Subversive Festival 2013, 2nd Balkan forum 12-14 May 2013, Zagreb, Croatia Panel: Against capitalism, nesting orientalism, conceptual ghettos and self-imposed colonialism: regional emancipatory projects in the Balkans/West Balkans/Eastern Europe/Central Europe time and place: Saturday, May 12th Hall II, 12:00 – 13:30 panelists: András Szépe (Position Working Group,HU), Dan Cirjan (Central European University, HU), Matija Medenica (Marks21,SE), Raja Apostolova (Social Center Xaspel, BG) organizers: Agnes Gagyi (Position Working Group,HU) & Mariya Ivancheva (Social Center Xaspel, […]
The crisis of the left

(This is the text of the CriticAtac conference delivered in Bucharest, April 18, by Dr. Attila Melegh, senior researcher at Demographic Research Institute in Budapest and associated professor at the Corvinus University) When we look at the East European scene and ask what organized real left we have (not the liberal, cynical opportunistic one) the picture looks […]

Interview with G. M. Tamás Your trajectory has been an unusual one: a dissident libertarian philosopher under Communism in both Romania and Hungary, who has emerged as one of the foremost left critics of the capitalist order in eastern Europe, and author of a striking set of essays on the historical and cultural legacies and contemporary […]
Diary. Peter Pomerantsev
“Two men who defined post-Soviet Russia died within eight days of each other last month, both suddenly and far from home. On 16 March the body of Vladislav Mamyshev was found floating in a swimming pool in Bali. His death was blamed on a heart attack. He was 43. Better known as Vladik Monroe, Mamyshev […]

“Monday, May 4 marks the 30th anniversary of arguably the most significant event in post-war British politics: the coming to power of Margaret Thatcher. The dominant narrative – accepted even by many who consider themselves to be on the left – is that Britain’s economy in the 1970s was in such dire straits that our […]

East versus West is once again a hot topic in Romania. Or rather a superficial repositioning – which doesn’t mean that it has a lesser influence over public agenda setting – in the never-ending battle between Europeanizers (white collars, hard-boiled capitalists, entrepreneurs) and Traditionalists of all denominations (nationalists either of Interbellum persuasion or converted during […]
The Manele and The Underworld
This article deals with the connection between manele and the criminal world in Romania. Although I finished it more than a year ago, I hesitated a long time before publishing it – it seemed that these things, though known, wouldn’t necessarily do justice to my favourite musical genre and would certainly upset those who work […]
How HaHa works?
“The video was originally presented at an event organized by the initiaitve Danes je Nov dan (Slovenian for Today is a new day) on 25 March 2013. Danesjenovdan.si is a newly born platform to collect and discuss ideas and questions effecting numerous people. When a certain problem reaches enough attention, the founders of Danes je […]
A policy of mass destruction
“A new analysis showing how the radical policies advocated by western economists helped to bankrupt Russia and other former Soviet countries after the Cold War has been released by researchers. The study, led by academics at the University of Cambridge, is the first to trace a direct link between the mass privatisation programmes adopted by […]