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The paper analyzes Timotei Cipariu's original contribution to the Romanian Transylvanian humanities, philosophy and culture, as well as the political, social and cultural activity' of this gifted activist and patriot. The pillar of his scientific work and of his political-democratic activism is Cipariu's intimate adhesion to the European values, accompanied by the faith in achieving the national and social justice generated by the establishment in society of that order which guarantees the unconditional respect of human and people's rights. Inspired by the realities and the traditions of Transylvanian culture, and by the culture of Europe, the work of the Transylvanian scholar became integrated into the international circuit of values, keeping its acniality and raising the interest of some professionals until our days. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the majority of studies and reports highlight, during the 2001-2013 period the Eastern eu states showed accelerated rhythms of economic convergence. The general conclusion stays that as the economic performance of the Eastern EU countries approaches that of the Western EU states, the level of internal disparities also increases, indicating that the trends of convergence might be affected by the territorial context of data aggregation and specific processes of economic accumulation at each NUTS scale. This paper analyzes how the territorial scale of data aggregation can explain different intensities of the economic convergence, in a flexible multi-scalar approach to the indicators. A top-down descriptive approach is employed, starting with the national level and continuing to the nuts3 spatial frame of data modeling, estimating how the trends of the convergence process are shifting when the scale of analysis is modified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses some historical patterns of Euroscepticism across the entire EU in order to analyze the dynamics of the Romanians' attitudes toward the EU against this general background. The paper presents some findings related to the arguably rising phenomenon of Euroscepticism, which were gathered in the context of the proposal of the French and German Ministers of Internal Affairs on 21 December 2010 to delay Romania's accession to the Schengen area of free movement. At the beginning of 2011, we carried out an ample research project for which we used a multi-method research design including a national survey, a content analysis of related media coverage and a series of in-depth interviews with high-profile Romanian political figures. For the purpose of this paper we shall only present the data obtained from the survey (N = 1,168). The first part of the paper is dedicated to the existing literature on Euroscepticism--conceptualization, historical patterns, causes and explanatory mechanisms--, while the rest is dedicated to the results of the survey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays we are witnessing a transition period, a post new regionalism period in which both states and regions are trying to find the most sustainable methods in order to ensure the life quality of their citizens. This post new regionalism was generated by the economic and financial crisis that affected Europe, in which states found not only national responses, but also local, and regional ones. The present paper's aim is to develop a glibly analysis over the issue of regionalization in Romania, especially in the frontier regions, as this subject has created national debates over the number, the extension and the criteria that is being used for the development ot these restions, stiven the fact that Romania was already administratively divided in counties in which emerged cultural and, historical distinctiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protectorates are forms of domination or control exerted by a great power over smaller state entities, over certain territories, ethnic or religious communities within other neighboring or "overseas" countries. The present paper aims to analyze the protectorate regime in South-Eastern Europe in the 18th -19th century emphasizing the "game of power" between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the manner in which the enforcement of the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights is monitored and controlled, as the execution of those judgments depends on the states concerned. Thus, due to the fact that the judgments are declaratory and they are not directly enforceable, by themselves, in the Contracting States, although they are binding for the convicted states, the supervision of their execution goes to the Committee of Ministers, a political organ, and not to the judicial organ wherefrom they originated. Within this control mechanism, alongside the Committee of Ministers, the European Court has come to play a greater part in supervising the execution of its own decisions. At the same time, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe became more active with the passing of time, exerting a growing pressure on the member states and supporting the Committee of Ministers to ensure a proper execution of the conviction judgments of the European Court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author's of this paper analyze the objectivity of a perspective on the Romanian territory supposedly split by a boundary separating the Western and the Eastern civilization. The starting point of the study is Huntington's statement that the eastern limit of Europe is, in fact, the boundary between the Western Christian world, on one side, and the Orthodox and the Muslim world, on the other. Relying on historical, statistical, demographical, and geographical data, which prove the non-existence of such a boundary across the Romanian territory, the authors bring counterarguments to this theory. The analysis of these data reveals, in fact, the existence of a Romanian territorial reality unitary from the ethnic, the religious, and the cultural point of view, a reality characterized by two essential ligatures: its Roman heritage and Orthodoxy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a close reading of two recent novels by the German-Romanian writer Dieter Schlesak: Capesius der Auschmitzapotheker (2006) and Transylwahnien (2011). Born in 1934 among the German community of Transylvania, Schlesak deals in his novels with the tragic epic of the Holocaust, seen from the particular point of view of the transylvanian Saxons and their involvement in the Nazi crimes. More precisely, he depicts the "little homeland" of the Saxons and his dramatic dissolution, while History painfully reveals the existence of the Evil within the reassuring transylvanian Heimat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]