Bucharest, the city where the mayor boasts about how his projects led to the tripling of real estate prices: “A dat drept exemplu Parcul Liniei, care, potrivit acestuia, a generat o triplare a preţurilor apartamentelor din zonă după finalizare.”

“On the night of 27 February, the day before the US and Israel would carry out strikes on Iran, an unusual influx of about 150 accounts on Polymarket placed bets that the US would strike Iran the next day.”

„In such narratives, geopolitical confrontation is not merely strategic but part of a larger, divinely ordered struggle. The effect is to further erode the space for diplomacy, recasting war as destiny rather than as a contingent and avoidable political choice.“

Happy to see this piece out, in which I look at postwar plans of resettling German expellees to Latin America through the lens of the 'coloniality of migration'. It's part of an upcoming special issue of Settler Colonial Studies, that will be duly advertised when all the articles are out.

Sánchez seems to be the only European political leader who hasn’t lost his mind

Fascists despise many things about socialism. In particular, and related, are its rationalism, materialism, cosmopolitan universalism, and above all socialism’s egalitarianism. www.currentaffairs.org/news/why-fas...

“Romania already had an underfinanced education system with disastrous results. Now, with huge emigration rates, a low skilled workforce and an aging population, these measures could well be the last nail in the coffin for Romania’s future.”

Happy to have contributed to the dossier on “Lorrainians” in Banat published by “Revue d’Allemagne”. And extremely grateful to Benjamin Landais, who had to put a lot of effort in order to make my French readable. The dossier, currently under paywall, is here: journals.openedition.org/allemagne/4369

Why have a state, after all?

so much freedom in the land of the free

“Europäische Landwirtschaft, wie sie heute organisiert ist, basiert auf ausbeutbarer Arbeit. Früher Rumänen statt Polen, jetzt Roma oder Arbeiter aus Nepal, Bangladesch, Vietnam. Ohne diese Arbeitskräfte würde vieles zusammenbrechen oder viel teurer werden.”

The European dream: “In 2020-2021, the Dutch Labour Inspectorate reported that more than two-thirds of severely disadvantaged workers employed by an employment agency in low-wage industries were Romanian. The trend is most pronounced in the meat industry…”

Zurückweisungen verstoßen nicht nur gegen geltendes Recht und sind menschlich sowie moralisch verwerflich, sie kosten den Steuerzahler darüber hinaus viel Geld: 80,5 Millionen Euro – für 493 zurückgewiesene Personen. Eine in jeder Hinsicht desaströse Bilanz. www.wiwo.de/politik/deut...

New today: Adam Shatz in Berlin. ‘That Germany has a responsibility to remember the Holocaust is beyond question. But it’s striking how little concern there is for other populations that have experienced racial discrimination or violence at the hands of the Germans.’ www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

“Ideea asta că, dacă ai un stat slab, trebuie să-l faci și mai slab în zona serviciilor publice e, sincer, foarte proastă.”

„If extraordinary sums can be mobilised for the military, with far lower economic returns and much lower social benefits, then the refusal to fund a just transition and stronger public services is clearly political, not economic.”

Herzliche Einladung zum Vortrag „Dubious Legacies: Cities of Eastern, East-Central and South-Eastern Europe. 1850–2000“ von Markian Prokopovych (Durham) im Rahmen des Gesprächskreises Neuere Geschichte. 📅 2.6.25, 18:15 Uhr 📍Großer Übungsraum, Osteuropainstitut (Wilhelmstr. 36)

In Romania, investor (also member of AUR and MP) won a tender & plans to turn the former prison where, among others, Communist and Fascist leaders were imprisoned, in a luxury hotel. Complains about bureaucracy (too many approvals needed). One can only hope bureaucracy will have the better of him.

I published something in the latest issue of the Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung. It’s on the Lorrainians/French in Banat, it’s in English and it’s open access. Check it out here: www.zfo-online.de/portal/zfo/a... www.zfo-online.de/portal/zfo/a...

Beim Institut für donauschwäbische Geschichte und Landeskunde (IdGL) in Tübingen ist zum 01.07.2025 eine unbefristete Stelle im Forschungsbereich Migrations- und Mobilitätsforschung zu besetzen: idglbw.de/de/aktuelles...

📣 New Long Read! Cristian Cercel provides an in-depth reflection on Marius Turda’s new book În căutarea românului perfect. Specific național, degenerare rasială și selecție socială în România modernă, published by Polirom in 2024. Read it here: ceureviewofbooks.com/longread/the...

The world is decomposing, yes, but I published something on Danube Swabians, homeland orientations, and multiple diasporic possibilities