New Eastern Europe explains the Stalinization of Russia’s historical propaganda;
Osteuropa surveys the politics of COVID-19 from Budapest to Bishkek;
Kultūros barai blasts Lithuania’s myopic crisis management;
Varlık tries to concentrate;
and Fronesis puts algorithms in their place.
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New Eastern Europe
3/2020
(Poland)
New Eastern Europe explains the Stalinization of Russia’s historical propaganda
Seventy-five years after the end of WWII, the Kremlin is conducting a systematic campaign of historical revisionism. That in itself is nothing new. However, the conflict between Russia and Poland over responsibility for the outbreak of the War that flared up at the end of 2019, and which was reignited in February 2020 at the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Forum, signal ‘a new level of aggression in Russian historical propaganda’, says Ernest Wyciszkiewicz.
Not only that, according director of the Polish–Russian Centre for Dialogue and Understanding in Warsaw: Poland has become the chief enemy, with Russia exploiting clichés about Polish antisemitism and exaggerating the significance of the Polish annexation of the Zaolzie region of Czechoslovakia in 1938.
So why is Poland in particular now being targeted? According to Wyciszkiewicz, there are various reasons. First, because of the Polish government’s ‘de-communization of public space’ since 2018, which has involved the removal of Red Army monuments — a sacrilege in the eyes of Russia. Second, because Poland has become a frontrunner in countering Russian disinformation in the European Union. And third, because Russia is seeking to exploit what it sees as Poland’s weakness in its conflicts with the rest of the EU.
‘If the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the Soviet invasion of Poland on 17 September 1939 are presented as unavoidable, we are getting close to justifying the use of force as a legitimate form of foreign policy today,’ argues Wyciszkiewicz. ‘This is why this historical debate matters: not only because we should all somehow try and reach the truth, but because it can have practical implications on how the current regional security situation develops.’
Ukraine: Former German Green MEP Rebecca Harms discusses the ‘alarmingly palpable confusion sown by Moscow’ in western Europe, where, six years after the start of hostilities, ‘it still needs to be made clear that Putin is waging war against Ukraine’. The desire for peace played a major role in Volodymyr Zelensky’s success in the presidential elections, but the ‘majority of Ukrainians do not want peace if the price to be paid is submission to Putin’s conditions’.
Donbas: ‘To stop the fighting’ was Zelensky’s main slogan during the 2019 Ukrainian election campaign, but his calls for peace hid ‘a lack of understanding of the situation on the ground’, writes Hanna Shelest. Only in Donbas have the president’s slogans evolved into more substantial plans for a ceasefire, social reconciliation and political reintegration. The undeniable necessity of solving humanitarian issues ‘is not an excuse for a lack of vision and conflict management strategies’.
More articles from New Eastern Europe in Eurozine; New Eastern Europe’s website
Osteuropa
3–4/2020
(Germany)
Osteuropa surveys the politics of COVID-19 from Budapest to Bishkek
Osteuropa has pre-released articles online from its upcoming print issue on the politics of COVID-19 in eastern Europe. Case studies include Hungary, where the ‘pseudo-abolition of a pseudo-parliament’ has taken place (Dániel Hegedűs), and Poland, where the ban on public gatherings threatens to hinder free and fair presidential elections on 10 May (Martha Bucholc and Maciej Kormonik). In the Czech Republic, on the other hand, the democratic damage is likely to be temporary, despite heavy restrictions and the likelihood of long-term economic damage (Zuzana Lizcová).
Belarus: Lukashenka caused international astonishment when he claimed that the coronavirus could be cured by visiting the sauna, drinking vodka and driving tractors. The autocrat’s ‘persistent denial of the particular danger of COVID-19 and lack of sympathy with the first victims of the pandemic’ may be alienating him from a large section of Belarusian society, writes Astrid Sahm. ‘Lukashenka risks forfeiting the credit that he has recently earned from more critical groups by guaranteeing Belarusian national independence from Russia.’ In the absence of state action, civil society has had to organize isolation measures and other forms of self-help, and could emerge strengthened from the crisis.
Central Asia: When the coronavirus began to spread to Europe, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan claimed to be ‘virus free’, while Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan declared only a small number of infections. Edda Schlager examines the veracity of official statements and outlines possible consequences of the pandemic for the authoritarian systems of Central Asia. Not only are the healthcare systems of Central Asian countries unprepared, ‘the coronavirus will have disastrous economic impacts. The resource-rich countries are battling with the fall in the price of oil caused by the drop in demand, and almost all countries have been affected by the interruption to remittances from economic migrants.’
Russia: Before the virus hit Russia, Putin’s constitutional amendment that would allow him to carry on as president had been passed by the Duma. However, the cancellation of the referendum on the amendment planned for 22 April could have unforeseen political impacts, writes Masha Lipmann. ‘Will new centres of power emerge and, if so, what means will Putin be willing to use in order to assert himself as ruler? Will he be able to return to his previous position as head of state without alternative, a position from which the virus has removed him?’
More articles from Osteuropa in Eurozine; Osteuropa’s website
Kultūros barai
4/2020
(Lithuania)
Kultūros barai blasts Lithuania’s myopic crisis management
Lithuania (pop. 2.7 million) currently has 1419 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and has had 46 related deaths. At the end of April, some restrictions were lifted. Beauty salons and hairdressers reopened, and Vilnius’s cafes and restaurants are now allowed to use squares and empty spaces, in an effort to revive the economy while observing social distancing.
Despite the country’s low infection rate and quick return to relative normality, some remain unconvinced. In Kultūros barai, Edita Degutienė argues that the Lithuanian government and the wider community have responded poorly. ‘The statistics are presented in an increasingly indifferent tone, while the government boasts constantly about the merits of its fight against the pandemic, as if the most essential medicines, protective equipment and disinfectants were being promptly supplied, even though it is clear that there is a shortage of everything.’
The emphasis on saving the economy and especially big business is myopic: ‘There is no mention at all about the deeper causes of the pandemic or the future of the world by high-ranking officials, even those entrusted with the conservation of nature. Intellectuals have also been silent. Or perhaps the media is simply ignoring them?’
To drive her point home, she cites the Polish scientist Maciej Nowicki, who served as Poland’s Minister of the Environment in Donald Tusk’s first cabinet. Under communism, his country became the second most polluted country in Europe after the Soviet Union. However, the problems continued even after Poland joined the EU. Her point: regimes may change but the problems remain.
Also: Anna Selberg on why the modern political lie, as defined by Hannah Arendt, now functions only as a deconstruction of itself. James Kennaway asks whether revived musicological interest in the body marks a return to the Enlightenment view of music as a matter of the nervous system. And Javier Cercas talks about the freedom of the novel and fiction’s relation to history.
More articles from Kultūros barai in Eurozine; Kultūros barai’s website
Varlık
5/2020
(Turkey)
Varlık tries to concentrate
Varlık tries to concentrate on the attention economy but finds the coronavirus crisis intruding at every stage. New strategies are constantly being developed to capture the attention of ‘the customer’ and ensure it does not wander, writes issue editor Nilgün Tutal. It is the duty of a journal like Varlık ‘not only to draw our attention, but also to ask whether we are directing it to the right place’.
Wake-up call: Although the bombardment of social media messages and alerts means that ‘we cannot muster the awareness, scrutiny, creative thought and willpower needed to wake up’, there is a chance that the shock of the coronavirus may provide the necessary stimulus, according to Fidan Terzioğlu. ‘This sleep is not our fate. Minds startled by the effects of the virus named corona may awaken from this sleep and recognise the real virus. This virus of consumerist self-centeredness.’
Literature: Fırat Bersun argues that the ‘deep attention’ demanded by reading and the ‘hyper attention’ of the digital meet in cinema. Pelin Kıvrak traces the surge in popularity of the novella in the US, arguing that the attention economy has forced publishers to ask how much time readers are prepared to devote to a single work. And Mehmet Özkan Şüküran examines theoretical aspects of technology’s impact on literary production.
Virtual reality: İncilay Cangöz appeals to Baudrillard to examine how the coronavirus crisis is diverting attention from an agenda of ‘refugees, conflict and crises, sinking ships, bombardments’. Now, on television, ‘actors who play doctors in soaps are given roles in public information films, meaning that even that most positivist of sciences, medicine, has been put to the service of the virtual reality’.
In memoriam: Yaşar Öztürk and Gületekin Emre write in memory of Muzafer İlhan Erdost, the poet and publisher who died in February after a ‘life spent fighting imperialism and fascism’.
More articles from Varlık in Eurozine; Varlık’s website
Fronesis
64–65 (2020)
(Sweden)
Fronesis puts algorithms in their place
‘As the influence of algorithms over social life increases, the need to discuss what this influence entails becomes more urgent’, write the editors of Fronesis. The prospect that ever more complex algorithms and computer systems will render many human skills and functions superfluous is alternately perceived as a threat and a promise. However, contributors refrain from either utopian or dystopian predictions, emphasizing instead that technology can never be fully separated from the social and political context in which it is developed and used.
Automation: Contemporary and historical perspectives on the ‘automation discourse’ are one focus. Educational researcher Lina Rahm historicizes today’s debate by showing how automation has been discussed in the Swedish labour movement since the 1950s. Many of the warnings and hopes are familiar: on the one hand, the threat of structural unemployment and an increasingly refined apparatus of control; on the other hand, the promise of material abundance decoupled from the drudgeries of wage labour.
What stands out is the confidence with which Social Democrats and trade unions have sought to influence the course of events: In 1966, ‘the Social Democrat minister of education, Olof Palme, argued not that technological development should be halted, but that Social Democracy should proactively defend a different rationality than that of private enterprises.’
Demystification: Another of the issue’s aims is to demystify AI and the algorithm. ‘While steel was the main ingredient of classical industrialization, silicon is its contemporary successor,’ writes physicist and coder Christina Gratorp in an article on the material conditions of the digital cloud. ‘In 2018, 6.7 million tons of silicon were produced globally, leaving vast landscapes uninhabitable.’
Categorization: The issue also looks at algorithms’ role in the categorization of social data. Sociologist Anton Törnberg discusses how hopes in the analytical power of Big Data are expressed in the new ‘digital empiricism’. This empiricism risks becoming reifying: ‘What is needed is a critical analysis of digital power that questions the idea of “natural” human behaviour existing independently of time and space. No data, big or small, can be interpreted without an understanding of the processes through which it has been generated.’
