[ecrea] new issue media studies: Special issue on popular culture and post-socialist societies in east-central and south Eastern Europe

Mediální studia 02/2015 Special Issue

Mediální studia 02/2015 byla podpořena dotací Odboru médií a audiovize 
Ministerstva kultury ČR.

MEDIA STUDIES

SPECIAL ISSUE ON POPULAR CULTURE AND POST-SOCIALIST SOCIETIES IN 
EAST-CENTRAL AND SOUTH EASTERN EUROPE

INTRODUCTION

Ondřej Daniel, Tomáš Kavka, Jakub Machek (Charles University in Prague, 
Metropolitan University Prague):

Popular Culture and Post-Socialist Societies in East-Central and South 
Eastern Europe PDF

EMAIL: (ondrej.daniel /at/ gmail.com); (tomas.kavka /at/ email.cz); (jakub.m /at/ post.cz)



STUDIES

Gábor Egry, Ágnes Kata Miklós (Institute of Political History, Pázmány 
Péter University, Budapest):

An Anti-Communist Revolution of Gastronomy. The Gastronomy Renewal 
Movement and Hungarian History PDF

ABSTRACT: The article’s aim is to analyze how parts of the gastronomy 
renewal movement in Hungary are connected to nationalist politics of 
identity in Hungary. Based on insights from the study of everyday 
ethnicity, banal nationalism and comparative memory studies in CEE it 
shows how the nationalist anti-communist concept of history that 
constitutes a cornerstone of the identity of the right is in herent in 
the gastronomy movement. It is a-historic and manifestly mythici zing, 
finding the lowest point of gastronomy history in the Kádár-era, a 
period also excluded from national history in the great narrative of the 
right. This adjustment enables the movement to overturn existing 
hierarchies and infuse the public discourse with its own language with 
the help of politics but at the price of obligatorily lending its 
support to political PR action that contradicts its own promoted values.

EMAIL: (egrygabor /at/ freemail.hu); (miklos.kata /at/ villanyi.avf.hu)

Lucie Kořínková (Institute of Czech Literature of the Czech Academy of 
Sciences of the Czech Republic):

The Changes of (not merely) Practical Woman and Emancipation of a Hobby 
Magazine PDF

ABSTRACT: The study is based on analysing Praktická žena, a popular 
women’s magazine that was successful enough to survive the “times of 
transformation” on the Czechoslovak media market in the 1990s. It is 
focused on the relationship between the content of the magazine and the 
official ideology of the 1980s, defining women’s role in the society of 
that time, women’s everyday life problems and social changes after 1989. 
The text follows the development of Praktická žena as an ideologically 
controlled “life style” magazine of the socialist era to the hobby 
magazine of the present, and deals with the changing evaluating of DIY 
activities, such as home making of clothes and interior decoration, in 
the Czechoslovak society.

EMAIL: (korinkova /at/ ucl.cas.cz)

Eva Schäffler (University of Salzburg):

Reflections of gender and sexuality in the eastern German magazine 
Superillu PDF

ABSTRACT: The paper offers a historical analysis of the discourse on 
eastern German gender and sexuality in the 1990s. As a primary source, 
it uses Superillu Magazine, which has existed from 1990 until today and 
explicitly targets an eastern German audience. First, Superillu’s 
reflections of gender and sexuality can be described as an example of 
how certain attitudes in this field (e.g. towards liberal sexual 
behaviour or towards working women) have continued to exist beyond 
socialism. Second, a comparison of Superillu’s reflections of gender and 
sexuality in the 1990s with the results of contemporary sociological 
research in this field shows that these discourses did only partly 
correspond to each other. Altogether, the (comparative) analysis of 
Superillu opens up new vistas on discourses on gender and sexuality in 
the 1990s and thus helps to historicize one aspect of eastern Germany’s 
very recent past.

EMAIL: (eva.schaeffler /at/ gmail.com)

Irena Šentevska (Independent researcher):

“Turbo folk rules!”: Turbo-Folk, Chalga and the new elites of the 
post-socialist Balkans PDF

ABSTRACT: This paper addresses the role of (neo) folk music industry in 
the symbolic divisions and identity ‘reshaping’ (national and cultural) 
of the post-socialist Balkans, with an emphasis on official policies and 
popular attitudes in two countries, Serbia and Bulgaria. Turbo-folk and 
chalga, both colloquial but widely adopted terms for ‘modernized folk 
music’, may be perceived as two names of (more or less) the same 
phenomenon, which has many counterparts and local varieties throughout 
the world. The field of popular culture in its ‘post-socialist’ 
discursive framework is all too often excluded from academic 
considerations, in spite of its power and efficiency in forging, 
adopting and disseminating the ideological stereotypes underlying the 
deep social divisions and ethnic conflicts (not only) in the Balkans. 
This paper argues that both for its overwhelming presence in the lives 
of ‘ordinary people’, and for its associations with the national culture 
and identity, folk music is subject to exceptionally intense processes 
of manipulation, according to the ideological, cultural and economic 
(political) interests of the current elites – thus becoming a powerful 
and malignant vehicle of symbolic divisions on both national and 
international scales – in spite of (or perhaps due to) its festive and 
Dyonisian veneer, probably nowhere so eagerly exploited as in the Balkans.

EMAIL: (irenasentevska /at/ gmail.com)

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