1/2013 Table of Contents

Contents – Issue 1/2013

Opinion & Analysis

Dominik P. Jankowski and Paweł Świeżak – The Cost of Inaction

Despite being the best positioned to resolve conflicts in the region, the European Union is losing sight of its role in the security and stability in Eastern Europe. If only it had the will and courage to do so.

John Sweeney – The Dark State – Part I

Giuseppe D'Amato – Four More Years

Volodymyr Horbach – Nobody Wanted To Win

The best phrase to explain the hidden agenda of the latest parliamentary campaign in Ukraine is that “nobody wanted to win”; of course, not the candidates, but the chief strategists of the main political forces. Although nobody will confirm it aloud, the actions of the main political players reveal their true motivation.

Sebastien Gobert –Ukraine’s Quiet Revolution

Pushed Outside the System – Interview with Garry Kasparov

“Despite the state propaganda and attempts to divide us, we all are going to live together in the same country, and if we want this country to survive we are going to have to unite together against Putin’s regime.”

Tatiana Stanovaya – Opposition(s) in Waiting?

Jakub Korejba – Democracy? No thanks!

The idea of freedom and democracy in the western sense is currently incompatible with Russia’s deeply rooted history, social structure, psychology and mentality. Trying to boost democracy would mean acting against all the elements that make up the Russian national identity.

Fyodor Lukyanov – No Competition

Anatoly Golubovsky – Divided We Stand

Ivan Preobrazhensky – In Search of Traitors and Spies

Zuzanna Warso – A Question of Jurisdiction

Filip Mazurczak – Tusk’s Unenviable Dilemma

Throughout this economic crisis, Poland has been in a privileged position, with a relatively strong economic performance allowing it to stall on difficult reforms. However, the comforts of Euro 2012 public investments, generous aid from Brussels, and a lucrative export market in the West are all gradually receding.

Interviews

A conversation with Anne Applebaum – Dishonest Promises and Illegitimate Regime

“The countries of what we used to call Eastern Europe are now as different from one another as the countries of Western Europe, maybe even more so. The differences between Poland and Albania, and Romania and Slovakia are certainly as great as those between England, Italy and Greece.”

A conversation with Emmanuel Carrère –Russia in my Blood  

Reports

Katerina Barushka – Potatoes and Fortune Cookies

The recent boom in Belarus-China relations is surprising; it’s sudden, it’s wide scale and it’s inexplicable. What are the true reasons and possible prospects for this cooperation?

Ruben Martinez – Stateless in Riga

History

Cécile Vaissié – Together against Totalitarianism

People, Ideas, Inspirations

Jakub Nowakowski – Contemporary Lviv and its Jewish Background

The city of Lviv is currently undergoing the process of reviving its Jewish memory. This process is not only complex, but also painful. It requires asking many difficult questions and making an effort to answer them.

Joanna Bernatowicz – The Solitary Voice

Annabelle Chapman – When Itzik Fell out of the Sky

Books and Reviews 

Luke Harding – Homo Sovieticus: Stalin's failed European experiment

On Anne Applebaum’s Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-56

Wojciech Michinik – The Irony of Polish History

On Halik Kochanski’s The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War

Monika Murzyn-Kupisz – Anchored in the Past, Food for Thought in the Present

On the Taube Foundation’s Field Guide to Jewish Warsaw and Kraków

Dominik P. Jankowski – How to Build Influence?

On Małgorzata Klatt and Tomasz Stępniewski’s Normative Influence. The European Union, Eastern Europe and Russia

Iwona Reichardt – Bitter-sweet. Or what’s in between Europe’s East and West

On Emil Brix’s Z powrotem w Europie Środkowej. Eseje i szkice (Back to Central Europe. Collection of Essays

Magdalena Link-Lenczowska – 13 Tales from the Polish Kingdom of Commi-Land

On Tadeusz Lubelski’s Historia niebyła kina PRL (The Non-existent History of Cinema in the People’s Republic of Poland)

Ida Orzechowska – Into the Wild

On Vesna Pešić’s Divlje društvo – kako smo stigli dovde (Wild Society. How did we get here)

Edward Lucas – The Return of Edward Lucas

Authors love reviews of their books – even negative ones (any publicity is better than none). A long and sympathetic review by an expert is as welcome as it is rare. So I was delighted that my old friend Eugeniusz “Gienek” Smolar has reviewed my book Deception at such length in New Eastern Europe.