Polonia resurrecta – a new Intermarium for Poland?
For some people in Eastern Europe, the old American Dream now is a Polish Dream. Undoubtedly, Poland has gone a long way from 1989. Its economy increased by a factor of six since it freed itself from the Soviet domination and it was the only major country in Europe to avoid a recession in 2008-09. […]
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The tyranny of coolness – or not? Book review: 111 reasons to hate Berlin
Everybody loves Berlin. Especially if you are a cool person you just have to love Berlin, it is young, dynamic, creative, sexy, well, you know the list. Yes, everybody loves Berlin, except Kristjan Knall. Kristjan Knall does not love Berlin, in particular he does not love the Berliners, in particular the hipsters (this subspecies of […]
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Two years of war propaganda have made Ukraine and Russia enemies for generations to come
“The biggest problem of Ukraine”, told me a man travelling with me in a train from Kiev to Lviv, “is that we have a very bad neighbour”. It did not come as a surprise to me, as the man was from Lviv, the cultural capital of the Ukrainian national awakening that started in the second […]
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Sometimes history is just another story
“Only times will tell”, the saying goes, and people always repeat that to truly understand the meaning of an event you need the perspective of history. This argument has a point, because having the opportunity to gather and consult a large amount of historical sources on a subject is a privilege that the people “experiencing history” […]
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The Left has become an intolerant and disorientated elite party
This is a guest contribution by the leader of an emerging political party created around the ideal of direct democracy. You can visit the Facebook page of the New Parliament Party clicking here. A new era in British politics has been ushered in after the leave campaign victory. The referendum result was followed swiftly by the resignation or […]
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Why Germany is not a multicultural paradise
In Germany nobody seems to be concerned about the problem of immigration anymore. Expressing the slightest worry about the possibility of integration of many young men from a very different culture is regarded as a sign of unequivocal backwardness, possible grave mental deficiencies and dangerous and intolerable political leanings. Not even the sexual assualts of Cologne on New […]
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Why Belarus is actually Lithuania, Ukraine is actually Russia and Russia is actually Mongolia
Some weeks ago the Ukrainian parliament, the Rada, reviewed a legislation proposal to officially change Russia’s name. Contemporary Russia is not, in this view, the historically legitimate heir of the ancient Kievan Rus which is considered to be the first Russian and Eastern European state from where Ukraine, Russia and Belarus draw their historical origins.
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Can you measure a language?
A couple of days ago a friend of mine who lives in Germany (for now) asked me how long it took me to progress from level B1 to level B2 when I was learning German (my friend is a computer programmer and has an analytical mindset, so he likes to quantify everything). The question, apparently […]
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5 Tips To Study A Foreign Language
There are few intellectual pleasures comparable to finding yourself reading in a foreign language and realizing that you understand much more than you would have expected. However, foreign languages do require a consistent amount of effort, an effort which most people in adulthood are not willing to undertake. Learning a new language means beginning everything […]
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Is All Marketing Bullshit?
I was talking to some young writer a few days ago. I did not know he was a writer until he said that he was working on a big philosophical essay novel. Well, not exactly a little undertaking, I thought. He was talking like one of these young intellectuals who do not seem to like […]
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