GIRN 1/2025

Editor-in-Chief’s Foreword

The Influence of Dugin’s Fourth Theory on the Current Socio-Economic Situation in the Russian Federation and Its Impact on Vladimir Putin

This article provides an in-depth analysis of Alexander Dugin’s Fourth Political Theory and its impact on contemporary politics and the socio-economic situation in the Russian Federation, with a particular focus on its influence on President Vladimir Putin’s decision-making and policies. Dugin’s Fourth Political Theory is an intellectual response to the dominance of Western liberalism and globalization, which Dugin argues lead to cultural homogenization and the loss of national identities. The theory advocates for a multipolar world order where different civilizations and cultural spheres have the right to develop independently without external interference. The article explores how these ideas shape current Russian geopolitical strategy, support the growth of Russian nationalism, and serve as the ideological foundation for policies of expansion and the restoration of Russian influence. Furthermore, the article analyzes the potential risks associated with this ideology, such as the reinforcement of isolationism, authoritarianism, and ethnic nationalism, which may destabilize international relations and threaten global security. The article also considers how Dugin’s philosophy resonates with Moscow’s historical ambitions and how it is interpreted and implemented in contemporary Russian politics.

The Course of the Šik Reform and Its Possible Final Form – Part I

This article examines the Šik Reform, a major but ultimately unfinished attempt to modernize the centrally planned economy of Czechoslovakia in the 1960s. It situates the reform within the broader political and economic developments of the decade, additionally providing a highlight of the failure of the Third Five-Year Plan and the shift toward a more market-responsive model of socialist management. The study focuses on enterprise autonomy, the limits of central planning, and the evolving role of reform-minded economists. Using statistical data and period documents, it analyzes both the implementation of the reform and its gradual rollback following the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion. The article concludes with an outlook on the reform’s intended direction and sets the stage for a deeper exploration of its institutional and legislative dimensions in the second part.

A Comparative Study of Libertarianism’s Scale and Impact in Contemporary Democracies

This article examines the role, scale, and ideological impact of explicitly libertarian political parties across five national contexts: the United States, Germany, Poland, Brazil, and Argentina. Even though libertarian parties remain electorally marginal in most countries, their contributions and ‘added value’ extends beyond vote shares or legislative representation. Through a comparative and multi-dimensional approach founded in both quantitative and qualitative analysis, the article analyses structural constraints, cultural narratives, electoral performances, media representations, and internal strategic tensions faced by these parties. The findings suggest that libertarian parties often operate more as ideological disruptors than as conventional electoral actors – shaping debates on taxation, state power, decentralisation, and personal autonomy, even when they fail to secure office. The paper argues that their influence lies less in institutional control and more in agenda-setting and discursive presence.

The Totalitarian Society as a Literary Image: A Comparative Perspective

This article explores the literary representation of totalitarian societies in selected works of Czech, Slovak, and Polish prose fiction written after 1918. Focusing on the cultural and ideological legacies of authoritarian regimes in Central Europe, the study proposes a comparative framework that accounts for historical, linguistic, and aesthetic specificities. It argues that literary texts not only document repression and control, but also reflect divergent strategies of adaptation, resistance, and memory-making. Drawing on approaches from hermeneutics, historical poetics, and narratology, the analysis moves beyond national canons to include marginal, minority, and exilic literatures. A three-level model – contextual, textual, and interpretive – is proposed to examine how totalitarian experience is articulated through narrative form, character construction, and language. The article contends that totalitarian society, as rendered in literature, is not only a political structure but a cultural trauma, shaping both authorial voice and reader reception across generations.

Linguistic Creativity in Motion: How Speakers Extend Intransitive Verbs into Argument Structure Constructions

This study examines how speakers extend prototypically intransitive “noise” verbs (coughed, laughed, sneezed) into Caused Motion and Resultative Constructions, as described by Goldberg (1995). Using corpus data from the British National Corpus (BNC) and the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), the analysis identifies the linguistic mechanisms and cognitive-semantic principles that support these non-prototypical uses. Results indicate that, despite their conventional intransitivity, these verbs are productively coerced into transitive frames when licensed by constructional meaning. Path and result phrases play a key role in signaling these interpretations. While both corpora provide evidence of such constructions, American English demonstrates greater frequency and flexibility, particularly in Resultative uses. These findings support a construction grammar framework, highlighting the role of usage patterns in shaping argument structure and extending verb meaning.