The conversion of the Hagia Sophia was intended as a demonstration of strength to Erdoğan’s conservative Muslim constituency and the wider Islamic world. But calculations of political advantage have also caused the weak response of the West. World cultural heritage has been dealt a huge blow, writes a leading Russian Byzantinist.
Articles
After 26 years of rule, the autocrat Alyaksandr Lukashenka has lost the support of the Belarusian people. Even if the regime is able to stay in control, it will pay an incalculable price for its brutal enforcement of the status quo. Belarus expert Astrid Sahm talks to ‘Osteuropa’ about the events and what comes next.
‘It’s astonishing how quietly fifteen million communists walked away from power, with no bloodshed. Though, as it turns out, not altogether.’ Svetlana Alexievich talks to the Belarusian journal ‘Dziejaslou’ about the legacies of the Soviet past, literary freedom and the role of culture in the country’s democratic struggle.
The pandemic and the volatility of international politics have given an upper hand to Russian intelligence services interested in spreading disinformation. Georgia has become a test field for new cyber warfare since the 2008 war and offers invaluable lessons on what to expect.
Recommended topics
More than convenience
Popping down to the shops in Annelinn
Urban housing is about more than private habitation. It is linked to a need for public spaces, amenities and services. Bustling streets are social condensers that draw people together, promote dynamic exchange and form part of the glue that binds communities. How should city planners foster these crucial interactions?
Roma communities never got a break
Roma Holocaust Memorial Day 2020
Violence against Roma is part of the European normality. It took over seven decades for Europe to acknowledge the genocide of Roma in WWII, and the communities still don’t have the means to heal among permanent attacks and persecution, with racist sentiment on the rise.
Delete your profile, not people
Comment on cancel culture
Social media users can be forgiven for feeling dissatisfied. ‘Old media’ news, based on the perpetual celebrity comeback, has hit a conceptual impasse with new cancel culture. Geert Lovink calls for the renewal of social networking tools giving users a constructive voice.
Incident
Or three short essays on solidarity
In the absence of civic traditions and positive social capital, society often organises itself along mafia-style norms. Post-communist Ukrainian society is a prime example. Yet grass-roots civic networks also operate as an alternative. Mykola Riabchuk investigates the sociology clash between these two state-nation building projects.
Eurozine review
A conceptual toolbox for the present
Glänta 1–2/2020
We need new and updated philosophical tools to understand contemporary society, writes Göran Dahlberg in the new issue of Glänta. Whether to construct, reconstruct or deconstruct from within or outside the system, ‘old tools can find new uses and new tools can awaken old and forgotten knowledge’.
Formative moments of a democrat
New Eastern Europe 4/2020
In ‘New Eastern Europe’, Ukrainian political scientist Mykola Riabchuk recalls early lessons in direct democracy; Georgian security expert Lasha Pataraia offers insights into Russian cyber-war; and Polish poet Jakub Kornhauser talks about eastern European avantgardes.
Going live
Positionen 123 (2020)
New Music mag ‘Positionen’ looks at how concepts of ‘live’ performance underwent revision during lockdown. Also: on cultivated imperfection as form of musical resistance, and why Luigi Nono wasn’t being sung from the balconies.
Focal points
Like sustenance and sex, society can’t be reproduced without shelter. That is why today’s housing crisis is so central. Contributions to this focal point look at both the winners and the losers of the crisis: the people profiting from the financialization of housing and those reimagining the right to the city.
The technoliberationism that accompanied the early days of the web now belongs to myth. Deleting Facebook is the new rebellion. Surveillance capitalism is the buzzword. Regulating is radical. Technology critique today starts with Big Tech’s power.
Disinformation is not the cause of illiberalism but its medium. The great majority of it is home grown. Thinking about ‘what to do’ about disinformation means understanding information as a public good. Abandoning a purely reactive strategy will stand democracies in better stead.
When the Cold War came to a sudden end thirty years ago, the two halves of Europe declared in unison their intention to overcome the legacy of division. Today, the hopes and ambitions of those heady days may seem unrealistic. But is talk of a new East–West divide justified?
Eurozine Network
Eurozine monitors upcoming funding opportunities on the international level relevant to cultural journalists, such as translation funds, mobility grants and project funding.