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Central European and Balkan Studies

Description

The yearbook has been published since 1993 by the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences.
It is a journal with a profile based on the fields of social sciences (political and administrative sciences, international relations, national security) and humanities (history), whose founders were professors: Henryk Batowski, Maria Bobrownicka and Jan Machnik. 
The articles published in the journal result both from the papers presented by the authors and discussed at meetings of the Commission on Central Europe of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, and from the submissions of Polish and foreign scholars accepted in an open call (call for papers). 
Until 2015, the yearbook was published under the title “Works of the Commission on Central Europe”. Since the twenty-fourth issue, published in 2016, while maintaining the continuity of volume numbering, its title has been changed to “Central European and Balkan Studies”. The theme that unites the various topics published in the journal is issues focusing on Central and Southeastern Europe (Balkans).

ISSN: 2451-4993

eISSN: 2543-733X

MNiSW points: 70

UIC ID: 491043

DOI: 10.4467/2543733XSSB

Editorial team

Editor-in-Chief:
dr hab., prof. UJ Mirella Korzeniewska-Wiszniewska
Editors:
dr hab., prof. UJ Mirella Korzeniewska-Wiszniewska
prof. dr hab. Józef Łaptos
Orcid prof. dr hab. Artur Patek
prof. dr hab. Irena Stawowy-Kawka
Statistical Editor:
dr Rafał Woźnica

Affiliation

Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences

Journal content

see all issues Next

Volume XXXIII

Publication date: 21.11.2024

Statistical Editor: Rafał Woźnica

Editor-in-Chief: Mirella Korzeniewska-Wiszniewska

Deputy Editor-in-Chief:

Issue content

Central and Eastern Europe

Marek Sroka

Central European and Balkan Studies, Volume XXXIII, 2024, pp. 9 - 19

https://doi.org/10.4467/2543733XSSB.24.001.20025

The paper examines the classification and subject representation of the concepts of Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe in the context of the knowledge organization, especially historical information, in American research and academic libraries during the Cold War and post-Cold War era. The author argues that classification and subject schemes such as Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) and Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) have reflected the concept of the region, generally referred to as Eastern Europe, as an intellectual and political invention, with its historical biases and ambiguous representation. As will be demonstrated, despite the emergence of new nation states and the expansion of the European Union, the concepts of Central and Eastern Europe as separate entities are still alive as if the Cold War’s East-West division had never ended. The paper concludes with the analysis of the latest changes to DDC and LCSH (or lack thereof) to reflect current conditions in the region.

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Adam Oleksiuk

Central European and Balkan Studies, Volume XXXIII, 2024, pp. 21 - 38

https://doi.org/10.4467/2543733XSSB.24.002.20026
The end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century was a period of numerous changes in Europe. The end of the First World War created an opportunity for the countries of Eastern and Central Europe to gain the desired independence. One of the countries which was created after the end of the Great War was Czechoslovakia. The aim of the article is to present the profile of the Czech politician, sociologist and philosopher, the first Czechoslovak president, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (7 March 1850 – 14 September 1937), who was elected three times to this office. His observations in the area of economics were formed under the influence of many philosophers, including Auguste Comte, Johann Gottfried Herder, Immanuel Kant, František Palacký, Ján Kollár. The article includes the review of the main opinions and thoughts of Masaryk concerning such topics as: poverty, getting rich, having money, entrepreneurship of individual nations, collectivisation of certain areas of the economy. His attitude to Karl Marx’s socio-economic views was also subject to discussion. The work was written on the basis of an on-line archive query, which contains studies related to Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and his works.
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Adrian Viţalaru

Central European and Balkan Studies, Volume XXXIII, 2024, pp. 39 - 53

https://doi.org/10.4467/2543733XSSB.24.003.20027
From the establishment of the Romanian legation in Tokyo in 1917 until the severance of diplomatic contacts in October 1944, relations between Romania and Japan went through several stages (1917–1922; 1922–1940; 1940–1944), dominated by feeble attempts to develop commercial ties and to assume a common political agenda. The most important issue on the bilateral agenda during the interwar period was the ratification by Japan of the Bessarabian Treaty, signed in October 1920. For pragmatic reasons, which were closely linked to economic and political interests between Japan and Soviet Russia, the Tokyo authorities did not ratify the treaty. This fact shows that the “Soviet factor” played an important role in Romanian Japanese relations, as they were neighbors of the USSR, whose security equation included the Soviet variable.
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Tadeusz Kopyś

Central European and Balkan Studies, Volume XXXIII, 2024, pp. 55 - 78

https://doi.org/10.4467/2543733XSSB.24.004.20028
The signing of the Treaty of Trianon in June 1920 was a turning point in the geopolitics of the Hungarian state. Before the war, this geopolitical situation was also somewhat illusory, given that Hungary had only limited sovereignty, being part of the dualistic structure of the Danube Monarchy until October 1918. Following the year 1920, the political landscape of Hungary was characterized by a significant reorganization of its territorial boundaries. The achievement of these goals was complicated by the necessity for Hungary to first break out of international isolation and then find allies. In domestic politics, Budapest was compelled to implement decisive socio-political reforms, as the country’s participation on the international stage was contingent upon these reforms (referred to as internal revision).
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Andreea Dahlquist

Central European and Balkan Studies, Volume XXXIII, 2024, pp. 79 - 93

https://doi.org/10.4467/2543733XSSB.24.005.20029
Oil and iron are two natural resources with an inestimable strategic value in the context of wartime economies. The Great Powers perceived oil and iron as essential raw materials in sustaining attritional warfare, while Romania and Sweden leveraged them as currencies in exchange for preserving their sovereignty and territorial integrity. Prior the outbreak of the Second World War, Germany and Great Britain launched their competition to monopolize the oil market in Romania and the iron market in Sweden. As a result, we can identify numerous similarities and differences in the strategies employed by these powers to secure control over the natural resources found in Romania and Sweden. Germany eventually won the battle of resources for a short period. Berlin persuaded Romania to join the Axis, which meant an almost unilateral oil export to the Reich, and convinced the Swedish authorities to approve the shipment of iron ore to Nazi-controlled territories. In 1944, the Allied forces targeted and destroyed Romanian oil refineries and significantly reduced Swedish iron ore exports to German harbors.
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Bogdan-Alexandru Schipor

Central European and Balkan Studies, Volume XXXIII, 2024, pp. 95 - 112

https://doi.org/10.4467/2543733XSSB.24.006.20030
Even if the works dedicated to European diplomacy from the period 1939–1940 are extremely numerous, the research we propose allows us to identify a less common approach, but which can provide more clarity on the diplomatic resources that generated the well-known events in 1939. We opted for an analysis focused on a somewhat novel angle, that of the foreign policy scenarios that ultimately guided the policy of Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union in the period we are referring to – the spring and summer of 1939 – and the place that Poland and Romania occupied within these variants of projects. These possible scenarios generated intense diplomatic agitation in most European capitals in 1939, and Warsaw and Bucharest were no exception. The multitude of variants analyzed in the three European chancelleries ultimately generated actions with deep consequences and dictated by cynical reasons of state but were considered necessary at the time. Therefore, we hereby analyze the motivations that led the great Western powers to opt for negotiations with the Soviet Union, in order to give more consistency to the guarantees granted in the spring of 1939 to Poland, Romania and Greece, but our study also follows the actual evolution of the negotiations, with their endless series of proposals and counterproposals. In this way, we believe, the importance that the British, above all, gave to Eastern European states – we have in mind here, first of all, Poland and Romania – because precisely these countries and, obviously, their destiny, were at stake during these negotiations, failed due to the reluctance of the British to “capitulate” to the growing demands of Moscow, the Soviet-German rapprochement and the conclusion of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact.
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Krzysztof Nowak

Central European and Balkan Studies, Volume XXXIII, 2024, pp. 113 - 137

https://doi.org/10.4467/2543733XSSB.24.007.20031
After the breakthrough of Polish October 1956, the substantive value of the information contained in the documentation of PPR diplomacy has undoubtedly increased, allowing a better understanding of international relations also between communist countries whose sovereignty was limited. This also applies to the foreign policy of Romania, whose activity in the first half of the 1960s, in the opinion of many historians, led to the country gaining considerable – compared to other Kremlin satellites – independence. The purpose of this article, therefore, is to show, on the basis of surviving sources, how PPR diplomacy perceived and assessed the transformation of Communist Romania’s foreign policy goals, directions and priorities during this period. These eventually led to Romania’s opening up to wider contacts with Western countries, but most importantly to Bucharest’s attempts to undermine the Soviet Union’s dictates in Eastern Bloc foreign policy, through such actions as vetoing Khrushchev’s plans to reform the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance and being cocksure about the Soviet-Chinese conflict. Changes also occurred on domestic grounds, mainly in the cultural sphere, in the form of a programmatic reduction of the influence of Russian and Slavic culture in general, a return to the world of Romanian culture, but also the rise of nationalist sentiment. The diplomacy observing the Romanian transformations and thus the PPR authorities generally supported the de-Stalinization of the “brotherly country” (it was even noted that Romanians referred to their own transition as the “Romanian October”), but were negative about any tendencies that challenged the Kremlin’s dominance in the Eastern Bloc’s foreign policy. The problem, however, was that at the root of the Romanian transition of the first half of the 1960s was also the desire of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej’s team to avoid a broader de-Stalinization campaign in order to continue in power.
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Konrad Kuczara

Central European and Balkan Studies, Volume XXXIII, 2024, pp. 139 - 158

https://doi.org/10.4467/2543733XSSB.24.008.20032
The article presents the history of the process of the Ukrainian Church’s efforts to obtain autocephaly. It discusses the difficult and complicated relations of the Ukrainian Church with the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the role that this Patriarchate played in the process of granting autocephaly. It outlines the complicated history of a Church divided due to the different visions of the various Ukrainian Orthodox communities established in the 20th century. All this contributed to the establishment of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (Ukr. Православна Церква України). It must be emphasised that this process has not been completed yet. The article also describes the role played by the Ukrainian authorities in the process of establishing the autocephalous Church. The process of the constitution of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine as the Church of Ukraine and its stance towards the Russo-Ukrainian war is also shown.
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Mateusz Kamionka

Central European and Balkan Studies, Volume XXXIII, 2024, pp. 159 - 170

https://doi.org/10.4467/2543733XSSB.24.009.20033
“The Revolution on Granite”, which took place in Ukraine at the end of the USSR, is one of the least known events that took place in Kyiv’s Maidan. On the one hand, the aforementioned “Revolution” can be seen as a typically youthful movement contesting the reality of that time, during which students fought for their rights. On the other hand, looking at the time in which the events described took place (the decline of the Soviet Union), the students proved to be a group that showed the courage to openly defy the still existing Soviet power. This “revolutionary” episode can also be analysed from the perspective of the clash of two generations – here were young opposition activists attempting to influence the future balance of power in the then still existing Socialist Republic of Ukraine. This article aims both to give an insight into these poorly known events, but also to give an account of the actual failure of the young leaders, who eventually had to surrender to the post-communist political system.
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Alla Kyrydon, Serhiy Troyan

Central European and Balkan Studies, Volume XXXIII, 2024, pp. 171 - 189

https://doi.org/10.4467/2543733XSSB.24.010.20034
The Russian-Ukrainian war of 2014–2024 and the destructive role of Russia negatively affects regional and global aspects of the life of peoples and states. It has created a threat of serious chaos in international relations. Russia’s aggressive policy has caused a crisis in world politics that even the great powers of today cannot overcome. The return to a new Cold War and the outbreak of a major war in Europe threatens the entire modern international system with dangerous turbulence. The purpose of the study is to analyze the concept of effectiveness and the role of influential international actors in the modern Russian-Ukrainian war in the field of actor-network theory. The research methodology is based on the principles of science, objectivity, historicism and the basic conceptual and theoretical provisions of the study of world politics and international relations. Actor-network theory was introduced by Michel Callon and Bruno Latour in the second half of the 1980s. In accordance with this theory, relations between participants are determined by the network itself and are marked by the intensity and orientation of the network of interactions. In the sense of international relations and world politics, this means that they are under the strong or even decisive influence of powerful international actors (big powers and flexible interstate coalitions). Russia is seen as one of the most influential international players or “core of localities” that interact. Accordingly, other influential international actors are very cautious about the complete break of relations with Russia; they do not consider the possibility of its complete defeat in the aggressive war against Ukraine. Such a position was reflected and substantiated in various theoretical approaches, examples of which are the ideas of neorealism representatives such as John Mearsheimer, Farid Zakaria and Henry Kissinger.
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The Balkans

Andrzej Krzak

Central European and Balkan Studies, Volume XXXIII, 2024, pp. 193 - 222

https://doi.org/10.4467/2543733XSSB.24.011.20035
The author analyzes the policy of great powers towards the Balkan countries and nations, through the two Balkan wars (1912, 1913), the Great War and World War II until the formation of the Cold War order after it. The author asks questions about the geopolitical role of the great powers that influenced the construction of a lasting peace system in the Balkans during the period in question. The leaders of the Balkan independence movements realized that they had to rely on the assistance of great powers in their endeavours, hence the “original sin” of international relations in the Balkans became the growing influence of stronger players, the scale of which is unmatched in any other region of the Old Continent. The support given to Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece or Albania in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by the great powers in their struggle for independence and sovereignty extended to all areas of international relations after the constitution of nation-states and continues to accompany them to this day, taking various forms. It must be hypothesized that the influence of the great powers has had a destructive effect on the construction of a lasting peace system in the Balkans.
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Bartłomiej Rusin

Central European and Balkan Studies, Volume XXXIII, 2024, pp. 223 - 239

https://doi.org/10.4467/2543733XSSB.24.012.20036
The article discusses the issue of the political activity of Bulgarians during the Crimean War, which was a breakthrough moment in the national liberation movement in the era of the National Revival (1762–1878). During this conflict, the Bulgarians exercised the widest efforts for liberation so far, which was manifested by the functioning of as many as three emigration centres. The first one, represented by Georgi Rakovski, focused on the preparations for the uprising and disappeared quite quickly. After that, the priority in conducting political action was taken over by the Bulgarian émigré elites on the Romanian lands and in Russia, which in the first period of the war (1853–1854) developed a far-reaching activity, promoting the Bulgarian issue and organising recruitment to volunteer troops. The political action of the Bulgarians was not effective but the political concepts they established were used and developed in the forthcoming years.
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Krzysztof Popek

Central European and Balkan Studies, Volume XXXIII, 2024, pp. 241 - 256

https://doi.org/10.4467/2543733XSSB.24.013.20037

The aim of the article is to present the fate of the would-be settlement of Poles from the Koźle county to the district of Svishtov in northern Bulgaria in 1882, based on the Ministry of Finances materials found in in the Central State Archives in Sofia. As a result of the information provided by the missionary Grzegorz Piegza operating in the area of Svishtov, about 150 families from Upper Silesia expressed their willingness to move to the Balkans and live among the Catholic communities functioning there. It seemed that they could take advantage of the settlement action organized by the Bulgarian authorities from 1880, which assumed the distribution of land to the newcomers. However, these petitions met with a refusal by the authorities in Sofia, who wanted to bring only Bulgarians living outside the Balkans. Petitions sent from Upper Silesia to the Bulgarian authorities in 1882 are a source of information not only on the causes of migrations from this part of Prussia, but also provide knowledge about the identity of Silesians at the end of the 19th century. The analysis also served as a starting point for reflection on Bulgarian migration policy of this period.

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Tomasz Grzywański

Central European and Balkan Studies, Volume XXXIII, 2024, pp. 257 - 270

https://doi.org/10.4467/2543733XSSB.24.014.20038

Fought between 1919 and 1922, the Greek-Turkish War, also known as the Turkish War of Independence, involved numerous states that were superpowers at the time or aspired to such a role. The primary belligerents, Greece and Turkey (both Sultan loyalists and Kemal Pashas nationalists), were intermittently supported by external actors throughout the course of the conflict, including Britain, France, Italy, and Bolshevik Russia. Poland, as a country politically and militarily tied to the Western powers and fighting for its independence and the shape of its borders, was also interested in events in Asia Minor. Through its intelligence and diplomatic services, it received information on the course of this conflict and the aforementioned involvement of third countries. The principal objective of this article is to present the Polish perspective on these events, based on the available archival material of the Second Department of Polish General Staff.

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Vihren Bouzov

Central European and Balkan Studies, Volume XXXIII, 2024, pp. 271 - 286

https://doi.org/10.4467/2543733XSSB.24.015.20039

The paper attempts to find an answer to the question of how a successful multivector policy by Turkey would be possible in todays world of escalating global conflicts. This seems to have been bequeathed by Atatürk, and one could say that RT Erdogans mission is to achieve it and pass it on to his successors. This policy helped at the beginning of the Turkish Revolution to defeat foreign troops and establish a secular democratic republic. In the last two decades, it has become possible again in the conditions of the worlds development from a unipolar to a multipolar world. Thanks to this, Turkey can solve its most important national security problems, such as curbing Kurdish intentions for independence and conducting a nationally responsible policy with all its neighbors and especially with the major geopolitical powers. One can say that Turkeys influence on decisions and actions in the field of security in several regions is testimony to the trend of its transformation from a regional to a great power. Successes in this regard are based on the consistent and uncompromising policy in defense of ones own national interests, the successful finding of allies in the direction of the geopolitical wind and the understanding of the mutual complementarity of various political and economic processes. This analysis has been carried out through the methodology of the theory of regional security complexes.

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Katarzyna Fijołek-Kwaśniewska

Central European and Balkan Studies, Volume XXXIII, 2024, pp. 287 - 306

https://doi.org/10.4467/2543733XSSB.24.016.20040

The first years of democratic transition in Bulgaria were marked by profound social processes. One of the aims of the political elites of the time was to repair the states ethnic policies. However, the 1990s in the country also saw an explosion of nationalist and xenophobic sentiments. Nationalist communities sought not only what united the nation, but also appeared as a threat to its integrity. Therefore, the formation of a new identity also meant pointing to what constitutes a kind of antithesis of Bulgarian identity. The Turkish minority was entangled in this narrative of foreign influence, imposing the label of the so-called fifth column on this group. The myth of the fifth column itself was present in the Bulgarian public debate much earlier, but after 1989 it acquired a new dimension. Nowadays, it is mainly used to criticise the activities of the political organisations of the Turkish minority and their links with the Republic of Turkey. The aim of this article is to show the etiology of this issue and to identify the interest groups that are actively constructing a similar discourse in contemporary Bulgaria.

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Nikos Papadakis, Stylianos Ioannis Tzagkarakis

Central European and Balkan Studies, Volume XXXIII, 2024, pp. 307 - 328

https://doi.org/10.4467/2543733XSSB.24.017.20041

This paper analyzes the main components, ideological features and practices that constitute the (overall) educational and specifically, the higher education policy of the April Dictatorship in Greece (19671974).

The analysis of the relevant research material shows that this policy was characterized by:

the intention to redefine the relations of the Universities with the (occupied) State, the coordinated effort to insert specific ideological authoritarian interpretations in the discourses and policies for higher education and consequently, in the reform efforts of the Dictatorship,

the institutionalization of a new economy of power based on control technologies which favored the formation of (ideologically over-determined) discipline and extended state intervention into every aspect of the Higher Education Institutions,

the construction of a surveillance, punishment, control and discipline framework, strictly demarcated and authoritarian.

Simultaneously, the above-mentioned policy aimed a) at the extensive criminalization of behavior, as well as of the non-nationalistic and ideologically un-orthodox thinking in universities and in other Educational Institutions, b) at the reduction of any degree of teaching staff and students autonomy, and c) at the promotion of some alleged- ostensible, seemingly liberal, measures and proposals. The ultimate objective was both these specific measures and the overall (authoritarian) higher education policy to become feasible (legitimizing-permissible strategy) and subsequently implemented.

In addition, students (persistent, influential and multi-level) resistance (at the level of both discourse and political action) to the higher education reforms attempted by the April Dictatorship, as well as against the Dictatorship per se and subsequently against the state and constitutional infringement, will be also analytically examined and contextualized.

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Sławomir Lucjan Szczesio

Central European and Balkan Studies, Volume XXXIII, 2024, pp. 329 - 342

https://doi.org/10.4467/2543733XSSB.24.018.20042

One of the biggest challenges for the international community at the beginning of 1990s became the issue of the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Peter Galbraiths appointment as the US ambassador to Croatia in 1993 came at a critical juncture in the Balkan conflicts. Prior to his ambassadorship, Galbraith was an advisor to the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He visited the countries of the former Yugoslavia several times as an expert in the early 1990s. Ambassador Galbraith played a crucial role in addressing the Balkan conflicts. As the first US ambassador to Croatia, he actively supported the countrys territorial integrity after the breakup of Yugoslavia. Galbraiths diplomacy was instrumental in fostering U.S. pressure that ended the Croat-Muslim conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, laying the groundwork for the Washington Agreement of 1994. This agreement, seen as a diplomatic success, paved the way for the Dayton Agreement in 1995.

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Piotr Wróbel

Central European and Balkan Studies, Volume XXXIII, 2024, pp. 343 - 354

https://doi.org/10.4467/2543733XSSB.24.019.20043
The author’s aim was to analyse the legal situation of the Dubrovnik Republic and Dubrovnik merchants operating in the lands subject to the Sultans in the 15th and early 16th centuries. The conclusion was that in the early period the position was secured individually by obtaining salvus conductus. The imposition of vassal status on the Republic by the Turks (finally in 1458) was linked to the necessity of paying tribute, but at the same time there was a uniform regulation of the status of Dubrovnik merchants. During the reigns of Mehmed II and Selim, attitudes towards the Raguzans were hostile (increasing tribute, increasing customs duties) and merchants suffered oppression. The benevolent attitude of the young Suleiman resulted in the institution of the so-called Dubrovnik customs in 1521, whose favourable arrangements became one of the foundations of Raguzan prosperity under the protection of the sultans in the following century.
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Biljana Vankovska

Central European and Balkan Studies, Volume XXXIII, 2024, pp. 355 - 372

https://doi.org/10.4467/2543733XSSB.24.020.20044

The article intricately explores the nexus of politics and security enveloping the notion of the Macedonian state, with a specific focus on analyzing the narrative and collective memory tied to the 1903 Ilinden Uprising. As the country marks its 120th anniversary, the state elites and socjety stand at a pivotal juncture, grappling with a pervasive wave of revisionism that extends beyond historiography, permeating public discourse and collective reflections on this seminal historical milestone for the Macedonian people. Even though Ilinden takes its place as a revered national holiday, the trajectory of Macedonian state-building unfolds as a dynamic journey shaped by the intricate interplay of both external and internal influences. The analytical framework employed is rooted in the Copenhagen school of security studies principles, enriched by the foundational tenets of political science and memory studies. This multidisciplinary approach aims to present a perspective on the significant historical event of Ilinden from a non-historian vantage point, offering profound insights into its enduring impact on Macedonian politics and statehood.

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Dragica Popovska

Central European and Balkan Studies, Volume XXXIII, 2024, pp. 373 - 387

https://doi.org/10.4467/2543733XSSB.24.021.20045

The paper deals with the influences from the East and the West on culture, in the space of post-war Yugoslavia, from 1945 to 1952. Considering the position of Yugoslavia in a divided Europe, the paper examines the developments in culture that were inevitably intertwined with the sphere of politics. This period is marked by two major events: 1945 the time of the countrys liberation and 1948 the conflict surrounding the clash with the Information Bureau. These political events determined the direction in which the Yugoslav culture moved, situated within the framework of the Cold War, that is, in the constellations of power in Europe. In the fifties of the last century, in addition to realism, pro-Westernmodernism began. In other words, Yugoslav culture was influenced by the East and the West. In this context, culture functioned as a marker of ideological distinctions between the two different ideological systems, which were constituted in opposition. The analysis of the available data makes it possible to trace the internal and external circumstances in which the state existed, which influenced the strategies of canonization and restriction of values in the field of culture in socialist Yugoslavia.

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Danuta Gibas-Krzak

Central European and Balkan Studies, Volume XXXIII, 2024, pp. 389 - 405

https://doi.org/10.4467/2543733XSSB.24.022.20046

The main objective of the article is to show how China is putting into practice the idea of the development of the Digital Silk Road in the Balkans. The influence of China in terms of digitalization and new technologies is not the same in all the countries of the region. The authors emphasis is on the fact that Serbia is the most involved in cooperation with China. Huawei, which has its regional headquarters in Belgrade, is a long-standing partner of the state-owned telecommunications company Telecom Srbija. Working with Huawei, more than a dozen Serbian cities are being equipped to become Smart Cities. The Serbs are using the latest Chinese software to monitor and analyze urban behaviour. In 2017, Huawei installed cameras in the building of the Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Serbia. They tested them not only for facial recognition, but also for behaviour, collecting data that would allow them to assess whether a particular behaviour could lead to violence. The article also outlines the influence of China on the digitalization process in North Macedonia, Romania, and Bulgaria. Due to US policy and the implementation of the Clean Network principles, numerous Balkan countries have declined to engage in broader collaboration with Huawei, citing allegations of corruption and espionage practices. It is inaccurate to suggest that China has conquered the Balkans. In fact, the influence of EU countries in the region is much more significant and far-reaching than that of China. It is important to acknowledge that Beijing is adopting a highly proactive approach and is not deterred by isolated instances of failure. A significant number of industries in the Balkans are in a state of persistent financial need. Only the future will tell whether the Chinese will be able to dominate the Balkans economically, even if it does not seem possible now.

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Krzysztof Koźbiał

Central European and Balkan Studies, Volume XXXIII, 2024, pp. 407 - 423

https://doi.org/10.4467/2543733XSSB .24.023.20047

In 2023, Montenegro held both presidential and (early) parliamentary elections. They brought a change of power: the defeat of the former president Đukanović, the most influential figure in the political life of this country for 30 years, and the defeat of the DPS group, which failed to recover after losing the elections 3 years ago. The elections were held in a tense internal situation, resulting from religious and ethnic contradictions, as well as underlined identity issues, combined with the language used in the country. As a result, the group Europe Now! has taken over the power. And the government was headed by the leader of this movement, Milojko Spajić. Movement politicians face an important task, which is to continue negotiations related to the desire to join the European Union. Montenegro has been negotiating the membership since 2012, so far without any effect. The main problems on the path to the EU are insufficient anti-corruption measures, the need to fight organised crime and the relatively low assessments of Montenegrin democracy. The new authorities announced changes in this respect in the election campaign and accelerated the whole process.

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