Contents Małgorzata Budyta-Budzyńska,..Political
Institutionalization of Political Minorities in Poalnd After 1989
International Relations
Łukasz Warzecha,..War
in Kosovo - a View of an Skeptic. Why the West has given up the Equal Distance
Approach?
Paulina and Rafał Matera,..Transatlantic Relations in the Peak of the Cold War (1945-1958) Ryszard Żelichowski,..Polish-Dutch Relations During the Cold War. Seen from The Hague Wiesława Niegodzisz,..Multinational
Agreement on Investment or Multilateral Pact on Investments. An Attempt
at Analysis
Contemporary History Leonid Luks,..The
End of the Tsar and Russian Empire. The Causes and Impacts of the Fall
of Two Russian Statehoods
Dominik Pick,.."Private-business" in the Communist Poland in 1945-1971 Political institutions Małgorzata Budyta-Budzyńska,..Political Institutionalization of Political Minorities in Poalnd After 1989 The article compares minority laws recently introduced in Poland with
those existing in other countries in Europe and with international regulations
in that respect. The author addresses the questions how much the Polish
regulations reflect the spirit of the time and of the region and to what
extend they are related to the other elements of the existing in Poland
political system, as well as the historical and cultural environment. In
July 2000 Poland in by the means of bilateral treaties ratified Framework
Convention with all her neighbors. In the treaties are comprised articles
protecting rights of minorities in the sphere of education, the state radio
and television programs, in the electoral law. Although such a state of
affairs is provisional, in the author’s opinion it is the first step in
right direction. How difficult problem it is for the Polish authorities,
it is worth to mention example of personal engagement and support of
Jacek Kuroń, legendary co-founder of "Solidarrno¶ć" Trade Union, many year
president of Parliamentary Commission for National and Ethnic Minorities,
who has not been strong enough to convince the Polish Parliament to pass
the general law regulating institutional rights of minorities in Poland.
Now, when Kuroń has left the political scene, and the state finance battles
with the budget deficit, the new legislation in that field does not seem
to be the governmental priority.
Jerzy J. Smolicz,..Belarusian as an Endangered Language: Can the Mother Tongue of an Independent State be Made to Die? While decline and/or extinction threaten an ever-increasing number of
languages, most of these are minority tongues that struggle for survival
against dominant languages. The present paper reports the case of
Belarusian, a national and co-official language, which the great majority
of the population of Belarus considers as its mother tongue, but which
has became endangered due to sustained official policies discriminating
against it, and the general apathy of the population. The paper places
this complex and puzzling situation in the historical context of people
long accustomed to changing cultural and linguistic elites, with a succession
of rulers that paid little regard to the wishes or needs of the majority
of the country’s inhabitants. Recent data are presented showing the rapid
decline in the teaching of Belarusian language in schools and other public
domains and the use of mixed dialects as the prevailing mode of communication,
shifting through a Belarusian-Russian mix (trasianka) to Russian. The efforts
of a small national linguistic elite to sustain the use of standard Belarusian
is examined against the concept of language as a core value of culture
and Fishman’s framework for reversing language shift, in order to evaluate
the prospects of maintaining Belarusian as an integral part of the linguistic
heritage of Europe.
Krystyna Trembicka,..Round-Table in Poland – Myths and Stereotypes June elections of 1989 brought to power the first non-communist Prime
Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki. It turned out that the political aspiration
of the Polish society were far more reaching than the final documents of
the "round-table" could anticipate. Regulations concerning political system
have survived only several months and the then established political pattern
has collapsed with new presidential elections and defeat of general Jaruzelski.
Among many postulates, which were the subject of fierce battle among the
participants of the round-table, only two have been realized. The new government
has introduced full market economy and salary indexation.
Joanna Dzwończyk,..Analysis of Presidential Election in Poland from the Electoral Marketing Perspective The last presidential campaign has shown relatively high degree of electoral
marketing. More then ever "person-oriented" elections have given the political
actors opportunity to use wide range of marketing techniques. Campaign
2000 was much more professional then the previous ones. It became obvious
that the marketing in politics cannot be avoided. There is a chance that
in a long-lasting and probably costly process (in terms of psychological
costs) the new regulations will be worked out. The regulations and rules,
which will force the politicians to raise their qualities to a standard
level both in professional and moral dimension. Polish society in turn
will learn how to react to any wrongdoings of the political elites. When
these conditions are fulfilled, the political marketing will be more an
instrument to increase interests of the society in politics and will reduce
the smoke protection in order to fool the electorate.
Artur Wołek,..Lustration as a Struggle for a New Rules of Politics and a Legitimacy Enhancement in the New Democracies Lustration in Poland and the Czech Republic is often interpreted exclusively
as a dealing with the memories of the past issues (Vergangenheitbewältigung)
or a transitory (backward-looking) justice instance. This approach makes
unintelligible the endurance of lustration in already consolidated democracies
of Central Europe. The article suggest that it is easier to understand
if read as an instrument of the change of politics rules. Lustration is
an attempt to change informal communist rules of secrecy and nomenklatura
privileges, which survived the fall of communism. As such lustration aims
to overcome a legitimacy crisis inescapable in the situation of evolutionary
political regime change.
International relations Łukasz Warzecha,..War in Kosovo – a View of an Skeptic. Why the West has given up the Equal Distance Approach? In 1998 and 1999 the NATO had a limited strategic choice: to inform
about the conflict in Kosovo that it is not in the sphere of its interests
and it is an internal problem of Yugoslavia, which can be a subject to
international CSCE and UN, or get involved in the conflict. It has picked
the latter. The operation called "Allied Force" lasted 78 days and has
been a military blitz. According to the author, the fundamental question
in that conflict however was not who is right but what is the purpose of
intervention? What are our interests, which solutions are the best? What
are the potential gains and loses? In author’s opinion the Kosovo
conflict shows a gradual departing from the equal-distance or balance of
power to one-side support. His theses are comprised in three chapters "Shaken
balance", "War from a sky" and "Pyrrhic victory". Among many often forgotten
elements, which have influenced the NATO decisions, was the activity of
Kosovian of Albanian decent, which drags the West into the war in their
cause. In the conclusion author encourage the reader to draw conclusions
from that conflict in order to avoid such situations in future.
Paulina and Rafał Matera,..Transatlantic Relations in the Peak of the Cold War (1945-1958) The Second World War has brought fundamental changes to the structure
of world political powers and in sphere of influences. The "ani-Nazi"coalition
was led through the "Big Three", United States of America, which joined
gave up in 1941 her isolation doctrine, Soviet Union, totalitarian state,
and Great Britain, the representative of the democratic traditions of old
Europe. With the approaching end of the military struggle with the Nazis
one could notice different opinions of the Big Three concerning the future
of the world order. In author’s opinion the most important issues,
which created the post-war political order in Europe were: future of Germany
after the war, relations with Central and Eastern Europe and relations
with Soviet Union.
Ryszard Żelichowski,..Polish-Dutch Relations During the Cold War. Seen from The Hague The Polish-Dutch relations have been shaped by the course of the international
politics in Europe. After a period of rebuilding of the diplomatic structure
in The Hague came a period of organization of permanent diplomatic services.
The services were aimed not only at relations between the two respective
governments but in a great deal at the thousands of Poles which lived here
before the war or stayed in Holland with the 1st Armored Division of general
Stanisław Maczek when the war was over. The relations between official
representatives of People’s Republic of Poland and Poles were bad. The
Cold War had victims on all fronts. Poles were afraid to return to communist
Poland and had to decide to pick the land to begin the new life in. Some
of them immigrated to the U.S., some went to Australia, Brazil, France
and Germany to work in the coalmines. The official reports from the Polish
embassy in The Hague show the feeling of isolation not only from the Polish
emigrants but also from the Dutch political elites. The low-key relations,
which fluctuated as the political atmosphere in Europe, were eased and
normalized in 1971, with the new liberal communist leaders in Poland and
official visit of J.M. Luns in Warsaw, the Dutch minister of International
Affairs. The new era in Polish-Dutch relation has ended in December 1981.
Politics and economy Wiesława Niegodzisz,..Multinational Agreement on Investment or Multilateral Pact on Investments. An Attempt at Analysis Since 1991 the Committee on International Investment and Multinational
Enterprises – CIME and Committee on Capital Movements and Invisible Transactions
– CMIT work on joint project of multilateral pact concerning investments.
Multinational Agreement on Investment (MAI ) is considered to be
a new quality in international treaties.
Contemporary history Leonid Luks,..The End of the Tsar and Russian Empire. The Causes and Impacts of the Fall of Two Russian Statehoods The author starts with conclusion that the 20th century Russia witnessed
two major breakdowns of political doctrines, which legitimated the then
existing regimes. One was the tsarist and the other the communist Russia.
Drawing historical comparisons, the author makes an attempt at understanding
the Russian objectives, which led to revolutionary changes in the political
and social system of Russia.
Dominik Pick,.."Private-business" in the Communist Poland in 1945-1971 The work presented concerns Polish communist government policy towards private businesses (prywatna inicjatywa) between 1944 and 1971. The obvious lack of acceptance for private ownership during the period spanning form the end of the Second World War to the beginning of Gierek's time, almost eliminated privately owned firms in Poland. As there was no clear and consistent policy towards ownership, both businessmen and their employees were left confused - subjects of an ongoing ideological conflict between the so-called "repressive" and "rational" policies. Supporters of the "repressive" camp claimed that privately owned companies should be eliminated completely, being entirely superfluous to the functioning of the socialist economy, while the "rationalists" argued that companies were necessary as long as communism was still "under construction" and would be phased out in due course. Unfortunately, the "repressive" idea dominated most of the period in question; there were only brief moments of weakness called "green lights for private owners". These "green-light" periods almost always appeared during economic and political downtimes and were used by the communists to appease the society and calm manifestations of social disturbance. As a result of these short periods of relative freedom, whatever the motivation, private trade and production (mostly hand-made articles) was never totally eliminated, but was, of course, greatly reduced. This paper discusses the role of privately owned firms in the supply of scarce goods and services, as well as the role of socialist propaganda in creating a negative image for private company owners – prywaciarze.
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