Bücher veröffentlicht von Central European University Press

This collection of essays offers an analysis of the roots of the armed conflicts in the Donbas region of Ukraine, by exploring local society and traditions, interpreting recent events and assessing efforts to bring the war to and end. The book concludes with four key insights that could help to establish a durable peace in Donbas.

Despite an increase in the number of EU and government initiatives in their favor, the situation of Roma in Europe has only worsened.

The main issues arising from the encounter between Roma people and surrounding European society since the time of their arrival in Medieval Europe until today are discussed in this work. The history of their persecution and genocide during the Nazi era, in particular, is central to the present volume. Significantly, some authors sought to emphasize the continuing history of prejudice and persecution, which reached a peak during the Nazi era and persisted after the war. Current questions of social integration in Europe, as well as that of ethnic definition and the construction of ethnic-national identity constitute another principal pillar of the book. The complexity of issues involved, such as collective memory, myth-making and social constructionism, trigger intense debate among researchers dealing with Romani studies.

The life of Töhötöm Nagy (1908-1979), Jesuit, Mason, and secret service agent, offers fascinating insights into interwar Hungary, the Catholic Church and Vatican diplomacy, Freemasonry, and the activities of communist state security service.As a young Jesuit Nagy was one of the leaders of a successful Catholic youth movement in interwar Hungary. After World War II he played an important role acting as an intermediary between the Vatican, the Red Army, and the Hungarian Catholic Church. After being sent to South America, he was attracted by liberation theology, but left the Society of Jesus, joined the Freemasons, and did social and philanthropic work in the slums of Buenos Aires. However, in the late 1960s he agreed to work for the Hungarian state security service in return for his repatriation. This latter period is reconstructed from the files of the Historical Archives of State Security in Budapest. Éva Petrás writes with empathy but with a sense of distance of the courage and restless energy of her subject. Her discussion of the limits of free choice and Nagy's intense struggle to live a meaningful life make this biography breathtaking.

Ukrainian Witchcraft Trials is an analysis of early modern witchcraft trials and legal procedures in Ukrainian lands, along with an examination of quantitative data drawn from the different trials. Kateryna Dysa first describes the ideological background of the tribunals based on works written by priests and theologians that reflect attitudes towards the devil and witches. The main focus of her work, however, is the process leading to witchcraft accusations. From the stories of participants of the trials she shows what led people to enunciate first suspicions then accusations of witchcraft. Finally, she presents a microhistory from one Volhynian village, comparing attitudes towards two "e;female crimes"e; in the Ukrainian courts. The study is based on archival research together with previously published witch trials transcripts. Dysa approaches the trials as indications of belief and practice, attempting to understand the actors involved rather than dismiss or condemn them. She takes care to situate Ukrainian witchcraft and its accompanying trials in a broader European context, with comparisons to some African cases as well.

Pioneering studies reveal interesting trends and patterns that point to the growing importance of the mostly intellectual property-based intangible capital in relation to the level of GDP.

Where Currents Meet treats the Ukrainian and Russian components of cultural experience in Ukraine's East as elements of a complex continuum. This study of cultural memory in post-Soviet space shows how its inhabitants negotiate the historical legacy they have inherited. Tanya Zaharchenko approaches contemporary Ukrainian literature at the intersection of memory studies and border studies, and her analysis adds a new voice to an ongoing exploration of cultural and historical discourses in Ukraine. This scholarly journey through storylines explores the ways in which younger writers in Kharkiv (Kharkov in Russian), a diverse, dynamic, but understudied border city in east Ukraine today come to grips with a traumatized post-Soviet cultural landscape. Zaharchenko's book examines the works of Serhiy Zhadan, Andrei Krasniashchikh, Yuri Tsaplin, Oleh Kotsarev and others, introducing them as a "e;doubletake"e; generation who came of age during the Soviet Union's collapse and as adults revisited this experience in their novels. Filling the space between society and the state, local literary texts have turned into forms of historical memory and agents of political life.

This book compares the various aspects - political, military economic - of Soviet occupation in Austria, Hungary and Romania. By bringing key documents together in one single volume, this book offers penetrating new insights into Soviet policies in Romania, Hungary and Austria that contributed to the origins of the Cold War.

In the best micro-historical tradition, Carlo Ginzburg, himself one of the founders and icons of this genre of historiography, dissects four moments of European intellectual history. This book relives the experience that participants in the Natalie Zemon Davis Lecture Series at the Budapest campus of Central European University had in 2019 listening to Ginzburg's eloquent and engaging discourses. For the purposes of this volume he has re-edited and completed the leporello of cases charged with the inherent ambiguity between secularism and religions.Secularism is often identified with rejection or at least distancing from the sacred. However, if one assumes that secularism also appropriates and reworks the sacred, its ambiguities come to the fore. The dilemma accompanies the reception of La Boétie's Servitude volontaire between 1574 and today. Before Walter Benjamin, the lesser-known 19th-century Léon de Laborde defended the profanity of reproducing the arts. The tension around the secular pervades the case of the College de Sociologie (Paris, 1937-1939), an attempt to analyze the ideological components of fascism. The fourth lecture approaches a much-discussed contemporary phenomenon - fake news - from a long-term perspective. To what extent are some disturbing features of the world we live in the result of a long, tortuous, unpredictable trajectory?

Why are anti -corruption campaigns running out of steam, and why are post-communist societies obsessed with corruption?This book is not a study of anti-corruption policies. Instead, it looks at the politics of anti-corruption. Policies are what institutions do. But in analyzing politics, this book seeks to discover why institutions do what they do.

Escaping Kakania is about fascinating characters-soldiers, doctors, scientists, writers, painters-who traveled from their eastern European homelands to colonial Southeast Asia. Their stories are told by experts on different countries in the two regions, who bring diverse approaches into a conversation that crosses disciplinary and national borders. The 14 chapters deal with the diverse encounters of eastern Europeans with the many faces of colonial southeast Asia. Some essays directly engage with post-colonial studies, contributing to an ongoing critical re-evaluation of eastern European "semi-peripheral" (non-)involvement in colonialism. Other chapters disclose a range of perspectives and narratives that illuminate the plurality of the travelers' positions while reflecting on the specificity of the eastern European experience. The travellers moved-as do the chapter authors-between two regions that are off-centre, in-between, shiftingly "Eastern," and disorientingly heterogeneous, thus complicating colonial and postcolonial notions of "Europe," "East," and East-West distinctions. Both at home and overseas, they navigated among a multiplicity of peoples, "races," and empires, Occidents and Orients, fantasies of the Self and the Other, adopting/adapting/mimicking/rejecting colonialist identities and ideologies. They saw both eastern Europe and southeast Asia in a distinctive light, as if through each other-and so will the readers of Escaping Kakania.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 jeopardizes the country's independence and its chances for Western-style development. However, the heroic attitude of the Ukrainian people, combined with a solidifying national identity, makes the domestic foundations for a western turn stronger than ever. After the invasion, building strong foundations of liberal democracy will be a top priority. In addition to alleviating immediate problems, the country must also address its post-communist legacy and address the constraints of patronalism.The authors of this edited volume, leading Ukrainian scholars supplemented by colleagues from Hungary, examine the chances of an anti-patronal transformation after the war. The book provides an overview of the development of Ukraine's political-economic system: color revolutions in 2004 and 2014 brought democratic transformation, but no change in the patronage system The result was patronal regime cycles instead of the emergence of a Western-type liberal democracy in the country. Building on the conceptual framework of the editors' The Anatomy of Post-Communist Regimes (CEU Press, 2020), the 12 chapters examine the impact of the war on patronal democracy, the relational economy, clientelist society, and the international environment in which Ukraine operates.This collection is complemented by the book entitled Russia. Imperial Endeavor and Geopolitical Consequences.

The increasing radicalization of political life in most countries in Europe lends special relevance to studies of the antifascist legacies on the continent. This insightful collection of essays is an in-depth review of antifascism in Slovenia, setting it in the context of related movements elsewhere in Europe. The period treated by the 19 essays comprises the interwar period, World War Two, and the post-war decades. The comparative and transnational perspectives advanced by the volume change our understanding of antifascism. The essays deal with the right-wing but also left-wing instrumentalization of antifascism, with a particular focus on the communist and post-communist periods. The authors point out that antifascism comes in various strains, whether inspired by liberalism, social democracy, communism, monarchism, anarchism, or even Christian conservatism. The contributors bring to light several overlooked antifascist actors, campaigns, and organisations, mostly in Slovenia and the Adriatic area.

Aside from the near-complete devastation of a sovereign state and reversal of the global balance of power, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is leading to a radical transformation in the Eastern European and Eurasian regions - including Russia itself.The 13 chapters in this volume examine the main geopolitical consequences of the resurgent imperialist aspirations of the Russian Federation. They examine the ideological tools of history falsification as an integral part of hybrid warfare. Turning to the economy, the book discusses how the war and economic sanctions imposed on Russia are redrawing the geopolitical map and how economic relations would change following a regime transformation. The book discusses the reactions of members of the international community to the invasion, whether threatened or neutral parties or allies. The collection therefore offers a comprehensive picture of the main consequences of the resurgent imperialist aspirations of the Russian Federation. Equipped with the conceptual tools of the analysis with a focus on the patronal features of the political-economic system, the book considers the aftermath of the war. This collection complements the book entitled Ukraine. Patronal Democracy and the Russian Invasion.

Over the early 21st century, democracy worldwide has deteriorated significantly. At the same time, new populist forces have appeared that challenge democracies through legal reforms. The stark contrast between Eastern and Western Europe in this respect is the focus of this collection of essays.The authors consider the 2008-2012 economic crisis to be at the root of the success of the populist parties and the rise of cultural backlash against liberal values. In turn, European governments' responses to the crisis-mainly austerity measures demanded by IMF and the EU- help explain desenchantment with the European Union. These policies made the wider public feel that they were being left out of politics, and populist parties promised to return power to them. The contributors argue that polarization of the electorate can set in motion a radicalization that strengthens authoritarians at the expense of democrats. They also demonstrate that Eastern and Western Europe differ in their attitudes to the decline in quality of democracy. The studies consider how satisfied people are with the political changes they witness, and argue that seemingly more authoritarian attitudes in the East explain why people feel more satisfied with a defective democracy that empowers the populist-authoritarian political actors that they support.

The Covid pandemic has put all modern societies to a serious test of resilience. The interdisciplinary research on which this book is based examined how four European governments behaved in these circumstances. During the months of the crisis, the team of experts coordinated by the editors of this volume took a close look at the decision-making processes in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia - the so-called Visegrad Four.The inquiries focused on experiences from the academic, health, economic and social fields. The methods of comparison included surveys, interviews, discourse analysis, for which the adaptive leadership theory provided the conceptual framework. The conclusions are both academic and practical. Aside the description of the pandemic responses, the research had a formative dimension: how can an adaptive leadership approach better help societies manage the health and societal impacts of similar challenges? The spectrum of emerging anti-democratic tendencies in the region provided the specific context of the exercise. The four states face varying degrees of democratic backsliding as well as illiberal influences that have affected their response to the pandemic, which gives this research on the Visegrad Four a worldwide resonance.

The proclamation of Belarusian independence on March 25, 1918, and the rival establishment of the Soviet Belarusian state on January 1, 1919, created two distinct and mutually exclusive national myths, which continue to define contemporary Belarusian society. This book examines the processes that resulted in this dual resolution in the context of World War I and the subsequent Russian Revolutions.Based on original archival material, Lizaveta Kasmach scrutinizes the development of competing concepts of Belarusian nationhood in the context of rivaling national aspirations and imperial policies. The analysis convincingly demonstrates the divisions within the nationalist movement, both politically between the moderates and socialists, and geographically between German-occupied territory with Vilna as a center versus Russian-controlled territory around Minsk. Besides the case study of Belarusian nation-building efforts, the book is a contribution to the study of the First World War in East Central Europe, approaching the war and its aftermath as a mobilizational moment in the region.

More Nights Than Days is a unique exploration of the experience of children who survived the Holocaust-including Roma and Sinti victims-and the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, and Bosnia. Children are among the principal victims of armed conflicts and slaughters; nonetheless, they perceive events through the prism of their unique perspective and have a range of coping techniques adults don't possess.This overview of writings of ninety-one child survivors bears evidence from a wide range of human ruthlessness. The author presents little-known texts along with famous memoirs and autobiographical fiction, with abundant quotations. Many of these are not only compelling as historical testimony, but poetic and stirringly expressive. Yudit Kiss has not written a historical study or literary criticism of the children's books. She explores, instead, what the authors went through and what they felt and understood about their experience. An accessible and captivating reading, this volume presents a close-up, human size dimension of the destruction. The books written by child survivors also describe the resources and means that helped them to remain human even in the deepest well of inhumanity, offering precious lessons about resistance and resilience.M

André Goodfriend was Deputy Chief of Mission from 2013 to 2015 at the US Embassy in Budapest. In the absence of an ambassador, most of the time he was Chargé d'Affaires. Goodfriend represented his country, and for that matter, liberal democracy, in the early period of the increasingly autocratic Orbán regime. This tenure was distinguished by an unusually high public visibility and broad-based popularity. This book contains the distilled essence of conversations recorded in the fall of 2015 and in the years after his departure.Aside from Goodfriend's reflections on his personal history, the main focus of the deliberations is on open government: its characteristics, preconditions, benefits, and its relation to modern diplomacy. The mindset of a democracy-rooted diplomat with a working experience in an increasingly autocratic regime lends a particular perspective to the topics discussed. These topics include the fight against corruption, the protection of civil society, crisis prevention, education, economy, international relations, applied humanities, and the use of the social and traditional media to achieve policy goals.This book presents modern, "people-friendly" diplomacy in an era in which public officials are increasingly expected to be transparent and engaged.