Post-communist Period Research Articles

‘상실’과 ‘저항’: 두브라프카 우그레시치의 포스트유고슬라비아 에세이즘과 그 함의

This research is devoted to the exploration of the implications of the Post-Yugoslav essayistic writings(Post-jugoslavenska esejistička proza) by Dubravka Ugrešić, one of the major contemporary female writers in Croatia through the analysis of their main themes and narrative features. It is the genre of essay that came to the fore in her literary works after she chose to live as an exiled writer. On the whole, it is the feeling of ‘loss’(gubitak) and the attitude of ‘resistance’(otpor) that underlie her essayistic writings, which are subsequently classified into five groups from the thematic points of view as follows. The first one is related to the nostalgic feeling of loss from the disappearance of Yugoslavia and includes those essays that criticize the confiscation and manipulation of the historical memories of ex-Yugoslavia in the new nation states that came to being after the disintegration of SFRY and during the outbreak of the Yugoslav interethnic violences and civil wars. The second group comprises the essays that provide the microscopic observations on the current situations in the Western Balkans in the transitional post-communist period. The third group of essayistic writings addresses the mutual recognitions between the East and the West of Europe, and the changes in recent Europe, caused by refugees and labour migration. The fourth group of essays examines the current status of literature including those ones and their writers in the Western Balkans and emphasizes the necessity of the proper consideration of the transnational literature as an alternative to the conservative national literatures, which have relied on the exclusive nationalistic cultures and have contributed to the identity politics. The fifth group of essays in Ugrešić’s oeuvre is related with the feministic criticism of patriarchal culture and misogyny in the Western Balkans. Based on the frequently repeated narratological elements, the above-mentioned themes are expressed through the authorial colorful tones and writing styles from the writings in fragments and short manifestoes to the long sarcastic feminist critiques and serious political interpretations with the view of diagnosing the crises of humanness(humanitas) from the Western Balkan countries to the West European societies. Ugrešić’s essayism originated from her diverse existential experiences as an exiled writer, and therefore needs to be considered as the heterogeneous and multilayered discourses that lead the readers to the deep contemplation and seeking solutions to the frustrating circumstances after the collapse of the communist countries.

Revitalizing post-communist urban industrial areas: Divergent narratives in the imagining of copper mine reopening and tourism in a Romanian town

The post-communist period has strongly impacted the former communist Romania's urban industrial areas. Recent debates regarding urban industrial towns in Central and Eastern Europe reveal that their governance has been prone to neglect and that a lack of jobs has led to depopulation, seasonal migration, and a change in local labour skills. Drawing on 20 in-depth interviews with community leaders in Moldova Nouă, Romania, this study presents divergent narratives on the development of the local economy around the reopening of a copper mine and tourism. The findings suggest that, given the town's excellent position on the River Danube and its proximity to the Danube Gorges, tourism is perceived as a long-term solution. However, to date, tourism has not proved to be a major economic engine for the local population but could be of great interest for further local development. On the other hand, although copper mining proved polluting in communist times, some respondents prefer reopening the mines to have better paid jobs.

Social and Psychological Trauma of Human Trafficking: Albanian Women Case

Human trafficking is a phenomenon with a long history during the centuries. In Albania country, human trafficking has existed for a long time, even during the communist period. The post-communist period has been ranked as the top period for human trafficking and human slavery. As a result of the phenomena of the collapse of communism after 1990, in Albanian society happened so many changes in the field of government and political system, the opening of boundaries toward all countries of the world or free movement toward all countries, liberalisation of the economy, social and cultural changes etc. Most researchers evaluated this period as a transition period in political, social, economic and cultural. So this situation created a good field for developing human trafficking within Albania. Although the human trafficking phenomenon has been explored in the post-communist society, in the transition period till nowadays have been growing and extended more. The functioning of the government and low security made it possible for the mafia to be stronger in human trafficking too. So, Albania has been a bridge country for human trafficking from Eastern countries toward Greece, Italy, European Countries and other countries of the world. Women and children were and are still primary victims of sex slavery and are included in varying sexual activities like prostitution, stripping, sex tourism, pornography etc. In this paper, we are going to explain human trafficking as a type of modern slavery that is formed as sex trafficking. In this case, we are going to discuss the psychological trauma that sex trafficking affects Albanian women. Are these victims still able to continue their own lives? Do they fill their selves ignored by the society where they are living? What are their psychological traumas caused in their character and does this trauma affect their life? Also, we are going to discuss for social trauma that is caused in Albanian society during the human trafficking have happened in the post-communist period till today. What are the pathologies that human trafficking (in this case sex trafficking) brings to Albanian society and the different social actors? Received: 2 June 2024 / Accepted: 25 July 2024 / Published: 29 July 2024

How Can Digital Maps of Religions Inform Us about Fractionalization and Polarization in Post-Communist Romania?

This study explores religious diversity in Romania and how the trends of indices of religious fractionalization and polarization manifest at the county level in a post-communist period. The county level was selected as the relevant level for analysis due to its more clearly visible spatial dynamics with regard to religions. Recent studies have revealed that the erosion of diversity is an important aspect for any country and needs to be considered as an important aspect of democracy. This paper highlights how digital mapping of religious polarization and fractionalization in Romania has been generally maintained, although the regions of Transylvania, Banat, Dobrogea and Western Moldova remain areas in which there are different religions. Other than the general aspect of religious diversity depending on ethnic trends, there has been a rise of Pentecostals and Baptists at the county level. This aspect has further implications for our study, which calls for creating new institutions for dialogue between majority Orthodox communities and Protestants, not only so that potential conflicts do not appear between Orthodox and emerging religious communities but also to ensure objective, cultural, religious coherence. Our maps revealed the distribution patterns and the temporal evolution of religious denominations for the 1992–2011 period. The major line of originality in our research rests in the findings that after conducting a bivariate spatial autocorrelation analysis of religious fractionalization and polarization, we were able to identify two distinct clusters with spatial overlap over historical provinces.

Social Change and Reputational Elites: Assessments and Reassessments of the ‘Sporting Glory of Bulgaria’ (1989-2020s)

This article deals with post-communist period in Bulgaria and particularly with the social change on the example of sports elites. It is studying the transformation of old (totalitarian) sports elites into new (capitalist) ones, changes in their symbolic capital and content of new ‘reputational elites’, and the legacy of socialist sport in the transi-tion period. Social history and social anthropology approaches are used in order to apply elite theory and concept of Bourdieu for symbolic and social capital. The re-search is based on primary official and statistical documents and on oral standardized interviews.

Letters from Exile: Canadian Media, the Romanian Diaspora, and the Legionary Movement

This article traces the post-Second World War immigration of Romanians to Canada, and addresses themes of self-identification versus outside perception, national identity, and myth-making in the Romanian-Canadian community. It subsequently documents the scrutiny faced by the Romanian diaspora for supposed links to the interwar Romanian far-right Legionary Movement. Beginning in the 1950s, Romanian exiles in Canada forged their own community organizations, churches, and media, in which a unique synthesis of national identity and far-right politics was promoted, placing these new immigrants at the center of intracommunity and inter-ethnic conflict. Following the release of the Deschênes Report on war criminals living in Canada in 1986, as well as a series of unsolved terrorist attacks, Romanian-Canadians were subject to investigations by the mainstream Canadian media for potential involvement in far-right organizing. In the years since the collapse of state socialism in Eastern Europe, significant strands of the Romanian diaspora in Canada have continued to embrace historical figures of the Legionary Movement, synthesizing a diaspora identity flavored by anticommunism, radical right politics, and (ultra-) nationalism well into the post-communist period.

Why Is Media Trust Low in Post-Communist Countries?

ABSTRACT Do long-term propaganda and indoctrination undermine media trust? Building on studies of communist legacies, I examine whether trust in media in post-communist countries can be explained by past or contemporaneous experiences. I find that trust in media is lower in post-communist countries, but this trust deficit is more likely a consequence of the post-communist period. It is higher among authoritarian regimes, which suggests that contemporaneous experiences matter; citizens with longer exposure to communism trust the media more; finally, the deficit grows as the communist past becomes more distant. These findings have implications for institutional development in the post-communist world.

Inside the Labyrinth. The Post-Communist Novel Between Anti-Communism and Nostalgia

ABSTRACT The article tries to map the perspectives of the post-communist East on its own communist past, as envisioned by four writers and their relevant novels: the Michal Ajvaz (The Other City, 1993), Mircea Cărtărescu (Blinding, 1996), the David Albahari (Leeches, 2006), the Olga Tokarczuk (Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, 2009). I argue that these novels – which take the form of mysteries and/or draw on conspiracy theories – resort to specific genre tropes in their attempt to render in an allegorical code the deficits in the cognitive mapping of the post-communist period. This blank spot concerns the project of post-communism as an evasive totality which the East has been constantly trying to grasp, after being confined in the cognitive labyrinth of the neoliberal capitalism that has predominated since the demise of communism in central Europe in 1989. My study relies on Fredric Jameson’s view that conspiracy theories are indicative of deficiencies of cognitive mappings. Subsequently, I analyse the four novels in a World Literature frame. These terms help in interpreting the ways in which the literatures of the former Eastern Bloc relate to their own past, but also to the new planetary conscience pushed forward by neoliberal capitalism.

Religious nationalism and the dynamics of religious diversity governance in post-communist Eastern Europe

The analysis of the dynamics of the governance of religious diversity in Southeastern and Central Eastern Europe and Russia provided in country studies in this special issue reveals that the countries of the region share several common tendencies but also exhibit significant divergences. This contribution compares the experiences of post-communist transition in religious diversity governance in the countries covered in the special issue. I assess the degree to which liberal regimes of religious diversity governance have been achieved or abandoned. I explore the explanatory factors behind the diversity of regimes in the region and the internal dynamics that these regimes have undergone throughout the post-communist period. I also compare policy issues related to the governance of religious diversity and the subsequent policy approaches adopted to tackle those challenges. The papers in this collection seek to explain a recent turn away from pro-diversity policy orientations by examining the influence of religious nationalism and the securitization of religion. In the conclusion, I argue for the need to consider additional factors related to post-communist transition in analyzing outcomes related to religious diversity governance.

Snow avalanches in relation to tourism and transportation activities in the Făgăraş Mountains, Romanian Carpathians

In mountainous regions, avalanches can seriously damage tourist infrastructure, roads, and forests and lead to loss of human life. The analyses were performed in the Făgăraş Mountains, Southern Carpathians-Romania. This study addresses the following questions: How does risk differ over time depending on the snow avalanche activity? (ii) How reliable are complementary, statistical, and dendrogeomorphological approaches for analysing the avalanche activity? Our analysis was based on extensive documentation, using old photographs, maps, papers and database statistics. We also utilized dendrogeomorphological data, satellite images and event simulations using the RAMMS avalanche module. The study data was collected between 1880 and 2020, in three different periods, each with socioeconomic peculiarities: the Romanian Kingdom Period, communist period, and post-communist period. In the first period, the tourist infrastructure was modest and the avalanche hazard was not recognized. Only three avalanche accidents were recorded. In the communist period, 25 avalanche accidents were recorded. In the postcommunist period, 75 avalanche accidents were recorded. Avalanche activity strongly interfered with the emergence of new elements of tourist infrastructure, such as huts, alpine refuges, and the Transfăgărăşan highway. Our results show that despite protection measures, avalanche risk awareness information, use of the European risk scale, and the issuing of danger bulletins, especially in the last 20 years, the risk has remained high due to increased exposure and vulnerability of tourist infrastructure and tourists.

Contentious heritage spaces in post-communist Bulgaria: Contesting two monuments in Sofia

This article examines public attitudes towards communist monuments as part of the contentious heritage of totalitarianism in post-communist Bulgaria from the 1990s to the present. Its main goals are, first, to analyse the place of political monuments as political subjects of social change during the Bulgarian transition from a totalitarian to a democratic society; second, to study the monuments as ‘realms of memory’ within the changes of collective memory in the post-communist period. The research combines the approaches of political (social) anthropology, cultural anthropology and historical geography. Exploring political subcultures, it investigates ex-communist and anti-communist activities regarding the future of totalitarian monuments. The research is focused on two urban landmarks in Sofia: the Mausoleum of the communist leader Georgi Dimitrov, and the Monument to the Soviet Army.

Running in Place: “Czeching” out the W/E(a)stern Performative Presidential Geoprostitution

This article attempts to explain the Czech Republic’s geopolitical vacillation between the West and East over the past three and half decades. We tie this behavior, where one orientation never prevails permanently, to the continuity of political elites from the communist to the post-communist periods. In addition to general relevance, we discuss its implications for the country’s recent reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The focal points of this analysis are the geopolitical discourses and practices of three consecutive presidents: Václav Havel, Václav Klaus, and Miloš Zeman, each marking a decade in the Czech presidential office. We provide a historical-structural context to show that the Czech case has been an important example of a small state with its security continuously compromised by the hierarchical penetrations of great powers: Nazi Germany, the USSR/Russia, and most recently, China and the United States. Yet, as we demonstrate, the Czech Republic cannot be considered a stereotypical victim with mixed-sovereignty agreements being imposed on it. We present the three presidents in their active roles of geopolitical architects vis-à-vis the great powers as well as the Czech government. Heuristically, we conceptualize presidential foreign-and-security activities as performative geoprostitution. We show that for Havel, the primary act of geoprostitution was institutionalizing a civilizational client-patron relationship between a small state and a superpower (the United States). In contrast, not only was Klaus and Zeman’s performative geoprostitution different due to its Eastern orientation, but it was motivated by their self-importance and desire to carve out political legacies and greased by corrupted business interests.

Informal Power and Short-Term Consequences: Country Presidents and Political Parties in Romania

Country presidents and their political parties have strong connections along partisan lines. However, it remains unclear how this relationship unfolds when country presidents have to be non-partisans and formal ties are not permitted. This article seeks to address this gap in the literature and analyzes how country presidents use informal powers to maintain an influence in the life of their (former) political parties. We use Romania as the most likely case where we would expect such powers to occur and matter, because the country’s constitution bans the country’s president from being a party member once they are elected to public office. We compare the behaviour of the two Romanian country presidents who have each served two complete consecutive terms in office in the post-communist period. Our analysis covers the 2004–2022 period and focuses on the following four dimensions: electing successors, prime ministerial appointments, inclusion in coalition agreements and parties’ electoral performance.

Symbolic Conflict in the Public Sphere: The Catholic Church against the State in Post-Communist Poland

This article explains the public engagement of the Catholic Church in Poland in the post-Communist period (from 1989 to approximately 2015) as a symbolic challenge to the state. It draws on Simon Harrison’s theory of symbolic conflicts—conflicts over symbolic capital—applied to power struggles involving religious actors in contemporary political systems. The Polish Church engaged in a valuation contest against the state in which it tried to champion its own religious interpretation of several key elements of Polish statehood and national identity using items from its own symbolic arsenal, including the notion of Pole-Catholic and an emphasis on the Christian origins of Poland. Similarly, by solemnizing state ceremonies with religious symbolism and politicizing the cult of religious figures, the Church sought to sacralize the public sphere. Although these challenges to the symbolic inventory of the state have not led to its total replacement by a competing set of religious symbols, the series of low-intensity conflicts generated a considerable amount of symbolic capital for the Church and contributed to maintaining its authority as a value-based public actor. This, ultimately, helped in sustaining the Church’s political leverage throughout most of the post-1989 period, well into the second decade of the twenty-first century. It is only in the last few years that the Church’s support for a more stringent abortion law, the scandals connected with sexual abuse by the clergy and its concealment by the hierarchy, and questions over Pope John Paul II’s moral integrity have considerably harmed its public image.

Reflections of the Political Organization of the Bosniaks of Bosnia and Herzegovina on the Bosniaks of Sanjak and the Diaspora 1990-1991.

The political organization of Bosniaks dates back to the beginning of the twentieth century, more precisely in 1906, when a group of Bosniak intellectuals formed the first political party called the Muslim People's Organization. As a result of the global political upheavals that affected most of Europe, certain decisions of international officials (primarily the Congress of Berlin in 1878) from the end of the nineteenth century complicated the position of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the Bosniaks. Realizing that through political activism they can defend their own interests in the newly emerging constellation of relations, Bosniak dignitaries led by Ali-beg Firdus and other dignitaries began a demanding political struggle. The scope of Bosniak politics at that time was extremely limited, as were the political organizations and representatives of Bosniaks in the years after, in contrast to the end of the twentieth century when politically organized Bosniaks managed to restore their national name Bosniak, the Bosnian language, but also democratically fight for an independent Bosnia and Herzegovina. Namely, during the twentieth century, the political development of Bosniaks can be traced, which at the beginning of the nineties experienced a kind of culmination in the context of the achieved results. In that process, two years can be considered extremely important in the context of the political organization of Bosniaks in the period of the beginning of the dissolution of Yugoslavia. and those are definitely 1990 and 1991. The first year (1990) is important because of the officialization of political pluralism in the country at that time, while during 1991 processes took place that would not only change the everyday life of Bosniaks, but also the whole of Yugoslavia. The Bosniaks saw the introduction of democratic principles into daily life in Yugoslavia as an opportunity for renewed political organization, which was imposed as a logical sequence of the circumstances of a nation in the post-communist period. The formation of the first Bosniak political party during the nineties - the Party of Democratic Action - SDA, started the Bosniak struggle for equality, but also the preservation of the position of Bosnia and Herzegovina within Yugoslavia, and later as an independent state. The aim of the paper is to present the way of the initial political organization of Bosniaks due to the new political reality in Yugoslavia, with a focus on Bosnia and Herzegovina and Sandžak, with an overview of organizing throughout the Bosniak diaspora. In historiography, the role of the Bosniak diaspora in the context of the original political organization during the nineties has often been unfairly neglected. The Bosniak diaspora carefully followed all events in Yugoslavia, and tried to be a part of them in all available ways. The beginning of political organizing among Bosniaks in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Sandžak was followed with great attention, and Bosniak political activists from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Sanjak often went together on tours throughout the diaspora, with the aim of including Bosniaks outside their homeland in important processes that then took place in Yugoslavia. The political struggle of Bosniaks in Sanjak, about which the Bosnian public knows very little, took place almost parallel to the one in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The political representatives of Bosniaks from Sanjak experienced various forms of segregation by the Great Serbian regime from Belgrade, as evidenced by various official documents and other sources, which were used in the preparation of this work. According to the above, there is a need to research such a topic, which has the task of encouraging other authors to investigate this period in more detail. In the context of the methodology of the work, it is worth noting that the work will primarily contain the thematic and chronological methods, with the use of other methods for which the need arises, for the purpose of improving the quality of the work. The paper before you is not the final letter on the mentioned topic, but an attempt to answer some important and unavoidable questions from the beginning of the nineties of the last century, in the context of the political history of Bosniaks.

Populist orientations in Ukrainian society: origins and characteristics of reproduction

Populist orientations refer to a set of political beliefs and values that emphasize the interests of «ordinary people» with a corresponding need to challenge the political establishment. In Ukraine, long social transformations in the post-communist period led to total mistrust and a negative attitude toward state institutions. The post-communist irremovability of the political establishment led to persistent anti-elitist attitudes. As a result of the inconsistency and contradictions of Ukraine's path to democracy, a basic «transitional type» of personality has emerged. It is characterized by psychological ambivalence, that is a double contradictory attitude to the prospects of society's development. The connection of ambivalent consciousness with populist orientations often arises because both phenomena are based on the absence of a stable ideological orientation or a clear political identity. The ambivalent consciousness and unbelief in the pluralist mechanisms of an imperfect democracy have fuelled the population's attachment authoritarian methods in politics, which is a reflection of the hopes for effective governance. However, the existence of polarization in Ukrainian society based on geopolitical orientations and social identities for a long time conditioned citizens to rely on traditional political forces in their electoral behavior. Only after the disappearance of this polarization did populist orientations materialize into the electoral phenomenon of 2019. In the course of the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war, a radical reassessment of the state and state institutions by the population took place, and therefore the antagonism between the population and the elite became temporarily irrelevant. However, post-war reconstruction carries with it the risks of a revival and growth of populist orientations, as economic difficulties will exacerbate intolerant of social injustice.

Queer Transgressions in Twentieth-Century Polish Fiction: Gender, Nation, Politics

Queer Transgressions in Twentieth-Century Polish Fiction: Gender, Nation, Politics

Swine Breeding in the Villages of Vâlcea County, Oltenia (Romania)—Tradition or Necessity?

Food supply has been a constant source of concern for mankind. In the present context, with food security a priority of European and national policies, an analysis of pig farming in a representative NUTS2 administrative level of Romania that emphasizes the proportion of households raising at least one pig and the main factors influencing farmers to adopt or give up swine breeding could allow a much clearer understanding of this phenomenon that lies at the border between cultural tradition and socio-economic necessity. This study uses mixed methods that complement each another to help reveal this complex phenomenon in the analyzed territory. Cluster analysis shows the concentration of swine breeding and maps its spread in terms of both subsistence and larger farms, and qualitative interviews prove the motivation of farmers to continue in this occupation. As a primary result, the study visualizes the spatial distribution of pig farming in the rural environment of Vâlcea county, Romania, from a diachronic perspective in the post-communist period. It also reveals areas of differing concentrations of both very small-sized farms, which prioritize meeting their own food needs, and larger farms, which prioritize commercial production to supplement their revenue streams. Both categories, but particularly the latter, are of particular interest in a period in which the socio-economic environment after 1990—marked by economic restructuring, unemployment, population migration, the economic crisis of 2008–2010, the pandemic of 2020–2021, and the most recent energy crisis—periodically highlights the importance of rural areas in ensuring food security and sufficiency at both the local and regional levels.

LANDSCAPE DYNAMICS IN THE SOMEȘ CORRIDOR. CASE STUDY: GURUSLĂU DEPRESSION (ROMANIA)

Changes in land use patterns induced by different agricultural practices are reflected territorially through transformations at the level of elementary landscape units, with an impact on territorial identity and cohesion. The aim of this study is to highlight the dynamics of the territorial structures in the post-communist period (1990-2018), diachronically reflected in the transformations of the landscape of the Guruslău Depression, using the landscape metrics. The main direction of the scientific research was based on the analysis of land use changes and the identification of the spatial elements of structural-landscape distinction with impact on land degradation process. The evaluation of the landscape dynamics in the current context uses several effective metrics and tools, which increasingly require the identification of interdisciplinary methods of analysis, with a decisive impact on territorial development. Besides, the present approach is also motivated by the increasing environmental impact of climate change. The methodology used in the present paper is based both on the geoprocessing of vector data using GIS tools and correlated spatial analysis, and on the identification of landscape types using a new process of reclassifying land use categories, according to a set of landscape definition variables. The results of the research highlighted both the particularities of landscape transformations that occurred in the reference interval, as well as the favourable conditions for addressing biocultural diversity, by identifying traditional agricultural practices and the resilience of geographical landscapes given the adaptation to changing development strategies. Meanwhile, by detecting the landscape structures affected by change, in correlation with the impact induced on the biodiversity of the territory, the present study has a wide applicability in the most appropriate implementation of local development policies, as well as in identifying the forms of sustainable valorisation of the landscape in the study area.

Cracking the Nest Egg: Comparing Pension Politics in Post-Communist Russia and Hungary

Growing fiscal challenges and ageing populations have made pension reform a pressing issue. Two particularly salient areas of pension reform have been: raising the retirement age; and structural reforms like the adoption and reversal of pension privatisation. The authors compare two very similar cases: Russia and Hungary in the post-communist period. Both countries faced growing demographic and fiscal challenges prompting pension reform, but at the time of reform Hungary was democratic and Russia was authoritarian. Some scholars predicted that authoritarian governments would be better able than democratic ones at enacting unpopular, but arguably necessary, economic reforms. Others argue that democratic governments can more easily enact policy changes because of greater confidence about public opinion. Additionally, authoritarian policymaking can be uniquely slowed by bureaucratic in-fighting. The authors find support for the position that democratic governments can be more flexible: thus offering important insight into how regime type shapes policymaking.