This article analyzes the early stage of the Ukrainian “sixtiers” movement as a semi-autonomous space of cultural expression that was tolerated by the authorities and defined, developed, and inhabited by young Ukrainian intellectuals. In contrast to present-day Ukrainian representations of the sixtiers as a force acting in opposition to the Soviet regime, the spatial angle employed here reveals an ambiguous relationship with official institutions. The Ukrainian Komsomol organization in particular appears to be both a controlling and an enabling agent that, together with the Writers' Union, provided meeting venues for the sixtiers until the mid-1960s. This complex symbiotic relationship continued even after some creative youth pioneered the first attempts to claim public space for cultural events without the authorities' permission. The cultural terrain inhabited by young Ukrainian intellectuals was not fully separate from mainstream Soviet Ukrainian culture or in opposition to it, although their vibrant cultural space also reached into a world of non-conformist culture unregulated by the state. A series of government crackdowns beginning in the mid-1960s dramatically shrank this open, ambivalent space of semi-free cultural expression, imposing firm boundaries and forcing intellectuals to make political choices.

Historiography, as a special historical discipline, is defined as a history of historical scholarship reflecting the development of historical thought. In the context of this definition the study of modern Ukrainian historiography is directly related to the analysis of present historiographical trends, historical concepts, the conditions under which the discipline developed, the role of Ukrainian historical research centers in Ukraine and the West, the nature and scope of historical serials, critical evaluations of contributions of individual historians, as well as the study of characteristics of various historical schools. In my opinion, the older definition of historiography as the history of historical writings is too narrow and sometimes results only in critical or enumerative historical bibliography covering writings of individual historians.

After the outbreak of World War II, the Bulgarian government pursued a policy of non-alignment. In the fall of 1940 it rejected plans for a combined Italian-Bulgarian attack against Greece. And when Italy alone invaded Greece, Bulgaria facilitated Greek resistance by her own passivity. When Germany called on Bulgaria to enter the Tripartite Pact and make its territory available for a German attack against Greece, the Bulgarian leadership succeeded in retarding the talks. At the same time, the Soviet Union, Germany's Balkan rival, tried to entice Bulgaria into concluding a pact of mutual assistance by offering the whole of western and eastern Thrace at the expense of both Turkey and Greece. Bulgaria refused, and on 1 March 1941 joined the alliance with Germany in hope of territorial gains. It took this step only when it seemed unavoidable.

It has been said that the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 but the wall around Greece is still standing. It is ironic that, while the governments of Albania, Bulgaria and Rumania have, in recent years, taken measures to safeguard the rights of national minorities, the Greek government continues to stonewall on its own national minorities while fomenting rebellion among those in other countries. Nevertheless, the end of the Cold War has benefited the Macedonian minority in Greece. Greece has lost its paramount strategic importance for the western countries, which are now less likely to cast a blind eye on human rights abuses in that country. Conditions for the Macedonians in Greece have improved somewhat as individual members of the minority have become emboldened to demand their rights in public in recent years. They have attracted the attention of the U.S. State Department, Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch/Helsinki Watch, all the more so due to the heavy-handed attempts by the Greek authorities to silence recalcitrant members of the minority, as described below. The U.S. Department of State (1995: Greece 12) notes that the Greek government “continues to harass and intimidate some of these people.”

We Greek political emigres celebrate the thirtieth historical anniversary of the GDR as our own holiday since we are vitally connected to this state from its first steps onwards. We feel better than any other foreigner the great joy and the pride of the people of the GDR since, from the foundation of its socialist state, we are marching side by side and since then we by way of our small contribution feel as co-constructors of this grand act. The thirtieth anniversary of the GDR coincides with the thirtieth anniversary of our political emigration to this hospitable country. Today we all remember the first years after our arrival and our caring reception in the GDR. (Speech of the day at the central celebration of the Greek political emigres in the GDR devoted to the thirtieth anniversary of the GDR and the thirtieth anniversary of the political emigration, Dresden, 29 September 1979).

The development of post-socialist cities has emerged as a major field of study among critical theorists from across the social sciences. Originally constructed under the dictates of central planners and designed to serve the demands of command economies, post-socialist urban centers currently develop at the nexus of varied and often competing economic, cultural, and political forces. Among these, nationalist aspirations, previously simmering beneath the official rhetoric of communist fraternity and veneer of architectural conformity, have emerged as dominant factors shaping the urban landscape. This article examines patterns, processes, and practices concerning the cultural politics of architecture, urban planning, and identity in the post-socialist city. In addition to assessing the main contours of this burgeoning field of research, this article highlights how this special issue of Nationalities Papers contributes to a broader understanding of contemporary cultural and political change in post-socialist urban settings.

If the destruction of the Berlin Wall came to symbolize freedom in Central Europe, for the republics of the former Soviet Union it was the construction and recognition of new walls in the form of national borders that represented liberation. In the case of Estonia, the end of what was considered illegal Soviet occupation marked a return to the country's republic's rightful place as an independent, European nation. In demographic respects, however, Estonia could not easily escape the legacies of Soviet rule, due in part to the migration of hundreds of thousands of non-ethnic Estonians to the Estonian SSR. Far from completing a clean break with the past, Estonian independence has replaced legal distinctions between nationalities with social and symbolic boundaries between ethnic groups.

Would you like to travel to outer space? Explore like real astronauts the slow, gentle movements characteristic of a weightless environment? The Houston Space Center offers its visitors such a trip through the ISS, the International Space Station. It presents America's space programme by using a simulator to create a compelling environment, complete with 3,000 accurately placed stars that mimic what the real astronauts experience in the ISS.1 You can feel the glory of current-day American scientific progress, the power of the US, the world's number one power.

Yugoslav nationalism like other European nationalist movements is largely the product of the nineteenth century. The peoples of Yugoslavia were separated by cultural differences which seemed minor when compared with those of their occupiers, the Germanic Hapsburgs and the Ottoman Turks. The dream uniting the South Slavic peoples was the achievement of liberation from both foreign overlords. The conditions of the Balkans in the nineteenth century constituted the fertile ground in which the Yugoslav ideal flourished. The Yugoslav ideal became a uniting ideology which enabled all the Slavic peoples to play their role in the quest for liberation.

The role of historical and cultural influences in recent Balkan warfare has been the subject of considerable debate among commentators both within and outside the former Yugoslavia. For example, some observers, who might be considered members of the primordial hatred school, have emphasized the cyclical role of “ancient enmities” and atavistic impulses in the Balkans. In contrast, another group of analysts, who have subscribed to the paradise lost approach, focus on the long periods during which populations of different languages, religions, and other facets of Balkan ethnic identity, managed to peacefully co-exist. This second perspective downplays historical factors and attributes the violence and savagery of recent years to nationalist leaders who whipped up antagonisms to suit their own political agendas.

In this article I analyze the term “Macedonian(s)” based on the discourse of the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (1893–1908) from the aspect of the internal understanding of the term as a supra-local and supra-church identity. Another matter for analysis in this article is that of the stereotypes in the interpretation of Macedonian historical processes inherited from the nineteenth century, still present in some contemporary historiographies. Hence, the article makes an attempt to bring down the stereotype about the existence of some unique Macedonian ethnic phenomenon known as the “Macedonian salad.” This article also deals with the significance of the geopolitical position of Ottoman Macedonia within the empire. More specifically, the emphasis is placed on the change of its position after the Great Eastern Crisis (1875–1881). Namely, for the first time since the Ottoman conquests in the Middle Ages, Macedonia's position within the empire changed from being a central to a peripheral Ottoman province, with all the advantages and disadvantages that this change brought about. This aspect of Macedonian historical reality is often neglected in the historiography.