The main aim of the paper is to analyse the potential transitional justice mechanisms, directed at reintegration of Donbas, a territory temporarily occupied by pro-Russian separatists, being under the combination of a direct and indirect control of Kremlin, with Ukraine. In the aftermath of the Revolution of Dignity and a remove of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych as a consequence of Euromaidan protests held in Kyiv, in the Winter 2013/14, Ukraine became a state involved in the international armed conflict covering its Eastern provinces as a result of an external aggression of the Russian Federation. Furthermore, since early-2014, Moscow is continuously using pro-Russian militants to form and uphold unrecognised, de facto regimes of the so-called ‘Donetsk’ and ‘Luhansk People’s Republic(s)’ affecting the territorial integrity of the Ukrainian state. It is argued that Kyiv shall take into consideration some of the peace and restoration models applied in similar conflict or post-conflict environments, such as the United Nations Transitional Administration for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium (UNTAES) or the experience of numerous disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) programs, filled with the transitional justice component. Moreover, by emphasising the context of a military (semifrozen) conflict in Eastern Ukraine, the paper is going to shed more light on the possible application of transitional justice tool-kit in the ongoing conflicts scenarios and its potential contribution to the shift from a conflict to the postwar environment.

The problem of thorough and ultimate decommunisation in Ukraine got suddenly valid during Euromaidan on the turn of 2013/2014 and after its termination. It became a component of post–revolutionary reforms in the field of policy of memory. A year after Euromaidan Ukraine’s parliament adopted four “decommunisation laws” on 9 April 2015. One of them concerns the condemnation of the Communist regime and prohibition the propaganda of his symbols. The author analysed contents of the law and focused on the results of decommunisation, which included the cleansing the public space from Soviet–era legacy. Full implementation of the law was planned for the year. During this time the goal was almost fully implemented regarding the renaming of many locations and districts. The communist names of thousands streets, squares, urban districts were changed, although this process was delayed. The process of renaming of many institutions, industrial plants and press titles was very slow. 

The development objective of the article is to present in the last fifteen years the level of economic relations of Moldova and Ukraine with the Russian Federation and the European Union. In connection with this study it was covered by the value of the trade of Moldova and Ukraine with the European Union and the Russian Federation, as well as the volume of the foreign direct investments EU and Russia in the Moldovan and Ukrainian economy.

The purpose of this article is to verify the correctness, actuality and purposefulness of the ‘Novorossia’ concept in relation to Ukraine. The author presents ethnical, historical and electoral processes in Ukraine in the context of development of the idea and concept of Novorossia, he rebuts the concept of Novorossia as both ethnically and electorally inadequate to meet political realities in Ukraine.

In my article I suggest two models of social participation which can positively influence on the process of building the civil society in Ukraine, especially in the area of local government. I want to consider two types of the participatory budgeting, first comes from Porto Allegre in Brazil and the second one from Lodz in Poland. The first model, 27 years old, is the example of representative democracy and is characterized by hierarchical structure. On the other hand, we have different model which is the representative of participatory democracy without any gradation. In this area of research I’m going to choice the best proposition which fit in the process of political transition on Ukraine.

The purpose of this article is to verify the correctness, actuality and purposefulness of the ‘Novorossia’ concept in relation to Ukraine. The author presents ethnical, historical and electoral processes in Ukraine in the context of development of the idea and concept of Novorossia, he rebuts the concept of Novorossia as both ethnically and electorally inadequate to meet political realities in Ukraine.

The end of war in Europe on 8 May 1945 allowed to seek restitution of cultural property lost by Poland between 1939-1945. This task was undertaken by the Provisional Government of National Unity, which was created on 28 June 1945. The demarcation of new eastern borders of Poland along the so-called eastern Curzon line resulted in leaving outside the country two cultural centers important to national interest of Poles – Vilnius and Lviv.

In March 1945 The Committee of Experts for Restitution and Compensation in Culture and Arts was created within The Ministry of Culture and the Arts, and the Ministry of Education established the Commission for Reparations and Restitution for Science and Schools. Their main task was to prevent looting by the so called “cultural battalions of the NKVD,” who treated the encountered cultural goods as “spoils of war”.

On the basis of the resolution of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR of 18 October 1945, 577 exhibits and 50 thousand books and manuscripts were transferred to Poland (as a gift!). The Catholic clergy could carry their fortune from the eastern borderlands of Second Polish Republic to Poland on the basis of an additional protocol to the repatriation agreement of 20 September 1945. With the resolution of 5 July 1946, The Council of Ministers of The Provisional Government of National Unity appointed a committee for the recovery of Polish cultural property from the former eastern provinces of the Republic of Poland, which were included in the Ukrainian SSR after the change of borders. Despite the recovery of many Polonicas, the loss of the greater part of Lviv museum collections remained a fact. Changes in the USSR began on 11 March 1985. In May 1987, 2450 Polish books from the Ossolineum collections in Lviv were given to the Polish side. At the end of November 1989, although the Soviets agreed to return Poland the Ossolineum collections in Lviv, the promise was not fulfilled. The disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 and regaining the independence by the former republics made it necessary to conduct negotiations on the Polish cultural heritage with each of the successors of the USSR separately - including Ukraine.

To 1654 Ukrainians were creating one country with Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but at the same time they were feeling as a second class citizens. For this reason in XVII century with the help of neighbouring Tsardom of Russia they’ve started the uprising and detached themselves from Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth without creating new country. Instead according to the council of Pereyaslav from 1654 they choosed to be under rule of the Tsardom of Russia. After the mentioned council Republic of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth become weakend to the benefit of Tsardom of Russia. From this moment on Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth have been in decline to the point when in XVIII century they lost their independance. After the First World War when Poland regained freedom under Józef Piłsudski an attempt was made to create an Alliance of independent countries lead by Poland as reaction to the Russian imperialism. The alliance called “Intermarium” included: Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belaruse as well as Finland and Romania. To make the idea succesful Ukraine needed to be created but the idea failed to succeed. Instead independent Ukraine was created after the dissolution of Soviet Union even so Ukraine was still under immense influence of Russia. In 2014 Russia annexed during the war with Ukraine part of it – Autonomous Republic of Crimea. Till then Russia is trying to detach eastern provinces Ukraine. It is obvious that diplomatic relations between Russia and Ukraine became frozen. For this reason Poland and Ukraine may have opportunity to ally with other countries from region to stand against russian imperialism.

2014 was a breakthrough year. Ukraine’s crisis of 2013–2014, February 2014 revolution which removed Viktor Yanukovych and his government, annexation of Crimea by Russia, war in Donbas caused changes in the geopolitical map of the world. The crisis had many effects both domestic and international. Author argues that the crisis is a part of the wider changes on the geopolitical map of the world. The main effect of the crisis is that Ukraine was transformed into shatterbelt – regions that are both deeply divided internally and caught up in the competition between Great Powers.

The article deals with the fate of Polish cultural heritages in Eastern Borderlands from the establishment of Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in December 1922, to its collapse in December 1991. The first part of the article ends at 1945 (end ofSecond World War). Under international law in relation to Soviet Russia and Ukraine the issues of repatriation and revindication – after the war in 1920 – was normalized by 11 Article of the Treaty of Riga (18 March 1921) with executive instructions. Lithuanian Metrica, however, did not return to Warsaw, but remained in Moscow, while the Polish side received a summary of the Metrics Lithuania (made in the years 1747–1750 in the royal Office) held by the former Chief of Staff Library in Leningrad.

On September 17, 1939 Soviet invasion completely surprised Polish authorities, evacuation plans did not provide for such an eventuality. Ukrainian SSR authorities took control not only of museums, archives and libraries in the areas occupied by the Red Army, but also have taken over the Polish heritage evacuated to the area before and during the war with the Third Reich. Quite often Polonica

were destroyed or put to scrap paper.

The German occupation in the Eastern Borderlands of the Second Republic lasted from 22 June 1941 until the summer of 1944. At that time – in fear of the approaching Red Army – the German occupation authorities started the evacuation of Polish cultural goods to Krakow and Silesia. Along with the Red Army returned the Soviet authorities. In Lvov organizational state of archives, libraries and museums of 1941 was restored. Many Poles were released from positions in these institutions, and the newly appointed directors were reluctant to refer to anything associated with Poland. In the years 1944–1945 all cultural goods in areas beyond the Bug River – after numerous robberies carried out by the Red Army – went to the central or regional USSR archives or museums.

Polish preparations for the restitution of cultural property continued throughout the war. Office of Cultural Losses Revindication was formed in the Ministry of Congress Works of Polish government in exile. It was directed by Charles Estreicher Jr. (1906–1984), who managed to get to France and, at the beginning of 1940, formed the nucleus of the Office of Cultural Losses Revindication under the Ministry of Information and Documentation. It gathered information from archivists, museum curators and librarians from the occupied country and transferred them to the Central Institute of Art and Design at the National Gallery in London – formed by Polish initiative in 1941. In the spring of 1944 Poland was the only country that had prepared the materials and developed methods in the field of revindication. In 1945 in Warsaw Office of War Revindication and Compensation was established in the Ministries of Education and of Culture and the Arts, with Karol Estreicher Jr. as their expert.

The geopolitical situation of Ukraine and the threats of the modern world, such as international terrorism, organized crime, illegal emigration, as well as international and internal conflicts necessitate conducting an effective foreign policy and national security policy. Choosing the vector of its foreign policy, Ukraine also made a choice of the concept of its national security. The analysis of the concept of national security of Ukraine in the years 1991–2012 allows to verify the thesis put forward in the introduction of the paper that the evolution of the concept of the national security policy in a significant way mirrors the evolution of the foreign policy of Ukraine. Both the security policy and the foreign policy can be described as having multiple polarity, balancing between the Euro-Atlantic and the Euro-Asian spheres of influence.

Ukrainian-Chinese relations have taken on new importance since 2010, along with the economic crisis. Ukraine tried (like the U.S.) to get new sources of funding for business, but primarily as an antidote to the stagnation of the Ukrainian economy. The multiplicity of agreements signed between Ukraine and China in 2010–2013 was also demonstrates that Ukraine was looking for a new direction of foreign policy. The strategic partnership between Ukraine and China is primarily economic and economic, not political. However, the perception of China in Ukraine is carried out through the prism of state influence on the political, economic and social processes in the world. China on the other hand see Ukraine in the context of the so-called region. New Eastern Europe (including Belarus and Moldova), which is regarded by Beijing as an opportunity to expand markets to sell their goods to the markets of the EU and the Customs Union.

Anticipated effect of democratization is not only the establishment of effective democratic institutions, but also to consolidate behavior patterns typical for this system. Unfortunately, this process does not always achieve the assumed effect. It is recognized that the democratic transformation can be completed in three ways: success, failure (back to authoritarian rule), or the establishment of hybrid regime, “hanged” between democracy and authoritarianism. An example of such a system is competitive authoritarianism, which model was firstly described by S. Levitsky and L. A. Way. In the article author intends to analyse the political situation in Ukraine during the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych in the years 2010–2013 using this model. Thanks to this an attempt to explain the systemic causes of the events taking place in this country at the turn of 2013 and 2014 will be also undertaken.

The Polish Political Science Yearbook invites all scholars, researchers and professionals to participate in the 7th PPSY International Seminar "Security in Central Europe: Confronting Uncertainty?" which takes place in Toruń (Poland) on April 24, 2018. The conference supports a special section of the current Volume 47 of 2018 of the journal and its objective is to discuss challenges of security and stability in Central Europe and to present current advancements in regional security studies.

Deadline for application: April 6, 2018, with the Online Form.

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The “right to truth” relates to the obligation of the state to provide information about the circumstances surrounding serious violations of human rights. Despite its increasing recognition, the concept raises questions as to its scope and implementation as well as its existence as a free-standing right. Similarly, “memory laws” relate to the way states deal with their past. However, there are certain „memory laws” that, while officially serving as a guarantee for accessing historical truth, lead to its deformation. As a result, an “alternative” truth, based on the will of the legislators, is being imposed. In this article, the authors elaborate on the general nature of the new legal phenomenon of the „right to truth”, as a tool of transitional justice, in particular in the context of both providing and abusing historical truth by the legislators, through the instrument of “memory laws”.

The paper reports The 3R (Three Ukrainian Revolutions) Symposium: Revolution, War and Their Consequences, which took place in Warsaw (Poland) on March 16-17, 2018. This multilayer event was organised as a part of the project named The 3R (Three Ukrainian Revolutions), initiated in the College of Europe in Natolin (Warsaw) in 2015, to provide the comparative studies over three revolutions witnessed in Ukraine in the last three decades. The 2018 conference gathered current and former politicians, diplomats, practitioners, scientists, journalists and social activists coming from mostly Ukraine and Poland, as well as the other states around the globe.

Book Review: Derek Averre & Kataryna Wolczuk (Eds.), The Ukraine Conflict. Security, Identity and Politics in the Wider Europe. Abingdon-New York: Routledge 2018 (pp. 251). ISBN 978-1-138-04743-3. Price: £115.00.

Vertep.

Vertep is a part of the group of religious representations belonging equally to the church rituals as well as to the follklore customs. It was born with the other mystery plays together having their origins in the iconographic Gospel representations such as ”Christ cribs” in Byzantium and subsequently the performances of the Birth of the Infant such as the famous performance act prepared by saint Francisque from Asis in 1223. Later, the local puppet presentation of ”Nahvity" had developed. They were ”Navidad” and ”Nahvite'” in the western Europe and their counterparts in the middle Europe. Their common origin were the church utensils such as tabernacle or the small cabinet altar called retablo. These presentations in the middle Europe were called ”crib” or ”szopka” while in eastern Europe ”vertep”. The ”Nativity” included the shepherds' homage, the Three Kings) homage as well as the massacre of lnnocents and Herod's punishment. Later on the new secular motifs and characters appeared, representing problems of the folk life. At the time of modernism, real artists showed interest in „Nativity" giving it a new artistic interpretation. Vertep as a variety of ”Nativity” has its own properties and seems to be an independent product of the Ukrainian culture.

The purpose of this article is to present and compare China’s economic, political and military involvement in Ukraine and Belarus, with particular emphasis on their role in the global expansion of the PRC. China after the opening of the economy to the world in the early 1980s, immediately became one of the most important elements of the global economy. The article will attempt an analysis of Chinese investments on the Dnieper, but also the political and military aspects of this cooperation.

The LGBT rights are lately one of the aspects of a social and political discourse both in the Russian Federation and in Ukraine. In these countries of a common historical heritage there are some analogies in the perspective on human rights and their realization. It may be also noted that the LGBT rights have become an instrument of politics. In the following article the authors present a comparative analysis of the way in which the LGBT rights are respected in the Russian Federation and in Ukraine. They will depict the similarities and differences between these two countries which result from historical conditions, and will provide an analysis of the current perception of non-heterosexual people in both countries.