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LEONIDAS DONSKIS

Publications

I stała się drużyna

I stała się drużyna

July 04, 2014

Pewnego wieczoru, siedząc przy kieliszku wina na wrocławskim Rynku, dyskutowałem z moją przyjaciółką, attaché ds. kultury ambasady litewskiej w Polsce, o polskiej piłce. Rozmawialiśmy, a jakże, w kontekście brazylijskiego mundialu. Nagle dotarło do mnie, że oto równo przed 40 laty rzekomo niepokonana Brazylia przegrała dwa razy - najpierw z Holandią, a potem z Polską. (Continue...)

A wake-up call for Europe

A wake-up call for Europe

July 03, 2014

“We are coming,” says Nigel Farage, the leader of UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party), and co-chair of the Europe of Freedom and Democracy group in the European Parliament. As if to say that this is just his time, Farage comes up with the punch line directed straight to Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament: “Please don’t pretend that nothing has happened. You know perfectly well that it has. And the day is nigh when all your EU institutions will be plain dead.“We are coming.” I am paraphrasing his phrase, yet I can vouch for its credibility and content. So the message is clear – if we are to believe the most theatrical and eloquent political clown I have seen over the past five years that I spent as his fellow member of the European Parliament (2009-2014), that’s the beginning of the end of the EU. Needless to say, the news about the death of the EU is slightly exaggerated. Christian Democrats, Socialists, Liberals, and Greens will outweigh an increasingly visible minority of the far right led by Marine Le Pen and Nigel Farage. When the time comes, conventional and pro-European groups will easily achieve a decisive and crucial majority over pivotal issues of the EU. Yet at one point we willy-nilly have to agree with Nigel Farage. (Read more...)

Letter from Kaunas, Lithuania: Springtime for Putin

Letter from Kaunas, Lithuania: Springtime for Putin

June 09, 2014

Checking out Russian television this spring, especially after switching from BBC News or French TV, I found it difficult to avoid a sense of déjà vu. Every tidbit of information about Ukraine reminded me of the events that followed January 13, 1991, when troops from the Soviet Union killed 13 peaceful civilians in Vilnius, Lithuania. (Continue...)

The springtime of our discontent

The springtime of our discontent

June 04, 2014

The title of this writing is a paraphrase of the title of a famous novel. As we know, The Winter of Our Discontent is the title of John Steinbeck’s last novel, published in 1961. The title is a reference to the first two lines of William Shakespeare’s Richard III: “Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this sun of York.” (Read more...)

The New Fascist International

The New Fascist International

May 17, 2014

In his book of correspondence with the noted French writer Michel Houellebecq, Public Enemies, the French journalist, activist and philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy wrote on present Russia: “Not only does this Russia inspire no desire in me, it fills me with horror. I’d go so far as to say that it frightens me because I see in it a possible destiny for the late-capitalist societies. Once upon a time, during your postwar ‘glory days,’ the middle class was terrorized by being told that Brezhnev’s communism was not an archaism restricted to distant societies but rather a picture of our own future. We were wrong: it was not communism but postcommunism, Putinism, that may be the testing ground for our future.” (Continue...)

The Failed Lingua Franca of Eastern Europe?

The Failed Lingua Franca of Eastern Europe?

May 05, 2014

The Russian language may have failed as an imperial project of becoming a lingua franca in Eastern Europe, but many brilliant minds of the region are inextricably linked to the language. Today, Russian is increasingly seen as a tool of political domination over the former republics of the Soviet Union. (Continue...)

The Curse of the Worn-Out Vocabulary

The Curse of the Worn-Out Vocabulary

March 10, 2014

Over the past days and weeks, on a quick look at Russian TV channels (I have one even in my hotel at Strasbourg not to relax from the disturbing complexities of our life in the EU and in the vicinity – especially after comparison of Russian TV with BBC News or French TV) it was difficult to get rid of a déjà vu feeling. Every piece of information about Ukraine there is strikingly and frighteningly similar to what I had long been listening immediately after 13 January 1991 when the Soviet troops killed fourteen peaceful civilians in Vilnius. (Continue...)

The fate of the Russian language

The fate of the Russian language

March 05, 2014

Jokes are not terribly kind to the Russian language and its political reputation. One of them, for instance, deals with anticipations of the emergence of a new global lingua franca as the outcome of the rise of the economic and political power of a respective nation. (Read more...)

Too Little and Too Late

Too Little and Too Late

January 30, 2014

This is exactly what comes to my mind trying to assess EU policies vis-à-vis Ukraine and Viktor Yanukovych. What happened in Ukraine? That’s obvious: Ukraine and the EuroMaidan are hardly anything less than a Deus ex machina manifestation of pro-European passion and faith. This is more than a timely emergence of such a sentiment, as the EU expects and fears – and rightly so – the European Parliament to be elected in May 2014 that is highly likely to be richly represented by far Right and Euroskeptics. (Continue...)

The decline of journalism

The decline of journalism

January 08, 2014

I believe that there is no reason to insist on the crucial importance of journalism for politics. We can hardly expect a miracle of sound and reasonable politics to happen where the decline of analytic and investigative journalism takes place. The political class has ceased being the outcome of education and upbringing nowadays; instead, the logic of mass democracy and mass education imposes on us the unquestionable primacy of the swiftly shaped public opinion which no public figure can escape. (Read more...)

What Happened to Ukraine?

What Happened to Ukraine?

December 19, 2013

What happened to Ukraine? Nothing that might have come as a shock. Russia applied a classical strategy, yet we would hardly know whether the sticks dominated over the carrots, or the other way around. To put it simply, this would be the question as to whether the Kremlin promised to ruin Ukraine’s economy – provided the Verkhovna Rada should have decided to pass all the necessary pieces of legislation needed to send a message to the EU and to Germany in particular that Ukraine qualified for the club the Vilnius Summit would be much of a formality, or whether it pledged its old allegiances to Viktor Yanukovych reassuring him that he remains the only choice of Russia’s political elite or, to be more precise, of its power structure - the siloviki or law enforcers. (Continue...)

Bidding Farewell to Russia

Bidding Farewell to Russia

November 01, 2013

Ukraine will remain a friend to a democratic Russia in the future. Now, Ukraine and Russia are bound to bid farewell to one another. (Continue...)

On the eve of the Vilnius Summit

On the eve of the Vilnius Summit

October 31, 2013

The third Eastern Partnership Summit will take place on November 28-29 in Vilnius. It can change the political landscape of Europe dramatically. If we succeed in signing the Association Agreement between the EU and Ukraine, the Vilnius Summit will have crucial political, and even civilizational, implications for decades to come. (Read more...)

Appropriating Moral Authority

Appropriating Moral Authority

October 10, 2013

It was more than once that I felt astonished by and ashamed of some of my colleagues’ choices for the Sakharov Prize, the supreme award of the European Parliament for human rights defenders and activists.(Continue...)

The Tragedy of Syria: Three Lessons We Have to Draw

The Tragedy of Syria: Three Lessons We Have to Draw

October 07, 2013

What is happening in Syria is already a humanitarian catastrophe: millions of refugees, the toll of dead reaching more than one hundred thousand people, and most cynical use of the weapons of mass destruction by Bashar al-Assad’s regime against civilians, everything being likely to go with impunity ending up in what al-Assad overtly considers a cosmetic attack from the USA. (Tęsti..)

How We Lost Armenia

How We Lost Armenia

September 20, 2013

What happened recently to Armenia was nothing more or less than a slap in the face of the EU. Russia proved once again a master of political intrigue making and geopolitical manipulations by making Armenia surrender in the game over strategic partnership for the future. It dealt a blow to the EU`s entire Eastern Partnership Program. (Continue...)

How memory prevails

How memory prevails

August 31, 2013

The Polish-British sociologist Zygmunt Bauman has developed the theory of the adiaphorization of consciousness. He says that during times of upheaval and at critical historical junctures or intense social change, people lose some of their sensitivity and refuse to apply an ethical perspective to other people. (Read more...)

I Can, Therefore I Must

I Can, Therefore I Must

July 30, 2013

As Zygmunt Bauman noted, classical politics has always been related to the conversion of private problems into public issues (at the same time, internalizing public issues and turning them into private or even existential problems). Today this political mechanism has clearly been taken apart. Thus, what we in our postmodern politics treat as public issues, most often are the private issues of public figures. (Continue...)

Vladimir Putin’s failure

Vladimir Putin’s failure

June 26, 2013

In 1975, Andrei Sakharov delivering his Nobel Peace Prize Address in Oslo mentioned 118 political prisoners in the authoritarian Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev. The number may have been diminished due to rather limited data that Sakharov had at hand, yet it reflected the character of the violent and reactionary state which was trying hard to pass for a rival civilization and a model of democracy in the Cold War era. (Read more...)

The Legacy of George Orwell

The Legacy of George Orwell

June 26, 2013

On 25 June 2013, George Orwell (1903–1950) would turn 110. He appears to have been the real prophet of totalitarianism, and far and away the most insightful writer in the West who got the very essence of the tragedy of Eastern Europe. (Continue...)



LEONIDO DONSKIO KADENCIJA EUROPOS PARLAMENTE
(2009-2014)