Ongoing discourse about a collective Belarusian identity since the 2020 protests tend to circle around nationalism. Those who oppose the regime and managed to escape are calling for horizontal societal structures, in solidarity with those imprisoned. Belarusian culture is more than language; it includes human rights, economic interests and everyday narratives.
Articles
Treasure trove or rubbish dump? In either case, oceans are being spoiled. Concepts from ‘mare liberum’ to ‘common heritage’ don’t safeguard the blue planet’s largest frontier from escalated seabed mining, industrialised fishing and waste disposal, nor global inequality and racialized violence. Could a democratic World Ocean Authority be the answer?
‘Deep political changes are only a matter of time’
Correspondence with Vladimir Kara-Murza
In April 2023 the Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza was sentenced to 25 years in prison for speaking out against the war on Ukraine. Here he explains why he is confident that the Putin regime will come to an end sooner than many think.
Kais Saied’s power grab in Tunisia did not take place in a vacuum. A combination of constitutional dysfunction, a self-serving party system and festering social tensions had left the country at breaking point. Now the man many hailed as a saviour threatens the achievements of the democratic revolution of 2011.
Recommended topics
Even though socialist internationalism was the official ideology in communist Hungary, popular media at the time was teaming with nationalist narratives, hidden in plain sight. What does this contradiction explain about today’s politics?
Memory as source of personal and collective resistance: on Yuri Dmitriev’s effort to document the history of the Mordovian GULAG while himself imprisoned in one of the penal colonies in the region, by a member of the Memorial Society.
Full steam ahead
Russian propaganda running up to the Polish elections
Ranging from influencers to opinion leaders and self-proclaimed experts, pro-Russian communities are consolidating in Poland. The Russian Federation not only supports these groups through the Polish-language sources it runs, but also has an influence on the activity of some of the people operating within them.
Protecting nature, empowering people
Environmental protests in the Balkans
The success of recent protests against extractivism and ecosystem degradation in Serbia and Albania highlights the potential for democratic reinvigoration around ecological issues in south east Europe. But the EU has yet to prove it can act as a credible partner in this process.
Eurozine review
Flooded earth
Osteuropa 1–2/2023
What the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam means for water supplies, agriculture and industry in south-east Ukraine. Also: Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh; and a profile of imprisoned Russian oppositionist Vladimir Kara-Murza.
New Roma writing
A2 11/2023
New writing by Czech Roma authors: different takes on the story-telling tradition; memories of growing up as a Roma after ’89; mainstreaming Roma writing and the decline of the Romani language.
Rethinking public health
Esprit 498 (2023)
How to stop disillusioned health professionals leaving the sector; and why health budgets must shift from treatment to prevention. Also: a black book of Assad; and America’s comeback as global good guy.
Focal points
The ‘great democratic revolution’ of modern times, as Tocqueville once called it, appears to be spluttering to a halt. Some observers, recalling the disasters of the 1920s and 30s, are suggesting that an anti-democratic counterrevolution on a global scale has begun. But is the writing really on the wall? Or does declinism prevent us from recognizing moments of democratic renewal?
Eurozine looks into the political, social and cultural factors that define the war on Ukraine, from Russia’s neo-imperialist aspirations and the concept of culpability to artists at the forefront of Ukrainian resistance. This focal point is supported by the C.H.Beck Verlag.
Post-revolutionary Ukrainian society displays a unique mix of hope, enthusiasm, social creativity, collective trauma of war, radicalism and disillusionment. With the Maidan becoming history, the focal point ‘Ukraine in European Dialogue’ explores the new challenges facing the young democracy, its place in Europe, and the lessons it might offer for the future of the European project.
The focal point presents the findings of the project ‘Eurasia in Global Dialogue’ being carried out at the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna (IWM). The focal point is an extension of the earlier focal point, ‘Russia in Global Dialogue’ that ran in Eurozine and at the IWM from 2012–2018.
Eurozine Network
Eurozine monitors upcoming funding opportunities on the international level relevant to cultural journalists, such as translation funds, mobility grants and project funding.