East Central Europe Research Articles

Praying with Moses Cordovero: Adopting and Adapting Spanish Kabbalah in Italy and East-Central Europe

Praying with Moses Cordovero: Adopting and Adapting Spanish Kabbalah in Italy and East-Central Europe

Regional Claims Through Exhibitions—The Transnational Circulation of Włocławek “Fajans” in East Central Europe

The article examines the exhibition history of hand-painted ceramic objects from the “Fajans” factory in Włocławek and the politics of regional contextualization during the period of détente in the 1970s and 1980s. It extends both existing scholarship on transnational art history in socialist Europe and the notion of cultural diplomacy, approached here in the context of regional politics and economic frameworks. The paper highlights the peripheral networks and movements that developed in relation to the socialist cultural politics of working-class artistic engagement and artistic practice as labor. Questions of cooperation between Poland and other socialist states are of particular interest, as are the implications of détente for East Central Europe. The reconstruction of the transnational circulation of “Fajans” objects is based on a comparative analysis of international “Fajans” exhibitions, using documentation from the archives of the Faience Department of the Museum of the Kujawy and Dobrzyń Land, as well as from the archives of the city of Novi Sad. Based on the researched material and the conceptual framework of transnational art history, the article proposes a concept of regional cultural diplomacy.

Making or faking capitalism? Socialist dreams and postsocialist experiences in East-Central Europe

ABSTRACT Our paper proposes to rethink the concepts of modernization and modernity in the context of state socialist and postsocialist transformations in Eastern and Central Europe. By focusing on historical transformations, we seek to challenge normative and static constructions of the state socialist legacy and show that such perceptions are rooted in the Cold War ideological division. One way to contest this division is to reconceptualize socialist modernity. Drawing on James Ferguson’s seminal study on the “expectations of modernity,” we argue that modernization was central to the Eastern European Communist parties’ claims to legitimacy. While the state socialist experiment proved to be a failed political and social project, the dreams of modernity bereft of socialism continued to shape people’s self-images and social visions beyond the borders of “Eastern” Europe. In order to better understand the state socialist legacy and the political and social thinking of “postsocialist” people, we propose to link the study of the small transformations of everyday life with the critique of binary constructions of the concepts of socialism and capitalism.

Changing European Minority Rights Standards

Abstract The Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, the only comprehensive international minority rights treaty, was adopted in 1995 to counter ethnocentric exclusionary tendencies characteristic of newly emerging democracies in East-Central Europe. It has been evaluated as largely successful in developing progressive standards on minority rights, while judged less efficient in implementing them across member states. This article shows on the example of Slovakia that this traditional narrative conceals another important one: while the Framework Convention’s monitoring body, the Advisory Committee, maintains formally progressive positions, in substance it is becoming more accommodating of exclusionary practices. By comparing the Advisory Committee’s standards expressed in its periodic opinions on Slovakia to developments on the ground, the article demonstrates that the international standards are in fact deteriorating. The Advisory Committee’s recent opinions are much more favourable to the Slovak government’s policies on minority rights. Yet, a detailed analysis shows that those policies have not become more minority-friendly in practice. In fact, in several ways they have regressed. The current acceptance of practices it criticized in the past is an important shift in the Advisory Committee’s position. Yet this shift is not reflected in its formal standards, which remain progressive. The analysis shows that the Advisory Committee’s lack of transparency in its monitoring procedures leads to a misrepresentation of the situation of minority rights, which provides cover for anti-minority practices. This makes it difficult for outside observers to evaluate the true state of minority rights and the effectiveness of international standards. In closing, the article engages with the normative assumptions behind the Advisory Committee’s approach. The Framework Convention does not have a strong enforcement mechanism, therefore cooperation with governments is essential to ensure compliance. However, by accommodating exclusionary practices, the Committee also legitimizes them. While valid arguments can be raised both for and against this approach, it is difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of this trade-off because of its clandestine nature. More transparent monitoring would give legitimacy to an objective international standard, which the current approach risks undermining.

Self-Imagining

While Western Europe’s visual cultural resistance to populism is often highlighted in both the media and academic studies, resistance to populism through artistic and cultural production is very seldom addressed in the academic studies dedicated to East-Central Europe. This does not mean that the cultural producers from the former East do not confront the surge of neo-populism in the region. How do artists understand and figure out cultural alternatives and resist right-wing populist politics and its culture in East-Central Europe? What are their strategies to react against ‘culturally popular’ formats and ethnoreligious nationalist culture in an age of generalised anxiety? This article focuses on alternative archives of visual art against populism, within which it addresses self-portraits, double-self-portraits, and multi-self-portraits understood as visual cultural productions that resist the pre-existing depictions of ‘the people’ – employed by the right-wing populist entrepreneurs – to polarise societies into friends versus enemies.

Campus Life in Contemporary Polish, Slovak, and Ukrainian Fiction

The article focuses on the image of campus life as presented in a selection of novels written in Polish, Slovak, and Ukrainian after 1989. The author presents generic peculiarities of Slavic campus fiction and analyses the theme of (academic) coming-of-age in Slavic campus fiction. The maturation of student characters in Maryna Hrymych’s Yura and Pavol Parkov’s The Legend About the Language occurred in Soviet Ukraine and Czechoslovakia, respectively, around 1968. In contrast, the protagonists of Jagoda Grudzień’s Erasmopeja and Tania Kalytenko’s Antero undergo academic identity formation in contemporary Scandinavian countries as participants in academic exchange programs. While Hrymych and Rankov portray characters navigating totalitarian societies of the past, Grudzień and Kalytenko situate their students within the anxieties of the globalised world, where remembering the past remains crucial. The author concludes that contemporary campus fiction written in Slavic languages addresses the issues significant for the cultural memory of the particular nation. Collectively, these novels contribute to a sense of continuity in academic culture within East-Central Europe.

The middle tier of states and the Russia–Ukraine war

Abstract This article examines the concept of the ‘middle tier of states’ proposed by Halford Mackinder in 1919, its failure to prevent German-Soviet Union rapprochement in the interwar years, its recent revival and its geopolitical implications. Mackinder's ‘heartland thesis’ comprises two interrelated parts: the geopolitical significance of the heartland, and the middle tier of states, which he suggested could counteract the pernicious impact of the heartland. Although the middle tier of states paralleled the 1919 Versailles settlement in east-central Europe, its failure to play the role that Mackinder suggested has never been properly investigated. Over the past decade, the middle tier of states has been revived by a range of regional cooperation projects in east-central Europe, while the Russia–Ukraine war attests to its necessity and viability in the current context. The Russia–Ukraine war has shown that a strengthened middle tier of NATO and European Union states will not just reshape the geopolitical landscape of Europe but will have significant implications for world politics.

Domestic Markets and International Podiums: Questions of Canonization of East-Central European Films from 1989 Till Now

This article explores the evolving visibility and recognition of post-1989 East-Central European (ECE) films within the broader framework of canonization. Focusing on Czechia, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, and Romania, it examines the local and European canonization of films from these countries through performances at leading European film festivals (Berlin, Cannes, Venice) and domestic film awards, alongside discussions on the films’ domestic and European theatrical distribution. Contrary to the assumption of inherent marginalization, the article argues that the recognition and visibility of ECE films are shaped by multifaceted factors and trends. While ECE films consistently feature at major European ­festivals and often transition their cultural prestige into successful European distribution, disparities in representation persist both across countries and between international and domestic recognition. International festivals tend to prioritize established auteurs, complicating the evolution of preferences and canons. Nevertheless, since the 2000s, a gradual transformation has emerged, introducing new transnational auteurs and shifting canonization dynamics. The relationship between domestic popularity and international success is significant but complex. Domestic acclaim does not guarantee international recognition, and vice versa.

Velkoplošné zpracování železa v raně středověkých protourbanistických sídlištích: případová studie z lokality Mikulčice-Valy, Česká republika

Pyrometallurgical remnants, including slags and technical ceramics, offer crucial insights into Early Medieval ironworking. Iron held substantial economic significance during this era and its processing is particularly evident in settlement agglomerations and proto-urban sites across Northern and East Central Europe. Despite its importance, large-scale ironworking remains inadequately explored within broader socio-economic contexts. Our study examines around 300 kg of pyrotechnical waste from the northern suburbium of the Mikulčice-Valy settlement agglomeration (Czech Republic) using macroscopic and metallographic (SEM-EDS, WD-XRF) methods. The findings reveal specialised blacksmithing characterised by intensity and diversity contributing to a better understanding of the operational dynamics and installations in craft-production workshops. We propose that blacksmiths capitalised on the proto-urban environment, satisfying a high demand for diverse iron commodities of a dense population actively engaged in household, agricultural and artisanal work. While elites facilitated access to raw materials and maintained relative peace, direct control over iron production and distribution among the elites appears limited, apart from valuables like weapons. This study sheds light on the complex interplay between ironworkers and political-economic structures, offering new perspectives on the mechanisms driving Early Medieval iron economies.

Analysis of lithium trade patterns and influencing factors in the regions along the "Belt and Road".

Lithium has broad applications in several emerging industries and fields, including high energy batteries, energy storage, aerospace, and controlled nuclear reactions. Currently, the discrepancy between the supply and demand for lithium resources increases, and its distribution is uneven. Within the framework of the "Belt and Road" Initiative, the lithium trade pattern evolves constantly. However, the trade pattern of lithium in the nations along the "Belt and Road" is likely to face substantial repercussions in modern world of unilateral protectionism and geopolitical conflicts. Taking the social network analysis approach as a tool, this study first examines the characteristics of the lithium trade network structure as it has evolved over the years in the Belt and Road countries, from 2000 to 2022. Additionally, this study uses the quadratic assignment problem approach to analyze the factors influencing the evolution of the lithium trade network. The study shows that: (1) The spatial patterns of import and export trade network of lithium in countries along the route has a certain path dependence. And the market is mainly concentrated in East Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, South America and Southeast Asia. (2) The network density of the countries along the route has increased year after year, but it remains low. And the fluctuation of the network's reciprocity has increased, with a huge magnitude of variation. The number of core countries in the network has decreased over time, but the core-periphery structure has stayed largely steady. China, Chile, and South Korea are the network's main node countries. (3) Regarding the influencing factors, the differences in economic and technological development between these countries have a beneficial impact on the formation of lithium trade; whether or not regional trade agreements have been signed, the differences about average tax rates for mineral products, bordering countries, and similar languages and cultures are all conducive to the establishment of close trade links. The contribution of this essay is of paramount importance for understanding different countries' role along the Belt and Road in the lithium trade network pattern, and promoting regional trade cooperation.

Intelligence Oversight and Accountability in Poland: Has Anything Changed?

The years 1990 and 1991 marked the beginning of a sea change in this particular area of the functioning of the Polish state. The following phenomena were analyzed: Over three decades on from the restitution of the Polish democratic state, how have the focal issues of key intelligence oversight institutions been addressed? How successful was the political transition in the area of intelligence services? The article is composed of four main parts. The first part provides a discussion of the “special services” concept, which determines the Polish institutional framework for intelligence oversight and accountability. Subsequent sections focus on particular forms of intelligence oversight: executive control, parliamentary oversight, and independent oversight. Our focus is on the institutional dimension of state security. The article is intended as an overview of the issue and relies on traditional historical and institutionalist approaches. Our proposal is to conduct a detailed case study to present the current situation in a country in East Central Europe, with the aim of generating general findings that could be used to guide reform efforts.

Post-Dissident Politics and the “Liberal Consensus” in East-Central Europe after 1989

This article’s central question is how former dissidents and their engagement in post-1989 nascent democratic politics contributed to the emergence of what was later retrospectively labelled the “liberal consensus.” I look at the earliest stages of this consensus before it started to lock in the conditionality of the EU accession process. To this end, I first discuss the “liberal consensus” from a retrospective and past prospective perspective. I define the notions of “post-dissent” and liberal politics emerging after 1989 on the dissident platform. I discuss the theoretical background and historical contours of the notion of dissident “politics of consensus.” The empirical core of the study is an analysis of the birth of post-dissident liberal parties in the process of the disintegration of broad consensual democratization movements of the 1989 revolutions. The study offers a comparison of the Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, and Polish cases, analyzing their similarities and less obvious but significant differences.

Relationship between extreme species richness and Holocene persistence of forest-steppe grasslands in Transylvania, Romania

The most species-rich grasslands worldwide are known from the Carpathian Mts and their periphery in East-Central Europe. They occur in forest-steppe regions, transitional between temperate forest and arid steppe biomes. Their climate, largely suitable for forests, raises questions about the origin of these grasslands. Have they been forested in the past, or locally maintained through a disturbance regime? We addressed these questions to contribute to the broader understanding of Holocene dynamics of open habitats in temperate Europe. We employed soil charcoal analysis and soil morphology to reconstruct past representation of woody species with fine spatial resolution. Our study area was Romanian Transylvania, a region renowned for a well-developed forest-steppe. Six soil profiles along a climatic gradient were assessed: four in forest-steppe grasslands, two in grasslands in adjacent forest region (forest grasslands). The results revealed profound differences between forest-steppe and forest grasslands. Forest-steppe profiles showed Phaeozems with low specific anthracomass of woody species and continuous dominance by Juniperus, suggesting a long-term presence of grasslands. Forest grasslands showed Luvisols with higher anthracomass and abundant charcoal of broad-leaved trees, indicating establishment after deforestation. The high radiocarbon ages of charcoals in basal soil horizons point to a glacial origin of soils and the link of forest-steppe grasslands to glacial forests. Siberian hemiboreal forests and related grasslands may be modern analogues of the reconstructed ecosystems, sharing many species with present day forest-steppe. We suggest that disturbances such as fire, herbivore grazing, and human activities have played an important role in shaping the forest-steppe over time, contributing to the formation of today’s richest grasslands.

From Rust to High-Tech Hubs: FDI-Led Upgrading of Urban Economies in East Central Europe

From Rust to High-Tech Hubs: FDI-Led Upgrading of Urban Economies in East Central Europe

The Ornamental Plant Sector and Ornamental Plant Producers During the COVID-19 Pandemic (Cultural Responses to a Pandemic Situation in a Production Setting in East Central Europe)

AbstractOn March 24, 2020, the international flower trade association Union Fleurs issued a statement on the situation of the ornamental plants sector hit by the Covid-19 crisis. In a study published in April 2020, Copa-Cogeca (European Farmers and European Agri-Cooperatives) echoed the findings of the above-mentioned international flower trade association, stating that the flower and ornamental plants sector was the agricultural sector most impacted by the coronavirus in the EU, as in most Member States, including Hungary and Romania, there was a historical drop in demand and consumption of almost 80%, and unfortunately the virus hit at the worst possible time, as the spring season would have been the peak period for ornamental horticulturalists. In my case study, I examine the flower growers of Curteni, a settlement in the Mureș region of Transylvania (Romania). How has this global phenomenon caused by the coronavirus manifested itself locally in a settlement where nearly 60 families make their living from growing and selling ornamental plants? Has this community been able to maintain its territorial/regional competitiveness? Have the people of Curteni joined the group of producers known in economic anthropology as farmers who chose to halt and wait, or did they find a quick and resilient response to the obstacles they encountered? How did this crisis become an identity-shaping factor in their lives? The pandemic has also exacerbated the situation in Curteni, made it more difficult to act and make decisions, and has brought new perspectives and values into play. The example of the florist community of Curteni shows that a new situation, and indeed any crisis, can bring about positive changes in the lives of communities. In any crisis, emergency, or exigency, members of a community may almost instinctively, but mostly also consciously, seek innovative responses to their problems. One way is to discover and exploit the opportunities inherent in a crisis, communally re-assessing and utilizing the available values, opportunities, and resources, and finding truly resilient responses.

Book Review: The Shaken Lands: Violence and the Crisis of Governance in East Central Europe, 1914–1923

Book Review: The Shaken Lands: Violence and the Crisis of Governance in East Central Europe, 1914–1923

Majorities at War: Transformation of East Central Europe

The article begins and ends with a discussion of the censuses of East Central Europe before and after the First World War. Both the former and the latter were contested by minority activists despite the enormous changes brought about by the post-war settlement. This paradox can be explained, at least in part, through selected case studies that illustrate the asynchronicity of political, economic, and social transformations. The text discusses first the dynamics of this change: nationalist mobilization in the face of the refugee problem and local military conflicts. Second, it raises the question of the legitimacy of the consolidating national states in the region, especially the desperate and often futile appeals to the population to support the young states in their fight against the national and Bolshevik enemies. Both processes resulted in the construction of national majorities, albeit at different rates. The social and mental changes brought about by war, forced migration, and revolution proceeded much more slowly than the transformation of political discourses, and even more slowly than the language of ethnic statistics in the service of national states.

Resisting the ‘civilising mission’. Analysing Hungarian conspiracy theories through standpoint theory

ABSTRACT Hungarian right-wing populists have been applying decolonial rhetoric in their conspiracy theories over the past three decades. Understanding their resistance against the ‘civilising' mission of ‘the West' – or recently ‘Brussels' – needs specific tools. By applying standpoint theory, our interest is in the domestication of globally existing conspiracy theories. Instead of imposing an external rationale upon conspiracy theory thinking, we seek to understand the conspiracy thinking from its' own epistemological standpoint/positioning. Extending our analysis of the recently successful political party Mi Hazánk Mozgalom (Our Homeland Movement) we analyse their election program, titled Virradat (Dawn), and how an East-Central European, semi-peripheric standpoint can be revealed from the text through the conspiracy theories utilized by the party. Our claim is that the utilisation of conspiracy theories in East-Central Europe can be interpreted as discursive tools of the resistance of a well-planned colonisation. We show how decolonial rhetoric is present in their election program and how it is tied to conspiracy theories which may be globally known, yet having their own, specific Hungarian features, deeply embedded in the country’s history and its radical- and far-right, populist political culture.

Large shallow lake response to anthropogenic stressors and climate change: Missing macroinvertebrate recovery after oligotrophication (Lake Balaton, East-Central Europe)

East-Central Europe's largest shallow lake, Balaton, experienced strong eutrophication in the 1970–80s, followed by water quality improvement and oligotrophication by 2010 CE. Recently however, repeated cyanobacterial blooms occurred and warned that internal P-recycling can act similarly to external P load, therefore we need a better understanding of past water level (WL) and trophic changes in the lake. In this study we discuss the last 500-yr trophic, WL and habitat changes of the lake using paleoecological (chironomids, pollen) and geochemical (sediment chlorophyll, TOC, TS, TN, C/H ratio, major and trace element) methods. We demonstrate that the most intensive and irreversible change in the macroinvertebrate fauna occurred during the period of economic boom between the First and Second World War (∼1925–1940 CE), when large-scale built-in and leisure use of the lake has intensified. At that time, the Procladius-Microchironomus-Stempellina dominated community transformed to Procladius-Chironomus plumosus-type-Microchironomus community that coincided with land use changes, intensified erosion and water-level regulation in the lake with the maintenance of year-round high WL. This was followed by the impoverishment and population size decrease of the chironomid fauna and Procladius dominance since 1940 CE, without any recovery after 1994 CE despite the ongoing oligotrophication. Accelerated rate of change and turnover of the fauna was connected to an increase in the benthivorous fish biomass and eutrophication. The basin lost almost completely its once characteristic Stempellina species between 1927 and 1940 CE due to trophic level increase and seasonal anoxia in the Szemes Basin. Reference conditions for ecosystem improvement were assigned to 1740–1900 CE. We conclude that in spite of the ongoing oligotrophication, the re-establishment of the Procladius-Microchironomus-Stempellina assemblage is hampered, and requires fish population regulation.

Between Active Matter and Letters: Kabbalah, Natural Knowledge, and Jewish How-To Books in Early Modern East-Central Europe

Abstract This essay focuses on Jewish practical kabbalistic books of recipes that were produced in early modern East-Central Europe. These handwritten sources document the Jewish engagement with practical forms of expertise, which were informed by the theoretical foundations of kabbalistic knowledge. Through two case studies, the article highlights Jewish vernacular ideas about nature and matter, and the techniques used to transform these ideas into practical things during the early modern period. It also explores the phenomenon of recording these ideas and methods in the form of practical kabbalistic books of recipes, which serve as a prime example of practical episteme. In so doing, the article sheds light on the significance of kabbalistic theosophy and practical kabbalistic traditions, particularly those developed in East-Central Europe, in the broader history of Western European knowledge production.