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Politics in the Shadow of COVID-19: Parliamentary Election in the Kingdom of the Netherlands
On March 15-17, 2021, the first parliamentary elections in the European Union during the pandemic took place in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The political authorities of the Kingdom of the Netherlands decided to hold the elections despite severe sanitary restrictions and curfew. On January 15, 2021, the outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte, chairman of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), handed over the resignation of the entire government to the King. The immediate cause was the report of the parliamentary investigative commission announced in December 2020 on the extremely restrictive operation of local tax offices in connection with government child benefits. Mark Rutte has been running the country efficiently since 2010 and was also a favorite in the upcoming parliamentary elections. The elections were conducted without any disturbances. 37 parties were admitted to elections, the largest number in the post-war history of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The election winners were ruling party VVD party and progressive liberals from D'66. The discussion on the formation of the new government has already started and is accompanied by great emotions. It is going to be a long period of negotiations and their results are difficult to be predicted. The article presents the main actors of this parliamentary game.

The jurisdiction and tasks of the marshals (speakers) of the Old-Polish Sejm Chamber of Deputies were shaped in practice and thus were not regulated by law for many decades. The literature on the subject has always stressed that the 'director' of the Chamber of Deputies had to reckon with the will of his colleagues, that he did not have too many prerogatives, and the role he played during parliamentary debates resulted primarily from his personal qualities and social position. This article, however, deals with customary powers and prerogatives of the Sejm marshal, and those which in the eighteenth century began to be described in parliamentary constitutions. It is also an attempt to synthetically summarise the research conducted thus far into the ways of electing the marshal of the Sejm and the role he played in the Sejm from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. It involved not only presiding over the sessions of the Chamber of Deputies and did not end with the closing of the Sejm session, but also included important activities after the session had finished, related to the drafting of the constitutions, and managing the election of the next marshal, which was no less important at the beginning of the next Sejm.

The author addresses the issue of ethno-business, which has been largely unresearched to date. In the approach proposed by the author, ethnobusiness is understood as a wide range of practices and behaviours related to the deliberate use of existing regulations going beyond the intentions of legislators that guarantee cultural and political privileges for national and ethnic minorities. Various activists and leaders gathered around ethnic organizations and co-creators of the discussed phenomenon most often pursue their private material or political interests. However, ethno-business is closely linked to the established Romanian legislation on national minorities. Thus, the author investigates the roots of this phenomenon, introducing readers to the regulations on minorities in Romania, and points to the social consequences of ethno-business. The analysis of the discussed problem is supplemented and illustrated by examples of specific behaviours observed by the author during his long-term and extensive ethnographic field research carried out on the Romanian-Ukrainian borderland between 2009 and 2010. Although this research project focused on aspects of ethnic and national identity among the Slavic-speaking community of the Maramures region, it also gave an opportunity to spot a number of behaviours that can be interpreted in the context of ethno-business. The ethnographic examples given in the article show how the policies related to the protection of national minorities in Romania can be exploited in various circumstances by different individuals who have relevant knowledge of the rights of national minorities.

This article is devoted to the issue of politics of ethnicity in Poland in the period 1944–1989, which is a consequence of post-war changes in the ethnic structure of the country and its national homogenization. The attitude of state authority toward its non-Polish residents, on the one hand, enabled them to maintain their own limited identity, but on the other hand, meant that they were deliberately assimilated in order to integrate with the rest of society. In particular periods, these activities were conducted with different intensification levels and with different tools.

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Second Congress of Slav Journalists in Cracow in 1899 The aim of the article is to present the organization, course and consequences of the Second Congress of Slavic Journalists in Cracow in 1899. Due to the political nature of the congress, it will also be important to address the questions of the political goals held by the participating journalists and the attitude of the authorities to the event.

Personnel policy in the Polish Army in the years 1918–1939 Personnel policy is one of the most sensitive elements shaping the military personnel of each army, and we can distinguish several stages of this policy in the Polish Army in the years 1918–1939. The first was related to the regaining of independence by Poland and fights for its borders. At that time, the organizational structures of the army were created and verification commissions were set up, which defined the possibilities of serving in the Polish Army, especially in regard to former soldiers from the forces of partitioning powers. The next period was associated with the transition of the army to the so-called peace organization, when the basis for the promotion pragmatics was defined by law. The third of the stages began after 1926, when after the coup d'état, Marshal Józef Piłsudski and his entourage gained a decisive role in the promotion policy, mainly based on legionary provenance. At that time, many officers left the military, especially those generals who previously commanded the armies of partitioning powers. The organizational system of the Polish Army also changed, as alongside the Ministry of Military Affairs and the General Staff (Main), a new dominant organ was appointed –the General Inspectorate of the Armed Forces –to prepare the army for a future war. After the death of Józef Piłsudski in 1935, the pragmatist approach was advocated by his successor Marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły, who tried to introduce clear promotion regulations regarding personnel policy in the Polish Army.

This article is an attempt to analyze the reception of the Austrian School in Austria and Germany in general. The article aims to present the attitude of German and Austrian scientists and political leaders to the liberal ideas presented by the Austrian School. The author has discussed the birth of the Austrian School, methodenstreit, and the causes of the gradual removal of the heritage of Carl Menger and his successors from Austria.

Borders in the Political Vision of Contemporary Extreme Right in Germany
The article deals with the issue of broadly defined borders in political and ideological programmes of selected extreme right organisations in contemporary Germany (AfD, NPD, IBD). The starting point for the textual and content analysis of actual programs of these organizations is the author's reflection on the importance of dichotomy in the broader political view of the extreme right. The author claims that the considerably strong focus of the selected right‑wing organisations on the issue of physical or cultural borders does not only derive from the timing of their activism – the so called migration crisis. It is rather pre‑defined by the ideological features of the far right in general. The core ideological elements ascribed to the far right as a stream of political thought, such as nationalism or authoritarianism, are based on the dichotomy and influence on the far right perception of the world.

In the social considerations of Benedict XVI, the point of reference was Christian anthropology. It is from its perspective that the Pope analyzed current social and political relations as well as economic relations prevailing in specific countries and in international relations. He recognized that these spheres of human existence must permeate ethics rooted in the personal and transcendent nature of individuals. This humanistic idea of morality gains special significance in the context of now visible atomization of societies, weaknesses of law in individual countries or dominance of soulless business, which ultimately fuel the global economic crisis. The Pope, therefore, saw the need to update this spiritual aspect of human existence in order to strengthen solidarity and subsidiarity in socio-economic relations, and to stimulate proper cooperation of the state with the economy on the local and supranational scale. He also noted that its principles allow people to realize their own potential responsibly, but also sensitize them to the needs of other individuals. In the Pope's recognition, Christian ethics is in particular in the realities of the crisis to mobilize states, economic enterprises and international organizations to undertake joint activities for the general public good, without – at the same time – suppressing the activity of individuals and communities.