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This paper seeks to explore the perception of learning, including the factors which contributed to the spread of self-learning and collaborative learning in the Association of Russian Interpreters in Japan. The research is based on the oral history interviews of three pioneer Russian language interpreters who have taken part in the activity of the Association of Russian Interpreters since the 1980s. The paper briefly outlines the background of pioneer Russian language interpreters in Post-World War II Japan. Tokunaga Harumi, who was one of the founders of the Association of Russian Interpreters in Japan, highlighted the importance of sharing knowledge and continuous learning, and his beliefs significantly influenced Russian language interpreters’ attitudes towards learning. Next follows a description on how the three interviewed interpreters acquired necessary competence through interpreting and translation work, and it focuses attention on the fact that all of them emphasized the role of background knowledge. The paper highlights the importance of extralinguistic knowledge, including worldly knowledge and the country-specific knowledge suggesting the future possibilities of interpreter training within area studies. By analyzing the narratives, this study also demonstrates how the socio-political situation, i.e., the ups and downs in demand for interpreters at that time, was one of the factors which led to the collaboration of the interpreters. Characteristics of interpreter demand, such as the need to work in different spheres, have influenced not only the contents of interpreters’ learning but also the style of learning. This in turn fostered the spread of collaborative learning in the community of practice which enabled the interpreters in this study to exchange their experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How the Soviet regime handled the concessions that subjects of Imperial Russia had acquired in Iran was closely related to the transition from the Russian Empire to the Soviet Union. Iran had been defeated in the war against Imperial Russia in the first half of the 19th century. Consequently, its northern area was incorporated into Imperial Russia’s sphere of influence. In Northern Iran, Russian subjects were granted various special privileges. The oil concession (Khoshtariya concession) was particularly important in that countries such as Britain and the United States were involved in the issue in the 1920s. Previous studies on the Khoshtariya concession fail to comprehensively capture the interconnectedness of many actors. Thus, there have been no attempts to study the issue from a broader perspective by combining it with the issue of oil concessions on the Soviet shore of the Caspian Sea or to incorporate it into the study of the entire Caspian Sea region. To overcome this shortcoming, this paper will address the question of what continuity or discontinuity can be seen between Soviet and Imperial Russian diplomacy by examining how the Soviet regime in the 1920s attempted to deal with the Khoshtariya concession. In seeking to answer the research question, Soviet geographical perceptions of the Caspian Sea region will be revealed. This paper will first touch on how Khoshtariya acquired the oil concession in Iran in the last years of the Russian Empire. It will then describe the process by which ownership of the concession was transferred to another actor after the outbreak of the Russian Revolution. The entry of the Standard Oil Company of the U.S. into the struggle for the northern Iranian oil concession that involved the Iranian government, the Soviet government, and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company is discussed in this context. Following the failure of Standard Oil to reach an agreement with the Iranian government, Sinclair Oil Corporation, which had only recently turned its attention to the northern Iranian oil, began to seek a cooperative relationship with the Soviet government. It will become clear that the Soviet government linked its negotiations with Sinclair regarding the Northern Iranian oil concession to those with Western oil companies on oil concessions on the Soviet shore of the Caspian Sea and to issues of the oil pipeline that was planned to run from Northern Iran through the Caucasus. This confirms that the Soviet Union dealt with issues of foreign concessions as issues linked to its domestic concessions and its own economic sphere, suggesting that there was an intermediate category between domestic and foreign concessions and that Soviet officials had a geographical perception of the Iranian shore of the Caspian Sea as a politically continuous region with the Soviet shore of the Caspian Sea. Thus, although the Soviet Union did not have the same territorial ambitions toward Iran as had Imperial Russia, Soviet diplomacy had a certain historical continuity with that of Imperial Russia in that the Soviet Union still considered the Caspian Sea littoral to be within its sphere of influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the pathologies of modern democracy is the crisis of representation (parliamentarism). As a countermeasure against the dysfunction of representative democracy, ways to improve it have been argued in each country. One of them is the vocational representation system. This is a way to have the economic and social interests of a complex and diverse society represented in politics, and the idea is to form a representative system from vocational organizations rather than from region or interest. Although this vocational representation system has diminished its influence in terms of its effectiveness after the war, it has not lost its meaning as an institutional theory. The “Civic Chamber” of the Russian Federation discussed in this paper, which started its activities in 2006, was created to deal with the dysfunction of the parliament, and the way it was structured is reminiscent of the vocational representation system, but is it similar to the vocational representation system? This paper aims to gain a perspective for evaluating this Civic Chamber of Russia by looking at the characteristics of its representative system, after tracing the amendments made to the law regulating this institution after its enactment. As a premise for it, the author examined the process leading up to the establishment of the Civic Chamber, and then introduced the process of enacting the law that regulated this institution. Then, based on the enacted law, the outline of the Civic Chamber was examined for its purpose, authority, composition and organization method, and commentators’ evaluation of this law was introduced. The law governing the Civic Chamber enacted in 2005 has been revised many times since then, and this paper considered the revisions that have brought about major changes. The following points were examined in order to gain a perspective to evaluate the Civic Chamber. a. Is the Civic Chamber based on a representation system from social organizations? b. Is it dependent on organizations? c. Is it an advisory body? d. Is it a democratic system? e. Why are its components from organizations limited to social organizations and non-profit organizations? From these points of view, it is necessary to pay attention to the trends of the Civic Chamber, including the verification of the effectiveness of the examination of legislative bills, etc. and the status of activities, and the following can be pointed out as the characteristics of this new institution. The Civic Chamber in Russia was institutionalized by the Putin administration in response to the need for a system that complements political representation by incorporating social elements with the aim of restoring confidence in politics and social integration. In addition, it can be regarded as an attempt to create a representative of society that is neither a vocational representative having the aspect of representating interests nor a group representative as seen in the early Soviet elections, and in terms of making a system that relies on diverse organizations, it can be seen as a form of “associative democracy” as advocated by Paul Hirst. However, if it is likened to P. Hirst’s claim, it is “associative democracy from above”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the last month of 2016, after the assumption of the self-proclaimed presidency of Vadim Krasnoselsky, Pridnestrovskaya Moldavskaya Respublika (PMR, Transnistria) has implemented full-fledged “State Program of Patriotic Education in PMR” and its legal-administrative decisions concerned, in addition to pro-Kremlin patriotic policy. It is worthy to note that the political outcomes were abided on the 5- year State Program of Patriotic Education of Citizens of Russian Federation and have obvious similarities to patriotic educational programs which were introduced in Luhansk, Donetsk, Crimea, and other areas. The patriotic policy in PMR was officially launched at the establishment of self-proclaimed independence in September 1990 in the aim of promoting national solidarity among inhabitants as “Pridnestrovians,” which was essentially created along the Soviet national line. In contrast to the policy, however, the PMR Patriotic Program and subsequent related decisions after 2016 more focused on national awareness as “Russo-Pridnestrovians” which had inherited an indivisible historical legacy from Russian civilization. To recognize internal-external PMR policy and geopolitical relation between PMR and Russia, this paper deals with “State Program of Patriotic Education in PMR” and its related political decisions for the purpose of fostering patriotic awareness among “Pridnestrovian” youth. Eye-grabbing patriotism and patriotic movements followed Soviet nostalgia by retired veterans and elderly people are not main objects of this paper; rather, inconspicuous state-planned patriotic activities through school regular education, cultural festivals, academic-cultural exchange based on the state program are focal themes. The theory of “everyday patriotism,” which is penetrated in daily life without discomfort among subjects, leads to understanding this political phenomenon. From that perspective, Russian authority tends to control specific territory through cultural-social associations, NGOs, thinktanks or any other “non-political” organized bodies. In PMR, a patriotic youth organization “Unarimia” and a thinktank “Dnester-Prut Information Analytic Center”, a Pridnestrovian branch of RISI, had been activated under official support by the PMR state patriotic programs. This paper also focuses on the process and content of the state patriotic program and the effect and result of their patriotic activities toward “Pridnestrovian” children and youth by above mentioned organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the endeavors to solve the Donbas Conflict typologically. The first and most consistent policy was the Minsk Accord belonging to the category of federalization. As has been the case with other post-Soviet secession conflicts, federalization was a hopeless policy, which produced serious commitment problems, while contradicting the real interests of both the parent state (Ukraine) and the secession polities (the DPR and LPR). In the context of the Donbas War none proposed the second type of solution, that is, land-for-peace. Ineffective diplomatic endeavors induced both Ukraine, Russia, and the DPR/LPR to solve the situation in a military way. Azerbaijan’s victory in the Second Karabakh War in 2020 disposed Ukraine for a coercive solution of the Donbas problem (the reconquest policy). The Russian political and military leadership split into two groups: one supporting the policy to make the secession polities (the DPR and LPR) Russia’s protectorates and another supporting the policy to destroy the parent state (Ukraine). The unsatisfactory results of Russia’s choice in 2008 of the protectorate policy vis-à-vis South Ossetia and Abkhazia and underestimation of Kyiv’s defense capacity made the Russian leaders opt for the destruction of Ukraine itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change has been recognised as an important policy issue that affects nature and socio-economic systems of all continents and oceans over the last few decades. In order to achieve the ambitious goal of ‘keeping a global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels’ by the Paris Agreement agreed at COP 21 in 2015, formulation and implementation of climate change policies, especially mitigation ones to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have been recently advanced all over the world. Russia, as one of the largest energy-resource rich countries and GHG emitters, has been also in the process of modernisation towards a low-carbon society, especially after the occurrence of global financial crisis in 2008-2009. Under this circumstance, the formulation and implementation of climate change policies have recently begun in earnest in Russia through its signature on and ratification of the Paris Agreement effective in 2016. These policies in Russia, however, often end in failure. In this context, this present paper firstly clarifies the current situation of climate change and its causes such as GHG and air pollutants emissions in Russia, followed by the critical consideration of previous studies on this global thematic issue. By revisiting the formulation and implementation process of Russian climate change policies with a special focus on its multi-stakeholders, this paper tries to explain why these policies are not materialised in Russia, that is, factors influencing on its policy failure. Throughout a series of analysis, it becomes clear in this paper that Russian environmental administration has been weakened whilst the government spending with environmental purposes on a downward trend in Russia after starting market transition in the 1990s. This paper also derives that institutional arrangements in the governmental committees enable Russian oil and gas companies to do lobbying for reflecting their interests on relevant policies. Besides, it becomes unveiled that residents and civil society organisations (CSOs), as one of representative protesters demanding policy reforms through social movements, have an insignificant influence on climate change policies in the case of Russia. This paper then concludes that these factors are crucial propositions given to Russian climate change policies to materialise its transition towards a low-carbon society as well as big challenges to be overcome for its future sustainable growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay sheds light on Soviet and Russian Foreign Policy through use of the “critical geopolitical” concept of the “geo-code.” A state’s “geo-code” refers to the construction of narratives regarding its own space and history over time. Borrowing from Klaus Dodd’s ideal-type categories, which he uses to explain geo-coded narratives of British policy (“little England,” “cosmopolitan,” “European” and “American”), this paper proposes to utilize combinations of four ideal-type categories, “Atlantic/European,” “ethnic Russian,” “Eurasian” and “super power,” in order to analyze and explain Soviet and Russian foreign policy. The first section applies the metaphor of a photograph to the memoirs of several foreign policy leaders: Andrei Gromyko and Eduard Shevardnadze in the Soviet-era; and Andrei Kozyrev, Evgenii Primakov and Serghei Ivanov in contemporary Russia. The paper shows how the composite image of Russia held by these individuals shaped the state’s foreign policy. It also stresses that different concepts of sovereignty have been sustained or reconstructed within Soviet/Russian international law theories in dialogue with changes in images held by the foreign policy leader. The latter half of the paper further develops this theory in order to apply it to Putin’s current Russian foreign policy perception of Northeast Asia, and particularly of China and Japan. From the late Soviet period under Gorbachev to the early Russian period of Yeltsin, Japan was considered as one of the “rising” powers able to aid Russia’s political and economic transition, and it was widely recognized that the relationship would be facilitated by a peace treaty resolving the territorial issue between the two countries. However, following reconciliation between Russia and China, China became the more important partner for Russia, not only in Northeast Asia but also throughout Eurasia. Following its disengagement with the West after the Ukraine crisis in 2014, Russia’s image of itself as close to “Europe” slipped, while that of the state as “ethnic Russian” and “Eurasian” that must become a “great power” to oppose the US was emphasized. This has meant that Japan is no longer an essential partner from the viewpoint of Russia’s dominant foreign policy images. In turn, the significance of China has increased and developed for Russia beyond the two countries historical “love-hate” relationship. Not only policy makers but also ordinary people look to China as Russia’s “No.1” partner, while the United States is its indefatigable “enemy.” There is no room for Japan in this picture while Japan remains so dependent on the US for security matters. In the conclusion, the paper debunks the myths associated with “classical geopolitics,” which associate foreign policy solely with perceptions of state power and geography. It shows that a “geo-politics” which links the positivist and constructive approaches, and which seeks to account for various analytical scales—from micro to macro, below/beyond the state—can analyze foreign policy change more effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the content of and some difficulties which arose in Bolshoi ballet cultural exchange programmes offered by the Soviet government. These programs were offered to a number of countries; I have focused on the countries of Japan, France, the United Kingdom and the USA in the first part of my paper. These four countries were where the most ambitious productions of the Bolshoi company were held in the latter half of the 1950’s. In the second half of my paper I focus specifically and in more detail on the cultural exchanges between Japan and the USSR. The Bolshoi ballet played a significant role in exchanges between the former Soviet union and the rest of the world, as it was symbolic of the USSR’s diplomatic relations. I limited the timespan for the investigation from 1953 to 1964, when Nikita Khrushchev strategically increased dispatches of cultural organizations to the world trying to expand Soviet influence during the Cold War period. In the mid to late 1950’s, the Soviet ballet tours to France (1954), the United Kingdom (1956) and the USA (1959) were lead by the respective governments on the basis of mutual exchanges. However the Japanese government wanted to avoid such exchanges because they were afraid of the ideological impact of communism on the people and more were interested in economic growth than in cultural diplomacy. Despite this, private organizations in Japan hungered for such cultural exchanges in the arts and sciences, and had an active say in who came from the USSR. The 1957 Bolshoi ballet tour to Japan was also organized by a private impresario and it was received with wild enthusiasm by the Japanese people. The Japanese government granted visas to some applicants but not others; it depended on the political sway of the organizations involved. Sadly sending Japanese advocates to the USSR would involve high costs so the numbers sent there were much less than those who came to Japan. In other countries the exchanges were much more balanced but political relationships with the USSR did cause interruption to the programmes. This would suggest that the success of cultural exchanges depends more on politics than content. In the 1960’s the Japanese-Soviet political relationship deteriorated because of the new Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan (1960), the restart of nuclear tests by the USSR, the Northern Territories dispute, the break up of the relationships between the Japanese and Soviet communist parties concerned with the Partial Test Ban Treaty and so on. However Soviet Russia kept sending high caliber representatives to Japan in similar numbers to before. Some of the Japanese organizations involved dropped out of the exchanges, while others joined. This happened due to changing public feeling towards the USSR, shifts in political relations, and changing relations between the organizations and respective governments. It was in this atmosphere that the Soviet government counted on ballet to maintain diplomatic ties with Japan. The Kirov Ballet’s Japan tour (1961), and the joint concerts of the Tchaikovsky Memorial Tokyo Ballet School with Soviet famous dancers (1961 and 1963) helped to set the notion that Russia led the world in ballet. The Soviet government was convinced of the effectiveness of the ballet in demonstrating the strength of Soviet culture without fear of rivalry from other countries, and expanded the exchanges within this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Czech literature was first recognized in Japan in the 1920s and early 1930s. Among literary works published during this period, which were few in number and mostly second-hand translations from English or German, three books - one play and two novels - require special attention. Karel Čapek’s dystopian play R.U.R., originally written in 1920 and first staged in 1921, was translated into Japanese in 1923 and became the first major work of Czech literature ever introduced in Japan. Just like in other parts of the world, the play attracted attention of both critics and readers. Several other translations were published soon after and the play was also successfully staged in Tsukiji Shōgekijō Theatre in 1925. A few years later, in 1930, Japanese translations of two other essential works of the inter-war period Czech literature were published – Jaroslav Hašek’s acclaimed antimilitarist novel The Good Soldier Švejk and Ivan Olbracht’s socialist novel Anna The Proletarian, a book which is now almost completely forgotten. The main objective of this paper is to explore the relation between the literary concepts adopted and constantly argued by the critics and writers of the Proletarian Literature, predominant literary movement at that time, and the reception/interpretation of foreign literary works, in this case works of Czech literature. Based on the analysis of the newspaper advertisements, book reviews and other related texts this paper shows that the reception was determined by the concepts and notions the Proletarian critics valued and that the leftist literary critics tended to emphasize those elements of these literary works they considered to be conveying the Proletarian ideals. On the other hand, Olbracht’s Anna The Proletarian, a novel praised by its translator Ichiko Kamichika as a must-read for every proletarian woman, was targeted by Japanese censorship for its radical political thoughts and was eventually published with large parts of the text censored. Consequently, this paper concludes that Czech literature introduced and translated in the inter-war period was interpreted in different ways and valued for different reasons than it was originally in Czechoslovakia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the 1918–1921 Japanese military mission to Central Asia, stationed in Urumchi, Ili (Gulja), Tarbagatay and Kashgar. Japanese General Staffs dispatched several officers to Xinjiang to support the Siberia Intervention. This paper reviews the mission’s activities and concerns on intelligence, economic interests and propaganda, especially those of the so-called ‘Japanese consul in Gulja’, Captain Nagamine. The Japanese mission had a keen interest in the developments of the Russian Civil War in the Semirech’e and Semipalatinsk Oblasts. In Ili, Nagamine built relationships with the White Russian consul, leaders of nomads and others. Japanese officers reported activities of White Russian Cossacks in detail. Meanwhile, the Governor Yang Zengxin, was suspicious about possible conspiracies among members of the Japanese mission, Russian consuls and the Cossacks. Yang reported to Beijing that Japanese officers had attempted to bring the Japanese army to Xinjiang on the pretext of a joint defence and to interfere in Ili by letting the Cossacks advance into Bolshevik’s Vernyi, which would pass through Xinjiang’s territory. In addition, a report from Kashgar hinted that the Japanese army supported the anti-Soviet guerrilla Basmachis in the Fergana Valley. In early 1920, the Cossacks were defeated by the Red Army and fled to Xinjiang. Nagamine witnessed the disarmament of Commander Annenkov, with whom the Japanese in Urumchi seemed to have maintained a relationship even after Nagamine’s departure from Ili. The Japanese mission also attempted to promote economic interests in Xinjiang. According to Etherton, the British consul-general in Kashgar, Japanese products flowed into Xinjiang in 1919, and Japan was considered a possible rival of Britain over the Xinjiang market. The Japanese mission tried to open a consulate in Xinjiang. In Urumchi, the Japanese entered into talks with ‘Russian’ merchants—who were in fact Muslim Turks—where they discussed Japanese naturalisation and Japanese protection. However, the talks failed. Despite his suspicion, Yang also relied on the Japanese for economic development. He consulted Major Narita in Urumchi about a large loan to construct a light railway and drill for oil. However, this offer was cancelled by order of Beijing. The Japanese General Staffs and Ministry of Foreign Affairs coldly refused Narita’s proposal. Moreover, the Japanese mission engaged in propaganda towards Muslim Turks for some obscure agenda related to Pan-Asianism, Pan-Islamism and Pan-Turkism. According to Etherton, the Japanese avoided any direct support or propaganda towards the Turks. Later, Nagamine stirred up accusations that Britain would occupy southern Xinjiang. He also had a relationship with Tatar Pan-Turkist, an ex-officer of the military organisation ‘Harbi Shura’. Kaneko and Otaki, stationed in Urumchi, frequently visited Ottoman activist Ahmet Kemal İlkul in jail, who had been sent to Xinjiang from Constantinople in 1914 and engaged in educational and Pan-Turkic activities. Thus, it was rather natural for the Japanese to pay attention to İlkul. Although not successful or long-lasting, the activities of the Japanese military mission to Xinjiang illustrate Japan’s interests in post-1917 Central Asia. Military intelligence about the Cossacks was their main object, but at the same time, they developed economic and propaganda interests that targeted Central Asian Turks, including Tatars. Certainly, such activities raised concerns with Yang and Etherton. In short, the Japanese mission to Xinjiang was one of the examples in which Japan tried to carve out a role in the Great Game of the early 20th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the pivotal but largely unwatched 1985–1986 Soviet diplomacy over the Stockholm Conference, also known as the Conference on Disarmament in Europe (CDE), in terms of its broader domestic and international contexts. It explains why and how the Soviet Union made concessions to Western proposals in the Stockholm negotiations after Gorbachev took office. Regarding the most contentious issue of the on-site inspection, the following three people — the new General Secretary, the Foreign Minister with no diplomatic experience, and the diplomat on the ground — collaborated to create the unprecedented Soviet decision. The long-held Soviet secrecy collapsed because the triangle stifled both the conservative KGB’s and military’s opposition. The Stockholm agreement, reached after two and a half years of negotiations, was the first multilateral East–West security accord since the 1975 Helsinki Final Act and the first arms control agreement involving the two superpowers since SALT II in 1979. It is also remarkable that its success was one of the first achievements for Soviet diplomacy in the ambitious Gorbachev period. However, the real significance of the conference lies in Soviet concessions in areas previously deemed unacceptable. The Kremlin, which had long adhered to secrecy, accepted the West’s proposal for on-site inspections. This paper is organised into four main parts. The first chapter deals with the end of the Gromyko era after Gorbachev’s advent. From the beginning, the new leader had a vision of improving international relations but no concrete plan. Meanwhile, the old-fashioned Foreign Minister, who had long dominated Soviet diplomacy, showed continuity in foreign policy from the pre-Gorbachev period. The second chapter analyses the period immediately following Eduard Shevardnadze’s appointment as Foreign Minister. Shevardnadze, who had no diplomatic experience, strengthened the bottom-up mechanism of actively incorporating his colleagues’ views. The increased discretion of negotiators on the ground significantly impacted the future of Stockholm. The third chapter focuses on the discordance between the words and deeds in Soviet diplomacy following Gorbachev’s spectacular declaration in January 1986. While the leader actively announced new initiatives, actual Soviet diplomacy did not profoundly change course. This chapter also stresses that the Chernobyl nuclear incident was not the decisive impetus for reaching the Stockholm agreement. Finally, the fourth chapter describes the confrontation between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the General Staff. The quiet war behind the Kremlin walls brought complex improvisation into the Soviet decision-making process and negotiation stance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses female allegorical statues, that is, Motherland and the Lamenting Mother, as Soviet monuments and memorials about the German-Soviet War of the Second World War. In general, we do not meet female citizens in public monuments because modern nations purge women from public spaces to private areas, that is, family spaces. Instead of individual women, they use images of allegorical women, for example, the Archaic goddess Nike/Victoria as a symbol of an imagined community and Marianne in the French Republic. In Soviet war monumental/memorial space, we meet such a symbolic gender structure: Red Army soldiers and allegorical females. In this case, we consider the Archaic goddess featured in Motherland and the Lamenting Mother statue. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, in the process of restructuring war memorial spaces, newborn nations have removed male statues, for example, Lenin, revolutionists, politicians, generals, academicians, artists, and Red Army soldiers, which commemorate great Soviet hegemony. In contrast, female allegory stays in public spaces even today because female unindividual statues are an empty medium that can introject any concept. It was found from the result of fieldwork in the former Soviet Union that Motherland, which has occupied a position as national symbol in the Russian Federation, has lost power to unite nation and people. In fact, the Motherland statue had not been built in Estonia, Lithuania, Azerbaijan, or Central Asia. Regarding Latvia, Moldova, Belarus, and Georgia, we meet small-size variants. On the other hand, Lamenting Mother statues, who mourn for the war dead, have been raised in the whole country, even today. Local communities find space to share the pain of loss of relations and friends, homes, property, and life, in memorials in the shape of the Lamenting Mother, who is similar to the Holy Mother. We are here concerned with the implications of social and cultural context of these two female allegories. In the first chapter, we focus on the period of Khrushchev. Stalin had oppressed all war memory and, after his death, people began to narrate personal experiences about war and build memorials for the dead in burial places. We cannot find a clear distinction in early female allegory statues. The 20th anniversary of the Victory, that is, the year 1965, brought a fundamental change in war memorial-commemoration spaces. In those days, Nike-type statues were raised as national symbols to unite the nation and people, such as The Motherland Calls at the top of Mamai Hill to commemorate the Battle of Stalingrad. In the second and third chapters, we illustrate distribution, location, size, shape of Motherland and Lamenting Mother statues in detail. Next, in the fourth chapter, we classify Lamenting Mother statues according to type of icons of the Holy Mother: Eleusa, Pieta, Our Lady of Sorrows, and Orans. We consider that the cult of the “Lamenting Mother” is based on the faith of the Holy Mother. Next, we surmise that early Christianity had united the faith of the Holy Mother with the cult of local great mothers in the course of Christian religion in Europe. Similarly, Islam assimilated local great mothers in Central Asia. It is possible that Soviet people, including Muslims, had a basis for accepting the Soviet secularized Holy Mother. And, finally, we examine threat factors inherent in the Lamenting Mother-type statue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses micro-data to show differences in normative attitudes towards the division of labor in households between former socialist countries and OECD countries. The results reveal a gap between the OECD countries and the former socialist countries in general. Among the latter, Russia tends to be more accepting traditional norms than the OECD countries, and the trend is stable. The phenomenon of the positive correlation between female labor participation rate and total fertility rate in developed countries has long attracted attention in demography from the viewpoint that "work-family harmony" can have a positive impact on fertility. In the data examined, we extract (1) a clear negative correlation between fertility and the attitude of "accepting" the traditional norms of division of labor between men and women in the household, and (2) an clear negative correlation between fertility and the weak division of labor between men and women in the household. In this respect, the widespread acceptance of the traditional domestic norms of division of labor in the former socialist countries, where the social division of labor was considered to be the most advanced under the socialist regime, is striking. Looking at Russia, the picture emerges that there is no clear correlation between age group and education level and the traditional division of labor. Note that comparing highly educated women's group across different time points is not an appropriate approach, since the data cover a period of about 20 years and the heterogeneity of respondents classified as the same group on the basis of educational level increases over time. However, it could be interpreted as casting a shadow on possible future prospects, such as whether the rise in educational attainment contributes to the achievement of gender equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1920s, Mikhail Mikhailovich Zoshchenko wrote about 600 satirical short stories. Many of these satirical works depict the old-fashioned bourgeois culture in pre-revolutionary Russia. One of the aspects of this bourgeois culture, which Zoshchenko picks up and criticizes in his short stories, is theatricality. In this paper, I describe how Zoshchenko defines theatricality and analyze his criticism of theatricality. The theatricality which I elaborate in chapter 1, can be found in Zoshchenko’s storytelling, which is called “skaz”. This is a Russian oral form of narrative. In memoirs, the contemporaries often pointed out how the actors read aloud Zoshchenko’s works with theatrical tone and gesture. A single storyteller, who performs in skaz controls the whole story and plays all characters himself. Therefore, he can reproduce his story with his own theatricality and contrasts it with the excessive pre-revolutionary theatricality of the characters. I discuss the theatrical technique of skaz and Zoshchenko’s critique on the pre-revolutionary theatricality. In the second chapter, I analyze the theatricality of Soviet theater. In 1920s, Russian avant-garde was very influential art movement. Theater-directors abandoned old conventions and expand their artistic world. In this chapter, I examine three works of Zoshchenko that criticized Russian avant-garde, especially, theatricality of Nikolai Evreinov. In the third chapter, I analyze cultural ideology in theater. In Russia, theatrical culture of the 19th century followed a certain etiquette. Zoshchenko’s protagonists always enter the theater without proper costumes and little money. The characters quarrel over theatrical manners and are thrown outside. This conflict reveals the nature of Russian theatricality, which removes uncultured people from the theater and rejects Russians on basis of their social-cultural background. In the fourth chapter, I examine “The Elecrician”, which is Zoshchenko’s most remarkable in terms of dealing with his criticism of theatricality. In this work he succeeds to put all elements of theatricality together and clarify the mechanism of theatricality. Later he revised The Electrician and changed the end of the story in order to avoid his critique on theatricality. From then on he stopped incorporating critique on theatricality in his works. In the fifth chapter, I examine five works of Zoshchenko which deal with electrification in the Soviet Union. By comparing the various editions of these works, including The Elecrician, the high number of revisions that Zoshchenko conducted himself becomes obvious. I addition, I demonstrate that the problems concerning the enlightment of Soviet electification are similar to the problems of theatricality that I elaborated in the second chapter. Zoshchenko tried to unite people with different cultural backgrounds into one collective under the reign of Stalin. Finally, Zoshchenko draws the ideal image of the electrified communal apartment in his work “Last story” In this story, a pre-revolutionary woman changes her mind and transforms into an honorable Soviet citizen. This story shows that Zoshchenko’s criticism of theatricality disappeared because people of different cultural background were united in the electrified communal apartment, which represented the future of the Soviet Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, from the perspective of economic exchange between Japan and Central Asia (Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan), the current situation and challenge, as well as future prospects, will be described through the work of promoting trade and investment. One of the characteristics of economic exchange between Japan and Central Asia is that the forms and fields of business developed by the target countries differ significantly, and one is that the public and private sectors are working together unexpectedly. One can point out that neither Japan nor the target countries can be decisively important economic partners, and as a result, exchanges remain at a low level. The lack of information is at the top of the challenge in developing economic exchanges between Japan and Central Asia. Also the difficulty of logistics, the vulnerable foreign exchange circumstances and the compliance problem are major bottleneck for commercial activities for Japanese companies. Although rosy expectations for future economic exchanges are forbidden, there are several directions for efforts that can contribute to building win-win relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]