This essay discusses the phenomenon of “aggressive localism” in literary works by Andrzej Stasiuk and Jurij Andruchovyč. The former is characterized by anti-urbanism, underground aesthetic, and regional determinism. The Wende – as the revolutionary events of 1989/91 in East and Central Europe are commonly, if controversially, referred to in German – is used as metaphorical pivot. Across this rupture the city serves as the dominant frame of reference for (self-) interpretations of underground art, defined as a specifically all-embracing form of expression that seeks to subvert “official” claims about the city, i. e. spatial hierarchies. The city thus connects the marginally (sub-) urban with political dissent in the form of social nonconformity. Stasiuk and Andruchovyč intensely employ literary means derived from aesthetic patterns of underground art. Their characters envisage urban solitude and death, post-multicultural fissures in the (great) city. Yet, both narrators depict “their” respective city as a metropolitan village, as a place of a more local, even rural, of indeed pagan profile. At the same time, they use these patterns to praise the East Central European countryside as a “slow space”. In such manner, they appropriate a pre-Wende aesthetic strategy in order to produce structural aggressive fantasies of a re-ruralized “East”.

This master thesis The emergence of the Common energy policy of the EU in the context of the EU-Russia energy cooperation aims to answer the question of whether Russia with its aggressive energy policy (gas crisis, gas pipeline projects) stands behind the EU's inability to advance a strong Common energy policy despite all its efforts. By analysing the member states' behaviour in relation to the key development in the energy field, we will be able to assess Russia's influence. The thesis will then demonstrate that it is the divergent national policies of the member states that stand behind the EU's inability to push forward a Common energy policy. The member states, in the pursuit of the maximization of benefits, support the Common energy policy only if it aligns with their national interests. The categorization of the member states based on their dependence on Russian gas and the size of their gas markets in relation to Russian gas exports will provide broadly representative conclusions about the member states behaviour towards the Common energy policy based on these two variables.

Die ukrainische Sprache, die zu den Nominativ-Akkusativ-Sprachen gehört, weist sowohl historisch als auch synchron Abweichungen vom kanonischen Lizensierungsmuster dieser beiden Kasus auf. So kennt das Ukrainische resultative, inkongruente, in den Finitheitsmerkmalen neutralisierten Passiv-Partizipien auf -no, -to, die wie finite Aktiv-Verben ihrem internen Argument Akkusativ zuweisen, aber historisch auch Nominativ am Patiensargument lizensierten. Solche Kasus-Zuweisung am Patiens passivischer und impersonaler Verben bei fehlender oder Default-Kongruenz stellt einen wichtigen Prüfstein für die theoretische Erfassung von Kasus, Finitheitsmerkmale und Subjektmarkierung dar. Das Ziel der Untersuchung war, über die etymologische Fragestellung hinaus, ein korpus-basiertes und quantifizierbares Bild des diachronen grammatischen Wandels der -no, -to-Formen im Mittelukrainischen zu erstellen. Synchron sind -no, -to bereits gut erforscht: die Struktur erlaubt eine overte Agensangabe im Instrumental und eine optional eingesetzte overte Kopula. Diagnostische Subjekteigenschaften wie Kontrolle in die Infinitiv- und Partizipialkontexte, sowie die Bindung von Reflexiva greifen nicht. Historisch dagegen bestehen noch große empirische Lücken und Beschreibungsdesiderate. Es wurden einige der empirischen Lücken in der Diachronie der -no, -to auf der Grundlage eines elektronischen, diachronen (1500-1800) mittelgroßen Korpus literarischer und administrativer Texte geschlossen: die Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Kongruenz und Transitivität der -no, -to und untersucht sie parallel zu den morphologisch identischen passiven kongruierenden -no, -to. / The Ukrainian language belongs to the nominative-accusative languages and demonstrates both historically and synchronically the deviations from the canonical case licensing pattern. That is, Ukrainian has resultative, non-agreeing and non-finite passive participles ending in either -no or -to that assign accusative to their internal argument, just like finite active verbs do. Historically -no, -to forms licensed the nominative on the patience argument as well. Accusative case assignment on the patience in impersonal verbs that lack agreement represents an important touchstone for the theoretical understanding of case, finiteness and subject marking. Along with the etymological questions, the aim of this investigation was to obtain a corpus-based quantifiable picture of the diachronic grammatical change of -no, -to forms in Middle Ukrainian. The modern -no, -to structure has already been properly investigated: it is clear that the structure allows for an overt agent phrase in instrumental and for an optional copula. Diagnostic subject properties like control into the infinitival and participial contexts, as well as the binding of reflexives do not apply. Historically however, there are large empirical gaps and desiderata as to the development of -no, -to. The thesis closes several of the empirical gaps in the diachrony of -no, -to on the basis of a middle-sized electronic corpus of literary and administrative texts from 1500-1800. The thesis deals with the agreement and transitivity of non-agreeing -no, -to that have been investigated parallel to the morphologically identical to them agreeing passive -no, -to.

This thesis analyses minority shareholder protection in common law and civil law systems. Principally, this is done by examining closely-held corporations created under Canadian, Ukrainian and German laws. It examines minority shareholder protection by critically analyzing voting and related rights, the right to information; withdrawal from the company, expulsion right, the dissolution of a company, derivative action and direct action. The thesis also summarizes problems in the civil law system that cannot be solved in favor of minority shareholders. In addition to the above-mentioned, it provides possible solutions to the problems of minority shareholder protection in the civil law system, that is, methods by which to increase protection for minority shareholders against the majority and/or directors. Specifically, it focuses on cumulative voting, common law director’s duties, derivative action and the oppression remedy. Moreover, this thesis analyzes the possibility of incorporating some institutions into civil law legislation and considers obstacles to implementing them.

This dissertation thesis focuses on a topic that is of growing interest among scholars, and for which there is still plenty of room for analysis and interpretation, namely the role of the Ukrainian Sixtiers during the Khrushchev Thaw in the USSR in the period 1956-1964. This cultural phenomenon is analysed within a broader socio-cultural context with the help of the approach of colonial studies. The key research question is "How did the worldview of the Sixtiers develop during the Khrushchev Thaw (1956-1964) from the point of view of colonial studies and how was this reflected in their literary works?" The first chapter describes the historical, political and cultural context of this period. It includes an analysis of the circumstances surrounding the proclamations made in Khrushchev's secret speech in 1956, the beginning of the policy of de-Stalinization, and its impact on the political and cultural life in Soviet Ukraine. Particular attention is paid to the development of the official discourse of socialist realism as an official and dominant cultural concept, which was to be applied in artistic and literary works. The main principle of socialist realism, so-called "internationalism", is analysed in terms of its role as an element of colonial discourse. The second chapter focuses on the...

This diploma thesis will basically work with the concept of security, namely, the European secu- rity in recent years. Although Ukraine is not a NATO member, and Russia is NATO's distant neighbour, in this thesis I will prove that we should connect the events on Ukrainian border with European security. From the very onset of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, NATO was firm in its support of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders. The Allies immediately condemned the illegal "legitimate annexation" of the Crimea to Russia in March 2014 and they have repeatedly stated that they would never recognize it as well. They also condemned deliberate destabilization in eastern Ukraine which was provoked by Russia with the use of its military intervention and militants' support. The crisis in Ukraine has proved to be a real turning point in Euro-Atlantic security since some senior Western politicians began to speak about changes in the guideline of European defense policy. Ukrainian crisis created new security situation in Europe and still requires attention, in- volvement and response from NATO. This crisis sharpened strategic misunderstanding between Russia and the West. It shows very clearly that Moscow and the West understand European security in...

The diploma thesis aims to map the transformation of the image of the Cossacks in the works of key Russian historians of the 19th century and early 20th century. Formulating the topic, the author assumes that the Cossacks played an extremely important role in shaping the concept of Russian history in the 19th century - the era of modern, scientific historical research in the Russian environment. Analysing the Cossack myth, author focuses on the remarkable fact that Russian 19th century and early 20th century historiography with Cossacks its specific leaders (leaders of the Cossack uprisings Kryshtof Kosynsky, Severyn Nalyvaiko, Hetmans Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Ivan Vyhovsky, Petro Doroshenko, Ivan Mazeppa) associates (sometimes quite contradictory) with historical processes and roles (defense of Orthodoxy, driving forces in the formation of the Russian state, an anarchist, dangerous element disrupting state order, personification of desire for free life or opposition to Tsarist autocracy). The greatest attention will be paid to the two hetmans of the Ukrainian Cossacks - Khmelnytsky and Mazeppa. At the end of the thesis, the author defines the models and long-term tendencies of shaping the image of the Cossacks and their historical role with regard to the existence of various historical schools and at...

This thesis deals with Ukrainian-Czech interference at the syntactical level. The theoretical section deals with the terms we work with, defines both contrastive and error analyses, and focuses on syntactic differences between Ukrainian and Czech. The central part of this section focuses on different valencies for Czech and Ukrainian verbs. The practical section consist of an experiment in which we observe the error rate of Ukrainian students when using Czech verbs that have a different valency in Ukrainian. It also includes the differential valency dictionary of Czech and Ukrainian verbs, which is the result of this thesis. Key words: interference, positive transfer, negative transfer, contrastive analysis, error analysis, valency, verb pattern, syntax, Czech, Ukrainian, vocabulary

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the 24th of February 2022 – most of the United Nations have, in one way or another, participated in the most significant war of many decades. The war is characterized by Russia’s atrocious war crimes, illegal annexations, terror, propaganda, and complete disrespect for international law. On the other hand, the war has also been characterized by Ukrainian resilience, a united Europe, and a new dimension of intelligence gathering through social media.Due to the internet, social media, the accessibility of mobile devices, and Ukraine’s military and civilianeffort in documenting Russian equipment – its whereabouts, status, and quantity, Open-Source Intelligence possibilities have reached new levels for both professionals and amateurs. Despite these improved possibilities, gathering such a vast amount of data is still a Herculean effort.Hence, this study contributes a starting point for anyone wanting to compile equipment losses by providing a process specialized in automatic data extraction and summarization from an existing database. The database in question is the image collection from the military analysis group Oryxspioenkop. To further complement the information provided by Oryxspioenkop, the method automatically extracts and annotates dates from the images to provide a chronological order of the equipment loss as well as a graphical overview.The process shows promising results and manages to compile a large set of data, both the information provided by Oryx and the extracted dates from its imagery. Further, the automated process proves to be many times faster than its manual counterpart, showing a linear relationship between the number of images analysed and manhours saved. However, due to the limited development time – the process still has room for improvement and should be considered semi-automatic, rather than automatic. Nevertheless, thanks to the open-source design, the process can be continuously updated and modified to work with other databases, images, or the extraction of other strings of text from imagery.With the rise of competent artificial image generation models, the study also raises the question if this kind of imagery will be a reliable source in the future when studying equipment losses, or if artificial intelligence will be used as a tool of propaganda and psychological operations in wars to come. / Sedan Rysslands oprovocerade invasion av Ukraina den 24e februari 2022 – har stora delar av de Förenta nationerna engagerat sig i århundradets mest signifikanta krig. Kriget har karaktäriserats av ryska krigsbrott, olagliga annekteringar, terror, propaganda samt en total avsaknad av respekt för folkrätt. I kontrast, har kriget även karaktäriserats av Ukrainas ovillkorliga motståndskraft, ett enat Europa och en ny dimension av underrättelseinhämtning från sociala medier.Genom internet, sociala medier, tillgängligheten av mobiltelefoner och Ukrainas militära och civila ansträngning att dokumentera rysk materiel – vart den befinner sig, vilken status den har samt vilken kvantitet den finns i, har öppen underrättelseinhämtning blomstrat på både professionell och amatörnivå. Dock, på grund av den kvantitet som denna data genereras i, kräver en helhetssammanställning en oerhörd insats.Därav avser detta arbete ge en grund för sammanställning av materielförluster genom att tillhandahålla en automatiserad process för att extrahera data från en befintlig databas. Detta har exemplifierats genom att nyttja bildkollektioner från Oryxspioenkop, en grupp bestående av militäranalytiker som fokuserar på sammanställning av grafiskt material. Utöver detta så kompletterar processen befintliga data genom att inkludera datumet då materielen dokumenterats. Därigenom ges även en kronologisk ordning för förlusterna.Processen visar lovande resultat och lyckas att effektivt och träffsäkert sammanställa stora mängder data. Vidare lyckas processen att överträffa sin manuella motsvarighet och visar på ett linjärt samband mellan antalet analyserade bilder och besparade mantimmar. Dock, på grund av den korta utvecklingstiden har processen fortfarande en del utvecklingsmöjlighet och förblir semiautomatisk, snarare än automatisk. Å andra sidan, eftersom processen bygger på öppen källkod, finns fortsatt möjlighet att uppdatera och modifiera processen för att passa annat källmaterial.Slutligen, i och med den kontinuerliga utvecklingen av artificiell intelligens och artificiellt genererade bilder,lyfter studien frågan om denna typ av data kommer vara en trovärdig källa i framtida analyser av materielförluster, eller om det kommer att förvandlas till verktyg för propaganda och påverkansoperationeri ett framtida krig.

The aim of this research is to analyse the development of an EU grand strategy, using the two dominant EU powers Germany and France and their respective approach to an EU grand strategy. The importance of the EU grand strategy cannot be underestimated as it concerns the national security of all citizens in the EU. Research in this area which contributes with more findings addressing new information must be seen as urgent and relevant. While other studies have researched the development of the EU grand strategy, the recent international structural events in the form of the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian War have not yet been studied. The concepts that will be used are strategic culture and strategic autonomy, with the purpose to provide insights on Germany’s and France’s approach to an EU grand strategy. Strategic culture and strategic autonomy will use theoretical assumptions based on constructivism and structural realism respectively. The findings are that Germany is still a major proponent of a transatlantic EU grand strategy, while France remains supportive of a Europeanist EU grand strategy. Recent events with the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian War have led to that Germany have decided to abandon its energy dependency towards Russia and significantly increase its military spend to the by NATO stipulated two percent of GDP. These events will affect the development of the EU grand strategy, but the current signs are that Germany and France will not change their approach on the EU grand strategy because of this.