· March, 2014

Stories about Eastern & Central Europe from March, 2014

Should Africa Learn From the Crimea Referendum?

  28 March 2014

“Is Crimea referendum a good model for Africa?” asks Richard Dowden: Africa’s arbitrary borders, mostly drawn by people who had never set foot in the continent, have always been an obvious target for renegotiation. But Africa’s first rulers, who foresaw chaos and disintegration if the nation states were reconfigured, ruled...

The “Happy Voting” Project Encourages Young Europeans to Vote

  28 March 2014

Drawing on the Pharrell Williams worldwide hit “Happy” and the associated equally renown music video (over 143 million views on YouTube), the Brussels-based film company Full Tunes Production has recently launched on facebook an enthusiastic project  called “Happy Voting” that strives to encourage voting for the next European elections. The project...

Russia's Media Crackdown Spills into Academia

RuNet Echo  27 March 2014

Three days ago, MGIMO University fired Professor Andrei Zubov for so-called academic misconduct. His supposed crime was writing an antiwar op-ed criticizing Russia's intervention in Ukraine.

A Telethon to Save Russia's Independent TV

RuNet Echo  23 March 2014

Russia’s only independent television station, TV Rain, is on its last leg. Following what appears to have been an orchestrated campaign to rob the channel of its cable and satellite distributors, advertisers have run for the hills and the station is being evicted from its Moscow studio at Red October...

What Is the Future of Russia's News Media?

RuNet Echo  23 March 2014

Now that Moscow has formally annexed Crimea, following a controversial popular referendum, it's possible, if not extremely likely, that Russian journalists will face even greater difficulties.

Hungarian Far-Right Group Protests Against Fashion Designer

  22 March 2014

A group of far-right extremists occupied the exhibition opening of a Hungarian fashion designer on Friday, Kettős Mérce blog reported [hu]. The designer in question Koby's new fashion line was first withdrawn [hu] from a Hungarian sports brand shop in January 2014, after nationalist criticism rose against the t-shirt designs featuring some of...

Suspected Government #SelfieMacedonia Campaign Backfires

  21 March 2014

A Facebook campaign with the hashtag #SelfieMacedonia was launched in March 2014 and Macedonian social media users now suspect that the country's government is behind it all. Bouts of young social media users from Macedonia, individually or in groups, have been taking photos of themselves, typically called “selfies”, and sharing...

About our Eastern & Central Europe coverage

Filip Stojanovski
Filip Stojanovski is the Central Europe editor. Email him story ideas or volunteer to write.

Daria Dergacheva
Daria Dergacheva is the Eastern Europe editor. Email her story ideas or volunteer to write.