Disertacijos tikslas yra išnagrinėti sąveikas tarp postkomunizmo įvykio prigimties ir demokratinės politiškumo prigimties. Darbe yra nagrinėjamos trejopos sąveikos: postkomunizmo ir istorizmo santykis; postkomunizmo, liberalizmo ir postmodernizmo santykis; vienovės ir pliuralumo santykis. Specifinei postkomunizmo būklės analizei taikomos postfundacionalizmo filosofijos idėjos. Postkomunizmas nagrinėjamas ne pabrėžiant liberalios modernizacijos turinį (kaip tranzitologinėse koncepcijose), bet analizuojant demokratinės transformacijos sąlygas ir galimybes. Postkomunizmo tapatybė formuojasi kaip hibridinis trijų sudedamųjų dalių – komunizmo, liberalizmo ir postmodernizmo – darinys. Liberalizmo ir postmodernizmo alter ego yra asimiliuojami universalistinėje draugo/draugo asociacijoje, kuri pakeičia išorinę draugo/priešo skirtį, nurodančią politiškumo prigimtį. Diferencinės politikos kilmės problema yra nauja, aktuali ir tęstinė postkomunizmo būklės problema. Postkomunizmas linkęs pamiršti posttotalitarizmo komponentą (jeigu išeinama iš komunizmo, tai išeinama ir iš totalitarizmo) ir siekia prisišlieti prie postliberalizmo tendencijų. Demokratinio pliuralizmo idėją asimiliuoja dominuojanti liberalios pliuralizacijos tendencija. / The aim of this dissertation is to analyze the relationship between the event of post-communism and the democratic nature of the political. Three main tendencies of post-communist condition are analyzed: the relationship between post-communism and historicism; the interaction between post-communism, liberalism and postmodernism; the relationship between unitarism and pluralism. The fundamental assumption of the analysis is the significance of post-foundational political thought for the understanding of post-communism. Post-communism is analyzed not as linear liberal modernization, but as democratic transformation. Post-communism is the hybrid condition that includes the alter egos of communism, liberalism and postmodernism. Post-communism assimilates the potential alter egos of liberalism and postmodernism and therefore transforms the distinction of friend/enemy to the criterion of friend/friend, which ignores the nature of the political. Condition of post-communism requires not the eradication of differencies, but self-reflection of the differential nature of the political. The task of new democracy of post-communism is to articulate the possibility of democratic pluralistic politics under post-totalitarian conditions. However, post-communism is reluctant to accept the dimension of post-totalitarianism and tries to converge with universal post-liberalism. Dominating liberal pluralism assimilates democratic pluralism which becomes democratic procedural minimalism.

Significant and rapid social change has occurred in Russia in the recent decade. With the collapse of communism and the dissolution of the former socialist block, Russian society entered a new stage of development, a stage of transformation towards a capitalist society with a democratic political system. In the course of this transformation, a new social group of Russian private capital owners has emerged. / This research focuses on the political attitudes and political participation of Russian businessmen who own and manage their own capital. In particular, it examines the extent to which capital owners are willing to support the consolidation of the democratic regime in Russia. The analysis was based on interviews with 60 capital owners conducted in Moscow, the capital of Russia. I examine their attitudes towards democracy, democratic institutions and democratic procedures, along with their ways of political participation in correlation with the size and origin of the capital that the businessmen own, controlling for age, education and political past. The purpose of this analysis was to establish if structural conditions such as the size and origin of the capital might play a role in a capital owners' pro-liberal political orientation. / Three main conclusions emerge from this research: (1) Russian capital owners are not uniformly pro-liberal in their political orientation, some businessmen being hostile to democratic political rule, and others having only limited pro-liberal political attitudes; (2) those capital owners who have pro-liberal political attitudes, limited or not, are the least likely to participate politically; (3) owners of small and medium sized independent type capital constitute the most pro-democratic group among Russian businessmen.

Berlin, Humboldt-Universität, Thesis (doctoral), 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

Cette thèse porte sur la représentation des femmes dans le cinéma roumain en tant que lieu révélateur des enjeux sociaux, économiques et institutionnels qui façonnent le renouvellement de la filière cinématographique roumaine au XXIe siècle. Notre recherche est axée sur l'époque postcommuniste, moment où la production filmique du pays atteint son état le plus critique, avant de connaître une reconnaissance internationale inouïe. Notre analyse s'articule en trois temps, afin de comprendre les ruptures et les permanences sociohistoriques manifestes dans le traitement des personnages féminins à l'écran et dans la participation des femmes à l'industrie. A partir d'une analyse détaillée de la généalogie du « nouveau cinéma roumain », nous nous concentrons sur les figures des femmes dans les productions du cinéma d'auteur et du cinéma commercial du pays. Enfin, nous illustrons les principaux enjeux et contraintes pratiques de l'émergence - et de l'affirmation - de ce nouveau cinéma à travers l'examen des parcours des femmes cinéastes. / This PhD dissertation centers on women's participation and representation in Romanian cinema, as a means of understanding the multiple social, economic and institutional stakes intervening in the renewal of the Romanian film industry in the early 21st century. Our research focuses on the post-communist era, when the Romanian film production falls into its most critical state, before achieving unprecedented international recognition. We articulate our analysis around three chronological moments, aiming to perceive how social and historical ruptures and continuities pervade the treatment of female characters on screen and the women's presence in the film industry. We aim our attention at the New Romanian cinema of the 2000's. By tracing the genealogy of this « new cinema », we concentrate on the shaping of female characters in both auteur and commercial Romanian cinema. We illustrate the primary grounds conducing to the rise and consolidation of this renewed film industry by observing the career paths of Romanian female filmmakers.

La thèse explore les spatialités et les temporalités des projets de maisons chez les Albanais pendant les transformations postcommunistes de longue durée, libellés localement comme « tranzicion ». Elle apporte une contribution au domaine des études postcommunistes en examinant comment les processus de la construction matérielle, sociale et affective des maisons et du chez-soi au micro-niveau, se sont liés aux processus qui ont lieu aux niveaux plus larges des sociétés. Les résultats sont basés sur un travail de terrain mené dans un quartier suburbain d'une ville d’Albanie centrale, et sur une ethnographie multi-située en retraçant les réseaux familiaux dans la ville albanaise, les villages d'origine respectifs, et dans une ville de destination migratoire : Athènes.La thèse essaye d'expliquer pourquoi les Albanais faisaient référence à leurs maisons construites pendant la période postcommuniste, comme « les maisons de la transition ». D'un côté, le projet de la maison est entrepris au nom de la réussite individuelle, du progrès et du développement. Les significations locales de ces trois facteurs viennent des attentes utopiques de la transformation postcommuniste et de l’expérience migratoire « réussie » vers les pays considérés comme des « paradis capitalistes ». D'autre part, ces constructions sont profondément motivées par des raisons intimes et par des idéaux de ce que la « shtëpi » (maison) devrait fournir: la stabilité, la sécurité, le confort, la confiance, la protection, l'ordre, la continuité et la mémoire, l’effort de s’ancrer, un sens de l’ensemble familial et de l'appartenance aux lieux. / This thesis explores the spatialities and temporalities of home making projects of Albanians during the long-lasting post-communist transformations, locally denominated as 'tranzicion' (transition). The thesis contributes to the field of post-socialist /postcommunist studies by showing how the micro-level intimacies which construct a house and a home, are connected with and challenged by processes which take place at higher and wider levels of societies. The results are based on extensive fieldwork primarily concentrated in a newly inhabited suburban quarter of a town in central Albania. Additional data was drawn from a multi-sited ethnography tracing family networks in the Albanian town, the respective villages of origin, and one emigration destination, Athens. The thesis investigates the lived experience of home construction in post-communist Albania. It aims to explain why Albanians were referring to their houses built during post-communist period, as 'the houses of transition'. On the one hand the process of home-making is undertaken in the name of individual achievement, progress and development. The local meanings of the later derive from utopian expectations of postcommunist transformations and of individual ‘successful' emigration experiences towards countries seen as ‘capitalist paradises'. On the other hand, home-making processes are deeply motivated by intimate and ideal qualities of what a 'shtëpi' (house, home) should provide: stability, security, comfort, trust, protection, order, continuance and memory, root and anchor, a sense of family togetherness and belonging.

No description available.

This thesis is an historical and ethnographic account of the postcommunist reconstitution of Albanian Bektashi Sufi practices and community life in the aftermath of a state-based program of radical atheistic secularism. The study is based on 12 months of intensive anthropological fieldwork (9 months in 2007 and shorter research trips between 2005 and 2011) and archival research. The Bektashi Muslims were once closely associated with and supported by the Ottoman state. Since then they have suffered many reversals in fortune. The most severe attack on the Bektashi occurred in communist Albania. Public manifestations of religion and its institutions were entirely dismantled and many spiritual leaders killed or exiled. Nonetheless, survivors now claim that Bektashi devotees secretly believed in and revered the sacred shrines despite efforts by the authoritarian state to do away with all expressions of religious life. Providing both historical and cultural context, the thesis uses ethnographic fieldwork data based on observation, interviews and life histories collected from within the Bektashi community. These document and explore the group's various efforts at community building and regaining legitimacy. In particular, it describes the rebuilding of devastated Bektashi lodges (tekke), the configuration and management of sacred spaces, the ways of becoming Bektashi as reflected in conversion narratives, and the emergence of new saintly authority figures. The penultimate chapter is about religious observance, investigating in depth how the present community of leaders, followers, and guests interact within sacred spaces during pilgrimages, paying special attention to the ambiguities of spiritual authority in the postcommunist setting. The study of present-day religious observance and community building shows that despite their efforts, the Bektashi today are experiencing difficulty establishing order within their own ranks and in winning real support in Albanian society as a whole. The small gains in reclaiming lost authority and access to their now lost economic estates reflects the legacy of atheist secularism and corruption, which coincides with wide spread suspicion of authority figures, including religious authorities. Albanian postcommunist religiosity coincides with a more "Western European" pattern of secularism that is generally characterized by a much diminished level of religious observance. / 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z

No description available.

This article analyses two literary texts: Barbara Radziwiłłówna z Jaworzna-Szczakowej by the Polish author Michał Witkowski (2007) and Sakharnyi Kreml’ by the Russian author Vladimir Sorokin (2008) in the context of postcolonial studies. I treat the terms coined by post-colonial critique, such as orientalism, orientalization, subversion or mimicry as not only ideological categories, but also as aesthetic and narrative ones. These tools turn out to be useful in the interpretation of both these texts which, despite the differences between them, may be read as examples of post-dependence narration, which articulate issues in connection with identity-related problems of modern Polish and Russian cultures. Both Witkowski and Sorokin subversively employ auto- and heterostereotypes and avail themselves of the strategy of self-orientalization, which enables the play on foreign notions regarding, respectively, Polish and Russian culture and collective identity. The novel by Michał Witkowski ironically, perversely addresses national complexes associated with the systemic transformation of 1989 and takes the floor in the discussion on post-communism. In turn, Sakharnyi Kreml’ by Vladimir Sorokin is an example of a futuristic dystopia, in which criticism of Putin’s Russia commingles with reflections on the non-autonomous and non-independent status of own culture which, in the year 2028, continues to reproduce foreign discourses and finds it difficult to articulate its own position.

After the change of their country’s political and international statuses, post-colonial and respectively post-communist individuals and collectives develop feelings of alienation and estrangement that do not involve physical dislocation. Eventually, they start imagining their national community as a collective of individuals who share this state. Paraphrasing Benedict Anderson’s definition of the nation as an “imagined community,” this study identifies this process as “imagined exile,” an act that temporarily compensates for the absence of a metanarrative of the nation during the post-colonial and post-communist transitions. This dissertation analyzes and compares ten English Canadian and Romanian plays, written between 1976 and 2004, and argues that they function as expressions and agents of post-colonial and respectively post-communist imagined exile, helping their readers and audiences overcome the identity crisis and regain the feeling of belonging to a national community. Chapter 1 explores the development of major theoretical concepts, such as nation, national identity, national identity crisis, post-colonialism, and post-communism. Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 analyze dramatic rewritings of historical events, in “1837: The Farmers’ Revolt” by the theatre Passe Muraille with Rick Salutin as dramaturge, and “A Cold” by Marin Sorescu, and of past political leaders, in “Sir John, Eh!” by Jim Garrard and “A Day from the Life of Nicolae Ceausescu” by Denis Dinulescu. Chapter 4 examines the expression of the individual and collective identity crises in “Sled” by Judith Thompson and “The Future Is Rubbish” by Vlad Zografi. Chapter 5 explores the treatment of physical and cultural borders and borderlands in Kelly Rebar’s “Bordertown Café”, Guillermo Verdecchia’s “Fronteras Americanas”, Petre Barbu’s “God Bless America”, and Saviana Stanescu’s “Waxing West”. The concluding chapter briefly discusses the concept of imagined exile in relation to other investigations of post-colonial and post-communist dramas and reviews some of the latest perspectives of national identity, reassessing this study from a diachronic perspective.