Central European Papers, 2017 (roč. 5), číslo 1

EDITORIAL

Editors

Central European Papers 2017, 5(1):5  

Persecution of the Czech Minority in Ukraine at the Time of the Great Purge

prof. Mečislav Borák

Central European Papers 2017, 5(1):8-29 | DOI: 10.25142/cep.2017.001  

In its introduction, the study recalls the course of Czech emigration to Ukraine and the formation of the local Czech minority from the mid-19^th century until the end of 1930s. Afterwards, it depicts the course of political persecution of the Czechs from the civil war to the mid-1930s and mentions the changes in Soviet national policy. It characterizes the course of the Great Purge in the years 1937-1938 on a national scale and its particularities in Ukraine, describes the genesis of the repressive mechanisms and their activities. In this context, it is focused on the NKVD's national operations and the repression of the Czechs assigned to...

"Politics of History" as a Threat to the Internal Peace in Ukraine

Dieter Segert

Central European Papers 2017, 5(1):30-45 | DOI: 10.25142/cep.2017.002  

This article examines the role of the historical narratives and of the "politics of history" in the domestic politics of Ukraine. It compares the role of emotions within nationalistic and socialist ideological discourses about history. It gives an overview on different elements of national and regional identity in the country. It enquires mainly differences in self-identification, practical language use, pluralistic religious orientations, and media use. Some of the heterogeneities emerged in the past during industrialization of Soviet Ukraine. It suggests that differentiation is not objectively given but produced and exploited by political contestation...

(Re)conceptualization of Memory in Ukraine after the Revolution of Dignity

Csilla Fedinec, István Csernicsko

Central European Papers 2017, 5(1):46-71 | DOI: 10.25142/cep.2017.003  

In Ukraine, having arrived at a critical stage of its history, three areas can be highlighted at the level of legislation during the struggle for the way forward since the end of 2013: the language issue, the constitutional process, and the efforts to eliminate the Soviet legacy. The subject of our analysis is the four laws belonging to the 2015 legislative package on decommunization, with an outlook to the broader context, as well. The four laws in question decide about who are heroes and who are enemies in history; what Ukraine's relationship is with World War II, as well as with the Communist and Nazi regimes. The laws point out firmly and excluding...

Something Missing: Czech Society and Transcarpathia after 1989

Tomáš Zahradníček

Central European Papers 2017, 5(1):72-80 | DOI: 10.25142/cep.2017.004  

The article studies the "afterlife" of the former Subcarpathia, the present-day Transcarpathia, within the Czech society after 1989. The discourse about the region was framed by the understanding of the Czech society of their revolution of 1989 primarily in terms of political and cultural return to the inter-war Masarykian Republic. It maps the different ways the Czech society coped with this deficit in its restoration endeavours in the early 1990s. Within the Czech public discourse uncritical conception of selfless and successful civilising mission in the East still prevails, based on a belief that local population gratefully accepted and now nostalgically...

Language Policy and National Feeling in Context Ukraine's Euromaidan, 2014-2016

Csilla Fedinec, István Csernicsko

Central European Papers 2017, 5(1):81-100 | DOI: 10.25142/cep.2017.005  

Ukraine is the best example of "nationalizing" nationalism. During its twenty-five year old existence the language question - in addition to historical approach and ethnical identity - has belonged to the unclosed questions of personal and group identity, and represents one of the central themes of political struggle. Official Ukrainian language policy permanently wants to promote the use of Ukrainian or Russian by overshadowing one or the other. Measures regulating language use have never been consequently applied, which fact in itself is enough to represent a permanent subject for political campaigns. Political powers unable to solve actual economic...

Zoltán SZENTE, Fanni MANDÁK, Zsuzsanna FEJES (eds.); Challenges and Pitfalls in the Recent Hungarian Constitutional Development – Discussing the New Fundamental Law in Hungary

Zsolt Menyhárt

Central European Papers 2017, 5(1):102-103  

Zsuzsanna FEJES (eds.) Challenges and Pitfalls in the Recent Hungarian Constitutional Development - Discussing the New Fundamental Law in Hungary Paris: L'Harmattan 2015, 352 pages. ISBN 978-234-3055-30-5

Colloquium "Industrial Workforce and Political Regimes 1938-1948"

Mgr. Miroslav Stanik

Central European Papers 2017, 5(1):105-108  

Opava, Czech Republic, 25-26 November 2015