Pub Date : 2019-11-22DOI: 10.1163/18763308-04602006
M. Kopeček
Much has been written about human rights language as a keystone of democratic dissent in Eastern Europe as well as about its damaging impact on the communist dictatorships—the so called “Helsinki effect.” This article analyzes the less familiar criticism of the core of the socialist theory of human rights and discusses whether this criticism proved to be particularly damaging for the socialist regimes’ legitimacy, self-esteem, and international standing, leading to their defensive stance in this sphere. Simultaneously, it will question, to some extent, the prevailing and rather one-sided “liberal” reading of dissident human rights theory itself. With this aim in mind, the article begins with the specific “developmental” socialist conception of human rights elaborated in the 1950s and the 1960s by prominent legal scholars and philosophers such as I. Szabó and I. Kovács, and outlines how this theory served as a tool of self-confident state socialist human rights politics in the first decades of the Cold War. Second, it will follow the diverging paths of this socialist human rights theory during the period of consolidation and the authoritarian turn in the late 1960s and the 1970s. Third, the article turns to some of the 1970s–80s dissident criticism of human rights abuses in communist countries. It will focus not on the best-known cases, which serve to emphasize encroachments upon civil and political rights and freedoms, but rather on critical approaches (like those of J. Tesař, J. Šabata, O. Solt, M. Duray, or the Solidarity’s Charter of Workers Rights) directed at the heart of the socialist theory of human rights, that is the abuses and unfulfilled promises in the area of social, economic, and—prominently in the Hungarian case—cultural rights.
{"title":"The Socialist Conception of Human Rights and Its Dissident Critique","authors":"M. Kopeček","doi":"10.1163/18763308-04602006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763308-04602006","url":null,"abstract":"Much has been written about human rights language as a keystone of democratic dissent in Eastern Europe as well as about its damaging impact on the communist dictatorships—the so called “Helsinki effect.” This article analyzes the less familiar criticism of the core of the socialist theory of human rights and discusses whether this criticism proved to be particularly damaging for the socialist regimes’ legitimacy, self-esteem, and international standing, leading to their defensive stance in this sphere. Simultaneously, it will question, to some extent, the prevailing and rather one-sided “liberal” reading of dissident human rights theory itself. With this aim in mind, the article begins with the specific “developmental” socialist conception of human rights elaborated in the 1950s and the 1960s by prominent legal scholars and philosophers such as I. Szabó and I. Kovács, and outlines how this theory served as a tool of self-confident state socialist human rights politics in the first decades of the Cold War. Second, it will follow the diverging paths of this socialist human rights theory during the period of consolidation and the authoritarian turn in the late 1960s and the 1970s. Third, the article turns to some of the 1970s–80s dissident criticism of human rights abuses in communist countries. It will focus not on the best-known cases, which serve to emphasize encroachments upon civil and political rights and freedoms, but rather on critical approaches (like those of J. Tesař, J. Šabata, O. Solt, M. Duray, or the Solidarity’s Charter of Workers Rights) directed at the heart of the socialist theory of human rights, that is the abuses and unfulfilled promises in the area of social, economic, and—prominently in the Hungarian case—cultural rights.","PeriodicalId":40651,"journal":{"name":"East Central Europe","volume":"46 1","pages":"261-289"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18763308-04602006","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43379252","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-11-22DOI: 10.1163/18763308-04602010
{"title":"Contents","authors":"","doi":"10.1163/18763308-04602010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763308-04602010","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40651,"journal":{"name":"East Central Europe","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18763308-04602010","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46936876","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-11-22DOI: 10.1163/18763308-04602007
S. Gehrig, J. Mark, P. Betts, Kim Christiaens, I. Goddeeris
Anti-apartheid advocacy allowed Eastern Bloc countries to reframe their ideological language of solidarity towards African countries into a legalist rhetoric during the 1960s and 70s. Support for international anti-racial discrimination law and self-determination from colonial rule reinforced their ties to Africa after the disenchantment of the Hungarian Uprising. Rights activism against apartheid showcased the socialist Bloc’s active contribution to the international rise of human rights language and international law during the Cold War. By the mid-1970s, however, international rights engagement became problematic for most Eastern European states, and dissidents at home eventually appropriated the term apartheid based on decades of state-mandated international rights activism to criticise socialism.
{"title":"The Eastern Bloc, Human Rights, and the Global Fight against Apartheid","authors":"S. Gehrig, J. Mark, P. Betts, Kim Christiaens, I. Goddeeris","doi":"10.1163/18763308-04602007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763308-04602007","url":null,"abstract":"Anti-apartheid advocacy allowed Eastern Bloc countries to reframe their ideological language of solidarity towards African countries into a legalist rhetoric during the 1960s and 70s. Support for international anti-racial discrimination law and self-determination from colonial rule reinforced their ties to Africa after the disenchantment of the Hungarian Uprising. Rights activism against apartheid showcased the socialist Bloc’s active contribution to the international rise of human rights language and international law during the Cold War. By the mid-1970s, however, international rights engagement became problematic for most Eastern European states, and dissidents at home eventually appropriated the term apartheid based on decades of state-mandated international rights activism to criticise socialism.","PeriodicalId":40651,"journal":{"name":"East Central Europe","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18763308-04602007","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48569353","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-11-22DOI: 10.1163/18763308-04602001
Anna Delius
Polish opposition against the state-socialist government emerged out of the political engagement of predominantly left-leaning intellectuals with repressed workers in the 1970s. In their writings, these intellectuals addressed not only workers in the country, but also Western European left-wing intellectuals and politicians. Based on an analysis of relevant samizdat publications, this article shows how Polish intellectuals modified their rhetorical strategies depending on their audience. It thus challenges the monothematic focus on an internationally salient human rights language as the main tool for political empowerment during the 1970s. Whereas the universalizing human rights discourse presented repression and the lack of democratic labor structures negatively, the inner Polish debate between intellectuals and workers initially framed these issues as basic necessities deduced from tangible problems. It was only after two years of organizational work that the Warsaw-based Workers’ Defense Committee, in their “Charter of Workers’ Rights” (1979), depicted repression as a violation of human and labor rights. The rhetoric changed so drastically because the Charter addressed not only workers, but also different target groups on an international and national level. Even so, a singularizing narrative of repression made more sense in the context of Polish labor protests than the adoption of a universalizing human rights language.
{"title":"Universal Rights or Everyday Necessities?","authors":"Anna Delius","doi":"10.1163/18763308-04602001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763308-04602001","url":null,"abstract":"Polish opposition against the state-socialist government emerged out of the political engagement of predominantly left-leaning intellectuals with repressed workers in the 1970s. In their writings, these intellectuals addressed not only workers in the country, but also Western European left-wing intellectuals and politicians. Based on an analysis of relevant samizdat publications, this article shows how Polish intellectuals modified their rhetorical strategies depending on their audience. It thus challenges the monothematic focus on an internationally salient human rights language as the main tool for political empowerment during the 1970s. Whereas the universalizing human rights discourse presented repression and the lack of democratic labor structures negatively, the inner Polish debate between intellectuals and workers initially framed these issues as basic necessities deduced from tangible problems. It was only after two years of organizational work that the Warsaw-based Workers’ Defense Committee, in their “Charter of Workers’ Rights” (1979), depicted repression as a violation of human and labor rights. The rhetoric changed so drastically because the Charter addressed not only workers, but also different target groups on an international and national level. Even so, a singularizing narrative of repression made more sense in the context of Polish labor protests than the adoption of a universalizing human rights language.","PeriodicalId":40651,"journal":{"name":"East Central Europe","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18763308-04602001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43499935","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-04-04DOI: 10.1163/18763308-04601006
Jakub Štofaník
The article focuses on the role of religion among working-class inhabitants of two industrial towns in the Czech lands, Ostrava and Kladno, during the first half of twentieth century. It analyses the enormous conversion movement, the position of new actors of religious life, and the religious behavior of workers. Looking at the history of the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century, the study understands religion as one of the constituent factors of society and its historic change. Traditional, new, and nonconformist religious actors appear as active agents in the private and public life of industrial towns. They mobilized workers, young people, and women, and they produced the major arena in which social, cultural, and church history come together.
{"title":"The Religious Life of the Industrial Working Class in the Czech Lands?","authors":"Jakub Štofaník","doi":"10.1163/18763308-04601006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763308-04601006","url":null,"abstract":"The article focuses on the role of religion among working-class inhabitants of two industrial towns in the Czech lands, Ostrava and Kladno, during the first half of twentieth century. It analyses the enormous conversion movement, the position of new actors of religious life, and the religious behavior of workers. Looking at the history of the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century, the study understands religion as one of the constituent factors of society and its historic change. Traditional, new, and nonconformist religious actors appear as active agents in the private and public life of industrial towns. They mobilized workers, young people, and women, and they produced the major arena in which social, cultural, and church history come together.","PeriodicalId":40651,"journal":{"name":"East Central Europe","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18763308-04601006","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"65129576","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-04-04DOI: 10.1163/18763308-04601009
R. Clark
{"title":"Croatia and the Rise of Fascism: The Youth Movement and the Ustasha During wwii , written by Miljan, Goran","authors":"R. Clark","doi":"10.1163/18763308-04601009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763308-04601009","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40651,"journal":{"name":"East Central Europe","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18763308-04601009","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44026119","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-04-04DOI: 10.1163/18763308-04601008
Adam Kożuchowski
This paper addresses the intersection of moral condemnation, national antagonism, and civilizational critique in the images of the Teutonic Order as presented in Polish historical discourse since the early nineteenth century, with references to their medieval and early modern origins. For more than 150 years, the Order played the role of the archenemy in the historical imagination of Poles. This image is typically considered an element of the anti-German sentiment, fueled by modern nationalism. In this paper I argue that the scale and nature of the demonization of the Teutonic Knights in Polish historiography is more complex, and should be interpreted in the contexts of pre-modern religious rhetoric on the one hand, and the critique of Western civilization from a peripheral or semi-colonial point of view on the other. The durability and flexibility of the black legend of the Order, born in the late Middle Ages, and adapted by Romantic, modern nationalist, and communist historians, makes it a unique phenomenon, surpassing the framework of modern nationalism. It is the modern anti-German stereotype that owes much to this legend, rather than the other way around.
{"title":"The Devil Wears White: Teutonic Knights and the Problem of Evil in Polish Historiography","authors":"Adam Kożuchowski","doi":"10.1163/18763308-04601008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763308-04601008","url":null,"abstract":"This paper addresses the intersection of moral condemnation, national antagonism, and civilizational critique in the images of the Teutonic Order as presented in Polish historical discourse since the early nineteenth century, with references to their medieval and early modern origins. For more than 150 years, the Order played the role of the archenemy in the historical imagination of Poles. This image is typically considered an element of the anti-German sentiment, fueled by modern nationalism. In this paper I argue that the scale and nature of the demonization of the Teutonic Knights in Polish historiography is more complex, and should be interpreted in the contexts of pre-modern religious rhetoric on the one hand, and the critique of Western civilization from a peripheral or semi-colonial point of view on the other. The durability and flexibility of the black legend of the Order, born in the late Middle Ages, and adapted by Romantic, modern nationalist, and communist historians, makes it a unique phenomenon, surpassing the framework of modern nationalism. It is the modern anti-German stereotype that owes much to this legend, rather than the other way around.","PeriodicalId":40651,"journal":{"name":"East Central Europe","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18763308-04601008","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44449901","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-04-04DOI: 10.1163/18763308-04601010
Jan-Henrik Meyer
{"title":"Environmentalism in Central and Southeastern Europe: Historical Perspectives, written by Petric, Hrvoje, and Ivana Zebec Silj","authors":"Jan-Henrik Meyer","doi":"10.1163/18763308-04601010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763308-04601010","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40651,"journal":{"name":"East Central Europe","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18763308-04601010","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48395909","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-04-04DOI: 10.1163/18763308-04601011
Sunnie Rucker-Chang
{"title":"Those Who Count: Expert Practices of Roma Classification, written by Surdu, Mihai","authors":"Sunnie Rucker-Chang","doi":"10.1163/18763308-04601011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763308-04601011","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40651,"journal":{"name":"East Central Europe","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18763308-04601011","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47008172","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-04-04DOI: 10.1163/18763308-04601005
Tibor Valuch
The main aim of the research project, that also includes this paper, is the investigation of the social history of Hungarian factory workers from the late nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth century in the case of Ózd, a small industrial city in northeast Hungary. For the purpose of this research the author uses not only the traditional historical and statistical sources and methods, but family history, personal history, and life story approaches too. The basic sources of the research are the registers of births, marriages, and deaths, and various kinds of family history and life story interviews. From this material, the author reconstructs a multigenerational worker family life story. Families were one of the determining groups of the Hungarian working class in the nineteenth and twentieth century. The major questions of the research and paper are the following: How is it possible to reconstruct the life stories of ordinary families and people? How can this reconstruction help us gain a deeper insight into the stratification and the internal power/hierarchical structures of the factory and local society? The first part of the study is an outline of the history of the factory and the settlement. The second part reconstructs and analyzes a typical multigenerational family history as a case study. Finally, the article investigates the process of socialization of multigenerational worker families. Through this analysis the author introduces and characterizes the main elements of the value system and the most typical patterns of social behavior of this section of Hungarian workers from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century.
{"title":"Approaches to Life Story Analyses of Multigenerational Hungarian Worker Families in the Twentieth Century","authors":"Tibor Valuch","doi":"10.1163/18763308-04601005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763308-04601005","url":null,"abstract":"The main aim of the research project, that also includes this paper, is the investigation of the social history of Hungarian factory workers from the late nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth century in the case of Ózd, a small industrial city in northeast Hungary. For the purpose of this research the author uses not only the traditional historical and statistical sources and methods, but family history, personal history, and life story approaches too. The basic sources of the research are the registers of births, marriages, and deaths, and various kinds of family history and life story interviews. From this material, the author reconstructs a multigenerational worker family life story. Families were one of the determining groups of the Hungarian working class in the nineteenth and twentieth century. The major questions of the research and paper are the following: How is it possible to reconstruct the life stories of ordinary families and people? How can this reconstruction help us gain a deeper insight into the stratification and the internal power/hierarchical structures of the factory and local society? The first part of the study is an outline of the history of the factory and the settlement. The second part reconstructs and analyzes a typical multigenerational family history as a case study. Finally, the article investigates the process of socialization of multigenerational worker families. Through this analysis the author introduces and characterizes the main elements of the value system and the most typical patterns of social behavior of this section of Hungarian workers from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century.","PeriodicalId":40651,"journal":{"name":"East Central Europe","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18763308-04601005","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48151987","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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