No longer working for the state: residual state sector versus private sector

The paper is concerned with decreasing state ownership in post-communist Eastern Europe and a concomitant decline in the proportion employed in the state sector. Many individuals have shifted into private sector employment, self-employment or unemployment. The literature on sectoral shifts in employment in Eastern Europe is summarised, and from this it is argued that there will be a growing differentiation between private sector employees and state sector employees in economic, social and political terms. Data is then analysed based on a survey in 1995 of around 1000 households in each of four cities – Budapest, Prague, Warsaw and Krakow. Similar patterns emerged in the four cities. Consistent differences in working conditions and rewards are already evident between the self-employed, private sector and state sector. These conflicting economic interests are reflected in contrasting attitudes to the economy and polity amongst those employed in different sectors. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Heretical geopolitics of Central Europe. Dissidents intellectuals and an alternative European order

This paper analyses the emergence, spread and demise of a coherent program of radical geopolitical revision developed in East European dissident circles in the 1980s. Its foundation was the insistence on the need to completely overthrow the post-Yalta, bipolar division of Europe, combined with an emphasis on the priority of human rights in political and peace issues, as well as the belief in the value of the CSCE process. It was also marked by explicit consent for the reunification of Germany as well as the insistence on the need for a democratic Russia to be part of a wider European setup. Through seminal documents, such as the Prague Appeal of 1985 intellectuals, like Jaroslav Šabata, as well as his Czechoslovak, Polish and Hungarian counterparts, were able to convince large parts of the western peace movement and some political circles to adopt the “heretic” perspective. The paper also shows how a seemingly “cultural” discourse of Central Europe, put forth by intellectuals and artists can, together with the “Yalta debate” of the mid-1980s, be read as a specific (critical) geopolitical project. Finally, the post-communist foreign policies of the dissident-led governments are investigated in an attempt to explain the partial demise of “heretical geopolitics”.     

Croatia and Central Europe — the geopolitical relationship

The position of Croatia on the border of larger geographic wholes (Central Europe, the Mediterranean, the Balkans) makes it a transitional region for these larger areas. However, the Pannonian region of Croatia, as the largest part of its national territory, places it in the ranks of the Central European states. The long historical ties of the Croatian lands with the Austrian and Hungarian centers of Central European power also confirm Croatia's affiliation with Central Europe. The cultural, civilization, religious and other characteristics, which today ease Croatia's communications with Central European countries, are unavoidable. With state independence, Croatia acquired the political sovereignty vital for its Central European orientation and was liberated from the problems of the Balkans, although it is still struggling for its territorial integrity. Croatian statehood was realized soon after the reunification of Germany, which in fact renewed the concept and content of Central Europe. This fact opened many questions tied to the rivalry and political balance of the European powers, which is also connected to the geopolitical position of Croatia.     

Choosing a site for the capital of Europe

The European Union has achieved internal cohesion and international economic recognition, but economics alone has not yet led to a united Europe. Although this cohesiveness strongly influence regions and cities, and cities have started to refer to their European background, the member nations continue to hold regional and urban planning power. Forced to take unanimous decisions, the European Council of Ministers maintained the doctrine of a unique capital for 40 years, provoking numerous urban and architectural visions while simultaneously accepting the existence of three provisional headquarters, Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg. The host nations, Belgium, France and Luxembourg meanwhile oriented these cities to both European economic considerations and local needs.This article analyzes the logic that led to decentralization of the capital city functions, the reasons why cities were interested in hosting the European Communities, what individual cities and nations suggested and why the most obvious solutions were not adopted. The Maastricht Treaty, the ongoing strengthening of European and regional institutions, and the choice of the provisional headquarters as definite capitals in 1992 gives cause for hope that concepts based on European and regional necessities beyond the nation-state will now be elaborated. A European network of cities and regions including the three political capitals of Europe, as revealed by their infrastructures and buildings, seems to be the best expression of the meaning of European unity.     

The regional differentiation of the Hungarian economy in transition

After 1989, the East Central European countries had to face three major challenges: stabilization and modernization of their economies and the transition to a market economy. Hungary, partly because of the early liberalization of the command economic regime enjoyed a significant competitive edge in the region in all three areas. The stabilization, modernization and restructuring of the economy was followed by the strengthening of processes of regional differentiation, the fast gaining on, and loosing of importance by certain areas and settlements. The capital city and the agglomeration area around it became the centre of the Hungarian as well as East Central European economic changes in all respects, the Western Transdanubian area is speedily integrating with the North Italian, Austrian, Southern German economic region, while the Southern parts of the country are presently in a state of transition and a prolonged crisis can be forecasted for the Eastern regions of the country.     

The city-text in post-communist Budapest: street names,memorials, and the politics of commemoration

As in most parts of Central and Eastern Europe, there is a tradition in Hungary of changing street names and memorials in the wake of major political transitions. This article focuses on the change of street names and memorials, i.e. the city-text, in Hungary’s political capital, Budapest, between 1985 and 2001. The city-text in Budapest became a locus of dispute between different political authorities, including the nation state, the metropolitan municipality, and the district, each bearing different political ideals during and after the fall of communism. Discursive changes in the post-communist city-text emerged expressing specific conceptions of national sovereignty, but the direction of the changes were debated. Different levels of administration in Budapest and Hungary had divergent visions of what the new discourse on national sovereignty should be. The changes, therefore, did not express a simple transition to an agreed-upon post-communist value system, but were the result of a symbolic struggle between different levels of administration over what should be commemorated in the city-text.     

Old cities, new pasts: Heritage planning in selected cities of Central Europe

Heritage is the contemporary usage of a past and is consciously shaped from history, its survivals and memories, in response to current needs for it. If these needs and consequent roles of heritage, whether for the political legitimacy of governments, for social and ethnic cohesion, for individual identification with places and groups, or for the provision of economic resources in heritage industries change rapidly, then clearly we expect the content and management of that heritage to do likewise. The cities of Central Europe have long been the heritage showcases that reflected the complex historical and geographical patterns of the region's changing governments and ideologies. The abrupt economic and political transition and reorientation of the countries of Central Europe has thus, unsurprisingly, led to many equally abrupt changes in the content and management of urban heritage throughout the region. The uses made of heritage are clearly drastically changing but so also is the way that heritage is currently managed. What is happening, as well as how, is however uncertain and investigated here. The revolutionary eradication of a rejected past, a return to some previous pasts or the beginnings of a new past in the service of a new present are all possibilities. Answers are sought to these questions through the examination of a selection of cases of types of heritage city and their management in the region. These include an archetypical European gem city (Eger, Hungary), a tourist-historic honey-pot (?esky Krumlov, Czechia), a medium-sized multifunctional city (Gdansk, Poland), a major metropolis (Budapest, Hungary), the relict anomaly (Kaliningrad/ Königsberg, Russia) and the national cultural centre of Weimar.     

Integration prospects of the Hungarian transport network into the more advanced European networks

In spite of the advantageous transport-geographic situation of Hungary, the four decades of the so called planned socialist economy, neglecting the transportational infrastructure, made the country lag behind the rest of Europe. The two main points in the current development of the Hungarian transportation system are the establishment of proper links with the more developed western European transportational network, and starting a substantial technical development in all respects of domestic transportation in order to approach the standards of the more developed countries. The paper reviews the main characteristics of the project of the Hungarian development of transport by road and rail.     

The INQUA Loess Commission as a Central European Enterprise

The International Union of Quaternary Research (INQUA) organized the study and consideration of the Quaternary Period (the last 2.6 million years in Earth’s history) via a set of commissions, sub-commissions, working groups, projects and programmes. One of the most successful and best records was the Loess Commission (LC) which functioned assub-commission and then commission from 1961 to 2003, resulting in 40 years of useful activity. The history of the LC can be divided into three phases: 1, from 1961–1977 when the President was Julius Fink; 2, from 1977–1991, with President Marton Pecsi; 3, from 1991–2003 with Presidents An Zhi-Sheng and Ian Smalley. Fink, from Vienna, and Pecsi, from Budapest, gave the LC a distinctly Central European aspect. The nature of loess in Central Europe influenced the nature of the LC but the settings for phases 1 and 2 were quite distinct. Phase 1 was a small scale academic operation, carried out in German. As phase 2 began in 1977 the scope expanded and Central Europe became a base for worldwide loess studies. where the LC language changed to English. Phase 2 was run from a National Geographical Institute and demonstrated a different approach to loess research, although the basic programmes of continent-wide mapping and stratigraphy remained the same. The Commission benefited from this change of style and emphasis. In phase 3 the administration moved away from Central Europe but the Finkian ethos remained solid.     

The cityscapes of European capital cities

Capital cities are politico-administrative centers. They are command centers, they symbolize authority and also the unit that is governed. Primarily they are capitals of states, but other governance systems may also have capitals. In the European context there are now regional capital cities and at least the concept of a European capital. Particularly on account of their symbolic function but also for the uses made of its appearance in political life, the cityscape of capital cities is an interesting topic for research. There are different types of capital cities in Europe that give rise to different cityscapes. Existing urban networks and types of political regime are important in this respect. Although cityscapes are pretty stable, they are differently perceived over time and uses made of them also change. A research agenda for this intersection of historical, cultural and political geography should concentrate on the evolution of these cityscapes, their perception and the uses made of them in the acting out of politics.     

Middle and Late Pleistocene fluvial systems in central Poland

This reconstruction of the fluvial palaeogeography of central Poland is based on an exhaustive and critical review of the published and archival data for the Middle and Late Pleistocene sediments of the area. The Warsaw Basin in central Poland was a major confluence area during the Middle and Late Pleistocene. The fluvial watersheds have been only slightly modified since that time. The past river systems resembled the contemporary one, therefore indicating rebuilding during successive interglacials, at least since the Holsteinian when the sea undoubtedly occupied the southern Baltic Basin. The Weichselian fluvial system was strongly influenced by the Scandinavian ice sheet, especially by meltwater runoff in the extraglacial area and ice-damming in the Warsaw Basin where a large proglacial lake developed. The Weichselian fluvial sediments form up to three terraces in the valleys of the Vistula and its tributaries. The most contentious issue is the mutual relation of the ice-dammed lake and ice marginal spillways in the Warsaw Basin, both being important fragments of a widespread drainage network in the Central European Lowland.     

Characteristics of post-socialist urban transformation in East Central Europe

The development of the post-socialist city has already been characterised by substantial restructuring processes. Particular emphasis should be drawn to the take-off of the tertiary sector and the comprehensive blight phenomena in the previously industrial areas. The urban housing sector has witnessed increasing housing affordability problems, a marginalisation of communal housing stock, an increase of segregation and an intensification of the decay in the old housing stock. In all East Central European states the spatial development processes of industry and services within the cities basically show clear parallels to the pattern of urban development in continental Europe. In Hungary housing policy, tenure structure and the level of segregation already show relatively closer similarities to the neoliberal, Anglo–American pattern of development. The other ECE states show closer similarities to the corporatist welfare states of continental Europe. As far as medium-term urban development in East Central Europe is concerned, it is to be assumed that – regardless of the specific path of further development – overall solutions shall not be found for the fundamental problems which are the legacy of the socialist era – the decay of old housing stock, large scale derelict industrial areas and the extent and deficiencies of high-rise housing estates. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The construction of Slovenia as a European tourism destination in guidebooks

Geographic research in tourism recognizes destinations to be socio-spatial constructions shaped by historic, cultural, and political discourses. These discourses are reflected in and reproduced by tourism literature such as guidebooks. Guidebooks are a key resource for potential tourists to learn about a destination. These texts produced by international publishing companies draw upon existing discourses for a place that will allow external audiences to make sense of the contextual information provided for the destination. At the same time, they reify these discourses by presenting them to readers as objective facts. This paper uses discourse analysis to examine tourism guidebooks for the European destination region, the Eastern and/or Central European sub-region, and Slovenia. In particular, it examines the competing and conflicting discourses of Eastern and Central Europe in these externally authored and oriented texts to understand the socio-spatial construction of Slovenia as a European tourism destination.     

The social housing sector in Prague and Warsaw: trends and future prospects

The paper provides an overview of trends and processes of change affecting new social housing provision in Prague and Warsaw. The local responses are reviewed within the context of changes to the national housing system defining the performance of municipal and non-profit housing sectors. The research analyses the mix of policy instruments implemented in three major policy domains—regulatory, fiscal and financial—to promote the production of new social housing in the two cities. The system of new social housing provision is examined as a dynamic process of interaction between public and private institutions defining housing policy outcomes. The outcomes are evaluated through a series of indicators related to housing output, stability of investment, differentiation of rents, affordability and choice. The overview demonstrates how significant shifts in regulatory and fiscal policy, coupled with decentralization of responsibilities for social housing, limit the opportunities for more efficient performance in the sector and its growth. This is particularly evident in Warsaw, where the sector operates as a social safety net. New social housing in both cities has better quality and remains affordable, but access is constrained and waiting times have increased. The research highlights the problem of declining output, dwindling financial resources, and lack of cost recovery due to universal rent control. This is eroding the sustainability of social housing, potentially leading to lower investment and subsequent privatisation. In Warsaw, housing allowances are a municipal responsibility making the liberalization of rents difficult, while Prague has moved in the direction of rent deregulation with a more robust system of means-tested housing support provided by the central government. Such policy choices map a different trajectory for the future of social housing.     

Intellectuals and geopolitics: The ‘cultural politicians’ of Central Europe

This paper investigates the role of intellectuals in the production of geopolitical discourses. It analyzes how the cultural capital of humanist credentials and artistic aura functions to authenticate and legitimate geopolitical claims. Drawing empirically from Central Europe and especially Estonia, I argue that intellectuals are central to the production of a particular ‘cultural’ concept of geopolitics - the notion that foreign policy expresses the state’s and the nation’s identity. As cultural capital gives intellectuals a special license to speak about culture, it constitutes an essential component in geopolitical discourses in Central Europe.The paper contributes to Europeanist geography by clarifying the mechanisms through which Central Europe is cast externally and internally as a place particularly imbued with culture and identity - a place whose integration with the EU and NATO represents its cultural ‘return’ to Europe. It takes us beyond the romanticized notion of intellectuals - especially the formerly dissident ones - as ‘speaking truth to power’, and offers a more subtle account of their role as producers of power discourses.Beyond Central Europe, the paper underscores the political and cultural milieu of geopolitical claims and the specific structures of legitimacy through which these claims are justified and normalized. A nuanced understanding of the role of ‘culture’ in geopolitical discourses requires that we closely examine the cultural and moral capital of intellectuals. This would also enable us to better delineate human agency in the production of geopolitics.     

Croatia in the continental traffic network of Europe

Croatia is located on the southeastern edge of Central Europe (Ruppert 1995), between the navigable Danube River and the Adriatic Sea, so that participates not only in continental traffic, but in the maritime and river traffic of Europe as well.Although the transit position of Croatia is very favorable, transportation itself has unfortunately not been developed in accordance with these advantages. This is a result of the social-economic, especially political, development of the region in the course of its history. Unfortunately, politics also influences the selection of transit routes in this part of Europe today. With the break-up of socialist states, particularly the former Yugoslavia, new states have appeared which are seeking their place in the European traffic network. Because of the momentarily uncertain political circumstances, the construction of some transit routes in Croatia have not been foreseen in international developmental plans for continental transit, despite the fact that they would be logically expected given the advantages of their position.     

Budapest's built environment in transition

The construction of major new buildings has been noticed in Budapest since the mid 1980s. New hotels, office blocks, housing projects and most recently shopping centres have become a prominent feature of the landscape in several districts of the city. The paper first outlines a conceptualisation of the `Transition' in terms of eastern Europe as a whole identifying internationalisation, Europeanisation and national government policies as key strands in a specific case of a process of change interpreted as the interaction of antecedent conditions and current processes. It then addresses the question of conceptualising the built environment in terms of the `Transition' and three `schools of thought' in geography stressing the urban morphogenesis approach. It thus poses the question of how radical a change has `occurred on the ground' since 1989–1990. Consequently the paper examines the transition in the built environment of Budapest under three principal headings: (a) the antecedent conditions of the built environment of Budapest by spatial structure, (b) the relationship between new buildings and current processes, (c) comparing models of the spatial structure of Budapest as a socialist city and as a post-socialist-(industrial) city or post-industrial (capitalist) city. It concludes that although the processes shaping the city's built environment have changed quite radically since 1990 the physical fabric of the city and its antecedent usage have strongly influenced the spatial impact of the current processes. Budapest is a post-socialist industrial city with capitalist forms fitted into it. The city is passing from socialist to capitalist processes in a way that suggests that morphological analysis has clear potential in theorising the relationship between the global and the local. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

History of the Hungarian Holocene mollusc fauna

Based on phylogenetical, palaeoecological and biostratigraphical studies on the Holocene malacofauna of Hungarian medium high mountains and flatlands, four faunal periods could be recognised in the mountains, while three ones on the flat regions. They are defined by correlation (using anthracotomical, palynological, vertebrate palaeontological, archaeological and radiometric data, as well as by the Central European malacozones) as biozones of regional value.The mollusc fauna may be regarded as the main palaeoecological indicator for the Hungarian Quaternary, because it is generally abundant, in contrast to the vertebrate fauna. On the other hand, the Hungarian Quaternary fauna mostly consists of species still living in the area. The ecological demands of recent species are generally well known. Most of the ecological data about the Quaternary formations were yielded by the examination of the Hungarian mollusc fauna.The Quaternary mollusc fauna is not only suitable for palaeoecological reconstructions but it helps in the stratigraphical division of the sequences, as well, mainly due to Endre Krolopp's activity (Krolopp 1983). This study and investigations of Holocene molluscs enabled us to make an attempt (Füköh 1990) in describing the history of the last ten thousand years.     

Ethnicity in Eastern Europe: Historical legacies and prospects for cohesion

Eastern Europe lacks cohesion partly arising from a history of ethnic tension. Ways are now being found to overcome historic conflicts over alternative political structures, as the enlargement of membership for European institutions requires greater equality of rights at the same time as support and security is extended. Thus while ethnicity, as a political, social and cultural entity, persists in Eastern Europe as an essential element at the local level, it is now being seen more positively as cultural diversity and thus more compatible with democracy and a positive asset to national well-being. Multi-ethnic states are proving to be viable and some of the most intractable inter-ethnic problems (linked with the Hungarian minorities) are being addressed constructively. Yet there are signs that the southern part of the region is being marginalised regarding foreign investment. Also there is unease that European values are not being embraced unconditionally in parts of the Balkans. Recent military intervention has created fresh problems, committing the West to continued economic and political support to strengthen its stance on democracy and minority rights. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.