CFP: Issue 64 (submission deadline: 30 April 2026)

The unemployed, the homeless and other socio-economic minorities in capitalist and communist societies

People who are unemployed, homeless, poor, or otherwise experiencing prolonged economic hardship do not conform to widely accepted expectations surrounding work, productivity, property, and lifestyle. Therefore, they pose a challenge to society. Taking a humanistic and social approach to this issue provides a better understanding of how mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion influence community organisation in both market-oriented and egalitarian societies.

This issue explores the portrayal of socio-economic minorities and their experiences of life on the margins, as well as political, cultural and aesthetic responses to poverty, unemployment, labour migration and homelessness. We welcome theoretical and empirical contributions, including case studies focusing on specific historical periods, regions or social contexts.

Suggested thematic areas include:

• welfare and exclusionary ideologies in capitalist and communist systems;
• discourses of poverty and exclusion in public, political and media language;
• language and communication within marginalised communities;
• biographical and documentary narratives of life on the economic margins;
• representations of unemployment, homelessness and poverty in art and popular culture;
• architecture and topography of deprivation in urban and rural environments;
• historical and contemporary forms of solidarity and resistance among marginalised groups;
• everyday economies and survival strategies of people living on the socio-economic and cultural margins.

Guest editor of the issue: Patrycjusz Pająk

CFP: Issue 63 (submission deadline: 15 June 2025)

Cultural heritage of minorities in Central and South-Eastern Europe

Heritage has become one of the key categories of contemporary cultural discourse and practices in relation to both scholarly research and local or state policies. Our object of reflection is the heritage of minorities in Central and Southern Europe after 1945. At the same time, we realize that the minority itself can be defined in different ways. Regardless of whether it is a national, ethnic or religious minority, the concern is always the relationship of the given group to the majority group and the question of defining the community. We therefore propose to seek answers to the question: 

• how minorities themselves view their past and seek to protect and promote its artifacts;
• what positions do groups dominant in number take with regard to the heritage of those less numerous; 
• to what extent do contemporary accentuated values, such as multiculturalism, localism or participation, affect its reception, evaluation and protection;
• can we speak of excluded heritage and the heritage of the excluded;
• how minorities – and which minorities – use the heritage to position themselves in the social and political field? 

At the same time, we view heritage as materialized objects, not as a metaphor. The elements of heritage will therefore be elements of the landscape, monuments, objects considered historically valuable, memorials or cemeteries, i.e. physical objects occupying a place in space - but also artifacts and museum initiatives. The interest of the contemporary humanities in this topic testifies to the importance of the phenomenon; we can mention here, for example, the analyses published by the International Cultural Centre in the book series edited by Jacek Purchla, the research on the German-Polish frontier by Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska, or the growing popularity of the reflection on the heritage of Anthropocene. It is therefore worth examining the processes of defining minority heritage and negotiating its meaning in the context of post-Habsburg and Balkan Europe.

Guest editors of the issue: Maciej Falski, Angelika Niewiadomska 

CFP: Issue 62 (submission deadline: 30 October 2024)

Religious, confessional, and alternative worldview minorities. The search for spiritual independence

The issue 62 of "Zeszyty Łużyckie" is devoted to the study of various forms of seeking, experiencing, and manifesting religious and/or spiritual independence. These phenomena are to be presented from a minority perspective which encompasses both confessional as well as spiritually oriented minorities professing alternative worldviews, including groups which function within traditional religious institutions while calling for their purification and/or modernizing. We wish to put particular emphasis on the fact that working towards purification or emancipatory ideals is often seen in terms of acts of apostasy, thus becoming an important factor of social change.

The search for spiritual independence is conditioned not only by doctrine-related and social aspects, but also specific political events. Another year of the war in the Ukraine has shown that religion has again become an identity-forming contributor of much importance. Reinstated within the official political discourse, religious matters are being placed beyond the private sphere where they were once deemed to have be relegated in the wake of secularization processes.

These new circumstances behoove us to question the ways in which traditional religious denominations influence identity narratives. How does war and political tension or unrest foster diversification processes within the hitherto dominant denominations (e.g. Orthodox Christianity), initiating or reinforcing the emergence of independent spiritual currents, or simply fostering religious practices which degrade the integrity of theological and/or institutional sphere? Do spiritual practices in the context of increasingly complex relations on a global scale indeed work to turn the great religions into local “factories of the absolute” (a formulation chosen by Karel Čapek as title of one of his novels)?

An important element within the quest for spiritual independence is that of alternative forms of entering contact with what is recognized as supernatural. Some examples of this trend are Slavic neo-pagan movements, or the so-called futurologies, some of which are transformed into a futureligion. Tomaš Halík points to a proliferation of a faith in the existence of something with which one can establish a stable connection, thus fulfilling individual needs of protection and meaning via i.a. exchanges with psychics, the use of magical objects and talismans, and cultivating other forms of a private concept of a Higher Power. Halík notes the emergence of an “aperture for transcendence” which enables those who fail to see a place for themselves within any church in its present form, not to be excluded from the realm of the supernatural.

Within the context of what one may call a religious “free market”, those religious minorities who seek spiritual independence and whose members live in countries entirely dominated by one religion established as traditional, official, or even state-sanctioned, comes in a very different form – and at a great price. In this case, being part of spiritual minority often entails a justified sense of insecurity. This is why we wish to emphasize the fact that the situation of spiritual or religious minorities in Slavic countries is in effect diverse, encompassing spaces between the two ends of a spectrum: i.e., that of identification as a minority by choice, one which exists freely within the liberal and inclusive worldview map of a given region, and belonging to a minority which faces a more or less direct threat of exclusion or even persecution.

In the wake of progressing economic and social stratification which equally affects the so-called “most developed” countries (such as France or Germany), impacting both immigrant and native communities, and young people in particular, the “material safe haven” has become less accessible. This has raised the following question: what is it exactly that those searching to find meaning and purpose of (post)modern existence – marked by secularization and de-institutionalization of the religious experience – turn towards? Charles Taylor’s seminal work A Secular Age links the experience of fullness with everyday life and its practices. Taylor defines fullness as a perception of abundance different and more profound than that which comes with mere material ease, and emphasizes that this is a multi-faceted phenomenon: it may be an elusive and vague feeling, but may also gain stability when embedded in a spiritual worldview; it can be of religious nature or simply involve opening oneself to transcendence without doctrinal sanction. Lastly, it may be a matter of individual, personal experience – or shared (to an extent) within a co-exclusive group of believers. This broad spectrum of how fullness is experienced seems to extend beyond the traditional division between the religious / non-religious, as strongly indicated by adepts of post-secular thought which has now become part of liberal arts and cultural studies, including in Poland.

In Slavic cultures, the relations between officially acknowledged, institutionalized religions and secularization processes have differed from Western Europe in accordance the distinct historical and social conditions. Centuries-long political dependencies, religious inclusiveness (or a lack thereof), complex cultural structures, and state communism were of importance. Voluntary migration, i.e., not dictated by state laws and policies, from the so-called great religions, and criticism of traditional church institutions entered official discourse much later than in the West. These processes do, however, lead to the emergence of phenomena far beyond the simple binary opposition between theism and atheism. The Czech case illustrates the fact that indifference or even hostility towards official church institutions and denominations is accompanied by a rise in a “minority” kind of spirituality or religiousness addressing spiritual needs outside of the traditional ways in which these were once fulfilled. It is our strong hope that mapping similar practices in Slavic areas shall yield a nuanced and diverse panorama shaped by distinct religious traditions, cultural practices, and sociopolitical situation.

Some topics to be addressed within the present issue include:

• cultural practices and beliefs of religious and/or alternative worldview minorities;
• manifestos of spiritual independence;
• articulations of new spirituality (including those expressed via literature and art);
• the experience of apostasy;
• religiousness in the face of military and/or political threat;
• everyday lives of religious minorities;
• spiritual awakening and revival movements;
• neo-paganism and futureligion;
• the role of culture as a “seismograph” for religion-related shock and transformation.

Guest editors of the issue: Danuta Sosnowska, Ewelina Drzewiecka

Issue 62. of "Zeszyty Łużyckie" is prepared in cooperation with the Commission for Comparative Research of Slavic Literatures of the International Committee of Slavists.

CFP: Issue 61 (submission deadline: 15 December 2023)

Teaching and studying minority/minoritised languages of the Iberian Peninsula

On the Iberian Peninsula, in addition to the two state-wide official languages (Castilian and Portuguese), there are many regional languages with varying degrees of standardisation, codification and above all, different legal status. The intersection between this diversity and educational contexts provides many interesting challenges. Thus, we would like to invite you to reflect on the following issues:

• How are power relations and language ideologies reflected in the presence of these languages in education? And how does the presence of these languages in education affect power relations and language ideologies?
• What factors determine the interest for these languages inside and outside the Iberian Peninsula?
• What are the language attitudes and motivations of the learners?
• How can we problematize language policies of different Iberian regions/institutions regarding teaching these languages inside and outside the Peninsula? How do these official strategies translate into language practicum in different areas outside the Peninsula?
• How can we describe the presence of minority/minoritised languages in curricula inside and outside the Iberian Peninsula? What are the educational policies of different European governments and institutions in this respect?
• What are the teaching strategies and methods of minority/minoritised L2 and L3 languages in comparison to Castilian and Portuguese curricula?
• What linguistic challenges do students and teachers of these languages face in different L1 contexts (phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicon, cultural pragmatics)?
• What opportunities and challenges do new digital and AI tools and technologies provide for learners and teachers?
• To what extent are the contents related to these languages present in the manuals and materials used for teaching Castilian and Portuguese? How accessible are these materials?

 Guest editors of the issue: Natalia Czopek, Bartosz Dondelewski

CFP: Issue 60 (submission deadline: 30 September 2023)

Minority languages on the Slavic dialect map

Minority languages do not exist in a vacuum. Not only are they constantly surrounded by the official languages of their respective countries, but they themselves come from a certain linguistic background and can oftentimes be classified as transitional dialects or dialects of official languages of other countries. Such is the case with many minority languages in Central and Eastern Europe that are important points on the larger map of Slavic dialects.

Considering minority languages from a dialectological perspective provides us with research methods and tools which help us better understand their linguistic and cultural background as well as their relationship with the official language and its users. The placement of minority languages on the Slavic dialect map can be viewed from both a synchronic and diachronic approach, relevant to their historical and current development. Likewise, research methods from various fields may be employed, such as sociolinguistics, cultural, social and political studies.

The planned issue will be focused on the following topics:

• minority languages as transitional dialects: their place in the Slavic diasystem and dialect continua, their dialectal characteristics, languages of the frontier;
• the historical development of dialects into minority languages: the minority’s divergence from its linguistic background, minority languages as dialects of extinct languages;
• minority languages as dialects of another state’s official language: the functioning of dialects outside the nation’s borders, the users’ relationship with the language norm, their linguistic and ethnic identity, the state’s support for preserving itslanguage enclaves abroad;
• minorities in relationship with the official language of the same language group: emphasizing diversity through linguistic differences, state recognition of minority languages, appropriation of minority languages as dialects of the official language, the problem of what constitutes a language versus a dialect from a minority’s perspective.

Guest editor of the issue: Janusz Szablewski

We would like to dedicate this volume to Dr Ignacy Doliński, whose work as a member of the Polish National Commission of the General Slavic Linguistic Atlas (OLA) contributed to the development of Slavic dialectology.

CFP: Issue 59 (submission deadline: 31 January 2023)

An inconvenient minority: understanding LGBTQ+ subjectivities in post/socialist Europe

LGBTQ+ persons and communities are often seen as a minority in the sociological sense regardless of the political regime or cultural area. As a consequence, LGBTQ+-related issues are nowadays studied and discussed within a broader discourse of minority protection and rights and of socio-cultural diversity, with major emphasis placed on intersectional aspects of private life, the social, and the political. In this special issue, our area of interest is the genealogy of how LGBTQ+ persons and communities have been conceived of in minority terms in the region of Central and Southeast Europe. It is our intention to shed light on the ways in which the narrative of LGBTQ+ persons as a distinct identity group has developed and constituted via discourse and related actions in a broad array of social domains, including the public sphere, cultural production, everyday life, legislation, among others. Moreover, placing this discussion in the context of cultural and social minorities, i.e. in line with the approach proper to Zeszyty Łużyckie/Minority Issues, we wish to reflect upon both opportunities and constraints of such framing, and highlight its specificity in the specific regional context shaped by distinct historical experience.

We seek for papers that reflect on discourses and practices which place the experience of LGBTQ+ persons in the framework of distinct social groups. We welcome contributions whose focus is on the post-socialist period, but which also discuss the socialist era and the period prior. We wish to define the specificity of given regions while simultaneously exploring the multiplicity of socio-cultural contexts present under the presumed uniformity of the Central and Southeastern European experience. We are also interested in discussions highlighting the dynamics which operate beyond the “East vs. West” division, as well as those addressing practices, discourses, and social spaces that offer an alternative view of the LGBTQ+ movements, visibility, and emancipation, outside the liberal concepts of legislative minority rights and normative notions of post-socialist transition(s).

The issues outlined may be addressed from a variety of scholarly traditions, including cultural studies, historiography, sociology, sociolinguistics, memory studies, gender studies, etc. Possible research axes might address, but are by no means limited to, the following questions:

• How has the discourse on LGBTQ+ rights evolved in the societies of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe? With what other discourses has it intersected? What are the distinctive features of these discourses in different socio-political contexts?
• What were the circumstances surrounding the emergence of LGBTQ+ movements in the countries of Central and Southeastern Europe? How has the perception of these movements changed over time?
• What social spaces and practices enabled the articulation and negotiation of LGBTQ+ interests and rights? What role did cultural festivals, the press, and popular culture play in these processes?
• What social infrastructure made possible the emergence of LGBTQ+ movements and the introduction of LGBTQ+ issues into the public sphere?
• What was the historical place of queer/LGBT identities in former socialist societies in Europe?
• How have LGBTQ+ communities and their rights been represented in literature, language, cinema, and popular culture? How have these representations changed over time?
• When does the discourse on LGBTQ+ rights become socially and politically significant, and how does it relate, on the one hand, to other forms of social, political, and cultural activism (such as environmental movements, anti-militarism, and anti-nationalism), and, on the other hand, to mainstream political discourses?

Guest editors of the issue: Maciej Falski, Tanja Petrović

CFP: Issue 58 (submission deadline: 30 September 2022)

Bulgarian minorities and communism

The present issue is devoted to the topic of minorities (in accordance with the understanding proposed by the Editors, i.e. that of institutionally embedded minorities perceived as "traditional" [national, ethnic, linguistic, and religious], as well as those whose minority status is established dynamically and requires specification [in the case of social, cultural, political, and other minorities]) in countries known as the Eastern Bloc or people's democracies (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Albania, the GDR and what is today Ukrainian territory, in the years 1945–1989).

Following the political, social and economic transformations in the aftermath of World War II, the policy towards minorities in countries under direct or indirect influence of the USSR was – generally speaking – uniform (because it was based on the USSR model) though by necessity different in the respective cases. That is, the legal model, based on reference to the Soviet Union, aimed at uniformity, specific solutions however differed depending on the internal situation in each country. Various strategies for negotiating individual minority identities ensued.

By pointing to the roots of minorities in this part of Europe, the historical perspective opens up new research contexts taking into account the specificity of the situation of minorities, which allows for (at least partial) verification of research tools derived from other analytical traditions, their processing, and adaptation to the characteristics of a given region – not only from a diachronic perspective but also in a synchronous approach. As a result, although the title suggests a dominant role of the historical approach, we do not wish to be limited by to a historiographic perspective. Sociologists, cultural researchers, ethnologists, and ethnographers whose work addresses problems of minorities in countries known as people's democracies are invited to collaborate on the planned issue of "Zeszyty Łużyckie".

The planned issue’s intention is to focus on several substantial problems:

• the functioning of minorities within, and in the face of, the dominant political discourse. Internal changes and mutual relations as well as the changeability of their situation in particular periods (in a diachronic perspective) and between individual countries in this part of Europe (in a synchronous perspective);
• methods of negotiating identity of minorities in terms imposed by the majority/totalitarian reality. On the one hand, the possibility of building and manifesting visibility in the dominant discourse, and on the other hand, the procedures of removing minorities from the field of visibility;
• legal framework regarding the situation of national minorities in respective countries known as people's democracies;
• attempts to maintain the internal integrity of individual minorities and strategies of self-determination against the majority in people's democracies.

 Guest editors of the issue: Robert Kulmiński, Yordan Eftimov

CFP: Issue 57 (submission deadline: 31 January 2022)

Methodology in research on minorities

This is a Call for Papers regarding the 57th volume of "Zeszyty Łużyckie", devoted to the memory of professor Ewa Siatkowska, PhD (1930‒2020) - the journal's initiator, founder, and chief editor of many years.

The present issue's theme corresponds to professor Ewa Siatkowska's fields of research and academic interest (i.e. languages of national, ethnic, and religious minorities, among others), while embracing the need felt by numerous scholars - that of renewing methodological paradigms through redefinition and recontextualization. The journal's broad profile invites research in minority problems both conceived of in traditional terms (i.e. regarding national, ethnic, linguistic, and religious minorities) and concerning minorities which are in the very process of constitution and thus need further, more specific definition (such as social, cultural, and political minorities, among others). The minority as a concept is thus seen as a relational category, always set against a certain majority.

Our aim is to create a platform of exchange of experience, methods, and tools useful in research in linguistics, cultural, literary, and historical studies, and sociology, among others. We are open to submissions authored by researchers of minority problems in all academic domains. 

Guest editors of the issue: Ignacy M. Doliński, Milena Hebal-Jezierska