Since the Cold War, western literary and educational establishments have reproduced Moscow’s chauvinist view of Ukrainian culture as a derivative of Russian. That attitude is now politically and morally untenable. Ukrainian culture must be liberated along with the multitude of other Slavic languages and cultures belonging to the post-Soviet space.
Articles
The current regime in Tbilisi – nominally led by Irakli Garibashvili but with oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili pulling the strings – marks a sea change in Georgia’s gradual pro-western path of development over the past thirty years. For all the faults of past governments, there is no precedent for the authoritarian turn underway since 2020.
An escalation of violence brought Brazil to the verge of democratic collapse on 8 January, as Bolsonaristas stormed the centres of power, calling for a military coup. The worst was averted, but the country faces deep social divisions and a radicalized far-right, leaving President Lula no room for error.
From pop and rock to rap, metal and electronic: popular music in Ukraine has been a part of the national awakening since 2014. Now, once again, Ukrainian musical culture is under attack from Russia. But the music goes on, despite all odds, with artists contributing in different ways to the war effort.
Recommended topics
Counter-revolution against a counter-revolution
Eastern Europe today
Gáspár Miklós Tamás (1948–2023) was among the most famed Hungarian thinkers of our time. He sought freedom and morality across oppressive regimes: first under communist dictatorships, and later in hybrid authoritarian Hungary. In this text, published shortly after the Gyurcsány debacle in 2006, he brilliantly analysed the forces that would soon lead to Orbán’s return to power.
Terror, collaboration and resistance
Russian rule in the newly occupied territories of Ukraine
Russia is using methods tested in Crimea and the separatist republics to impose its control on the Ukrainian territories occupied since February 2022. Those who remain not only find their lives in ruin but must also make impossible choices in the broad spectrum between collaboration and resistance.
Teaching diary
How public education reached its breaking point in Hungary
Teachers in Hungary are on a wildcat strike and pupils are demanding their pedagogues be paid. Public education has long been at the forefront of the Orbán administration’s centralizing frenzy, which exploits the country’s traditional hostility toward workers’ advocacy. But those caught in the system are more determined than they’ve been in decades.
Women’s rights activists protesting for a democratic Iran counteract armed police on the streets with non-hierarchical leadership, a rhizomatic network, transnationality and flash mobs. Their momentum, supported globally via the Iranian diaspora, also benefits from a legacy of historic feminist action under extreme oppression.
Eurozine review
Giving back the Bronzes
Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik 1/2023
How Germany is leading the way on the restitution of the Benin Bronzes; why nation state parochialism prevails over a European fourth estate; and how radical climate activism is bringing out the worst in Cold War conservatives.
Clicks and tricks
Vikerkaar 1–2/2023
Why organised labour in Estonia is weaker than almost anywhere in Europe; how the gig economy could be made to work for labour; and what familiarity with everyday tools tells us about our plastic fork culture.
New war, old traumas
Krytyka 6/2022
Better late than never: decolonising Ukrainian academia. Also: the WWII diaries of literary critic Viktoriya Kolosova; placenames and language politics; and poetry on Jewish-Ukrainian legacies.
Focal points
With new variants mutating around the globe, COVID-19 is no longer a novelty. The pathogen is seemingly here to stay, inducing social, political and economic turmoil. This is not a crisis to emerge from quickly. It is a prelude to further emergencies linked to climate change-related transformations and environmental destruction. How will societies deal with its tangible effects? And which issues might be perilously left by the wayside? In this new focal point, supported by the European Cultural Foundation’s Culture of Solidarity programme, Eurozine and partners take stock of this public health crisis and its accompanying crises of values and meaning.
Traditionally, a young woman used to be presented with a bundle of goods to send her off with to adult life. Today’s bottom drawers aren’t necessarily tied to marriages, nor are they strictly material. Yet, the bundle one leaves the house with is as important as ever. In this focal point, we take stock of the notions our foremothers presented us with: women’s ideas and achievements that define our understanding of power, gender and violence, bodies, connection and agency.
The focal point presents the findings of the project ‘Eurasia in Global Dialogue’ being carried out at the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna (IWM). The focal point is an extension of the earlier focal point, ‘Russia in Global Dialogue’ that ran in Eurozine and at the IWM from 2012–2018.
Post-revolutionary Ukrainian society displays a unique mix of hope, enthusiasm, social creativity, collective trauma of war, radicalism and disillusionment. With the Maidan becoming history, the focal point ‘Ukraine in European Dialogue’ explores the new challenges facing the young democracy, its place in Europe, and the lessons it might offer for the future of the European project.
Eurozine Network
Eurozine monitors upcoming funding opportunities on the international level relevant to cultural journalists, such as translation funds, mobility grants and project funding.