The subject of our interest is to present the significance of the Songun doctrine (Military First) in the North Korea’s internal and international politics. At the beginning, we intend to trace the concept of the Juche ideology and its essential implications for the role of the army in a country ruled by the Kim dynasty since the end of World War II. In the remainder of this study, we would like to characterize the theoretical and explanatory aspects of the Songun doctrine, focusing in particular on reviewing of its principles in terms of politics, economy, culture and propaganda aspects. In the context of the current situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, an important role is played by the Byungjin doctrine, initiated by the country’s leader Kim Jong-un and mentioned in our article, which in the future can contribute to the beginning of reforms in Korea’s economy. In summary, we presented forecasts for the future and our attempt to answer the question whether in the current international situation the Songun doctrine will be implemented in its present form.

The article aims at identifying key elements of Russia’s strategic culture and drivers for its change. It starts with a short theoretical overview of the strategic culture concept and different approaches within various theoretical frameworks (liberal, constructive, and post-modern). It focuses on most important determinants of Russian strategic culture, namely history, ideology, geopolitics, systemic issues, and religion. It examines the extent to which Russian policy reflects these determinants.

Confidential Assignment (Kongjo, Kim Sung-hoon), released on January 18, 2017 between DPRK nuclear tests, tells a story of two special agents. One is from North Korea and the other one from South Korea, and they unite to fight against a common enemy. Extraordinarily, the North Korean agent is portrayed as more formidable than his South Korean counterpart who is unable to match him in every field. Also, the North Korean agent is portrayed by a Korean super star, Hyun-Bin. In this paper, I analyze two other similarly themed movies: The Net (Kŭmul, Kim Ki-Duk) and Steel Rain (Kangch’ŏlbi, Yang Wooseok). All of them were released recently and were huge commercial successes in South Korea. The aim of the following paper is to show and analyze the evolution of the image of North Korean characters in South Korean cinema. During the analysis, the question of how the change from villain to super hero was possible is answered. The way in which the movies talk about inter-Korean relations and how they portray both countries is particularly important to understand the current political sentiments in the Peninsula and how it can affect the Moon Jae-in presidency.

Gıvıng of Words wıthout Equıvalence in the Translatıon of Borıs Pasternak’s Doctor Zhıvago

The main task that translators face today is to not only to perfectly understand the language of the original, but also to convey the spirit of the work with its creative and artistic thinking. Therefore, the translator must be able to distinguish between literary, artistic expression and ordinary words.

The concept of “diplomacy” combines the foreign policy activities of state leaders and supreme authorities. At various stages of the development of society the methods and means of diplomacy changed. In the Middle Ages the protocol is the rules of paperwork and archiving. Subsequently ceremonial issues began to be attributed to the diplomatic protocol. Currently the diplomatic protocol is a set of generally accepted norms, traditions and conventions that are observed in international communication. The purpose of the study is to analyze the evolution of the Soviet protocol as an instrument of the state’s foreign policy based on the analysis of regulatory documents. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that the author considers the diplomatic legal culture as a component of the image of the state, in which ideology influenced all aspects of society, including the rules of communication between a Soviet citizen and foreign partners. It was revealed that the employees of the Protocol Department of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (PCFA), and primarily its head D.T. Florinsky (repressed in 1934) and V.N. Barkov (repressed in 1941, rehabilitated in 1958), were able to “reconcile”, as evidenced by regulatory documents, the European diplomatic protocol with the norms of Soviet ideology. Through its work the Protocol Department tried to destroy the idea of the USSR as an “empire of evil”; it was part of the positive image of the USSR, like the Bolshoi Theater, Soviet sports and Russian literature. As an actor in world politics the Soviet Union could not but accept the main provisions of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Ignoring the international norms of the protocol is a denial of equality, sovereignty, territorial integrity of the state, and as a result, loss of reputation in the eyes of the world community.

Spain is one of the countries which is facing a lot of nationalist sentiments and aspirations of certain autonomous communities seeking if not for sovereignty, then at least for greater autonomy or a federal system. This paper aims at investigating the case of Catalonia by examining the roots of Catalan nationalism, its main determinants and drivers for change. It also explains the reasons for evolution of the accompanying factors and claims that Catalan nationalism is civic and not ethnic in nature. Its main factors are economic and cultural as well as ideological ones, built on the common identity shaped by cultural and religious heritage. Till the crisis of 2007/2008, Catalan nationalism was not violent – neither in actions nor in its claims. Deterioration of the economic situation and social frustration made it easier for politicians to use the nationalist argument to win a political battle. It resulted in the revival of stronger nationalist sentiments and a desire for self-determination.

Question of racism in the thought of the ideologists of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (1929–1945)

The goal of the article is to show what role did the racist elements play in the ideology of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and whether they were present in that ideology at all. In the scientific discourse it remains controversial, whether OUN was in fact a fascist organization. Those discussions very often ignore the question of racism and its role in both Italian fascism and Ukrainian nationalism. It is also rarely analyzed what was the nature of those racist elements. In the article the historical-legal method has been used, as well as the comparative method. The problem has not been analyzed in the chronological manner, in order to secure the clarity of the article Applied structure of the paper allows showing the analyzed problem from the most general questions to more detailed ones. Works of the ideologists connected with OUN, such as Dmytro Dontsov, Volodymyr Martynec’, Dmytro Orlyk, Yuliyan Vassyjan and Yuriy Lypa have been analyzed, Author decided to underline most important parts of their thought presented in their books and pamphlets and compare their views on each issue. It allowed to indicate that racism is often a topic presented in the works of the ideologists of OUN, although there is no one version of that thought. Every author presents his own view on that topic and other approach. However, they seem to become gradually more interested in the problem of the race in late 30’s and 40’s. However Ukrainian racism is not a biological racism. It treats the race as the spiritual phenomenon with a biological substrate.

From ideologisation to patriotism: receptions of A. Mickiewicz’s model “Poet and people” in the ukrainian literary criticism of the XX – beginning of the XXI century

The article is devoted to the research of reception of A. Mickiewicz’s model “the Poet and the People” in twentieth- century Ukrainian writers’ criticism. The writers traced the canon of relations between the artist and society created by A. Mickiewicz, which had a profound influence on the literature of Polish Romanticism. Considering the reception of the ‘poet and people’ paradigm, the authors of the article note that Ukrainian poets of the Soviet period were forced to dissect certain artistic phenomena through the prism of the communist ideology of the time. One of the most consistent and productive interpreters of A. Mickіewіcz among Ukrainian writers was M. Rylskyi. He left a considerable inheritance of literature and publicist articles about the Polish poet. M. Rylskyi as a critic gave the deepest scientific standards to the analysis of the poetics of A. Mickіewіcz’s works. He did not cast aside the generally accepted scheme of the creative evolution of the Polish poet but cautioned researchers from the monolinear measuring of it. M. Rylskyi was the first one in Ukrainian Mickіewіcz Studies who noticed that mixing of styles was inherent in А. Mickіewіcz’s works during all of his creative life. M. Rylskyi allowed the identification of the poet Konrad Wallenrod with A. Mickiewicz himself, warning that after all the person of the hero does not reflect and cannot reflect the personality of the author. M. Rylskyi described Konrad Wallenrod as mysterious and contradictory, as was A. Mickiewicz. The article also compares the interpretations of M. Rylskyi and Polish researchers and writers, in particular, Maria Cieśla-Korytowska and Jan Kasprowicz. The authors trace that the Ukrainian poet D. Pavlychko was the first in Ukrainian literary criticism to draw attention to the idea of Europe in the artistic and ideological system of A. Mickiewicz as the idea of the Fatherland.

Analysis and Deconstruction of the Main Ideologists of the Russian World Doctrine

The article analyses the three prominent ideologues of the doctrine of “Russian world”: the myth that “Orthodoxy is the basis of an identity”; the myth of the openness and friendly attitude of the Russian people to other ethnic groups and religions, and the myth of the Eurasian/Russian civilisation that opposes the “rotten” West. The existence of these ideologues in the information and symbolic field of Ukraine and the world, manipulating them, and placing them in the actual context of the Ukrainian cultural space, lead to a distorted perception of relations between Russia and Ukraine and the war between them. The article attempts to reveal those distortions and semantic substitutions ontologically contained in the ideologies of the “Russian world”, which can be analysed as typical errors in the context of the argumentation theory. The study aims to develop a conditional “dictionary” of mythologists of the “Russian world”, which could be used during an all-out information confrontation. The author chose the myth “Orthodoxy – the basis of Russian identity” as the basic ideology because, firstly, most other ideologies derive from this thesis with the help of skilful semantic manipulations. Secondly, this myth is interpreted and used by Russian ideologues in various contexts. Based on the analysis of this and two other myths, the author concludes that the ideology of the “Russian measure” does not meet the definition of the criteria of clarity and unambiguity; the meanings of its key concepts are as variable as possible, depending on the context, used with the substitution of meaning in general formulations, which do not provide for clarification of non-standard use of the term; there is a substitution of identities, which makes it possible to manipulate the historical facts and memory of the people; such informal logical errors as recourse to force, alternative to fear, false Scotsman, wholesale bargaining, and source poisoning are always used by Russian ideologues in their argumentative practices. In the process of revealing the illogicality and paradoxical nature of these myths, it turns out that the very essence of these myths significantly contributes to the crisis of culture and politics, which speaks of the same ideologues who glorify the messianic role of Russia. This array of ideological myths cannot be called a balanced system of political dogmas but rather a rhizomatic system of manipulation, the fluidity of which provides its ability to evade counter-arguments and identify historical substitutions.

Controlled eroticization of the proletariat through pro-natal policies was an almost unnoticed facet of the programme of iconographic public works displayed in exceptional locations throughout the newly-built resorts along Romania’s Black Sea shore. Never previously studied on its own merits, this artistic programme of open-air sculptures that begun in the Romanian Popular Republic and continued in the Romanian Socialist Republic needs to be understood and contextualized, by way of interdisciplinary instruments, against a broader post-Eastern approach that goes beyond the established methodologies of art history.

The main objective of this study was to verify the hypothesis about the relationship between a sense of efficacy and educational strategies for teachers, conceptualized as a heteronomy – autonomy dimension. A move towards autonomous strategies should be linked to a strong sense of efficacy in teachers. The study, planned in this manner, was to verify the concept of education strategy discussed in this article, and the ability to predict educational strategies in schools based on the knowledge of the sense of efficacy in the teachers implementing them. The results positively verify these hypotheses, but also show the problematic ruling which of the strategies (heteronymous or autonomous) is more effective in the perception of teachers.

Beyond Ideological Entanglement. The Hidden Agenda in the Contemporary Educational Debate

The purpose of this article is to reconstruct a state of the debate ongoing for over a half of the century on the so-called the hidden program. The different theoretical positions are compared and presented – from those who take the hidden program as a central concept and category, to those denying its presence in social sciences. Contentious issues have been outlined, above all in the views of the nature, sources and results of this phenomenon. Vigorous discussions ongoing in the English literature, often having the ideological roots, are used by the author to present the own perspective of the hidden program as an important educational category, but ignored in Polish science, that may become an inspiration for theorists and practitioners and also may become a tool for diagnosis and critique.

The authors of this article attempt to describe in detail the determinants and structure of the beliefs and views of Polish society on a liberal to anti-liberal values continuum. The first research objective was to determine the extent of social and economic freedom that respondents expect in their relations with others and in their relations with state institutions. In addition, the authors wanted to identify the socio-demographic characteristics that significantly differentiate these liberal orientations, as well as the factors that independently determine the adoption of liberal views. The detailed hypotheses were verified based on an analysis of data collected in a nationwide telephone survey (CATI) conducted on a representative sample of 1,000 adult Polish citizens. The survey used an original questionnaire consisting of 31 quantitative scales, which were used to construct the Liberalism/Libertarianism Index (LLI) and to categorize respondents into “Polish Liberals” and “Polish Libertarians.” Higher index values indicate stronger and more consistent liberal attitudes in economic as well as axiological (social) terms. More liberal orientations were found to be held by respondents declaring higher incomes, younger, better educated, and less religious, although only age, some party preferences, and religious practices act as independent predictors of LLI.