*** ALEKSANDAR JAKIR, MARCO TROGRLIC (Eds.): Klerus und Nation in Südosteuropa vom 19. bis zum 21. Jahrhundert. Peter Lang (1 Moosstrasse, P.O. Box 350, CH-2542 Pieterlen. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - Email: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). "Schriftenreihe der Kommission für südosteuropäische Geschichte" series. 2014, 269 pp, €56.95. ISBN 978-3-631-92876-8.
This collection of articles in German, English and Italian includes presentations made at a Pro Oriente congress in Split in May 2012 to highlight the connections between clergy and national identity in the countries of south-east Europe. The various contributions do not claim to be exhaustive, but cover various periods of history, mostly contemporary history, in which Catholic, Orthodox Christian and Muslim clergy were most often seen as active political players
A recurrent theme is how clerical authorities have helped build national identity and national emancipation, as is described in contributions about Croatians in Bosnia Herzegovina, Slovakia, Slovenia and Greece. The article about Greece also raises the question of the close, complex links between the clergy and the Greek state, stressing the ancient and persistent nature of this issue, as highlighted by recent current events. Ales Maver shows how the Slovenian Catholic clergy has helped forge national identity over the past two centuries, despite their internal divisions. Luboslav Hromjak takes the long view in his consideration of the role of the Catholic clergy in building the Slovakian nation, going back to the Middle Ages and noting the influence of the Jesuits before the French Revolution in preserving national memory and their work in preserving the Slovakian language. In the current period, he looks in detail at the struggle of Slovaks to win recognition within the Austrian Empire, and also at the links between Czech and Slovak nationalism against the backdrop of Hungarian domination - particularly post-1867. The only problem is that the author does not spend enough time on the role of the clergy in the twentieth century (not covering the post-1945 period), only examining the period from 1900 to 1939 in passing. Other contributions deal with more geographically specific issues, such as the Holy See's approach to the situation in Fiume immediately after the First World War, or the consequences of the appointment by the Austro-Hungarian Emperor, Franz-Josef, in 1891, of the new archbishop of Dalmatia, Monsignor Rajcevic, and the repercussions on relations between Italians and Croatians in Dalmatia. The event is placed it its geopolitical context of the influence of the pan-slavic movement that was favoured by Pope Leon XIII, and also the national pan-Hungarian movement and the resultant fear by Italians in the region of finding themselves overrun. Other authors discuss the clergy's position on fundamental questions, as for example in an article on the Croatian Catholic clergy and the war in former Yugoslavia (1991-1995), along with the clergy's political positioning. In his contribution on the Italian people's party, Stefano Trinchese sheds light on the party's genesis from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards against the backdrop of the papacy's battle against the Italian state that the Vatican was occupied with at the time, and its short existence (1919 - 1926).
Broadly, this collection of essays is useful because it examines the relationships of the clergy of all three big religions present in the region, Catholicism, Orthodoxy and also Islam, as in an article on the position of Bosnian ulemas vis-à-vis the national question, other ethnic groups in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia between the wars, a contribution on the compatibility of Islam and Yugoslavism, relations between Muslims in Bosnia and other Yugoslav ethnic groups, and the practical problems faced by this community. The period between the two world wars also provides the framework for an article by Oliver Schmitt on Romanian Orthodox clergy and its relations with far-right movements in Greater Romania. The author discusses the connection between clergy and nation in Romania in general and between religious identity and national identity, demonstrating of course the Romanian clergy's dishonourable compromising with fascist movements, while also looking at its relations with other political and religious movements. This collection of essays is of definite interest and provides a number of answers to not only historical questions, but also to ones that have deeply affected the countries in question and whose repercussions still manifest today.
Guillaume Lelorain
*** NAPOLEON MARAVEYIAS: La promesse… de développement. 100 documents de travail. Éditions Papazisi (2 Nikitara, GR-10678 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3822496 - Fax: 3809020 - Email: papazisi@otenet.gr - Internet: http://www.papazisi.gr ). 2015, 315 pp, €14. ISBN 978-960-02-3092-5.
Napoleon Maraveyias provides answers in this book to a huge number of key questions that have been tormenting Greeks since the crisis hit their country so cruelly. Who is to blame? Who is really responsible? What needs to be done to guarantee development? What role has been given to education to this end? What possibilities are open to Greece in the European framework? Does Europe act more as an ill-fitting corset? Is there a solution outside the euro? Why is it so difficult to deal with fraud? Why are the implemented reforms taking so long to produce results? What is the real extent of poverty and destitution in Greece? Why do some Greeks feel it is so important to change Europe's economic policy? And what is the future of the European Union? What foundations are needed for robust new beginnings? How can European institutions be improved to build a modern state capable of reducing corruption and giving young people the spirit of innovation? The author, a lecturer in macroeconomic analysis and European economic integration at Athens University, answers these questions, and any others, in a way that can be adapted to the current age. He also provides new figures for the crisis in Greece over the past five years in a number of domains (including unemployment, poverty, falling gross domestic product, imports, exports and immigration) and a large bibliography on the European institutions.
(AKa)
*** CHARIDIMOS TSOUKAS: La tragédie des biens communs. La vilaine politique, les institutions d'amortissement et la faillite. Éditions Ikaros (4 rue Voulis, GR-10562 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3225152 - Fax: 3235262 - Email: info@ikarosbooks.gr). 2015, 460 pp, €15.50. ISBN 978-960-572-054-4.
“In the future, when today's children ask us why the country went bankrupt, then if we're honest, we'll have to hang our heads in shame and tell them that Greece went bankrupt because we cared only about our party, not the country!” According to Charidimos Tsoukas, professor of strategic management and organisational studies at Cyprus University and Warwick University, this is the “tragedy of the common goods” - in a system with distorted institutions, collective failure occurs when people - particularly those in positions of leadership - and organised groups - particularly clientelist parties, an inward-looking business world and predatory trade unions - manage to get the system to solely serve their own egotistical interests. Bankruptcy results from a very painful combination of political vice, obsolescent institutions and leaders' lack of ability. This book is basically a chronology of Greece's descent towards collapse. The articles that the author has gathered from Greek newspapers from 2007 to 2014 enable readers to examine the institutional and political processes and decisions that generated the widespread crisis that Greece is living through. They provide food for thought for anyone planning to rectify matters.
(AKa)
*** MICHAL GLOWACKI, EPP LAUK, AUKSE BALCYTIENE (Eds.): Journalism that Matters. Views from Central and Eastern Europe. Peter Lang (see above). Studies in Communication and Politics, No. 2. 2014, 214 pp, €39.95. ISBN 978-3-631-65421-7.
What special characteristics of journalistic culture prevail in Central and Eastern European countries? What are the internal and external factors that have the biggest influence on changes in these countries? Are these journalistic cultures genuinely different from those in Western Europe and, if so, why? These questions and many others are answered scientifically by the experts brought together in this book in the light of the situation in Poland, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Estonia and Finland, along with Serbia and Russia. Taking account of the historical and cultural contexts and developments since the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the end of Soviet domination, the editors say the authors reveal that the region remains a symbolic “epicenter” of geopolitical tensions where there is a combination of “provocations, disinformation and propaganda.” Michal Glowacki (Warsaw University), Epp Lauk (the University of Jyväskylä in Finland) and Auksé Balcytiené (University Vytautas Magnus in Lithuania) call for a realistic assessment of this 'moment of truth' for post-war Central and Eastern Europe which, when it comes to the news, is currently undergoing a 'litmus test case in its democratic emancipation.”
(MT)
*** MARIA ORISKOVA (Ed.): Curating 'Eastern Europe' and Beyond. Art Histories through the Exhibition. Peter Lang (see above). Spectrum Slovakia Series, No. 4. 2014, 205 pp, €57.95, ISBN 978-3-631-64218-4.
This book is devoted to the influence of art exhibitions on the history of art in Eastern Europe post-1989. Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, Mária Orisková has brought together fifteen articles on the various types, formats and genres of exhibitions in various institutions and places in Europe and further afield, with the aim of going beyond the East-European geopolitical framework. The thread running through the book is the contemporary reconfiguration of the history of works of art though new genres, formats, conservation practices and conservation strategies. The authors of the various articles study subjects such as the definition of a museum of contemporary art, the non-verbal communication of exhibitions and how museums in Eastern Europe exhibit their contemporary art collections.
(HHe)
*** WOLFGANG SCHNEIDER, DANIEL GAD (Eds.): Good Governance for Cultural Policy. An African-European Research about Arts and Development. Peter Lang (see above). Cultural Policy series, No.16. 2014, 296 pp, €29.95. ISBN 978-3-631-65019-6.
In the preface, Wolfgang Schneider, founder and director of the Cultural Policy Department at Hildesheimen University in Germany, says that culture is seen as a society's source of development. And therefore, in his view, the work of good governance for cultural policy is to create and support structures that mobilise the population's creativity and ensure well-being, innovation and plurality. He therefore decided, along with Daniel Gad, to clarify the state of the art of theory and practice of good governance and cultural policy practices. This collection of essays compares and contrasts the cultural policies of North and South Africa with those of Germany and France. The eighteen essays are divided into two sections, the first considering cultural diversity as a perspective for participation, and the second viewing cultural policies as a transformation tool.
(HHe)
*** KATHRIN-LENA KRIESEL: Einheitlicher europäischer Werkbegriff und Herabsenkung der Anforderungen an die Gestaltungshöhe bei Werken der angewandten Kunst. Peter Lang (see above). "Schriftenreihe zum Urheber- und Kunstrecht" series. 2014, 211 pp, €54.95. ISBN 978-3-631-65348-7.
In this thesis, Kathrin-Lena Kriesel looks in this thesis at whether in the protection processes for copyright for applied art, a higher level of originality is required than in copyright protection for other forms of art. Following an assessment of the various European legal rules in this connection, the author shows that this is not the case, based on European Community human rights case law of 2009 that laid down a unified concept of art work at European level. She welcomes the way she says this has led to greater creativity in applied arts, and deduces from this that the position taken in German legislation, which requires a higher level of original creativity for the creation of applied art than for other forms of art, will end up being untenable.
(GLe)
*** Revue des deux mondes. Société de la Revue des deux mondes (97 rue de Lille, F-75007 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 47536194 - Fax: 47536199 - Email: revuedesdeuxmondes@gmail.com - Internet: http://www.revuedesdeuxmondes.com ). March 2015, 176 pp, €15. Subscription: €75.50 (France), €110.50 (elsewhere).
This issue of this prestigious French review provides an interview with Marc Fumaroli who, in a 'plaidoyer pour les lettres' via re-ownership of the République des Lettres, invites Europe to rediscover the virtues of humanitarian disciplines, while Michel Onfray calls for 'wisdom without God.' There is also a very detailed special report on the new American aristocratic dynasties.
(MT)