ANALYSES
GEORGE DURA
The EU’s Limited Response to Belarus’ Pseudo ’New Foreign Policy’
ESSAYS
RASHED CHOWDHURY
Barack Obama and New American Dream
CRITICISM
UŁADZIMIER MACKIEVIČ
The education reform:
an Apparatchik’s Game and Profanation of Knowledge
DEBATE
IHAR MARZALUK
Symptoms of the «Desirable History»
ALEŚ SMALANČUK
A Debate about the Origins Against the Background
of «Ideological Revolution»
VASIL AŬRAMIENKA
The New Boundaries: Whose Doing is This?
HISTORY
ANDREJ VAŠKIEVIČ, ANDREJ ČARNIAKIEVIČ
March 25th: Origins of the National Holiday
MICHAEL E. URBAN
An Algebra of Soviet Power.
Elite Circulation in the Belorussian Republic 1966—1986
REVIEWS
ANDREJ MIRAŠNIČENKA
Going the Way of Instrumental Mind Again
GEDIMINAS LANKAUSKAS
The Baltic States As Historical Stage for Colonialism?
In his «The EU’s Limited Response to Belarus’ Pseudo ‘New Foreign Policy’» PhD Candidate in Political Science at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium George Dura, a Research Assistant at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels, scrutinizes the history of relationships between the Republic of Belarus and the EU following the oil and gas crisis in winter 2006—2007 which resulted in worsening Russia-Belarus relations and freezing the formation of the so called «union state». Such a situation prompted the Belarusian authorities to use pro-European rhetoric and forced them to seek chances of limited power engineering and economic partnership. Unfortunately the potential of rapprochement can not be fully used due to the fears held by the Belarusian regime regarding long-term stability of the regime itself, the deficit in coordination within the EU political structures and hegemonic ambitions of the neo-imperial Russia.
PhD Candidate in Institute of Islamic Studies of McGill University Rashed Chowdhury (Montreal, Quebec) in his «Barack Obama and New American Dream» sheds new light on the phenomenon of one of most popular American politicians Barack Obama, using as the starting point his book «Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance» (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2004).
Education expert Uładzimier Mackievič in his «The education reform: an Apparatchik’s Game and Profanation of Knowledge» criticizes the ideas, expressed in article by first deputy of the Lukashenka Administration head Anatol Rubinaŭ in biggest Belarusian newspaper «Sovyetskaya Byelorussiya», as incompetent and anachronistic.
The genesis of Belarusian nationalism is debated by Mahiloŭ State University professor Ihar Marzaluk and EHU professor and director of the program «The History of Belarus and Cultural Anthropology» Aleś Smalančuk.
Vasil Aŭramienka in his «The New Boundaries» continues the dispute in the issue of suicide and euthanasia started in the previous ARCHE.
The historians from Horadnia Andrej Vaškievič and Andrej Čarniakievič trace the way that March 25th, the day of proclamation of Belarusian People’s Republic (BPR), came to be the national holiday of Belarusians in the interwar Poland.
The «Reviews» rubric includes the judgments by Belarusian State University professor of the department of philosophy and methodology Andrej Mirašničenka about Uładzimier Mackievič’s book «About Education. Polemic Sketches» (Об образовании. Полемические этюды. Минск: Издатель Змицер Колас, 2008. — 289 с.), and the opinions of Regina University professor Gediminas Lankauskas about the monograph «Baltic Postcolonialism» (On the Boundary of Two Worlds: Identity, Freedom, and Moral Imagination in the Baltics, Vol. 6. // Violeta Kelertas (ed.). Amsterdam and New York, Rodopi, 2006. 464 pp.).
