Индивидуални проекти

Необходимостта от реформа на политиката на разширяване на ЕС под натиска на геополитическите обстоятелства е ясно призната както от изследователите, така и от експертите (Börzel 2023; Schimmelfennig 2023a; Schimmelfennig 2023b; Sydow & Kreilinger 2023; Nizhnikau & Moshes 2024). Това усилие изисква промяна в познавателната перспектива, тъй като повечето от изследванията в тази област са ограничени от рамката на доминиращия рационалистичен подход, който: а) е разработен преди началото на Източното разширяване и б) е насочен към универсално теоретично разбиране (Sedelmeier 1996; Schimmelfennig 1996; Sedelmeier 2011). Спецификите на посткомунистическите общества, възприемани от основните участници в това разширяване като „съвсем различен звяр“ (Landaburu 2007), бяха пропуснати. Целта ни е да променим менталната карта в мисленето за разширяването на ЕС, като подчертаем фундаменталната логика на методологията на разширяването чрез практическото ѝ проявление в пакетите за разширяване на ЕС. Ще приложим сложна качествено-количествена аналитична методология, за да отидем отвъд официалните изявления в докладите за страните и да достигнем до систематична структура на ключовите характеристики на политиката. Това познание ще позволи да се направят някои фундаментални промени в подхода на ЕС към бъдещите разширявания, като се цели постигането на качествено различни резултати в много по-успешното европеизиране на страните кандидатки.

В България няма полицейско насилие. Това изглежда е консенсусът, постигнат сред широк набор от политици, журналисти и дори потребители на социалните медии. Въпреки това в Европейския съд по правата на човека бяха спечелени множество съдебни дела срещу България; психолог от Министерството на вътрешните работи признава по телевизията, че проблемът с полицейското насилие може да се превърне в системен; а веднъж на няколко години избухва скандал заради предполагаема злоупотреба с власт от страна на полицейски служители. Макар че шепа активисти и неправителствени организации се опитват да следят полицейското насилие в страната, това остава трудна битка, тъй като няма официална статистика и не е прието определение на ключови понятия като „полицейско насилие“ или „полицейски тормоз“. Този проект се стреми да разбере значенията, които различни заинтересовани страни - журналисти, жертви, адвокати и полицейски служители - приписват на „полицейското насилие“, и какви са стратегиите, чрез които тези заинтересовани страни разбират самата категория „полицейско насилие“. За тази цел проектът използва комбинация от количествени и качествени методи, включително интервюта, анализ на дискурси и текстове, както и основни статистически данни.

The project presents an interdisciplinary approach to the interrelationship between media, language, and society in the context of conflicts and wars. It integrates frameworks from sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics, describes the phenomenon of media language and compares it in different countries. On the example of the warfare between Ukraine and Russia (Russian military aggression), the study will show the impact of the conflict on the media language, type of media and society, as well as make a comparative analysis of the methods and techniques used by media actors to communicate with people. In this context, Dr Yuliya Krylova-Grek pays attention to the different aspects of language in the period of war and conflicts: language as a weapon (“weaponized language”), language as a tool of resistance, and counteraction to psychological operations (PSYOPs). The interdisciplinary approach allows the researcher to explore what methods and tools media actors use to influence public opinion and how the choice of language is determined by social and political context, depending on the country and region. The project is based on a comparative study of how media operate during conflicts and crises in different countries and regions (Ukraine, Russia, Central and Eastern European countries).

This project aims to determine the specifics of the images of Ukraine constructed by church historians of the Russian Empire during the "long" 19th century. The transformation of Russian church narratives about Ukrainian history will be examined from the broad perspective of the history of colonialism, nationalism studies, and new imperial history. Dr. Pavlo Yeremieiev will try to discover how the characteristics of the Ukrainian lands in church historiography were influenced by the historians' personal theological, historiosophical, and socio-political views, changes in methodological approaches to studying history, and general cultural trends of the era. Can we characterise the Russian Orthodox Church as a maiden of the state (in terms of Richard Pipes) in constructing the images of the Ukrainian past? What was the role of the scenarios of power (in terms of Richard Wartman) and the invention of tradition (in terms of Eric Hobsbaum) in constructing the images of Ukrainian lands by Russian church historians? How did the Russian, Ukrainian and Polish national movements influence the church's historical narratives about Ukrainian lands? In what way did the church historians actualise Biblical images and medieval concepts (the Second Jerusalem and so on) to characterise Ukrainian religious history?

This project analyses the apocalypse phenomena along with three categories: self, time, and emotion. These three categories shape an interpretational space for our thoughts about the apocalypse in general, the COVID-19 pandemic in particular, and apocalyptic experiences in the war. As the simplest form of a micro-apocalypse, one takes a personal experience at the border of the subjective present time. An experience flow goes to its limit, the world ceases to exist, and all that remains is the self, which is interpreted as the central entity of personality. This experience is a very short interruption in the flow of consciousness as a brief break of personal being in the world (Polunin, 2011). This micro-break has a specific timing and emotional accompaniment. The discrepancies in the self-experience given directly at the border of the subjective present time and outside the border are of particular interest. Comparing them, we examine how the cognitive system overcomes the periodically appearing micro-apocalypse, taking this mechanism as natural. Then we move from the micro-apocalypse to the social level. At the social level, we analyse the apocalyptic thinking regarding Covid-19 and the war. From person to society, we interpret the social self as a stable group identity. Thus, the model will develop further from the micro-level to the larger social dimension. The resulting theoretical model should interpret apocalypses of different natures - personal, social, economic, and military. This approach should contribute not only to the theoretical modelling of the apocalypse but also to improved communication in society at large.

The project is focused on studying the peculiarities of an important Ukrainian region through the prism of quality of life. "Quality of life" is used as a collective interdisciplinary category (at the intersection of Sociology, History, Medicine, Economics, and Psychology), which allows us to look at the human environment, the influence of natural conditions and climate, changes in nutrition and their consequences, the (un)successful fight against diseases and medicalization, changing social conditions and social standards. These are difficult areas to reflect on, especially if the historian wants to find long-lasting, important changes and tectonic shifts. It is uneasy to compare the quality of life in time or space because the population has different standards and expectations. In his research, Dr Igor Serdiuk has to apply universal comparative indicators, such as mortality parameters, food security, earnings ratio and prices of basic necessities. At the same time, it is essential how people of that time, especially representatives of the "silent majority", imagined the quality of their life. To investigate this, I apply micro-historical and historical-anthropological approaches to working with sources that allow hidden "voices" to be heard. The result of the project will be several scientific publications, an optional discipline for master's students-historians, updating the existing educational courses "Everyday life history" and "Methodology of history", which I teach to students-historians.

Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328) was a Muslim theologian and jurist, one of the most influential representatives of the Hanbalite theological and legal school in Sunni Islam. As such, his work has been extensively studied in the context of Islamic theology and the Islamic religious law Sharī a. This project aims to examine Ibn Taymiyya’s work from a different andʽ previously unexplored perspective: that of translation studies. To this end, it will identify the texts from his works in which the main elements of his understanding of translation are presented. Critical analysis of the texts will reveal Ibn Taymiyya’s place in the history of Arabic translation discourse and facilitate the presentation of his understanding of translation. He perceives it both as a historical process of interlinguistic transfer and as an analytical category that enables the exploration of divergences within the Islamic culture and identifies differences between Islam and other epistemological and religious traditions.

The project aims at analyzing and synthesizing the evidence for critique of religion and rulers from Ancient Mesopotamia cuneiform sources (ca. 2600-500 BC), which has often been neglected in Ancient Near Eastern Studies themselves and as a consequence also in neighboring fields. The Enlightenment, is an intellectual movement of utmost importance for the development of the history of the modern world. Enlightenment fostered a democratic development as well as the liberation of sciences and humanities from the control of the church and other authorities. Therefore, historians and philosophers intensively studied the European Enlightenment and its forerunners. For our understanding of intellectual history and Enlightenment phenomena the Mesopotamian evidence is of utmost importance, as it precedes the Greek developments and provides an intellectual context for them. In a series of articles, I have demonstrated that such phenomena, as the critique of the king or even critique of the gods, exist in cuneiform sources and during my stay at CAS I will refine and extend these findings and publish them in the form of a short monograph.

Based on a detailed historical analysis of the emergence of the contemporary concept of equality in international human rights law the project paints a comprehensive picture of the structural deficiencies of this concept and proposes an alternative. The research on equality is a burgeoning field. However, as highlighted by many scholars, the processes of globalisation require a re-articulation of the traditional vision of equality and in particular alternatives to both the welfare state and neo-liberal thinking. I argue that to achieve this re-articulation a deeper historical understanding of the structural elements and presuppositions underlying the current equality thinking in international human rights law is required. Systemic and systematic analysis of this deficiencies can only emerge from a careful historical analysis of institutionalisation of equality in the League of Nations and the United Nations. Insights gained from this historical examination are then complemented by philosophical and broader theoretical reflections on difference and identity by Deleuze, Derrida, Nishida, and queer theory to propose a novel approach to equality. This approach is expected to be more adapted to the conditions of globalisation. Examples from arts to be created in cooperation between the scholar and the artists are used as illustrations.

The project seeks to explore the history of mercenary employment in Muscovy during the Smolensk War with Poland-Lithuania from 1632 to 1634 within a broader historical context. This period represents the most extensively documented case in Muscovite history where large military units, comprised entirely of foreigners (primarily Germans, Englishmen, and Scotsmen), were recruited abroad under fixed mercenary contracts. Through this case study, I investigate the dynamics of interaction with foreign private military entrepreneurs in Muscovy and present this evidence within the framework of state-building processes and mercenary service in Early Modern Europe. While recent research has highlighted the significance of private military actors in Central and Western Europe from the 15th to the 18th centuries, the narrative surrounding Russian military history during this period has predominantly remained state-centered. My objective is to challenge this narrative by applying methodological frameworks developed for studies on European military entrepreneurship to 17th-century Muscovy. The research is primarily based on unpublished sources from Russian, British, Swedish, and German archives, which I have already collected. During my time in Sofia, I intend to finalize my prosopography database on mercenary officers in Muscovite service and complete the draft of the monograph on this subject.