Though François Fejtő throughout his long life kept his eye on central and eastern Europe, both in his largely anonymous professional work as a regional specialist for Agence France Presse and in his more pointed essays for various literary-political reviews,…
The Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24th of last year was at once shocking and epoch-making. Shocking in that here we had a permanent member of the Security Council infringing the basic provisions of the UN Charter and also the core provisions of the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, which set out the agreed…
Much has been written deploring the phenomenon often known as the culture wars that plays out on social media and in politics in countries where free speech and democratic choices are allowed. Such conflicts do not find the same expression in places where people are denied free speech or voting rights and where dissidents can…
To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. – Cicero The late twentieth century saw the fall of both Homo Sovieticus in Russia and, a little less noticed in the wider world, Homo Catholicus in Ireland. Autocratic nationalism replaced the former, forms of liberalism the latter….
Fighting for decent salaries and conditions for low-paid civil servants
The unconsidered perils of the nationalist rush to Irish unity
Blueprints for the path to a successful referendum and a united Ireland
The complex lessons of the Northern Ireland population census
Maths, microeconomics and ‘losing sight of the bigger picture’
The stubborn obstacles that stand in the way of a unitary state in Ireland