Communist Era Research Articles

The Leader’s Role in Building Religious Social Capital: A Religious Regional Community Leader in Poland

This paper analyses the religious and social efforts of Bishop Ignacy Tokarczuk in order to identify his role in the process of generating religious social capital. The research was based on an analysis of available sources and in particular published texts on the Bishop’s pastoral work. It demonstrates that during the difficult times of the communist era, the Bishop of Przemyśl was an unquestioned leader of local communities, who used religious resources to build religious social capital. Bishop Tokarczuk skilfully balanced Catholic bottom-up initiatives and activated local religious communities. His religious and social efforts prepared the ground for building a civil society. The results of Bishop’s social and religious work, which priests and lay Catholics also became involved in were impressive.

“Ovid’s Old Age”: Jacek Kaczmarski and the Sung Poetry of Exile

“Ovid’s Old Age” is a sung poem written by the Polish poet and musician Jacek Kaczmarski (1957–2004) which engages with the myth of Ovid’s exile. Kaczmarski’s works were heavily influenced both by classical culture and his experience of political emigration during the communist era. He was famed as an unofficial bard of the opposition movement, but is as yet little known to classical reception scholars. This paper presents Kaczmarski’s creative engagement with Ovid as both a deeply personal reflection on the nature of exile and at the same time a universal commentary on poetry under authoritarian regimes. Our interpretation is based on a thematic analysis of the poem, including landscape, imperialism, displacement, “national” poets in exile, nostalgia, and the force of poetry. We set the reception in its social, political, and biographical context, with reference to several mediating receptions of the Ovidian exile. In Kaczmarski’s poem, the Ovidian voice helps the poet to express the trials of emigration and reveals their effect on his art. It shows how engagements with classical culture may flourish, even while the formal discipline of Classics has been undernourished. We provide a bilingual translation of “Ovid’s Old Age” to foster the understanding of migratory experiences in contemporary poetry and enrich international scholarship on the reception of Ovid with a response from communist Poland.

A fly in amber? Nordic-Balkan citizen diplomacy and cultural connections then and now

Active citizen diplomacy and cultural connections between the Nordic countries and the Balkans date their beginnings to the eighteenth century. The contacts between ordinary people in Finland and Bulgaria, Sweden and Serbia are a little researched but important aspect of the common history of Europe, created not by states or officials, but by individuals and associations. In the first period until World War II, cultural actors such as writers and artists contributed to the dialogue, but after the change of regimes in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, cultural friendship associations maintained non-formal connections beside the official diplomatic relations. Individual contacts were scarce and exchange mainly channeled through these structures. Today, the politics have changed, but where does citizen diplomacy stand? The role of associations has been significantly reduced in comparison with the Communist era and the friendship model appears antiquated in the time of Internet, increasing individual tourism and growing possibilities for cultural exchange within the European Union framework. This historical overview and conceptual article argues that both a fresh approach and a critical review about citizen diplomacy are needed. Looking in the rear-mirror of the past and into the present and future, it becomes clear that earlier relations and today’s contacts must be mapped out to a larger extent than has ever been done before.

Irregularities in Football. ‘Cooperativa’: A History of Match-Fixing in Romanian Football

Fixed football matches are a widely analysed phenomenon and in order to better understand it, it is useful to follow its historical trajectory. In this direction, the Romanian case is important to discover various types of fraud under two different political regimes. The roots of the fixing phenomenon in Romanian football were prominent during the communist era and also during the subsequent developments following the fall of communism. This complex system is known in popular culture under the name ‘Cooperativa’ and was a relational structure of a few football clubs, whose connections continued after the fall of communism. In time, the phenomenon of fixed matches came to be considered a normal condition in Romanian football. The way how 'Cooperativa’ transformed and how this phenomenon evolved still fascinates Romanian society. Started as a form of sports survival through corruption during communism. ‘Cooperativa’ became a central group of influence having adapted to capitalist society and succeeded to control the competition through intimidation, abuses and match fixing.

Exploring the Case: Tourism Planning in the Slovak High Tatras

Introduction This case narrates the different stages planning of tourism in a mountainous area of Slovakia over a couple of centuries, with particular attention to the highly structured planning of communist times. It can help academics and students of tourism, economics, history, rural planning and other disciplines understand how such areas were perceived and planned over time and the modern legacy of past planning policies. For students studying the history of tourism, it provides a valuable perspective on how tourism evolved in the mountain resorts of central Europe and how decisions were taken at a policy level in the post-war communist era. The logic of that period is similar to that of many countries around the world today where planning is centralized.

Towards improving OCR accuracy with Bulgarian Language Resources

In 2017, the National Library “Ivan Vazov”–Plovdiv, embarked on a digitalization project whose ultimate purpose is to provide both learners and scholars with several types of content, including periodicals and books published during the late Bulgarian National Revival and afterwards, in the decades before the communist era (1870s-1940s). We focus on the technical aspects of the digitalization project that involves optical character recognition (OCR) and requires proper handling of Cyrillic texts. The paper provides insight into the library’s joint activities with its partners from the Institute of Information and Communication Technology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences to develop relevant tools and methodologies, by stressing the mutual benefits from the co-operations. The library’s participation in the project CLaDA-BG, integrated within the European CLARIN and DARIAH infrastructures, offered a chance to take advantage of the multidisciplinary expertise of the partnering organisations and to develop the best methodology for OCR and consequently to enhance the methods of using and handling the acquired machine-readable text.

The Beginning of Ukrman – a Fighter against the Evil and the Coronavirus

Comics have a big task in Ukraine: Through them nation is built, historical events are discussed and identity is constructed. In 2018 Ukraine’s first superhero was introduced: UKRMAN. In the past, the Cossacks have been the heroes of Ukraine and were also portrayed in various comics. But in a time when the national integrity of Ukraine is tested through an armed conflict in the East, a new superhero is sorely needed. The comic combines the past (Communist era with the Chernobyl nuclear accident) and the present of Ukraine in a unique way. The article will show why the implementation of a new superhero (especially his look, his behavior and the background of the plot) is necessary for Ukrainian nation building. The symbols UKRMAN uses tend to unify the country by giving it a superhero everybody can identify him- or herself with. The message of the comic is that someone does not have to wear a cape to be depicted as a hero. The comic as the beginning of a project with videos and merchandise is the first one of that kind in Ukraine.

Institutional Memories and Transgenerational Dynamics: The House of Terror and the Memorial of the Victims of Communism and of the Resistance

This article provides an insight into the twenty-first century politics of institutionalized memory in two former communist countries, Romania and Hungary, as illustrated by their respective human rights memorial museums’ practices of documenting communist era abuse. After discussing the ways in which the two museums under consideration here inscribe themselves into the red and dark tourism phenomena, the article focuses on acts of over-remembering and misremembering that affect the politics of museal representation, highlighting the emotional communities created by these museums as well as the incomplete representation of the victim-victimizer rapport. In doing so, the article argues that institutionalized museal interventions into recent collective national and regional memories are representative of the still undecided legacy of communism in East and Central Europe.

THE SARMATIAN DISCOVERIES FROM RIPICENI – LA STÂNCĂ (BOTOȘANI COUNTY/RO): TWO GRAVES AND MANY QUESTIONS

The present paper aims to analyse two graves and other stray finds dated to the Roman period and discovered in 1979 and 1983 in the site of Ripiceni – La Stânca (Botoșani County/RO). Grave 1 belongs to an adult female (around 55-60 years old) with the skull intentionally deformed in the first years after her birth. The calvaria of the deceased no. 2 (a child around 2-3 years old) had also traces of artificial deformation. The morphology of both skeletons and the funerary inventory (beads, astragals, ceramics, etc.) can be associated with the Sarmatian culture. Based on analogies one can date the two graves from Ripiceni – La Sânca during the second half of the 2nd century – 3rd century AD. Probably this features are only a small part of a bigger cemetery destroyed by the animal farm complex constructed in the communist era.

Transformation of the special services in Poland in the context of political changes

The article presents the transformation of special services in Poland against the background of political changes. It presents the activities of security bodies – civil and military intelligence and counterintelligence during the communist era. Their task was to strengthen communist power, eliminate opponents of the system, strengthen the alliance of socialist countries led by the USSR, and fight against democratic opposition. The creation of new special services was also shown: the UOP and the WSI. The focus was on the new tasks that were set for them in connection with the democratic changes and new alliances. There were presented spectacular UOP actions, which contributed to raising the prestige of Poland on the international arena.

Lakótelepek esztétikai értékelésének kísérlete szegedi mintaterületek alapján

The aesthetics of landscapes and the environment has not received considerable research attention. The main reason for this is that aesthetic evaluation contains too many subjective elements, which is not always compatible with the cold rationalism of researchers. Despite this, researchers regularly comment on the aesthetics of urban environments. This is not accidental. There is a connection between the aesthetics of phenomena and the decision-making with regard to them. The aesthetic appearance of an area affects millions of decisions regarding investments, tourism destinations, or the choice of dwelling-place. In Hungary, around one third of the urban population is living in housing estates; this environment is an everyday reality for most of the urban population. The housing estates were built during the communist era and received major criticism almost instantly in both sociology and architecture. In recent decades both the Hungarian state and the local government of Szeged have made significant investments aimed at increasing the quality of the housing estates’ environment. For determining the aesthetics of housing areas and their environment, we improved our earlier- developed method, which was used for evaluating single downtown buildings. The improved method was tested in three different sample housing areas. For the evaluation of architecturally homogeneous, newly-constructed or refurbished buildings, we have introduced the concept of the visual unit, which incorporates multiple buildings and their surroundings. This solution speeds up the evaluation process, and it can also be used to score individual buildings, if necessary. We also examined visual conflicts which affect the aesthetics of the area and can reduce the value of the visual condition. The key result of our research is the thematic mapping of three categories, including the aesthetically valuable, and therefore attractive areas, which can be distinguished from the aesthetically problematic, and therefore repulsive areas, and from the areas which can be (and should be) improved aesthetically.

Rewolucyjne partie chłopskie w II RP w świetle historiografii

The aim of this article is to summarise the current state of academic research regarding revolutionary peasant parties in the Second Polish Republic: the Independent Peasant Party (IPP), Union of Peasant Left “Self-Help” and Belarussian Peasant and Workers “Hromada” that operated in the north-eastern borderlands. These political formations, whose target group was peasants, were crypto-communist. Although officially independent, they were actually agencies
 of the Communist Party of Poland (CPP) and Communist Party of Western Belarus, which were in turn branches of Soviet intelligence in Poland. These groups aroused greatest interest among researchers prior to 1989 (during the existence of the communist block) due to the fact that Polish historians, members of the ruling Polish United Workers’ Party at the time, monopolised scientific research. Members of the PUWP’s satellite United People’s Party also had the
 opportunity to work on this issue, but their influence was much weaker. Articles regarding the Hromada were also available; however, much more detailed and important were those written in the Belarussian SSR. Practically in all cases those scientific papers were written in line with the communist ideology that praised the work of these parties. Still, thanks to research in Polish and Soviet archives, we can obtain valuable information about them and their members. After the decline of the communist block the topic has received much less attention from researchers both in Poland and Belarus, except for those who had already worked on it during the communist era and published a few fragmentary articles. As a result, the issue discussed in this article is still waiting for comprehensive and honest scholarship.

Housing Difficulties in Post-war Poland: A Case Study of Wrocław from 1945 up to the 1960s

Abstract Housing problems were an inherent feature of the entire communist system—both in the People’s Poland and in other countries of the Soviet bloc. Wrocław was no exception in this respect. However, its geographical location and historical and political entanglement caused the problems of the communist era to be much more intense and acute in Wrocław. A deficit of flats, their low quality and questionable aesthetics were a distinctive feature of the constructions in all the cities of the Soviet bloc. In Wrocław however, combined with the extreme under-investment, these problems were exceptionally clear. Therefore, it seems that Wrocław exemplifies these shortcomings and can be a good case study to get acquainted with the daily grief of the people of the Polish Republic of Poland, related to the housing difficulties.

Actors in the social world of public drama theatre in Poland during the communist period and in the 21st century. A comparative analysis

This article aims to provide a comparative analysis of the social condition of actors during the communist era in Poland and after the political transformation of 1989. The empirical material used by the author includes popular science publications devoted to actors of Polish public drama theatres as well as free-flowing interviews conducted by the author in 2015–2017 with theatre artists representing six Polish theatrical centres. Actors who remember the period of the People’s Republic of Poland well are nostalgic about the past theatrical life, they remember being on familiar terms within theatre teams, anti-rankism, and the inclusion of technical and administrative staff in the community of artists without emphasising hierarchies. Today, the social, ideological and political divides in theatre teams are more noticeable. Distinguished actors are being challenged by young colleagues, while they were held in high regard in the past. Nowadays, multi-active actors demythologise the profession of an actor and point to the decline of the professional ethos.

Living Communist History in the Living Room: The Communist Consumer Museum in Timisoara, Romania

The aim of this article is to construe the Communist Consumer Museum in Timişoara, Romania, as a realm of communist everyday life memory in the current historical context, marked by an upsurge of both nostalgia and cultural entrepreneurship. The article identifies this Museum as an alternative one, in which the remembrance of everyday consumption, ideology, popular and official culture presupposes an affective interaction of the visitor with a series of material artifacts and household objects from the communist everyday life. For the analysis of this museum I will rely on written and oral history interviews, as well as on participant observation and theoretical approaches to memory, nostalgia, and entrepreneurship studies. In construing this project, I will go beyond the received wisdom of mere nostalgia, while taking into account the entrepreneurial private project of its initiators, as well as the multitude of perspectives on the museum, which arise from the way it is conceived. Thus, by being an unofficial initiative and devoid of a state agenda, the Communist Consumer Museum produces a democratization of the approach to history. While the setting itself is not authentic, mainly because of it being housed in a villa which precedes the communist era, as well as because of the amount of material artifacts, which turn the “apartment” into a post factum conglomerate of objects, I argue that it is the very accumulation of such artifacts within the museum that offers its viewers the opportunity of choice.

Emilia Petrescu – thoughts about Vocal Music and Pedagogy

In the middle of the communist era, a Romanian singer with talent, music knowledge and ambition, manages the performance of devoting herself to a vast concertrepertoire, not exactly a friendly one with the atheist views of the official doctrine of the proletariat, who recently was installed in Romania after the World War II. Her vocal repertoire included Songs (Lieder) and Oratory, represented by vocal-symphonic works mostly with religious content. But through a high level of professionalism, her well mastered vocal technique and a unique intelligence in mastering the musical phrase, also with a practical temperament, Emilia Petrescu manages to achieve a wide national and European recognition. This article aims to reconstruct some of the artist's thoughts on the art of singing, which I hope will be useful to new generations of singers."

From educational experiment to an alternative to the national programme. International Baccalaureate Programmes in Poland – policy and practice perspectives

ABSTRACT The goal of this study is to examine the distinctive features of International Baccalaureate (IB) programmes in Poland, and the role of IB programmes in the Polish education system. To address this aim, a review of the relevant legislation has been carried out, accompanied by interviews with teachers and students in 9 IB schools in Poland. Results revealed that even though the functions of IB schools differ somewhat from country to country, there appear to be several common features underpinning the development of IB in Poland: (1) the deregulatory policy of establishing international schools after the socio-political changes of the 1990s, (2) the growing demand for internationally validated programmes among students that come to Poland from abroad, and (3) a growing aspiration among students and their parents for a wider selection of programmes to choose from compared to the limited choices available in Poland during the communist era.

Rebranding the Cultural Legacy of Communism: The Golden Stag Festival (Braşov, Romania) and Local Placemaking

ABSTRACT Music festivals have always had a key role in the production and reproduction of urban identities, regardless of the various leading political systems. This paper focuses on the Golden Stag Pop Music Festival (Brasov, Romania) as a particular case study in-depth investigated. It emphasizes the festival’s distinctive and complex issues: from a former communist era festival (a rather unusual form of heritage), it was rebranded as a completely new post-communist musical event. The festival plays an important role in the post-socialist place-making of Brasov. The study aims to unpack the issues of rebranding this festival as part of the cultural legacy of communism enhancing the local placemaking. The research uses a multi-method approach all-through the study with quantitative and qualitative analysis. In addition, ethnographic research and visual methodologies were used to examine this emblematic music festival. The findings are designed to inspire local urban agendas of all involved actors to rebrand the festival, thus refashioning the cultural legacy of communism and enhancing the local placemaking.

In search of lost tradition. Orthodox pedagogy and the desecularisation of education studies in Russia

ABSTRACT Facing the liberalisation of religious policy at the dusk of the communist era, the Russian Orthodox Church actively engaged with religious education, boosting this previously stagnant field. This contribution complicates criticism of these Orthodox initiatives as a ‘clericalisation’ of education by shifting focus from the ecclesiastical hierarchy to lay educators building the subdiscipline of Orthodox pedagogy in the education faculties of state universities and private theological institutes. Following the four voices of theology approach, this contribution considers Orthodox pedagogy, as we know it from the writings of the leading scholars working in this field, as ‘espoused’ and ‘operant’ theology. It addresses the centrality of tradition for Orthodox education, the meanings ascribed to tradition in different discursive contexts, and how these meanings affect the problem of identity. While the educationalists discussed here represent different trends within the Orthodox spectrum, and espouse heterogeneous influences, they share a belief in the need to root religious pedagogy in native Russian cultural and intellectual traditions.

The Chinese Tradition of Administrative Law

For most of the time during the last two millennia, China was a dynastic empire ruled by an emperor with the assistance of a highly developed mandarinate of imperial organs. “Administrative law” in the modern sense of a set of legal norms enacted by the legislature or developed by the judiciary that simultaneously empower and constrain state organs and officials for the purpose of protecting the rights and liberties of subjects or citizens did not exist in traditional China. But there did exist for more than two millenniums elaborate and sophisticated rules regulating the powers and functions of each component of the highly complex and extensive machinery of imperial organs and officials, and prescribing in detail the duties of officials as well as the multiple and complicated monitoring, supervisory and disciplinary mechanisms applicable to the exercise of powers and performance of duties by officials in different state organs. By the late 19th century, Qing China’s increasing subordination to Western imperialism and semi-colonialism convinced significant numbers of Chinese political and scholarly elite that there was a desperate need for China to “save” and strengthen itself by pursuing modernization. In the legal and political domains, this generally meant extensive borrowing or transplant of Western political and legal institutions. After China's defeat by Japan in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895, Japan’s experience of successful modernisation was widely admired by Chinese intellectuals, and the Japanese model was perceived as one that China should imitate in its self-strengthening efforts. This essay will therefore begin with the introduction and reception of Japanese administrative law in China in the late Qing Dynasty. It will then survey the study of comparative law and the influence of foreign law on the development of Chinese administrative law in the Republic of China era (1911–1949) and after the establishment of the People's Republic of China (1949-). Major developments in Chinese administrative law in both the Republican era and the Communist era will also be briefly outlined as the context of administrative law scholarship. It will be seen that the story of the study of comparative and foreign administrative law in modern China is very closely intertwined with the story of the development of Chinese administrative law itself.