A SCHOLARLY BOOK REPOSITORY13 start with S start with S
The refugee issue has always been controversial and Lavenex's analyses add fuel to an already heated debate. She analyses the various bi- and multilateral processes by which the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEECs) are being gradually incorporated into a restrictive refugee regime established among the EU member states, in which the CEECs serve as "gate-keepers" for refugees and immigrants heading towards Western Europe.
At a time when many transition countries are trying to enter the EU, Lavenex highlights the CEECs consent to adapt to Western European policies aimed at fighting illegal immigration and reducing the numbers of asylum seekers as a political bargaining tool in exchange for future membership in the EU. She also argues that the regime undermines the values of international refugee protection and diffuses states' responsibilities by establishing a system of negative redistribution for the handling of asylum claims.
Safe Third Countries is the first comprehensive study on the extension of the emergent European refugee regime and highlights, in an innovative manner, the complex entanglement of domestic policies, European integration and international relations.
The latest title in the Central European Medieval Texts series contains the lives of saints who were canonized in the eleventh through thirteenth centuries in the newly Christianized countries of Central and Eastern Europe (Bohemia, Poland, Hungary, and Dalmatia). A rejoinder to the earlier volume in the series, the Saints of the Christianization Age of Central Europe (CEMT, Vol. 6), containing hermits, missionaries, and martyrs, this second volume of hagiography is dominated by political or ecclesiastical leaders who became saintly patrons of their region and were highly venerated throughout the Middle Ages.
The legends in the volume present the two Hungarian holy kings Stephen and Ladislas, the holy duke Emeric, the Czech holy abbot Prokop of Sázava, three bishops, the Venetian-Hungarian Gellért of Csanád, the Polish Stanislas of Cracow (both martyrs), and the Dalmatian holy bishop Saint John of Trogir. Each “vita” is published in Latin original with an English translation and with prefaces discussing the textual tradition.
Saints’ lives have been recognized as an invaluable source of information on social and economic history, the history of mentalities and everyday life, cultural history, and, above all, as a special genre with crucial importance and prevalence in medieval literature.
In Yiddish, shtetl simply means “town.” How does such an unassuming word come to loom so large in modern Jewish culture, with a proliferation of uses and connotations? By examining the meaning of shtetl, Jeffrey Shandler asks how Jewish life in provincial towns in Eastern Europe has become the subject of extensive creativity, memory, and scholarship from the early modern era in European history to the present.
In the post-Holocaust era, the shtetl looms large in public culture as the epitome of a bygone traditional Jewish communal life. People now encounter the Jewish history of these towns through an array of cultural practices, including fiction, documentary photography, film, memoirs, art, heritage tourism, and political activism. At the same time, the shtetl attracts growing scholarly interest, as historians, social scientists, literary critics, and others seek to understand both the complex reality of life in provincial towns and the nature of its wide-ranging remembrance.
Shtetl: A Vernacular Intellectual History traces the trajectory of writing about these towns—by Jews and non-Jews, residents and visitors, researchers, novelists, memoirists, journalists and others—to demonstrate how the Yiddish word for “town” emerged as a key word in Jewish culture and studies. Shandler proposes that the intellectual history of the shtetl is best approached as an exemplar of engaging Jewish vernacularity, and that the variable nature of this engagement, far from being a drawback, is central to the subject’s enduring interest.
Ramet draws on interviews conducted over a ten-year period with individuals active in arenas for social change—intellectual dissent, feminism, religious activism, youth cultures and movements, and trade unionism—in eight East European countries: East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania. She shows how the processes leading to the ultimate collapse of communism began more than a decade earlier and how they were necessarily manifested in spheres as diverse as religion and rock music.
Ramet also examines the consequences of the "Great Transformation" and analyzes the numerous unresolved problems that these societies currently confront, whether it be in the arena of economics, political legitimation, or the challenges of establishing a civil society free of chauvinism.
Cvajner details the personal and collective changes brought about by the experience of migration for these women: from the first hours arriving in a new country with no friends, relatives, or existing support networks, to later remaking themselves for their new environment. In response to their traumatic displacement, the women of Soviet Signoras—nearly all of whom found work in their new Western homes as elder care givers—refashioned themselves in highly sexualized, materialistic, and intentionally conspicuous ways. Cvajner’s focus on overt sexuality and materialism is far from sensationalist, though. By zeroing in on these elements of personal identity, she reveals previously unexplored sides of the social psychology of migration, coloring our contemporary discussion with complex shades of humanity.
The cultural phenomenon of exhibiting non-European people in front of the European audiences in the 19th and 20th century was concentrated in the metropolises in the western part of the continent. Nevertheless, traveling ethnic troupes and temporary exhibitions of non-European humans took place also in territories located to the east of the Oder river and Austria. The contributors to this edited volume present practices of ethnographic shows in Russia, Poland, Czechia, Slovenia, Hungary, Germany, Romania, and Austria and discuss the reactions of local audiences. The essays offer critical arguments to rethink narratives of cultural encounters in the context of ethnic shows. By demonstrating the many ways in which the western models and customs were reshaped, developed, and contested in Central and Eastern European contexts, the authors argue that the dominant way of characterizing these performances as “human zoos” is too narrow.
The contributors had to tackle the difficult task of finding traces other than faint copies of official press releases by the tour organizers. The original source material was drawn from local archives, museums, and newspapers of the discussed period. A unique feature of the volume is the rich amount of images that complement every single case study of ethnic shows.
Contributors: Dennis Barnett, Dennis C. Beck, Violeta Decheva, Luule Epner, John Freedman, Barry Freeman, Margarita Kompelmakher, Jaak Rahesoo, Angelina Ros¸ca, Ban¸uta Rubess, Christopher Silsby, Andrea Tompa, S. E. Wilmer
Deals with the period of takeover and of ‘high Stalinism’ in Eastern Europe (1945–1955). These years are considered to be fundamentally characterized by institutional and ideological transfers based upon the premise of radical transformism and of cultural revolution. Both a balance-sheet and a politico-historical synthesis that reflects the archival and thematic novelties which came about in the field of communism studies after 1989.
Contains contributions analyzing various aspects related these topics for each country of the former Soviet bloc (with the exception of Albania). The essays are based on new archival research, some are reassessments of the author’s previous research and others are critical appraisals of the specific literature published on issues related to the main topic. A path-breaking comparative framework for interpreting the relationship between late Stalinism and the communist takeovers in former Eastern Europe. A bonus for the volume is that it also provides detailed, sectorial analyses for the Romanian case, something that the field paritcularly lacks.
"Those who are interested in understanding the behavior of constitutional courts in transitional regimes cannot afford to ignore this important book. . . . [It] is fecund with hypotheses of interest to political scientists, and we are indebted to Professor Schwartz for his comprehensive analysis."—James L. Gibson, Law and Politics Book Review
"Nobody has yet produced a more perceptive and inclusive work on the events of what is arguably the most important year of our lifetimes. This book is essential for anyone with an interest in Eastern Europe, radical social change, or post-bipolar global politics."—Joel M. Jenswold, Social Science Quarterly
"Brown has been a close observer of the region for decades, and the breadth of his knowledge and the acuity of his judgments are evident throughout."—Michael Bernhard, Political Science Quarterly
"There is no surer guide than Brown to an understanding of these events, and no one better qualified to describe the complex and daunting problems facing the new non-communist governments."—John C. Campbell, Foreign Affairs
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