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Spreads the Russian Regime Under Vladimir Putin19

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Spreads the Russian Regime Under Vladimir Putin19 NO 11. September 2019 T R A N S F O R M A T I V E T R A N S F O R M A T I O TRANSFORMATIVE N ? 3 0 TRANSFORMATION? Y E A R 30 YEARS OF CHANGE IN CEE S O F C H A N G E I N C E E N O 1 1 . 1400 copies S e ISSN 2391-7083 p t e m b e r 2 0 1 9 FROM THE EDITORS 001 Transformative Transformation? 30 Years of Change in CEE Central and Eastern Europe, a home to around 190 m individuals. Each with their own hopes, dreams, and agendas. All of them with a unique set of experiences and access to their sui generis historical past. Most of them, however, shared similar routes on their way to becoming liberal democracies. Whether or not the achievements of the early 1990s have been retained is another story. One thing is certain: the importance of the changes introduced back then has been undeniable. Thirty years ago, a wind of change swept through the region. The Eastern Bloc experienced a series of structural, political, and social changes that have forever shifted the mindset of its inhabitants. Once the countries long oppressed by the communist regime regained their sovereignty, the hankered-after freedom entered every possible sphere of life. Let us take Poland, my homeland, as an example. Within the past three decades it has managed to join the ranks of other well-developed Western democracies, with a booming economy and an open society. Has the Polish transformation been truly transformative? Yes. Was it permanent? Well, is any change permanent? Not really. After all, “the world turns and the world changes”, as T.S. Eliot once stated. What matters is that any real transforma- tion needs to progress, never stagnate or be reversed – a phenomenon recently visible in the country that inspired so many other societies. Sadly, as the phrase goes, plus ça change – even after going through complex stages of transformation, some people in Poland still question the achievements of transformation, trying to bring about a kind of a come-back of the “good old days” from before the demo- cratic changes started. However, any reversal of the said accomplishments in the region is unacceptable. There is only one way out of the recent conundrums most of the CEE citizens have been facing: keep moving forward. Embracing the positive developments while at the same time trying to simply work out the kinks that still have not been addressed. This is what the 11th issue of 4liberty.eu Review is about. We explore the extent of the transformation processes in a number of CEE countries – from Poland, to Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Bulgaria. Because we believe that even though “everything changes, nothing perishes”, to quote Ovid. Enjoy your reading, Olga Łabendowicz Editor-in-Chief of the 4liberty.eu Review Coordinator of 4liberty.eu network Contents Contents TOMASZ KASPROWICZ / 30 YEARS OF FREEDOM IN CEE: VARIOUS PATHS AND DESTINATIONS / 004 MARTIN REGULI / EU ACCESSION AND REVIVAL OF NATIONALISMS IN CEE / 020 IRYNA FEDETS / 30 YEARS LATER: WILL SOVIET LEGACY STILL SHAPE UKRAINE’S FUTURE? / 034 MATE HAJBA / ORBANIZATION OF THE MAGYAR STATE: HUNGARY IN THE PAST 30 YEARS / 056 JANOS KARPATI / MEDIA UNFREEDOM, HUNGARIAN STYLE: FROM “APO” TO “KESMA” / 072 ROMAN MÁCA / “GOOD OLD TIMES”: FAKE NEWS MACHINE IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC / 084 MIŁOSZ HODUN / THE END OF AN ERA: RANKINGS WILL TELL YOU THE TRUTH ABOUT POLAND / 094 MAREK TATAŁA / IT’S NOT ONLY THE ECONOMY, STUPID: PROGRESS IN POLAND AFTER SOCIALISM / 114 ADRIAN NIKOLOV / BULGARIA ON THE PATH TOWARDS ELECTED AUTOCRACY: HOW FAR HAVE WE GONE? / 128 GÁBOR HORN / THERE WILL BE A LIBERAL EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE AGAIN! / 140 KRASSEN STANCHEV / THE LAST 30 YEARS IN A HISTORIC PERSPECTIVE // AFTERWORD / 148 Contents 004 004 TRANSFORMATIVE TRANSFORMATION? 30 YEARS OF CHANGE IN CEE TOMASZ KASPROWICZ 005 he division of the world into the first (capitalistic) world and the second (communistic) one for decades seemed very stable. AFTER 30 Years If anything, Communism was THE COLLAPSE, Toften supposed – and even more often advertised – to be more efficient. West- COMMUNISM ern economists were estimating when the second world will surpass the first one. In BECAME ALMOST of Freedom 1961, Nobel Prize winner Paul Samuelson predicted that the Soviet Union would have EXTINCT – higher per capita product than the United States sometime between 1998-19971 and WITH THE NOTABLE he maintained his forecast up to 1980, push- EXCEPTION in CEE: ing the nefarious moment to between 2002 and 2012. Luckily, Nobel Prize winners tend to be very wrong in their anticipations and OF CHINA around 1989 the Communist Block col- AND ITS SATELLITES lapsed – mainly due to economic reasons. Various Paths This turn of events opened a new path to many nations, which were formerly under Soviet rule. ‘just’ had to change the political and eco- THE LANDSCAPE nomic regime, were exceptions. It was a tur- Former socialist countries span most of the bulent time when countries split. Sometimes and Destinations Asian continent, and a good part of Africa it was surprisingly peaceful and efficient – as and Europe [See: Figure 1]. After the col- in the case of Czechoslovakia, which was di- lapse, Communism became almost extinct vided into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. – with the notable exception of China and its satellites. It is hard, however, to call China However, this was not always the case. communist anymore – especially when it One notable example would be Yugosla- comes to the economy. Let us therefore take via. There, the decomposition resulted in a look into the European post-Soviet coun- bloodshed that lasted five years, with “follow tries, as well as the Asian ones that appeared ups” – Kosovo and Macedonia – leading to after the deconstruction of the USSR. almost a decade of genocide, ethnic cleans- ing, and a total of 140,000 deaths2. Yet, such It is important to understand that for most events were not localized to the Balkans and of the countries, the transformation was we need to remember about other conflicts a complete overhaul of politics, economics, – like the one between Azerbaijan and Ar- and mentality. In fact, it was a true reemer- menia, which caused the deaths of over gence after decades of oblivion – and for 17,000 people and further displacement many, the first shot at independence. The of another 750,0003. Even up to today, it is cases of Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, or Hun- gary, which remained in the same shape and 2 International Center for Transitional Justice (2009) Transitional Justice in the Former Yugoslavia, January 1. TOMASZ 3 1 Samuelson, P. A. and A. Scott (1961) Economics: An In- Popescu, N. (2010) EU Foreign Policy and Post-Soviet KASPROWICZ troductory Analysis, New York: McGraw-Hill. Conflicts: Stealth Intervention, London: Routledge. 006 TRANSFORMATIVE TRANSFORMATION? 30 YEARS OF CHANGE IN CEE TOMASZ KASPROWICZ 007 Figure 1: Abandoning communism in the world in 2019 [dark gray – former communist (over 20% of population in Kazakhstan, Lat- countries; black –communist countries] via, and Estonia)5. So one of the first tasks of the new nations was to distinguish their own national identity from that of a Rus- IN 1991, AFTER sian identity. This meant the reintroduction THE DISSOLUTION of national languages. They were often not a default language for inhabitants, as Soviet OF THE USSR, politicians tried to make national languages mostly a matter of folklore, while Russian ABOUT 25 MILLION was the language of art and science. Yet, such transitions had to be made carefully ETHNIC RUSSIANS so as not to anger the powerful neighbor and a large part of their own populations WERE LIVING that spoke Russian. Even today, about 30% of the population of Ukraine does not speak OUTSIDE RUSSIA, Ukrainian, and in 2016, only a quarter of all CREATING LARGE magazines and a third of newspapers were printed in Ukrainian6. Source: Sjorskingma // CC BY-SA 3.0 MINORITIES Nonetheless, most of the post-Soviet coun- reported that there are approximately 200 grabbing in disobedient former republics tries managed to officially raise the rank their sniper casualties per year, despite the cease- creating, Transnistria from the part of Mol- native languages and keep Russian as a se- fire that was signed in May 1994. dova, Abkhazia and South Ossetia from the condary language, despite the fact that some It seems that language, as a matter of iden- part of Georgia, and most recently embark- politicians (eg. Ukrainian President Leonid tity, became an issue of sovereignty. This The time when nations could decide to ing on the annexation of Crimea and the Kuchma in 19947 or Vladimir Voronin in Mol- was confirmed by the case of Belarus – the go their own way did not last long. Russia creation of puppet republics in Donbas and dova in 20018) rose to power on the prom- only country that allowed Russian to be the quickly decided to stop further decomposi- Lugansk. Such state of frozen conflict serves ise of making Russian the official language second official language. As a result, Bela- tion of its empire. One way was tying newly as a means of maintaining pressure on these in their respective countries9. This policy rusian is rarely used and limited mostly to formed countries of ‘near abroad’ in interna- countries, making sure they cannot integrate seems more and more controversial con- ceremonial applications. At the same time, tional organizations like the Commonwealth into the Western institutional system. sidering the idea of ‘ruskij mir’ – a protecto- Belarus is clearly on the path to being incor- of Independent States or the Eurasian Eco- rate proclaimed by Russia extending over all porated by Russia10.
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