Subscribe to NEE
Text resize: A A
Change contrast
|
Subscribe to NEE

Tag: identity

In Transnistria, sentences stop before they reach the end

At Europe’s edge, control is exercised through language, repetition and adaptation, shaping the texture of everyday life.

June 26, 2026 - Ana Pisarenco

The battle for Ukrainian identity

Russia’s war against Ukraine is being fought not only on the battlefield, but also in museums, archives and cultural institutions struggling to preserve the country’s historical and cultural memory. From the ruins of Mariupol to diaspora institutions in New York, a growing network of historians, archivists and cultural workers is documenting destruction while resisting the erasure of Ukraine’s past.

June 22, 2026 - Zach Rogers

Latin Europe

What a future European culture will look like remains an open question. What matters here is the insistence that such a culture must exist at all. Europe should be understood as an idea and a system of symbols, not as a race or a nation. For this to be possible, Europe requires a renewed sense of continuity.

February 23, 2026 - David Hallbeck

Recovering Moldovan identity through literature

Contemporary Moldovan novels offer fresh perspectives on how linguistic, social and ethnic identities are formed in the shadow of the Soviet past. Written in tones that range from tragic to ironic, they recreate the atmosphere of Soviet Moldova with striking honesty, exposing the depth of the identity crisis it produced. Taken together, these works become acts of memory and recovery, reaching far beyond the boundaries of fiction.

December 8, 2025 - Oxana Gherman

The many aspects of Kashubian identity

Questions over the boundaries of Kashubian identity remain a key question today in Poland. However, while it is indeed restricted to a traditional region, its various aspects have resulted in the appearance of a thoroughly fluid and open identity.

November 24, 2025 - Zofia Zych

Looking forward to victory – but focused on daily life: a review of Andrey Kurkov’s Our Daily War

Many Ukrainian writers have found new purpose in documenting Russia’s ongoing aggression. Ranging from the personal to the political and everything in between, these works have attempted to get to the heart of the conflict. This is very much the case when it comes to a new book by Andrey Kurkov.

September 2, 2025 - Nicole Yurcaba

Cultural trauma and European identity in Georgia and Armenia

Tbilisi and Yerevan’s attempts to move closer to bodies like the EU and NATO are by no means a modern phenomenon. Sharing a rich cultural heritage closely tied to the continent, both Georgia and Armenia have been forced to adapt to numerous outside attempts to sever this link to Europe.

February 4, 2025 - Kaha Baindurashvili

Nothing but a Curtain

I travelled 7325 km across the former Eastern Bloc to document post-communist gender identity.

December 30, 2021 - Zula Rabikowska

In Belarus, national solidarity, not nationalism, leads the day

What unites the protestors in Belarus is not a devotion to the purity or glory of their “people”. Rather, it is their common attachment to ideals of popular sovereignty and fundamental rights shared by all citizens. What is happening in Belarus is very much a legacy of the French Revolution, which placed the figure of the oppressed citizen at the heart of the struggle against tyranny.

Protestors raise their nation’s historical red-and-white flag in the streets. Op-eds exult in Belarusian national poetry and history. And everywhere in this tiny ex-Soviet republic, there seems to be a surge of national feeling. For many westerners, who have become accustomed to reading about increasing nationalism in Europe and beyond, it may be tempting to assume that these are the gestures of yet another nationalist movement.

November 17, 2020 - Christian Gibbons

Evolution of an identity

The war has destroyed and continues to devastate Donbas. A majority of the region’s residents have no place to work or means to make a living. One way or another, these circumstances are forcing those who can afford it to abandon the region. Yet I know that even now there are many in Donbas who consider themselves Ukrainian. Unfortunately, they cannot openly express their beliefs.

I was born in Donetsk in the late 1960s and have lived here all my life. My views of Donbas and its people have been shaped for over decades and they have not changed much in recent years. However, in the first year of the Russian military aggression into our land I began to understand, for the first time, how difficult it is to explain some of the circumstances of our Donbas life to people, even though to us living here these things are quite simple and understandable. With this remark, I would now like start my essay, or rather a discussion, about the self-identification of the people of Donbas during the war.

April 7, 2020 - Volodymyr Rafeenko

Talk Eastern Europe Episode 23: Fukuyama on Identity and Populism

This episode features an interview with Francis Fukuyama, a professor at Stanford University and author of the recent book Identity: the demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment.

November 14, 2019 - Adam Reichardt Maciej Makulski

With one foot in the Soviet past and the other in Europe

A conversation with Zhanna Maksymenko-Dovhych, a film director and writer from Ukraine. Interviewer: Lucian Tion

LUCIAN TION: In a somewhat aggressive scene from your film Holiday, a conflict arises between participants of the May 9th Parade wearing the poppy flower symbol on their collar and others wearing a black and orange ribbon. In order to appropriately discuss your film, we need to first explain what the tacit confrontation in Holiday is all about. So first, what does the poppy symbol represent?

ZHANNA MAKSYMENKO-DOVHYCH: The poppy is a European symbol representing the memory of the Second World War. It is made of red and black colours, of course. The other side has an orange and black insignia.

August 26, 2019 - Lucian Tion Zhanna Maksymenko-Dovhych

Partners

Terms of Use | Cookie policy | Copyryight 2026 Kolegium Europy Wschodniej im. Jana Nowaka-Jeziorańskiego 31-153 Kraków
Agencja digital: hauerpower studio krakow.
We use cookies to personalise content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. View more
Cookies settings
Accept
Decline
Privacy & Cookie policy
Privacy & Cookies policy
Cookies list
Cookie name Active
Poniższa Polityka Prywatności – klauzule informacyjne dotyczące przetwarzania danych osobowych w związku z korzystaniem z serwisu internetowego https://neweasterneurope.eu/ lub usług dostępnych za jego pośrednictwem Polityka Prywatności zawiera informacje wymagane przez przepisy Rozporządzenia Parlamentu Europejskiego i Rady 2016/679 w sprawie ochrony osób fizycznych w związku z przetwarzaniem danych osobowych i w sprawie swobodnego przepływu takich danych oraz uchylenia dyrektywy 95/46/WE (RODO). Całość do przeczytania pod tym linkiem
Save settings
Cookies settings