Slavic Studies

This article investigates the interconnection between Vienna’s urban space as an imperial capital and the political activities of Karl Lueger, the Burgomaster and leader of the Christian Social Party (CSP). The study elucidates how Vienna’s multi-ethnic and imperial character, characterized by social challenges, its architectural heritage, and the rise of nationalist ideologies, influenced the formation and trajectory of Lueger’s political strategies. An examination of Lueger’s political discourse, official CSP and municipal programmatic documents, press accounts, and memoirs of contemporaries reveals that Lueger’s populist approach was predicated on the exploitation of socio-economic disparities, the articulation of interests pertaining to the «Common Man» and the strategic construction of an «other» through the deployment of anti-Semitic tropes. Furthermore, the analysis indicates that the policy of «municipal socialism» pursued through the augmentation of urban infrastructural services and the provision of social welfare, was concomitantly interwoven with exclusionary practices intended to foster socio-cultural homogeneity within Viennese society, thereby cultivating a sense of collective identity. Particular emphasis is directed toward the analysis of the «Beautiful Karl» cult, exploring its role in the manipulation of public opinion, the strategic utilization of populist rhetoric to mobilize the electorate, and the instrumentalization of urban space for political purposes. In conclusion, the author posits that the impact of Lueger and his party engendered a substantive re-evaluation of the very concepts of «Vienna» and «Viennese citizen» transforming the imperial capital into a key locus of German nationalist sentiment.

The course and results of the discussions on the formation and spread of Ukrainian Neopaganism are shown in the article. Problematic issues related to the period of emergence and ideological sources of neopaganism are outlined. The so-called «patriarchs» of Ukrainian neopaganism and personalities who developed neopagan views are listed. The role of V. Shayan and L. Silenko in the formation of neopagan organizations in the Ukrainian diaspora is noted. Neopagan groups that operated in the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine and other Ukrainian nationalist organizations are presented. The poets whom neopagans name the forerunners of neopaganism are considered: T. Shevchenko, I. Franko and L. Ukrainka. These persons attract the attention of neopagans in connection with their critical statements about Russian Orthodox Church and the exploitation of pre-Christian motifs in their works. The article presents the cultural and historical context in which the process of formation of neopagan groups in Little Russia (Malorossia) takes place. There also the aspects that determined the popularization of neopagan ideas are noted. It is pointed, that in neopagan groups, the cult and prayer practices were addressed mainly to Perun and Dazhbog, out of the rest of the pantheon of Slavic gods. The aspects that determine the attractiveness of Dazhbog's image for neopagan groups of the early twentieth century are specified.

The article discusses little-studied aspect of international relations in the 1920s-1930s, namely, the activities of the Little Entente of Women (LEW), the first international women's organization in Eastern Europe that advocated pacifism and played a significant role in the interwar period. LEW was founded in 1923 at the 9th Congress of the International Union of Women for Suffrage in Rome, where representatives of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, led by Leposava Maksimovich-Petkovich, proposed the creation of a regional international women's association. The country-members of the Little Entente of Women were the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Czechoslovakia and Poland. The organization quickly gained strength as the belief grew that establishing long-lasting peace in Europe was only possible with the equal participation of both men and women in this process. In the 1920s LEW congresses were regularly held on topical social and political issues affecting not only the interests of women. LEW became a platform for interaction between the countries of the Little Entente and countries that sympathized with it. However, largely due to the changing international environment in the 1930s and the gradual disintegration of the Versailles system calls for pacifism were losing their relevance, so the organization, which combined feminism and pacifism, lost its power and desintegrated.

The article is written in the genre of a polemical review of two monographs devoted to Slavic etymology: Dimensions of Slovak Etymology (2023) by the leading Slovak etymologist Lubor Kralik and Slavic Etymologies (2024) by Tatyana Vladimirovna Shalaeva, a researcher of the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Both books are the result of many years of research into Slavic vocabulary; both are a structured selection of previously published articles that have been supplemented, corrected, or even significantly changed. The monographs of both authors examine difficult to etymologize words – common Slavic, Slovak, Russian – which are reliably and convincingly explained using also typological parallels. At the same time, some words, as it seems, can or should be interpreted differently; and additions to some other words would have embellished and strengthened the author's argumentation (for example, the ritual use of a pile of nettles instead of a fire on St. John’s Day as a confirmation of the semantics of 'burning' and the derivation from the verb 'to burn'). In the article, as part of the discussion, arguments were offered in favor of a different semantic or cultural interpretation of a number of words etymologized by the authors of the monographs (Slov. sabáš, kántriť, Bel. лайно, Rus. издеваться, измываться, etc.). The presented data once again confirm the importance of using extralinguistic data in etymological research.