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The purpose of the article is to show the genesis of the “Jagiellonian idea,” which the author links to the political and social changes in medieval Poland of the Piast era. Ecclesiastical law, which was associated with close relations with the Holy See and Rome, exerted a great influence on the formation of the state system of that time. Under the influence of these ties, the social system in Poland took shape somewhat differently than in other regions of Europe that were dominated by absolutism and had autocratic rulers. Under the law of the time, all members of society, despite class differences, were bound by the same ethical and moral principles. After the Jagiellonians took over the reign, the system evolved into a mixed monarchy, in which power was shared by three parliamentary branches: the king, the senate and the chamber of deputies.

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Original models for the boundaries of Central Europe, reflecting Czech or Slovak national interests, are seldom encountered. Those that emerged in Czech and Slovak milieus and bear the features of geopolitical imaginations – ones that respect the dynamics of power movement within space and the logic of power balance – are threefold. Firstly, there is the vision of a broader federation, a state composed of multiple nationalities or original states that can balance external pressures from the west and/or the east. The most significant proponent of this model as a means of securing the Czech (Czech–Slavic) national interest is František Palacký. The second model is an empire rooted in Pan-Slavism and capable of resisting western pressure. This concept is most refined in the work of Ľudovít Štúr. The third model, resembling a nation-state, relies on both the potential for fostering collaboration among a bloc of Slavic states and the support of Western powers against Pan-German expansionism. The most prominent author of this model is Tomáš G. Masaryk. Other models, like proletarian internationalism or the European Union, draw from these sources but, in defining national interests, do not proceed from the principle of nations’ right to self-determination. Practical experience has shown the limited possibilities of all the aforementioned geopo- litical imaginations: that they are supplemented, for instance, by historical rights, strategic necessity, or the civic principle and, in some instances, that they fail due to the shifting balance of power in Central Europe. However, replacing them with the civic principle within European integration today entails risks. The only solution is a balanced respect for social, ethnic, and civic rights and the projection of this dynamic balance into international relations.

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The paper deals with the historical and typological analysis of integration projects in the journalism of Yurii Lypa (1900– 1944) – a public figure, physician, writer, ideologist of Ukrainian nationalism, and founder of the Ukrainian Chornomorskyi (Black Sea) Institute in Warsaw – and Bohdan Osadczuk (1920– 2011), an émigré, publicist, researcher of the modern history of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), regular contributor to the Parisian monthly Kultura, and supporter of Polish–Ukrainian reconciliation. These activists help us to trace the different geopolitical accents of, respectively, nationalist and liberal Ukrainian political thought. In addition, their journalistic activities took place either in the interwar/war period (Lypa) or after the war (Osadczuk). The debate in the Ukrainian–Polish press in 1947–1948 within the camps for displaced persons in Germany can be considered a conditional distinction between different stages in the understanding of regional integration projects.

The current security threats caused by Russia’s aggression have revived discussions in CEE about regional integration, projects of which have both supporters and critics. From a discursive approach to the reactualization of the idea of the Baltic-Black Sea Union and Intermarium, we analyze the conceptualization of ideas relevant to the period of Lypa’s and Osadczuk’s life and work.

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In the second half of the 20th century, the Young Wave of Polish poets (the avant-garde poets born in the mid-1940s) clashed with Zbigniew Herbert (a member of the wartime generation, born around 1920) over generational differences. This dispute revolved around poetics (“plain speech” versus “classicism”) and subject matter: whether poets should deal with “contemporary times” meaning current events, especially focusing on politics, or whether they should rather invoke topoi of Mediterranean culture in order to view current events in the context of the permanent values of European culture. For Herbert, this was also a question of the writing strategy, as he felt that topicality should not dominate the interpretation of the poem and that poetry should survive past communism. Adam Zagajewski was chosen as a representative of the New Wave because his early clash with Herbert propelled him to the position of an adversary. Sadly, both Harbert and Zagajewski failed in their attempt at an exegi monumentum, as the educa- tion system of today has abandoned the classical tradition and many allusions to it are simply incomprehensible to today’s high school or even college graduates. Knowledge of recent history is not in demand either. Both poetics are unintelligible to a wider audience and in this sense they have failed.

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In the poetry of the prominent Ukrainian writer Lina Kostenko, the category of “historical memory” is conceptualized in ontological and philosophical dimensions: her philosophical discourses on history and the nation are built on this foundation. By “trying on” eternity (with the manifest: “I am floating into life from eternity”), she comes to philosophical self-awareness and artistic reflection of history, with vivid and convincing motifs / collisions / concepts / plots / images. In her epic poems, she measures human existence throughout epochs through the triad of the dominants of humanity / nation / family, giving each of them nation-building meanings. Her time is always anthropological, with an expressive psychological “face”, heavy with tragedy and endowed with a potential for the future. Her lyrical pieces have the same temporal tint. Through an inte- gral conceptual sphere, in which the category of time remains fundamental (dramatic poems and ballads Skifska Odisseia [Scythian Odyssey], Marusia Churai, Berestechko, Duma pro brativ neazovskykh [A duma on brothers other than the Azov ones], Snih u Florentsii [Snow in Florence], and a number of poems), Lina Kostenko tries to embrace the temporal and anthropological paradigm of man-history-man with her artistic imagination, where the problems of individual and national identity are given primary importance. In this context of the historically conditioned formation of national and national-cultural identity, she unfolds her own idea of a person’s home within history, especially national history, while professing the principle of “simultaneity of non-simultaneities” (R. Kozellek) of a series of past events. The author examines certain “semantic circles” of the writer’s narrative, discovering new semantic historio- sophical projections that in Kostenko’s works eventually form a coherent, verified anthropocentric conceptual model of the decisive role of the individual in the historical progress of the nation, showing, with the help of artistic and figurative means, how she creates the historical and psychological canvas of past events / collisions / interpretations that set the direction for the future. At the same time, the author emphasizes that the poet always upholds the position of the artist’s ultimate accountability in the face of national history.

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In Romanian culture, in the 1960s–1980s, communist totalitarianism went through various stages (Eugen Negrici, 2003, 2019); poets varying in style and creative instincts were active in a social and political context influenced by several factors varying in intensity such as the censorship constraints, party ideology, the resumption of cultural exchanges and translations from great works of world literature, the promotion of aesthetic autonomy, etc. Obviously, the main battle pitted aesthetics against ideology. Throughout this period, poetry was largely ideology- and propaganda-tinged and its themes changed from one decade to the next, moving from the pro-Soviet enthusiasm, which glorified Stalin while criticizing the “corrupt” West in the 1950s, to the tributes paid to the “beloved leaders” Nicolae Ceaușescu and Elena Ceaușescu, in the 70s and 80s. Such poems used significant figures in Romania’s national history to legitimize the new leaders.

In parallel to this type of “poetry”, however, there were numerous formulas that returned to lyricism and intellectualization, word play magic and creative experiment. Among the most important post-war writers of the neo-modernist generation are Ana Blandiana and Marin Sorescu, therefore we will analyze – in the larger context of their work while also referring to other lyrical representations of the same theme -, two poems: Avram Iancu by Ana Blandiana, from the volume Poeme “Poems” (1974), and Biografii [Biographies] by Marin Sorescu from the volume La lilieci. Cartea a doua [Near the Lilac Bushes. Book Two] (1977). Both resemantize history in an original manner that moves away from its official and ideologized versions. Taking as a starting point the dramatic death of a fighter for social and national rights from the nineteenth century, through resemantization and ambiguity, Ana Blandiana creates a poem that could be read, on a deeper level, as a comment on the tendency to give up one’s desire for freedom and the danger of the social and spiritual inertia common during the communist regime. Marin Sorescu, using innovative techniques closer to postmodernism, brings to the fore a complex world, a regional language, another “Macondo”, which deconstructs its mythology while exposing its history through individual stories that become exemplary and counterpose an alternative imaginary to the official culture.

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With origins that date back to the 1970s, the Lithuanian Research and Studies Center is the only Lithuanian diaspora research institution in the world. Its emergence was determined by the Lithuanian heritage accumulated in the Lithuanian diaspora and the need to disseminate it, as well as the developing scien- tific potential of  Lithuanians  abroad  and  the  consequences of the Soviet occupation. Representatives of the Lithuanian American scientific and cultural elite founded this institution at the Youth Center in Chicago in early 1982, uniting 12 departments under the umbrella principle. The goal was to collect Lithuanian material, make it available to researchers, bring the latter together for scientific work, and promote research both within the Lithuanian diaspora and among non-Lithuanians. Up until 1990, the Center took shape by pooling the Lithuanian base and strengthening Lithuanian research. After 1990, in the second stage of the lrsC’s activities, extensive and resilient relations were established with Lithuanian research institutions and scholars; Lithuanian libraries were supplied with Western literature and diaspora publications; books by Lithuanian and foreign scholars were prepared and published; articles and documents were scanned and microfilmed; and exhibitions were put together. The Center also became known to foreign scholars interested in Lithuanian studies.

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Due to the threat of Vilnius being captured by the approaching German troops, the tsarist authorities decided to hastily move to the empire not only government administration units, industrial plants, and educational and financial institutions, but also the most valuable resources of cultural institutions, movable sacred objects, and Russian monuments. The population leaving the city also took with them valuable items, including objects of historic and commemorative value, as well as works of art. At the time, the former capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania suffered colossal losses of movable cultural heritage objects collected over several centuries. Thanks to the dignified attitude of the local community remaining in Vilnius, it was possible to partially secure and save many items of cultural property from being exported, destroyed or dispersed.

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The objective of this essay is to show a still untapped source for the history of the Polish Dominican Order and the history of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which is the work of Wawrzyniec Teleżyński entitled Adnotationes. The article presents a brief biography of this outstanding Dominican historian and discusses his other works, both published in print and in manuscript. Adnotationes provides a wealth of unknown and otherwise unused information on the history of the Dominicans in the modern era. This study also discusses a unique literary text that Teleżyński included in his book, namely a poem by a Dominican nun written after her monastery in  Lviv  had been closed down in the wake of Joseph ii’s policies against the Church.