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Russia is trying, through its bombs, attacks, and brutality, to erase what Ukraine was. Therefore, it is a war effort to keep remembering how Ukraine in peace looked like, how it smelled, tasted, and felt. And to never forget that this is a war against Ukraine, in its own right. Not as a representative of the West, and not as a representative of democracy. But because Ukraine is of such importance to Russia, that a break between the two is unthinkable for Putin. That was what Leonid Kravchuk, the Ukrainian president, realized already in 1991. He, and Ukrainian leaders after him, tried to protect their territory while at the same time reassuring Russia that relations could still be friendly. But Russia has never changed in a similar way.

This book examines what came to determine the local power and character of the Communist party-state at the level of the national non-Russian republics. It discusses how, although the Soviet Union looked centralised and monolithic to outsiders, local party-states formed their own fiefdoms and had very considerable influence over many policies areas within their republics. It argues that local party-states were shaped by two decisive relationships - to the central Communist party in Moscow and to local constituencies, especially to the local intelligentsia and the creative professions who constituted the local party-states’ biggest potential adversaries. It shows how local party-states negotiated stability and their own survival, and contends that the effects of "Sovietisation" continue to be felt in the independent states which succeeded the republics, particularly in the field of the relationship with Moscow, which remains of immense importance to these countries. 

With the striking exception of the three Baltic States, the post-Soviet space unites in its incapacity to make a modern democratic state function. This incapacity is not just a marginal phenomenon but tends to be a syndrome. Against this background, this article addresses two interrelated questions. The first part develops a theoretical argument concerning post-Soviet developments, anchored in social theory. It underlines that how well democratic and legal institutions are going to function is determined, partly but not only, by the level of general social differentiation in a given society at the time of the introduction of these institutions. For such complexity to develop, a central state with a certain level of institutionalization, and with infrastructural, and not primarily repressive, capacity, is a necessary precondition. The second, empirical, part tries then to identify the variation that nevertheless exists in terms of democracy, state capacity and rule of law, between the post-Soviet states. As the recent, and promising, case of Georgia demonstrates, the crucial post-Soviet challenge is to break monolithic power structures. By increasing economic autonomy, a process that also strengthens societal complexity can start to evolve.

This article argues that a close analysis of the early 2000s populism in post-communist Europe allows us to better understand their novelty at the time, what they brought to party politics, and to better explain the dynamic of politics in the region. The central argument is that there were pivotal parties that held a universalist and community-seeking orientation. The article analyzes three electorally successful parties in Eastern Europe, the National Movement Simeon II (NDSV) in Bulgaria, Jaunais Laiks (JL) in Latvia, and Res Publica (ResP), and uses interviews with party representatives, secondary literature, additional documents and published interviews. The findings indicate that these parties share the common vision of a restored community after a decade of social, economic, and political turmoil. Their message of social harmony was rooted in a decade of partisan politics and multi-party system that enhanced competitive views. 

Under de drygt två hundra år som förflutit sedan det moderna forskningsuniversitetet såg dagens ljus i dåtida Preussen har vetenskap bevisligen gjort världen bättre. Fyra k:n – kunskap, kreativitet, kritikoch kollegialitet – har utgjort nyckeln till denna exempellösa framgång. Akademins framsteg har dock inte vilat på den demokratisk-politiska logik som genomsyrar dagens samhälle, utan på en parallell och alldeles egen verklighet där ett fritt sökande upprätthållits genom att forskare drivits av sitt engagemang och sin nyfikenhet. När denna anda får råda inom vetenskapen blir det också bra för samhället i stort. Men i det projektsamhälle som alltmer tar form och där tiden, resultaten och utvärderingen är centrala, framstår akademins och vetenskapens sätt att fungera som provocerande. Liksom stora delar av den offentliga verksamheten lever i dag akademin under trycket av kortsiktig resultatleverans.Hur kunde det bli så, och vad gör vi åt det?

Denna problematik är temat för Det hotade universitetet, som är redigerad och författad av engagerade forskare, tidigare universitetsrektorer och ämbetsmän som är förskräckta över en utveckling där djup kunskap, vildsint kreativitet, kritiska samtal och kollegialt ansvar kastas på sophögen. Denna utveckling kan inte, och får inte, fortsätta. Då rycker vi undan mattan för mänskliga framsteg och ett civiliserat samhälle. Det är hög tid att försvara de värden som akademin har stått för sedan lång tid tillbaka – inte för att de är traditionella, utan för att de är det modernaste vi har.

In this chapter, I approach the existential aspects of being a refugee and living in exile, those aspects that are not part of the system-world of the state and its policies but the life-world of being. Involuntary emigration as in the case of Estonians and Bosnians that is the focus in this chapter, and the integration that may follow, accentuates fundamental existential questions. Having to leave behind the place where you are rooted causes an existential trauma, a trauma defined as a highly stressful event, a serious threat to one's life or integrity, involving feelings of uncertainty, helplessness and fear. There are many strategies that men and women who have experienced disruption use to create a whole out of the separation that has occurred. Here, I explore how the way that life is remembered and narrated can become a way to mitigate the existential trauma of refugee-ship. I will do so by analysing how individuals in two refugee communities, the Estonian "republican" generation that fled their homeland in 1944, and the Bosnians who left their tormented territory in 1992 and 1993, remember their lives. In the life stories of the Estonian and Bosnian refugees who went through existential traumas it is not only the fact that traumatic events are integrated, but how and by which narrative structure it is done.