History of Communism; Soviet; Post-Soviet; Russia; Eastern Europe Research Papers (original) (raw)

L’intento di questo lavoro è presentare un quadro che sia il più completo possibile nell’analizzare il percorso dell’Unione delle Repubbliche Socialiste Sovietiche dalla sua nascita, nel 1922, fino al suo crollo, nel 1991 e, successivamente, la delicata fase di transizione russa dal comunismo all’economia di mercato, cercando di mettere in luce i problemi incontrati dal Paese nell’instaurare la democrazia. L'ultima parte analizza la figura della Banca Europea per la Ricostruzione e lo Sviluppo ed il suo ruolo specifico nella delicata fase di transizione economica della Russia.

- by Stefania Del Monte
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- History, Cultural History, Cultural Studies, Geography

This study examines the role of political factors in attitudes toward World War II in contemporary Ukraine. The question under examination is which factors determine public views of the principal warring sides and their leaders in Ukraine. This paper uses a representative national survey specifically designed for this research project and conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in 2012. It analyzes the roles of regionalism, political party preferences, ethnicity, language, age, and sex in attitudes toward the Red Army, Soviet partisans, the German Army (Wehrmacht), and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) during the war, as well as toward the wartime leaders of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and the UPA. The analysis of the survey data shows that regional values, political party preferences, ethnicity, language, and age have significant effects on views of the Soviet Army and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army during the war and attitudes toward the wartime activities of Joseph Stalin and Roman Shukhevych. Public perceptions of the German Army and Adolf Hitler in Ukraine do not vary much across regions, political parties, and ethnic, language, age, and sex groups.

- by Ivan Katchanovski
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- History, European History, Military History, Political Sociology
- by Nicholas Denysenko
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- Liturgy, Religion and Politics, Orthodox Theology, Byzantine Liturgy

In the 25 years since the re-establishment of Baltic independence from the Soviet Union, there has been no conclusive public conversation, or “coming to terms with the past” with respect to crimes against Latvian and other persecuted groups under Communism. This paper examines how national politicians, members of the European Parliament in Brussels, representatives of Latvia’s Russian-speaking minority, and the Russian government have engaged in a difficult, long-overdue conversation. Conflicting historical narratives about victimhood are at the heart of these disagreements. Special emphasis is given to Latvia’s historical narrative, its development over the past 25 years, and the way it challenges Russia’s interpretation of history. I argue that Latvian memory politics at the European level are a continuation of Latvia’s quest for acknowledgment of its victimhood, thereby trying to finish the process started in the late 1980s when Balts first demanded acknowledgment of human rights violations they had suffered under the Soviet regime. Latvia’s methods of transitional justice are examined, arguing that its memory politics at the European level are an extension of steps taken at the national level to come to terms with the past and to increase its negotiating power against Russia’s neo-Soviet historical narrative.

- by Katja Wezel
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- History and Memory, European Union, Memory Studies, Baltic States

Представленные в книге очерки посвящены выяснению истории постижения человеческого разнообразия СССР, в ходе которого оно анализировалось, формулировались идеи, формировались на их основе представления и политические символы, разделявшиеся исследователями, а затем политиками, публицистами, посредством которых СССР репрезентировался его гражданам и внешнему миру.

- by Juraj Marušiak
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- State Formation, Fascism, Nationalism, Central Europe
- by Adrian Zimmermann
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- Marxism, Transnationalism, Labour history, Socialisms

I argue that the general epistemological conservatism, typical for the post-socialist “transition,” taken together with the imagined or experienced feeling of radically limited spatial choices, gave rise to a series of interesting symbolic shifts. An urgent search for a “new beginning,” a perceived state of semantic “indeterminacy” and “cognitive vacuum,” a recognition of the loss of all meaningful bearings was often represented as a disintegration of speech, as a deficiency of symbolic forms that could no longer express essential qualities of the current condition. The absence of comprehensive cognitive “maps” capable of representing the trajectory of development led to a pronounced preoccupation with the domain of minutiae, with tangible yet fragmented context. Also, this “being at a dead end” precipitated a move from the symbolism of space to the symbolism of time: “geography” gave place to “history.”

Materiał z konferencji naukowej pt. "Polska dyplomacja kulturalna po roku 1918. Osiągnięcia, potrzeby, perspektywy", która odbyła się w dniach 16-17 października w Pułtusku. Organizatorzy: Akademia Humanistyczna im. A. Gieysztora w Pułtusku i Muzeum Niepodległości w Warszawie. Konferencja i publikacja dofinansowana ze środków Ministerstwa Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego, Fundacji BRE Bank.

The year 1989 saw revolutions across Central and Eastern Europe that led to the collapse of communist states that had been part of the Soviet Union bloc. These remarkable revolutions were mostly peaceful, led by ordinary citizens and students and were successful largely due to the refusal of Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to intervene and stop them. Twenty-five years after the beginning of the end of communism in Europe and Russia, new insights and sources continue to be updated and published. Focusing on East Germany and Czechoslovakia, one can see many similarities but also a few differences in their respective revolutions. East Germany got more attention since it involved the fall of the Berlin Wall, the iconic symbol of the Cold War for twenty-eight years. Also in East Germany you did not see the rise of one leader opposed to the state, whereas in Czechoslovakia, Václav Havel became the leader of the revolution and president of the new government. Both revolutions involved peaceful protests and calls for change by citizens. These 1989 Revolutions were significant for ending communism, ushering in democracy and capitalism and leading to new governments and societies across Central and Eastern Europe.

This article takes a closer look at the internal evolution of the North Korean political system and how it has been subjugated to the personalist regime of the Kim family. The author argues that North Korea should no longer be perceived as a totalitarian regime since it is now a fully entrenched personal regime in the first place. The author investigates how this process of personalization took place in the institutional, ideological and mobilizational dimensions of the DPRK as well as the influence on its international relations (gatekeeping). Based on these insights the author provides some scenarios for endogenous transitions from this regime type and how hereditary succession and personalism affect its survival strategies..

Using a case study of official representation of communism in Romania, this article addresses the rhetoric of historical representation and some of the ways in which the collective memory of communism is managed in the context of how post-communist democracies reckon with former regimes. It specifically centres on the public accomplishment of coming to terms with the past in the ‘Tismăneanu Report’ condemning communism in Romania. Using an ethnomethodologically inspired critical analysis, the article examines how the report and texts supporting it address the issue of how to take the communist era into public consciousness. The shaping of a specific representation of communism and the making of political-moral judgments in the report is legitimated by (1) treating communism as a category of the macro-social and textually mediated reality, (2) constructing the need for a scientific approach, and (3) conceiving communism as Other, alien to national identity and national interest. General implications for the substance and meaningfulness of coming to terms with recent history are discussed.

- by Jamin A Hübner
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- Russian Studies, Soviet History, Communism, Biography

Від 1991 року Україна була толерантною та інклюзивною країною. Країною, згідно з Конституцією, для «громадян України всіх національностей». Підписання законів, ухвалених 9 квітня, стане подарунком для тих, хто хоче посварити українців між собою. Вони відштовхнуть багатьох українців, які тепер опинилися де-факто під окупацією. Вони розділять і засмутять друзів України. Урешті, вони нанесуть шкоду національній безпеці України, і насамперед з цієї причини ми закликаємо Вас відхилити їх.

- by Andreas Umland and +18
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- Soviet Regime, Soviet History, Post-Soviet Regimes, Ukrainian Studies

The twentieth century saw the rise and fall of communism. Communism’s founder, Karl Marx, analyzed human history and surmised that history was a struggle between the “oppressor and the oppressed” or as he also addressed it in The Communist Manifesto, class struggles. Marx’s worldview changed the way many around the world perceived reality. This new political philosophy transcended the theoretical, and saw its practical application during the twentieth century. Through its implementation, Marx’s communism ushered in one of the bloodiest and deadliest centuries in human history, with statistics showing it was responsible for more deaths than fascism and Nazism combined. Even though many consider communism as a violent and failed political system, today a small growing minority of intellectuals and young adults reject the twentieth century’s attempt to apply Marx’s theory as nothing more than the first failed effort of applying something that was “an obvious good.” These “New Communists” claim that the time was not right for communism, and that in the near future when all the conditions align themselves the successful implementation of communism will come to fruition. This paper will analyze pure communism, as Marx and others explained it; highlight how communism failed implementation during the twentieth century, explain the new communism’s view and perspective, and finally this paper will compare and contrast how communists perceive human nature compared to how Christians and even the ancients perceived human nature. This paper will argue that even if all the elements for a pure world communist government were right, the communist system would fail, just as it did in the twentieth century, because of the sinful nature of humanity.

- by Daniel Diaz
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- Marxism, Communism, Karl Marx, History of Communism
- by Gábor Koltai
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- History, Eastern European Studies, History of Hungary, Hungarian Studies

What the world is now witnessing in Ukraine is the cumulative effect of history and memory in the lives of the people of the region—and this book helps readers to understand those subjects. Centered in Kharkiv, a Russian-speaking city in eastern Ukraine, this is an oral history of a group of military colonels, their families, and their contemporaries, covering their lives from the 1960s through the post-Soviet transition. During this period, these military families went from comfortable economic circumstances, professional prestige, and political influence to destitution and disgrace in the 1990s. Based on the 3,000+ pages of Westrate’s interview transcripts and supplemented with materials gleaned from unprecedented access to personal, family, and institutional archives, this book investigates how families endured shifting social, cultural, and political realities. By analyzing the lives of individuals in context, Westrate provides insights from the grassroots level. He reveals how ideological, professional, gender, religious, ethnic, and national imperatives—as developed and transmitted by elites—were internalized, transformed, or rejected by the rank and file. In the process, he shows what those experiences have to offer the study of Soviet, post-Soviet, and transnational history. This study bridges the new boundaries created by the collapse of the USSR and examines the foundations of conflict in twenty-first century Ukraine.

- by Michael T. Westrate
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- Soviet Regime, Soviet History, Transnationalism, Post-Soviet Regimes
- by Anatoly Pinsky
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- Russian Studies, Soviet Regime, Soviet History, Subjectivities

Life is War: Surviving Dictatorship in Communist Albania guides readers through through the decades (1944-1992) when all aspects of life were controlled by the Communist Party. Through intimate interviews, Albanian men and women explore how everyday people survived shocking living conditions, political persecution and oppression. Life is War examines the realities of life inside a totalitarian system and champions human resilience in the face of unrelenting political terror. purchase from http://hammeronpress.net/shop/paperback/life-is-war/

- by Shannon Woodcock
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- Military History, Eastern European Studies, Gender Studies, Albanian Studies
- by Kimberly Zarecor
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- Gender Studies, Architecture, Political Theory, Czech History
- by Ankeet Panda
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- History, Cryptozoology, International Relations, Sustainable Development
- by Cécile Vaissié
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- Russian Studies, Russian Literature, Soviet History, Television Studies
- by Juraj Marušiak
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- Eastern European Studies, Russian Studies, Eastern Europe, Soviet History

Produkcja radzieckich korespondencji gazetowych w czasie II wojny światowej – o niektórych trudnościach badawczych / Production of Soviet front news during II World War – about some difficulities of the research; published in: Korespondent wojenny. Etyka – historia – współczesność, pod red. K. Wolnego-Zmorzyńskiego, J. Snopka, W. Furmana, Kielce 2012, s. 125-146

- by Jedrzej Morawiecki
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- Russian Studies, Journalism, Soviet History, Propaganda
- by Stefano Bartolini
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- Socialist Economics, Socialisms, Communism (Revolutions), Yugoslavia

Comparative analysis of two complex social processes such as the wars in Croatia and Ukraine requires a certain degree of simplification, which should be taken into account in this study. Before analysing wartime events, the paper will... more

- by Ante Bralić
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- History, War Studies, Neo-Fascism, Ukrainian Studies
- by Liviu Bordas
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- Religion, Cultural History, Indian Philosophy, Romanian History

"The mausolea of communist leaders, a major component of Stalinist symbolic politics, are still shrouded in mystery. Some are destroyed, like Dimitrov’s in Sofia, Gottwald’s in Prague and Neto’s in Luanda. The Lenin mausoleum in Moscow is basically defunct. Yet the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum in Hanoi, Mao’s in Beijing and the Kumsusan mausoleum complex of the Kim dynasty in Pyongyang keep fulfilling their task of a powerful symbol of a different political, social and economic order, with the embalmed cadavers of the founding fathers embodying the supposed eternal duration of that order and thereby perpetuating its legitimacy.
While the destroyed and defunct mausolea continue to be a subject of rumours and fables widely circulating among citizens of the respective countries, and globally among journalists and some scholars, very little is currently known about what actually transpired in a communist mausoleum.
This talk will offer first an overview of the cultural background and ideological reasons for the origin of communist mausolea in general. Second, it will demonstrate the details of the Soviet embalming method and the symbolic meaning of displaying the leader’s body, based on archival documents relating to the mausoleum of Bulgarian leader Georgi Dimitrov (on display 1949–1990) and Czechoslovak president Klement Gottwald (on display 1953–1962). The recently declassified archives of these mausolea currently represent the only freely accessible documentation of its kind. The formerly top secret material to be presented in this talk was never seen before by anybody else than the embalmers.
The talk will conclude with a discussion of the relationship of the embalmers to the practice of preserving dead bodies in the past. It will be shown that the Soviet, and to a lesser extent also the Bulgarian, specialists were fully aware that their preservation work in a monumental tomb constituted a continuation of a tradition inherited from antiquity, and they did not hesitate to publicly acknowledge that, at the same time highlighting the fundamental differences between the context and method of ancient and modern body preservation. They were (and still are) proud of their work while the attitude of particularly the Soviet population to the mausoleum project certainly was not negative. The attitude of the Czech specialists, however, was marked by indifference or even shame while the mausoleum project met with condemnation among the majority of Czechoslovaks."

- by Luděk Vacín
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- Political Theory, Czech History, Religion and Politics, Political Religion
- by David Alenga
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- International Relations, Foreign Policy Analysis, Political Science, Postsocialism

In early 1946, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) initiated a programme to build six penicillin factories, in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, Ukraine, Belarus and Italy. The continuous availability of this, the first antibiotic, was deemed necessary to combat the plague of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) ravaging war-torn Europe. However, the UNRRA initiative coincided with rising hostility between East and West, and was ultimately obstructed by the United States. The newly-established World Health Organisation (WHO) failed to help, dragging the fledgling organisation into its first major crisis. Eventually, despite all the obstacles, the Polish, Czechoslovakian and Yugoslavian plants were opened and began production, becoming the foundation of a new industry which would reshape the European pharmaceutical market over the next few decades. This article analyses how, via a prolonged battle, the UNRRA’s single largest medical aid programme veered from potential failure to a success.

- by Dariusz Stola
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- Mobility/Mobilities, Migration, Communism, International Migration

Russian documents from communist party archives in Moscow translated by Johanna Granville, printed below, reveal that Hungarian revolutionary leader Imre Nagy, codename “Volodya,” enlisted with the Soviet secret police on September 4, 1930. At the time it was called the OGPU (Ob''edinennoe Gosudarstvennoe Politicheskoe Upravlenie, or Unified State Political Directorate). Having immigrated to Moscow in 1929, Nagy first worked at the Comintern's International Agrarian Institute. He signed in on April 24, 1930, under his new Russian name of "Vladimir Iosifovich (Imre) Nagy. According to the secret police report of March 10, 1938 translated below, Nagy was again recruited three years later, on January 17, 1933, by the OGPU's successor, the NKVD (Narodnyi Komitet Vnutrennikh Del, or People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs). According to this document, Nagy was mistakenly arrested March 4, 1938 by an NKVD unit that was unaware of his ties to the organization. Another NKVD captain who knew Nagy's status quickly engineered Nagy's release four days later, on March 8, writing: "'Volodya' … has… provided valuable material about the anti-Soviet activities of a number of people from the ranks of the Hungarian emigration."

- by Johanna Granville
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- Soviet History, Revolutions, Cold War, Intelligence and Espionage