It happens overnight. Evil strikes suddenly. Like the kiss of death, it comes in many faces – as a promise of the restoration of the sense of pride, certainty, safety and security. It may come in the guise of pursuit of happiness. It may walk disguised as a romantic patriotism. As we have seen, it may assume the facet of an industrial faith in rationality and in the future of humanity. (Read more...)

Bon ton for every fan is to rise and give his or her respect to the defeated team as if to say that they love and respect their team not only when it wins. Loyalty and fidelity is not about success; nor is it about reward. (Read more...)

In May 2012, the Lithuanian government organized and supported the solemn reburial of Juozas Ambrazevicius-Brazaitis, prime minister of the Provisional Government (PG) of Lithuania. This short-lived cabinet restored Lithuania’s independence in 1941, yet it did not last long, although Ambrazevicius and his colleagues did their utmost to please Nazi Germany. The cabinet itself was the outcome of the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF), which voiced an anti-semitic agenda on the very first day of the June 1941 Uprising and which envisaged Lithuania as a Jew-free country. (Read more...)

Politics becomes impossible without a good story in the form of a convincing plot or an inspiring vision. The same applies to good literature. When we fail a method in our scholarship, or when a method fails us, we switch to a story – this sounds much in tune with Umberto Eco. Where scholarly language fails, fiction comes as a way out of the predicament with an interpretation of the world around us. (Read more...)

In his reflections on Central Europe and Kundera, George Schopflin, a British political theorist of Hungarian background who acts as a member of the European Parliament on behalf of Hungary, aptly described the phenomenon which he termed the discursive handicap of Central Europe and the disparity of linguistic and cultural voices of West and Central Europe. This creates an obvious asymmetry of power and prestige when it comes to the use of languages, discursive strategies, and interpretations. This is more than true with regard to identity politics and educational strategy. (Read more...)

The question whether modern politics, the way it has existed for centuries, will survive the 21st century is no joke nowadays. The Manichaeism of the left and the right, which, in Milan Kundera’s words, “is as stupid as it is insurmountable,” and which is deeply grounded in Western Europe and North America, is much more than partisan politics. Had it been that way, it would have been quite safe to assume that no other way can be offered to deal with polarities and opposing visions of human existence than democratic politics with its ethics of rational compromise without losing one’s core principles, dignity and identity. (Read more...)

The title of my commentary hardly accounts for anything other than sheer rhetoric. Does Ukraine need the EU? Of course it does — simple as that. The next question, then, would be whether – and if yes, to what extent – the EU needs Ukraine. Quite frankly, the EU needs Ukraine now more than ever. (Read more...)