Thinking Europe on the Edge: A Ukrainian Vision of ‘Europeanness’

Papers

- Thinking Europe on the Edge: A Ukrainian Vision of ‘Europeanness’
  Within the Ukrainian revolution the idea of Europe and “Europeanness” worked in a twofold manner: synchronically, by unifying society thus reestablishing it on the basis of some new agreements (dignity as a core value, solidarity as the main policy); diachronically, by setting the trajectory of further development and hereby forcing required changes (towards the EU as the institutional embodiment of the imaginary “Europe”). However, it did not regard existing European institutions as a template but rather appealed to the origins of “Europeanness”, thus opposing itself to the distorted versions of “Europe” as well. The paper is aimed at revealing the set of senses attached to the concept of Europe within the recent Ukrainian events, as well as at placing it in the broader context of the current crisis of the “Western civilization”.
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- Prospects of Political Protest in Contemporary Russia
  In 2011-2012, Russia was hit by a wave of rallies against falsification of State Duma election results. The protest actions were mainly attended by the middle class of large Russian cities. However, leaders of these actions were not able to offer a plan significant for all the country. Most of the Russians did not support the protests. Conducting of significant foreign-policy moves by the Russian President V. Putin (the Olympic Games in Sochi, annexation of Crimea, participation in settlement of the conflict in Ukraine, a military effort in Syria) has considerably raised the rating of the central administration.
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- Critical Assessment of the European Refugee Crisis: Caricature of a Civilian Power?
  The aim of this contribution is to look critically, through the eye of the cartoonists, at how are individual member states and the European Union dealing with the refugee crisis, identify possible normative cleavages between the EU’s purported civilian image and the criticized reality, or in other words: does the image/identity of Europe as a civilian power still hold in times of the refugee crisis or are we falling back to good old power politics?
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- Politicization as an (Un)Intended Consequence of the European Union in Crisis?
  Crises have been endemic to the process of European integration and to the deepening of its policy and institutional integration. The recent history of European integration does demonstrate that crises have had contradictory results. While institutional reforms which were adopted in response to the Euro crisis seem to reinforce technocratic and authoritarian form of economic governance and sustain an intended dynamics of depoliticization at the European level, policy reforms have fueled a rather unintended dynamics of (re)politicization at the national level.
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- Solidarity in Europe – A Myth or a Reality?
  This paper addresses the core question of whether the EU solidarity is an on-going reality which is continuously evolving or is it an accidental anomaly which strives to survive as it lurches from one crisis to the next. It is an issue, which is extremely crucial not only for the existing member nation-states but also for the nations and regions aspiring to become part of this Union.
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- The Greek Debt Crisis. A Greek or a European Problem?
  The crucial question is whether the current program is sufficient for the resolution of Greece’s debt crisis, a crisis which is not only economic but also structural. How the Greek political system took shape after 1974 and what relations did it develop with its citizens? How the political elites managed to dominate in the so called ’state economy’? Why the private sector remained so underdeveloped? Understanding the nature, scope and depth of the Greek crisis becomes crucial for full evaluating the extent to which the current political and social transformations taking place over recent years will lead to further integration or fragmentation within the EU.
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- Religious Art at the Service of an Atheist State: Cultural Policy and Nationalistic Propaganda in Late Communist Bulgaria
  In this paper, I will look at an aspect of cultural policy and nationalistic propaganda in late Communist Bulgaria. More concretely, I will consider the uses to which religious art was put to in the context of the state-sponsored 1300th anniversary of the foundation of the Bulgarian state.
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- Identities Interplay of an Artist: Herta Müller
  The Nobel Prize winner for literature, Herta Müller, represents a special case of an artist that deserves attention as it reflects how art can be an instrument of cultural diplomacy, especially in the sense of being an expression of overcoming dichotomies of East and West and cultivate transnational identities.
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- Cultural Heritage in Times of Destruction
  The presentation aims also to open several questions and raise topics that can cast light on possible solutions and immediate active initiatives: - How can we rise awareness on manmade disasters? - What tools do the cultural institutions have we to prevent the manmade damages? - Are the national risk management programmes sufficient to respond to this changing reality? - Cultural diplomacy on the fast lane: mitigating the disasters' effects or preventing 'damnatio memoriae'?
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- The Post-Socialist City and the Revaluation of Public Space. Case Study – Velenje
  This paper discusses how public space is revaluated under the premise of changed political and civic structures by the example of the city of Velenje in Slovenia. The question remains how aestheticization and individualization contribute to a continuation of politicization of public space after democratization; and how does its meaning transform under the impact of market mechanisms and economic-liberal tendencies?
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