Although the world has been changing and a lot of positive transformations have happened that the avant-garde artists would have eagerly approved of, the basic coordinates of our socio-political reality remain the same as they were 100 years ago. They are still determined by a combination of the capitalist economy and parliamentary representation with liberal…

All my titles have sparked strong controversies, and only after some time did I understand what was going on: I am not Czech enough - says the writer Radka Denemarková. Anna Maślanka, Lukasz Grzesiczak: You have always travelled a lot, taken advantage of writer’s residencies and journeyed all over the world to literary events. How…

Shortly after the fall of Yanukovych’s regime in late February 2014, I got a call from a Czech journalist asking for a brief comment. Her first question was fully in line with the Russian coverage of the events: “Was it a revolution in Kyiv or a coup d’etat?” I lost my nerves and responded in…

Twilight of Democracy: The Failure of Politics and the Parting of Friends, Anne Applebaum, Allen Lane 206 pp In the 2007 film “No Country for Old Men”, Javier Bardem plays a nihilistic psychopath named Anton Chigurh. In a key scene, Chigurh points a shotgun at a character named Carson Wells, played by Woody Harrelson. Wells was hired…

It was a fortunate coincidence that the first Andrzej Sapkowski stories were published when Communism finally collapsed. We discovered that you might be the master in some skill, but this does not necessarily mean you will be paid for your job.  Geralt of Rivia, the witcher, has become a global pop-cultural icon. That’s obvious. His…

The row between Turkey and its neighbors has drawn in other powerful states. While all EU member states have sided with Cyprus, there are those who believe that Turkey is too important to alienate. Germany is most prominent within this group. Turkey’s relationship with the EU has never been problem-free. From Ankara’s frustrated accession bid…

Why economic data are much better than human data in Visegrad countries? Sustainability is a very relevant question at this time of rapid, unpredictable changes which characterize our present international environment. Despite this fact, all the EU countries are talking about returning to growth rates before the pandemic. In order to achieve this goal, a…

“Lukashenko saw the development of the Belarusian national identity as a threat to his power. He was very slow to grasp that a politics of memory enriched with nationalist elements would strengthen rather than weaken his power,” says Wojciech Konończuk in an interview with Zbigniew Rokita. ZBIGNIEW ROKITA: In your latest work published by the…

Having prided themselves on being the coronavirus champs in the spring, the Visegrad countries have ended up amongst the losers in the fall. This historically accurate episode will go down as one of the weirdest in history. At the end of August, when Miloš Vystrčil, chairman of the Czech Senate, set out for Taiwan, his…

We've known that pandemics are possible. We've known that climate change is threatening all of us and that there are ecosystems on the verge of destruction. There's enough blame to go around, says leading futurist and OneShared.World founder Jamie Metzl in an interview with Jakub Dymek. Jakub Dymek: If we were to play the blame…

Americans should focus more on the EU, which has become a regulatory superpower, says Ian Bremmer in an interview with Tomáš Klvaňa. Klvaňa: When looking at US presidential elections, is the glass half-full or half-empty? Bremmer: Biden won by over six million votes. That’s significant but if you look at the swing states, I can…

The Law and Justice Party (PiS) in Poland is the Alamo of Trumpism, says Radosław Sikorski in an interview with Tomáš Klvaňa. Klvaňa: What is your reading of the result of the US presidential election and what might be the future of European-American relations? Sikorski: On European terms, with proportional and equal vote, Joe Biden’s…

“Unfortunately, it is clear that Poland and Hungary are gradually moving away from the rule of law and liberal democracy. We cannot turn a blind eye to this and remain silent,” believes Czech politician Markéta Pekarová Adamová, leader of TOP 09 since 2019. Łukasz Grzesiczak: In an interview for Denik.cz, you were asked about your…

Many still tend to think that it is unusual for a woman to be the leader of a country. In Central Europe, we find it a surprise that female politicians can win elections; the perceived hurdle - reflected in the omnipresent trials of day-to-day life - seems to be insurmountable until it is achieved.  We…

“President Čaputová has become a lonely liberal island in the middle of a conservative revolution. It soon turned out that this ‘regime change’ was hardly any change at all,” argues the Slovak writer Michal Hvorecký. Łukasz Grzesiczak: Zuzana Čaputová has been the Slovak President for a year and a half. How do you think she…

It is not unusual for women to make revolutions. In these past upheavals, however, women often became marginalized and erased from the collective memory while the revolutions were turned against them. The Polish Revolution of October 2020 is different. On 22 October 2020, the Constitutional Tribunal in Poland announced a near-total ban on abortion. This…

The way in which the women’s protests in Poland unfolded display a great deal of similarity with the Belarusian events. In both cases, the marches and demonstrations had women at the forefront and no obvious political leadership.  Populist political regimes across post-socialist countries demonstrate a surprisingly similar attitude towards women reflected in their patronizing rhetoric…

In the 1980s, two nice young Italian women came to Prague. They brought with them a women’s proclamation, which demanded many good things: respect for human rights, disarmament and so on. They collected signatures from women on both sides of the Iron Curtain. In Prague, however, they came up against unexpected resistance.  Almost all the…