Abstract What was the place of sharīʿa in the USSR? Did Communist authorities take measures to adjust sharīʿa to social and institutional change? Or was sharīʿa crushed under the heavy march of Soviet modernization? A collection of manuscript records preserved today in the mosque of Karabudakhkent in central Daghestan affords us the opportunity to rethink the space that sharīʿa occupied in the public sphere in the North Caucasus after the Second World War beyond the official scholarly network of the local Muslim Spiritual Board. Resurfacing now after decades of oblivion, this documentation allows us to appreciate how between the 1950s and 1960s Muslim communities living under the rule of the one-party state endowed sharīʿa with normative force in spite of the official ban on Islamic law courts. Such a documentation helps us furthermore to illuminate the peculiar trajectory of legal hermeneutics ( furūʿ al-fiqh ) in the Soviet Union, and shed light on the textual traditions which acquired, preserved, or lost authority in the eyes of the local scholars of Islam after WWII.

Historia magistra vitae est – this maxim of Cicero (De oratore 2.36) reminds us that we should draw conclusions from what happened in the past in order to avoid mistakes in the future. For several decades we have been struggling with the question of how to repair the media, especially public media. The authors of this article look for inspiration for their reflections in the early 1980s – the time that initiated the Solidarność (Solidarity) revolution in our country. We assumed that subsequent events in our history confirm the truth of a statement made half a millennium ago by Niccolo Machiavelli (1984, p. 111): “Wise men say, and not without reason, that those who wish to foresee the future must consult the past, for human events always resemble those of earlier times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who have been, and ever will be, animated by the same passions; and thus they must necessarily have the same results”. In 1980, a movement was born in Poland that resonated loudly throughout the world. It took the organizational form of a trade union independent of the communist authorities and the symbolic name “Solidarity”. It was a multidimensional movement, touching upon many aspects, including the media. We analyze how, over the more than 40 years that have passed, the role, significance, and also the independence of the Polish media have been perceived. It appears that the attitude of decision-makers toward the media has ranged between an Agora and a Colosseum: either they adopted a deliberative approach, whereby those in power, together with citizens, decide what content is published, or one based on the principle that whoever holds power – by the right of the stronger – should determine what reaches the audience.

The article analyzes tombstone inscriptions from eleven cemeteries located in the eastern part of the Lublin region, in which the founders explicitly or implicitly refer to historical events. The study characterizes epitaphs related to World War II and the postwar years, such as public executions, deaths in concentration and POW camps, the fire at the monastery in Jabłeczna and the death of its bell ringer Ignacy, the conflict between the communist authorities and the underground resistance, and Operation “Vistula.” The article discusses both the factual data (place names, circumstances of death) and the linguistic devices used in the inscriptions. It was found that inscriptions referring to World War II are messages with a clearly marked expressive function realized through the use of vocabulary and metaphors with a solemn, sublime tone, emphasizing the martyrdom of the victims.

This paper examines the policy of monument construction in socialist Yugoslavia, focusing on their function as sites of collective memory of the People's Liberation Struggle, as well as their broader, multifaceted role, exemplified by the monument at Petrova Gora. Special attention is given to the ways in which the state regime’s use of history contributed to the construction and reinforcement of the ruling ideology. The legacy of the People’s Liberation Struggle, understood also as a socialist revolution, played a crucial role in legitimizing communist authority and shaping socialist ideology. Within this context, monuments functioned not only as commemorative spaces but also as instruments of cultural, educational, and touristic development. Petrova Gora, as a site of historical significance and a symbol of Yugoslav brotherhood and unity, serves as a paradigmatic example of the entanglement of memory politics, regional development, and ideological formation aimed at creating the new socialist man.

The paper focuses on examining the images on the theme of work as found on the front pages of Trybuna Ludu, a Polish newspaper, the official mouthpiece of the Polish communist authorities. The data set of 34 images (from the selected years of the period from 1944 to 1989) was analyzed using a social semiotic toolkit as discussed by Kress and van Leeuwen who argued for the importance of visual images which just like the verbal are characterized by their own visual grammar. Following its rules, the images were surveyed in terms of various semiotic resources used and their semiotic potential was elicited. The resulting representations of work were then situated in the contemporary political context. The study fits into the broad research trend on visual communication.

The article provides a comparative analysis of the political context in which Church charitable activities operated in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary after the Second World War. Special efforts are made to provide the most concise and effective synthesis of the most significant similarities and differences between the Countries mentioned above. The communists regarded traditional, socially rooted Christian churches as a major obstacle to the propagation of the Marxism-Leninism ideology. Their goal was to completely eliminate religion from public life and to deprive the churches of their influence on society. In relation to the experiences of Church charitable activities in the countries surveyed, one may n speak of a specific community of fate. This is particularly evident in the example of the Catholic charity organisation Caritas. As the research shows, the communist authorities initially accepted, opportunistically, the assistance offered by Church organisations to those in need. As a result of the war, numerous needs arose that the state alone could not meet. Quite rapidly, however, the communist authorities decided to nationalise all charitable activities, which formed part of a broader programme aimed at curbing the influence of the Church. They established new organisations totally dependent on state authorities and run by people—usually the clergy—loyal to those in power. As a result of this policy, church charitable activities in Czechoslovakia had completely ceased by the early 1960s. In Hungary they continued to exist on a smaller scale thanks to Roman Catholic Charity organisation controlled by the authorities. On the other hand, in Poland, until the end of the 1970s, charity activities independent of the state were possible only within parishes and on a limited scale. Beneficial changes in conditions shaping these activities began to emerge gradually in Poland and Hungary during the first half of the 1980s, whereas in Czechoslovakia only as a result of the systemic transformation.

Currently, in Poland, cooperatives, including housing cooperatives, remain an underappreciated form of social governance and the social economy. This is primarily due to the widespread use of this organizational form by the communist authorities of the previous regime. This is primarily the result of the widespread use of this organizational form by the communist authorities of the former political system. Due to the changes that have taken place within the Polish cooperative movement, the background for these considerations is the general history of this social movement, with particular emphasis on Poland, as well as the relevant Polish legal regulations. Additionally, the article presents the fundamental principles that have guided cooperativism unchanged since its inception, and the four pillars of cooperative governance, which although only identified and described in 2014—have been inseparably linked with the effective management of cooperatives from the very beginning. The reference to Polish legal solutions from the communist period, along with the actual practices of the communist authorities, in relation to the principles and pillars of cooperative governance, made it possible to justify the thesis posed in the title of this study. The distortion and, as a result, the decline of the idea of cooperativism in Poland stemmed from the widespread application of this organizational form by the communist authorities between 1945 and 1989 based on principles that significantly diverged from those applied in genuine cooperative organizations. The research method used in this study involves a review of the literature in the fields of legal studies, organizational and management sciences, economics and history, as only an interdis-ciplinary approach enables a comprehensive explanation of the topic. Furthermore, the article is based on legal analysis and participant observation a method used in organizational and management sciences which was conducted in relation to one of the housing cooperatives in Wroclaw.

Secret search is a form of operational work shrouded in the greatest secrecy, used during the People’s Republic of Poland by the Security Service and the Military Internal Service. It involved breaking into, among other places, diplomatic missions, flats and cars in order to obtain information needed by the communist authorities. This form could have been completely forgotten, had it not been for the draft Operational Work Code, which was intended to strengthen the observance of citizens’ rights and included an cover search directly referring to illegal activities undertaken in communist times. This legal instrument should cause particular concern among opponents of excessive state interference in the constitutional right to privacy. The purpose of this paper is to try to indicate what purpose such actions of the communist services served and whether there is now a possibility of their legal implementation in a state under the rule of law, taking into account the so-called emergency situations that may arise in the course of them.

Despite the formal liquidation of the Greek Catholic Church by the communist authorities in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic after the end of the World War II, the institution continued to be perceived by decision-makers as a significant ideological threat. Of particular concern to the authorities was its impact on the population of western Ukraine, which had demonstrated resistance to Marxist indoctrination. Consequently, a multifaceted propaganda campaign was waged against the Greek Catholic Church, in which historical publications, published in large circulations, played a significant role. These books, often employing an attractive, narrative format, aimed to devalue the authority of the Church and its leaders by portraying them as traitors who adhered to nazi/fascist ideology and as manipulators who exploited religious elements for instrumental purposes. The article analyses the themes present in the above-mentioned books concerning phenomena regarded as miraculous, such as the appearance of stigmata, prophecies, or the discovery of the tsar’s missing child, and their alleged use to by the Church hierarchs to pursue their own ambitions and institutional goals, primarily Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky.

In Romania, the human rights movement initiated by Paul Goma in the spring of 1977 created the context for a new practice within Romanian society, rooted in necessity and opportunity. This involved the drafting of open letters or memoirs requesting the observance of fundamental rights and freedoms, whether regarding cases of discrimination, freedom of conscience, freedom of movement, or the right to emigrate. The document we are publishing is a memoir addressed to the U.S. Congress on March 5, 1979, by six Romanian citizens who were denied the right to emigrate. The document, divided into two sections, refers to human rights violations and the repressive and intimidating methods used by the communist authorities against those "guilty" of thinking or acting in contradiction with the socialist way of life.

Radu Negrescu-Suțu is the only surviving member of a group of young individuals from the 1970s who sought to flee communist Romania. The human rights movement initiated by writer Paul Goma in the winter of 1977 represented a pivotal opportunity for many Romanians to break their silence and confront their fear of the Securitate, the regime’s secret police. Following Goma’s arrest, Radu Negrescu-Suțu and his peers joined the broader dissident movement and established their own group, known as GRUP CANAL 77. They were all illegally sentenced to one year of forced labor, under the pretext of being „social parasites”. Despite the repression, they continued to assert their rights. Eventually, under internal and external pressure, the communist authorities granted them passports, allowing them to emigrate to the free world.

The problem of cultural memory of Ukrainians deported from the Polish-Ukrainian borderlands has been actualized, and the historical policy of the authorities of independent Ukraine and Poland regarding the neutralization of the legacy of violence and traumatic memory has been analyzed. It is argued that the deportations of Ukrainians from Lemkivshchyna, Nadsiannia, and Kholmshchyna in 1944−1951 became a repressive instrument of the national policy of the communist regimes of the USSR and Poland, serving as a means of punishment (administrative and criminal). The author agrees with the conclusion of Polish historian Grzegorz Motyka that the 'Vistula' deportation action of 1947 constituted ethnic cleansing organized by the Polish communist authorities against Ukrainians. The commemorative measures of Ukrainian authorities and civil society regarding the honoring of memory markers (places) of the deported in Ukraine and Poland are demonstrated.

Because G. Călinescu’s collaboration with the communist regime has been the subject of endless debate and remains a contested issue, this study aims to present objectively—without anger or bias—the nature of the relationship between the eminent critic and the communist authorities during that period. To this end, the research draws on information from the communist propaganda newspaper „Glasul patriei” („Voice of the Country”), which was initially published in Berlin on Pankow Street (between 1955 and 1960), and subsequently in Bucharest on Christian Tell Street (between 1960 and 1972). The documentation under analysis covers the years 1955–1969, enabling us to trace the evolution of Călinescu’s public interventions—from the republication of his articles from „Contemporanul” („The Contemporary”) during the newspaper’s foreign period, to the encomiastic pieces he himself signed as “the divine critic” in what became a tool for denigrating the Romanian exile. This material allows us to observe how the communist regime cultivated its collaborators, promoting compliant (“listening”) writers abroad through lavishly funded translations—including, notably, the French editions of “Otilia’s Enigma”. As will be shown, the “divine critic” gradually assimilated the regime’s laudatory vocabulary, producing articles calibrated to the expectations of security agents who supervised both his writings and his private life.

The Hesychast movement Rugul Aprins (The Burning Bush) represents a model of spiritual strengthening and resistance thro‑ugh culture against atheistic-materialistic pro‑paganda and the persecution of the totalitarian communist regime in the post-war period. The initiative of journalist Sandu Tudor (Alexandru Teodorescu, who later became the monk Daniil) took the form of a series of meetings, presentati‑ons, and debates between various clergy, monks, intellectuals, students, and laypeople organized at the Antim Monastery in Bucharest between 1945 and 1948. Participants addressed spiritual topics such as the practice of unceasing prayer, the attainment of peace, the connection and difference between theological, artistic, and scientific modes of knowledge, and theology between contemplation and healing. Uncomfortable for the communist authorities, the Hesychast movement Rugul Aprins was outlawed in June 1948, the conferences were interrupted, and its clerical members were scattered to various monasteries throughout the country, considering such gatherings illegal and “hostile” to the social order. But the brutal repression of the movement in June 1958, when most of its members were arrested and sentenced to long prison terms (some, such as Father Daniil – Sandu Tudor, dying in detention), was a test of their professed faith in Jesus Christ the Savior and in eternal Christian values, even in the face of violent persecution and humiliating mockery.The Hesychast movement Rugul Aprins enriched its members in faith and conscience (both ecclesiastical and national), but also represented an environment of cultural emulation, with mystical experiences taking shape in many works of art (pictorial, musical, literary, poetic, philosophical, scientific) and inspiring generations of Christian intellectuals to this day

The text will be situated within the historical context of the fate of the Bulgarian Turks, particularly during the 1980s, exploring the possibilities of examining social trauma through the lens of the migration wave cynically referred to by the communist authorities as “The Great Excursion” and the subsequent “great return.” Affective experiences, contextualized in time and space—not only geographically, but also socially, politically, and economically—constitute an essential layer of the historical narrative, even though they lie far from the realm of factual narration. The specificity of the migratory experience, together with its broader historical and social context, provides an opportunity to direct attention toward particular aspects and themes. After the so-called “great excursion”, as well as after the migration waves to Turkey in the 1990s, and to this day, we are witnessing the reverse process of the return, and both then and now, this is a significant phenomenon, for the fuller understanding of which it is necessary to explore the emotional world and the affective life of the returnees, their experiences in a foreign land (as foreign as it is) and their sense of home, as well as what they perceive as foreign and what they regard as their own. In the text we will try to outline how emotions and affections can be driving forces in certain processes, not least determining the demographic, ethnic and economic reality in Bulgaria.

The article aims to examine the case of the Polish People’s Republic during the Cold War, with a particular emphasis on the Catholic Church as the central institution of resistance to communist rule. Despite systematic pressure and the promotion of state atheism by the communist authorities, the Polish Catholic Church maintained its role as a spiritual center, a source of moral authority, and a key actor in shaping cultural, social, and political life. By doing so, it emerged as the most significant competitor to the state in the spheres of ideology and social influence. Along with other institutions and phenomena such as national identity, intellectual elites, the diaspora, culture, and trade union movements, the Polish Catholic Church contributed to the permeability of the “Iron Curtain”, the gradual erosion of the communist regime, and represented the core of the suppressed but still active civil society of Poland. The case of Poland demonstrates the broader role of religious institutions in preserving national identity and fostering collective resistance under authoritarian socialism. The analysis of this paper employs a multidisciplinary approach that integrates historical, political, and cultural perspectives in order to assess the Church’s position within Polish society and its impact on the weakening of the totalitarian system.

After 1947, the struggle against the communist authorities in Poland was predominantly conducted by peasant fighters, which is an exceptional occurrence in Polish history. This kind of situation had not previously occurred. In the Lublin Voivodeship, the underground struggle was led by Zdzisław Broński “Uskok” and Edmund Edward Taraszkiewicz “Żelazny”. They fought from the end of the war until their deaths in 1949 and 1951, respectively. Their memoiristic writings, which were seized by the security organs and published by IPN (the Institute of National Remembrance), allow for the reconstruction of their value system which included elements such as: homeland and its freedom, faith in God, honor, and family. These values were strongly connected to the national history and fully aligned with the traditionally understood Polish patriotism. Additionally, instrumental values crucial for achieving the aforementioned priorities included: courage, heroism, care for subordinates and collaborators, uncompromising attitude, and dedication to the organization. Both commanders also revealed political and social values: anti-Sovietism, anti-communism, and acceptance of democracy as a social system. Given the value system they adopted and kept to and their resolute stance, they can be considered part of the elite fighting for Polish independence.

This This paper examines the oppositional role of the Catholic Church vis-àvis the ruling totalitarian regime in postwar Croatia. The new Communist government’s primary focus was directed against its chief political adversaries and national forces that rejected the new Yugoslav ideology and adhered to the idea of an independent Croatian state—the Ustashas and the Catholic Church. Given the Church’s considerable social influence and its capacity to mobilise resistance against Communist authority, it was subjected to intense repression during the early years of the regime. Ideologically committed to atheism, the Communists rejected religious institutions in general, and the Catholic Church in particular, perceiving it as an international organization with an external centre—the Vatican. This anti-religious stance led to the persecution of clergy, many of whom were arrested or executed, while others sought refuge abroad. Religious education came under severe attack, civil marriage was made obligatory, and the Catholic press was suppressed. Legal instruments were also exploited to undermine the Church’s societal standing. Members of the clergy were accused not only of collaboration with the Axis powers but also of participating in wartime atrocities and, after 1945, of maintaining a covert alliance with Italy via the Vatican. The first military court trials for “anti-national activities” were held in the summer of 1945, followed by a series of anti-clerical proceedings between 1945 and 1948, collectively referred to as the “Great Trials.” Among these, the most prominent was the trial of Archbishop Stepinac in the autumn of 1946. Despite extraordinary pressure and unprecedented terror between 1945 and 1953, the Catholic Church withstood the onslaught. Unlike all other opposition political forces, it remained the sole institution to preserve its societal position, emerging undefeated in the postwar era.

It is commonly agreed that the Poznań June began on June 28, 1956, and ended with a speech of Władysław Gomułka in the Cegielski Metal Factories (HCP) in Poznań in 1957. The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party appealed to draw a “mourning curtain of silence” over the demonstration. Since then, the topic, uncomfortable for the communist authorities, was omitted from public discourse. However, local community remembered and demanded respect for the dead and their families. This article focuses on the ways of commemoration of the Poznań June in the years 1958-80, i.e. at the most difficult moment. Modest attempts made by the Catholic Church or the inhabitants posed numerous problems for the authorities, only to explode with double force in 1976. In the years 1976-80, an organized opposition appeared and loudly demanded the commemoration of the events of 1956.

The deportation from the MSSR in the summer of 1949 is one of the most sinister events in the history of this space, which not only marked the fate of many families of Bessarabian peasants, but was, also, a turning point in the development of the social engineering project whose purpose was the formation of the ,,new man". The study focuses on the analysis of the war of the communist authorities against the inhabitants of the villages of Bessarabia, starting with the spring of 1944, the mechanisms of struggle against those who resist the Soviet agrarian policy. It also examines the ideological framework that served as the basis for instigating hatred for a part of the poor peasantry against that part of peasant households, which did not want to collectivize. Particular emphasis is placed on the analysis of the main political decisions that have ordered the identification of the categories of persons to be punished, and implicitly defined the course of repression and deportation to Siberia.