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This paper traces the trajectory of Eastern European culture following its acute and deliberate separation from the communist political system, a separation that resulted in a conscious quest for a self led by the literatures reborn after the mechanism of ideological oppression disappeared. The effect is a permanent redefinition of national cultural positions with reference to the European centre, joined to a revision of aesthetic criteria that allow peripheral cultural 'voices' to interact on the Western scene. The stated aim is for 'marginal literature' to participate actively in the European circulation of cultural production, which entails the necessity of invoking studies that centre on European interferences, as well as comparative analyses of the status of other marginal post-communist literatures, which found a solution for their identity problem by supporting a national cultural voice already heard in a European context. The case of Romania and, in particular, the work of Adrian Marino, form the focus of the present discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analytical methods generally use a wide range of statistical mathematical functions, such as the linear function, the hyperbolic function, the higher-order parabolic function and the exponential function to better approximate economic trends. The testing of a wide range of functions is mandatory, in order to choose the ones that offer the possibility of predicting trends more accurately. In the current report, we introduce several functions and compare them on datasets concerning foreign trade of Romania over the 1996 to 2000 period. We conclude that some of the complexities of transitioning from a communist to a capitalist economy, as reflected in the foreign trade, are best captured by complex and logistic functions defined below. Furthermore, we describe a seasonal variation in the volume of trade, which may be characteristic for all transition economies in East-European countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The collapse of communism and the subsequent transition to democracy of the Central and South-East European countries have been characterized by a dynamic approach towards their recent past. In those countries having pursued some legal and extra-legal remedies, ranging from criminal trials and truth commissions to lustrations, parliamentary inquiries, compensations, restitutions or governmental based investigations, the transitional dynamic has been hugely analysed in a tremendous corpus of literature. Such clear „signs" as carried out measures and their nature are on the other hand the sheer evidence of some shaken order and of the attempt on re-establishing the trust. Besides the trauma of the early Stalinist period, all the countries in the region (Romania included) had and still have to deal with „the grey veil of moral ambiguity" (Tony Judt) that was a defining feature of really existing socialism. These societies and most of their members have an uneasy conscience in relation with the past: complicities are often covered by the thick veil of denial, collaborationism is presented as an inevitable choice, and resistance is underestimated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Almost fifteen years after the breakdown of the iron Curtain, citizens in five of the best performing post-communist countries display willingness to return to the previous regime, share values convergent with communism, and high levels of dissatisfaction with democracy. using a two-step statistical analysis, this article investigates at individual level whether citizens attach attitudinal and behavioral consistency to their opinions towards the past. The results indicate that people supporting communist policies are more likely to pursue the return to such a regime compared to their fellow nationals; citizens' regret for the previous regime is not based on the ideological or policy features; and dissatisfaction with democracy has little to do if anything with the nostalgia for the communist past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on issues related to critical Marxism and Eastern Europe. As an effect of the post-war strategic-military games, the East European countries, dominated by Stalinist parties, were compelled to embark on the same political and economic platform as the Soviet Union, were submitted to all the practices involved and in the Stalinist socio-political paradigm. The ersatz Marxism of the epoch was subsequently the ideological framework created by Stalin and by his followers and was, in fact, a compendium of trivial metaphysical ideas interwoven with pragmatic rules and mythological fixations. The Stalinist ideology fulfilled the process of increasing pauperization of Marxist theoretical practice and actually functioned as an effective counter-doctrine meant to emasculate the originally emancipatory momentum of negative dialectics and to substitute for it an opportunist-positivistic sociology deliberately situated beyond the traditional moral borders. More than a decade after Stalin's death, the favourite theme in the discourses of East European philosophers was the return to Marx.

The article discusses social policy problems in post-communist Poland and other post-communist eastern European countries. In particular the author focuses on economic and political reforms in the transition from state economic and political monopoly to democracy and the free market, inherited institutions and social interventions, and challenges of new social policies.

Presents a list of publications related to Slavic and East European. "The Oath: A Surgeon Under Fire," by Khassan Baiev; "The Polish Singers Alliance of America,1888-1998: Choral Patriotism," by Stanislaus A. Blejwas; "Requiem for the Living," by Alan Cherchesov and translated by Subhi Shervell; "Modern Romania: The End of Communism, the Failure of Democratic Reform, and the Theft of a Nation," by Tom Gallagher.