Migration, patriotism and the European agendum

An interview with historian of ideas Pierre Manent

A European patriotism can be generated only through political acts that create a sense of solidarity, says historian Pierre Manent. If invocations of Europe are to be anything but vacuous, Europe must be decisive in defining its interests and demarcating its boundaries. [more]

Castle, cathedral and river: The soul of Bratislava

Bratislava, formerly Pressburg or Prespork, was historically a multi-national and multi-confessional city. When much of the old town was destroyed in the 1970s, the city's cultural heritage was lost with it, regrets dissident, poet and writer Juraj Spitzer. [more]

A provincial town grown too big, a metropolis that has never grown up

Brno and its literary image

Poets abound in Brno's literary history, but a prose monument to the Moravian capital has yet to be written. Two neglected short stories by native son Milan Kundera, set in post-war Czechoslovakia, fill the gap, writes Jirí Trávnícek. [more]

Pride and disgust

Provincial life is typically seen in Polish literature as the antithesis of culture. Paradoxically, writes Malgorzata Litwinowicz, the Polish magic realist tradition derives precisely from the small town and the image of the shtetl as centre of the universe. [more]

Coherent fragmentation

Finding and remembering in Central Europe's confused cities

Its identity located somewhere between nostalgia and commerce, the dilapidated and the gentrified, the Central European city mixes languages, words and signs to form a style best described as radical eclecticism, writes Levente Polyák. [more]

The two cultures of the Czech Roma

The 300 000 Roma in the Czech Republic are the frontrunners of a Europe that is struggling to become multicultural, writes Karolina Ryvolová. Their culture exceeds the poverty in which they live and has a richness and variety that stems from a different set of historical roots. [more]

Culture shapes the contemporary city

Using culture to reshape and renew our declining cities is a nice idea -- or is it? Dragan Klaic looks at the successes and failures of urban projects, assesses the value of "regeneration through culture" and challenges some conventional assumptions. [Polish version added] [more]

Knowledge is not a shovel

Universities and democratic society

The primary aim of education is to nurture the ability to reflect, to develop new ideas, and to implement these collectively. Cognitive "multilingualism" is the only way to prevent the specialization of knowledge narrowing our horizons to an extent that results in structural irresponsibility. [Polish version added] [more]

Are newspapers still relevant?

It is not the Internet that is responsible for the "crisis of the press", but subordination of journalism to the market, writes the political editor of the "Süddeutsche Zeitung". For the first time since 1945, German journalism risks becoming trivialized. [Polish version added] [more]

Culturalism: Culture as political ideology

The multiculturalism debate has changed the political fronts. The Left defends minority cultures while the Right stands guard over national culture. Both are variants of a culturalist ideology, argue Jens-Martin Eriksen and Frederik Stjernfelt. [Polish version added] [more]

On the post-city

As global megacities render the urban grid and its certainties obsolete, societies of discipline become societies of control. Daniel Miller cracks open the password protected "post-city". [Lithuanian version added] [more]

History thieves

Thirty years after leaving Russia for Israel, an "unheimliche" experience in Berlin led Zinovy Zinik to investigate the chequered past of his Russian-born grandfather. An autobiographical exploration of "assumed identity" in twentieth-century Jewish experience. [Polish version added] [more]

Deutschland: The image of Germans in Polish literature

The figure of the German in recent Polish literature reveals shifts in perspective from the experience of war to that of exile. Representations of the German other in Polish self-imagining. [Hungarian version added] [more]

Anti-communism in a post-communist country

How progressive tendencies become regressive

Whether irrational or calculated, anti-communism in the Czech Republic distracts from more pressing problems. The Czech communist party might be an anachronism, but to ostracize it only prolongs its existence. [more]

Myths of neutrality

Ignoring the Holocaust in Sweden and Switzerland

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. [French version added] [more]

Holocaust: The ignored reality

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 Timothy Snyder. [more]

After the crisis, back to a Protestant ethic?

"After the financial crisis, back to a Protestant ethic?" Rather not, says Ralf Dahrendorf, but still: the reduced circumstances in which developed countries are finding themselves call for a return to a responsible, parsimonious capitalism. [more]

The EU is not a sacred cow

A response to Samuel Abraham

The question is not how we can protect the EU from demagogic leaders, but how the EU can protect us from them, writes Marek Seckar. [more]

Slovakia: Ready for the future?

Slovak society has overcome its historical handicaps and became a fully-fledged EU member-state. Yet the style of resolving conflicts among Slovak political elites undermines conditions for future development. [more]

Nations don't want to be treated like children

A response to Samuel Abrahám

National states have enough instruments of their own to ward off the threat of populism, writes Wojciech Przybylski. [more]

The whereabouts of the imprisoned Polish memory

The notion of abandoning the East dominates the Polish memory of '89. Renewed debate among the born-free generation about the period of change would foster a more individual cultural identity. [more]

Does Central Europe still exist?

In an editorial for a special issue of "Res Publica Nowa", Carl Henrik Fredriksson argues that narrow-minded realpolitik in Central Europe makes cross-border publishing endeavours all the more important. In the context of such transnational practices, the question whether Central Europe still exists becomes less consequential. [more]

Can the EU defend itself – against itself?

European stability is threatened less from outside than from within. Does the EU possess a strategy for dealing with the type of illiberal politician gaining ground in the Visegrád Four nations? [more]

Screening

"A person comes in, protests just like you, then shouts and rants, and then, when finally shown the piece of paper that was signed when they were on military service, they crumple." [more]

Still tending our own gardens

A response to Samuel Abraham

Corruption continues to play a decisive role in the relationship between the state and its citizens, writes Éva Karádi. [more]

What are the Czechs like?

"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

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]

Two stories

Kundera and the conclusion of the Velvet Revolution

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. [more]

A trace of metaphysics?

On the allegations against Milan 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. [more]

Urban spaces

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