European Perceptions Research Articles

Young people in Latvia and Georgia: identity formation and the imprints of traditions and globalization

ABSTRACT Youth in the post-Soviet countries have faced the challenges of identity formation in concomitance with the processes of state-building in newly independent states. This paper focuses on young people aged 14 to 19 in seemingly different post-Soviet countries, Georgia and Latvia, who grew up after the collapse of the Soviet Union in independent countries striving towards Europe and its values. Based on qualitative interviews conducted in schools for the <#funding-source;>Horizon 2020</#funding-source;> CHIEF project, the paper discusses some aspects of young people’s identity formation, and how they see themselves in national and European contexts. Along with some similarities evident in both countries, such as young people reporting a very strong sense of national belonging and identity, the data also show important differences when it comes to young people’s perceptions of Europe in Latvia and Georgia, as the latter report some reluctance in regards to accepting European identity and values.

The Country of “Yellow Lord”: Russia in the Context of the Perception of Europe by the Population of Arabic Mediterranean in the Early Modern Time

The evolution of the identification of imaginary communities, including through group oppositions ‘Friend-Foe’, is one of the least studied phenomena of the historical process. The Muslim-Christian look at each other across the Mediterranean provides an extensive field of research in this regard. In recent decades the scientists prefer to talk about the Mediterranean World as a single space that not only divides but connects the Arab-Muslim and Eastern- and Western-European civilizations. This point of view stands up to the still popular binary oppositions as “East vs. West” or “Christian world vs. Muslim world”. The simplicity of such approach considering the humanity to be divided to culturally incompatible and religiously hostile civilizations is proved in particular by numerous connections between the inhabitants of Europe and the Middle East at the early Modern times. Russia has entered into the close cooperation with the Arab world in the 16th — 18th centuries: first through pilgrim-ages and inter-Orthodox contacts, and in the Catherine epoch by organizing the military invasion of the region. The presented article is about how different groups of Arabs, — Muslims and Christians, people of religion and secular rulers, — were perceiving Europe in general and Russia in particular at the early Modern times.

Entre o Exótico e o Autêntico: Manifestações Racialistas nas Interpretações Sobre a Paisagem e os Habitantes do Novo Mundo

O presente artigo procura contribuir para o amplo debate acerca da percepção europeia sobre o Novo Mundo, no período compreendido entre as últimas décadas do século XVIII e as primeiras do século XIX, apontando as mudanças e as permanências que marcaram o alvorecer do Romantismo como movimento herdeiro e, ao mesmo tempo, crítico dos Iluminismos. Nessa esteira, verificam-se importantes ressignificações da percepção europeia sobre a paisagem do Novo Mundo, como também sobre os seus habitantes. Assim, as noções – pejorativas- de exotismo que acompanhavam as descrições europeias sobre o clima, a vegetação, a fauna, a flora e os povos americanos, passavam a ceder lugar, com o Romantismo, a impressões mais positivas, mais associadas a uma espécie de reconhecimento europeu da diferença, chancelando a autenticidade alheia. Não obstante, embora o olhar europeu para a paisagem do Novo Mundo tenha se ressignificado, no que tangia aos seus habitantes não-brancos – americanos e africanos – permaneciam nas entrelinhas dos elogios à virtuosidade do índio e à força física do negro – africano ou crioulo – arraigadas concepções racialistas, responsáveis por justificar biológica e psicologicamente a suposta inferioridade física e moral desses contingentes humanos. Por essa via, o artigo pretende enfatizar as múltiplas camadas discursivas que contribuíram para que o olhar europeu em relação à alteridade tenha sido forjado na chave de sua superioridade, sugerindo, assim, alargar o campo de discussão sobre o que se convencionou chamar racialismo.

Conclusion of Peace in Printing Forms of Communication of Westphalian System (Based on Peace Journalism in the Middle of the XVII and the Beginning of the XVIII Centuries)

The article presents a comparative political analysis of peace journalism during the end of the Thirty Years’ War and the first decades of the Age of Enlightenment. The author believes that the Early Modern Period became the first peak of peace journalism, and peace congresses were the highest point of international&#x0D; communication. The Thirty Years’ War was the first religious-political conflict, during&#x0D; which information on military events, both officially propaganda and oppositional&#x0D; one, was spread throughout the continent. The article notes that it was peace&#x0D; journalism that gave the name to this long and destructive European war. Almost&#x0D; half a century later, from peace congresses in Ryswick (1697), and in Utrecht&#x0D; (1713), a new «medial type» appeared, which purpose was to periodically familiarize&#x0D; European society with the development of the negotiation process and comment&#x0D; on the events taking place. To convey events to the reading public and for propaganda&#x0D; the activities of sovereigns and governments, materials of peace congresses&#x0D; began to be published shortly after their conclusion.&#x0D; In general, by the Age of Enlightenment, the peace press had obviously changed, new international publications appeared, peace projects had been created, and the periodicals became more open and full of discussion. Many years of the&#x0D; conflict had contributed to the growing perception of Europe as an international&#x0D; community, and performative nature and congress journalism emphasized European character of peace and the protopatriotic moods evoked by the concept «Europe ». The author comes to the conclusion that the peace journalism of the studied period was a form of communication that perfectly reflected the contradictions and&#x0D; transformations in European society before, during and after the conclusion of&#x0D; peace, and, in general political terms, the developed the function of «enter» that characterized the subject political culture. It was like an indicator showing the level of political competition and helped contemporaries and descendants to look at the ongoing international transformations objectively.

WAYS OF THE PIANISTS-PERFORMERS TRAINING IMPROVEMENT IN ART INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION OF CHINA

Based on the analysis of the existing problems, the article highlights the ways of improving the pianists-performers training in art institutions of higher education in China. The main recommendations that will help improve the quality of pianists-performers training in art institutions of higher education, include: increasing the level of music-theoretical knowledge, historical thinking and auditory experience of European music perception by students; improving the mechanism of performance mastering of the sound space by musicians; forming students’ ideas about musical drama; guiding students’ independent work through special tasks aimed at expanding the artistic worldview, the general thesaurus; developing and creating a specialized resource on the Internet to promote advanced methods of training pianists

Thick Europe, ontological security and parochial Europe: the re-emergence of far-right extremism and terrorism after the refugee crisis of 2015

ABSTRACT This article examines the re-emergence of far-right extremism and terrorism as the adversary of European integration. The European Union (EU) becoming a grievance factor for far-right extremism and terror is qualitatively new. This article examines the emergence of this new actor in line with the changing four faces of the EU presented in this special issue, namely thin, thick, parochial and global. Paradoxically, the core argument of this article is that moves towards thick Europe have contributed to this development by way of addressing core fears in Europe after the migration/refugee crisis in 2015. The chronological discourse of the construction of the EU's identity has showed that since 2014, there has been a major shift regarding Europeans’ fears and anxieties. (In)security linked to the migration/refugee crisis has been widening the market for security, despite the contrasting fact that Europe has been thriving for the longest peace period since WWII. This article analyses the impacts of the refugee crisis on the mutation of the European perception of threats. It uses the concept of ontological security to understand how the anxiety and fear caused by the refugee crisis led to the shaping of the European self-identity crisis.

English

English

‘Europe’ of populist radical right and the case of Lega of Salvini: pioneer of a ‘Parochial Europe’?

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the ‘Europe’ of populist radical right parties in general, and the Lega of Matteo Salvini and its perception of Europe in particular. Especially after Brexit, Salvini has emphasized the goal of transforming Europe and taking back Italian sovereignty rather than leaving the EU. His discourse on ‘Europe for Europeans’ and ‘Italy for Italians’ represents an exclusive and nativist approach. Before the 2019 elections of the European Parliament, the contestation between many Europes came to the fore while the Lega has become a pioneer for populist radical right parties during the campaign period on behalf of a ‘parochial Europe’. This article firstly explains the methodology, conceptual analysis, and analytical framework based on European multiplicity – as thin, thick, parochial, and global Europe. Secondly, it evaluates the ‘Others’ of parochial Europe, particularly for Lega. Thirdly, it analyses the case of the Lega as the pioneer of parochial Europe before the May 2019 EP elections based on semi-structured, face-to-face, in-depth expert interviews conducted by the author.

Great Expectations and Interwar Realities: Hungarian Cultural Diplomacy, 1918–1941

Great Expectations and Interwar Realities: Hungarian Cultural Diplomacy, 1918–1941

European perceptions on crowdfunding for renewables: Positivity and pragmatism

•Funding for renewables has been cut across Europe in the years since the financial crisis.•Crowdfunding models share a societal ethos with proponents of investment in renewables.•Positive attitudes are shown to be widespread regarding crowdfunding's potential to support renewables.•The evidence suggests that both emotional and pragmatic (experiential) factors underpin this pattern.

Critical Europeans in an Age of Crisis: Irish and Portuguese Protesters' EU Perceptions

AbstractThis article examines Irish and Portuguese protesters' perceptions of the EU in the decade since the European debt crisis. Building on EU politics, social movement and protest literatures, we ask how domestic protesters in both countries perceive the EU during its age of crisis protest timescape. We find that critical Europeanism, which rejects technocratic and neoliberal Europe and works towards an alternative, social Europe, has travelled beyond austerity/bailout protests into women's rights and housing protests in both countries, although to varying degrees. We suggest that the expansion of critical European perceptions in these traditionally Europhile member states forms part of the social and political legacy of the European debt crisis, but also contributes to the continued Europeanization of the European social movement space. It could have positive impacts on the EU's legitimacy deficit if EU institutions engaged meaningfully with critical European voices.

Intelligentsia Like a Challenge: the Identity of the Russian Intelligentsia in the 21st Century

The article is devoted to the problem of the Russian intelligentsia identity formation in the 21st century. The authors trace a historical path that the Russian intelligentsia has gone through. Russian philosophers of the 20th century rated this path as tragic, noting that the intelligentsia itself wrote its own history, having captured it in great cultural texts well known in Russia and in the world. The need to understand oneself, one’s purpose, to understand the peculiarity of the situation in Russia and the world is an expression of the intelligentsia’s self-consciousness. Cultural memory, allowing the intelligentsia to maintain its own integrity, plays a leading role in shaping the identity of the intelligentsia. It allows for its own integrity to be maintained. The Russian intelligentsia is a socio-cultural type, including the complex mix of ideas and values which has been shaped since the end of the 18th century in difficult historical conditions. From the beginning, the intelligentsia tried to solve the problem of Russian modernization through enlightening, initiating social changes and participating in them. The Russian intelligentsia formed a special character - psychological traits and behavior, opposite to the type of European intellectuals. Until now, the Russian intelligentsia argues about itself, becoming sometimes closer to European intellectuals, but affirming sometimes its singularity. Nevertheless, in modern Russia there is a widespread perception that the intelligentsia is being replaced by a class of intellectuals - professionals, experts, and public intellectuals which strive to influence the formation of public discourse and the discourse of power. In the course of post-Soviet transformations, the intelligentsia began to lose not only the role of public and political actor, but also the role of the moral elite. The consequences of this process are destructive for younger generations and society as a whole. The study conducted by the authors of the article shows that the discourse of intelligentsia is changing as well as the discourse about it, although the intelligentsia is being constructed in a process of permanent dispute about the past, present and future of Russia. At the same time, intellectual identity is being formed in this dispute. So, it would be wrong to perceive the Russian intelligentsia as an unchanging phenomenon. Its openness to cultural and social changes allows us to talk about the formation of the intelligentsia of the 21st century. The study also reveals that the attitudes towards the intelligentsia expressed by the young generation of educated Russians living in an open, global world, are changing. The new vision of the intelligentsia is similar to its European perception as an intellectual elite. At the same time, a desire of young Russians to turn to the values historically constituting the moral code of the Russian intelligentsia, is observed. Thus, it cannot be said that the intelligentsia has disappeared from Russian public life; instead, the intelligentsia identity is a cultural challenge for the younger generation of modern Russians.

Doğu Avrupa'nın Din Merkezli Göçmen Politikaları

Göç, tarihin başlangıcından bu yana, insanoğlunun en özgün karakteristiği ve küreselleşmenin ilk adımı olmuştur. Günümüzde küreselleşme ve göç birbirini besleyip büyütmeye devam ederken, devletler de her geçen gün sayıları hızla artan göçmenlerle nasıl baş edebileceklerinin yollarını aramaktadırlar. Bir yandan evrensel ve bölgesel normlar ve değerler tartışılırken, bir yandan da spesifik ve marjinal tedbirler düşünülmekte. Hıristiyan Roma topraklarının mirasçısı olan Avrupa’nın “kimlik” ve “öteki” algısı, çoğunlukla Müslüman kimliğine sahip Doğudan gelen işgallere karşı duyulan korku üzerine inşa edilmiştir. Hal böyle olunca, Suriye iç savaşının tetiklemiş olduğu mülteci krizi, İslam’a duyulan korkuyu tetiklemiş oldu. Doğu Avrupa ülkelerinin din merkezli mülteci politikalarının arka planı ile dinin, kültürün ve siyasetin neden bu denli iç içe geçmiş olduğunun cevabı Avrupa’nın tarihi ve kültürel bağlarında yatmaktadır.

Contesting ‘EU as Empire’ from Within? Analysing European Perceptions on EU Presence and Practices in the Mediterranean

In a context of ongoing popular resistance in the Arab world, the question of how this has affected the view of the EU’s role in the region by European stakeholders has not yet sufficiently be inquired into. How is the EU – and its presence and practices particularly – perceived within its own core, by its policymakers on one hand, and by the European civil society it also involves in its policies, on the other? Institutional stakeholders see the space the EU occupies in the Mediterranean as rather limited with other powers growing in the region. In contrast to this, resistance of European civil society to the current EU role is growing. Not only is the EU now criticized of massive human rights violation itself, specifically in the area of migration, but its whole development model is called into question, including within Europe itself. At the same time, civil society presents a strong alternative imagination of the EU as a non-colonial presence whose practices are based on a universal human rights approach with a strong focus on socio-economic rights/social justice and the inclusion of a variety of actors. European Union, Mediterranean, civil society, democracy, human rights, resilience

Engaging the Ottoman Empire: Vexed Mediations, 1690–1815. Daniel O’Quinn. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019. Pp. 468.

<i>Engaging the Ottoman Empire: Vexed Mediations, 1690–1815</i>. Daniel O’Quinn. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019. Pp. 468.

Changing European Perceptions and Images on China through the Eighteenth Century

Changing European Perceptions and Images on China through the Eighteenth Century

Dialectal Variation in European Portuguese Central Vowel Perception

The present paper aims at providing empirical evidence for dialectal variation concerning the perception of the central vowel [ɐ] in European Portuguese (EP). More concretely, this study compares the perception of the contrast between [a] and [ɐ] by native speakers of two varieties of EP: 23 speakers of a northern Portuguese dialect (from the city of Braga) and 23 speakers of the Littoral Center variety of EP (from the city of Lisbon, defined as Standard European Portuguese (SEP)). Based on a discrimination test, the results show that the two groups of speakers differ with respect to the perception of the contrast between the two central vowels under investigation. The speakers of the northern variety differentiate less between the two central vowels compared to the speakers from Lisbon.

An Old Ally Revisited: Diplomatic Interactions Between the Ottoman Empire and the Sultanate of Aceh in the Face of Dutch Colonial Expansion

Diplomatic relations between the Ottoman Empire and the Sultanate of Aceh (today a province in north-west Indonesia), which had begun in the sixteenth century but then subsequently neglected over the next two centuries, were reinvigorated in the 1840 s when the expanding Dutch colonial empire arrived on the borders of Aceh. When the Acehnese sought to revive the defunct relations with Istanbul, they were met with an ambivalent Ottoman response. Ottoman statesmen seemed torn between the potential benefits of the suggested cooperation and the perils of antagonizing Western colonial powers in the region. Ambivalence also characterized the Ottomans’ response to the Acehnese request for Ottoman suzerainty over their territories in 1868-9, in 1872-3 on the eve of the Dutch invasion of their country, and in the aftermath, for fear of consequent conflict with the Great Powers. By reconstructing the history of Aceh-Ottoman diplomatic interactions on the basis of hereto unexplored Ottoman records, this article aims to reinstate not only the Acehnese, but also the Ottomans as agents in their own right, during a period of Western colonialist expansion. As such, it seeks to decenter historical narratives of nineteenth-century interstate relations, traditionally based on European sources and perceptions, which mostly ignore the agency and diplomatic interactions of non-Western powers.

II. Viyana Kuşatması’ndan Sonra Fransız Gravürlerinde Osmanlı Tasvirleri

The European perception of the Ottomans, as an opposite entity and identity, is a topic that has been studied by many scholars and from several perspectives. The present paper investigates this issue too. The seven almanacs with engravings of the collection Michel Hennin: Estampes Relatives a l’Histoire de France found at the Bibliotheque National de France constitute the primary sources that are examined here. These engravings were created in Paris for the years 1686–1689. They are illustrations of the wars that followed the Second Siege of Vienna, and depict the European victory over the Ottomans, with a visual vocabulary which consists of Roman and Christian components. Each engraving is described in detail with an emphasis on the iconography in this study. By explaining what their iconographic components are, and what they mean, it will be possible to analyze the European perception of the Ottomans, and see how the Roman and Christian symbols and iconography were re-loaded and utilized while depicting “the enemy” during the years of war. The employment of such iconography will also show that the wars with the Ottomans were given a place in the historical understanding and expectations that the symbolism which these engravings use.

European perceptions of religion and society in 18th-century China & Bengal, and their subverted gaze in local art and encounter

ABSTRACTThis essay presents two late 18th century European travelers’ encounters with and perceptions of religion in Chinese and Indian societies. While C.L.J De Guignes made an extensive tour of Chinese pagodas, Balthazar Solvyns was depicting Bengali people in 1794. Both traveler's works reveal a lineage of ideas involving exoticism and early-modern orientalism. While creating images of religion based on superstition and alterity, they did not take into account how the gaze was reversed unto them. While Solvyns created images of ‘the Hindoos’, Bengali artists were depicting the European colonial presence in scroll paintings and temple sculptures. These depictions may be considered as mimetic practices subverting the relational gaze, incorporating the European presence in order to overcome it. Contrasting early ethnographical European descriptions of Asian religions with their original contexts, a subverted gaze shines back upon the self-image of early modern European scholars seeking to make exotic Asian religions ‘known’.