Suchergebnisse

Interpretations of the significance of East Central European (ECE) alliances have changed over the past few decades, often reflecting the degree of support for the European Union (EU) shown by Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. On the one side, iterations of ECE cooperation like the Central European Initiative and the Visegrad 4 (V4), established in February 1991, have been regarded as vehicles designed largely to bring ECE countries closer to the EU. More recently, the V4 has been depicted as an alliance held together by little more than the now shared EU-critical stance of its members. Placing their development in a longue durée perspective, this chapter instead argues that ECE alliances are a crucial and enduring component of the sphere 'in-between' the national and European levels, with cooperation anchored in the common historical experience dating from the nineteenth century. Intergovernmental subregional cooperation has served as a shield protecting the individual countries' ability to drive their national interests, and ECE countries often return to the basic unit of the Visegrad alliance despite moments of disagreement. ; Peer reviewed

Introduction : conservatism and memory politics / Katalin Miklóssy -- Putin's history politics and conservative turn / Markku Kangaspuro -- A conservative turn in a patriarchal society? : the entangled memory of female political activism in post-Soviet Russia / Nadezda Petrusenko -- Non-traditional sexual relationships : law, forgetting and the conservative political discourse in Russia / Alexander Kondakov -- How to conserve Kertbeny's grave? : a case of post-communist queer necrophilia / Judit Takács -- Witnesses from gulag and literary theosis : Varlam Shalamov's Kolyma stories and Evgeni Vodolazkin's Aviator / Elina Kahla -- Revisiting the narrative of conservative Russian Islam / Kaarina Aitamurto -- Memory and leverage : Russia's history policing and the remembrance of 1956 in Hungary / Katalin Miklóssy -- A conservative turn in Belarus? : exploring the normative power potential of the Russian conservative agenda / Natalia Morozova -- Serbia and Russia : between piety and politics / Brendan Humphreys -- Paradigm change in Holocaust remembrance : instrumentalising conservatism / Andrea Pető -- Dilemma over Stalin : confronting the Great Patriotic War and the reputation of Russia / Markku Kangaspuro -- Victory Day, family style : grassroots war commemoration, collective memory habits, and the shaping of public affect / Ekaterina Haskins -- The routinization of conservatism : key stakeholders of patriotic education in contemporary Russia / Anna Sanina -- Whose turn, for whom? : conservative values and Putin's social contract / Jussi Lassila.

"This book explores how the concept of "competition", which is usually associated with market economies, operated under state socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, where the socialist system, based on command economic planning and state-centred control over society, was supposed to emphasise "co-operation", rather than competitive mechanisms. The book considers competition in a wider range of industries and social fields across the Soviet bloc, and shows how the gradual adoption and adaptation of Western practices led to the emergence of more open competitiveness in socialist society. The book includes discussion of the state's view of competition, and focuses especially on how competition operated at the grassroots level. It covers politico-economic reforms and their impact, both overall and at the enterprise level; competition in the cultural sphere; and the huge effect of increasing competition on socialist ways of thinking"--

Introduction : the cold war from a new perspective / Sari Autio-Sarasmo and Katalin Miklóssy -- The Soviet Union's acquisition of western technology after Stalin : some thoughts on people and connections / Philip Hanson -- Economic interest in Soviet post-war policy on Finland / Tatiana Androsova -- CoCom and neutrality : western export control policies, Finland and the Cold War, 1949-1958 / Niklas Jensen-Eriksen -- Knowledge through the Iron Curtain : Soviet scientific-technical cooperation with Finland and West Germany / Sari Autio-Sarasmo -- Learning from the French : the modernisation of Soviet winemaking, 1956-1961 / Jeremy Smith -- Soft contacts through the Iron Curtain / Riikka Nisonen-Trinka -- Internal transfer of cybernetics and informality in the Soviet Union : the case of Lithuania / Egle Rindzeviciute -- New advantages of old kinship ties : Finnish-Hungarian interactions in the 1970s / Katalin Miklóssy -- Soviet women, cultural exchange and the Women's International Democratic Federation / Melanie Ilic -- Overcoming Cold War boundaries at the world youth festivals / Pia Koivunen -- Room to manoeuvre? : national interests and coalition-building in the CMEA, 1969-1974 / Suvi Kansikas