Articles

The centuries-old debate over whether certain countries belong to the East or the centre of Europe has fairly little to do with geography. In this Gagarin podcast episode, anthropologist Iván Kalmár discusses privilege, race and cultural hegemony.

Since February 2022, Ukraine’s monumentscape has become contested symbolic ground: Russian aggressors alter, destroy or steal in demonstration of self-declared cultural superiority; Ukrainian iconoclasm is also on the rise. But might multiple local cultural meanings be lost in the process?

Gogol is the greatest Ukrainian member of the Russian literary pantheon. But his artistic biography was less about cultural appropriation as radical self-disguise. On the trajectory of Gogol’s work from exoticism to belligerent Russian nationalism.

On 14 March, a bill for the legalization of civil partnerships was submitted to the Ukrainian parliament. Even though activists see it as a compromise on full marriage equality, it would grant same-sex unions vital recognition under martial law.

The local election victory of Zagreb je naš/Možemo in 2021 drew on experience of activism going back well over a decade. Campaigning positively on neglected socio-economic issues, the platform operates outside the identitarian parameters of conventional Croatian politics. But reproducing success at the national level will be a challenge.

Death by stalemate: how terminal splits down the middle of electorates favour authoritarian interference; why democratising the ‘biosphere’ is not about conservationism; and François Fejtő’s thought before and after communism.

What would you take with you, time permitting, if forced to flee your home? Keepsakes – once sent across distance by migrant family members, documenting key moments of life, and even death – gain new significance when returning is no longer an option.

Born into a cosmopolitan Jewish family, Ferenc Fejtő lived a turbulent youth as a Marxist and social democrat in Horthy’s Hungary. Having fled just before the fascist rise to power, he led a more comfortable life as a journalist and historian of eastern Europe in Paris, remaining within the left even after his disillusionment with communism.

Bulgaria will go to the polls on 2 April for the fifth time in two years, without there being any prospects of a resolution to the stalemate between liberal and pro-Russian forces. Caught in permanent election mode, the country is becoming increasingly isolated from Europe, while authoritarian influences gain ground.

A reductionist definition of democracy as ‘people power’ fails to grasp democracy’s political evolution as guarantee against tyranny. Giving a voice to the biosphere extends this principle and is not to negate democracy’s own conditions.

North Macedonia’s choice to support Ukraine has exposed it to intensified hybrid attacks. But internal divisions and festering disputes with neighbouring Bulgaria create a fertile ground for Russian interference, feeding existing resentment and a sense of encirclement.

Held hostage to the Russian veto, the UN has gradually abandoned the Syrian population. Russia’s war in Ukraine worsens the situation still, but also offers hope for democratic forces in Syria that their tormentors will one day be brought to justice.

The war crimes charges brought by the ICC against Putin are a breakthrough. But built-in safeguards of national interest, combined with an incomplete patchwork of mechanisms and jurisdictions, mean a long way ahead before Russia is prosecuted under international law for the crime of aggression.

Sexual violence is being used systematically by the Russian military in Ukraine to achieve the political goals of the Russian leadership, and is not just the result of ‘indiscipline’ or abuse of power.

Well-intentioned appeals from the collective West to encourage cultural dialogue between victim and aggressor reflect existing power structures. Reconciliation, Kateryna Botanova explains, cannot be imposed from outside.

In a rural village in northwestern Romania, church bells ring ever more rarely and memories are the only refuge from loneliness. The few inhabitants are the last witnesses of a dying way of life, but their stories and experience reveal something universal.