contributors

Articles by Dominika V. Polanska and Grzegorz Piotrowski

1. The communist authorities’ refusal to recognize the Roma as a national minority. A moment in the history of the Roma in Romania, 1948 –1949

   This paper deals with the moment in 1948–1949, when the representative organization of the Romanian Roma unsuccessfully tried to obtain for them from the communist authorities the status of a national minority. For the Romanian Communist Party, the Roma represented a population that had to be brought into its sphere of influence. Discussions on the establishment of the People’s Union of the Roma lasted for several months but eventually led to the rejection of the request of the Roma leaders. The institutions involved in these discussions created documents, some of which are kept in the archives and allow us to study this moment in time.

2. Revisiting Electoral Tactics in Belarus: Local Elections 2018

   Lukashenka is not going to undermine or change electoral strategies that have worked well for sustaining the regime. But the regime will be employing other non-electoral strategies to hold on to its power. The established political system maintains a number of preemptive mechanisms that prevent public mobilization and collective action. The detention of independent journalists on the bogus charges of non-authorized access and the case against the chairman of the independent labor union, who is currently on trial, just confirm that the regime does not shy away from using selective prosecution when it is needed. Now, with the tightening control over the online space, Lukashenka wants to prevent any surprises such as the public mobilization against the infamous unemployment tax.

3. Polarization also grows in Sweden. On the Swedish upcoming elections 2018

   Both the Alliance, the Red-Greens and the Sweden Democrats seek to profile themselves as the defenders of the welfare state, against the allegedly anti-welfare policies of the others. This rhetorical scramble has not, however, resulted in any deeper debate on the reach of the welfare state and the scope of solidarity. In Sweden as well as elsewhere, polarization proves a fertile ground for the deployment of alternative facts, fake news and propagandistic hyperbole.

4. Elections in Montenegro: Balkans’ longstanding ruler is back

   Now he has the possibility to prove his true political colours. A political survivor and strongman like Mr Djukanović, controlling power on all levels, need to be serious when continuing democratic reforms, otherwise he will be ever more accused of trying to build a (semi-) authoritarian platform like so many other Balkan leaders before him.

5. The case of Chief G’psgolox’s totem pole “Rescuing”, keeping, and returning

   In the year 1872, Chief G’psgolox from the Kitlope Eagle clan of the Xenaaksiala/Haisla people (in Kitlope Valley, British Columbia, Canada) decided to have a totem pole carved and erected. In 1928 the pole was cut down on behalf of a Swedish consul to be shipped to Stockholm the following year.

6. Letters from the heart of darkness Dr. Ludvig Moberg, ethnographic collections, and the logic of colonial violence

   It was very common to force people to work for the Congo Free State, and the point of building the railway was to make transportations easier and to get rid of the time-consuming caravans. It is probably one of these men, forced to work until he died, that Moberg collected the skull from. There is no explanation for why he collected skulls in the first place, but he studied medicine for his exam when returning to Sweden.

7. Christian Brinton: A modernist icon A portrait and a study of the collector

   Like the lives of the saints, Brinton consciously crafted his own vita, iconography, and legend by inserting himself within the genealogy of his collection. From the portrait icon to the pious patron, the portraits of Christian Brinton tell us something of not only the actor, but also the narrative of Russian art that the collector constructed.

8. The Icons of “the Red Banker” Olof Aschberg and the transactions of social capital

   Just as the Soviets could trade “Rembrandts for tractors,” Aschberg could trade icons for social capital, while his donations also served the purpose of establishing links between himself in Paris and his business, cultural, and political contacts in Stockholm and ensuring the longevity of Swedish contacts with its great neighbor to the east, Russia.

9. Scattering, collecting, and scattering again The invention and management of national heritage in the USSR

   It is here claimed that it is practically impossible to determine whether the collector and connoisseur in question (namely Igor Immanuilovich Grabar, 1879—1960) was, indeed, saving his objects from scattering and destruction — or contributing to their further enslavement by exploiting them in a capacity that was radically alien, if not inimical, to their nature.

10. Imperial scatter Some personal encounters and reflections

    The Basilys had both the means and opportunities to collect and exhibit Imperial elite art and books. In doing so, it is argued here that they wished to present an alternative narrative of Russia’s past to the Soviet political, economic, and modernist artistic program that they witnessed unfolding in Soviet Russia.

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