Articles

Poland is at the centre of the debate on memory politics in Europe. Plans for a museum to commemorate the ‘Polocaust’ are the next part of Poland’s history project – but have prompted outrage in Israel. Konstanty Gebert reports on what it all means.

‘Post-truth’ is a concept that has been much discussed in recent years. But what is it like to experience its effects for real? Mykola Balaban, a history student and soldier, describes how it feels to be attacked with ‘non-existent’ rockets, and how one can come to doubt even one’s own empirical experiences.

Leszek Kołakowski was Poland’s foremost twentieth century philosopher. Fifty years ago, he left communist Poland, to confront Marxism from abroad in a series of magisterial works. Historian Andrzej Friszke, in conversation with ‘Res Publica Nowa’s’ Tadeusz Koczanowicz, traces his intellectual and spiritual journey.

Julia Kristeva’s recently released secret service files reveal a similar persona to that which comes through her writing: unruly, witty, courageous. And yet Kristeva is denying the allegations. Is it something other than the truth that she fears?

Wendy Brown discusses Trump and ‘libertarian authoritarianism’, #MeToo and neoliberal feminism. She argues that, in the contemporary moment, we need ‘grit, responsibility and determination instead of hope’.

Informal construction in Yugoslavia started as a response to housing shortages but after 1990 turned into a way to make money. To see Belgrade’s semi-legal architecture as proof that urbanization can be democratized is to overlook market forces, writes Dubravka Sekulić.

Financialization and globalization mean that anti-monopoly laws and nationalization alone cannot democratize economies: companies themselves must contain democratic structures. Jurist Alain Supiot on the concept of economic democracy, its history and its future.

Ukrainian officials are trying to attract European investors to their country by stressing its low cost base and well-qualified workers. But as Artem Gergun notes, millions of Ukrainian citizens have grasped that these advantages are portable – and, rather than waiting for Europe to come them, are heading there for themselves.

Viktor Orbán has won a third successive landslide victory in Hungary. A refashioned electoral system helped him return to power, but a fragmented and incompetent opposition has paved his way for over eight years now, argues Réka Kinga Papp.

Psychologist Jordan Peterson has attracted fame and controversy with a series of YouTube lectures and interviews challenging what he calls ‘radical leftist ideological assumptions’ in the academy and elsewhere. Luka Lisjak Gabrijelčič asks him what all the fuss is about.

Social cuts and a nationalist reorientation of cultural policy have been the major trademarks of Austria’s new right-leaning government in its first 100 days. Despite the demonstrative show of unity, cracks in the coalition are already showing, reports Raphaela Tiefenbacher.

Native Americans have long been beloved in Hungary, where ‘Indians’ stand for what is real, endangered and exceptional. Viktor Orbán has used the trope to channel demographic anxiety and bolster his anti-migrant rhetoric, but it could also spell trouble for his politics of fear.

Over a month since the murder of journalist Ján Kuciak and his partner Martina Kušnírová in Slovakia, the investigation remains inconclusive. But the outpouring of grief and anger that the killings provoked has led to mass street protests, and contributed to the resignation of the prime minister and interior minister. Samuel Abrahám looks back on a month of tumult.

Disillusion with social media only stimulates the search for ever more refined techniques of manipulation. Detoxing won’t help, writes Geert Lovink: it is collective action, not will power, that can free us from the permanent state of distraction.

Viktor Orbán’s ruling Fidesz party looks well placed to sweep a third successive general election on 8 April. Why is its brand of right-wing populism – famously dubbed ‘illiberal democracy’ by Orbán himself – so successful in Hungary? Ferenc Laczó investigates.

Political theorist Michael Walzer, in conversation with Thomas Casadei of Eurozine partner journal ‘Il Mulino’, considers the noble aims and ignoble results of revolution – and in particular the 1917 Russian Revolution.