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Joining a series of analyses of effects of othering, orientalism, or coloniality in East Central Europe, the paper asks how long-term structural-ideological effects of global hierarchies, as reflected in post-colonial contexts by the term "coloniality of power," can be conceptualized for East Central Europe. In a case study of political polarization in post-socialist Hungary, it examines the effects of global integration, claiming that two dominant economic-political blocks formed along a division of vertical alliances related to integration with either Western or national capital. From those positions, they developed divergent political ideologies of development: modernization through Western integration, versus the protection of "national" wealth from Western capital and its local allies. While both propagated capitalist integration, they each needed to develop ideologies that appealed to electorates suffering the costs of integration. One framing of developmentalist emancipation promised Western modernity through rejection of popular, backward characteristics of the country, including nationalism. The other promised advancement in the global hierarchy through overcoming internal and external enemies of national development. These two, mutually reinforcing ideological positions, which I call"democratic antipopulism" and "antidemocratic populism," denied the contradiction between elites' and workers' interest and perpetuated existing global hierarchies. Within the wider debate over cross-contextual applications of the notion of "coloniality of power," and of emancipative efforts born from the "colonial wound," the paper emphasizes the significance of the structural conditions, positions and alliances within which experiences of global domination are born and mobilized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Held on 6–7 October 2018, the Romanian referendum on the topic of gay marriage was the fourth referendum of this kind organised in East Central Europe over a five-year period. Because turnout was low in all of them and demands explanation, this paper: i) discusses the common characteristics of these Eastern European marriage referendums, contextualising the Romanian referendum; ii) overviews the history of the Romanian referendum, emphasising the legal, political, ideological and societal aspects; iii) quantitatively examines the electoral geography of the voting patterns; and iv) interprets qualitative data seeking to understand the voters' choices and why conservative mobilisation was so weak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of transformation in East Central Europe have exerted a significant influence on both demographic processes and structures. In this paper a description of some dynamic changes in the scope of population which have taken place since 1990 is presented. However, the main objective of it is an analysis of natural movement of population of East Central Europe. The author focused mainly on fluctuations of birth and death rates as well as marriage and divorce rates. The research period for this paper ends in 2011. The author analyzed statistic data derived from some national censuses which were held in chosen countries of the above-mentioned region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study intends to identify those levels of public sphere at which the public choice seems to be optimal, according to the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, and depending on the scale of public works investments and the historical period, legal context. 20th century Transylvania -- with an area that could comprise in it twice the Belgium's and one whole Netherlands -- being part consecutively of Austria-Hungary, Romania, Hungary (its Northern part) and again Romania (since 1947 People's Republic of Romania) is a good terrain to analyze in the long term the specificities of public administration, public-private investments and the efficiency of public works in different time periods on local, regional and country level, continuing with the comparison of cross-border, trans- and international level public works based on public procurement. The durability and warrant of final product as public goods are also an actual topic, mainly because most of these public goods and historic public buildings approach their lifetime limits and need urgent restoration, nowadays their renovation frequently being financed by the local and state authorities with funds from the European Union's Cohesion or Regional Development Funds. According to a classic Romanian public law and accountability law principle (local-regional) cooperatives had certain facilities in being involved in implementing public works on (local-regional) level without breach in the general law of competition. Based on the local roots of any cooperative and their ideal functioning according to universal principles (democratic structure, delegation of votes, autonomy inside a network or a hierarchical structure with their own supervising and coordinating non-lucrative offices, together with proper financial centers), it was a general rule and many parts in the world it still works as such, except for the neo capitalist oriented former East-Central Europe, where all the preexisting cooperative structures were dismantled and there are no countervailing powers or checks and balances on this market of public works. The historical examples (in a comparative Romanian-Hungarian or Transylvanian Saxon) will surely help in understanding the logic of public procurement policies and investments, works and the efficiency of realizing/ creating public goods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study summarizes the information about Bohemia (and East Central Europe in general) that is given by the Western Frankish chronicles of the 10th and first half of the 11th centuries. These contributions were mostly omitted or refused by general majority of the Czech historiography. Recent changes of attitude to the relevance of these sources could bring a new view on these sources. The information about Bohemia contained in these sources could also help us to expose a possible relations and stereotypes about our region in Western Europe in the 10th and 11th century.

Taking the case of the interwar Yugoslav Sokol (Sokol Kraljevine Jugoslavije), this article examines the complex relationship between the discourses of organic nationhood and political socialization in what was the largest voluntary association in the country. While Sokol typically projected a vision of itself as an apolitical entity--as it claimed to represent the organic national body--this article will explore the dynamics, as well as contradictions, between such discourses and the socio-political reality they aimed to describe and eventually alter in their pursuit of improving the 'national body.' In conversation with scholarship on the conceptual history of modern East Central European nationalisms, including the social history of ideas and movements and political socialization more specifically, this article provides insight into the contextual, conceptual history of nationhood by focusing on selected thinkers engaged in Sokol, against the backdrop of particular mass practices and modes of political socialization in the organization. The tension between the involvement of the masses in the allegedly apolitical formations and the reality of subjecting them to political socialization en masse provides the central axis around which the argument is organized. The article concludes that their concept of nationhood was intimately intertwined with that of democracy and simultaneously posited against (party) politics and statism. Moreover, it demonstrates that Sokol was rooted in notions of civilizational hierarchies and directly linked to producing modern political subjects for the new Yugoslav state by means of the gymnastic and educational practices they promoted and conducted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on introducing spaces of social exclusion in East Central Europe and interpreting spatial processes of the area within this framework. In order to interpret the multidimensional characteristics of social exclusion, domains and dimensions of the phenomenon are represented while territorial aspects of exclusion are illustrated by the generalization of spatial patterns. Research questions touch upon that what kind of spatial dimensions differentiate territorial aspects of social exclusion in East Central Europe, and what relationships can be discovered between them and other social characteristics. Furthermore, the paper summarize the changes in territorial patterns of social exclusion took place during the 2000s in East Central Europe.

Joining a series of analyses of effects of othering, orientalism, or coloniality in East Central Europe, the paper asks how long-term structural-ideological effects of global hierarchies, as reflected in post-colonial contexts by the term “coloniality of power,” can be conceptualized for East Central Europe. In a case study of political polarization in post-socialist Hungary,it examines the effects of global integration, claiming that two dominant economic-political blocks formed along a division of vertical alliances related to integration with either Western or national capital. From those positions, they developed divergent political ideologies of development: modernization through Western integration, versus the protection of “national” wealth from Western capital and its local allies. While both propagated capitalist integration, they each needed to develop ideologies that appealed to electorates suffering the costs of integration. One framing of developmentalist emancipation promised Western modernity through rejection of popular, backward characteristics of the country, including nationalism. The other promised advancement in the global hierarchy through overcoming internal and external enemies of national development. These two, mutually reinforcing ideological positions, which I call“democratic antipopulism” and “antidemocratic populism,” denied the contradiction between elites’ and workers’ interest and perpetuated existing global hierarchies. Within the wider debate over cross-contextual applications of the notion of “coloniality of power,” and of emancipative efforts born from the “colonial wound,” the paper emphasizes the significance of the structural conditions, positions and alliances within which experiences of global domination are born and mobilized.

This paper presents an attempt to model water-level fluctuations in a lake based on artificial neural networks. The subject of research was the water level in Lake Drwęckie over the period 1980-2012. For modelling purposes, meteorological data from the weather station in Olsztyn were used. As a result of the research conducted, the model M_Meteo_Lag_3 was identified as the most accurate. This artificial neural network model has seven input neurons, four neurons in the hidden layer and one neuron in the output layer. As explanatory variables meteorological parameters (minimal, maximal and mean temperature, and humidity) and values of dependent variables from three earlier months were implemented. The paper claims that artificial neural networks performed well in terms of modelling the analysed phenomenon. In most cases (55%) the modelled value differed from the real value by an average of 7.25 cm. Only in two cases did a meaningful error occur, of 33 and 38 cm.

The war in Ukraine has accelerated Europe's decoupling from Russia in the energy sphere. Nuclear energy is no exception. Most East Central European countries traditionally reliant on Russian nuclear technologies and services are diversifying away from Rosatom to seek alternative vendors. This paper analyzes the difficulties and risks associated with the decoupling process. Despite a range of apparently available options, East Central European countries pursuing decoupling may struggle to find both technically competent and (geo)politically viable nuclear energy vendors to fulfill their new-build, maintenance, and fuel supply needs – a concerning scenario given the importance of nuclear energy to the energy security and decarbonization agenda of the region and wider Europe. Avoiding this scenario requires efforts from all actors. First, Western vendors must improve their capacity to deliver viable reactor designs as well as competitive fuel and maintenance services to the region's existing reactors. Second, regional nuclear industry stakeholders must further develop local expertise and equipment manufacturing capacity while exploring non-Western vendor options. Last but not least, local and international political actors must reduce their interference in the technical and commercial process of vendor selection so as not to exclude the most competent suppliers based on their country of origin. • Nuclear-reliant East Central European states are decoupling from Rosatom services. • As favored alternatives, U.S. and French reactor vendors lack key technical capacity. • China has reactor design, equipment, and fuel solutions but is barred by geopolitics. • Stagnation of the regional nuclear sector would harm energy security, decarbonization. • The solution for local actors lies in local capacity and pragmatic vendor selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Kresy' [ borderlands/outskirts ] is a sentimental term used by Poles to denote the lands of today's Western Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania. The Polish rule in that region has rarely been discussed in terms of colonialism. In this article, I employ the framework of postcolonial theory within the context of Polish rule in 'Kresy'. The article juxtaposes anthropologist Józef Obrębski's ethnographic writings about Polesia region (a part of 'Kresy' that was polonised in the most extreme manner) with Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad – a Polish-British author born and raised in 'Kresy', that during his time was subjugated by Russian Empire. The figure of Conrad, whose ambivalent relationship with colonialism was pointed out by many postcolonial scholars starting with Chinua Achebe, becomes a point of departure to think about what Maria Janion describes as 'the paradoxical Polish postcolonial mentality': the ambivalence of being a colonised coloniser. The article is an attempt of contribution to the ongoing debate about identity and dependence in the East Central Europe region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the article is to analyse several concepts that expressed different perceptions about the region of Central and Eastern Europe. The article proves that the choice of terminology is crucial in the discussion of the political and cultural identity of the region. The starting point is the Enlightenment concept of Eastern Europe, which suggested the backwardness and secondary status of this region. This concept is confronted with the concept of Slavophilism, inspired by Romanticism. The article argues that this idea, which initially expressed the ambitions of the region's independence, later became an instrument of Russian imperialism. In the concept of Central Europe, as the article proves, there is a certain ambiguity: on the one hand, it contains elements of German liberal imperialism, a special role, especially economic, played by Germany in this region. On the other hand, intellectuals from this region gave the concept of Central Europe an idealized meaning that still inspires many authors writing about the region. Finally, the author analyses the concept of and East Central Europe, which is most justified by academic knowledge, but does not inspire political imagination to such an extent. In conclusion, the article refers to the relevance of some of these concepts and their interpretative potential, which depends on the current political situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which editor discusses various articles within the issue on topics including forced migration in Eastern and Central Europe; multiethnic character of the region, on labor migration and Timothy Snyder's book "Bloodlands" on migration history.

This paper deals with the phenomenon of Jihadist foreign terrorist fighters from the perspective of East Central European countries. Over the past decade, the term ‘foreign terrorist fighter’ has become established in scholarly literature, international law and the popular consciousness. Today, Jihadist foreign terrorist fighters are closely watched globally for the security threat they pose. Although the greatest danger in Europe is seen to be to nations in the west, several cases in East Central Europe – involving terrorists travelling through the region and attempting to radicalise local jihadists – have led Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic to adopt important legislation to eliminate this threat.

The pandemic of Covid-19 has been an unprecedented challenge to the majority of countries in the world. This article examines whether COVID-19 has strengthened or weakened the previously chosen path of development in four countries in Central and Eastern Europe - Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Ukraine, and Moldova. The selected countries represent different transformation paths taken after the collapse of communism and allow for showing various reactions of governments to the Covid- 19 crisis. Therefore, we analyze the pandemic's effect on three major components of the developmental process - political, social, and economic and check whether COVID-19 has caused any changes in these three spheres. Also, we scrutinized the scope of the measures implemented by governments and their impact on their development paths. We found that while in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the liberal democracy model has not been questioned, in Hungary, the earlier tendencies of backsliding from democracy have deepened. In the countries which are in the process of democracy-building - Moldova and Ukraine - the pandemic has not significantly affected the intensity of violating its principles, as they are still weakly established. Thus, the analysis of the first wave of the Covid -19 pandemic showed that it was not a catalyst for the change but tended to deepen and strengthen trends that existed before. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article analyzes the position and the positioning strategy of East Central Europe in the so-called "first globalization (1850-1914)". The focus is on foreign trade and the transfer of the two most important production factors, i.e. capital and labor. East Central Europe included in this period the territories of the Habsburg Monarchy, the Kingdom of Poland as a part of the Russian Empire, and the eastern provinces of the Kingdom of Prussia which were from 1871 onwards part of the German Reich. The article combines the theories and methods of economic history and transnational history. It sees itself as a contribution to a trans-regional history of East Central Europe by analyzing first the main "flows" and then the influence of "controls". The article analyzes to what extent and in what way East Central Europe was involved in the globalization processes of the late 19th century. It discusses whether East Central Europe was only the object of global developments or even shaped them. In this context it asks about the role of the empires (Habsburg monarchy, German Reich, Russia) for the position of East Central European economies in the world economy. It shows that the economic elites in the centers but also on the edges of the empires developed different strategies for how to respond to the challenges of globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study summarizes the information about Bohemia (and East Central Europe in general) that is given by the Western Frankish chronicles of the 10th and first half of the 11th centuries. These contributions were mostly omitted or refused by general majority of the Czech historiography. Recent changes of attitude to the relevance of these sources could bring a new view on these sources. The information about Bohemia contained in these sources could also help us to expose a possible relations and stereotypes about our region in Western Europe in the 10th and 11th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]