východná Európa

This issue examines some theoretical questions and concerns related to the study of criminality in the past. The categories and boundaries of what is considered criminal depend on circumstances determined by both power and religion. An act was not considered a crime until generally recognized as such, or made illegal by those with the power or authority to do so. Each era and society maintained its own scale and hierarchy of crimes. Some forms of behaviour were criminalised, others decriminalised.

This article addresses the issue of Italian penetration in Central-Eastern Europe in the interwar period, paying particular attention to the case of Czechoslovakia and covering primarily the tools used by Italy to assert its influence among the “heir countries” of the Habsburg Empire. Among these instruments, the article aims to highlight the importance of culture and propaganda, which alongside politics and economics, allowed Italy to compete with the other great powers for hegemony in Central-Eastern Europe.

In this article we introduce the theme of special issue focusing on self-publishing activities In Central and Easter Europe from 1980s to 2000s. The articles presented in this issue offer an interdisciplinary view on the history of independent publishing in both the late socialist and post-socialist periods. We would like to enrich the scholarly debate beyond the dichotomies of communism/capitalism, socialism/post-socialism, East/West and samizdat/fanzine, respectively.

This paper scrutinises how alternative cultural scenes from Central and Eastern European countries have been represented in fanzines published in France since 1977. The study focusses principally on the geographical and temporal rather than the qualitative or cultural aspects of the question. Four countries clearly stand out, representing 57 % of the analysed corpus: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Hungary.

"Service settlement" is a favourite phrase of several Polish and Czech medievalists who use it commonly to refer to villages of specialised workers (peasants or craftsmen) serving the exclusive needs of neighbouring fortresses or local manor houses. Polish historians have linked the service settlements to ducal or royal estates and argued that such villages emerged to meet the exclusive demands of Polish dukes or the king and his court. Service settlements were therefore to be found around ducal or royal residences and palaces, located within or outside regional fortresses.