TOL STORE BY TOPIC "culture"

Restructuring Regional and Local Economies: Towards a Comparative Study of Scotland and Upper Silesia

Throughout both Western Europe and the former Soviet bloc, there has been a transition away from traditional heavy industry in certain peripheral areas. This has necessitated a complete restructuring of local economies of such regions. This volume brings together researchers and practitioners from Scotland and Poland to compare their experiences of regional development and restructuring in areas of former heavy industry. As Poland approaches EU entry, the comparisons have greater salience; the Polish are eager to learn from Western experience while the West will become more involved in Central European development. The book is divided into four main sections: the first examining economic transformation and restructuring; the second focusing on social partnerships and their role in regional economic development; the third looking at enterprise initiatives and development; and the final section questioning the role of FDI. It concludes by bringing together the findings from both countries, critically analysing the different policies, incentives and multi-level structures involved in regional economic development. In doing so, it aims to provide a fresh perspective on the relevant policy matters and stresses the importance of building appropriate institutional capacity to promote development.

Set somewhere in the Czech countryside during the 1980s, the film focuses around the village simpleton Otik and the portly farm collective truck driver who has to work with him. Along the way, viewers meet all of the often odd denizens of the village. Menzel is a masterful director as his film is both funny and endearing. The actors also do a fantastic job. What makes this film so outstanding is that it is an almost perfect reflection of rural life in this part of Europe, which anyone who has spent even a little time in the villages of e.g. the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, etc. can attest to.

Stéphane, a young French man from Paris, travels to Romania. He is looking for the singer Nora Luca, whom his father had heard all the time before his death. Wandering along a frozen road, he meets old Izidor, a member of the Roma (Tinker) and tells him of Nora Luca. Izidor seems to understand and takes him to his village. Stéphane believes that Izidor will take him to Nora Luca when the time has come. So, he lives in the tinker village for several months. The other inhabitants dislike him at first (as he comes from those who call them thieves and attack their folks) but when they as they get to know him better, they grow to like him. In summer, the ice between him and beautiful Sabina finally cracks, and as she is able to translate between the Roma and him, Stéphane finds out that nobody ever understood a thing that he had said.

In World War II Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia, a childless couple, Josef and Marie Cizek, can only watch while the Jewish family of their employers, the Wieners, are first removed from their own home to a spare room in their house by the Nazis, then removed to the far off facility of Thierenstadt. Years later, young David Wiener, the sole surviving member of that family has managed to escape and make it to the Cizeks. Although fully aware of the extreme danger of harbouring a Jew in the Third Reich, the Cizek's can not permit themselves to leave David to certain death and agree to hide him. However, this decision leads to terrible danger of discovery by the Nazis and especially their friend and Nazi collaborator, Horst Prohazka, who is attracted to Marie. With desperate cleverness and luck, the Cizeks struggle to keep the secret, even when Horst begins to suspect. In doing so, they find themselves making unorthodox choices and learning about the true nature of the people around them.

The shepherd Gombo lives with his wife, three children and grandmother in a tent on the Mongolian steppe. They are pleased with their rustic conditions, until a Russian truck driver, Serguei, gets stuck with his truck nearby. The cultural gap between Gombo and Serguie seems invincible. But maybe they can learn a few things from each other?

In 1958 Dave Brubeck's Quartet, one of the most popular jazz groups in the world, played 80 concerts in 14 countries during a three-month period. To salute the marathon road trip, the pianist/leader composed six songs for a new recording (which is now out on this CD). "Nomad" and "Brandenburg Gate" are the best-known originals but all of the other selections are equally enjoyable, featuring fine solos from Brubeck and altoist.

2002 remastered reissue of 1985 collection, this album has never been officially released in the USA until now. Includes six bonus tracks, 'Documents', 'Panorama 14', 'Struggles', 'Perspectives', 'Mars', 'Vade Retro Satanas' & 'Death For Death'. Digipak. 17 tracks.

Read more about it at CER: Twenty Years of Laibach, Twenty Years of... ?

This would have made a more apt score for German-expressionist film classic Metropolis than the mess Georgio Morodor came up with some years back. Best-known for deconstructing "Sympathy for the Devil," these mad Slovanians use eerie samples and bleak beats to sum up end-of-the-millenium alienation.

Read more about it at CER: Twenty Years of Laibach, Twenty Years of... ?

Although it has been imported into the west under the name Terrarium, with Boris Grebenshikov listed as the recording artist, in Russia this album is actually titled Pentagonal Sin and Terrarium is the name of the recording artist. Terrarium is, of course, a play on Aquarium, the group Grebenshikov founded, and he continued to use the name even after the original unit disbanded. He also makes side projects under his own name. But Pentagonal Sin is classified in the discography on the Aquarium website as an "incognito" album, and that may be because of its whimsy and eclecticism. Grebenshikov has reunited with old partner Anatoli Gunitskii, among others, for a busman's holiday that sounds like something they put together after listening long and hard to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and other early progressive rock albums. "January Romance," which kicks things off, sounds like a children's song, with its playful vocals and light pop sound, while "Out of Synch" could have come off the Beatles' The Beatles [White Album] and "Molloy Arrived," with its twangy guitar, has the feel of the old west. "Zoya and Sonya" has a traditional folk-rock sound, and "The Chinese Don't Want" mixes a tango rhythm with a mariachi trumpet. This everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach works, as it does in the best progressive rock, because it stays light and keeps moving from one thing to another. Terrarium, or Pentagonal Sin, or whatever you want to call it, sounds like it was a lot of fun to make in a sort of "hey, let's try this" manner, and that fun communicates itself to the listener, whether that listener speaks Russian or not.


Read more at CER: Little Fisherman, Big Pond

An album from Russia's greatest rock musician is long overdue, and this collection is more than worthwhile. Like some American singer/songwriters, Grebenshikov has found himself coming closer and closer to roots music over the years, and these songs are very much the product of that. Whether putting his mark on the traditional song "My Little Loom" or writing an ode to his changing homeland with "Russian Nirvana," he's masterful. The songs themselves (with lyrics provided in four languages) are gems, the product of mature thought and frequently poetic, although the images, which seem obscure to Westernerners, probably resonate with Russians. But the beauty is best-illustrated by the settings, usually stripped-down, but with just the right touches to set off the voice and words, even if it takes some strange left turns, like the pseudo-'50s arrangement of "Gertruda." Accordion is prevalent, of course, but the oboe that courses through "Nikita of Riazan" gives an aching tone to the song. He's often compared to Dylan and Springsteen, which is unfair; the traditions are utterly different. Only the quality of the writing and performing is comparable -- listen to the gentle "Dubrovsky" and you'll be convinced. Grebenshikov is world class.

Read more at CER: Little Fisherman, Big Pond

In 1919, Hungarian Communists aid the Bolsheviks' defeat of Czarists, the Whites. Near the Volga, a monastery and a field hospital are held by one side then the other. Captives are executed or sent running naked into the woods. Neither side has a plan, and characters the camera picks out soon die. A White Cossack officer kills a Hungarian and is executed by his own superiors when he tries to rape a milkmaid. At the hospital, White officers order nurses into the woods, dressed in finery, to waltz. A nurse aids the Reds, then they accuse her of treason for following White orders. Red soldiers walk willingly, singing, into an overwhelming force. War seems chaotic and arbitrary.

Read more about Miklós Janscó at CER: Miklos Who?

Aleksandar Hemon, author of The Question of Bruno, one of the most celebrated debuts in recent American fiction, returns with the mind- and language-bending adventures of his endearing protagonist Jozef Pronek.
This is what we know about Jozef Pronek: He is a young man from Sarajevo who left to visit the United States in 1992, just in time to watch war break out at home on TV. Stranded in the relative comfort of Chicago, he proves himself a charming and frankly perceptive observer of – and participant in – American life. With Nowhere Man, Pronek, accidental urban nomad, gets his own book.

Aleksandar Hemon lovingly crafts Pronek into a character who is sure to become an enduring literary icon. From the grand causes of his adolescence – principally, fighting to change the face of rock and roll and, hilariously, struggling to lose his virginity – up through a fleeting encounter with George Bush (the first) in Kiev, to enrollment in a Chicago ESL class and the glorious adventures of minimum-wage living, Pronek’s experiences are at once touchingly familiar and bracingly out-of-the-ordinary.

But the story of his life is not so simple as a series of global adventures. Pronek is continually haunted by an unseen observer, his movements chronicled by narrators with dubious motives–all of which culminates in a final episode that upends many of our assumptions about Pronek’s identity, while illustrating precisely what it means to be a Nowhere Man.

With all the literary verve of The Question of Bruno, but with an engrossing narrative, engaging warmth, and refreshing humor, Nowhere Man brings to life a protagonist whose very way of looking at and living in the world provokes an exhilarating sense of seeing everything new again. And all the while, the inspired freshness of the prose reminds the reader why Aleksandar Hemon earned such extraordinary recognition after just one book.

Romania is one of the largest, yet one of the poorest, of the ten Central and Eastern European countries which have applied for membership in the European Union. Its agriculture is still a major component of the national economy, and is even more important in the social life and environment of the country. This book reports the results of a number of recent studies on different aspects of the reform policies in the Romanian agri-food sector during its transition towards a market-oriented system. As it is easy to identify the problems of Romanian agriculture, it is a challenge to recommend solutions. The conclusions reached in this examination are not only of domestic importance, but are also relevant to several other economies in Central and Eastern Europe, and indeed for many post-socialist countries where the agri-food sector still is a major contributor to the economy and is a principle vehicle for rural development. The preparation and publication of this work is apparent by virtue of the huge amount of education, enlightenment and persuasion that lies ahead.

Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History

In this study of the fateful encounters between Europe and Asia on the shores of a legendary sea, Neal Ascherson explores the disputed meaning of community, nationhood, history, and culture in a region famous for its dramatic conflicts. What makes the Back Sea cultures distinctive, Ascherson agrues, is the way their comonent parts came together over the millennia to shape unique communities, languages, religions, and trade. As he shows with skill and persuasiveness, Black Sea patterns in the Caucasus, Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Turkey, and Greece have linked the peoples of Europe and Asia together for centuries.

The best known prose work by the winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize for Literature examines the moral and intellectual conflicts faced by men and women living under totalitarianism of the left or right.