the artist that have gone largely unnoticed. In a reciprocal process, Andy has had a significant impact on the Rusyn movement and on the recognition of Rusyns worldwide. This study establishes Warhol’s Carpatho-Rusyn ethnicity and explores its possible influence on his persona and his art. It also analyzes the Rusyns’ reception of Warhol, with a focus on the history of the Warhol Museum of Modern Art in Slovakia. The author concludes that recognition of the Rusyn Andy contributes to a distinctive perspective on the American Warhol.

Introduction Narratives of citizenship: welfare state reform and civil society in Canada

The papers in this special issue of the British Journal of Canadian Studies have their origin in a seminar hosted at the University of Ulster Institute for Research in the Social Sciences, Canadian Studies Research Programme in February, 2011 entitled, Welfare State Restructuring and the Role of the Social Economy and the Voluntary Sector: Canadian Reflections at a Time of Austerity. Earlier versions of three of the papers, by Laforest, Phillips and White, were given at that seminar. The background to the seminar and this special issue is found in the profound changes in welfare states constructed in the post-Second World War period that have occurred since the mid-1980s in many Western democracies as a consequence of the neoliberal turn in politics and economics. This led to a crisis in confidence in the state and a radical shake-up of public administration. Management techniques were imported from the private sector and a period of outsourcing of public services to both private and to voluntary bodies was set in train (Barzelay 2002; Osborne and McLaughlin 2002). The focus of the discussion in this issue is on the changing role of civil society and the relationship between organizations within civil society and the state in this period and on how this is talked about. The Canadian story is interesting as the changes have been particularly profound because of the way in which the institutions of the Canadian welfare state had been integrated into an earlier narrative of nation-building, giving civil society a leading role in promoting strong links between disparate national and ethnic identities into an overarching Canadian civic citizenship. Analysis of what happened after the mid-1980s thus casts a sharply illuminating light on recent Canadian history. The first four articles in this special issue tackle the theme from a variety of perspectives, but they all hone in on the proper role of civil society as a separate sphere of activity to the market and the state in a democratic society and as a contributor to democratic debate and civic integration. A fifth article considers the policy outcomes of a weakening of this role in Canada that has allowed legislation promoting equality of opportunity to minorities in employment to be vitiated through poor enforcement. The renewed scholarly interest in the concept of civil society, particularly as a source of national and democratic renewal, dates back to the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the ending of a number of authoritarian regimes, particularly in South America, both in the late 1980s. Whilst this revival in interest was in part circumstantial, it was also driven by an 'associational revolution' as the number of associations within civil society 'sky-rocketed' across many jurisdictions in the world at a time when traditional forms of political engagement were seen to be in decline (Salamon 1994: 111). Whilst the variety of these associations in both form and function could be bewildering constituting a 'loose and baggy monster' hard to pin down in a single definition (Kendall and Knapp 1996), together they have come to be viewed as a separate sector within society, distinct from the state and the market (Salamon et al. 2003). Despite their variety, their core features include independence from government on the one hand, and on the other the lack of private owners taking profits from their operations, surpluses being directed to the purposes for which they were established (Salamon and Anheier 1998). Two interlinked strands in scholarship have developed from these beginnings. First, there has been a focus on how the world of these associations relates to state structures and programmes in particular jurisdictions (Smith and Gronbjerg 2006; Casey et al. 2010), and we will see in this issue how important this relationship has been in understanding recent Canadian social history. But second, this strand has acquired additional relevance through being filtered through debate on the normative role of civil society in contemporary politics (Edwards 2009; Munck 2006; Anheier 2007; Dekker and Evers 2009). …

Solidarity, the CIA, and Western Technology

Revisiting the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, one comes to the conclusion that all the other revolutions were products of a chain reaction originating in the Polish revolt. —Konstantin Plesha...

Disputes in the Arctic: Threats and Opportunities

IntroductionFor centuries, the was a sacred for humanity. This frozen void was a magnet for adventurers and explorers, for everybody who wanted to challenge both themselves and nature. In nineteenth century, the top of the world became a field of competition for major European and American nations. During this race, the main prize was the Pole. Which state would be the first to claim it? Even at the climax of the era of colonial conquest, no nation was ready to declare the entirely for itself. The twentieth century brought new developments to the Arctic. Two World Wars went almost unnoticed in the extreme North. But during the Cold War, the became a new battleground. For two superpowers - the United States and the Soviet Union - the route through the provided the shortest course for nuclear-armed intercontinental missiles and planes loaded with thermonuclear bombs bound for targets in one nation or the other. The thick ice cap provided additional protection for the nuclear submarines trying to edge ever closer to enemy territory. After the end of Cold War and the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the attention given to the waned. With the beginning of the twenty-first century, new challenges arose in the Arctic. Climate change, a global race for natural resources, new transportation routes, and old territorial disputes created not only new threats to security, but also opportunities for cooperation between the countries.The purpose of this article is to examine the problems that have arisen in the in the post-Cold War era. This essay will analyze the role of the major players in the Arctic; the territorial disputes between the countries; sovereign rights over natural resources; and disputes over new transportation routes. It is particularly important to examine Russia's military build-up and its more assertive foreign policy in the region.There are two main reasons why the has increasingly come to take a place at the center of global politics. The first reason is climate change. The process of global warming is a byproduct of human activities, yet up to this point the global community has failed to establish common rules to reduce the use of fossil fuels and reduce carbon emissions in order to reduce the effects of climate change. Melting of year-round sea ice in the has opened completely new sea routes, and the reduction in size of the polar ice cap in the has uncovered natural resources that were hidden for millennia. The second reason is the rise of Russia. Even before the war with Georgia in 2008, Russia had been demonstrating that it was coming to rely more on hard power than on the primacy of international law. By stepping up its nationalistic rhetoric and increasingly acting unilaterally, Russia's political and military leadership is trying to reassess and create a vision for a New Russia.The Major PlayersThere are five Arctic Rim countries: the United States, Canada, Denmark (through its possession of Greenland), Norway, and Russia. In addition, there are three more nations with territory bordering or above the Circle: Iceland, Sweden, and Finland. By extension, the European Union (EU) is a major stakeholder in all disputes (given Denmark, Sweden, and Finland's status as EU members). These eight countries are members of the Council. This high-level forum was established in 1996 to increase cooperation between the countries. There are six working groups that administer a range of projects - from regulations on shipping in the High North to assessments of the impact of climate change. The Council works by consensus, and has no regulatory mandate nor any enforcement mechanism.1 Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, France, Spain, and Great Britain hold the status of permanent observers. China, Japan, South Korea, and Italy all hold ad hoc observer status. …

Twenty Years of Interpreting Centesimus Annus On The Economy

Pope John Paul II’s social encyclical Centesimus Annus (CA )w as published in 1991, and one of its key tasks was to propose a Christian vision of the economy in the aftermath of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the end of Cold War conflicts in the Third World. In the intervening twenty years, much has changed in the global economy. The process of globalization, already well underway in 1991, has accelerated. Financial crises erupted in Mexico, East Asia, and Russia, hampering efforts at economic development and threatening to spread throughout the global economy. China and India have brought the largest number of people out of poverty in human history through marketfriendly reforms. Beginning in 2007, a global financial crisis began that shook the world economy to its core. Just as countries began to recover in 2010, crisis arose again over the ability of European nations such as Greece, Ireland, and Portugal to repay their debts, and in 2011 the ability of the United States itself to repay its debts came into question; this ongoing crisis has threatened the monetary union of Europe and the continued viability of government entitlements in many countries. Despite these significant changes in the global economy, CA continues to be a relevant guide for Christian discipleship in economic life through its distinctive insights on the role of the state in the economy, the relevance of ethics for economic life, and the necessity of theology for a complete understanding of economic life. This article presents the main insights of CA by discussing the ways in which the encyclical has been interpreted over the past twenty years. 1 Broadly speaking, there have been three interpretations of the encyclical. Perhaps the most eager interpreters of the encyclical have been the neoconservatives, who see the encyclical as a qualified endorsement of the free market economy. The second interpretation of the encyclical is that of the progressives, which claims that the encyclical

“Karlson” – A Stasi “Kontakt Person”. An episode of Iceland’s Cold War legacy

Iceland’s geographical position gave this small nation a special strategic importance in the political and military chess game between East and West during the Cold War era. Iceland constituted an important post for the NATO defence forces and surveillance activities. The military base and the NATO alignment created stark divisions among the population. The political discussion was framed in terms of the Cold War and the press in Iceland continuously suggested that the political motives of their opponents were conspicuously linked to or derived from either the interests of Soviet or Eastern European communism or US capitalist imperialism. It was in this circumstances that in the fifties and sixties young left wing people sought to undertake their university education in the Eastern block. The legacy of heated feelings of the Cold War has in many ways survived the Cold War itself. This article wants to contribute to the objectification of the debate by presenting the files from the archives of the East German secret service on one Icelandic student cooperating with it while studying in East Germany.

Sites of Convergence: The USSR and Communist Eastern Europe at International Fairs Abroad and at Home

Sites of Convergence: The USSR and Communist Eastern Europe at International Fairs Abroad and at Home

Does the European Union Waste Money on Academic Grants for Former Eastern European Communist Countries?

Abstract After the admission into the European Union in 2007 Romania started to benefit from transnational academic programs financed by the European Union. These programs are designed to develop the human resources from Eastern European academic communities and to avoid the brain draining phenomena. But the question is: can these EU funded grants improve the scientific level of the researchers from former Eastern European communist countries? Our survey tried to reveal how effective one of these EU transnational grants in Romania was and to develop a conceptual frame for this new educational environment in Romania and in Eastern Europe in general. The methods used are specific to the concept of focus group. The target group elected, in which I was a member for 12 months, with 6 months extension, was a group of postdoctoral researchers from a transnational EU funded grant destined to communicate science to the general public. By its status, this grant involved transnational academic exchanges and, among other parameters, we considered the number of ISI articles published by the researchers and the admission to ISI rated international conferences. Regarding the quality of the research, among others, we tried to reveal the rate of rejection for the ISI articles meant for publication. The results indicate a significant gap, in terms of a various parameters, regarding the quality of scientific research, between the Western academic community and one of the Eastern European similar communities.

Features of competition and development of markets in an age of globalized economy

The fall of communism in Eastern Europe in the beginning of the 90-ies of the 20th century marked the beginning of a historical process of triumph of market economy in a wide geographical area and a large population, which had to have an influence on global developments. This age is characterized not only by a comprehensive ruling of capitalist market economy, but also by a series of important structural changes in economies of various countries, national and international mechanisms of market functioning, and relevant institutions thereto. Distinct authors have various opinions on characteristics and positive and negative outcomes of a globalized economy era. Some consider the globalization of world economy as a quantitative and qualitative expansion of market economy throughout the world, similar to the situation before the World War I. Other more serious authors consider the globalization of world economy as a new qualitative era, with important consequences on many areas.

Teachers’ perceptions of the curricula of the Soviet and post-Soviet eras: A case study of Estonian pre-school teachers

Broadening the role of teachers in curriculum development was among the fundamental objectives of educational reforms in the formerly communist Eastern Europe in the 1990s. The research done so far, however, calls into question the degree to which teachers perceive the relevant changes in curriculum and their new role. This article first describes the context of curricular changes in Eastern Europe and Estonia after the fall of communism. It then analyses Estonian pre-school teachers’ perceptions of national pre-school curricula utilized in two different eras: the late Soviet period and the period from 1999 to date in a sovereign Estonia. Data were gathered via semi-structured interviews. Thirty-one experienced teachers participated in the study. It was concluded that teachers generally apprehend the broadened meaning of the concept of curriculum and their augmented role as reflective curriculum makers and theorists. However, differences emerge between teachers’ perceptions of their new role and their readiness to adopt it. Regarding the reported generality and indefiniteness of the new national curriculum, teachers need more assistance for implementing the autonomy and self-responsibility imposed on them by the curriculum. A balance between self-responsibility and professional advice should be sought by both curriculum makers and teacher educators.

Comparing the Arab Revolts: The Lessons of 1989

Abstract: Since it began, the Arab spring has been subject to a proliferation of comparisons with 1989, and rightly so. Two decades after the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, we have learned a great deal about regime transitions—lessons that can improve our understanding of events in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) today. Unfortunately, the comparison does not make one optimistic about democracy’s near-term prospects there. Those regimes rooted in recent revolutionary struggle often survive even the most severe economic crises or opposition challenges, as did China’s rulers in 1989 and Cuba’s and North Korea’s in the early 1990s. Given the continued dominance of old-regime actors, the weakness of democratic forces, and the current international environment, some form of authoritarianism is likely to dominate the Middle East and North Africa for a long time to come.

Imperial Myths between Nationalism and Communism: Appropriations of Imperial Legacies in the North-eastern Adriatic during the Early Cold War

In contemporary scholarly discussions, political uses of imperial pasts are typically associated with the rise of modern nation-states and nationalist principles of identity formation. Although clearly important, this approach can lead us to neglect the appropriations of imperial myths based on other types of ideological frameworks. In communist Eastern Europe, official representations of the past followed the imperatives of a historical-materialist vision of history, which, at least in its initial form, necessitated a rejection of both imperialism and nationalism. It is therefore reasonable to expect that communist appropriations of imperial legacies were significantly different from those found in Western Europe at the time. This article examines these different uses of imperial pasts – informed by either communism or nationalism or both – by focusing on the competing perceptions of imperial history and heritage at the Italo-Yugoslav border during the early Cold War.

Who Has Time forĆejf?Postsocialist Migration and Slow Coffee in Neoliberal Chicago

The official end to communism in Eastern Europe marked the onset of major migratory movements. Perhaps the most abrupt of these population shifts was the displacement of more than two million people in Yugoslavia's violent dissolution. Much of the existing literature on refugee migration has focused on victimization and citizenship claims. Alternatively, I draw on ethnographic research among Bosnian refugee-immigrants in Chicago to examine how a group of adult women migrants used one commodity - coffee - to manage and evaluate their displacements. The kind of slow-coffee drinking described here is informed by an ethics of consumption developed under Yugoslav socialism, nostalgias for pre-Yugoslav Islam and pre-Ottoman Bosnia, and exposure to U.S. neoliberalism. Placing consumption at the center of analysis reveals the structural constraints of the postconflict period and brings to light refugees’ active navigations of everyday life and society in their postsocialist present, lived out as refugees in the United States.

Not Afraid to Search for a Critical Space: Discovering the Postmodern in Cuban Cinema. The Case of ¡Plaff! (o demasiado miedo a la vida)

The end of the 1980s saw Cuba in crisis as the collapse of the USSR removed the island's economic lifeline. But this crisis had been building for a number of years and many of the 'certainties' of the past were being fundamentally questioned. This questioning produced a particular brand of Cuban postmodernism, in which a certain rejection of the linear trajectory of history was being articulated in a country with a still-developing sense of its past but with a crisis that would undoubtedly alter that perception. This article intends to explore this ideological break with the past via analysis of the film ¡Plaff! (o demasiado miedo a la vida) (Juan Carlos Tabío, 1988). The film stands on the threshold of important change in Cuban cinema, coming as it did only a year before the collapse of the Berlin Wall on 11–12 November 1989 and the subsequent collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe. The article will demonstrate how the film deconstructs old values and creates new ones via a recycling process of pastiche and parody, managing a difficult balancing act between the questioning of the authority of state institutions and support of the Revolution as a valid national project.

But never mind about politics: Arnold Wesker's The Merchant and its critics

Arnold Wesker's play The Merchant (1983) is usually discussed as a response to its Shakespearean original, The Merchant of Venice, and criticized for being both too full of irrelevant historical detail and insufficiently attentive to history in the Marxist sense. The latter charge overlooks the fact that Wesker's play was not just about Shakespeare's supposed anti-Semitism, but also signalled his own disillusionment with radical politics. In his analysis of history, Wesker had concluded that capitalism was more likely to promote tolerance of minorities than alternative systems. His growing disillusionment with the left sprang from his experience of Communism in Eastern Europe, and from the Middle East wars, in which the capitalist West backed Israel. The play also reflects Wesker's quarrels with radical colleague John McGrath over cultural politics. The Merchant does not mark Wesker's farewell to politics, therefore, but a reorientation of his politics away from radical socialism.

The Phoenix that Could Not Rise: Politics and Rock Culture in Romania, 1960–1989

AbstractThe article addresses the emergence and development of the rock scene under the very specifi c circumstances of Romanian communism. While pointing to the extension and complexity of this social-musical phenomenon, it tries to explain the paradox that the rock scene could coexist with what is currently perceived as one of the most repressive and unreformed social systems in communist Eastern Europe. The analytical part of the paper is centered around two case studies: 1) the artistic and intellectual evolution of the rock band Phoenix, from its 1962 beginnings to the 1977 spectacular escape to the West of most of its lineup, 2) and the strange combination of nationalist-Stalinist mobilizationism and flower power Woodstock-like poetry of the cultural activist Adrian Păunescu and his Flacăra Cénacle of the Revolutionary Youth, from the mid-1970s to the last part of the 1980s. Alluding to the name of the cult act Phoenix, the title of the paper suggests that, once dissipated under the impact of repressive and manipulative cultural policies, the overwhelming creative energies manifested in the Romanian youth culture of the second half of the 1960s were almost completely lost to the cause of a gradual, peaceful opening of the Romanian society.

The Solidarity Decade in Eastern Europe, 1980–1989: An Australian perspective

One seldom finds a consensual view among historians of recent events, but very few would object to calling the 10 years that preceded the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe the 'Solidarity Decade'. It is spanned by two crucial events, both related to the Polish Solidarity movement but also, and indirectly, sharing wider international importance. The first was the formal recognition by the communist regime of the first 'free and independent' trade union and, in reality, a powerful social reform movement in Poland in late August to early September 1980. The second event was the swearing in of the 'Solidarity government' in Poland on 12 September 1989 - the first noncommunist government since the consolidation of communist rule in 1948. The first date marks the beginning of a mass, organised social dissent that not only fatally undermined communist legitimacy in Eastern Europe, but also created a powerful collective social force capable of directing change beyond the confines of 'reformed communism' and into 'post-communism'.1 The second date marks what we call the 'Breakthrough' - a shift of emphasis from reforming to transforming the communist system, from the monopoly of power vested de jure in the Soviet-style Communist Party to the first freely elected non-communist government in the Soviet Bloc. It was a tipping point initiating the processes of the domino-like collapse of the Eastern European communist regimes. What was remarkable about this decade - and what is worth returning to on its anniversary - was its regional and worldwide impact, which was largely unanticipated by the major actors, including Gorbachev, Walesa, Reagan, Bush, Kohl, Jaruzelski and Havel. We are armed now with a better historical hindsight2 that allows us to trace both the origins of the momentous year 1989 - declared by Ash (2009a) 'the best year of European history' - and its impact on the subsequent chain of events, ranging from the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991, through socio-political emancipation of 15 new post-Soviet republics in 1991-93, to a series of political 'aftershocks' in the Philippines, South Africa, Chile, Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine, Lebanon, Kyrgyzstan, Burma and, more recently, Iran.3 While the causal connections between these 'aftershocks' and the 'negotiated regime change' - which we claim was successfully tested during the 'Solidarity Decade' - are highly diverse and complex, they are, nevertheless, quite apparent. All of these political aftershocks bore clear marks of the original Solidarity 'refolution' (Ash's term aptly describing a mixture of reform and revolution). All shared the basic 'political DNA' that can be traced to the original Solidarity model of 1980-89: a combination of mass opposition carrying strong moral overtones (against injustice, lies, deceptions); wide solidary mobilisations that transcend boundaries of class, region and faith; rejection of ideological utopias - so prevalent in previous violent revolutions and radical political movements; and - perhaps most characteristically - the nonviolent forms of action backed by the principles of negotiation and compromise with political opponents.4 In spite of the divergent labels attached to these recognisable and converging paths to negotiated regime change - such as 'movement of moral renewal', 'refolution', 'velvet revolution', 'self-limiting revolution', 'peaceful revolution', 'negotiated revolution', 'coloured revolution' (orange, saffron), 'flower revolution' (tulip, rose), and so on - all of them carried a clear imprint of the successful template for non-violent transition developed and tested in Poland during the Solidarity Decade: 1980-89. This template itself, as stressed below, has been a product of complex political evolution that occurred in Poland and in other communist countries since World War II. It included the long legacy of contestation of communist domination: the 1945-47 opposition in Poland; the 1953 revolt in East Germany; the 1956 uprisings in Poland and Hungary; protests during the Warsaw March and the Prague Spring of 1968; and, most importantly, the series of mass protests in Poland in 1970 and 1976. …

The Solidarity Decade: 1980–1989

What is called here the 'Solidarity Decade' covers the developments between September 1980, the beginning of the mass, organised, peaceful and negotiated dismantling of communist domination in the Soviet Bloc, and September 1989, the formation of the first non-communist government in Eastern Europe, and the beginning of the 'contagious' systemic transformation that initiated the domino-like fall of communist regimes in the region and the gradual transition to what Holmes1 labelled 'post-communism'. While the Polish Solidarity was not the first mass protest against communist domination - it was preceded by mass anti-communist opposition in 1945-47 in Poland, in 1953 in East Germany, in 1956 in Poland and Hungary, in 1968 in Poland and Czechoslovakia and, again, in 1970 and 1976 in Poland - it was unique in many ways. The Hungarian uprising and the Prague Spring apart, the pre-1980 mass protests could be accurately described as spontaneous eruptions of public anger and frustration; they were poorly organised and politically ineffective - and were promptly suppressed or defused by the authorities. While they resulted in leadership changes, their impact was more cultural than political; they left behind important political memories, legends and traditions, but no political-organisational legacies. Solidarity was different. It was a mass movement of unprecedented strength, political restraint and - at least initially - social discipline. At the peak of its popularity in mid-1981, Solidarity boasted about 10 million members/ supporters - more than half the adult population of Poland. Moreover, this mobilisation was well coordinated, and it adopted the novel, yet familiar, form of a 'free trade union'. In turn, the free union provided a protective political umbrella to scores of independent (though often 'affiliated') oppositional groups and initiatives. Also, unlike the former mass opposition, Solidarity was 'antiutopian'. Its initial '21 demands' were sober and practical, and the reform programs that gradually emerged during the 1981 debates promoted the 'welltried' Western liberal-democratic institutional solutions: trade union formation, civil liberties, citizen and employee rights, democratic procedures and, in the later stages of discussions, political pluralism and respect for private property. Above all, Solidarity stressed freedom of thought, expression and association, and non-violent, conciliatory strategies for action. All these elements proved successful in 1980-81 in breaking - albeit for only 15 months - the communist monopoly on political organisation, information and free expression. These 15 months of freedom, as argued here, were sufficient to start the irreversible political change. The closing date of the Solidarity Decade - September 1989 - was no less consequential. As argued by this author elsewhere in this volume (Chapter 9), it was the final stage of the historic 'Breakthrough' that initiated a new phase of change - a systemic transformation - accompanied by a largely unanticipated domino-like collapse of the Eastern European communist regimes. This was the proverbial 'beginning of the end': the end of 'reforming socialism' and the beginning of a 'systemic transformation' described by the leaders of the Solidarity government as 'a return to Europe'. One should also highlight the 'external' conditions of success. By far the most important was the political ascendancy of Mikhail Gorbachev and his reformist campaign of perestroika (rebuilding, re -formation) and glasnost (transparency, openness). While these permissive and liberalising policies were essential conditions of Solidarity's Breakthrough, the dismantling of communism was never Gorbachev's intention. Perestroika aimed at reforming, and thus strengthening, communism, rather than its abolition. The second factor was a parallel reformist drive in Hungary. The Hungarian reforms, however, were almost completely confined to the Communist Party apparatus and were initially directed primarily towards economic modernisation (introduction of market mechanisms). …

Secret Sisters: Women Religious under European Communism Collection at the Catholic Theological Union

After the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, Pope John Paul II asked Catholics around the world to assist members of the Church who had suffered under the yoke of communist oppression as a result of their commitment to Catholicism. Sr. Margaret Savoie, and Sr. Margaret Nacke, Sisters of St. Joseph, Concordia, Kansas, decided that the experiences of Catholic women in religious communities – “surviving sisters” – was an important story that needed to be documented, preserved, and made available for future generations and researchers. In 2003, Sisters Mary and Margaret began their research, recording the plight of Catholic sisters in eight countries, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and the Ukraine, from the rise of Stalin until the collapse of European communism. Over 200 testimonials now reside at the Paul Bechtold Library at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago under the auspices of the library’s archivist, Dr. Kenneth O’Malley, C.P. , and their work has been made into a national and award-winning documentary film. 
 .

Age cohort effects, gender, and Romanian leadership preferences

PurposeThis study aims to examine preferences for both transformational and transactional leadership behavior for gender‐ and age‐based cohort differences. The purpose of this research is to enhance leadership and organizational change initiatives in Romania via the identification of age cohort and gender effects with respect to attitudes towards common leadership behaviors.Design/methodology/approachThe research is conducted via a survey through the administration of questionnaires. The sample consists of 324 managers from commercial and service organizations in Romania, a country in which this issue has not previously been investigated.FindingsThe findings reveal that there are differences in preferences for leadership behavior based on age cohorts that reached maturity before or after the fall of Ceauşescu during the 1989 revolution. Also, female participants displayed a greater preference for transformational leadership behaviors relative to transactional leadership behaviors.Originality/valueThis is the first study to examine the effects of leadership preference based on age cohorts in Romania. The study also is one of the first to empirically examine the effects of age cohorts on leadership after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. As such, these findings offer guidance in the development and implementation of leadership development initiatives and change management interventions for organizations operating in Romania, and present one example of cohort‐based and leadership‐specific attitude change in a country that is transitioning from communism to a free market system.