Canada’s Support for Refugees from Ukraine: An Analysis of Activities from 2022-2024Canada is one of many countries that, following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, provided various types of assistance to the country and opened its borders to war refugees. From March 2022 to April 2024, more than one million Ukrainian refugees applied for special Canadian visas under the Canada–Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel (CUAET) program; more than 950,000 received them, and nearly 300,000 came to Canada. These migrants, admitted on a temporary basis, are neither immigrants nor refugees under Canadian regulations, although they have access to much of the systemic assistance provided in Canada to both of the aforementioned categories of newcomers. The article presents and analyses the course and conditioning of this Canadian migration stream and its characteristic features. Based on survey data from Canadian immigration authorities, it also shows selected data on the structure of Ukrainians applying for CUAET visas and on those who came to Canada.

This article explores ethnic relations in Poland, with a particular focus on the role of legal frameworks in shaping the status and rights of ethnic and national minorities since the fall of communism in 1989. It traces the historical context of restrictive state policies under communism and the subsequent transition to more inclusive legislation, culminating in the 2005 Act on National and Ethnic Minorities and Regional Language. The study highlights how this act, by formally recognizing certain minority groups, influences cultural preservation, identity formation, and intergroup dynamics within Polish society. Additionally, it examines the limitations imposed by the rigid legal categories and exclusionary criteria that affect new or unrecognized communities. Through this lens, the article illustrates how state policies and legal recognition impact the interactions between minority and majority groups, reflecting broader socio-cultural and political dynamics in contemporary Poland. The analysis underscores the complex interplay between formal regulations, state power, and ethnic identity, demonstrating both the potential for empowerment and the constraints embedded in institutional frameworks.

The article analyzes the contemporary aspects of discursive transit that the Russian regime performs in the context of the need to legitimate its war effort during the crisis of domestic media. This paper attempts to study the problem of which patterns of the discourse of hostility the Russian regime seeks to transfer into Western media discourse on the Russian war in Ukraine to legitimize it. The study of the interview of Vladimir Putin with Tucker Carlson was performed using discourse analysis methods. The interview was studied as an example of the discursive transit of the Russian wartime hostility discourse into the Western media sphere to gain sympathy and legitimize the war course. This problem is relevant in the context of contemporary qualitative political communication research, in understanding the core ideas that the Russian wartime discourse built. This moment is especially interesting in light of the EU-Ukraine cooperation and the constant development of the EU legislation in media regulation and security.

MOUNTAINS – POLITICS – MEMORY: PERCEPTION OF THE COMMUNIST WORLD IN THE RECOLLECTIONS OF MEMBERS OF THE KRAKÓW HIGH-MOUNTAIN CLUB The article is an attempt to distinguish the components of the concept of communism and to reveal the ways of perception of various communist subsystems, basing on reports written by the members of Kraków High Mountain Club, who pursued their objectives concerning mountain exploration in the countries of ‘socialist democracy’, in the years 1971-1991. Archival materials and interview with participants of the aforementioned expeditions are the basis for the analysis. At that time experiencing various manifestations of the communist system in different countries was for the members of such trips a secondary element rather that the main preoccupation. However, now it seems to be the core of the transferred memories. The author of the article is trying to introduce and define the components of the concept of ‘environmental memory’ and he’s going to indicate its relation to selected notions defined by Jan Assmann: individual memory, generational memory, cultural memory.

Recently, Poland’s relations with the monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – gain new dynamics. Relations with some of these states are strategically important and demonstrate the potential to develop, whereas with the others they are rather limited, yet pragmatic. These differences are reflected in Poland’s cultural diplomacy towards each of them. The study aims at discussing and analysing the type and range of activities performed within the scope of Poland’s cultural diplomacy towards the six monarchies of the Gulf in the last six years (from January 2020 to April 2025). The paper discusses the role of state institutions as creators of Poland’s cultural diplomacy and, by presenting selected examples of cultural diplomacy activities, it explores the potential of Polish culture in terms of cultural diplomacy.

HOW DOES CHINA’S SOFT POWER WORK? THE CASE OF THE CHINA-PAKISTAN ECONOMIC CORRIDOR Announced in 2013, the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a multidimensional infrastructure project that has the potential to transform the Pakistani state and society. Under the CPEC umbrella, Beijing has expanded to an unprecedented extent own portfolio of soft power instruments vis-a-vis its “all-weather friend”, Pakistan. This article aims to analyze the potential of CPEC as a rich resource of China’s soft power. In the theoretical dimension, the paper juxtaposes Joseph Nye’s original conceptualization of soft power with selected literature on China’s soft power and Beijing’s practice. Empirically, the article first highlights the numerous soft power instruments deployed under the CPEC umbrella or related to this project. Second, this article outlines how the Pakistani government and society perceive China, CPEC and, where possible, specific instruments of China’s soft power. This case study draws attention to the nonmaterial aspects of China’s infrastructure projects that are often neglected. Thus, this study helps better understand this country’s growing importance in South Asia and beyond.

RUSSIAN SOCIETY FACING THE WAR AGAINST UKRAINE (2022-2025) The main focus of interest in the paper is the issue of dynamics and forms of expression of views and attitudes of Russians towards the invasion of Ukraine. An attempt to stress the importance some circumstances influenced by the war has been made (the growing number of the dead and wounded soldiers, inflation, difficulties in healthcare access, increasing army expenditures, rising gas prices, sanctions imposed on Russia). Some forms of the society reactions towards war have been analyzed. A significant part of the text is devoted to the utterances of Russian religious leaders commenting on the war. Diagnoses of the social situation in Russia formulated by Russian writers opposing the war (D. Glukhovsky, B. Akunin, L. Ulitskaya, M. Shishkin, S. Lebiediev) and those supporting the invasion (Z. Prilepin, A. Prokhanov) have been considered as well. The summary draws attention to the high percentage of Russians supporting the war. Attempts at adaptation to the life under the war shadow have been indicated either. The war has revealed some characteristic features of contemporary Russian society: it’s dependence on the authority, predomination of attitudes marked by passivity and opportunism, lack of motivation to reflect on the issue of individual and collective responsibility for the invasion.

The article is divided into two parts: the first examines discourse analysis as a research method, while the second focuses on the study of Polish political culture. Initially, the article discusses the potential of discourse analysis for political science and related social sciences. The distinction between actor, problem and structure-oriented political discourse analysis is introduced. Special attention is paid to exploring the utility of the poorly researched structure-oriented discourse analysis and the concept of tropes in public discourse. In this context, a case study of the conspiratorial motive of a creeping coup d’état in Polish political discourse is conducted. In conclusion, the article states that the trope has constituted a significant element of Polish political culture over the last two decades, as conspiracy narratives have become institutionalised in mainstream politics as a byproduct of culture wars and deep polarisation. Therefore, it is claimed that a study of tropes, not only those related to conspiracy narratives, offers a promising perspective for understanding political cultures.

Artykuł ten stanowi próbę analizy zmian tendencji w polityce wielokulturowej w demokratycznych państwach cywilizacji zachodniej. Tendencje te prowadzą do kryzysu głównych modeli pluralizmu kulturowego, zwiększenia ograniczeń migracyjnych, ochrony tradycyjnych wartości grup hegemonicznych oraz wzrostu ekskluzywizmu narodowego.

SIGNUM TEMPORIS? THE RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE DISPUTE IN THE CONTEXT OF EUROPEAN IDENTITY TRANSFORMATIONSThe article explores the idea that late modernity is partly characterised by linguistic conflicts, arising from clashes between complex communication and value-based structures. They reflect differing attitudes toward the modern era, resulting in various strategies for transcending it. Moreover, linguistic collisions are compared to religious ones, greatly impacting Europe’s modern self-recognition during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation periods. In this context: 1. Heinz Schilling’s overview of 16th- and 17th-century religious and confessional conflicts is employed as a model for in-depth understanding of multidimensional identity confrontations; 2. the Russian-Ukrainian war is portrayed as a result of complex linguistic dissent, representing vital identity polarization of our time; 3. it is argued that today’s evolution of communication and value-based structures amplifies the discord among postmodern identities (e.g., European identity founded on the principle of unification in diversity vs. Russian identity founded on the principle of unification through domination).