This article explores how symbolic and cultural capitals shape the perceptions of Ukrainian political elites regarding Russia as a geopolitical threat, focusing on the transformations since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Using Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice, the paper argues that elite perceptions are not only reactions to external events but also products of internal struggles within the political field, influenced by elites’ positions, accumulated capitals, and embodied experiences. The article also integrates a postcolonial perspective to examine how the legacy of Russian imperialism continues to affect Ukraine’s political elites, shaping their identity, legitimacy, and responses to the evolving threat. This relational analysis provides a deeper understanding of the dynamics of national identity, memory politics, and power struggles in postcolonial and post-Soviet contexts, highlighting the role of symbolic hierarchies in the construction of political authority and threat narratives.
Przedmiotem analizy w niniejszym artykule są wybrane dzieła Alojza Majeticia i Antuna Šoljana, chorwackich pisarzy przypisanych do nurtu literackiego jeans prozy, która stała się demonstracją sprzeciwu wobec jugosłowiańskiej iluzji wolności i społeczeństwa dobrobytu. Zbuntowani pisarze, często poddawani szykanom, cenzurze i zakazom ze strony aparatu władzy, przekształcili swoją twórczość w środek protestu o zaszyfrowanej, antysystemowej treści. Dzieła przedstawiają konflikt pokoleń między konstruktorami socjalizmu po II wojnie światowej a ich zbuntowanymi potomkami, dla których modelem społecznym był kapitalistyczny Zachód z jego dobrami konsumpcyjnymi. Głosy niezadowolenia dochodzące z Chorwacji, które osiągnęły punkt kulminacyjny w 1968 i 1971 roku, były postrzegane przez władze jako przejaw nacjonalizmu i separatyzmu. Po wydarzeniach Chorwackiej Wiosny Slavko Eseš użył syntagmy opisującej Chorwację jako „milczącą republikę”.
Political satire is a significant aspect of modern culture and has a profound impact on politics, especially during times of war. The relationship between the actual events of military conflicts and their representation shapes how the public perceives and understands them. The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, ignited a heightened interest in Ukrainian affairs and resulted in a surge of memes and cartoons from Ukraine, Russia, and around the world. These humorous genres serve as tools for both conflict parties to mock each other. The concepts “weaponization of humor” and “imagefare” deserve serious academic consideration, as they play a crucial role in shaping the public image of the belligerents. Political cartoons and memes influence the framing of the Russo-Ukrainian war and public perceptions and attitudes. Political satire can be analyzed considering its target, focus, and presentation, while political cartoons and memes – their goal, frame of reference, and means. The analytical framework developed for this paper combines these elements: goal with target, frame of reference with focus, and means with presentation. This framework utilizes multimodal discourse analysis to examine the role of humor in armed conflicts.
This paper examines the evolving use of military-related feminine personal nouns in Ukrainian, driven by the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war (since 2014), with roots traced back to World War II and World War I. Using data from the Web Dictionary of Ukrainian Feminine Personal Nouns (r2u.org.ua, 2022) and the General Regionally Annotated Corpus of Ukrainian (GRAC), the study analyzes 132 feminine terms for military roles, comparing them with Soviet-era entries from the 11-volume dictionary of the Ukrainian language (SUM-11, 1970–1980) and Ukrainian periodicals. A diachronic corpus analysis of Ukrainian media discourse reveals a sixfold increase in the frequency of feminine terms used in military reference since 2013 and a threefold growth in their diversity, signaling significant linguistic adaptation. Their comparative analysis with corresponding masculine forms shows a clear trend toward both gender parity and de-Russification. The traditionally masculinized and Russified military sector is undergoing significant feminization in the media, reflecting efforts toward de-Russification and the promotion of gender parity and inclusivity in language – developments that carry clear decolonial implications.
Language ideology frequently features in political and social debates worldwide. Recently, there has been a trend towards a broader understanding of language ideology and its impact on sociopolitical life, language itself, and its usage, particularly regarding status and corpus language planning. The article focuses on language policy and planning (LPP), providing a brief historical overview of language ideologies in Europe and examining how they are currently shaped by contemporary events, notably Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. By offering examples from Ukraine, the article explores how language ideologies evolve in a war‑torn country. It then identifies and analyses the dominant language ideologies as expressed in LPP in Europe, considering the roles of English and other European languages within the European Union and the broader European context.
This article investigates the processes of cultural decolonization in the Ukrainian YouTube sphere, positioning user-generated content as a significant site of resistance against imperial epistemologies and colonial narratives. The study examines selected Ukrainian YouTube channels, categorized by audience size and subject matter. The analysis identifies decolonial codes, including the exposure of colonial knowledge systems, cultural reappropriation, and the critique of imperial cultural paradigms. The findings illustrate the role of digital media in the contemporary decolonial process in Ukrainian media and demonstrate the scale of its impact on epistemic sovereignty during the ongoing RussoUkrainian war.
This article analyses the posthumous short story collection Tajna džema od malina [The Secret of Raspberry Jam] (1997), written by Bosnian author Karim Zaimović (1971–1995) during the siege of his home city, Sarajevo. Zaimović, who died at the end of the conflict, depicted the reality of war by inserting clichés taken from genre fiction into a documentary‑like description of life in the besieged city. This procedure may be likened to the features recognised by Linda Hutcheon as typical of postmodern literature, which often applies popular fiction devices to historical content to make the reader aware of historical narratives’ socially constructed nature. Indeed, by mixing fantasy and fact, Zaimović aimed to deconstruct the besieging army’s propaganda and rebuild Sarajevo’s social tissue with the power of imagination. To better understand the author’s work, we will consider the development of popular fiction in Yugoslavia and the presence of similar themes in the works of other contemporary Sarajevan writers, such as Aleksandar Hemon.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought a challenge to established “Russian” or “Slavic” departments at many Western universities. Since 2022 alternative ways of conceptualizing the field have been offered and a discourse around decolonization has developed. New ways of approaching the study of Ukraine, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and other countries formerly subjected to Russian and Soviet rule have been suggested. An awareness of Ukrainian history has in recent decades influenced the current “decolonization turn”. The article examines reasons behind these developments and how in recent years a discussion of epistemic bias has evolved.
This article is a review of the book Monuments and Territory: War Memorials in Russian-Occupied Ukraine by Mischa Gabowitsch and Mykola Homanyuk, published in 2025 by CEU Press; ISBN: 9789633868225.
This article is a review of Kenneth E. Foote and Anett Árvay’s book Contested Places, Contested Pasts: Sites of Memory and Commemoration in the Hungarian Landscape, published in 2025 by Routledge; ISBN: 9781032870274.
The editorial presents the theme of the special issue, presenting articles published in the volume. It does so against the background of defining the Central European post-displacement regions.
Based on nine independently conducted oral history interviews, in this article I analyze the process of adaptation and assimilation of the descendants of the Czech Brethren in the area of Strzelin (formerly German Strehlen) in Lower Silesia between 1957 and 1989. The main objective is to answer the question how the descendants portray and value the process of assimilation into the new social reality after 1956 in their biographical narratives. First, I briefly present the state of the community in 1957 and outline the reasons why some of its members decided to remain in Lower Silesia. Then, I describe the various dimensions of how community members functioned during the period of People’s Poland: firstly, in a minority organization, the Social and Cultural Association of Czechs and Slovaks, and, secondly, in the parish community of the Evangelical Reformed Church, as well as in mixed families and the local community. The presented research contributes to the understanding of the dynamics of family, neighborhood and local government relations in a post-displacement region. The study adopts the approach known as rescue history (historia ratownicza) at the level of microhistory.
The historical region around the town of Hlučín (Hultschin, Hulczyn), today in the Czech Republic and previously in Germany, is a space in which representations of national indifference as a principle of social organization are still discernible on many levels. One of the most obvious examples is the celebration of Veterans Day (11 November), including a multilayered commemorative ceremony and a military reenactment performance which defy the usual allegiance to discourses of 1945 “liberation” and the Czech-German historical antagonism. The current oral history project on the contemporary history and culture of military reenactment in the Czech lands, carried out at the Faculty of Humanities at Charles University in Prague, has, among other things, explored the military reenactment in the Hlučín region. This article reveals the complex context and structures of meaning of the annual Veterans Day performance in the region, which refers to various historical and contemporary cultural discourses.
Viewed as “correct and authentic” by some, yet criticized as ugly and inconsistent with the Polish imaginary of folk culture by others, the Lower Silesian costume is a simplified and unified version of the pre-World War II regional dress of the Karkonosze Mountains. It was popularized in Lower Silesia after the war to fill the folkloric void caused by the almost complete population exchange. Currently, it is used by professional and amateur folk groups. I analyze the phenomenon of the Lower Silesian costume through its cultural biography. As presented in this article, it is divided into three chronological parts: before World War II, when the costume was worn by the German inhabitants of the region and local enthusiasts in a spirit of romanticized nationalism; after the war, when it was (re)introduced as an element of institutionally created folklore and propaganda Polishness of the region; and today, when the costume is perceived as full of contradictions. I conclude the analysis by proposing the concept of cultural transposition, which is the relocation of cultural elements or phenomena into new socio-political frameworks, leading to their (not necessarily harmonious) mutation.
This paper offers a critical reflection on the article “Mniejszość niemiecka w Czechosłowacji” [The German Minority in Czechoslovakia] by Wacław Junosza, published in Sprawy Narodowościowe in 1929. The article under discussion provides an overview of civic associations of the German-speaking minority in the interwar First Czechoslovak Republic. The present study deepens this perspective by looking at contemporaneous reflections on ethnic relations and current academic research on this period of Czechoslovak history. Referring to examples from the spheres of education and industry, which are covered by Junosza, the author examines the possibilities and limits of the coexistence of national groups in Czechoslovakia. The present work focuses on periods both before and after the 1920s: it shows how clear national categories used by Junosza were created, and how inequalities and struggles between these invented national categories led to the fall of multinational Czechoslovakia.
With the independence of Slovakia in 1993, a culture of memory of the problematic aspects of the history of Slovak Germans – such as anti-German violence, post-World War II internment camps, or forced displacement from (Czecho)Slovakia during and after the war – began to develop gradually. Currently there are more than twenty sites of memory in the form of monuments or memorial plaques commemorating those aspects of the common Slovak-German history. However, there are still voices in Slovak society pointing out the lack of public knowledge about the historical issues involved. In 2022 and 2023, the plays Domov! [Home!] and Hauerland appeared on the stages of Slovak theaters. Focusing on the period of World War II and first postwar years, they both show it for the first time from the perspective of Slovak Germans. Based on a comparison of these two plays and the existing sites of memory, this article considers how Slovak Germans are remembered in Slovakia today. Applying the analytical framework of hauntology, it further explores the role of drama in the Slovak culture of remembrance. The study argues that traditional sites of memory in the regions formerly inhabited by Slovak Germans, such as monuments or memorial plaques, are a response of the local population to the German ghosts of the past – various material traces of German culture. In turn, the actors playing the Slovak Germans in the theatrical productions under discussion are considered to be possessed by their characters, who bring the repressed past back to light. As the actors are not limited by local concerns, they can reach a wider audience. They bring new perspectives on a history that is already known, and thus they play an important role in the process whereby individual and/or social memories become part of collective memory on the national level.
The article examines the contested legacy of German cultural heritage in regions such as Warmia and Masuria, which now belong to Poland. After the Second World War, these areas were transformed through destruction, re-Polonization and the erasure of German identity. Cultural artifacts were looted, destroyed or reinterpreted to fit Poland’s nationalist narratives, as exemplified by the museum in Olsztyn. However, recent efforts have been aimed at overcoming these divisions by recognizing the common multicultural history of these regions. The article calls for a more inclusive approach to cultural heritage, which takes into account complexity and promotes dialogue, rather than maintaining narrow national perspectives.
This article is a review of the book Porządek rzeczy: Relacje z przedwojennymi przedmiotami na Ziemiach Zachodnich (przypadek Wrocławia i Szczecina) [The Order of Things: Relationships with Prewar Objects in the Western Territories of Poland: The Case Studies of Wrocław and Szczecin] by Anna Kurpiel and Katarzyna Maniak, photographs by Łukasz Skąpski, published in 2023 by Jagiellonian University Press and the Academy of Art in Szczecin; ISBN: 978-83-233-5257-0, 978-83-63072-98-8.
The Czech-German borderscape, which has been affected by forced migrations several times over the last hundred years, contains many layers of memory. Some of them can still be identified, while others need to be searched for because their traces have been erased. In this context, this article aims to discuss the possibilities of place-based learning, using a case study from the Ore Mountains: the former town of Pressnitz. The study introduces resources that can be used by educators to promote the understanding of complex processes and global phenomena, such as colonialism, power structures, mobility, globalization, and gender. The analyzed materials include archivalia from Czechia, Germany, and Austria, as well as documents from private collections in various European countries. The existence of regional and global interconnections between the Czech lands (Bohemia) and colonies is surprising, but it can also help educators to support self-identification with the region on a local level through new narratives.
This article is a review of Karolina Bielenin-Lenczowska’s book Koloniści z Rio Claro: Społeczno-językowe światy polskich osadników w południowej Brazylii [Colonists of Rio Claro: Socio-Linguistic Worlds of Polish Settlers in Southern Brazil], published in 2024 by słowo/obraz terytoria; ISBN: 978-83-8325-092-2.
