A scholarly journal from the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies (CBEES) Södertörn University, Stockholm.
Issue 2026, 1: Download.
Alexandra Biktimirova is a student at the HSE University in Moscow and a feminist activist. Research interests center on the intersections of feminism and Islam in the Volga-Ural region in Russia, as well as globally. Coordinated the exhibition Feminist Translocalities in Kazan in 2020. Research interests are gender, muslim women, and relationships between discourses of power and marginality.
Victoria Kravtsova is a Feminist researcher, NGO-worker and activist. Born in Smolensk, Russia. Initiated Feminist Translocalities – a queer feminist network between the former USSR, Germany, and sometimes other locales, as wel l as a platform for supporting projects – publications, exhibitions, seminars, podcasts etc. Research interests include the intersections of feminist, antiracist and decolonial struggles in the countries of the former USSR.
The only functioning system for transactions in the Soviet Union was in fact blat, the system of corruption and tacit agreement and alliances among all parties involved in a given transaction, is here argued. The “knowing smile” was a shared signal for those in the system.
In Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia an extended transition period is taking place, monitored and orchestrated by the European Council. Here it is investigated how to understand long-term interference of the international community in the affairs of states that strive to be recognized as democratic.
The postcommunist concept of transition, as it was in use during the 1990s and early 2000s, is analyzed from the viewpoint of its intellectual prehistory. The concept is partly contrasted with alternative notions, partly relocated to its antithesis of communist ideology, where “transition” actually was an established concept. The reconstruction of the dialectics between communist and postcommunist transitology indicates and responds to a need for historical reflexivity, argues the author here.
The belief in technology was fundamental in Soviet culture. When the nuclear reactor exploded and harvested souls and spread illness throughout a vast area, over the course of many years, an image of the collapse of the Soviet Union was thereby created. Chernobyl became an image of the apocalypse of communism.
BECAUSE OF THE direct Russian intervention, the territorial integrity and independence of the Ukrainian state is at stake. But as long as business and politics are as intimately intertwined as they are today, any serious reform in Ukraine in line with the ideological foundation of the protest movement will be a an exceptionally challenging task.
It is difficult to identify why Maidan took a violent, military turn. Among the main possible reasons we might first note the inability of three opposition leaders (namely Vitaliy Klychko, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, and Oleh Tyahnybok) to settle on just one Maidan leader, and the absence of any visible, concrete accession to the demands of the protesters by the authorities.
Irina Sandomirskaja, professor of cultural studies at CBEES, Södertörn University, was awarded the most prestigious Russian prize for literary scholarship, […]
Despite the modest albeit important economic recovery in the past 2–3 years Hungary has a number of challenges that can harm its development already in the short and medium term, and these have hardly been addressed in the campaign. The Orbán-regime mostly plans to carry on with its earlier policies.
The final run-off, between the country’s prime minister, Robert Fico, and an independent candidate, Andrej Kiska, has ended with a spectacular victory for the latter. As a result, Slovakia shall, for the first time in modern history, have a president who hadn’t been a member of not just the communist, but any political party in his life.
+ Fontana, Josep, Por el bien del imperio: Una historia del mundo desde 1945, [For the good of the empire: a history of the world since 1945] , Barcelona 2011, Pasado y Presente ,1 230 pages