Czechoslovakia, as a successor state of Austria-Hungary, was forced to deal with the loss of the large protected domestic market that had been provided by membership of the former empire. Several trade missions were organised in the early 1920s in order to seek new areas of activity for Czechoslovak exports and imports, often in hitherto unknown markets. The missions were initiated by the Ministry of Trade or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The paper describes a mission organised by Václav Girsa, which was led by Josef Hříbek. The Hříbek mission was a Czechoslovak legionaries' mission, organised as a by-product of the return of the Legions en route from Vladivostok to Europe. The mission aimed at providing a first hand analysis of the Turkestan area. The route led from Vladivostok, through Bombay, to British Balochistan and then from Eastern Persia to Turkestan. ongoing local conflicts caused a major change in the mission's plans and the group undertook an economic and political study of persia instead., Adéla Jůnová Macková., and Obsahuje bibliografii
On September 16, 2015 theOriental Institute of the CAS organized an international conference, which addressed the question of the meanings of democracy in the Middle East, Asia, and Russia and the role that democracy plays in the discourse of the political elites and non-state actors in these regions. The case studies at the conference described the situation in Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, China and Russia. Democracy plays a crucial role in the efforts of the Western world to promote peace and stability and maintain international security. However, in recent years, countries such as China and Russia have explicitly offered an alternative interpretation of democracy to the public, both domestically and internationally, one which builds on national, cultural and political traditions and contradicts the claims for universality common in theWest. Furthermore, non-universalistic discourses on democracy have become popular among diverse non-state actors, such as Islamicmovements, non-formal authorities, or civil society across the Middle East and Central Asia. These developments have important implications for both the efforts aimed at the promotion of democracy and for the advance of democracy in general. and Věra Exnerová.