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European histories: Towards a grand narrative?
Introduction
In order for there to be solidarity within the enlarged EU, it will be necessary to develop a broader historical consciousness that accommodates the experiences of the new members. And if Russia's relations with its neighbours are to be harmonious, the taboos surrounding the Great Victory will need to be addressed. Read on for analyses from both sides of a historical divide. [ more ]
Eurozine conference Vilnius 2009
European histories The 22nd European Meeting of Cultural Journals was a resounding success, with over eighty representatives of cultural journals from Iceland to Bosnia, Ireland to Belarus meeting in Vilnius to discuss the subject of "European Histories". A conference summary and texts based on the panels are published here. [more]
Focal point: Dilemma 89
Dilemma 89
focal point Twenty years after 1989, most former communist states in central and eastern Europe are members of the EU. Yet the transition from closed to open societies is far from "complete". Fierce debates rage over lustration and information surfacing from secret police archives, over corruption inherited from communist power structures, and over dominant representations of the communist past. Clearly, 1989 is not only an historic moment of liberation, but also a political and social dilemma for the present day. [ more ]
Places and strata of memory
Approaches to eastern Europe
Dilemma '89 The idea of 1989 as an annus mirabilis is too crude; rather, it was the result of a long incubation period that took a different course in each Eastern Bloc country. Karl Schlögel asks whether it is too soon to start talking of a "common European history". [ more ]
positions
Still not free
Why post-'89 history must go beyond self-diagnosis
Czechoslovakia The dissident generation of the 1970s and 1980s produced a body of work unprecedented in Czech history, says Martin Simecka. Yet it is precisely the monumentality of this generation's legacy that prevents the interpretation of the communist past going beyond self-diagnosis. [ more ]
Table talk
Poland "It is an unnatural but positive development when democracy trains people to believe that, overall, it is better to let the bastard speak." Former Solidarity actvist and journalist Konstanty Gebert on censorship post-'89 and anti-Semitism in Poland today. [ more ]
A reluctant and fearful West
1989 and its international context
Dilemma 89 Documents recently released from the Hungarian archives reveal how western leaders, without exception, deferred to the Soviet Union in 1989. The threat of regional chaos meant overwhelming support for preserving the status quo as events unfolded. [ more ]
European histories, Romanian fairytales
The Securitate archives and the public debate that never was
Romania In Romania, the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives has been rendered toothless by political interference. Meanwhile, former communist functionaries, in new democratic guise, still purport to be protecting "national interest". [ more ]
Twenty years on
Hungary "When in opposition, they do not comport themselves as the opposition to a democratically elected government. When they become the governing party, they pursue the same paternalistic, populist political game." Agnes Heller's indictment of Hungarian politicians twenty years after 1989. [ more ]
A common european history?
Balancing the books
A Common European history? Sixty years and more since the end of WWII, eastern European experiences of subjugation are often glossed over. This creates misunderstandings that could be avoided by an awareness of a common European history. Then, solidarity rather than national prejudice would motivate public opinion on matters of European politics. [Lithuanian version added] [ more ]
Battlefield Europe
Transnational commemoration and European identity
A common european history? A pan-European memory cannot be reduced to the Holocaust and the Gulag alone, no matter how central these are, and must be able to compare memories without offsetting each against the other. On the "concentric circles" of European memory. [Lithuanian version added] [ more ]
Read also: Claus Leggewie, "Equally criminal? Totalitarian experience and European memory"
European identity: Historical fact and political problem
European histories An historian can define European identity descriptively, as Krzysztof Pomian demonstrates in a tour of European culture since the first millennium BC. But the real controversy lies elsewhere, in the political question: what of the European past is worth preserving? [ more ]
23 August 1939
A European lieu de mémoire?
European histories The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was signed seventy years ago this month. Though of far-reaching siginificance for the post-war division of Europe, 23 August 1939 is remembered very differently across the continent. [ more ]
National images of the past
The twentieth century and the "war of memories". An appeal by the International Memorial Society
If contradictions between national memories are recognized and understood, the historical awareness of each society is enriched. Eurozine republishes a call by the International Memorial Society for the creation of a platform upon which such a dialogue can be conducted. [ more ]
External links:
On 3 December 2008, armed police seized Memorial's archive in St Petersburg. Orlando Figes, writing in Index on Censorship, reports. Also: An open letter to Dimitrii Medvedev and other high-ranking Russian politicians.
07.12.2008
A new myth in the making?
Historical myths new and old
New myth in the making? Surrounding the sixtieth anniversary of WWII were arguments that the suffering of eastern Europe goes unacknowledged. By implication, the memory of the Holocaust is a hegemonic discourse within the EU, rather than its binding principle. Here, a new myth is in the making: victimhood divorced from political context. [Lithuanian version added] [ more ]
Places and strata of memory
Approaches to eastern Europe
new myth in the making? The idea of 1989 as an annus mirabilis is too crude; rather, it was the result of a long incubation period that took a different course in each Eastern Bloc country. Karl Schlögel asks whether it is too soon to start talking of a "common European history". [ more ]
European memory politics revisited
new myth in the making? European commemorative culture is an integral component of the post-national process. But how can a "European memory" be justified if we aren't to refer to a continental, quasi-national entity? [ more ]
The Holocaust
Holocaust: The ignored reality
European histories Auschwitz and the Gulag are generally taken to be adequate or even final symbols of the evil of mass slaughter. But they are only the beginning of knowledge, a hint of the true reckoning with the past still to come, writes historian Timothy Snyder. [Russian version added]
[ more ]
Myths of neutrality
Ignoring the Holocaust in Sweden and Switzerland
European histories In Sweden and Switzerland, complicity in the Holocaust was for a long time ignored. It was only as a result of foreign publicity that national myths of neutrality gave way to admissions of responsibility, writes Arne Ruth. [Polish version added] [ more ]
The mémoire croisée of the Shoah
Holocaust Adapting the histoire croisée method of history writing - the focus on crossovers of different cultures, social groups, and historical events - Éva Kovács examines the mémoire croisée of the Shoah in the different political systems of eastern and western Europe. [ more ]
Post-memory, received history, and the return of the Auschwitz code
Holocaust The Holocaust has been transfixed into a "code" of instantly recognizable pictures and texts. These fixed memories make it almost impossible to go beyond their discursive reign, argues Ronit Lentin. [ more ]
Politics of memory: Approaches
State visits
Internationalized commemoration of WWII in Russia and Germany
Politics of memory European politicians attending the ceremonies in Moscow encountered a brand of patriotism unthinkable in western Europe. What does this say about the West's own traditions of commemoration? [ more ]
The geopolitics of memory
politics of memory The controversy around the statue of the Soviet soldier in Tallinn in April 2007 provided a striking demonstration that memory politics is less about the communist past than about future political and economic hegemony on the European continent. [Hungarian version added] [ more ]
Memory of evil, enticement to good
An interview with Tzvetan Todorov
Politics of memory In France, communism has positive associations with the Resistance movement. Not so for eastern Europeans, who must bring their own experiences to bear in the European discussion, says the Bulgarian philosopher. [ more ]
Europe revisited
Neighbourly conflict and the return of history
Politics of memory Europe has experienced not the end of history, but the end of the postwar pact not to talk about history. But the "return of history" has also brought the return of cultural differences. [ more ]
Politics of memory
Politics of memory The commemoration of the Franco-Prussian War, the Second World War, and the Algerian War are examples of how the nationalist construal of the past has given way to an internationalized model known as "presentism". [ more ]
Beaches and graveyards
Europe's haunted borders
Politics of memory "It is more arduous to honour the memory of the nameless than the renowned." The epigram on Walter Benjamin's memorial in Portbou, Catalonia, leads Les Back to reflect on the fate of the African migrants found dead on the coasts of Spain today. [Catalan version added] [ more ]
Historicizing the traces of memory
Politics of memory François Dosse warns of the dangers of exaggerated commemorative events, contrasting them with the patient "work of memory". The ideas of Paul Ricoeur serve as a reminder of the historian's duties in the wider context of practical human activity. [ more ]
Dealing with the recent past
The tensions between memory and history
Politics of memory The variety of victims' personal memories does not warrant an "anything goes" approach in historical accounts of the more recent European dictatorships. [ more ]
Feminism, biography and Cheshire Cat stories
A geopolitical journey through a biographical dictionary
Politics of memory In studying eastern central European feminist history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Anna Loutfi detects "imperial ironies": feminists' identities shifting between international networking and national self-representation. [ more ]
Politics of memory: Russia
The fetters of victory
How the war provides Russia with its identity
The commemoration of victory in the "Great Patriotic War" serves the centralist and repressive social order imposed in the post-totalitarian culture and society under Vladimir Putin. Lev Gudkov desribes the taboos in Russia surrounding the underside of victory. [ more ]
Fragmented memory
Stalin and Stalinism in present-day Russia
Russia As contemporary witnesses disappear, collective memory in Russia is altering, writes the director of Memorial. The hardships of war and the Stalinist terror are being forgotten and Stalin is being remembered as the victor over the essence of evil. [ more ]
History without memory
Gothic morality in post-Soviet society
Russia The witches and werewolves of post-Soviet fantasy fiction embody the morality of a society in denial about its criminal past. Personal loyalty towards superiors and respect for hierarchy constitute gothic society's only uncontested law. [English version added] [ more ]
The regulation of pain
Coping with traumatic experiences in Soviet war literature
Russia Soviet writers' expression of existential insecurity caused by their experiences in World War II signalled a liberation from the censorship of the 1930s. But the Brezhnev regime put an end to that. Only since the 1990s have Russian writers been able to explore openly the subject of war. [ more ]
Branded but not a slave
On the work of Varlam Shalamov
Russia Varlam Shalamov's Kolyma Tales is the stylistic counterpart to Solzhenitsyn's cosmetic account of the Gulag. Michail Ryklin defends the existential authenticity of what Solzhenitsyn criticized as a fiction "without the expression of authorial subjectivity". [ more ]
Politics of memory: Germany
The burden of history and the trap of memory
Germany The displacement of Germans at the end of WWII has re-entered the public debate with the TV drama "Die Flucht" [The escape]. Philipp Ther discusses the reasons for the shift in the way the German wartime past is being remembered. [ more ]
Displacement as an issue of German self-understanding
Germany How the postwar West German state, in making the displacement of sections of the population integral to its self-definition, effectively tabooed the subject. [ more ]
Is the tide of German memory turning?
Germany In Germany, it has now become possible to acknowledge the German victims of WWII. This is not historical revisionism, but a movement to subsume the memory of National Socialism under the general memory of crimes against humanity committed in the twentieth century. [ more ]
Legend of legality
From the Reichstag fire to the Nazi regime
Germany After 75 years, the death sentence of the Dutch communist Marinus van der Lubbe has been officially lifted. The theory of a "single perpetrator" was central in legitimizing the Nazi takeover of the German state. [ more ]
Buried feelings
German authors' handling of the Allied bombing in World War II
Germany W.G. Sebald claimed that the Allied bombing was hushed up in postwar German literature. Not entirely true, responds Volker Hage: there are a number of novels outside the canon in which the experience of the bombing comes to light. [ more ]
Politics of memory: Austria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine
The memory of World War II in Poland
Poland Poland's relations with Germany, Russia, and Ukraine are determined by its perception of these countries' contrition – or lack thereof – for wartime damages. But Poles' wartime treatment of Jews is yet to be fully acknowledged. [ more ]
Does a civil-war mentality exist in Hungary?
A roundtable interview
Hungary Political antagonism in Hungary, played out via historical symbols, has prompted commentators in Hungary to talk about a "civil war mentality". Eurozine asks Hungarian journalists, authors, and publishers how it has come to this. [ more ]
Democracy or the street?
On the stability of the Hungarian political system
Hungary The demonstrations in Budapest in September 2006 marked the culmination of a conflict between Conservatives and the liberal Left. The rift is exacerbated by politicized disputes about the past, argues Thomas von Ahn. [ more ]
The birth of the Russian-speaking minority in Estonia
Estonia The Bronze Soldier controversy in Tallinn in April 2007 was more a product of the fears of national conservative groups than an integration problem among Estonia's Russian-speaking minority, writes Martin Ehala. [ more ]
Latvian history in the process of democratization
Latvia The Latvian example shows that the existence of competing interpretations of the past and debates about how these should be institutionalized are core parts of a society's transformation to democracy. [ more ]
The Bronze Nights
The failure of forced Europeanization and the birth of defensive nationalist democracy in Estonia
Estonia The EU accession process over, writes Tonis Saarts, Estonia's rightwing party politics has found a new rallying cry: the threat of Russia. [ more ]
The western dimension of the making of modern Ukraine
ukraine The history of Ukrainian independence begins with the revolution in 1848, and thereafter is shaped by European and Russian interests. [ more ]
The Soviet occupation of Austria, 1945-1955
Recent research and perspectives
Austria The opening up of the Russian state archives has afforded new perspectives on the postwar decade of Soviet occupation in Austria [ more ]
The Armenian genocide: Issues of responsibility and democracy
An interview with Susan Neiman and Andreas Huyssen
Turkey Intellectuals in Turkey advocating a public debate about the "Armenian issue" have been marginalized, penalized, and in the case of Hrant Dink, assassinated. Yet in any politics of memory in Turkey must be guided by the public sphere, argue Susan Neiman and Andreas Huyssen. [ more ]
Memories and histories: The new Spanish Civil War
Spain The pact of silence that has existed in Spain over the Civil War and Franco era is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. A boom in publications on the subject seems to bear out Manuel Azańa's comment that "burying the dead is a Spanish national pastime". [ more ]
Jewish life and thought in eastern Europe
Remembrance as balancing act
The public and scholarly treatment of
eastern Europe’s Jewish heritage
Jewish life and thought How to communicate eastern European Jewish history and culture without turning it into commercialism and kitsch or treating Jewish life as a museum artefact and thus forgetting its renaissance? A roundtable discussion with historians, curators, and educators. [ more ]
From obscurantism to holiness
"Eastern Jewish" thought in Buber, Heschel, and Levinas
Jewish life and thought The intellectuals Martin Buber, Joshua Heschel, and Emmanuel Levinas shared the eastern European Jewish experience and a universalistic ethic. Above all it is Levinas to whom we owe an appreciation of what one could call "eastern European Jewry", writes Micha Brumlik. [ more ]
Overcoming war
Jan Bloch: entrepreneur, publicist, pacifist
Intellectual heritage As influencial entrepreneur, publicist, and pacifist, Jan Bloch deserves a prominent place in European collective memory: initiating the Hague Peace Conference, advocating arms control and an international court of justice, he was well ahead of his time, writes Manfred Sapper. [ more ]
Repress, reassess, remember
Jewish heritage in Lithuania
Jewish life and thought In Lithuania today, the acceptance of shared responsibility for the Holocaust is met with political resistance. However, the heritage of Lithuanian Jews is slowly being integrated into the society's collective consciousness, writes Vytautas Toleikis. [ more ]
Disputed memory
Jewish past, Polish remembrance
Jewish life and thought Nearly all of the three million Jews living in Poland before WWII were killed during the Shoah. Yet remembrance only began after 1990 and still polarizes Polish society. "Competition among victims" continues to dominate and a kind of "virtual Jewry" has emerged, reports Katrin Steffen. [ more ]
A reluctant look back
Jews and the Holocaust in Ukraine
Jewish life and thought Ukraine's official politics of remembrance omits the country's Jewish heritage, leaving it to private organisations to try to embed Jewish culture and history into national consciousness. This process demands the recognition of Ukrainians' share of responsibility for the Shoah.
[ more ]
Hungary '56: The first time as tragedy...
A headless revolution
Hungary '56 "In the absence of the tradition of revolutionary change, we are left with the European tradition of conformity and opportunism, with court poetry and mannerism." Péter Nádas on the meaning of the Hungarian revolution then and now. [ more ]
Fifty-six remix
Hungary '56 If the Right in Hungary has made it possible for all those disgruntled with the Gyurcsány government to cast themselves as heirs to the revolution, the Left is guilty of having failed to take '56 seriously enough. [ more ]
Hungary, fifty years after the revolution
Hungary '56 The great Hungarian socialist chronicler of eastern European totalitarianism writes on the revolution in the context of Hungarian history and of the power relations of international communism. [ more ]
The lost treasure of the revolution
Hungary '56 Hannah Arendt wrote about the '56 revolution as if it had been successful. Nevertheless, her insights remain relevant to an understanding of '56 and the memory of it after 1989. [ more ]
Ferenc Fejtö 1908-2008: Ferenc Lázslo,, "A clear head"; Ágnes Széchenyi, "Among reactionaries"; Jacques Rupnik, "In touch with a vanished world"
'56 in fiction: Endre Kukorelly, "Ruin: A history of commonism"; Gabor Nemeth, "1956"
1968: Beyond soixante-huit
1968: The year of two springs
1968 Parallels between May '68 and the Prague Spring are largely the result of the simultaneity of the events; in important respects, the political goals of the two movements were antithetical. Nevertheless, central European dissent had a significant impact on the French Left after 1968, argues Jacques Rupnik. [ more ]
From '68 to '89
1968 What is the meaning of '68 almost twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall? In an East-West dialogue placing '68 in a European and global perspective, leading protagonists of events in eastern Europe converse with their western counterparts. [ more ]
Seeds of spring
A rebellion against censorship
1968 When Ivan Klima and fellow writers spoke out against censorship in Czechoslovakia at the 1967 Writers' Congress, the literary weekly "Literární noviny" was taken out of the hands of the writers union and its editorial board dismissed. Yet the seed was sown for the Prague Spring of 1968. [ more ]
Urban asphalt gave flower to utopia
1968 "The eastern European '68ers formed the backbone of the democratic opposition, whereas we, the somewhat older '56ers, only joined in with certain reservations, because we had a closer acquaintance with defeat." György Konrád casts an ironic look at the '68ers. [ more ]
May '68: a contested history
1968 Despite the tendency of decennial commemorations to cement the "official version" of May '68, important questions remain unanswered. Chris Reynolds points out some blind spots in the increasingly stereotyped interpretation of the events in France forty years ago. [ more ]
From pacifism to violence and back again
1968 The failure of the German extra-parliamentary opposition to reflect upon its gradual slide towards violence led to the leftwing terrorism of the 1970s, argues Christian Semler. It was only with the ecological movement that pacifism returned to the agenda. [ more ]
Read also: Further articles on '68 including Aleksander Smolar, Samual Abrahám, Mykola Riabchuk, and Wolfgang Kraushaar
Correspondence
Correspondence 1966-1971
Correspondence "The entire population will next year have to put up with much 'sacrifice', in other words greater exploitation. 'Unfortunately', it is unlikely that a 'revolution' in the 'vulgar materialist' sense will be the result, but rather a protracted process of crisis". Rudi Dutschke to Gábor Révai, 1966. [ more ]
Dutschke's Hungarian friend
Gábor Révai in interview
Interview "I don't think that Dutschke would have become a politician. I can't imagine him as diplomat with a suit and tie, like Joschka Fischer". Gábor Révai, in the 1960s a young socialist in Hungary, on his former friend and father figure Rudi Dutschke. [ more ]
The Balkans: War crimes and memory
Why I have not returned to Belgrade
The Balkans Slavenka Drakulic asks herself why she has not visited Belgrade in seventeen years. It is clear to her that the underlying reasons are closely tied with the recent Yugoslav wars. But, she wonders, what is she anxious about now? [Polish version added] [ more ]
The phantom of justice
The Balkans When dealing with Serbian war guilt, narratives focusing too much on individuals should be treated with caution. The international community is faced not only with the problem of holding state leaders accountable, but also with legitimating the way that new nation-states were created in Yugoslavia in the 1990s. [ more ]
The memorandum: Roots of Serbian nationalism
An interview with Mihajlo Markovic and Vasilije Krestic
The Balkans Left- and rightwing intellectuals collaborated on a document that formulated the ideology of Serbian nationalism in the 1980s and 1990s. Two of its authors talk about their involvement. [ more ]
Memory of war crimes: Can victims speak?
The Balkans The editor of the Belgrade Circle Journal writes that Milosevic was guilty not only because he led a collective criminal enterprise, but also because he demanded that ethnic justice nest in sovereign national law, which he turned against international law. [ more ]
Invention and in(ter)vention: The rhetoric of Balkanization
The Balkans Vesna Goldsworthy looks at how Western commentators romanticize the Balkans' history of alleged bloodshed, feudal hatreds and perpetual war. How can these myths be debunked? [ more ]
Tales from the Wild East
The Balkans Lack of comprehension for historical and present-day events on the Balkans has to do with the very different character of master narratives in East and West. If only the West would "try to adjust its horizon of expectation" to the Balkan writing, and not vice versa, urges Goran Stefanovski. [ more ]
Remembering Chernobyl
Commemorating the Chernobyl disaster: Remembering the future
Chernobyl Have the lessons of Chernobyl been heeded? According to Guillaume Grandazzi, the Chernobyl commemorations will attempt to salvage the fiction of risk-free atomic power. [ more ]
The big lie
The secret Chernobyl documents
Chernobyl In 1990, journalist Alla Yaroshinskaya came across secret documents about the Chernobyl catastrophe that revealed a massive cover-up operation and a calculated policy of disinformation. It has taken twenty years for the truth of the Chernobyl disaster to come to light, and even now the full extent of the consequences remains uncertain. [ more ]
Read also: Christine Daum, Igor Kostin, "The vodka was supposed to clea our thyroid glands"; Anatol Klaschuk, , "Children of Chernobyl"
On the allegations against Milan Kundera
Two stories
Kundera and the conclusion of the Velvet Revolution
Kundera The reaction to the Kundera allegations in the Czech Republic has largely been one of doubt rather than blame. Miroslav Balastík wonders whether the incident signifies the end of a phase of post-communism in the Czech Republic. [Hungarian version added] [ more ]
What does it mean, disclosure?
kundera While there are many differences between the Kundera case and those of other eastern European intellectuals revealed as having been informers, its disclosure has followed the usual pattern. Each case must be evaluated on an individual basis, cautions György Dalos. [Hungarian version added] [ more ]
A trace of metaphysics?
On the allegations against Milan Kundera
kundera Whatever the outcome of the allegations against Milan Kundera, writes Samuel Abrahám, the manner in which they have been made represents a failure of journalistic decency. [Polish version added] [ more ]
European histories in literature, art and film
As the fog lifted
Literature in eastern central Europe since 1989
literary criticism In the twenty years since the fall of communism, literature has been lifting the fog that had settled over the expanses of eastern central Europe. A survey of the post-'89 wave of eastern European literature by Suhrkamp editor Katharina Raabe. [English version added] [ more ]
What are the Czechs like?
fiction "I'm tellin' ya, if a Czechoslovak had been within reach, I'd've licked his ass clean!" A tough-talking Magyar remembers the stirrings of neighbourly affection in '89. [ more ]
Between Pigs and Debt
Film It all began with the pleasing features of Gary Cooper... On two iconic Polish films that show the brutality, fear and loneliness that have accompanied the new political order: Wladislaw Pasikowski's "Pigs" (1992) and Krzysztof Krauze's "Debt" (1999). [ more ]
Going away and getting away
Richard Wagner's dilemma
literary criticism Romanian-German author Richard Wagner writes of exiles from the former Eastern Bloc who remain alien in their adopted countries yet cannot find their ways back home. György Dalos's laudatio to Wagner on his receipt of the Georg Dehio prize. [ more ]
"Heroes" and "the people" in eastern Europe
A rapprochement
literary criticism "Heroes" are associated in national memory with freedom and hope. The aesthetic idolization of Polish rebel leader Tadeusz Kosciuszko (1746-1817) and Russian general Aleksandre Suvorov (1729-1800) demonstrates eastern Europe's predilection for longsuffering yet proud heroes. [ more ]
Perpetrators, victims, and art
The National Socialists' campaign of pillage
Fine art The victims of Nazi pillaging included political opponents such as freemasons, priests, socialists, and union officials, but those most affected were the Jews. The results continue to hinder the search for mutual understanding within Europe. [ more ]
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More focal points
Climate of change? Debating the politics of global warming
Agreement about the necessity of radical ecological change may be unprecedented, yet rhetoric and reality go their separate ways; what looks good on paper fails to resonate in social and political practice. Will the Copenhagen Climate Summit be able to bring together word and deed? Or will business continue as usual in the global greenhouse? A Eurozine focal point debates the politics of global warming. [ more ]
Media landscapes: Central and eastern Europe
Those in central and eastern Europe who, after 1989, saw the media as the handmaiden of democracy and the conventional watchdog on power, today have become targets for new and subtler forms of censorship. How media autonomy in Europe's newer democracies is being inhibited by market forces and continuing political intervention. [ more ]
The malady of infinite aspiration?
Sound in principle or sick at heart? Articles on the financial crisis, compiled under Durkheim's memorable phrase. Including: Jacques Rupnik, Ralf Dahrendorf, Daniel Daianu, Mircea Vasilescu, Heiner Flassbeck, Olivier Mongin. [ more ]
Olympic indifference
The Beijing Olympics 2008 are unusual insofar as not one country has boycotted them. This, despite the fact that the political dimension of the Games has seldom been more controversial. Are we seeing a new kind of "Olympic indifference"? With this in mind, Eurozine compiles articles on sport, politics, and protest. [ more ]
Shared space, divided society
Migration is part of modern society, meaning more and more people of different ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds live together in Europe. The multitude of perspectives and experiences represents an enormous resource, but as cultural conflicts inherent in today's urban societies become visible, doubts are also raised about the value of diversity. [ more ]
1968: Beyond soixante-huite
Forty years on, the differences between the 1968 uprisings in western and eastern Europe move into ever sharper focus. "In retrospect, the great event of '68 in Europe was not Paris, but Prague. But we were unable to see this at the time." Including articles on '68 in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, France and West Germany. [ more ]
Illiberal Europe?
Parliament or the soapbox? Populist politics are enjoying renewed success in Europe, above all in the former socialist countries. Ivan Krastev, G.M.Tamás, Ralf Dahrendorf, Jacques Rupnik and others investigate the rise of "democratic illiberalism". [ more ]
Cultural citizenship
The concept of cultural citizenship responds to the multicultural context of contemporary societies, in which the concern with equality is increasingly being complemented with a concern with difference. Contributors include Gerard Delanty, Axel Honneth, Rainer Bauböck, Ivaylo Ditchev, Charles Taylor, Rada Ivekovic, António Sousa Ribeiro. [ more ]
Decentring Europe
Any reinvention of the concept of Europe that takes into account the complexities inherent in Europe's place in a globalized world must contain a critique of Eurocentrism. Learning from the South, i.e. absorbing the full critical impact of alternative approaches may be a key element in the rethinking – and unthinking – of "Europe".[ more ]
The future of war
Are wars that are fought between nations a thing of the past, and are the future challenges more a case of ethnic strife, break-up of failed states, secession and civil wars? In a special focal point, Eurozine analyzes the changing face of warfare in the twenty-first century, in which terrorism and new security threats have profoundly transformed the way wars are conducted. [ more ]
The city as stage for social upheaval
From the western European city to the Third World megacity, one is able to observe how a single principle asserts itself in the social structure of the urban space. That principle – privatization – is geared towards the concentration of wealth and assets on an increasingly global scale, a manoeuvre its beneficiaries seek to naturalize. [ more ]
Big Brother goes global
Post 9/11, governments are increasingly tailoring "international standards" to ratify domestic policies that intrude on civil liberties. Welcome to the phenomenon of "policy laundering". [ more ]
Changing Europe
As political Europe turns 50, the questions about its future are as open as ever. A special focus featuring some of Eurozine's most outstanding contributions on the European project: From analyses of the current crisis to a hilarious parody of Brussels' literary ambitions. [ more ]
Post-secular Europe?
Is religion a public or a private matter? Can there be such a thing as a European Islam? If so, what characterizes it? What role can religion – or religions – play when it comes to the emergence of a European solidarity? [ more ]
Europe talks to Europe: Towards a European public sphere?
The European integration project has made the discussion about transnational spaces for cultural and political debate acute. Can there at all be a common Europe without a pan-European public sphere? [ more ]
Politics of border making and (cross-)border identities
Have borders become irrelevant with the project of a united Europe? No, just the opposite. On the dilemmas of border building and cross-border cooperation in the EU and its neighbourhood. [ more ]
Documenta 12 magazines
Eurozine is participating in the Documenta 12 magazines project, which links over 90 print and on-line periodicals worldwide. Read Eurozine's contributions to the documenta leitmotifs "Modernity" and "Bare Life" here.[ more ]
Freedom of speech and the Danish cartoon controversy
Free speech is a fundamental human right and a central tenet of democracy. Or is it? Reactions to the Danish cartoon controversy show that liberals are re-evaluating what the right to free speech entails. [ more ]
Politics of translation
Translation today is as much about the translation of cultural, political, and historical contexts and concepts as it is about language. [ more ]
Conferences
European histories
The 22nd European Meeting of Cultural Journals
Vilnius, 8-11 May 2009
Under the heading "European Histories", the 22nd European Meeting of Cultural Journals explored the role of history and memory in forming new identities in a Europe in change. [ more ]
crosswords X mots croisés
21st European Meeting of Cultural Journals
Paris, 26-29 September 2008
The 21st European Meeting of Cultural Journals 2008 in Paris explored the theme of multilingualism in Europe in terms of language policies, migration, translation and the European public sphere. Read the conference texts here. [ more ]
Changing places (What's normal anyway?)
The 20th European Meeting of Cultural Journals
Sibiu, 21-24 October 2007
Under the heading "Changing places (What's normal anyway?)", the Eurozine network conference 2007 in Sibiu, Romania, addressed the challenges facing societies, literature, and the media as the need for change meets the urge for normality. Read the conference texts here. [ more ]
Friend and foe. Shared space, divided society
The 19th European Meeting of Cultural Journals
London, 27-30 October 2006
Speakers at the 19th European Meeting of Cultural Journals opened up the discussion on cultural diversity in two directions: first, as it is experienced in the physical urban space, and second, as it is reflected in the mirror of the media. [ more ]
Neighbourhoods
The 18th European Meeting of Cultural Journals
Istanbul, 4-7 November 2005
Contributions on the notion of neighbourhood and the Turkey-Europe question from a range of intellectual and geographic perspectives. [ more ]
Focal points
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