Following the constitutional and political reforms in Central and Eastern Europe of the last decade, the time has now come for the whole-scale reform of public administration and the creation of a professional civil service. What is needed is a clear sense of the objectives to be achieved by the administration; and the provision of adequate resources to perform the tasks of public administration. In addition, and perhaps most importantly of all, there must be a sound legal basis for public administration. Recognizing these realities, this book examines administrative law and administrative institutions in Central and Eastern Europe. In a series of case studies, discussing each country in the region in turn, it looks at the ways in which a range of administrative decisions are reached and at how the citizens affected by them are treated. The material for each of the fourteen chapters was collected by a person or persons native to the respective country.

A new translation of a classic work of structuralist criticism.

Originally published in 1931, Otakar Zich’s Aesthetics of Dramatic Art laid the foundation for a systematic theory of modern theater and helped establish theater studies as an academic discipline. This volume is the first complete translation into any language and alongside Theatre Theory Reader: Prague School Writings provides thorough insight into Czech dramatic thought. Studying the theater from the audience’s perspective, Zich argues that the distinctive basis of dramatic art is human interaction rather than imitation, communication, fiction, or performed dialogue, as other theorists have argued. Covering spoken drama and opera, Zich’s Aesthetics of Dramatic Art is a foundational text of Czech theater practice that remains inspirational today for theater practitioners and theorists.

After the Berlin Wall tells the inside story of an international financial institution, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), created in the aftermath of communism to help the countries of central and eastern Europe transition towards open market-oriented democratic economies. 

The first volume of a history in two parts, After the Berlin Wall charts the EBRD’s life from a fledgling high-risk start-up investing in former socialist countries from 1991 to become an established member of the international financial community, which (as of April 2020) operates in almost 40 countries across three continents. 

This volume describes the multilateral negotiations that created this cosmopolitan institution with a ‘European character’ and the emergence of the EBRD’s unique business model: a focus on the private sector and a mission to deliver development impact with sustainable financial returns. The author recounts the challenges that ‘transition’ countries faced in moving from a defunct to a functioning economic system and maps the EBRD’s response to critical events, from the dissolution of the Soviet Union, to the safe confinement of the Chernobyl disaster site, the debt default in Russia and the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008.

Analyzes the historical significance of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. 

This book addresses different aspects of the Soviet army’s twenty-year presence in Czechoslovakia between 1968 and 1991. It explores the circumstances of the Soviet settling in the country, immediately related to the invasion of the Warsaw Pact armies in August 1968; its active interference in the political developments in the early stage of the “normalization” era; and the universal support provided by the normalization era regime. It examines the darker side of this support when the constant favoring of Soviet interests—often to the detriment of the local population and the environment—went hand in hand with the resignation of the Czechoslovak state to lawfulness and the execution of effective administration on its territory. 

Based on extensive local and national primary sources, the volume describes the often problematic coexistence of the Soviet garrisons and local inhabitants, who did not have sufficient protection at the central level. In this context, it points out the contradictory logic that framed the mutual coexistence: the official policy of friendship on the one hand and the counter-intelligence protection of Soviet military premises on the other. Marie Cerná records the traces that the presence of the Soviet army left in the collective memory and examines the circumstances of its departure from the country in 1990 and 1991, which began immediately after the change of the political regime. She presents the long-term presence of the Soviet army as a fundamentally political and politicized matter, which was first the subject of power controversies and later of propaganda and intentional manipulation. 

Women’s studies are still in their infancy in Poland and this pioneering book is one of the most comprehensive and well-researched studies on nineteenth-century Polish women prose writers. Selecting writers that reflect the most turbulent time in Polish women’s literature, such as Klementyna Hoffmanowa, Narcyza Zmichovska, Eliza Orzeszkowa and Zofia Nalkowska. Borkowska’s approach of major feminist theories and post-feminist thought results in astonishing findings that throw new light on Polish women writers and their contribution to European thought. The author’s intelligent and effective use of feminist criticism and clarity of thought make Alienated Women a landmark study, suitable for (all students) and scholars of Polish literature, women’s studies and feminist theory.

Ancestors, Kings, and the Dao outlines the evolution of musical performance in early China, first within and then ultimately away from the socio-religious context of ancestor worship. Examining newly discovered bamboo texts from the Warring States period, Constance A. Cook compares the rhetoric of Western Zhou (1046–771 BCE) and Spring and Autumn (770–481 BCE) bronze inscriptions with later occurrences of similar terms in which ritual music began to be used as a form of self-cultivation and education. Cook’s analysis links the creation of such classics as the Book of Odes with the ascendance of the individual practitioner, further connecting the social actors in three types of ritual: boys coming of age, heirs promoted into ancestral government positions, and the philosophical stages of transcendence experienced in self-cultivation.

The focus of this study is on excavated texts; it is the first to use both bronze and bamboo narratives to show the evolution of a single ritual practice. By viewing the ancient inscribed materials and the transmitted classics from this new perspective, Cook uncovers new linkages in terms of how the materials were shaped and reshaped over time and illuminates the development of eulogy and song in changing ritual contexts.

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.

The last volume of the Discourses of Collective Identity in Central and Southeast Europe 1770–1945 series presents 46 texts under the heading of "antimodernism". In a dynamic relationship with modernism, from the 1880s to the 1940s, and especially during the interwar period, the antimodernist political discourse in the region offered complex ideological constructions of national identification. These texts rejected the linear vision of progress and instead offered alternative models of temporality, such as the cyclical one as well as various narratives of decline. This shift was closely connected to the rejection of liberal democratic institutionalism, and the preference for organicist models of social existence, emphasizing the role of the elites (and charismatic leaders) shaping the whole body politic. Along these lines, antimodernist authors also formulated alternative visions of symbolic geography: rejecting the symbolic hierarchies that focused on the normativity of Western European models, they stressed the cultural and political autarchy of their own national community, which in some cases was also coupled with the reevaluation of the Orient. At the same time, this antimodernist turn should not be confused with rightwing radicalism—in fact, the dialogue with the modernist tradition was often very subtle and the anthology also contains texts which offered a criticism of 'modern' totalitarianism in an antimodernist key.

Aquinas and the Early Chinese Masters lays intellectual foundations for the integration of Chinese philosophy into Catholic theology. Although Catholic theology in Chinese contexts has drawn upon Chinese philosophical concepts, few have attempted to develop a rigorous, systematic approach to testing what in the Chinese philosophical traditions can be fruitful or unfruitful for Catholic theological expression. This book attempts to model such an approach by engaging classical Chinese philosophy with the mind and spirit of St. Thomas Aquinas, who read Aristotle and other pagan philosophers with both charitable appreciation and a firm, critical eye. It applies this Thomistic lens through concrete comparative engagements with three main representatives of early Chinese philosophy: Mencius (Mengzi孟子), Xunzi荀子, and Mozi墨子. In each chapter, the book presents Aquinas’ thought as an evaluative frame for perceiving how Chinese philosophical commitments and concepts do or do not seem fit for adoption into Catholic theological science. Following the general structure of the Summa theologiae, the book is comprised of six chapters touching on the doctrine of God, morality, and Christology. The first two chapters engage Confucian master Mengzi’s notion of Heaven (Tian天), and then the Mohist doctrine of Heaven’s Will (Tian zhi天志). Chapter three provides a Thomistic assessment of the two main positions in the classical Confucian debate on the goodness of man’s moral nature (renxing人性). Chapter four compares Aquinas’ account of charity and Mozi’s doctrine of “universal love” (jian ai兼愛). Chapter 5 offers a Thomistic assessment of the possibility of understanding Christ in terms of Xunzi’s “sage” (shengren聖人). Finally, Chapter 6 explores Christ as a moral teacher by putting Aquinas’ reading of Matt 8:21-22 into conversation with Confucian ethics of filial virtue.

A thorough retort to the idea that the West led the transition from communism to liberal democracy.

Architects of Long Change examines expert forms of governance and their legitimization before 1989, as well as the transfer of expert knowledge and practices of political and social management during the democratic transition. The contributors argue that so-called neoliberal governance was not solely the result of imported Western political and cultural models, but was also shaped by intellectual, mental, and sociocultural continuities from the period of late socialism. These continuities—and the broader hypothesis of a “long systemic change” spanning from 1980 to 1995—are explored through case studies in legal science, sociology, urban planning, environmental studies, psychotherapy, and business management. 

Architects of Long Change offers a novel perspective on the late communist dictatorship, the democratic revolution of 1989, and the early development of liberal democracy and capitalism in Czechoslovakia and later the Czech Republic.

The book presents the panorama of social, cultural, and religious changes in the states of the Piast, Přemyslid, and Arpad dynasties. Major change occurred in the tenth century and again at the turn of the eleventh century. Given the scarcity of written sources, the author employs an analysis of architectural forms which she applies to buildings founded by dukes, kings, and nobles at this period.

Architecture serves as a reliable source of knowledge and can be successfully read as a text using comparative analysis, iconology, and semiotics. No piece of art appeared without an historical context: forms, functions, and styles are all documents created by its founders and creators. The conclusions of this research help us to understand the era that shaped the foundations of the Polish, Czech, and the Hungarian states.

This book presents and analyzes artistic interactions both within the Soviet bloc and with the West between 1945 and 1989. During the Cold War the exchange of artistic ideas and products united Europe’s avant-garde in a most remarkable way. Despite the Iron Curtain and national and political borders there existed a constant flow of artists, artworks, artistic ideas and practices. The geographic borders of these exchanges have yet to be clearly defined. How were networks, centers, peripheries (local, national and international), scales, and distances constructed? How did (neo)avant-garde tendencies relate with officially sanctioned socialist realism? The literature on the art of Eastern Europe provides a great deal of factual knowledge about a vast cultural space, but mostly through the prism of stereotypes and national preoccupations. By discussing artworks, studying the writings on art, observing artistic evolution and artists’ strategies, as well as the influence of political authorities, art dealers and art critics, the essays in Art beyond Borders compose a transnational history of arts in the Soviet satellite countries in the post war period.

The volume examines the documentary practices of film, theatre, and literature from the 1960s to the 2020s in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, and the Baltic states. 

Methodologically innovative case studies consider contemporary ‘witness art’ – for example verbatim theatre based on interviews with people participating in political protest and war. The contributions expand on the political, medial, and aesthetic developments that shaped Soviet attitudes towards the arts and show how these concepts still influence contemporary practices. The essays are written for scholars and students of literature, culture, sociology, film, theatre, and trauma studies, but also for general readers interested in the documentary arts.  

The Russian invasion of the Ukraine has reinforced a dynamic that had already gained traction due to the political transformations post-1991 and the Euro-Maidan. Ukrainian documentary art has become a tool to witness rapid change and to counteract media warfare. Artists have reacted by creating works that address traumatizing experiences by keeping records and analyzing the ongoing events at the same time. The essays reflect on documentary approaches that are proving to be collaborative artistic tools in violent times.

Since the horrific Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, the debate on human rights in China has raged on with increasing volume and shifting context, but little real progress. In this provocative book, one of our most learned scholars of China moves beyond the political shouting match, informing and contextualizing this debate from a Confucian and a historical perspective.

"Asian Values" is a concept advanced by some authoritarian regimes to differentiate an Asian model of development, supposedly based on Confucianism, from a Western model identified with individualism, liberal democracy, and human rights. Highlighting the philosophical development of Confucianism as well as the Chinese historical experience with community organization, constitutionalism, education, and women's rights, Wm. Theodore de Bary argues that while the Confucian sense of personhood differs in some respects from Western libertarian concepts of the individual, it is not incompatible with human rights, but could, rather, enhance them.

De Bary also demonstrates that Confucian communitarianism has historically resisted state domination, and that human rights in China could be furthered by a genuine Confucian communitarianism that incorporates elements of Western civil society. With clarity and elegance, Asian Values and Human Rights broadens our perspective on the Chinese human rights debate.

The first account of the August Trials, in which postwar Poland confronted the betrayal of Jewish citizens under Nazi rule but ended up fashioning an alibi for the past.

When six years of ferocious resistance to Nazi occupation came to an end in 1945, a devastated Poland could agree with its new Soviet rulers on little else beyond the need to punish German war criminals and their collaborators. Determined to root out the “many Cains among us,” as a Poznań newspaper editorial put it, Poland’s judicial reckoning spawned 32,000 trials and spanned more than a decade before being largely forgotten.

Andrew Kornbluth reconstructs the story of the August Trials, long dismissed as a Stalinist travesty, and discovers that they were in fact a scrupulous search for the truth. But as the process of retribution began to unearth evidence of enthusiastic local participation in the Holocaust, the hated government, traumatized populace, and fiercely independent judiciary all struggled to salvage a purely heroic vision of the past that could unify a nation recovering from massive upheaval. The trials became the crucible in which the Communist state and an unyielding society forged a foundational myth of modern Poland but left a lasting open wound in Polish-Jewish relations.

The August Trials draws striking parallels with incomplete postwar reckonings on both sides of the Iron Curtain, suggesting the extent to which ethnic cleansing and its abortive judicial accounting are part of a common European heritage. From Paris and The Hague to Warsaw and Kyiv, the law was made to serve many different purposes, even as it failed to secure the goal with which it is most closely associated: justice.

This monograph provides an analysis of the economic performance and living standard in Czechoslovakia and its successor states, Hungary, and Poland since 1945. The novelty of the book lies in its broad comparative perspective: it places East Central Europe in a wider European framework that underlines the themes of regional disparities and European commonalities. Going beyond the traditional growth paradigm, the author systematically studies the historical patterns of consumption, leisure, and quality of life—aspects that Tomka argues can best be considered in relation to one other. By adopting this “triple approach,” he undertakes a truly interdisciplinary research drawing from history, economics, sociology, and demography.

As a result of Tomka’s three-pillar comparative analysis, the book makes a major contribution to the debates on the dynamics of economic growth in communist and postcommunist East Central Europe, on the socialist consumer culture along with its transformation after 1990, and on how the accounts on East Central Europe can be integrated into the emerging field of historical quality of life research.