2022- Conference Participation- “Middle Eastern, Balkan and Japanese perspectives on the global and regional impacts of the Ukraine War.”

 

Dr. Guita Hourani and Dr. Suzanne Menhem attended the international conference on “Middle Eastern, Balkan, and Japanese Perspectives on the Global and Regional Impacts of the Ukraine War,” organized by the Japan Center for Middle Eastern Studies (JaCMES) in Beirut.

 

Scholars from Tokyo, Crete, Ankara, Belgrade, and Beirut discussed the Russian-Ukrainian political entanglements, viewing them through the prism of "the Eastern Question," as described in J. A. R. Marriott’s prominent work "The Eastern Question: An Historical Study in European Diplomacy," published in 1917.

 

Marriott asserted in 1917 that “From the time immemorial Europe has been confronted with an ‘Eastern Question’. In its essence the problem is unchanging. It has arisen from the lands of South-Eastern Europe between the habits, ideas, and preconceptions of the West and those of the East. But although one in essence, the problem has assumed different aspects at different periods.”

 

The conference aimed at understanding the impact of the Russian-Ukrainian war and its ramifications on two regions that continue to be part of the rooted “Eastern Question"—the Balkans and the Middle East.