The Power of a Sound

On this page was previously an article released that discussed the question if games are art. Although this question remains still unanswered within the society and branch, it is unquestioned that music is defined as art and culture. Music is together with painting one of the oldest ways of humans to express themselves

Wake up Baltic countries

The following article is a second part about the Singing Revolution in the Baltics. To read the first part please click here.

Lietuva

When Lithuania declared its independence in March 1990 the Soviet Union imposed several economy blockades, cut the energy supply to the country and spread false propaganda to encourage Polish, Russian and Ukrainian workers to protest against the new government.

Wake up Baltic countries, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia!

Three sisters stand by the coast of sea
They are pressed by weakness and tiredness.
There waded land and spirits
Of honour and sense of three nations.

No Alternatives To Optimism

The small state Montenegro (=the black mountain) in the middle of the Balkan has a long history of changing governments and changing states. Unlike the Kosovo, Montenegro was able to leave the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro and was fast accepted by the majority of the UN-member states and even by Serbia. As Montenegro had a long historical and ethnical connection with Serbia, it’s not a big surprise that the population is mainly divided between Montenegrins (45%), Serbs (28,7%), Bosniaks (8,6%) and Albanians (4,9%). Although the only official language is

The Minority Danger

Europe as one of the smallest continents has due to a complicated history of dynasties and different evolved ethnicities many different countries. Especially the First World War shaped Europe and added more countries to the map. Huge realms like the German Empire, the Austrian-Hungarian Empire and the Russian Empire collapsed, broke or were divided. Between Germany and Russia several cultures, peoples and societies felt their chance

One Past, Two Histories, How Many Futures?

One past, two histories, how many futures?

The May 2017 was in Latvia surely a festival month as two huge events were celebrated in the beginning of the month. While both of these festivals were highly connected, they could not have been more different.

Osten gegen Westen gegen Norden gegen Süden im Zentrum

Zunächst soll hier ein kurzes Experiment durchgeführt werden. Was ist an folgenden Aussagen auffallend? Denn immer wieder wird in großen Zeitungen und Medien folgende Formulierung

The making of… Lithuania

This post will start a series of posts, focusing on the history of states with a communist or soviet past.  The goal is to give a brief summary of the history and at the same time to focus on important aspects that have shaped the identity of the state and the society nowadays. The words for this brief summary should not exceed 1500 words.

Lithuania

Unlike the other two Baltic countries Lithuania has a feudal history that is tied to the medieval western Europe. Especially the close neighbour ship with Poland was used by Lithuanian nobles

A step back or Aga

The years 2015 and 2016 have been tremendous years for video games. The industry grows, more and more development studios are opened, the selling numbers are rising again and several AAA video games have been released. To name some examples, Fallout 4, Mafia 3, Witcher 3, FIFA 17, Battlefield 1. And although all of these titles have led to a profit for their developer studio and the publisher I was personally very disappointed by most of them. Although the games were designed often with a certain love to small details, had interesting stories and the graphic has increased in comparison to their former parts I have been still disappointed by them in regards to a special dimension

The unexpected inclusiveness

One of the promises of democracy is (among others of course) to grant everyone the same possibilities, rights and chances to pursuit to happiness and a fulfilled life. Unfortunately, the reality tells another story. Race, gender, sexual orientation and ethnic background function in some society and country like rocks in the road. But there is another issue, that is often forgotten and ignored: Disability. Discrimination due to disability is not necessary connected to targeted discrimination, but rather to mobile discrimination, institutional discrimination or in general: Discrimination because of lack of acknowledging the special needs.

Gothic- Good story gone bad

Germany is not well known for a country with a strong game design, indeed Germany is in comparison to Poland, France, Great Britain, USA and Japan actually weak. Not many strong video games were developed and released mainly in Germany. Important titles were the Settlers, Anno 1602, Far Cry, Crysis, Spec Ops, Deponia and many browser games and especially indie games dominate the video game field in Germany. But one important name is missing: Risen.

Die kleinen Kredite ganz groß

Armut wird vorrangig mit dem Nicht-Zugang zu Nahrung, Wasser oder Bildung definiert. Der Mangel dieser Ressourcen resultiert dabei meist aus dem Mangel an Geld. Arm ist normalerweise, wer kein Geld hat. Diese einfache Regelung wird aber immer wieder mit Krediten verletzt, denn mit der Hilfe von Banken und Kreditinstituten ist es beinahe jedem möglich, an viel Geld zu kommen. Dabei wird von den Kreditinstituten allerdings ein Nachweis gefordert, dass das geliehene Vermögen auch mit Zinsen tatsächlich zurückgezahlt werden kann. Meist ist hierfür der Nachweis des Einkommens und somit der Arbeit erforderlich. Doch hier wird das Problem offensichtlich, denn Menschen ohne Einkommen kommen nicht ohne weiteres an einen Kredit.

The Latvians and the adoption of the symbol for prosperity and peace for Europe

The following article was written in November 2013:

In January 2014 Latvia will totally join the European Community by taking the Euro as the official currency. It’s quite interesting that in the current moment the European Union accepts another member in the Club of Euro-Countries. The crisis disappointed many people over the whole European Union and many doubts about the Euro and in the peace-project of the European Union. The Union itself was as designed in the 1950s as a project that should give long-term peace and prosperity through Western Europe. Through the finance crisis and the following banking crisis the dream is becoming weaker and is almost forgotten. The EU is associated with crisis, too much regulation from Brussels, youth unemployment, great demonstration in the states which go through the strongest austerity politics a western state ever faced. The consequence of this hard policy is that the trust and believes in the dream of a united and peaceful Europe is getting weaker.