Political Life and the Agrarian Question in the Columns of the Ukrainian Cerenist Newspaper “Khliborobska Pravda” (The Second Half of the 1920S) (original) (raw)
2021, PEASANT-CENTRIC DIMENSION OF THE SOCIO-CULTURAL SPACE OF UKRAINE DURING THE REVOLUTION OF 1917–1921
AI-generated Abstract
This research examines the political life and agrarian issues as presented in the Ukrainian newspaper "Khliborobska Pravda" during the second half of the 1920s. The paper explores how the Cerenist party's official publication reflected the socio-political landscape of the time, particularly the agrarian question that was pivotal for the peasant population in Northern Bukovina and Northern Bessarabia. Emphasizing the influence of agrarianism in post-imperial Europe, the study analyzes the ideological foundations of the cooperation between Ukrainian and Romanian political leaders, detailing the impact of their electoral strategies and the changing political dynamics leading up to the Great Depression.
Sign up for access to the world's latest research.
checkGet notified about relevant papers
checkSave papers to use in your research
checkJoin the discussion with peers
checkTrack your impact
Related papers
Helga Schultz, Angela Harre (hrsg,), Bauerngesellschaften auf dem Weg in die Moderne. Agrarismus in Ostmitteleuropa. 2010, pp.121-134.
The study focuses on the resources which allowed to politicians of peasant origin to rise to political leadership and to establish agrarian parties at national level. Economic and cultural capital were secondary in this endeavor; social capital, based on inclusive political strategies and on a significant personal input in building up local party organizations, which provided enduring political support for decades, proved to be the crucial determinant. Two criteria are used to assess the political effectiveness of the agrarian leaders: their capacity to conquer and maintain power, and their ability to fulfil the political goals of their parties and/or constituencies. According to the analysis, the sociological weight of the peasantry and the capacity to mobilize voters were outclassed by the leaders’ ability in political manoeuvring in relationship with non-agrarian political actors, by the configuration of the political field (especially by the relative strength/weakness of entrenched conservative elites and institutions), and by the differences in the peasants’ economic capacity in the four analysed countries.
A Peasant Component in the Transition to the New Economic Policy (1921)
Східноєвропейський історичний вісник, 2018
The contribution deals with the study of the New Economic Policy. The analysis of the declassified documentary data enables the author to expose a high level of socio-political activity of Ukrainian peasants in the early 20-ies of the XXth century. The paper explicates that the Ukrainian peasantry were dissatisfied with the policy of «war communism». Active anti-Soviet stand of peasantry forced the Bolsheviks to reconsider the doctrinal principles of Marxism, particularly its socioeconomic component. The peasantry became a real threat to the Bolsheviks' rule, which caused the transition to the New Economic Policy.
Peasants in general made up the great majority of the constituencies claimed by the region's national movements and budding nation states. The course invites students to map out continuities and ruptures in the peasantry's collective identifications during the long nineteenth century and to assess how far peasants became conscious nationals by WW1. The first six classes will examine pre-existent ethnic and related divisions from a backward-looking perspective and will discuss how they facilitated or hampered nationalisation. The second half of the course will be dedicated to interactions between elites and ethnic bases and to formative conflicts. With each topic, we will first undertake a case-by-case survey of the region and will then turn to the specific contexts described in the assigned readings and in other relevant historiography.
Peasants and Politics: Agrarianism and Rural Transformation in Romania 1918-1947
The present thesis examines the relationship between the Romanian peasantry as a social group and their political representatives in the period between 1918 and 1947. As such it seeks to explain the implications of socio-economic changes within rural society upon the political effectiveness of the Romanian National Peasant Party (PNŢ) and covers an important blind spot in English- and Romanian-language historiography, which concentrates almost exclusively on high-level politics. Traditional historiography and political science on Romania, and Eastern Europe in general, look upon the period at the end of the Second World War as a break with ‘normal politics’. This thesis concentrates on the Romanian case and argues that in fact the post-1944 period represents the culmination of longer-term political, social and economic processes, all of which severely hampered the ability of PNŢ to oppose the Communists. While not seeking to present a counterfactual narrative, the thesis provides a more nuanced analysis of Romanian politics as well as a contextualization of it within Eastern European Agrarian politics. To this purpose, the thesis uses an interdisciplinary methodology drawing upon political science and sociology. It looks into the development of grass roots politics and the interaction of the local-level (village) politics with elite/national politics in a society undergoing rapid socio-economic transformation. Drawing upon two new archival holdings which provide unprecedented, albeit limited, insights into the internal workings of PNŢ, the thesis emphasizes the role of PNŢ as a political institution and of its organization structures and seeks to account for the party’s failure to undergo any structural reform. It concentrates upon issues of agency, representation and mobilization and proposes an explanation (which archival material that may surface in the future will, I believe, corroborate) as to why the relationship between the social group and their political representatives broke down and what implications this had for the success of the party. To advance the analysis, I have made the methodological choice of comparing and contrasting the development of Agrarian politics in Romania with that of Poland. Although by no means taking centre stage in the context of the present thesis, the Polish case, however, discharges a dual function: 1) it is used as a mise en scène, providing a wider context for developments in Romanian politics and thus helping avoid the problem of ‘exceptionalism’; 2) it represents a cognate case whereby gaps currently existing in Romanian historiography can be compensated for by analogy with similar historical and political developments in Poland. On a more general note, this thesis seeks to move beyond traditional explanations as to why PNŢ was unsuccessful in achieving their stated political goals during the interwar and post-war periods. This is achieved by looking at the institutional underpinning of the party and the interaction between their political organization and the social class they represented.
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.
Related papers
Nations and Nationalism, 2014