Like all empires, the Soviet Empire was also based on the distinction centre-periphery. Although the Soviet Empire no longer exists, relationships between centres and peripheries still shape realities in the region. The book analyses the relevance of this distinction for the understanding of political, economic, and cultural realities in the post-Soviet space. Case studies provided by scholars from different countries of the former Soviet Union explore the potential of the distinction in historical as well as in economic and political perspectives

This volume offers a view of modern Russian intellectual culture as shaped by the dynamic of conversions. The individual contributions examine a rich variety of personal conversions occurring in a culture in which the written word enjoyed a privileged status and, historically, was closely linked to the sacred. However, the essays presented go beyond the original meaning of conversion as a change of religious beliefs. They address shifts in style, aesthetic outlooks, and mindsets, political and ideological transfigurations as well as religious conversions in the true sense of the term. Whether at the level of culture, society or biography, the study of conversions opens the way to profound reflections about questions of identity, cultural ruptures, and continuity. The awareness of former conversions and the possible "convertibility" of one's own ideological, spiritual or social stance has been among the central traits of Russian intellectual culture during the last two centuries.

Several of the most prolific and influential conspiracy theories have originated in Eastern Europe. The far reaching influence of conspiracy narratives can be observed in recent developments in Poland or with regard to the wars waged in Eastern Ukraine and in former Yugoslavia. This volume analyses the history behind this widespread phenomenon as well the role it has played in Eastern European cultures and literature both past and present.

, , . , - . - ( ) . , . - . , , , . A l'epoque du developpement de la linguistique de corpus, de l'elaboration de corpus de textes annotes qui contiennent un volume important de donnees, l'application des methodes quantitatives d'analyse devient une partie inherente de toute etude linguistique. Le livre contient les resultats de l'etude contrastive (russe-francais) des connecteurs avec l'utilisation des methodes quantitatives qui a ete menee dans le cadre du projet de recherche conjoint (Suisse-Russie) soutenu par le FNS et par la Fondation pour la recherche fondamentale de la Federation de Russie (RFBR). Les donnees statistiques pour l'etude contrastive des connecteurs ont ete obtenus grace a une nouvelle ressource informatique: une base de donnees des connecteurs qui contient des textes paralleles en russe et en francais. Le premier chapitre decrit la base de donnees, ses fonctionnalites et les possibilites qu'elle offre aux linguistes pour l'analyse contrastive, qualitative et quantitative, des connecteurs. Le deuxieme et le troisieme chapitres presentent les resultats de l'application de ce type d'analyse des connecteurs russes et francais en tant que marqueurs des relations discursives de concomitance et de reformulation. Dans le quatrieme chapitre ces methodes sont appliquees a l'analyse des resultats de traduction automatique, un domaine de recherche qui se trouve actuellement au centre des interets de la linguistique de corpus et de la linguistique computationnelle.

As a writer, critic, and philosopher, Stanisaw Brzozowski (1878-1911) left a lasting imprint on Polish culture. He absorbed virtually all topical intellectual trends of his time, adapting them for the needs of what he saw as his primary mission: the modernization of Polish culture. The essays of the volume reassess and contextualize Brzozowski's writings from a distinctly transnational vantage point. They shed light on often surprising and hitherto underrated affinities between Brzozowski and intellectual figures and movements in Eastern and Western Europe. Furthermore, they explore the presence of his ideas in twentieth-century century literary criticism and theory.