2023 Issue №3

The aim of the research is to analyze the contemporary politics of memory in Romania in the early 2020s. The author examines the role and place of intellectual communities as key spaces of memory genesis and the functioning of memorial culture and collective historical memory in the contemporary social and political thought of Romania. The novelty of the study lies in exploring the current stage in the development of the historical politics of Roma­nian society in the context of an objective deficit of interdisciplinary research focused on the analysis of memorial cultures. The article demonstrates that: 1) the intellectual community, as one of the systemic segments of modern Romanian society, significantly contributes to the development and transformation of memorial culture; 2) the spectrum of memorial practices of Romanian intellectuals, as agents of historical memory politics and shapers of various ver­sions of memorial culture, varies from historical revisionism to attempts to form a liberal me­morial canon; 3) the memorial practices of the contemporary intellectual community are in­terconnected with the development of civil and ethnic nationalist discourse; 4) the participa­tion of intellectuals in memory politics actualizes the political and ideological heterogeneity of modern society, contributing to the simultaneous coexistence and competition of different forms of historical memory. It is assumed that the role of Romanian civil society in the histor­ical politics of contemporary Romania will increase, and the intellectual community will re­main one of the active participants in the politics of collective memory.

The military’s involvement in political processes in Turkey has ambiguous consequences for society. On the one hand, for decades, the army has supported the secular character of Turkish politics. On the other hand, the military has acted as a strong force slowing down the development of Turkish democracy, fearing a loss of influence over the state. Whenever condi­tions for political emancipation arose, the military took control, organizing mass repression in the country. The last attempted coup in 2016 undermined the already weakened position of the military, but there is no firm certainty that the army will not attempt to reclaim its role as a hidden guardian. The goal of the undertaken research was to forecast the conditions under which the military might attempt a coup. Scenario analysis was used for the prediction. As a result, three scenarios for the development of the Republic of Turkey were obtained: the estab­lishment of a rigid clerical authoritarianism, democratic transition, and the preservation of a hybrid regime. It was identified that the highest likelihood of a military coup exists under the establishment of rigid authoritarianism, and the lowest likelihood is under the preservation of a hybrid regime.

Estonia’s language policy sparks serious debates in the academic community, further complicated by the politically charged nature of the topic. In the works of Estonian authors, there is unequivocal postulation of Russia’s influence on Estonian society, while relatively little attention is given to the Russian-speaking minorities themselves. Domestic researchers focus on the negative aspects of integration and language policies—violations of the rights of national minorities, the assimilative nature of Estonia’s language policy—yet, due to the lan­guage barrier, rarely incorporate Estonian-language empirical material. This often leads to diametrically opposite conclusions about the prospects of Estonia’s language policy, ranging from the inevitable assimilation of the Russian-speaking minority to its successful integration into Estonian society while preserving linguistic and cultural distinctiveness. The article examines the results of Estonia’s language policy as of 2023 and the prospects for Russian-language education in the country, drawing conclusions about the potential transformation of integration policy into a genuinely assimilative one.