On the Barricades

On the Barricades ― s06e01 💰 You can support us at https://www.patreon.com/thebarricade 🌟 Thanks so much! During a recent meeting of the leadership of one of Bulgaria's leading political forces, a party called "We Continue the Change" (really!), scandalous and shocking statements were made. One of the party's co-chairmen, Assen Vassilev, discussed how appointments to the state's intelligence and...

In this edition of On the Barricades the hosts discuss the moral bankruptcy of the whole NGO establishment. Charity is a concept criticized in classical Marxist literature and also in books and articles from other areas of the ideological arena. Boyan Stanislavski and Maria Cernat discuss why feminism and the LGBT community should be very skeptical with regards to the power of the NGO to fundament...

Maria Cernat and Boyan Stanislavski discuss in this edition of On the Barricades  a report claiming that Poland is the worst place for the LGBT community despite the fact that recent research shows that the LGBT community's acceptance in Polish society is improving. Maria Cernat then goes on to analyze the successes of Hungarian president Viktor Orban, whose prospects of winning elections grew sig...

“On the Barricades” s06e54 In this three-part release of this week’s “On the Barricades”, hosts Maria Cernat and Boyan Stanislavski invite back Pat Byrne, the UK-born, Brazil-based political analyst, author, and historian of the European left who is currently writing a book, “Why China will lead the world and what it could look like.” Inspired by Maria’s article* on “Socialism with Romanian Charac...

On this weekend’s release of “On the Barricade”, host Maria Cernat invites Joe Tripician, an American Emmy-award-winning filmmaker with very interesting Balkan connections. In 1997 Joe accepted a job to write the "official" biography of the president of Croatia, Franjo Tudjman. He had to decide whether to write what the Croatian government wanted and help the president escape a war crimes indictme...

This weekend we analyze the political animal dubbed right-wing populism Eastern Europe, with Romania, Bulgaria, and Poland serving as reference points. So-called right populism is on the rise– it’s in power in Poland and Hungary– and the world including the liberal intellectual establishment of these countries seem shocked by it. To the extent that this brand of politics is ideologically coherent,...

This weekend we analyze the political animal dubbed right-wing populism Eastern Europe, with Romania, Bulgaria, and Poland serving as reference points. So-called right populism is on the rise– it’s in power in Poland– and the world including the liberal intellectual establishment of these countries seem shocked by it. To the extent that this brand of politics is ideologically coherent, what is it?...

On this second release of the weekend, the hosts of “On the Barricades”, Maria Cernat and Boyan Stanislavski, turn to the political systems of Poland and Bulgaria. There is a major theme in Western coverage of the political process in these countries that operates on the premise that, yes, liberal democracy is not working as it’s supposed to here— take that Bulgaria just had its 5th round of parli...

Two recent incidents of teacher abuse in the Romanian school system— one on April 5 at an elite high school in Bucharest where a student stabbed a teacher who announced a test, and one on April 7 involving sexual harassment of a teacher in a rural school— are the basis of today’s discussion of structural causes for the breakdown of relations and lowering of learning conditions in the capitalist ap...

Boyan speaks to Bozhin Traknov, a political commentator, analyst, journalist and teacher in Bulgaria, in a second of two parts on the April 2 Bulgarian elections and their importance to a number of questions. They continue to break down this so-called “civilizational choice” that the elections— the fifth in two years— were supposed to pose to the apathetic electorate: between loyalty to NATO / “Eu...

With threat of war at its doorstep, on April 2 Bulgaria saw its fifth parliamentary election in two years. The result is much similar to the dysfunctional results of the last four: a vote iikely too fragmented across contesting parties to allow formation of a ruling coalition government. Only 40% of Bulgarians turned out to vote, one percent more than time’s record low 39%, and the bulk of votes w...

On today’s release of “On the Barricades”, host Maria Cernat invites Vitalie Sprînceană on to discuss a local perspective on the current crisis and events in Moldovan politics. Vitalie is a committed activist and founder of the media platform platzforma.md, located in Chișinău, Moldova. Moldova was placed on the map for the international audience due to its tense geopolitical context and the war i...

In this two-part release of “On the Barricades,” hosts Boyan Stanislavski and Maria Cernat speak with a pair of academics inside Russia to get at some truth about the figure so well heralded by the West, the “oppositionist” and “honest” challenger to Putin, Alexei Navalny. There’s been some backlash after the Navalny extravaganza and misportrayal went perhaps too far in the Oscar-winning documenta...

In this two-part release of “On the Barricades,” hosts Boyan Stanislavski and Maria Cernat speak with a pair of academics inside Russia to get at some truth about the figure so well heralded by the West, the “oppositionist” and “honest” challenger to Putin, Alexei Navalny. There’s been some backlash after the Navalny extravaganza and misportrayal went perhaps too far in the Oscar-winning documenta...

In this first episode of the weekend’s release of “On the Barricades”, hosts Boyan Stanislavski and Maria Cernat discuss a tragic incident in Polish news related to the death of the 15-year-old teenage son of the main opposition party’s MP, Magdalena Filiks. The teenager was a victim of abuse at the hands of a Civic Platform member, who was also an LGBT activist, and the suicide occurred after the...

This weekend we have a 3-part release of “On the Barricades” with two of our regular guests, Youri Smouter of 1+1 and Arto Artinian, a Bulgarian-raised professor of sociology in the US. These two bring broad experience and knowledge from the socialist movement and study of its history and sociology, from both sides of world. Along with hosts Maria Cernat and Boyan Stanislavski, they are tackling t...

This weekend we have a 3-part release of “On the Barricades” with two of our regular guests, Youri Smouter of 1+1 and Arto Artinian, a Bulgarian-raised professor of sociology in the US. These two bring broad experience and knowledge from the socialist movement and study of its history and sociology, from both sides of world. Along with hosts Maria Cernat and Boyan Stanislavski, they are tackling t...

This weekend we have a 3-part release of “On the Barricades” with two of our regular guests, Youri Smouter of 1+1 and Arto Artinian, a Bulgarian-raised professor of sociology in the US. These two bring broad experience and knowledge from the socialist movement and study of its history and sociology, from both sides of world. Along with hosts Maria Cernat and Boyan Stanislavski, they are tackling t...

In this weekend’s release of “On the Barricades,” regular hosts Boyan Stanislavski and Maria Cernat speak with Youri Smouter of 1+1. The discussion was launched after Boyan’s return from a trip to Israel and Palestine, where he was with a group of journalists invited by an EU organization in the West Bank called EUPOL COPPS. This is the third and final part of the 3-part release. We hear from Boya...

In this weekend’s release of “On the Barricades,” regular hosts Boyan Stanislavski and Maria Cernat speak with Youri Smouter of 1+1. The discussion is launched after Boyan’s return from a trip to Israel and Palestine, where he was with a group of journalists invited by an EU organization in the West Bank called EUPOL COPPS. In this first release we hear Boyan’s personal impressions from this profo...

In this week’s release of “On the Barricades,” we welcome back our monthly guest Youri Smouter of 1+1, with us to discuss with host, Romanian feminist and media critic, Maria Cernat. Youri and Maria are delving into the problem of the current state of the feminist movement– divorced from socialism as it is– in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. How did we get here and what is the way forward for femini...

In this week’s release of “On the Barricades,” we welcome back our monthly guest Youri Smouter of 1+1, with us to discuss with host, Romanian feminist and media critic, Maria Cernat. Youri and Maria are delving into the problem of the current state of the feminist movement– divorced from socialism as it is– in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. How did we get here and what is the way forward for femini...

In this week’s release of “On the Barricades,” we welcome back our monthly guest Youri Smouter of 1+1, with us to discuss with host, Romanian feminist and media critic, Maria Cernat. Youri and Maria are delving into the problem of the current state of the feminist movement– divorced from socialism as it is– in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. How did we get here and what is the way forward for femini...

In this special March 8 release of “On the Barricades”, host Maria Cernat invites Dr. Katerina Szumiewicz on the show. Katerina is a Polish scholar with a background in philosophy, emancipatory pedagogy and sociology who has authored a number of books, as well as a classical feminist. They discuss the history of the feminist movement and material reality of women in socialist Poland versus Romania...

While Biden’s recent speech in Poland was concise and relied a lot on the simplistic rhetoric western leaders typically put forward, in Putin’s February 21 address to the nation he spoke for 2 hours and gave data, references, put forward military and economic plans, including a short intervention about LGBTQ issues. The speech was followed by a gesture towards “free speech”, a concession to those...