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Inhaltsangabe: Academics, students, the media and the public have been increasingly drawn to China and India in recent years. Both countries were considered sleeping giants and are now turning into the motors of global economic growth. China and India are both ancient civilizations with a rich history and were among the largest economic powers until European colonization in the 19th century. After Indian independence in 1947 and the establishment of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949 both countries shared the view that economic development should be achieved through a self-sustaining economy led and controlled by the government. In the following decades the share of Chinese and Indian global trade decreased significantly. Economic reform in China and India in 1978 and 1991 respectively resulted in an increasing integration into global markets and triggered large economic growth. However China and India differ in many ways. On the one hand China started its reforms 13 years earlier than India. Due to early establishment of Special Economic Zones (SEZ), strong connections with oversea Chinese in Taiwan and the abundance of cheap labor China was able to position itself as the manufacturing center of the world. India on the other side still lacks the degree of integration in global markets, and the structure of labor and bankruptcy laws, red-tape and poor infrastructure are just some obstacles for further Indian development. In addition, India and China are built on different approaches of governance. India is a democracy which makes it more difficult to introduce pragmatic laws, yet easier to absorb exogenous shocks. China on the other side is solely ruled by the Communist Party of China. As a result it is easier to adopt new policies, but on the other side legitimization to govern is limited and connected to economic growth. A closer analysis of China reveals the existence of several influential interest groups and lobbyists which makes governing China a balancing act in itself yet this will not be subject of this study. China and India both face serious principal-agent problems when it comes to enforcing laws and due to large heterogeneous populations, governing each country is a complex challenge. Today, according to GDP in PPP data China and India rank 2nd and 4th respectively globally. Their share is likely to improve and they are expected to become the world's biggest energy importers and CO2 emitters. The rise of the two nations can be interpreted as a shift of power from the Western Hemisphere towards Asia resulting in major challenges for the international community but also in a regional Asian context. It is very important to note that although China and India are both rising at the same point of time, they are rising in a different pace. China outperforms India in almost every indicator of economic development. It is the key aim of this study to point out this asymmetry between China and India. Another question is, if India is capable of catching up with China in the future and its effects to Sino-Indian relations. In that context noting the mutual perception of India and China is important. To some extent, China dealt with India only as a regional issue, having delegates of provincial governments meet with Indian federal counterparts. On the other side India and China cooperated in international forums, most recently during the Copenhagen summit in 2009, which is an indicator for equal perception. On the other side signs for future tensions can be derived from military modernization programs and competition over natural resources. Analyzing the bilateral trade between China and India serves to increase the understanding of the nature of Sino-Indian relations. It is important to note that the economic structure of India and China differs significantly. Economic aspects are also just one facet of Sino-Indian relations. However heterogeneity is always a common element in every study and although abstraction leads to a loss of information it is a necessary tool to understand Sino-Indian relations. Analyzing bilateral commodity trade provides insight in the intensity of bilateral trade, and intra-industry indices and relative comparative advantage indices provide insight in the complementary and competitive element of bilateral trade relations. Another important aspect is the role of China and India in third markets. India and China are major trade nations, yet the latter outperforms the former significantly. Nevertheless third-market trade reveals possible areas of competition and cooperation. Matching trade baskets are indicators for competitive third-market trade. A dynamic analysis provides insight if the possibility of competition in third markets is increasing and predictions can be derived from it. However it is important to note that commodity trade data are imperfect and the presented results must be regarded critically since they are only an approximation of real international trade. The share of informal economic activities is very high, and differences between international databases are also remarkable. It is important to note that databases receive their information from the very country, and regarding India and China it is particularly in question if they are able or willing to generate and provide accurate data. In addition remittances and triangular trade is not captured by commodity trade databases which are particularly high in the case of India. Hongkong also appears as a separate unit in the trade data. Although it is legally part of China and serves as a major trade hub it will not be recognized in this study. Although China regards Taiwan as a Chinese province it will be analyzed as an independent country. Due to poor availability of bilateral service data, it will not be recognized to the extent as desired. The hypothesis of this study is that there exists a substantial asymmetric component in Sino-Indian relations favoring China. In the long run more symmetric relations are possible to emerge, and India is already catching up yet policy changes could increase this process significantly. Defining India and China as competitors or partners presupposes equality to a certain extend. The last section of this study discusses this question and provides a brief outlook of possible areas of competition and partnership. However it has to be kept in mind that Indian-Chinese relations are a complex matter and providing a simple yes or no answer is not aim of this study.Inhaltsverzeichnis:Table of Contents: I.Introduction II.Historical Overview II.Comparing India and China IV.Chinese-Indian Bilateral Trade Relations V.China and India in Third Markets VI.ConclusionTextprobe:Text Sample: Latin America: Chinese and Indian trade with Brazil reveals that Chinese exports were 6.8 times larger than India's in 2004. However the gap decreased to a ratio of 5.7:1 in 2008. Both countries have shown large growth rates in their exports in this time period accounting 49.2%(China) and 53.5%(India) respectively. Brazil is not a major import partner for India. Chinas imports from Brazil increased significantly faster than India's. In 2004 Chinese imports were 13 times larger than Indian but the ratio increased to 25.7 in 2008. Chinas average import growth rate (32.9%) also exceeded India's (10.2%). With respect to possible areas of competition, 28 (Metalliferous Ore, Scarp) and 67 (Iron and Steel) are both major import goods for the two countries.28 (Metalliferous Ore, Scarp) accounts for 47.7 % of Chinese and 20.1% of India's imports from Brazil. On the export side, India and China are likely to face competition in the area of 65 (Textile Yarn, Fabric,ect). However China was able sign major deals with Brazil in 2010 and is expected to continue its relative dominance in Brazil. India's main export good to Brazil is 33 (Petroleum, Petrol.Product) accounting 49.1% of total exports. Chinas main export good to Brazil is 76 (Telecomm. Sound Equip ect), accounting 16.7%. Chinas exports to Argentina exceeded India's by the factor 8.1 in 2004 and increased further to 13.2 in 2008. On the import side China also gained relatively to India, increasing the China-India ratio from 6.5 in 2004 to 15.8 in 2008. Regarding import trends it is noteworthy that India's imports from Argentina have been decreasing between 18-25% during 2006-2008 while Chinas imports increased ranging from 48% to 78%. Analyzing the trade baskets reveals that competition in 42 (Fixed Veg. Fats and Oils) and 61 (Leather, Leather Goods) is likely to occur regarding imports. On the export side 51 (Organic Chemicals), which is the main export article for both countries accounting 15.3% of Chinas exports and 16% of India's exports is a potential area of competition. Chinas exports to Chile were 16.1 times larger than India's in 2004 and 14.9 times larger in 2008. China's imports exceeded India's by the factor of 11.9 in 2004 and by 6.4 in 2008. Regarding imports, China increased its imports from Chile by 24% annually on average, while India's imports were quite volatile. Between 2005 and 2006 India's imports increased by 300%. This can be traced back to trade agreements between India and Chile, since imports stayed on the level. However growth rates slowed down to 22% the following year and decreased by 7% between 2007 and 2008. Analyzing the trade baskets of China and India reveals 68 (Non-Ferrous Metals), 28 (Metalliferous Ore, Scarp) and 52 (Inorganic Chemicals) as possible fields of import competition. On the export side, 84 (Clothing and Assessories) and 65 (Textile Yarn, Fabric,ect ) are possible areas of competition. Therefore in Latin America, there is also a large gap between the involvement of India and China. Only in Chile indicators reveal relative increases of Indian importance as a trade partner. On the other side several areas of possible competition can be identified including 28 (Metalliferous Ore, Scarp), 52 (Inorganic Chemicals), 67 (Iron and Steel), 68 (Non-Ferrous Metals), 74 (General Industl. Mach. Nes), 79 (Other Transport Equipment) and 87 (Scientific Equipment nes) on the import side and 51 (Organic Chemicals), 65 (Textile Yarn, Fabric,ect), 84 (Clothing and Assessories ) and 89 (Misc Manufactured Goods, nes ) on the export side . EU27: The European Union is the largest trade partner of China and also one of the largest partners of India.Chinas exports to EU27 were 7.9 times larger than India's in 2004. The gap increased slightly to 8.4 in 2008. Chinese imports outperformed India's by the factor of 2.8 in 2004 and decreased the factor 2.5 in 2008. Analyzing the trade baskets reveals that both countries list 74(General Industl. Mach. Nes), 77 (Elec Mch Appar,Parts, nes), 72(Special. Indust. Machinery) and 79 (Other Transport Equipment) as their major import goods from Europe. On the export side, 84 (Clothing and Assessories) is a possible area of competition, since it is India's first and China's third largest export commodity to Europe. Africa: Chinas exports to Nigeria exceeds India's by the factor of 3.18 in 2004 and by 4.9 in 2008. Regarding imports a major shift occurred during the time of analyzis. In 2004 Chinese imports exceeded India's by the factor 8.7. However since 2006 Indian imports started to surge (increased by 900% in one year, because of a major contract regarding oil drilling rights) and in 2008 Indian imports from Nigeria were 19.1 times larger than China's. The import trade baskets reveal that India and China import mostly 33 (Petroleum, Petrol. Product) from Nigeria. Petroleum and petroleum products account for 96.4% and 81.8% of exports respectively. However given the large demand of oil by China this indicates, that Nigeria is not a major supplier of 33 (Petroleum, Petrol. Product) to China. Regarding exports both countries are likely to engage in competition in 78 (Roads Vehicles). Regarding Sudan, the picture is quite different. In Sudan, Chinas exports exceeded India's by the factor 3.3 in 2004 and by 4.6 in 2008. Chinese imports from Sudan were 74,7 times larger than India's in 2004 and the ratio dropped to 11.6 in 2008. Both countries increased their exports to Sudan on a double digit percentage level while data from 2008 shows India's increase (31.1%) ahead of China's (20.5%). Regarding import growth, China's largest increase occurred in 2007. It is noteworthy that China is a major investor in order to obtain Sudanese oil. India's imports from Sudan increased significantly in 2006 (+253%).

Japan has gone through a gradual process of dismantling its self-imposed ban on exporting lethal weapons, a process that reached a new plateau with last month's decision to permit the export to third countries of the next-generation fighter aircraft to be developed jointly with the United Kingdom and Italy.When this policy change is read in conjunction with the U.S.-Japan Joint Leaders' Statement issued on April 10, 2024, it is likely that Japan has agreed to jointly develop and produce missiles with the United States and export them to third countries. (It also marks the latest development in its departure from its pacifist defense policy that dates back to the immediate post-World War II era.) This article tries to explain the background and implications of Japan's policy changes.Eroding the arms export banAfter the end of World War II, the Japanese government refrained from exporting arms. In 1967, then-Prime Minister Eisaku Sato made it clear that Japan would not allow the export of weapons either to communist countries, countries whose arms exports are prohibited by U.N. resolutions, or countries involved in international conflicts. In 1976, the cabinet of his successor, Takeo Miki, issued a unified government opinion that banned all arms export. Despite some subsequent exceptions, such as the supply to the United States of technologies related to missile defense, Japan continued to make it a national policy to refrain from exporting arms.The ban on arms exports began to wear away in 2011. In that year, the cabinet of then-Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, the leader of the Democratic Party of Japan, eased regulations in order to permit joint development of weapons with countries that cooperate with Japan on security matters, and export the products to partners in the joint development program. Pursuant to this exception, Japan tried to sell jointly produced submarines to Australia in 2015-16.In 2014, the cabinet of then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe enabled the export of military equipment for such uses as rescue, transport, surveillance, and reconnaissance. Under this reform, Mitsubishi Electric began delivering the Air Surveillance Radar Systems to the Philippine Air Force just last year.In December 2023, the cabinet of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida approved exporting domestically produced weapons under license to the provider of the license. Thus, PAC-2 and PAC-3 interceptors, which are manufactured in Japan under a U.S. license, will be exported to the U.S., effectively replacing what Washington has provided to Ukraine in its war against Russia. This measure is reportedly based on a request from the U.S. government.Getting close to lifting the whole banMost recently, Kishida made a cabinet decision on March 26 to permit the export to third countries of the next-generation fighter aircraft that will be developed jointly with the United Kingdom and Italy. At the same time, the National Security Council amended the Implementation Guidelines on the Three Principles on Transfer of Defense Equipment and Technology. Although the government set three conditions on the export of fighter jets to third countries in the document, the new policy change has broad implications.First, the government asserts that exports to third countries will be allowed only for the next-generation fighter aircraft, which is the only item now listed in the Implementation Guidelines. However, joint development of Glide Phase Interceptor (GPI) and unmanned aerial vehicles is already under consideration. The very recent U.S.-Japan joint statement also put missiles on the agenda. Once these are materialized, the only thing the government will have to do is add them to the guidelines.Second, Japan and the recipient country must "conclude an international agreement obligating the use of defense equipment transferred from Japan in a manner consistent with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations." Currently, 15 countries are signatories to such agreements, including some authoritarian regimes like Vietnam and the United Arab Emirates. Negotiations are underway with Bangladesh to conclude a similar agreement. The number of signatory countries that will presumably be eligible to buy the jointly-developed weapons will continue to grow. Third, the ban on exporting the fighter to "a country where combat is currently deemed to be taking place as part of an armed conflict" will remain in effect. For example, if a next-generation fighter plane were completed tomorrow, Japan could not export it to Ukraine. Once sold to an eligible buyer, however, it would of course be possible that it could be transferred to a country that is engaged in conflict.Rationales for deregulationThe most recent decision, of course, begs the questions of why Japan is so determined to pursue joint development and export, and why it chose the United Kingdom and Italy as its partners.First and foremost, declining to engage in joint production and exports to third countries would be tantamount to abandoning the efficient introduction of advanced weapons systems in Japan's future. When the United States started the joint development with its allies and partners of the F-35, Japan was unable to participate in the program because its arms export ban was intact at the time. As a result, Tokyo had to pay much more to buy the warplane and also wait much longer for delivery. As weapon systems become more sophisticated and development costs soar, forgoing participation in the joint development of advanced weapon systems would very negatively affect Tokyo's arms procurement policy. Moreover, other participants in a joint development program would effectively disqualify participation by a country that did not agree to the export to third countries. When it comes to arms procurement, Tokyo has been disappointed with Washington's performance. In 1987, Japan and the United States began co-production of the current support fighter, the F-2. During the process, however, the U.S. assumed complete control of the development and refused to disclose key technologies to Japan. In the late 2000s, Japan showed interest in purchasing the F-22, but was rebuffed by the U.S. In more recent years, aspects of U.S. weapons development goals have failed to meet the needs of the Self-Defense Forces. As a result, Tokyo has grown skeptical of Washington's willingness to be flexible. The United Kingdom, on the other hand, appears to have satisfied Japanese requirements for partnership in the joint development of the next-generation fighters.Domestically, more than 100 companies have withdrawn from the defense industry over the past 20 years, and there is a growing sense of crisis in maintaining the country's defense industrial base and employment. Because the Japanese companies have limited experience and the domestic market is still too small, the only way to preserve and promote the industry is through joint production and export.There is a strong desire within the Japanese government to strengthen the alliance and enhance deterrence against China through cooperation with the United States. The Russia-Ukraine war has also reinforced the government's belief that relying on the U.S. alone will be insufficient in the event of a future conflict with China, and that Japan will need broader support from the West. In this view, joint development is useful for deepening security relationships with the West. In addition, Japan hopes to create a more favorable security environment by exporting arms to Southeast Asia and elsewhere.Finally, nostalgia for the pre-World War II period also has its appeal for some Japanese. As former Prime Minister Abe advocated "dismantling the postwar regime," many Diet members from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party want to once again realize the "combination of military and nationalism" that existed before the war. Fostering the defense industry through arms exports has been their long-cherished wish.After approving the export of jointly developed weapons to third countries, political leaders vow that Japan would uphold its basic principles as a peace-loving nation. Coupled with a sharp increase in defense spending and the stipulation of "counterstrike capabilities" that enables attacks on other national territories in its National Security Strategy, however, few would take these words at face value. At the very least, the meaning of "peace-loving nation" has changed completely. While the main pillar of the traditional notion of peace-loving nation was for Japan to maintain its military asceticism and not become a threat, Japan today emphasizes the reinforcement of deterrence in order to achieve peace.Unfortunately, the military buildup that Japan has recently embarked on and the increase in arms exports alone is unlikely to bring about the improvement in the security environment that Japan desires. Despite the Biden administration's apparent increased density of dialogue with China following the November 2023 U.S.-China summit, Tokyo has recently shown virtually no interest in direct communication with China. If Tokyo pursues deterrence by further building its military infrastructure, promoting arms exports, and strengthening alliances without offering reassurance to Beijing, it will inevitably result in the security dilemma for both countries. The real concern is that Japan is underestimating the risk.

At the end of the 1970s, Peru was getting ready for the first democratic elections after several successive military dictatorships. However, this change of political regime was altered by the declaration of war on the Peruvian state in 1980 by the Communist Party of Peru-Shining Path (pcp-sl) and in 1984 by the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (mrta). The Peruvian armed conflict lasted until 2000, entailing a very high human and material cost. During that time, women in both pcp-sl and mrta broke traditional gender roles therefore they received bigger judicial, social and symbolic punishment than their male counterparts.Prisons became an essential part of the ideological, military and symbolic struggle for both organizations/armed groups and for the state. Peru was then a democratic regime, but the human rights of imprisoned people were systematically violated, as reported by numerous national and international Human Rights associations. The fieldwork was carried out from 2007 to 2009 and This work is based on the memories of 16 women who have been in prison –some of them are still inside–. After serving an average sentence of 15 years in prison, the identity of these women that lived these exceptional and complex situations was alter or transform in many different ways. Ideology became a key element to "break the penal system" and survive to it. Understanding ideology as something beyond the political convictions of a specific organization. The beliefs by which a person has been socialized and which they have subsequently made their own; It would be the cognitive universe considered as desirable and belonging. In these terms, the Peruvian prison was seen as an institution that brought two opposite ideological groups face to face: the armed organizations, which already had a political work prior to and during the conflict; and the Peruvian state, which would try to bring back 'citizenship' to those people who regretted their actions. The ideology of the Peruvian state would be the 'Peruvian hegemonic citizenship', symbolized in the Peruvian flag and national anthem. For this purpose, different categories of political prisoner were created: disassociated, reformed, independent and innocent. ; A finales de la década del setenta del pasado siglo, Perú se preparaba para las primeras elecciones democráticas después de varias dictaduras militares sucesivas. No obstante, este cambio de régimen político se vio alterado por la declaración de guerra al Estado peruano en 1980 del Partido Comunista del Perú-Sendero Luminoso (pcp-sl) y en 1984 del Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru (mrta). El conflicto armado interno duró hasta el año 2000, conllevando un altísimo coste humano y material. Al quebrantar los roles de género tradicionales, las mujeres del pcp-sl —especialmente por ser mayor en número— y del mrta recibieron mayor castigo judicial, social y simbólico que sus compañeros varones.Las cárceles se convirtieron en parte esencial de la lucha ideológica, militar y simbólica tanto para ambas organizaciones o grupos armados como para el estado. Y aunque fuera un régimen democrático, dentro de estas se vulneraron sistemáticamente los derechos de las personas encarceladas, como denunciaron numerosos colectivos de derechos humanos nacionales e internacionales. El presente trabajo está basado en la memoria 16 mujeres que han estado en la cárcel —incluso algunas continúan en ella— a través del trabajo de campo llevado a cabo desde 2007 hasta 2009. Tras cumplir una media de 15 años de condena, las mujeres que viven estas situaciones excepcionales y complejas alteran o transforman su identidad de diferentes maneras. Con el fin de romper el sistema penitenciario y de sobrevivir a él, la ideología se convirtió en la pieza clave, pero entendida como algo más allá de las convicciones políticas de una organización concreta. Sería, entonces, el universo cognitivo considerado como deseable y de pertenencia, es decir, las creencias por las cuales se ha socializado una persona y que posteriormente ha hecho propias. Bajo este prisma, la cárcel peruana como institución total enfrentó dos grandes grupos ideológicos: el de las organizaciones armadas, que ya tenían un trabajo político anterior al conflicto y durante este, y el del Estado peruano, que intentaría volver a ciudadanizar a aquellas personas que se arrepintieran de sus actos. En el último caso, la ideología sería la ciudadanía hegemónica peruana, simbolizada en la bandera peruana y en el himno nacional, creando para ello diferentes categorías para designar a las y los presas/os políticas/os: desvinculadas/os, arrepentidas/os, independientes e inocentes. Imagen de portada: Ana Casamayou. Serie "Prisiones" ; No final da década de 1970, o Peru preparava-se para as primeiras eleições democráticas depois de várias ditaduras militares sucessivas. No entanto, essa mudança de regime político foi alterada pela declaração de guerra ao Estado peruano em 1980 pelo Partido Comunista do Sendero Luminoso do Peru (pcp-sl) e em 1984 pelo Movimento Revolucionário Tupac Amaru (mrta). O conflito armado interno durou até o ano 2000, acarretando um custo material e humano muito elevado. Ao romper com os papéis tradicionais de gênero, as mulheres do pcp-sl –especialmente por serem em maior número– e do mrta receberam maiores punições judiciais, sociais e simbólicas do que seus homólogos masculinos. As prisões tornaram-se uma parte essencial da luta ideológica, militar e simbólica, tanto para as organizações ou grupos armados quanto para o Estado. E ainda que se tratasse de um regime democrático, nelas os direitos das pessoas presas eram sistematicamente violados, conforme denunciaram numerosos grupos de direitos humanos nacionais e internacionais. O presente trabalho tem como base os relatos de 16 mulheres que estiveram na prisão –algumas continuam nela– recolhidos durante pesquisa de campo realizada de 2007 a 2009. Depois de cumprir em média 15 anos de prisão, as mulheres que vivem essas situações excepcionais e complexas transformam sua identidade de diferentes maneiras. Para "desmontar o sistema prisional" e sobreviver a ele, a ideologia tornou-se o elemento-chave, ideologia aqui entendida como algo que ultrapassa as convicções políticas de uma organização específica. Tratar-se-ia do universo cognitivo considerado desejável e de pertencimento, ou seja, as crenças a partir das quais uma pessoa foi socializada e que posteriormente são tomadas como suas. Sob esse prisma, a prisão peruana como instituição total enfrentou dois grandes grupos ideológicos: o grupo das organizações armadas, que já exerciam uma função política antes e durante o conflito; e oa do Estado peruano, que tentaria devolver à 'cidadania' aquelas pessoas que se arrependessem de suas ações. Neste último caso, a ideologia seria a 'cidadania peruana hegemônica', simbolizada na bandeira peruana e no hino nacional, criando diferentes categorias para designar presos(as) políticos(as): desvinculados(as), arrependidos(as), independentes e inocentes.

Vadym Illenko's creative work as a cinematographer and director was not yet considered in detail aside a few publications, including those that consider his early works as film director. Vadym Illenko's filmography can be chronologically divided into several periods, which correspond to the periodization of Ukrainian cinema. The first, Thaw period was very intense for his creative output; it included seven films which Vadym Illenko has shot as a cinematographer (Journey to Youth, Simple Thing, Military Secret, Coming to You, Oleksa Dovbush, Chasing Two Hares, Only Statues Keep Silence), as well as two films he directed (Veronika's Return, Southern Cross is Above Us). During this period, thanks to the cultural politics of the Thaw, the film industry was growing and new fresh forces entered cinema. The Thaw films often portrayed romantic persons as main characters; this was the case of Vadym Illenko's directorial debut. This film affirms such traits as nobleness, selflessness, and sympathizes with the characters that are ready to prefer the uncomfortable conditions of life for the sake of moral comfort. In other words, this film fits to the ethos of the Thaw. Soviet cinema of 1950s was eager to address the topics of underdeveloped areas, and Vadym Illenko's creative biography illustrates this trend. His films of the period featured adventures of alpinists, mysterious fortress in Crimea, marine rescue ship, virgin land, Antarctica. Vadym Illenko also took part in creating the most popular Ukrainian comedy of this period - Chasing Two Hares.The central for the second period of Vadym Illenko's creative biography was the work on the film The Eve of Ivan Kupalo, which testified his innovative approach to cinematography. Particularly important was the complicated search for color chord, which was achieved only due to professional obsession of cinematographer. Vadym Illenko's camera work in this film can be treated as an anthology of the best accomplishments of Ukrainian school of cinematography and is equal to the attainments of the world cinematography. The successful formal experiment was facilitated by the late Thaw, which was relatively prolonged in Ukraine. Yet, Vadym Illenko also made completely different kind of cinematography in films Postal Romance, White Bashlyk, as well as in his directorial work Cuckoo with Diploma.The third period (There Far, Beyond the River…, Feast of Backed Potato, School and others) was a period of Stagnation when there was a great pressure to make ideologically correct films which generally were deprived of any artistic merits.The fourth period (Ivan A., directorial work Pass it Over…) belongs to Perestroyka time with its creative freedom and possibility of realize long nurtured projects.Finally, during Independencetime Vadym Illenko worked as cinematographer on the film Hetman's Gems directed by Leonid Osyka (based on the novella Whirlpool, 1993, by Bohdan Lepky). This film is the last work of talented filmmaker Leonid Osyka. It depicts the period of Ruin, whenUkraine due to the internal squabbles was losing its power and statehood achieved during Bohdan Khmelnytsky's time. The cause of the squabbles, according to the authors, laid in the inability of every individual person to see beyond its private interests, in individualism which excludes love to the near ones and wider state interests.In 1991 Vadym Illenko co-authored screen play, directed and made cinematography of his best film The Last Bunker. The film revisited the events of Soviet time from the new perspective, which is free of the ideology enforced by the Communist Party. This film was an adaptation of the novella In Front of Tribunal by Leonid Borodin, based on the real story told to the author during his imprisonment in Soviet labor camp in 1960s. The internal struggle and moral opposition among perpetrators of Soviet repressive state apparatus faded onto background in the film. National resistance against Russian perpetrators was foregrounded. Vadym Illenko's film reveals the ways of criminal conduct Russian perpetrators, for example, how they kill Ukrainian intelligentsia while dressed as representatives of Ukrainian Insurgent Army. The film shows the war after the war, and the struggle between the unequal forces: a powerful, efficient repressive apparatus of NKVD-MVD on one side, and a national resistance to Russian occupation inWestern Ukraine on the other. Vadym Illenko made everything to stay true to the harsh reality of that struggle. There are no open battles in the film; the armed struggle was not possible by 1947. The struggle was conducted as an underground terror, UPA warriors were destroying representatives of NKVD-MVD and their collaborators; and in the film this is shown from point of view of the latter. The film exposes slyness and perfidy of experienced captain Shytov, who is ready to sacrifice the local population and even his colleagues in the sake of his career.The last work on Vadym Illenko's filmography is an adaptation of the novel Helli and Nock by Olaksander Granin. Vadym Illenko turned to the work of romantic writer in the pragmatic time proving that the person with realistic and sober thinking was able to contain the trust in strong and pure hearts.For a long time Vadym Illenko stayed in the shadow of his brother, Yuri Illenko, an ambitious and successful director and cinematographer, a prizewinner of international festivals. Yet, Vadym Illenko also experienced a moment of success. It happened during the 1990s, the disadvantageous period for film production that almost halted in Ukraineand in the whole Post-Soviet space. During this time the comedy Chasing Two Hares, which Vadym Illenko shoot as a director of photography, became extremely popular.Vadym Illenko was highly prized for his professional qualities and reliability, which he proved from the very beginning of his career in the second half of 1950s. He successfully shot films in extreme circumstances, for example such films as Journey to Youth and Oleksa Dovbush. Vadym Illenko's cinematography exposes a wide pallet, yet his work is recognizable. He always inspires optimism with the help of visual means; he always tries to give chance to the characters to improve the drawbacks. When human impasse and repentance is shown, as in the film Nonsense based on Chekhov's story, there is a prospect for hope opened in the field of vision. Vadym Illenko didn't overaccentuate violence in the films which displayed cruelty; he was able to relate such episodes to the environment, which affirmed universals and eternity of existence. As a director Vadym Illenko tended to assert his trust in humanity, indestructability of goodness. Vadym Illenko affirmed eternal values even when he shot the ironic, sparkling comedy Chasing Two Hares. Vadym Illenko was considered as an authority, yet he was a humble person. He never flaunted his professional abilities preferring to prove them in his work. ; Постановочно-складні, експериментальні й жанрові фільми українського кіно радянських часів кінооператор Вадим Іллєнко знімав, маючи репутацію високого професіонала і людини, цілком відданої своїй справі, що і поєднувало все зняте ним. І якби він зняв усього два фільми — «За двома зайцями» та «Вечір на Івана Купала» — його ім'я увійшло б в історію українського кіно. Він же зняв дев'ятнадцять. А крім того, поставив шість картин як кінорежисер, серед яких пальма першості належить стрічці «Останній бункер». Аналіз операторського і режисерського спадку майстра і становить зміст статті.

Vadym Illenko's creative work as a cinematographer and director was not yet considered in detail aside a few publications, including those that consider his early works as film director. Vadym Illenko's filmography can be chronologically divided into several periods, which correspond to the periodization of Ukrainian cinema. The first, Thaw period was very intense for his creative output; it included seven films which Vadym Illenko has shot as a cinematographer (Journey to Youth, Simple Thing, Military Secret, Coming to You, Oleksa Dovbush, Chasing Two Hares, Only Statues Keep Silence), as well as two films he directed (Veronika's Return, Southern Cross is Above Us). During this period, thanks to the cultural politics of the Thaw, the film industry was growing and new fresh forces entered cinema. The Thaw films often portrayed romantic persons as main characters; this was the case of Vadym Illenko's directorial debut. This film affirms such traits as nobleness, selflessness, and sympathizes with the characters that are ready to prefer the uncomfortable conditions of life for the sake of moral comfort. In other words, this film fits to the ethos of the Thaw. Soviet cinema of 1950s was eager to address the topics of underdeveloped areas, and Vadym Illenko's creative biography illustrates this trend. His films of the period featured adventures of alpinists, mysterious fortress in Crimea, marine rescue ship, virgin land, Antarctica. Vadym Illenko also took part in creating the most popular Ukrainian comedy of this period - Chasing Two Hares.The central for the second period of Vadym Illenko's creative biography was the work on the film The Eve of Ivan Kupalo, which testified his innovative approach to cinematography. Particularly important was the complicated search for color chord, which was achieved only due to professional obsession of cinematographer. Vadym Illenko's camera work in this film can be treated as an anthology of the best accomplishments of Ukrainian school of cinematography and is equal to the attainments of the world cinematography. The successful formal experiment was facilitated by the late Thaw, which was relatively prolonged in Ukraine. Yet, Vadym Illenko also made completely different kind of cinematography in films Postal Romance, White Bashlyk, as well as in his directorial work Cuckoo with Diploma.The third period (There Far, Beyond the River…, Feast of Backed Potato, School and others) was a period of Stagnation when there was a great pressure to make ideologically correct films which generally were deprived of any artistic merits.The fourth period (Ivan A., directorial work Pass it Over…) belongs to Perestroyka time with its creative freedom and possibility of realize long nurtured projects.Finally, during Independencetime Vadym Illenko worked as cinematographer on the film Hetman's Gems directed by Leonid Osyka (based on the novella Whirlpool, 1993, by Bohdan Lepky). This film is the last work of talented filmmaker Leonid Osyka. It depicts the period of Ruin, whenUkraine due to the internal squabbles was losing its power and statehood achieved during Bohdan Khmelnytsky's time. The cause of the squabbles, according to the authors, laid in the inability of every individual person to see beyond its private interests, in individualism which excludes love to the near ones and wider state interests.In 1991 Vadym Illenko co-authored screen play, directed and made cinematography of his best film The Last Bunker. The film revisited the events of Soviet time from the new perspective, which is free of the ideology enforced by the Communist Party. This film was an adaptation of the novella In Front of Tribunal by Leonid Borodin, based on the real story told to the author during his imprisonment in Soviet labor camp in 1960s. The internal struggle and moral opposition among perpetrators of Soviet repressive state apparatus faded onto background in the film. National resistance against Russian perpetrators was foregrounded. Vadym Illenko's film reveals the ways of criminal conduct Russian perpetrators, for example, how they kill Ukrainian intelligentsia while dressed as representatives of Ukrainian Insurgent Army. The film shows the war after the war, and the struggle between the unequal forces: a powerful, efficient repressive apparatus of NKVD-MVD on one side, and a national resistance to Russian occupation inWestern Ukraine on the other. Vadym Illenko made everything to stay true to the harsh reality of that struggle. There are no open battles in the film; the armed struggle was not possible by 1947. The struggle was conducted as an underground terror, UPA warriors were destroying representatives of NKVD-MVD and their collaborators; and in the film this is shown from point of view of the latter. The film exposes slyness and perfidy of experienced captain Shytov, who is ready to sacrifice the local population and even his colleagues in the sake of his career.The last work on Vadym Illenko's filmography is an adaptation of the novel Helli and Nock by Olaksander Granin. Vadym Illenko turned to the work of romantic writer in the pragmatic time proving that the person with realistic and sober thinking was able to contain the trust in strong and pure hearts.For a long time Vadym Illenko stayed in the shadow of his brother, Yuri Illenko, an ambitious and successful director and cinematographer, a prizewinner of international festivals. Yet, Vadym Illenko also experienced a moment of success. It happened during the 1990s, the disadvantageous period for film production that almost halted in Ukraineand in the whole Post-Soviet space. During this time the comedy Chasing Two Hares, which Vadym Illenko shoot as a director of photography, became extremely popular.Vadym Illenko was highly prized for his professional qualities and reliability, which he proved from the very beginning of his career in the second half of 1950s. He successfully shot films in extreme circumstances, for example such films as Journey to Youth and Oleksa Dovbush. Vadym Illenko's cinematography exposes a wide pallet, yet his work is recognizable. He always inspires optimism with the help of visual means; he always tries to give chance to the characters to improve the drawbacks. When human impasse and repentance is shown, as in the film Nonsense based on Chekhov's story, there is a prospect for hope opened in the field of vision. Vadym Illenko didn't overaccentuate violence in the films which displayed cruelty; he was able to relate such episodes to the environment, which affirmed universals and eternity of existence. As a director Vadym Illenko tended to assert his trust in humanity, indestructability of goodness. Vadym Illenko affirmed eternal values even when he shot the ironic, sparkling comedy Chasing Two Hares. Vadym Illenko was considered as an authority, yet he was a humble person. He never flaunted his professional abilities preferring to prove them in his work. ; Постановочно-складні, експериментальні й жанрові фільми українського кіно радянських часів кінооператор Вадим Іллєнко знімав, маючи репутацію високого професіонала і людини, цілком відданої своїй справі, що і поєднувало все зняте ним. І якби він зняв усього два фільми — «За двома зайцями» та «Вечір на Івана Купала» — його ім'я увійшло б в історію українського кіно. Він же зняв дев'ятнадцять. А крім того, поставив шість картин як кінорежисер, серед яких пальма першості належить стрічці «Останній бункер». Аналіз операторського і режисерського спадку майстра і становить зміст статті.

Sarajevo's contested position at the intersection of geopolitical 'tectonic plates' – situated between Rome and Byzantium, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, the Western and Eastern Bloc, de-colonization and re-colonization – resulted in both fertile periods of exchange and moments of devastating conflicts. This inbetweenness has contributed to the (dis)continuous cityscape, characterized by a diversity of spatial productions and radical urban transformations. Therefore, Sarajevo represents an urban laboratory for social and spatial transformation processes. The ETHZ/UTT 'Urban Toolbox' provided a cross-scalar methodological approach for examining the physical typology, program, and actors of Sarajevo's urbanism, spanning from spatial and stakeholder analyses synthesized through critical mapping to the identification of strategic scenarios and the use of digital media. This dissertation zooms both in and out on three time periods between 1945 and 2014, defined by three distinct revolutionary moments. The central theme of this project is the examination of the transformative processes with the focus on the district of Marijin Dvor in New Sarajevo. Previously a peripheral zone, it became a central operational laboratory of the new Sarajevo to test the effects of major geopolitical shifts on the 'heart' and 'brain' of the city. While investigating multiple spatial crystallization points, one building epitomized the correlation between geopolitical power and space – the Museum of the Revolution – a living symbol of the three periods of construction, destruction and fragmentation. The proclamation of Tito's communist revolution in 1945 and the establishment of a socialist Yugoslav federation, created pressing spatial demands for the new urban proletariat. The industrialization and rural-urban migration gave birth to the city's first strategic urbanistic model, enabled by proclaiming the collectivization of land as a common good. The City Planning Institute developed the first General Urban Plan (GUP-Generalni Urbanistički Plan) in 1961. This large-scale urban planning instrument was enabled by the Yugoslav decentralized model of self-management that also included the 'Mjesne Zajednice' (MZs), the local communities. These new societal postulates were decisive for the construction of the flagship project for Sarajevo and its nucleus, Marijin Dvor, as a cultural, educational and industrial hub of BiH, one of Yugoslavia's most ethnically diverse and rural regions. Architects and urbanists were tasked with planning, designing and building a New Sarajevo as a socialist utopia. Buildings, such as the Museum of the Revolution, were constructed as monuments to celebrate both the victory of the partisans over Nazi Germany and the new state design ideology: functionalist modernism. The construction of Marijin Dvor was catalyzed by the Winter Olympic Games, hosted by Sarajevo in 1984 as a result of Yugoslavia's non-aligned foreign policy and the city's status as 'terra neutral`. Later in 1992, as socialist Yugoslavia began to crumble after the geopolitical vacuum of post-1989 Europe, Marijin Dvor became the site of the fruitless peace protests. The city was put under military siege and New Sarajevo was divided along a frontline. Under wartime conditions, the urban utopia was de-urbanized. The collapse of urban infrastructure and the destruction of the human habitat, characterized in Bogdan Bogdanović's description of urbicide, reached its peak in Sarajevo. During this period, Marijin Dvor went through a radical transformation: public spaces became graveyards or urban-agricultural zones for survival. The Museum of the Revolution found itself at the frontline and was bombed as the symbol of a common Yugoslav past. Nevertheless, in acts of popular resistance, destroyed buildings became temporary art spaces. Derelict parks turned into agricultural zones. This attracted a wave of global solidarity as intellectuals visited Sarajevo, including the architect Lebbeus Woods, and formed a vital part of the antiwar movement, analyzing the destruction and proposing both small adaptations and radical post-war reconstruction visions. However, these visions did not adhere to the post-socialist and post-war realities of the newly ethnically divided Sarajevo resulting from the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement. Common properties had been converted into state ones, which were then auctioned off in a massive privatization wave. These policies fell in line with the country's market liberalization. Within these new realities, MZs maintained the same level of legal status, but under the extreme pressure by neoliberal urban development. New economic and urban mechanisms led to aggressive development driven by investments from across the geopolitical spectrum, which disregarded already destroyed public space in favor of monocultures of generic commercial architecture. Marijin Dvor became a high-density node of real estate speculations and a symbol of socio-economic segregation and spatial fragmentation. The refugia of public space were found in administrative grey-zones of the post-war constitutional changes. Politically contaminated and left out of the legal system and with a new name and no program as a consequence, the Historical Museum, once the Museum of the Revolution, became a host to civic engagements, inviting citizens to figure as curators. This new system and its accompanying urban model revealed ruptures in 2014, symbolized through violent mass protests of the so-called 'Bosnian Spring'. Impoverished and unemployed, Sarajevans turned their anger and desperation against the city's governmental buildings. The dissertation includes 'Reactivate Sarajevo', an activist experiment of spatial agency that connects theory and practice by engaging in-situ. Influenced by both the pioneers of reflective practice, Donald Schön and Kurt Lewin, and the ETHZ/UTT concept of the activist architect, 'Reactivate Sarajevo' exposes the dissertation's work-in-progress to the public. This discourse was initiated through the organization of expert symposia, stakeholder workshops and open discussions with the general public. The production of discourse, curation of performances and reflection of these actions mutually nurtured the theoretical chapters. These acts spawned critical mapping and alternative design concepts, presented through an interactive digital platform, as well as a strategy of inversion to represent Sarajevo and Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2016 at the International Architecture Biennale in Venice for the first time in the country's history. The exhibition showcased not only critical research, but also alternative design concepts amplifying civic action as a basis for the integrated and inclusive development of Marijin Dvor. The insights were then transferred back to Sarajevo back via the 'Balkan route' and the exhibition was installed in the Historical Museum. The Experiment contributed to the creation of a network of formal and informal partnerships locally and laid the groundwork for a future urban design and planning project concerning the future planning of Marijin Dvor and Sarajevo. This approach of action research resonated throughout the Balkans and other regions through workshops, lectures and consultancies and formed the basis for the extrapolation and application of the insights to other cities.

Nationale Identitäten, kollektive Erinnerungen und mit diesen verbundene Geschichtspraktiken sind keine monolithischen Konstrukte, deren Ausverhandlung eine zielgerichtete und somit finalisierbare Praxis darstellt – es handelt sich dabei vielmehr um Prozesse, welche gesamtgesellschaftlich konstant im Lichte der Gegenwart neu hinterfragt und verortet werden. Die Dynamik solcher Prozesse nimmt jedoch insbesondere dann zu, wenn eine Nation als 'imagined community' (Benedict Anderson) neu konstituiert wird. Innerhalb Europas wurde dies in den 1990er Jahren besonders virulent: Aus den desaströsen Jugoslawienkriegen gingen sieben unabhängige Nationen hervor und alle beriefen sich in ihren Gründungs- und Legitimationsnarrativen auf vermeintlich jahrhundertalte Nationalitätsdiskurse. Hinzu kam die hoch komplexe Frage, welche identitätsstiftende Rolle die jüngsten Kriege in der Proklamierung und Etablierung der nationalen Selbstverständnisse spielen sollen. Das vierjährige interdisziplinäre Forschungsprojekt "FRAMNAT – Framing the Nation and Collective Identities" widmete sich zwischen Juli 2014 und Juli 2018 eben jener Frage innerhalb Kroatiens. Die Projektverantwortlichen der Universitäten Rijeka und Dubrovnik untersuchten dabei top-down und bottom-up-Strategien der öffentlichen Gestaltung (framing) der Nation sowie kollektiver Erinnerungen. Dabei galt es laut Projektbeschreibung, sowohl spezifische, geschichtspolitisch aufgeladene kommemorative Praktiken innerhalb von Case Studies zu untersuchen wie auch innovative Methoden für die Untersuchung kultureller Erinnerung und kognitiver Linguistik zu entwickeln (vgl. http://framnat.eu/the-project/?lang=en), welche auch außerhalb Kroatiens zur Anwendung kommen können. Neben der detailreichen und höchst informativen multimedialen Datensammlung, welche schrittweise auf der Website framnat.eu veröffentlicht und archiviert wurde, findet das Projekt nun mit diesem Sammelband seinen publizistischen Abschluss. Framing the Nation and Collective Identities – Political Rituals and Cultural Memory of the Twentieth-Century Traumas in Croatia versammelt unter der Herausgeberschaft von Vjeran Pavlaković und Davor Pauković elf Texte, welche sich der retrospektiven Analyse der dokumentierten Case Studies der letzten vier Jahre widmen: "We identified seven commemorations […] that were relevant because they either attracted the country's political leadership and were of national significance or were particularly controversial and therefore provoked debates that would reveal how various actors framed the nation through rival 'truths' over the past" (S. 2). Bei den sieben Fallbeispielen handelt es sich zunächst um kommemorative Praktiken zur Erinnerung an den Zweiten Weltkrieg, insbesondere die Rolle des kroatisch-faschistischen NDH-Staats (Gedenkveranstaltungen bezüglich des Konzentrationslagers Jasenovac) sowie der Verbrechen seitens der kommunistischen Partisanen gegenüber ethnischen Kroaten infolge der Kapitulation Hitlerdeutschlands und seiner Verbündeten (Gedenkveranstaltungen in Bleiburg, Jazovka, Brezovica und Srb). Weiters wurden Gedenkmärsche und öffentliche Reden in Bezug auf die Erinnerung an den jüngsten Krieg analysiert (in Knin und Vukovar, wobei das erstgenannte Fallbeispiel ein Siegernarrativ des Krieges und Zweiteres ein Opfernarrativ bedient). Die editorische Zusammensetzung der einzelnen Beiträge gliedert sich in vier sehr übersichtliche Teile: Der erste Teil setzt sich aus soziokulturellen, philosophischen und linguistischen Annäherungen an Kroatiens Erinnerungs- und Geschichtspolitik zusammen. Pero Maldinis Beitrag widmet sich hier dem soziokulturellen Kontext einer spezifischen kroatischen Erinnerungskultur aus einer politikhistorischen Perspektive. Er weist nach, dass politische und ideologische Konflikte innerhalb Kroatiens oftmals nicht auf sozioökonomischen Trennlinien innerhalb der Gesellschaft fußen, sondern ihre Basis insbesondere in den konträren Ansichten politischer Eliten finden. Renato Stanković verbindet in seinem Beitrag Erinnerungspolitik mit zeitgenössischer Philosophie. Dabei geht es in erster Linie um die Frage, was der eigentliche Inhalt staatlicher Erinnerung ist und wie jener innerhalb der kroatischen Gesellschaft distribuiert wird. Der dritte Beitrag des ersten Teils stammt von Benedikt Perak und beschäftigt sich mit einer ontologischen, konzeptuellen und linguistischen Perspektive auf die 101 im Rahmen des FRAMNAT Projekts analysierten Reden. Der Text dekonstruiert und vergleicht den Inhalt der Reden – auch in übersichtlichen, aber leider in dieser Erstausgabe undeutlich gedruckten Übersichtsgrafiken. Der zweite Teil des Buchs umfasst zwei von den Herausgebern verfasste Beiträge zur Gedenkkultur an den Zweiten Weltkrieg. Davor Pauković beschäftigt sich mit öffentlichen Reden sowie der medialen Repräsentation der Gedenkmärsche in Bleiburg und Jazovska. Dabei werden historische Revisionen der Verbrechen der Partisanen gegenüber ethnischen Kroaten und die Instrumentalisierung der Opfer für entsprechende zeitgenössische kroatisch-nationalistische Narrative hinterfragt. Die Problematik sieht der Autor weniger in der Erinnerungskultur an den Zweiten Weltkrieg und die NDH-Führung an sich verankert: Vielmehr drängt sich laut Pauković die Frage auf, wie an das kommunistische Regime im ehemaligen Jugoslawien erinnert werden soll. So ist in den kroatischen Erinnerungsnarrativen bis heute nicht restlos geklärt, ob die Tito-Führung tatsächlich anderer Natur war als jene des Ostblocks. Diese historiographische Unklarheit über die politische Natur der Sozialistischen Föderativen Republik Jugoslawien bildet den Nährboden für die Instrumentalisierbarkeit nationaler und nationalistischer Identitätsdiskurse. Vjeran Pavlaković untersucht die öffentlichen Auftritte führender Politiker in Bezug auf das Konzentrationslager Jasenovac. Tausende Serben, Juden und Roma sowie Gegner des NDH-Regimes wurden hier systematisch ermordet. Die Opferzahlen wurden noch zu Zeiten des sozialistischen Jugoslawiens propagandistisch verfälscht, nach der Unabhängigkeit der Teilrepubliken daraufhin von nahezu jeder Seite in die Höhe getrieben (seitens radikaler serbischer Nationalisten) oder heruntergespielt (seitens kroatischer Nationalisten bzw. Befürworter des NDH Regimes, die darin den ersten unabhängigen kroatischen Staat sahen). Pavlaković weist nach, wie sich die Rolle des Vernichtungslagers innerhalb der öffentlichen kroatischen Gedenkkultur im Rahmen des EU-Integrationsprozesses Kroatiens sichtbar verändert hat: Politische Akteure sprachen nach 2011 öffentlich über die dunklen Seiten der ansonsten oftmals verharmlosten kroatischen faschistischen Vergangenheit. Die 'Europäisierung' der kroatischen Verbrechen des Zweiten Weltkriegs schien ein wichtiger symbolischer und kulturpolitischer Schritt zum 2013 erfolgten EU-Beitritt, fußt doch der Gründungsmythos der Europäischen Union auf der paneuropäischen Vergangenheitsbewältigung der Verbrechen, Genozide und Kriege der 1930er und 1940er Jahre. Innerhalb der Untersuchungsjahre des FRAMNAT Projekts, respektive unmittelbar nach der Eingliederung Kroatiens in die EU, änderte sich der Erinnerungsdiskurs. Der viel beachtete staatlich finanzierte Propagandafilm Jasenovac – Istina (Jasenovac – Die Wahrheit; R: Jakov Sedlar, 2016) erregte die Gemüter der politischen Linken, stellte jedoch nur einen der vielen geschichtsrevisionistischen Schritte in der Relativierung kroatischer Verbrechen des Zweiten Weltkriegs dar. So besuchte beispielsweise 2015 die neu gewählte Staatspräsidentin Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović Jasenovac ein paar Tage vor der jährlichen offiziellen Gedenkveranstaltung. Während ihre beiden Vorgänger, um europäische Integration bemüht, klare Worte für die Verbrechen fanden, legte sie als Kandidatin der konservativen Partei HDZ im Rahmen einer Gedenkveranstaltung einen Blumenkranz wortlos zu Boden. Auf jegliche Rede wurde verzichtet. Jedoch bedeutet Stille in diesem Falle nicht den Respekt vor den unaussprechlichen, abscheulichen faschistischen Verbrechen, sondern vielmehr ein bewusstes Nicht-Benennen historischer Verantwortung. Dem nicht genug, sagte Grabar-Kitarović ihre finanzielle Unterstützung für die Bleiburg-Erinnerungsmärsche zu – eine Finanzierung, die in den Jahren zuvor nicht genehmigt wurde: "[…] she toed the HDZ line of condeming all totalitarianisms equally, which de facto meant silencing Ustaša victims while focusing almost exclusively on the crimes committed by the Yugoslav communist regime" (S. 127). Der dritte Teil widmet sich den Erinnerungspolitiken des Kroatienkriegs (in Kroatien genannt: 'domovinski rat', 'Heimatkrieg'). Ivor Sokolićs Beitrag befasst sich mit der Instrumentalisierung von Veteranen in kommemorativen Reden, welche in Vukovar und Knin in den Jahren 2013 und 2014 gehalten wurden. Die an der serbisch-kroatischen Grenze gelegene Stadt Vukovar wurde zum Symbol des feindlichen serbischen Angriffs und Kroatiens als Opfer, während die Befreiung der serbisch besetzten Stadt Knin innerhalb der Operation 'Sturm' unter General Ante Gotovina das Narrativ des heroischen Kriegssiegers etablierte. Während identitätsstiftende Gründungsmythen zumeist entweder auf Narrativen des Opfers bzw. des Verlusts oder auf Narrativen des Sieges basieren, ist eine kroatische Besonderheit, dass zwei Mythen gleichermaßen nationalitätsstiftend fungieren, der des Kriegsopfers wie auch des Kriegssiegers. In allen in Vukovar und Knin aufgezeichneten und analysierten Ansprachen seitens politischer Repräsentanten zeigt sich, dass insbesondere gegenüber Veteranen eine Fortschreibung des Kriegs kommuniziert wird. Veteranen (und ihre Angehörige) bleiben somit in einer künstlich erhöhten Alarmbereitschaft, welche sie zu politisch leicht steuerbaren potentiellen Wählern der kroatischen Rechten macht: "The war narrative appeals to their emotions, leading to emotional rather than rational interpretations of the world" (S. 157). Einer näheren Untersuchung der Erinnerungskultur in Vukovar selbst widmet sich Tamara Banjeglav in ihrem Beitrag, welcher das jährliche Gedenken sowohl aus kroatischer Perspektive wie auch seitens der serbischen Minderheit untersucht. Zwei weitere Texte zum Kroatienkrieg verfahren daraufhin diskursanalytisch: Ana Ljubojević befragt die Rolle der Den Haager Prozesse auf die Erinnerungskultur Kroatiens und analysiert hierfür einerseits das Krankenhaus in Vukovar, welches in einem musealen Trakt der Erinnerung an die hier begangenen Verbrechen seitens serbischer Militärs kommemoriert und andererseits den Fall des Generals Ante Gotovina, welcher zunächst in Den Haag für Kriegsverbrechen verurteilt, in zweiter Instanz jedoch freigesprochen wurde und als Kriegs- und Nationalheld nach Kroatien zurückkehrte. Ljubojević schlussfolgert aus ihren Analysen, dass die Arbeit des Kriegsverbrechertribunals keinerlei nachhaltigen Einfluss auf die Erinnerungskultur des Landes hatte. Dario Brentins Beitrag nennt medial stark präsente Profisportler 'Ambassadors of memory'. Sein Text beschäftigt sich mit dem Profisport als Feld der Reproduktion nationaler Narrative und beschreibt nicht nur öffentliche Aussagen von Sportlern bezüglich des Kroatienkriegs, sondern auch die Visualisierung von Kriegsbildern in Graffitis und anderen Grafiken seitens der Anhänger diverser Fußballvereine. Der vierte und letzte Teil des Sammelbands wendet sich transnationalen Dimensionen der kroatischen Erinnerungskultur zu. Nikolina Židek beleuchtet die bislang publizistisch wenig beachtete kroatische Diaspora in Argentinien, welche sich nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg ebendort formierte und wo sich bis heute NDH-relativierende und neofaschistoide Narrative mehrheitsfähig erhalten haben. In einer Diskursanalyse der kroatischen Diaspora-Medien in Argentinien wird nachgewiesen, dass der Kroatienkrieg der 1990er Jahre dort nur als eine Art Fortschreibung des seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg andauernden kroatischen Unabhängigkeitskampfs gesehen wird. Ana Milošević beschließt das Buch mit einer Analyse der 'Europäisierung' der spezifischen Erinnerung an den Fall von Vukovar. Innerhalb des Europäischen Parlaments wird jährlich der Opfer der Stadt gedacht – das kroatische Opfernarrativ wird hier international weitergetragen. Fraglich bleibt, wie diese höchst fragmentierte und selektive Erinnerungspolitik im Europäischen Parlament nach einem eventuellen EU-Beitritt Bosnien und Herzegowinas oder Serbiens aussehen könnte. Mit diesem Sammelband ist dem Forscherteam des FRAMNAT Projektes ein großer wissenschaftlicher und forschungspolitischer Wurf gelungen: Die jahrelange Akkumulation von Daten (die Website einschließlich des YouTube-Kanals spricht für sich) findet in präzisen und methodisch vielfältigen Textanalysen hier ihr vorläufiges Endergebnis. Das Lesevergnügen wird auch nicht durch kleine Mankos getrübt – beispielsweise den ungenauen Umgang mit dem Begriff des 'Rituals' oder den gelegentlichen Beigeschmack von Repetition (in nahezu jedem Kapitel wird der historische Kontext zuvor genannter Fallbeispiele erneut erklärt). Die hier angewandten Methoden könnten (und sollten!) in Folgeprojekten weitere Anwendung finden – beispielsweise um die kulturelle Erinnerung an das 20. Jahrhundert und damit verbundene Traumata in anderen jugoslawischen Nachfolgestaaten zu dekonstruieren. Überschneidungen und Gemeinsamkeiten sind zu erwarten und wären ein notwendiger wissenschaftspolitischer Beitrag in der schleppenden Auseinandersetzung mit der Kriegsvergangenheit und ihrer Erinnerungspolitiken.

The process of Lithuanian integration into everbroadening EC structures requires not only principal reorientation of its economics but also radical changes of economic relations. The article covers the aspects of business ethics institutionalisation in companies and society relating them to the concepts of sustainable development, stakeholder, "3-c", "triple bottom line" that have modified modern management strategies and formed attributes of "new economics" and "humanisation of economics".Today in most dcvc:loped countries of EC the new social ethical paradigms are incorporated into modem strategies of economy. The humanistic attitudes are inherent to strategies of sustainable development and appropriate economics ecological and social parameters of progress that arc in equilibrium and harmony. To ensure a company's longevity, its successful long-term operation the workplace environment must be improved and humanized. For this purpose ethics tools can be successfully used. They are necessary to survive under the condition of socially oriented economy, which is becoming prevalent in the EU.The purposeful humanization of economics is being successfully conducted through the process of business ethics institutionalization in organizations and assures real benefit'i to the society. So laws, standards, ethics codes frame order; it becomes the basement to achieve valuable life, and ethics codes and standards - instruments to reach these goals. With regard to Lithuania it is very important to emphasize that not only legal but also ethical regulations are critically needed to "switch on" the appropriate mechanism to establish order in organizations. Ethics infrastructure of a company paves the way for self-regulation. In advanced practice of developed countries the company's activity is developed in accordance with ethical requirements that arc implemented by the appropriate company's ethics infrastructure and by outside ethics mechanisms. These mechanisms arc functioning in the context of human rights set at the legal and moral level in various fields of life (the employee's, the consumer's, the patient's human rights, etc.) in democratic societies. Certain common tendencies typical of modern society can be traced in the practice of developed countries: when administrative and legal norms and sanctions are not effective, ethics tools are instrumentally applied as follows: inside the company they constitute procedures aimed at the development of ethics infrastructure (programs of ethical training, an ethics code, an ethics board / commission or ethics officer, a hot line, an ethics handbook, etc.)The ethics tools improve the quality of social capital, and human resource management, enable more perfect social order. Practically the point of departure in establishing ethics standards initially brings to implementation of ethical minimum, i.e. the standards of social responsibility termed as the bottom line, and nowadays extended to concept of triple bottom line. The latter constitutes three-dimensional basis consisting of the 3 E - Effectiveness, Ecology, Ethics or 3 P - Profit, People, Planet employed in assessment of companies and organizations. Only the ones, which meet these criteria, are considered trustworthy and prestigious. Meeting labour standards means not only compliance with legal norms but also legitimisation of ethical ones. These standards not only provide the employees with good working conditions but also ensure actualisation of human dignity, justice and safety. These arc issues of life quality, which arc not accentuated in company activity. Therefore, it is very important that every company manager should realize the advantages of responsible behaviour. For this, not only development of a businessperson's moral attitudes or comprehension that subjective opinions cannot be relied upon is needed; theoretical knowledge, special education is also required. In the world practice ethics criteria, especially that of business arc objectivized and SA 8000 international standard or ILO regulations evidence it. Employees' rights and conditions that improve workplace environment can be established while implementing social standards or an ethics code. Such regulation of relations between the company and the employees would grant the employees with greater liberties and guarantees as well as form versatile commitments among the company, the employees and the managers. From economic point of view, this is related to growing efficiency, effectiveness and performance quality.With regard to the context of Lithuania's integration into the European Union, the paper tackles actual issues for associations of Lithuanian trade and industry as well as certain companies, which still dare to disregard the new challenges of this epoch. This means that they do not manage risk and consequently doom themselves to potential scandals, losses of partners, markets, investments, profits, etc.In Lithuania like in some other post communist countries such improvement of social life is impeded only by the lack of economic resources, but also by acute lack of innovative management knowledge provided by business ethics along with old stereotypes and attitudes of mentality. Many facts of Lithuanian reality show what the consequences of exceptionally profit orientation are and witnesses a considerable lack of societal orientation in business and professional activity or ignorance of this actual issue. In turn, absence of business subject's responsibility to the society can be also traced back to the soviet, nomenclature-based management tradition in which only the privileged persons were entitled to solving inner issues of the business subject's management.In such relations there arc no equal partnership properties between employers and employees, and their contract is not considered in a wider sense, i.e. as a social contract. The authoritarian management methods inherited by most Lithuanian companies from the soviet period formed such an approach. Thus the need for workplace monitoring and workplace ethics promotion has objectively matured in our country. In Lithuania not many companies really try to improve the workplace conditions promoting appropriate values (human rights related to human dignity, safety, self-esteem, self-realization possibilities).Mature civic societies have managed to prove that economic structures generate social problems and therefore they have to assume responsibility for the consequences of their activity. Democratisation and decentralisation also imply that not the state but the very companies that determine social problems solve them in response to the expectations of citizens (customers). This is the only way they can gain a good name, reputation, and, in turn, increase of sales and consumption, i.e. profit and ability to compete. Therefore, business assumes functions that have never been characteristic to it, e.g. commitment to creation of social well being (first of all inside, then outside) for stakeholders. These are the presuppositions for social contract, compliance with which is monitored or, specifically, self-monitored by social actors.Thus humanization of economics through the development and application ethical infrastructure to the practice of enterprises under the conditions of modern Lithuania is strategically important for its sustainable economic, social development and is the vital precondition of its effective integration into European community. ; Straipsnyje konstatuojama, kad šiuolaikinės inovatyvios vadybos, "Naujosios ekonomikos" (New economics) sampratos yra persmelktos ekonominių santykių humanizacijos paradigma. ES šalyse diegiamos ir sėkmingai funkcionuoja naujos, socialiniais humanistiniais orientyrais paremtos ekonominių struktūrų strategijos. Į jas dabar jau inkorporuotos socialinės etinės dimensijos, todėl humanistinės ekonominės veiklos konstantos yra įmanentiškos ilgalaikės ūkio plėtros strategijoms. Jos derina, subalansuoja ekonominius, ekologinius ir socialinius dorovinius visuomenės raidos parametrus. Straipsnio tikslas - supažindinti su etinėmis ekonomikos humanizacijos, ilgalaikės ūkio plėtros dimensijomis, atkreipti dėmesį į Lietuvoje dar neišnagrinėtus, tačiau nepaprastai svarbius etikos institucionalizacijos įmonėse aspektus, atskleisti naujų integralių socialinių humanitarinių mokslų konceptų daugiaplaniškumą, pateikiant jų gilaus suvokimo būtinybę kaip galimybę įžvelgti dar gerai nepažintus integracijos iššūkius Lietuvos ekonomikai.

After two difficult weeks of bad press during which President Obama was accused of rashness (for his quick trip to Copenhagen in an unsuccessful bid on behalf of Chicago before the International Olympic Committee) and of dithering (for taking too long to decide on a new strategy for Afghanistan), on Friday October 9th Americans woke up to the news that their President had won the Nobel Peace Prize. With a mixture of surprise and exhilaration, he addressed the media and tried to be graceful in accepting it while at the same time pre-empting the inevitable criticism that would follow. He made it clear that he "did not view this as a recognition of his own accomplishments but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of the aspirations held by people in all nation. as a means to give momentum to a set of causes…as a call to action…for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century". The reactions in the United States were mixed, but in general, they were the reverse image of those in Europe, where Obama is still widely admired and idealized. Surprise, outrage and skepticism were the three main responses by the American public. On the Right there was outrage because the prize came so early into his presidency, and at a time when his lack of achievements is starting to haunt the administration and has become the object of comedy sketches, from Jon Stewart's Daily Show to Saturday Night Live. Moderates were pleasantly surprised, even if somewhat puzzled, and immediately fretted that the prize would have more negative than positive consequences in the domestic realm. Indeed, recognition by the rest of the world makes even his supporters a little uncomfortable, and it is used as ammunition against the President by those who accuse him of being too apologetic to foreign powers. Skeptics on the Left felt that it was a strange choice because the country under his leadership is still involved in two wars, and about to escalate one of them. To this there is the added perception by many in his own party that he is doing little on the human rights front, especially with respect to Iran, where several protesters are about to be executed while diplomatic talks on the nuclear issue continue. It would be ludicrous to think that the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded only to those who succeed. In that case, it would only be awarded once every a hundred years. Instead, the prize is meant as a reward and an encouragement to leaders who fight for peace. When German Chancellor Willy Brandt was awarded the prize in 1971, he had just launched his "Ostpolitik" and he had made headlines when he visited Warsaw to sign the Warsaw Treaty and spontaneously knelt at the steps of the memorial to the Warsaw ghetto uprising against the Nazis. His acts did not per se bring an end to Cold War confrontation but it can be argued that Brandt started a process that culminated with détente and more concretely, with the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, which established a framework of cooperation between NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries and gradually became a manifesto for the dissident movement against Communism in the Eastern bloc. Later, and as part of the same process, the Nobel Peace Prize would be awarded to Lech Walesa in 1983 for his leadership in the union movement against the Polish Communist regime, and finally to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990. Their combined efforts finally led to the fall of Communism, and proved that peace, in the words of Nobel Peace prize awardee Oscar Arias, "has no finishing line, no deadline, no fixed definition of achievement…it is a never ending process, the work of many decisions by many people in many countries…" In only nine months of his presidency, Obama has changed the international climate of confrontation and preemptive aggression established by Bush, who alienated even our national allies. He has restored the principles of the New World Order envisioned by Bush's father: one based on international law and diplomacy, consensus-building and on progressive nuclear disarmament. It is this renewal of promises by the US to abide by international treaties, to use dialog instead of confrontation and to cooperate with the rest of the world through the United Nations that the Oslo Nobel Committee was rewarding. But as Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post has observed, if Obama were to find a cure for cancer, his critics would "blame him for putting some hard-working, red-blooded American oncologists out of work". In sum, his critics cannot have it both ways: they derided Obama for his unsuccessful trip to Copenhagen and made fun of his excessive self-confidence and his belief that by his actions alone he can improve American standing in the world. On the other hand, when Oslo honored him with the Nobel Prize, a sign that he is trusted and admired because of his approach to doing exactly that, they use this as proof that he cannot be trusted because foreigners like him too much!Almost a century ago, another US President found himself in a similar situation: admired by the rest of the world but shunned at home, Woodrow Wilson, who had led the way to peace at the end of World War I through the Versailles Treaty and the creation of the League of Nations (based on his famous Fourteen Points), received the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize at the end of his Presidency but after public opinion had already turned against him. Afflicted by a stroke and embittered by his battles with Congress, he never had a chance to see his work come to fruition: the Republican Senate voted against the United States' membership in the League. The consequences of this mistake are well-known: the United States turned inward, became isolationist and protectionist, only to find itself mired in the Great Depression by 1930. A weakened League was unable to stop the rising fascist states, and another world war followed. Later in the conflict the United States had to come out of its isolationism to defend Europe and establish peace. Wilson had died in 1924, but in many ways his vision of multilateralism and war prevention survived in the signing of the Charter of the United Nations in 1945, this time under the leadership of the United States. Peace is even more elusive today, in a global world of unstable states and violent non-state actors, of deep resentments and irreconcilable views and values. It would be ludicrous to think that the US can bring about peace by itself or for that matter, to solve any of the problems that confront it without the cooperation of others. From global warming to transnational crime to terrorism, the only relatively acceptable solutions can be found through diplomacy and multilateral action. It is in this light that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee's intention has to be interpreted. For the first time in eight years, the United States is led by a President who understands that the complexity of post-modern conflict and the depth of the challenges faced can only be managed (not solved) by states acting in concert.The intricacy of global politics today is further enhanced by the immense and unprecedented political awareness of the masses everywhere. This new reality of massive political awakening is especially destabilizing in the early stages of national consciousness, during which emotions and feelings related to identity, ethnicity and geography are greatly intensified and thus become destabilizing. It is this climate of resentment, fragmentation and political awakening that the West has to confront not only in the battlefield (Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq) but also at home, where immigration has altered the national face of states and where the North-South conflict has to be confronted every day. This changing geopolitical context, together with economic realities, is affecting the US place in the world and is resulting in the relative weakening of the West in general and of America in particular. Increasingly, the West is going to need the cooperation of a China that is "rising peacefully" and a still-belligerent Russia to settle most problems in the Middle East and Central Asia. As the United States and the West come to terms with their loss of power, as Europe still struggles to speak in one voice, as their military resources are tied down for the long term in areas where the political awakening is particularly virulent, it is ludicrous to expect peace with capital letters. In the best case scenario, these will be challenges that will require serious negotiations and tough diplomacy in order to be managed, and those should include the rising powers and even some unsavory interlocutors like Iran (which can be a partner in Iraq and Afghanistan) and the Taliban (some elements of which can be brought into local agreements and peeled away from Al Qaeda). Obama should use the encouragement of the Nobel Peace Prize to move these negotiations forward, without ultimatums, without immediate deadlines, with the guiding purpose of accommodation and de-escalation, of managing conflict more than forever solving it.On the home front, Obama publicly refused to celebrate the passing of the Baucus health-care reform bill yesterday, although this is a major stride towards the final legislative product. By a vote of 14 to 9, with only one Republican voting in favor, the Senate Finance Committee cleared the way for a full vote on the Senate floor once it is merged with the version from another committee that was approved a month ago. Senator Olympia Snowe, the only Republican to vote for it, said she was responding to "the call of History, and that consequences of inaction dictate the urgency of Congress" to act. Once it passes the Senate, it will be merged with the House bill and become law. This puts Obama in a very good position to succeed in health care reform before the end of the year, but he underplayed the achievement, saying it was just one more step and there still remained a long way to go. He did, however, thank Senator Snowe for her "political courage and seriousness of purpose."Finally, on November 3rd, all eyes will be on the state of Virginia. Virginians will be voting for governor in a close race in which Bob McDonnell, the Republican candidate has been consistently ahead in the polls. Because Northern Virginia is so close to Washington, not only geographically but also culturally and politically, it is deemed the most important race for governor in the country. After eight years of excellent leadership under two Democratic governors, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, (there is no re-election for governor in the state of Virginia), the electorate seems ready for a change, even as political pundits are portraying the race as a poll on the President himself. That is why, at the end of this month Obama will be campaigning for Creigh Deeds, the Democratic candidate for Governor of Virginia. It is another political gamble by the hyperkinetic president and one he should reconsider for at least two reasons. First, Virginians are a tough lot and usually prefer to balance the party ticket of state and federal government. Indeed, according to Larry Sabato of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, for the last eight consecutive elections, Virginians have voted for governor the nominee of the party opposite to the one that held the White House. That means they will vote for Republican candidate Mc Donnell and Obama's candidate will lose. Second, until this last election when Obama won the state, Virginians had voted Republican in nearly every presidential election since 1952. It was thanks to the youth vote that he won, and those voters are the least likely to come out and vote in the election for governor. The older crowds that vote religiously in every election are more likely to vote Republican this time. For Obama to campaign for Deeds is then a repeat of the Copenhagen Olympic bid effect.Passing the health care bill and achieving a Democratic win in at least some of the governor races would represent incredible boosts for the President that he will need as his support numbers dwindle, especially if he makes the unpopular decision of sending more troops to Afghanistan. By the time all those questions are settled, the Copenhagen Olympics and the Oslo Peace Prize will be distant memories. But then, he will have to go back and address Copenhagen II, namely, climate change. Senior Lecturer, Department of Political Science and Geography Director, ODU Model United Nations Program Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia

Plekhanov/Labriola As a bit of an experiment, coupling my interest in André Tosel and my work on translation, I have decided to try my hand at a few translations of the former when I get the time. These are totally unauthorized, and rough drafts posted for edification and entertainment purposes only. I started on this piece because it is short, and because it works on an area that I need to learn more about, the history of Marxist-Spinozism before Matheron or Althusser. However, the more I worked on this piece, the more I thought that this split between Plekhanov and Labriola, still exists, in the divide between neo-enlightenment Spinozists and what some might call post-modern, but I prefer to call Marxist Spinozists. The Marxist Uses of Spinoza: Lessons of Method The history of the role of Spinoza's thought in the formation and the development of the work of Marx remains to be written, as is that of the history of the diverse Marxist usage (from different Marxisms) of Spinozist philosophical elements. This double history would reveal the work of Marx, and its contradictions, as much it would open up the work of Spinoza himself. Marxisms have reflected their aporias and their hopes onto Spinoza without necessarily truly thinking them through. In other words this is a domain of misunderstandings and equivocations. In order to undertake this history it would be useful to draw some lessons from the encounter of Marx and Marxist thought with Spinoza. First remark. The encounters of Spinoza by Marxists are discontinuous and contradictory. This discontinuity is initially characterized by the lack of a definitive encounter between Marx himself and Spinoza. Marx is formed through the reading of Spinoza, of the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, and the correspondence. Not to learn the lessons of materialism, but an ethico-political lesson. Spinoza is considered as philosopher of freedom and autonomy, modern incarnation of Prometheus and continuation of Epicurus, all at once. Marx, in is progression from Kantian-Fichtean idealism to the speculative communism of the 1844 Manuscripts, develops three theses which are the practical theses of philosophical materialism, without the epistemological and ontological theses of this materialist tradition.  Thesis One: Philosophy has a fundamental interest in the liberty of humanity, understood as autonomy and as the end of all heteronomies. Thesis Two: Philosophy is critical of all transcendental authorities of all principle of domination which justify and represent their domination through this principle.  Thesis Three: Philosophy is eminently a science, knowledge, but knowledge of life, of the simple life of spirit of bodies rendered by their power. All particular sciences and knowledge must be thought from the point of view of science of life and its forms, as forms of life.  When Marx elaborates the materialist conception of history he revolutionizes materialism but he does this without ever connecting it to the spinozist theory of nature, of the relations of extension and thought, of bodies and mind. He integrates and modifies the strong ontological and epistemological thesis of materialism, but these theses are taken more from Hobbes and other materialists of the eighteenth century than from Spinoza.
Let us state these theses which are capable of a Spinozist formulation, without however assuming such a formulation.  Thesis Four: Nature is the original reality and it is organized as matter at different objective levels. Thought cannot be separated from matter. Thesis Five: Nature in its diverse senses is intelligible. It emerges only from itself, excluding all creation. The human order is not a kingdom within a kingdom and susceptible of being understood.  Thesis Six: All knowledge presupposes the reality of its object outside of thought. The appropriation by the knowledge of its own object of knowledge presupposes the reference to a real object. It is necessary to pay attention to the debates in Marxism of the Second International in order to see how the question of "Spinoza precursor of Marxist materialism appears." Emerging in the years of the crisis of revisionism the debate engages above all the German and Russian theorists of social democracy: Bernstein, Kautsky, and Plekhanov. It is in part based on the Anti-Dühring of Friedrich Engels and puts into play the complex questions of the relationship between the materialist theory of history with the sciences of nature with the political problem of the alliance of the intellectual groups in the perspective of socialist transition. This debate between 1896-1900 is inscribed in a theoretical problematic, such of Marxist orthodoxy that will find a new actualization with the problems proper to Soviet philosophy between 1917 and 1931, when it is a matter of specifying what would be called "Marxism-Leninism." If the question of materialism assumes the continuity between the Spinoza of the Second International and that of the Third, nothing would be more erroneous than to let oneself be taken in by the apparent continuity of an imaginary history of philosophy. These occurrences are in effect specific, they constitute theoretical and political conjunctures which must be grasped in a way that takes into account the strategic dimensions of the class struggle whether or not it is led by Marxist parties, the problem of alliances, that of the intellectual division of labor. Marxist philosophy, as it is officially constituted, is part of the practice of parties, and the reference to Spinoza is overdetermined by the political and theoretical stakes that have to be elucidated in each specific situation. Here we touch on the second lesson of method: it is necessary to historically specify the conjunctures where Spinoza intervenes and where and how there is a specific usage of this prestigious and troubling reference. This method makes it possible to determine what falls under ideological legitimation, and what is inserted at the level of the practical politics of the party, of the state, of the level of specialized intellectuals. Spinoza does not only appear only in the emergence of Marxist orthodoxy. He intervenes, in a subterranean manner, in the elaboration of theorists where the considerable theoretical importance has never been associated with an actual political importance. This can be found in the crisis over revisionism in the last century, such that Antonio Labriola in his Essays on the Materialist Conception of History (1895-1898) attests to the presence of a different Spinoza than that of his contemporary Plekhanov and a fortiori than that which was celebrated in Soviet Philosophy in 1927 and 1932.
Spinoza intervenes as a critic of the same orthodoxy which returns as elements of an older materialism in another theoretical configuration that has solicited different aspects of his philosophy: no longer the parallelism between extension and thought, not a determinist ontology but the mode considered to be at once conceptual and experimental, the same geometrico-genetic method, in that it now excludes the guarantees of teleological philosophies of history. A contradictory intervention which is not without analogies to another occurrence, the most recent, that of Spinoza in the work of Louis Althusser which can be considered as a systematic deconstruction of the Marxist orthodoxy of the Second and Third International. Between Labriola (1898) and Althusser (1965), if we except the Soviet Spinoza, there is little except Ernst Bloch's remarks that no one has yet taken into account for a history of materialism oriented in the direction of a utopian ontology. This appearance of a Spinoza critical of stated and intended Marxist orthodoxies gives a third lesson of method: the diverse contradictory Marxist uses of Spinoza are situated between two poles, the first is that of an orthodoxy elaborated by the intellectuals of the social democratic and communist parties at the end of an a party/state conception of a finalist world and at the other is from thinkers situated in a problematic relation to the party, who look in Spinoza for other ways to make sense of the world and other practices then the becoming state of the worker parties. This opposition can appear to be schematic. It can be developed into provisional and schematic path of investigation. Such an investigation takes one central question: What is it in the philosophy of Spinoza that authorizes these discontinuous usages, determined by their conjunctures, and perhaps violently opposed?  Confronting therefore these different usages of Spinoza that can be considered historically significant in the course of history, that is to say in terms of their specific conjunctures. This can be seen with the orthodox use of Spinoza by Plekhanov and the critical usage of Spinoza by Labriola at the heart of the second international. Plekhanov gave himself the task of elaborating the originality of Marx's philosophy and defending it in the face of revisionists who, with Bernstein, contest the self-sufficiency of Marx's philosophy, dividing into an evolutionary sociology and a Kantian inspired ethics. For Plekhanov there is very much a Marxist philosophy. It is inscribed in the materialist current which it revitalizes by giving it a historical dialectical dimension. Spinoza is the direct ancestor of Marx in that it is through the monism of the former that one can unify the science of nature and the science of history of the latter. Marx has revitalized substance as historical-social matter, metabolism of humanity with nature, and has inherited his realist theory of knowledge, thought is nothing other than a moment or function of matter. There is a Spinozism of Marx that is the realization of historical Spinozism as a the affirmation of the materialist conception of the world, one predicated on the knowability of matter in terms of its organization at diverse levels. Only this conception of the world can give the workers' movement its organization and which would permit it to avoid the disorganization that revisionism introduces, neo-Kantian idealism cannot organize the class struggle without harmful compromises.  Spinoza is one part of orthodox Marxism returned to during this period. This Spinoza can authorize the theses of Friedrich Engels, in some sense simplifying the complexity of the Anti-Dühring. Concerned to think together the development of the sciences of nature, the materialist conception of history, and developing a philosophy capable of correct reflection and the movement of the specialization of sciences and the political struggle of classes (alliance with the intellectual stratum), Engles had proposed the idea of a materialist dialectic that oscillates between an ontological conception and a methodological conception of this dialectic. These two conceptions are apparently unified in the idea of "the science of the general laws of motion, both of the external world and of human thought — two sets of laws which are identical in substance, but differ in their expression in so far as the human mind can apply them consciously, while in nature and human history (at least up to now), these laws assert themselves unconsciously, in the form of external necessity, in the midst of an endless series of seeming accidents." This parallelism between (laws of) movement of the external world and (the laws of) thought has a Spinozist connotation which reinforces the idea of liberty as the comprehension of necessary laws. However, it remains above all intended to make possible a representation of the dialectic under materialism, without examining its own difficulties. Plekhanov is not interested in these difficulties in elaborating a general materialist conception that Marx completes and fulfills through the mediation of Hegel. Antonio Labriola, who wrote "Origin and Nature of the Passions According to Spinoza's Ethics" at a young age (1866), refuses this ontologization or methodolization of the dialectic in order to develop the idea of a philosophy of praxis as a philosophy immanent to a new conception of history, reflecting the constitution of history as a complex unifying ground and surface. In this sense, the Plekhanov project, apparently Spinozist, of thinking the continuity of nature and society at the heart of a substantial and homogenous causality loses its sense. The process of social life must be desubstantialized at with it the philosophy that is presented as a hyperphilosophy or super science organized as "theosophic or metaphysic of the totality of the world, as if by an act of a transcendent knowledge we can arrive at a vision of substance and all of the phenomena and processes under it." Antonino Labriola as much as he refuses to make man an 'kingdom in a kingdom' refuses the naturalization of history and the transformation of Marxism into a naturalist ontology where social practice becomes a species of being in general. Labriola denounces a matter found on things as a form of metaphysical superstition. Spinoza is evoked as a hero in the struggle against the imagination and ignorance that resurfaces in Marxist orthodoxy under the form of universal materialism. It is necessary above all to think of the diverse levels of the "animation" of matter, and therefore the specificity of the "artificial terrain" which constitutes practice. What Spinoza knew how to do for the theory of passions must be done for praxis: each one, the relations of affects and and those that constitute praxis, are not ruled by a subject and for this reason must be studied through a genetic method. Labriola speaks of a genetic method that also defines the method of Marx in Capital. The genetic method takes its distance from the dialectic and its teleological philosophy of history and established guarantees.  For Labriola the turn to Spinoza is less about the strengthening of a materialist monism than it is about the possibility of reinterpreting Marx's Capital as a geometry of capitalist social being. The geometrical method is an instrument of internal purification destined to eliminate the finalism of productive causes and biological predetermination from Marxist orthodoxy. The philosophy of praxis manifests the basic critical and formal tendency of monism: everything is conceivable as a the causal genesis of a complex totality. The materialist dialectic is neither a universal method nor a logic of being, but constitutes the critical movement internal to knowledge which acts on the practice of philosophy and makes it a "conceptual form of explication" parallel to contemporary science. The reference to Spinoza intervenes in the critique of a Marxist orthodoxy which is supposed to include in a dogmatic manner Spinoza's own materialism. Marx and Spinoza are considered as two practitioners of philosophy who refuse the closure of knowledge in favor of the immanent self-reflection of knowledge. The lesson of Spinoza is not to find the unity of knowledge under a principle but to demystify the fetishes which substitute imaginary principles for the movement of practice.  One could develop a similar analysis of the confrontation of the Soviet Spinoza of the Third International to the Spinoza of Louis Althusser.  The Soviet Spinoza is an impoverished and petrified version of the Spinoza of Plekhanov. With respect to Althusser, Spinoza's critique is referenced constantly and augmented, infinitely better elaborated than in Labriola, since it acts this time not as a critique of metaphysical fetishism, even materialist, but of the metaphysics of the juridical subject characteristic of occidental rationalism.  The contributions of R. Zapata and J.-P. Cottent have clarified these points, but it seems opportune to underly the paradox of this history: it is possible to tie together the diverse uses of Spinoza, one against the other. If Spinoza is enrolled in the constitution of a "conception of the world" which intends to complete a current of philosophy and which cannot at any time criticize its presuppositions, it is also possible, as with Althusser, to think the structure of ideological interpellation that constitutes the ideological subject and invalidates philosophy considered as a theory of knowledge. If Spinoza makes possible a conception of the world in which the State Party is supposed to be the subject of history accomplishing its ultimate ends, it also makes it possible for Althusser to try to reconstruct Marxist theory on the ruins of the triple myth of origin, subject, and the end. The Labriolian critique of imaginatio and ignorantia is radically interiorized in the destruction of Marxisms of the Second and Third International. The recourse to structural causality supposed to have been developed in the theory of modes and substance serves as an incomplete program to develop the theoretical revolution of Marx.  However, it goes further still: there are two Spinoza's in Althusser himself. The Spinoza critical of any theory of knowledge ultimately occludes the Spinoza of structural causality: the denunciation of the triple myth of origin, subject, and end is lead to the liquidation of the rational modernism present in Marx. However the pars destruens always prevails over the pars construens. The idea of structural causality (such that of substance as the absent cause over the modes and affects) is accompanied with the affirmation of an unknown radicality of Marxist science, but the critique of the metaphysics of subjectivity in the teleology of Marxism that accompanies it announces the crises of Marxist liberation in the last interventions of Althusser. Everything comes to pass as if Althusser deconstructs a dogmatic Spinoza in the name of another Spinoza, more secret and more enigmatic. Spinoza is always divided from Spinozism which claims to define himOriginally published in Bloch, Olivier, Editor,  Spinoza au XXe siècle, Paris, PUF, 1993. 

The much-ballyhooed summit meeting between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden, occurring yesterday on the sidelines of the APEC meeting in San Francisco, was viewed by many observers as a critical opportunity for the two nations to establish a degree of enduring stability in their tumultuous relationship.
Although some limited agreements and understandings were apparently reached and some encouraging remarks uttered, the meeting fell far short of providing an enduring basis for much of anything beyond a willingness to keep talking and avoid conflict.
On the positive side, of greatest note is the fact that the two presidents agreed on steps to reduce the influx into the United States from China of items fueling the fentanyl crisis in this country and affirmed a general desire to strengthen dialogue on various military-to-military topics and reaffirm the openness of direct lines of communication between military leaders responsible for Asia-Pacific security. Additionally, according to the Chinese readout of the summit, President Biden reiterated the so-called five-point commitment he made regarding Taiwan at the Bali summit last year– that the United States does not seek to start a new Cold War, change China's political system, mobilize alliances against China, or support Taiwan independence, and has no intention of engaging in conflict with China.
While certainly helpful, such developments and repetitions of past statements do not appreciably stabilize the overall relationship in an enduring manner, nor, in the absence of such stability, create serious momentum for the creation of a substantive crisis communication dialogue between the two sides. Particularly worrisome is the fact that no progress whatsoever was evident in creating an agreed-upon vision and framework for the relationship that could provide genuine stability over time. Indeed, nothing that occurred at the summit has altered the fundamentally adversarial nature of relations, nor appreciably lessened the deep levels of mutual suspicion and uncertainty that plague it.
For its part, Washington has made it very clear, in comments made before and after the summit by President Biden and senior officials, that it intends to remain primarily focused on improving its competitive capacities at home, pulling countries into greater alignment with the United States in countering China, and competing intensely with Beijing in a largely zero-sum struggle between democratic and authoritarian values, norms, and international structures.
In this effort, achieving genuine, substantive cooperation in reaching a middle ground or compromise on key issues like the climate challenge, high-tech innovation, and developing more broad-based, inclusive economic and trade structures, is either dismissed by U.S. officials as unrealizable or having been tried and failed in the past. And no effort is being made to define what a stable relationship should look like over the long term. In short, the primary focus of U.S. policymakers remains on keeping talking and avoiding the worst case, not the creation of a durable basis for productive, mutually beneficial relations.
For its part, Beijing has shown no evidence that it has altered its view that the problems in the relationship are due solely to U.S. actions. It continues to insist that China only wants "win-win," productive outcomes and that it has no intention nor desire to displace the U.S. position in the world nor undertake policies designed to weaken or constrain the United States. But this belies a determined Chinese effort to reduce international support for U.S. alliances, create alternative economic, security, and political structures to those led by the United States, and increase its military or quasi-military pressure on U.S. allies and partners. Such soothing Chinese words also run counter to internal statements made on several occasions by Xi Jinping and Chinese officials to the effect that China must develop far greater economic and military capabilities in order to counter a United States that is fundamentally committed to weakening China and ending communist party rule.
Whether precipitated by supposedly threatening U.S. actions or rooted primarily in preexisting ideological views (or both), such Chinese behavior and attitudes will continue to validate, in the minds of many U.S. observers, the disingenuous nature of Chinese statements and the fundamentally threatening nature of the Chinese regime and thereby continue to justify arguments for ever greater levels of deterrence over any meaningful attempts at reassurance on virtually any issue, from trade to Taiwan.
Adding to the problem, the mutually reinforcing, negative dynamic still operating on both sides will no doubt continue to generate considerable fatalism among some scholars, political figures, and defense analysts who posit that greatly increased levels of military deterrence are needed to avert an otherwise unavoidable conflict, or that such conflict will ultimately prove inevitable regardless of how much deterrence is employed. From this perspective, the notion that Washington or Beijing can be reassured in meaningful ways on vital issues becomes largely moot.
The most significant source of such pessimism is the specific dynamic regarding Taiwan, along with the poor state of crisis communication between Washington and Beijing. On the former issues, leaders in both countries publicly espouse, in rote terms, their commitment to the original bilateral understanding regarding the island that has kept the peace for decades — involving Chinese support for peaceful unification as a top priority and U.S. support for its One China policy. However, both sides have nonetheless steadily eroded the credibility of that understanding through both words and actions, to the point where such mutual assurances now carry little weight in either capital. As both sides fail to credibly reassure each other, the likelihood of an eventual conflict would increase.
Nothing that Biden and Xi said at their meeting offers the prospect of altering this dynamic going forward, despite Biden's endorsement of the One China policy and his reported reaffirmation of commitments he made last year in Bali. Rather than clearly reaffirming and explaining the basic limits that will exist on U.S. relations with and support for Taiwan (central to the One China policy) and the absence of any deadline for Chinese efforts to unify with Taiwan (central to Beijing's policy of peaceful unification), the two presidents merely repeated past statements, while advising one another to stop provoking the situation.
On defense issues and crisis communication, the two presidents' statement of their commitment to resuming or strengthening a few defense dialogues and channels of communication is certainly a good thing. However, no mention was made of several more important interactions, including the Defense Consultative Talks (renamed the Defense Strategic Dialogue in 2020), the Asia Pacific Security Dialogue (renamed the Defense Policy Exchange, also in 2020), and the Crisis Communication Working Group (CCWG), which fell into disuse after 2021. These dialogues are all highly essential to any effort to provide an enduring and productive foundation for the relationship
In the absence of such stability, the failure of the two presidents to clearly reaffirm the CCWG is particularly disappointing. In fact, resuming CCWG meetings should be the first step in creating a broader crisis dialogue that extends well beyond the mil-mil level. This dialogue should involve both civilian and military officials from several agencies with the experience, knowledge, and authority to discuss the full range of attitudes, policies, and possible mechanisms that relate to managing and preventing crises.
Such an ambitious but necessary effort will likely require the creation of a two-tier or two-channel crisis dialogue, one focusing on national-level issues relating to the strategy and policy aspects of crisis prevention and management, and the second channel relating primarily to defense establishment prerogatives and responsibilities, but with some civilian input. The latter would focus mainly on crisis management mechanisms, and the former on risk reduction/prevention and policy solutions.
Creating such a structure will, in turn, require a willingness on both sides to recognize that they each contribute to the negative dynamic driving toward a crisis over Taiwan or some other bilateral political-military dispute and that both crisis prevention and crisis management must be essential topics for discussion in any efforts to avoid confrontation and conflict. None of this was suggested at the Biden-Xi summit.
Because of this failure, Beijing will likely continue to resist creating genuine crisis management dialogues and mechanisms, viewing them as a way for Washington to escalate its provocative, crisis-inducing behavior while avoiding an actual conflict. And Washington will continue to resist Beijing's desire to discuss crisis prevention, viewing it as a way for China to pressure the United States to reduce its support for Taiwan, or its military presence in Asia.
Overcoming this impasse will not be easy but could occur with the assistance of unofficial crisis dialogues held at the Track Two or Track 1.5 level. Such conversations between former officials, scholars, and military officers, some in existence for years, can raise topics and present ideas and solutions that would prove virtually impossible at the official Track One level. But no hint of this was evident at the summit, or in subsequent remarks by lower-level officials.
The Biden-Xi meeting was arguably a lost opportunity to open the door toward a more genuinely stable and productive long-term Sino-American relationship. At best, it has temporarily slowed the pace toward more contention and possibly conflict, especially over Taiwan. Lacking the will and political courage to take the hard, risky steps that could put relations on a sound footing over the longer term, the two presidents opted for "small beer," in the form of a few soothing words and limited agreements. As a result, the relationship will likely continue to slide downward and remain prone to severe disruptions. Perhaps it is asking too much of the two presidents to take any risks in attempting to reach a more solid foundation, but the stakes involved suggest that they would be well worth taking.

Marching to the beat of punk rock and reggae, Rock Against Racism was a mass movement built in opposition to racism and fascism in 1970s Britain. At a time of severe economic and social crises, RAR, alongside the Anti-Nazi League, organised one of the biggest and most effective political and cultural mobilisations of the post-war period. Expressing itself through spectacular carnivals, concerts, marches and innovative forms of design and communication, RAR combined hard-headed political organisation with the optimism and energy of radical youth culture. Drawing on interviews with activists, supp

Recognition of regional features, outlining of the contours of regions, tendency to regionalize ethnic, economic, cultural and state-administrative space, and strengthening the ideology of regionalism in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, that is Serbia and Montenegro, appear as a practical and political but also as a theoretical problem which includes and combines several scientific disciplines. The phenomenon of regionalism is not contradictory although it is primarily expressed through the numerous conflicts of interests rivalry and antagonisms of political subjects. The problematic side of the phenomenon of regionalism includes the result of an extremely negative and existentially tragic experience of the several years-long disintegration of the complex Yugoslav state. During the partition and disintegration of the second Yugoslavia, there also happened the disintegration of the Serbian ethnic area Growth, support and instigation of regional tendencies occurred in the historical circumstances of secession and did not stop in the post-secession period. Particularization and segmentation of political area, as well as the disintegration of the former state, did not occur in accordance with the norms of internal and international law. Legality was late and was achieved within the transformation of power reflected in the changed territorial policy of the dominant alliance of great powers. The entire past decade was characterized by an extraordinary metamorphosis of political space. Secession trend had the territorial features which included the change of borders and had been long in the focus of the global geopolitical attention. Territories were divided and made smaller. Intensive territorial dynamics within the external silhouette of the de-stated SFR of Yugoslavia resulted in the creation of several state and quasi-state political formations. Former republics became semi-sovereign states. Dispersed and displaced Serbian ethnos was configured in the three territories: in the Republic of Serbia - from which Kosovo and Metohia were amputated and placed under the UN protectorate - in the entire Republic of Montenegro and in the Republic Srpska, located in one part of the former Bosnia and Herzegovina. Demopolitical result of the geopolitical destruction of the Serbian ethnos was a great movement of the Serbian population from the west to the east, and its concentration in the territory of the Republic of Serbia this implied that the Serbs were expelled from their millennia-long abodes in Croatia, parts of Bosnia and from Kosmet. The geo-economic result of the same process was the devastation of the national economic strength west of the Drina and in the southern province. Economic regression occurred also in the national parent-land state. Balkan re-arrangement of the spheres of interest in the post-bipolar period was in 1995. fixed by the interest arrangement of the great powers known under the name Dayton Peace Agreement. Redistribution of the territories from the destroyed state occurred in the post-communist period with the expansion of west-civilization structures to the European east Westernization of the eastern part of Europe, or entire Europe as the other pole of the global West, could be characterized as a dual mega-regionality. Namely, the west is composed of Europe and America; on the other side, there is the global East or its hybrid variation Eurasia. With the disappearance of their common state and its framework, south Slavs found themselves in the seemingly independent, and actually client states. Western delimitation of the south Slavic area moved from the Yugoslav borders towards a wider Balkan demarcation. One could say that the revitalized notion of the Balkans became a new, in many aspects obligatory framework for regional thinking. The Balkan macroregion is further determined by the intentions to expand the European Union. One of the Euro-centric concepts, which is being experimentally employed precisely in the Balkans, is the establishment of the so-called Europe of regions in the peripheral areas. On the other hand, even though the process of the disintegration of the Yugoslav Federation appears to be irreversible, the superordinate Euro-American factor does not give up the possibility of the mezzo-regional initiatives, cooperations, associations and integrations. This "middle" level of dealing with the specificities of the Yugoslav region is related to the states and nations from the former Yugoslavia, or the so-called West Balkans. Naturally, it is not the tendency to revive the silhouette of the previous state, but certainly there is a noticeable intention to achieve a regional linking of the related, now semi-sovereign territories which sometimes belonged to the same state framework. The fourth level deals with microregionalism, that is the relation between the different areas in the newly-created states. It is interesting that the regionalist discourse is mostly cherished exactly in the ethno-heterogeneous Serbian area, although other Yugoslav states also have or had regional tradition and mixed population, like, for example, Slovenia and Croatia Nevertheless, these former Yugo-republics are structured as mono-national states, so the regional policy and ideology of regionalism are still not in the first plane. Regionalism within the newly-formed states could be supplemented with the micron level implying specific sub-regionalism of the highest degree, within the larger regions in the same state. This could be illustrated with Backa, Banat and Srem inside Vojvodina, understood as the northern Serbian region, or Kosovo and Metohia in the south of Serbia, in the province with the same name. In the part of Serbia outside the provinces, similar things could be said for Belgrade with its surroundings, Macva, Podrinje, Sumadija, Raska District etc. Thus, when it comes to the present FR of Yugoslavia, all five levels of regional dynamics have a principled, but insufficiently studied significance. Mega-regional level is related to the mark denoting the global belonging to the West. Macroregional level deals with the European loyalty, that is inclusion of the FR of Yugoslavia into the continental European trends. This trans-continental and continental direction of inclusion implies a historical teleology of the relative eastern belonging to the absolute West, that is Euro-America, and the entrance into the full structure of the European Union. All the mentioned problems of recognition and characterization of the regional phenomenology in the political topography of the world are motivated by the tendency to achieve as clear as possible spatial-temporal national and state orientation The direction is related to the so-called safety dilemma of the nation and the country faced with the change of size and essence of one's own state, with the different geopolitical position and redefined foreign-policy priorities. It is also the case of the changed alliance policy, and the innovated strategy of integration into the old and new global and regional political structures. On the basis of the indicated components of geopolitical context, one could say that the phenomenon of regions and their cognate correlates {regionally regionalization and regionalism) should not be understood exclusively through the legal categories of international law and the so-called constitutional solutions, that is administrative division of the state territory. Actually in the analysis of regions and regionalism in Serbia and the FR of Yugoslavia it is necessary first to discuss the pre-normative or meta-le-gal factors in the creation of the regional issue within the national and state issue, which have the form of the unsolved political problem. Meta-legality is located within the domain of the international relations and geopolitic. Meta-legal or pre-normative factors of the formation or recognition of regions and regionalisms deal with the possibility of the political constitution of the Serbian, that is Serbian / Montenegrin (still Yugoslav) society. Since the unique state area was destroyed in the four-year secession wars and there occurred significant demopolitical changes, war migrations, forceful displacements and expulsion of the population - the ethnic character of many areas was also drastically changed. At the same time, the post-secession existence of the FR of Yugoslavia could be also viewed through the optics of the state residuum. The remaining Serbia or Serbia (temporarily) without Kosovo is certainly not an equivalent for the Serbian ethnic space, nor for the entire Serbian lands. It is not even the FR of Yugoslavia, as a dual con federation of the Serbian / Montenegrin nation. Geopolitical reduction of the SFR of Yugoslavia to a residual creation of the FR of Yugoslavia was not deduced from the legality sui generis, but resulted from a conflict, the defeat of integralism and the victory of separatism, as well as from a new triumphal configuration of power. The impulse implying the statism of the collective rights from the former complex federal necessarily-multinational level was transferred to a lower mononational level. Therefore, the regionalist ideology in the post-secession reality of the residual state almost inevitably, as a tendency, nears the separatory particularism. Even the lost national state and the state entirety are openly denied within the requests for the territorization of the collective rights of various minorities. Naturally these requests do not carry the primary features of the development of democracy. On the contrary, in the majority of cases this implies the rise of parish and tribal consciousness prone to narrow-minded separation. Thus the post-secession requests for the regionalization are often just a slight rhetorical mask for real separatism. For example, they are expressed through the pseudo-national separation of Vojvodina from Serbia, as well as Montenegro from Serbia, or through the establishment of state-like entities in the territorial tissue of Serbia Alleged arguments are found in the unfinished disintegration of the SFR of Yugoslavia on the one hand, and in the prevention of the creation of the so-called Greater Serbia, even within the diminished Serbia That way, even in the post-secession, reduced Serbia one could easily recognize the tendencies of federalization and confederalization, even the amputation of its remaining state space. Additional arguments for the crawling secession and prolonged territorial destruction are found in the ideology of globalization and world trends of relativizing territorial integrity and state sovereignty. On the other hand, the idea about the principled insignificance of borders in Europe without borders, as well as Europe of regions, is emphasized. Thus, it is obvious that the new state and regional delimitations and demarcations are in contradiction with the vision of the trans-statal and trans-national integrity of the European continent. In Serbia itself, me problem of the restructuring of regions is determined by the inherited and unchanged triple division of its territory into the central part and two autonomous provinces in the north and south. Thus every idea for regionalization (expert, party, leader's, NGO and the like) faces the inherited, too narrow constitutional framework and easily slides to the federalization or confederalization of the Republic, and in extreme cases to the independence and sovereignty of ethnic, religious, linguistic and other minorities. Roughly put, the tendencies for territorial separation from the Republic of Serbia still exist in several neuralgic and unstable areas or regions. In Vojvodina, the presented tendencies have the character of a meaningless internal - Serbian autonomy, autonomism, latent separatism. Authentic Serbian autonomy lost its original character long ago and deteriorated into an internal national re-statism. On the other hand, in the furthest south of Serbia, in Kosmet, the UN protectorate is established, but the region is actually occupied and thus the status of the Province is "frozen". In the three municipalities in the south of Serbia, with the relative Albanian majority, Albanian separatism smolders within the platform of the so-called east Kosovo. In the Raska region (Sandzak) there are also strong tendencies for separateness on the religious-ecclesiastical, so-called Bosniac platform, with religious solidarity, and ethnic and territorial unity of all Bosniacs. In the meta-legal or pre-normative situation - which most often denotes political and geopolitical context implying interests, power and force - the inclinations for territorial design are faced with the conflicting ideology of regionalism. Therefore, the constitutional-legal solutions of the former, present and future regions, generated within the self-created legality which does not respect meta-legal, political and geopolitical impulses regardless of how aestheticized and "humanized" they may be - at the end face the practical impossibility of realization.

Russia's "Fundamentals of the State Policy of the Russian Federation in the Area of Nuclear Deterrence," a high-level strategic document, says that Russia "hypothetically" could allow the use of nuclear weapons only "in response to aggression using WMD [weapons of mass destruction]" or if there is "aggression using conventional weapons, when the very existence of the state is threatened."Responding to France's President Emmanuel Macron's February 6 statement that "no option should be discarded" in ensuring the defeat of Russia, including "troops on the ground" in Ukraine, Russia's President Vladimir Putin said that "we are ready to use any weapon, including [tactical nuclear weapons], when it comes to the existence of the Russian state and harm to our sovereignty and independence. Everything is spelt out in our strategy, we have not changed it."Macron replied that France is also a nuclear power. "We must first and foremost feel protected," Macron said, "because we are a nuclear power." He then added, "We are ready; we have a doctrine [for the use of nuclear weapons]."France is ready to send troops into Ukraine "to counter the Russian forces" and even to prepare for nuclear war. In a March 19 opinion piece in the French paper Le Monde, General Pierre Schill, Chief of the French Army Staff, declares that "nuclear deterrence safeguards France's vital interests." Reminding the world of France's "international responsibilities" and "interests" and "defense agreements," he says that "the French army is preparing for the toughest engagements, making this known and demonstrating it."But what do the French really mean by saying they are "preparing for the toughest engagement" and that Europe must be "ready" to have "troops on the ground" in Ukraine?Macron has said that NATO must not discard the option of "troops on the ground" to ensure that "Russia does not win." But win what? Does Macron want to ensure that Russia does not defeat Ukraine for Ukraine's sake, or does he mean that Russia should not win in Ukraine for the subsequent defense of Europe?Macron said that the time was coming "in our Europe where it will be appropriate not to be a coward" and that it is time for a "strategic leap." He pressed Germany to send their long-range Taurus missiles, reminding them that they once said, "'Never, never tanks; never, never planes; never, never long-range missiles'…. I remind you that two years ago, many around this table said: 'We will offer sleeping bags and helmets.'"When it came to the option of sending troops into Ukraine, Macron said that anyone who advocates "limits" on how the West helps Ukraine "chooses defeat." He insisted that "if the situation should deteriorate, we would be ready to make sure that Russia never wins that war." Europe must be "ready," he said, "to reach the means to achieve our objective, which is that Russia does not win."It sounded as if Macron was talking about Russian victory in Ukraine again when he considered the threshold for sending troops. "We're not in that situation today," he said, but "all these options are on the table." Following a March 7 meeting with parliamentary parties, Fabien Roussel, national secretary of the French Communist Party, reportedly said that "Macron referenced a scenario that could lead to intervention [of French troops]: the advancement of the front towards Odessa or Kiev." Macron's objective again seemed to solely be Ukraine when he said in a March 14 interview, "We are doing everything we can to help Ukraine defeat Russia, because I will say it very simply: there can be no lasting peace if there is no sovereignty, if there is no return to Ukraine's internationally recognized borders, including Crimea."But, against all these apparent narrow references to Ukraine, Macron's subsequent discussions of the threshold for troops sounded more as if they were about the defense of Europe than of Ukraine. He said that "war is back on our [i.e. Europe's] soil" and that Russia is "extending every day their threat of attacking us even more, and that we will have to live up to history and the courage that it requires."On March 14, Macron, again expressing his position that sending troops from NATO countries is an option that should not be discarded, said that "to have peace in Ukraine, we must not be weak." This time, he gave as his reason that Russia's invasion of Ukraine was "existential for our Europe and for France."He proceeded to say that "it wouldn't be us" who would trigger such a move and that France would not lead an offensive into Ukraine against Russia. "It would be Russia's sole choice and sole responsibility," he said. And then he added, "If war was to spread to Europe," it would "be weak, to decide today that we would not respond."But even if Macron means defending Europe from Russia, does he mean from an actual attack or simply a potential attack?With several of his aforementioned statements, Macron sounds like he means that Europe must be ready to defend against an actual attack from Russia after it defeats Ukraine. Yet elsewhere, Macron sounds like he is referring only to a potential attack, saying that Russia must not be victorious in Ukraine because that "would reduce Europe's credibility to zero" and would mean that "we have no security."Interpreting Macron's motives may be even more difficult than ascertaining his statements' bare meaning. Why would Macron express the previously inexpressible and risk crossing the red line of a third world war?It is of course impossible to know Macron's mind, so any analysis is speculative. But there are at least three possibilities.The first is that the intended target of his comments is not Russia at all, but the U.S. and Germany. With American war funding struggling against a congressional dam and Germany refusing to send Taurus long-range missiles, Macron may be trying to apply psychological pressure to his allies to send Ukraine more money and weapons assuming they would find that option more palatable than going even further and sending troops.The second is that the intended target of his comments is Russia. In this possibility, the goal is to create "strategic ambiguity." The purpose would be, as explained by one French diplomat, so that Russia, as it advances west in Ukraine, cannot rely on the assumption "that none of Ukraine's partner countries will ever be deployed" to Ukraine. The French newspaper Le Monde reports that "Macron's office explained that the aim is to restore the West's 'strategic ambiguity.' After the failure of the Ukrainian 2023 counter-offensive, the French president believes that promising tens of billions of euros in aid and delivering—delayed—military equipment to Kyiv is no longer enough. Especially if Putin is convinced that the West has permanently ruled out mobilizing its forces."The third possibility is that the intended target of his comments is Europe. Europe must prepare for the possibility of a Trump administration weakening its commitment to Europe and NATO. That would leave Europe with more responsibility for the defense of Ukraine and of itself. While Germany has been the economic leader of Europe, France has seen itself as the security leader.One diplomat told Le Monde that while Germany "is afraid of escalation…. France wants to give the impression that it isn't afraid." Macron "may have wanted to make it clear to Scholz that their two countries are not in the same league" as Macron positions France to be the security leader of Europe in a post-Biden Trump-led world. Macron has opened the door to the discussion of Western troops on the ground in Ukraine. With the risks that come with opening that door, it will be important for everyone to clarify both Macron's threshold and his motivation for sending troops to Ukraine.This piece has been republished with permission from The American Conservative.

The aim of this article is to show the high level of corruption offences and the ineffectiveness of the existing legal and institutional solutions in the Balkan states, which are part of the Three-Seas initiative. The effectiveness of the regulations in force in these countries deviates from the standards set by the European Union. This has implications for the success of the Three-Seas-Initiative. The current state of affairs is the result of clashing ideas about the membership of Balkan countries in a particular sphere of influence. The services of the Russian Federation (GRU or SWR) play a significant role in maintaining the current status quo. Observation of corruption offences in the Balkans shows that the bodies set up to investigate corruption offences do not have effective powers to prevent, detect and prosecute such offences. An evaluation of the regulations in force in this area shows that they are ineffective. A solution which would ensure that the Balkans meet European standards on preventing and combating corruption could be theimplementation of the institutional model of the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau in force in the Republic of Poland by reforming the Balkan anti-corruption services. ; University of Bialystok, Poland ; PhD student at the Faculty of Law of the University of Białystok (Poland) ; p.zawadzki@uwb.edu.pl ; 69 ; 86 ; 2 ; Act Direcţia Generală Anticorupţie a fost înfiinţată prin Legea nr. 161/2005 privind stabilirea unor măsuri pentru prevenirea şi combaterea corupţiei în cadrul Ministerului Administraţiei şi Internelor ca structură specializată pentru prevenirea şi combaterea corupţiei în rândul personalului Ministerului Administraţiei şi Internelor [The General Anti-Corruption Directorate established by Law No 161/2005 on the establishment of measures to prevent and combat corruption within the Ministry of Administration and Interior as a specialized structure for preventing and combating corruption among the staff of the Ministry of Administration and Interior] (2017, March 20). 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