Identity Studies in the Caucasus and the Black Sea Region

2022-11-08T07:03:26+00:00

Introduction: Experiencing Europe at the Periphery

2022-11-07T07:37:35+00:00

The EU is a civilising experiment that must be praised for successfully overcoming struggles between nation states and projecting peace and stability, even beyond its borders,for more than half a century.The recent blatant,old-style aggression of Russia in Ukraine has once again proved the moral superiority, and the practical importance, of the EU in the positive transformation of states and societies.

Reinventing ‘Europeanness’ as a tool of negotiation

2022-11-07T08:50:35+00:00

The present paper was written prior to the unjustified, unprovoked full- scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This war has re- sulted in an unprecedented acceleration of rapprochement of Georgia to the EU, a unique event that greatly increased the dynamics of relations between the EU and Georgia. But before this one-off condition, the fun- damentals of Georgia-EU entered into stagnation. We will try to analyse the obstacles challenging closer EU-Georgian relations, and will look for a possible way out of the current lassitude. These obstacles existed even before the war in Ukraine, and they continue to exist. This paper presents the external and internal obstacles (from the point of view of Georgia), encompassing both hard and real problems, and the perceived dimensions of hindrances. Real problems are pressure on the single currency, immi- gration, and enlargement fatigue. The perceived problem is the long and subtle transformation of the EU’s image from an object of admiration to one of nihilism and even bitterness.

The paper suggests that lowering the expectations of Georgian society to that of a truly peripheral region will bring more adequate modus operan- di between the two entities, putting Georgia in a more realistic position.

Experiencing the European Union in the South Caucasus and Eastern Europe

2022-11-07T08:52:14+00:00

The Eastern periphery of the European Union is a place Russia calls home, and it is where the EU is present on many levels through the Eastern Partnership. This article aims to contribute to the academic de- bate on European identity and identification with Europe by showing that ‘experiencing Europe’ in the Eastern Partnership countries means experiencing the EU both as a normative and geopolitical actor, but also experiencing the fear of losing the ‘traditional way of life’ and customs. This paper shows that the EU is not perceived in the same way in the different Eastern Partnership states, rather in many nuances of percep- tions by the citizens of those respective countries. These differences do not derive from geographical demarcations of the EaP, i.e. the new Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus, but relate to local circumstances and identities. Based on the theoretical framework and research, the article explains that the EU’s normative power is sometimes channelled by the EU to promote its geopolitical interest in the region. The main research methods used are process tracing, thematic analysis of interviews and questionnaires conducted with young people from several EaP countries, and of surveys conducted by internationally recognised entities. Anoth- er method used is content analysis of the documents issued by Euronest and by the European Commission. By applying these methods, the ar- ticle shows that although the Eastern Partnership countries are under the same umbrella, the citizens within them perceive the EU differently from country to country.

When I say Europe, I mean Catholicism! The perception of Europe in the discourse of Albanian intellectuals after the fall of state socialism

2022-11-07T08:54:35+00:00

The fall of the socialist system in Albania aroused the desire in the vast majority of society to integrate into European structures. In the same pe- riod, many public figures undertook the ‘duty’ to show the Albanian peo- ple the way to European integration. At the same time, they began to de- scribe which elements of the country’s culture were European and which were not. From these descriptions, it can be concluded what their percep- tion of Europe and European identity was. In this paper, we will try to analyse the discourse on the image of Europe in the writings of Albanian intellectuals, making a critique of their ahistorical approach when defin- ing the idea of Europe and European identity.

Communicating European Values through Ukrainian Popular Culture: Case Study of the Jean Monnet European Values in Literary Arts Module

2022-11-07T08:56:32+00:00

The social impact of popular culture has been widely recognised and re- flected upon in the culture studies discourse. Traditionally regarded as im- manently conservative, artistically superficial, and inferior to the “high”, “elitist” or official types of culture, popular culture provides valuable in- sights into the cultural climate of the age, not only signalling the im- portant cultural shifts and transformations taking place in society, but also shaping the audience’s preferences, behaviour and values sets. For Ukraine, as a country painfully rebuilding its national identity through long-lasting resistance to Russian colonisation, and at the same time pav- ing its way towards the European political, economic, and cultural area, the matter of conceptualisation and development of pro-European cul- tural policies has become subject of ongoing public and expert discussions outlining the Ukrainian culture industry’s mission as a European values communicator. However, the industry’s actual response to this challenge remains largely unexplored. This study, aimed at investigating the exist- ing axiological climate as revealed through the popular culture products generated for and consumed by the Ukrainian audience, sums up the re- sults of 10 student research projects developed under the Erasmus+ Jean Monnet European Values in Literary Arts module implemented at Za- porizhzhya National University throughout 2018-2021. Encompassing a variety of movies and TV series produced in Ukraine within the last five years, the study attempts to reconstruct the axiological messages the products under consideration deliver to their recipients through visual and verbal codes, character concepts, inner hierarchies, core binary oppo- sitions, conflict setting, building and resolution, etc.

Identity Studies in the Caucasus and the Black Sea Region

Table of Contents

Introduction: Experiencing Europe at the Periphery

Reinventing ‘Europeanness’ as a tool of negotiation

Experiencing the European Union in the South Caucasus and Eastern Europe

When I say Europe, I mean Catholicism! The perception of Europe in the discourse of Albanian intellectuals after the fall of state socialism

Communicating European Values through Ukrainian Popular Culture: Case Study of the Jean Monnet European Values in Literary Arts Module