Labor regimes under communism in East-Central Europe were complex, shifting, and ambiguous. This collection of sixteen essays offers new conceptual and empirical ways to understand their history from the end of World War II to 1989, and to think about how their experiences relate to debates about labor history, both European and global.

The authors reconsider the history of state socialism by re-examining the policies and problems of communist regimes and recovering the voices of the workers who built them. The contributors look at work and workers in Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia. They explore the often contentious relationship between politics and labor policy, dealing with diverse topics including workers’ safety and risks; labor rights and protests; working women’s politics and professions; migrant workers and social welfare; attempts to control workers’ behavior and stem unemployment; and cases of incomplete, compromised, or even abandoned processes of proletarianization. Workers are presented as active agents in resisting and supporting changes in labor policies, in choosing allegiances, and in defining the very nature of work.

A first attempt to present an approach to Ukrainian history which goes beyond the standard 'national narrative' schemes, predominant in the majority of post-Soviet countries after 1991, in the years of implementing 'nation-building projects'.An unrivalled collection of essays by the finest scholars in the field from Ukraine, Russia, USA, Germany, Austria and Canada, superbly written to a high academic standard. The various chapters are methodologically innovative and thought-provoking. The biggest Eastern European country has ancient roots but also the birth pangs of a new autonomous state. Its historiography is characterized by animated debates, in which this book takes a definite stance. The history of Ukraine is not written here as a linear, teleological narrative of ethnic Ukrainians but as a multicultural, multidimensional history of a diversity of cultures, religious denominations, languages, ethical norms, and historical experience. It is not presented as causal explanation of 'what has to have happened' but rather as conjunctures and contingencies, disruptions, and episodes of 'lack of history.'

The International Labour Office is the moving force behind the adoption of the Labour Force Survey in Western countries as the only reliable means of gathering information about trends in employment and unemployment, and on pay. The countries of East-Central Europe and the former USSR have recognized their need of such statistiics and turned to the ILO to help them set up systems to provide data required by decision makers. This pioneering work shows how the old "command" economies are setting up brand new systems to classify occupations, to measure employment and unemployment, and to collect information on wages and labour costs, which will be useful to students of the area and essential for statisticians world-wide concerned with the challenge of instigating an entirely new statistical service.

Malaria has existed in Greece since prehistoric times. Its prevalence fluctuated depending on climatic, socioeconomic and political changes. The book focuses on the factors that contributed to the spreading of the disease in the years between independent statehood in 1830 and the elimination of malaria in the 1970s. 

By the nineteenth century, Greece was the most malarious country in Europe and the one most heavily infected with its lethal form, falciparum malaria. Owing to pressures on the environment from economic development, agrarian colonization and heightened mobility, the situation became so serious that malaria became a routine part of everyday life for practically all Greek families, further exacerbated by wars. The country’s highly fragmented geography and its variable rainfall distribution created an environment that was ideal for sustaining and spreading of diseases, which, in turn, affected the tolerance of the population to malaria. In their struggle with physical suffering and death, the Greeks developed a culture of avid quinine consumption and were likewise eager to embrace the DDT spraying campaign of the immediate post WW II years, which, overall, had a positive demographic effect.

Linguistic Human Rights (LHR) is a fast growing new area of study combining the principles of national and international law with the study of language as a central dimension of ethnicity. Implementation of these principles is aimed at ensuring that no state or society violates these basic rights.

This path breaking study broadens our knowledge of the important role of language in minority rights and in social and political struggles for LHRs. Exploring the interactions of linguistic diversity, biodiversity, the free market and human rights, the contributors present case studies to highlight such issues as Kurdish satellite TV attempting to create a virtual state on the air through trying to achieve basic LHR’s for Kurds in Turkey; the implementation of LHRs in the Baltic states; language rights activism in Canada; the spread of English as an international language; and the obstacles met in education by Roma and the Deaf in Hungary because of lack of appropriate LHRs.

Language: A Right and a Resource is a valuable multi-disciplinary text which can be used in a variety of different areas of study in the legal profession, linguistics, cultural and political studies.

This book publishes for the first time in print every word the American and Soviet leaders – Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev, and George H.W. Bush – said to each other in their superpower summits from 1985 to 1991. Obtained by the authors through the Freedom of Information Act in the U.S., from the Gorbachev Foundation and the State Archive of the Russian Federation in Moscow, and from the personal donation of Anatoly Chernyaev, these previously Top Secret verbatim transcripts combine with key declassified preparatory and after-action documents from both sides to create a unique interactive documentary record of these historic highest-level talks – the conversations that ended the Cold War. The summits fueled a process of learning on both sides, as the authors argue in contextual essays on each summit and detailed headnotes on each document. Geneva 1985 and Reykjavik 1986 reduced Moscow's sense of threat and unleashed Reagan's inner abolitionist. Malta 1989 and Washington 1990 helped dampen any superpower sparks that might have flown in a time of revolutionary change in Eastern Europe, set off by Gorbachev and by Eastern Europeans (Solidarity, dissidents, reform Communists). The high level and scope of the dialogue between these world leaders was unprecedented, and is likely never to be repeated.

This volume represents the first in a four-volume series, a daring project by CEU Press which presents the most important texts that triggered and shaped the processes of nation-building in the many countries of Central and Southeast Europe. The series brings together scholars from Austria, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, the Republic of Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia and Turkey. The editors have created a new interpretative synthesis that challenges the self-centered and "isolationist" historical narratives and educational canons prevalent in the region, in the spirit of of "coming to terms with the past." The main aim of the venture is to confront 'mainstream' and seemingly successful national discourses with each other, thus creating a space for analyzing those narratives of identity which became institutionalized as "national canons." The series will broaden the field of possible comparisons of the respective national cultures.

The first comprehensive study on the influence of Latin classical texts and traditions in medieval Hungary based on philological and historical analysis of eleventh century sources. The author proves that the Latin classics had a stronger impact on the formation of Latin literacy in medieval Hungary than it has been acknowledges before. The four chapters of the book (The Cathedral School, The Admonitions of King Saint Stephen of Hungary, The Deliberato of Bishop Saint Gerard of Csanad, The Monastic School) provide important contributions to the philological study of Medieval Latin and the classical tradition in medieval Central Europe.

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.

A collection of first-person narratives by specialists in the field of education in South East Europe. The contributors are recognized leaders in civil society, government, academia and schools. Their works chronicle the profound effect armed conflict, political transition, and the increasing openness the region has experienced on education. It is a significant achievement as it is the work of individuals who are involved in the field and have a first hand perspective on issues of education in the region. The essays shed light on the reality of the educational reforms: they are far from beeing linear progressive processes, on the contrary, they are very often paradoxical and even controversial.

The path to inclusion for children with disabilities and other special education needs is long and complex. It has been claimed that inclusion is not a destination, but a process of increasing participation and reducing exclusion from the culture, curriculum and community of mainstream schools. This volume chronicles the journey toward greater inclusion of children with disabilities in Central Asia. Setting out upon this journey is an acknowledged policy goal in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan so that all children are to participate in education, but it raises many questions and quandaries. It stirs the ghosts of social norms and traditions from the past that differ from place to place, even within the former Soviet Union. Central Asia presents particular challenges because of the economic, social, political and educational upheaval and disruption that has affected the region in the past two decades. These six case studies document the progress and challenges along the way through the stories of specific children, families, schools, and organizations across the region with the goal of keeping inclusion on policy agendas and in public discourses. It is a resource for scholars of the region, education researchers, and practitioners alike.

This volume examines the legacy of the East–West divide since the implosion of the communist regimes in Europe. The ideals of 1989 have largely been frustrated by the crises and turmoil of the past decade. The liberal consensus was first challenged as early as the mid-2000s. In Eastern Europe, grievances were directed against the prevailing narratives of transition and ever sharper ethnic-racial antipathies surfaced in opposition to a supposedly postnational and multicultural West. In Western Europe, voices regretting the European Union's supposedly careless and premature expansion eastward began to appear on both sides of the left–right and liberal–conservative divides. The possibility of convergence between Europe's two halves has been reconceived as a threat to the European project.

In a series of original essays and conversations, thirty-three contributors from the fields of European and global history, politics and culture address questions fundamental to our understanding of Europe today: How have perceptions and misperceptions between the two halves of the continent changed over the last three decades? Can one speak of a new East–West split? If so, what characterizes it and why has it reemerged? The contributions demonstrate a great variety of approaches, perspectives, emphases, and arguments in addressing the daunting dilemma of Europe's assumed East–West divide.

The encounter between knight and science could seem a paradox. It is nonetheless related with the intellectual Renaissance of Twelfth-Century, an essential movement for Western history. The knight is not only fighting in battles, but also moving in sophisticated courts. He is interested on Latin classics and reading, and even on his own poetry. He supports "jongleurs" and minstrels and he likes to have literary conversations with clerics, who try to reform his behaviour, which is often brutal. These lettered warriors, while improving they culture, learn how to repress their own violence and they are initiated to courtesy: selected language, measured gestures, elegance in dress, and manners at table. Their association with women, who are often learned, becomes more gallant. A mental revolution is acting among lay elites, who, in contact with clergy, use their weapons for common welfare. This new conduct is a sign of modernity.

This study is devoted to recent developments in Central European (especially Polish) political thought, and concentrates on the emergence of liberal ideas, a subject largely neglected by Western observers. It provides a clear account of protoliberal and liberal thinking in Central Europe both before and after 1989, a critical appraisal of the democratic opposition to communism, and an analysis of economic liberalism as its rival orientation. The author examines the changes which occur in classical liberal ideas when they are implemented in a region with practically no liberal tradition and no socioeconomic infrastructure, and shows how liberal ideas in Central Europe are becoming constructivist, functioning as the ideological justification for a new kind of Utopian social engineering that aims at constructing capitalism.

This fascinating study pays tribute to the life and work of the Brazilian essayist, thinker and diplomat José G. Merquior, who died prematurely in 1991. Part I concentrates on Merquiorian thought itself and examines Merquior's own incisive review of the rebirth of the liberal idea. Part II ranges more widely: here, such distinguished contributors as John Hall, Ernest Gellner and Norberto Bobbio develop some of Merquior's favourite themes – liberalism as it relates to social cohesion, political stability, morality, republicanism and democracy, and the relativeness and scepticism that characterize postmodern thinking. The book's application to two regions of the world – to Merquior's own Latin America and to Central and Eastern Europe – is direct and obvious.

No Church is monolithic—this is the preliminary premise of this volume on the public place of religion in a representative number of post-communist countries. The studies confirm that within any religious organization we can expect to find fissures, factions, theological or ideological quarrels, and perhaps even competing interest groups, such as missionary workers, regular clergy versus secular clergy, and sometimes even competing ecclesiastical hierarchies. The main focus of the book rests on the divisions arising within select Christian Churches, as they confront the processes of secularization and atheization. The coverage area includes Russia and the Ukraine, East-Central Europe and South-Eastern Europe. Some chapters focus on individual clergy who challenge the mainstream of their given Church either from a more liberal or from a more conservative perspective, while others deal with the divisive forces impacting the religious organizations.

This festschrift to honor Sabrina Ramet’s seminal contribution to the study of religion in the politics of the communist and post-communist world, brings together several generations of scholars from a variety of countries, both those well established in their fields of study as well as young promising academics.

Liberalism was not only the first modern ideology, it was also the first secular movement to have an international presence. The scholarly articles in this collection, skillfully edited by Iván Zoltán Dénes, examine liberal ideas and movements from Scotland to the Ottoman Empire. The volume seeks to uncover and analyze various relationships between liberalisms and nationalisms, national identities and modernity concepts, nations and empires, nation-states and nationalities, traditions and modernities, images of the self and the others, modernization strategies and identity creations. This volume provides an important historical analysis that is essential toward understanding the questions and motivations of liberalism in the European Union today. This is, therefore, a timely contribution to both historiography and contemporary politics.

This memoir of the first president of an independent Belarus (1991-1994) tells about the revival of independent Belarus, the difficulties in establishing a democracy and a market economy, a hardened Soviet mentality, and the political immaturity of the intelligentsia and obduracy of the old nomenklatura.

Stanislau Shushkevich, born in 1934, narrates his path from a son of an “enemy of the people” to a doctorate in physics, and then to be the first head of independent Belarus. A series of entertaining essays discuss some major events as well as some minor ones that are barely known. The book describes Shushkevich’s role in hosting the Belavezha Accords, which brought about the end of the Soviet Union, and explores the motivation behind the decision for the de jure dissolution of the empire at a time when the major world leaders were categorically against the division of the USSR into independent states. The author draws particular attention to the role of the Baltic States in the late perestroika period. He also addresses the political passivity of the Soviet intelligentsia and the reasons for the revival of the Soviet Union in Russia and Belarus.

Shushkevich, who lives in Minsk, also provides valuable insights into contemporary Belarus, including an assessment of Lukashenka’s controversial role in recent events.

This book of thirteen conversations introduces us to the life of an exceptional person—theatre critic, Germanist, and long-time chair of the Open Lithuania Fund board—Irena Veisaitė. The dialogue between Lithuanian historian Aurimas Švedas and a woman who reflects deeply on her experiences reveals both one individual’s historically dramatic life and the fate of Europe and Lithuania in the twentieth century.

Through the complementary lenses of history and memory, we confront with Veisaitė the horrific events of the Holocaust, which brought about the end of the Lithuanian Jewish world. We also meet an array of world-class cultural figures, see fragments of legendary theatre performances, and hear meaningful words that were spoken or heard decades ago.

This book’s interlocutors do not so much seek to answer the question “What was it like?” but instead repeatedly ask each other: “What, how, and why do we remember? What is the meaning of our experiences? How can history help us to live in the present and create the future? How do we learn to understand and forgive?”

A series of Veisaitė’s texts, statements, and letters, presented at the end of the book suggest further ways of answering these questions.

This is a translation of one of very few Russian serfs' memoirs. Savva Purlevskii recollects his life in Russian serfdom and life of his grandparents, parents, and fellow villagers. He describes family and communal life and the serfs' daily interaction with landlords and authorities. Purlevskii came from an initially prosperous family that later became impoverished. Early in his childhood, he lost his father. Purlevskii did not have a chance to gain a formal education. He lived under serfdom until 1831 when at the age of 30 he escaped his servitude.Gorshkov's introduction provides some basic knowledge about Russian serfdom and draws upon the most recent scholarship. Notes provide references and general information about events, places and people mentioned in the memoirs.

Until the previous decade, constitutionalism in Eastern Europe was considered to be an outmoded concept of the nineteenth century. Changes in the region, however, have brought back the fundamental question of the need to restrict government power through social self-binding.

This book discusses the mechanisms of such restriction, including different forms of the separation of powers and constitutional review. It relates the theoretical and practical importance of the issue to the present world-wide discontent with majoritarian democracy and the growing disrepute of parliaments. Increasing executive efficiency is, however, a threat to fundamental rights, and the battlecry of efficiency is often only a means to new despotism and inefficiency. A careful re-evaluation of the concept of constitutionalism assists in the search for a useful balance between majoritarianism and rights, and in the avoidance of all forms of public tyranny.

Written in non-technical language and using the most important English, American, French, and German examples of constitutional history, the book also examines East European (in particular, Russian) and Latin American examples, in part to illustrate certain dead-ends in constitutional development. It is intended to be an introduction for all those concerned with liberty.

Financial services industry has shown trends of increased consolidation across different types of financial institutions. This book focuses on the conglomeration of banking and insurance activities among financial institutions of the 15 old members of the European Union, and addresses the development and impact of conglomeration linkages between these fifteen and the ten new member states. Most of the large groups combining banking and insurance activities groups among the former member states of the European Union are often linked to the largest such institutions in the new member states, having created the linkages mainly through Merger & Acquisition Activities; with greater accent on the banking sector and lesser connections on insurance side. Financial conglomeration linkages between the EU-15 and the new member states highlight investment attractiveness of the new members, with the appeal of new markets that allow the presence of more participants. Both institution-specific and country-specific factors play role in conglomeration across the new member states.

This tale of great achievements and great disappointments offers a fresh perspective on the interplay between scholarship and political sentiment in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Lazăr Șăineanu (1859-1934), linguist and folklorist, was a pioneer in his native Romania, seeking out the popular elements in culture along with high literary ones. He was among the first to publish a study of Yiddish as a genuine language, and he uncovered Turkish features in Romanian language and customs. He also made an index of hundreds of Romanian folktales. Yet when he sought Romanian citizenship and a professorship, he was blocked by powerful figures who thought Jews could not be Romanians and who fancied the origins of Romanian culture to be wholly Latin. Faced with anti-Semitism, some of his friends turned to Zionism. Instead he tried baptism, which brought him only mockery and shame.

Hoping to find a polity to which he could belong, Șăineanu moved with his family to Paris in 1900 and became Lazare Sainéan. There he made innovative studies of French popular speech and slang, culminating in his great work on the language of Rabelais. Once again, he was contributing to the development of a national tongue. Even then, while welcomed by literary scholars, Sainéan was unable to get a permanent university post. Though a naturalized citizen of France, he felt himself a foreigner, an “intruder,” into his old age.

This unequalled volume’s key value is to place Hungary on the map of European literacy rates over the whole period between the initial stimuli of Renaissance and Reformation and the developed, state-organized educational systems of the (later) nineteenth century. 

We find Roma settlements on the outskirts of villages, separated from the majority population by roads, railways or other barriers, disconnected from water pipelines and sewage treatment. Why are some people (or groups) better off than others when it comes to the distribution of environmental benefits? In order to understand the present situation and identify ways to address the impacts of these inequalities we must understand the past and mechanisms related to the differentiated treatment. The situation and discrimination of the Roma ethnic minority in Slovakia is examined from the perspective of environmental conditions and injustice. There is no simple answer as to why there is environmental injustice. Environmental conditions in Roma settlements are just one of the indicators of failures of policies addressing the problem of poverty and social exclusion in marginalized groups, structural discrimination, and internal Roma problems. Environmental injustice is not an outcome of the "historical determination" of the Roma population to live in environmentally problematic places.

Living the High Life in Minsk looks at the sources of stability and instability in post-Soviet authoritarian states through the case study of President Lukashenka’s firm hold on power in Belarus. In particular, it seeks to understand the role of energy relations, policies, and discourses in the maintenance of this power. The central empirical question Balmaceda seeks to answer is what has been the role of energy policies in the maintenance of Lukashenka’s power in Belarus? In particular, it analyzes the role of energy policies in the management of Lukashenka’s relationship with three constituencies crucial to his hold on power: Russian actors, the Belarusian nomenklatura, and the Belarusian electorate.

In terms of foreign relations, the book focuses on the factors explaining Lukashenka’s ability to project Belarus’ power in its relationship with Russia in such a way as to compensate for its objective high level of dependency, assuring high levels of energy subsidies and rents continuing well beyond the initial worsening of the relationship in c. 2004. In terms of domestic relations, Balmaceda examines Lukashenka’s specific use of those energy rents in such a way as to assure the continuing support of both the Belarusian nomenklatura and the Belarusian electorate. 

The fall of communism in Europe is now the frame of reference for any mass mobilization, from the Arab Spring to the Occupy movement to Brexit. Even thirty years on, 1989 still figures as a guide and motivation for political change. It is now a platitude to call 1989 a "world event," but the chapters in this volume show how it actually became one. 

The volume contains selected papers from two conferences in 2003, at the University of Bergen (Norway) and at Central European University in Budapest. They deal comparatively with the communication of the Holy See with Northern Europe and Eastern Central Europe in the Late Middle Ages, both areas at the margins of Western Christendom. Special emphasis is placed on analysis of registers in the Apostolic Penitentiary.

This book presents pieces of evidence, which – taken together – lead to an argument that goes against the grain of the established Cold War narrative. The argument is that a “long détente” existed between East and West from the 1950s to the 1980s, that it existed and lasted for good (economic, national security, societal) reasons, and that it had a profound impact on the outcome of the conflict between East and West and the quintessentially peaceful framework in which this “endgame” was played. New, Euro-centered narratives are offered, including both West and East European perspectives. These contributions point to critical inconsistencies and inherent problems in the traditional U.S. dominated narrative of the “Victory in the Cold War.” The argument of a “long détente” does not need to replace the ruling American narrative. Rather, it can and needs to be augmented with European experiences and perceptions. After all, it was Europe – its peoples, societies, and states – that stood both at the ideological and military frontline of the conflict between East and West, and it was here that the struggle between liberalism and communism was eventually decided.

The historical biography of a true Jewish heroine in her day, Gracia Mendes. Born in 1510 in Portugal, the book details this woman's extraordinary personality until her death in 1569 in Constantinople (today's Istanbul). Her life exemplified a perseverance by the Jewish culture to survive and triumph even in the worst of conditions. As a young girl, Gracia secretly married successful Jewish spice trader, Francisco Mendes. But at age 27 she became a widow, yet she went on to raise her children and run the family business all on her own. Her travels led her through Antwerp, Venice, Ferrara, Ragusa, and finally to Constantinople, from where the Ottoman Empire dominated former Byzantium territories and offered shelter for battered Conversos (converted Jews). The text recounting the last fifteen years of Gracia's life at the center of the Empire is particularly revealing. Birnbaum's biography has the unique distinction of being the first among many studies to pay tribute to a woman during this period. It is also one of the first titles to pay equal attention to the lives of the Conversos in Christian West Europe and in the Muslim East.

After World War II, Europe witnessed the massive redrawing of national borders and the efforts to make the population fit those new borders. As a consequence of these forced changes, both Lviv and Wrocław went through cataclysmic changes in population and culture. Assertively Polish prewar Lwów became Soviet Lvov, and then, after 1991, it became assertively Ukrainian Lviv. Breslau, the third largest city in Germany before 1945, was in turn "recovered" by communist Poland as Wrocław. Practically the entire population of Breslau was replaced, and Lwów's demography too was dramatically restructured: many Polish inhabitants migrated to Wrocław and most Jews perished or went into exile. The forced migration of these groups incorporated new myths and the construction of official memory projects.

The chapters in this edited book compare the two cities by focusing on lived experiences and "bottom-up" historical processes. Their sources and methods are those of micro-history and include oral testimonies, memoirs, direct observation and questionnaires, examples of popular culture, and media pieces. The essays explore many manifestations of the two sides of the same coin—loss on the one hand, gain on the other—in two cities that, as a result of the political reality of the time, are complementary.