Sexual violence as a Russian weapon of war: exceptional brutality and widespread use as means of terrorising the Ukrainian population. Also: ambivalent attitudes to home among Ukrainian refugees; and women’s voices on the reconstruction debate.
German–Polish relations in focus: how PiS instrumentalises reparations in the run-up to the Sejm elections; and why the post-war asymmetry between the countries serves the interests of Poland’s nationalists.
What the war in Ukraine has taught us about solidarity; why European democrats must insist on fair play; and Moldovan democracy under hybrid attack.
An earthquake preceded Erdoğan’s rise and another may have inaugurated his fall. In its January issue, Varlık reflects on perspectives for the Turkish left before the scheduled elections: how can the Labour and Freedom Alliance overcome historical dislocation and appeal to a socially conservative electorate?
What it means to be a good ancestor; why intelligence is more-than-human; and how the Huxleys combined agnosticism with transcendence.
On the documentary poetry of Jonas Mekas; multi-voiced personalism as literary genre; and the history of the Fens as ecological morality tale.
How Germany is leading the way on the restitution of the Benin Bronzes; why nation state parochialism prevails over a European fourth estate; and how radical climate activism is bringing out the worst in Cold War conservatives.
Why organised labour in Estonia is weaker than almost anywhere in Europe; how the gig economy could be made to work for labour; and what familiarity with everyday tools tells us about our plastic fork culture.
Better late than never: decolonising Ukrainian academia. Also: the WWII diaries of literary critic Viktoriya Kolosova; placenames and language politics; and poetry on Jewish-Ukrainian legacies.
Czech-Slovak reflections on the 30th anniversary of the breakup: why the partnership was unequal from the start; whether it was all the fault of Mečiar and Klaus; and why the Czechs really aren’t the more civilized.
How the British royal family seals the archives to preserve the myth of constitutional impartiality – and why the truth will out, if not in the courts then the Commonwealth.
Featuring an interview with ambient pioneer Suzanne Ciani; the origins and meaning of ‘deep listening’; deconstructing the concert hall; and contemporary opera from Ukraine.
Why the West worries more about cancel culture than cultural annihilation; what orientalism means to eastern Europeans; and how Polish children’s literature is changing with the troubled times.
How accommodating Ukrainian refugees is a way for Romanian property-owners to make a quick buck; on the life of Baron Francz Nopcsa, the Indiana Jones of the Balkans; and short films portraying Romanian society from the edges.
Photos of Kherson’s emergence from occupation; visiting one of Ukraine’s ‘hubs of unbreakable-ness’; Aleksander Wienerberger’s images of the Holodomor; and exhibiting artefacts of the invasion.
On the causes and remedies for the dramatic rise in inequality in post-pandemic Italy: including the gender pay gap, lack of pre-school provision in the South, and an education system that is failing the worse-off.