Our weekly English-language bulletin featuring our pick from European print and one of our top articles from our weekly Přítomnost.
Cornell Fleischer Cemal Kafadar Sanjay Subrahmanyam Awareness of Islamic history may need significantly more attention in the US but not by falsely glorifying the achievements of an Ottoman sultan. Reinforcing …
Is democracy or authoritarianism the best regime against coronavirus? Eugénie Mérieau During the first weeks of February 2020, the very existence of the epidemic was analyzed as deriving almost mechanically …
Kaya Genç New powers granted to the ‘bekçi’ – Turkey’s auxiliary police force – have led to a spate of violent confrontations, releasing traumatic memories of the military coup forty …
How COVID-19 burst Italy’s tourism bubble Alessio Giussani Italian cities are ordinarily international tourism hotspots. Their economic recovery post-lockdown appears to depend on visitor numbers. And yet massified tourism …
MUDr. Martin Jan Stránský, MD, FACP Assistant Clinical Professor of Neurology, Yale School of Medicine specializing in functional neurology and neurophilosophy The CoV situation is the perfect metaphor of …
An Istanbul story Ayşe Kadıoğlu Russian refugees influenced Istanbul’s cultural life from the 1920s despite the Turkification policies of the new republic. The Sevastopol-born sculptor Iraida Barry’s life in exile …
Osteuropa Olga Shparaga The nationalist opposition in Belarus has been marginalized, argues Coordinating Council member Olga Shparaga. National heroes and vertical power structures no longer have popular appeal. The focus …
Vlasta Kordová The removal in April of the monument to Red Army general Ivan Konev in Prague and the rehabilitation of the collaborationist Russian Liberation Army is typical of the …
Osteuropa Astrid Sahm After 26 years of rule, the autocrat Alyaksandr Lukashenka has lost the support of the Belarusian people. Even if the regime is able to stay in control, …
Artur Klinaŭ Osteuropa Events in Belarus have departed radically from the script. Putin may have been gambling on a destabilized Lukashenka, but not on a full-blown national uprising, speculates …
Jan Sowa Instead of looking at populists’ lies, it’s worth taking a look at the few truths they rely on: voters do recognize that liberal democracies have not worked in …
Or three short essays on solidarity Mykola Riabchuk In the absence of civic traditions and positive social capital, society often organises itself along mafia-style norms. Post-communist Ukrainian society is a …
Roma Holocaust Memorial Day 2020 Marko Pecak Violence against Roma is part of the European normality. It took over seven decades for Europe to acknowledge the genocide of Roma …
Maria Lipman Russia’s popular vote approving the ‘zeroing’ of Putin’s terms has been hailed by the regime as a triumphant demonstration of trust. Putin’s uncontested status as supreme authority has …
It seems that each of us knows something about the Jesuits. From school history lessons, from films and books about conspiracies and mysteries, from newspapers and politics. The essence and …
Ingo Petz On 9 August, presidential elections will take place in Belarus. These are elections that are not elections. Long-term autocrat Aliaksandr Lukashenka has no intention of giving the opposition …
Thomas Hylland Eriksen Our slowed-down, cooled-down, scaled-down lives during the pandemic are evidence that quality of life does not depend on high productivity and frantic consumption. Suddenly, it has become …
Irina Borogan Andrei Soldatov Vladimir Putin’s anger and jealousy has taken down many proactive leaders throughout Russia – and left the country vulnerable to crisis. The oil price war against …
Péter Krekó From anti-vaxxers to terrorists, people often look for hidden causes which match the magnitude of the collapse they are facing. Uncertainty and public distrust are fertile ground for …