Search

Do alliances help or hinder non-proliferation efforts? Existing theories of nuclear non-proliferation have looked at the direct effects of having allies on the spread of nuclear weapons, i.e., whether protégés are more or less likely to obtain atomic arsenals. However, there is value in examining the indirect impact of alliances on non-proliferation, namely how allies make it easier or harder for third parties to acquire nuclear weapons. In this article, I argue that transfers from suppliers allied with enforcers spoil the non-proliferation regime more than assistance from other suppliers, which underlines the difficulties enforcers face when combatting proliferation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to analyse the transformation of Dungan ethnic identity from the era of the Soviet Union to the present day. The Dungans, an ethnic group related to the Chinese Hui, are widespread in post-Soviet Central Asia. Their ethnic identity is influenced by a combination of Islamic and Chinese traditions, which is reflected in their distinctive language and way of life. The primary focus of this study was the influence exerted on the formation of Dungan identity by totalitarian regimes in the Soviet Union and China. The research combined historical analysis with fieldwork and oral history to analyse the impact of political, social and economic factors on ethnic consciousness. The findings illuminate how these regimes affected not only political and social structures but also the personal beliefs and behaviour of citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reemergence of aesthetics in China's early reform period witnessed a wide-ranging embrace of the early Marxist vocabulary of species-being, alienation, and unalienated labor, in tandem with a wave of interest in developments in Soviet aesthetics that had arisen over the 1960s and 1970s. Above all, Chinese aestheticians were enthused by the Soviet field of "technical aesthetics," which marked those currents in Soviet aesthetic thought that extended the possibilities of beauty beyond the delimited space of the artwork or literary creation to envision how factory labor might become an aesthetic process, simultaneously productive and artistic. By tracing the trajectory of these currents of aesthetic thought against the background of Marxist humanism, I show the ways in which Soviet–Chinese aesthetic encounters conditioned the fashioning of the post-Maoist factory as creative space and the postsocialist figure of the human as creative laborer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the global impact of English actor Paul Scofield during the Cold War, particularly his political engagement through theater and film. Topics include his rejection of Hollywood stardom, his cultural significance in the Soviet Union; the political undertones in his performances, like "A Man for All Seasons" and "King Lear"; and discusses how Scofield's work defied the conventions of the time, influencing cultural and political discussions in both the West and Eastern Bloc.

The article delves into the efforts made by the Allies to deploy British and US air forces on the southern flank of the Soviet-German front during the Second World War. Its main focus is on internal Soviet military reports and diplomatic documents from the negotiations that took place in 1942, preceding Operation Velvet. The research presented examines the preparations made by the Allied aviation forces to carry out the combat missions assigned by the Soviet Air Force staff. In addition, the author analyses the simultaneous activities of the diplomatic bodies of the three countries involved in reaching an agreement on the Operation Velvet project. By drawing from various sources, the author uncovers the objectives of each side in the proposed operation and investigates the reasons behind the ultimate lack of results despite the extensive period of preparation for joint actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The leader of Republican People's Party (RPP), İsmet İnönü, formed three governments between 1961 and 1965. Turkey faced several political, economic, social and military challenges in this period. Turkish foreign policy also witnessed problems such as the crises that erupted in Cuba and Cyprus in 1962 and 1963, respectively. Both the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cyprus Crisis had serious effects on Turkish–American political relations, so a great deal of literature exists discussing these developments. At the same time, Turkey negotiated with the United States of America (USA) to obtain more economic and military aid, which has drawn less scholarly attention. This article aims to shed light on the negotiations between Turkey and the USA to show how Turkish decision-makers worked hard to obtain more economic and military aid from the USA in the shadow of these crises. This article argues that these crises did not negatively influence economic and military relations between the countries due to Turkey's economic and military dependence on and strategic importance for the USA against the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) from the beginning of the Cold War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with “national revival” in late Soviet Armenia, seen through the lens of football, focusing on the success story of fc Yerevan Ararat in the Soviet football league. This research is based on two academic currents, one dealing with “the nationalities question” in the ussr, and, the other focusing on the relationship between nationalism and sport, particularly football. Supporting Ararat in the late Soviet decades became an experience that provided an expression for Armenian national identity that was going through a revival in the 1960–1970s. Ararat became the centre of consolidation of Armenian national sentiment in late Soviet years. The promotion of the club was part of a larger policy of the Republic’s government, which sought to strengthen the football club as a locus of loyalty and consolidation of the Armenian public. It was both a safety valve for channelling nationalist sentiment, and an instrument for strengthening Armenia’s distinct national identity. Thus, the story of Ararat-73 offers insight into the peculiar relationship between local nationalism and Soviet government policies. On the one hand, the Soviet government allowed and even in certain ways encouraged the national “revivals”. At same time, the government policies sought to contain and manage rising nationalisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article is a result of historical investigation into the cultural aspects of English language education in secondary schools of Ukraine in the 1930s–1980s, when Ukraine was one of the republics of the former Soviet Union. The course books, the school curricula and the articles published in scientific journals during this period built the documentary basis of the examination of the evolution of intercultural and intracultural information in instructional materials over these decades. The article offers insights into the content and character of the texts and tasks included in the English course books and major trends in presenting cultural aspects of language teaching. The article relies on data from 16 English-language textbooks written and published in the Soviet Union following the regularly issued national secondary school curricula. The qualitative and chronological study of the textbooks uses a combination of methods of content analysis (CA), qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), and critical discourse analysis (CDA). We single out stages in the development of the cultural component of English language education, including the character of the cultural messages delivered through them, and the values, attitudes, and behaviour patterns suggested by different discourse forms. We argue that although the obligatory study of one foreign language (English, German, French, Spanish) by every student was officially introduced in the USSR in 1932, this knowledge remained mostly useless because of an almost complete lack of contact of ordinary people with the outer world and, thus, the cultural component of the language education pursued primarily ideological goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses one of the main elements of the Soviet political doctrine, as well as the principles of Soviet education – internationalism and its implementation at school. Internationalist upbringing and the accompanying "friendship of nations" become the main axis of this article, not only in terms of the concepts themselves and their ideologised meanings, but also, and most importantly, in terms of their expressions, which are presented based on the interviews of 32 former students about their experiences in the Lithuanian Soviet school in the late Soviet era (1960s–1980s). In this case, the most striking aspect of the introduction of the so-called "friendship of nations" in schools is the example of pupils' correspondence with young people from different socialist countries and Soviet republics. Relying on the personal reflections of pupils at the time, and also on the Soviet press, textbooks, etc., we analyse what promoted and what constrained this form of communication. The study reveals that internationalist education served as a Trojan horse, masking russification and the ideology of the "creation of a new Soviet man". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Soviet period is described as a highly centralised top-down system where schools and teachers had little to say about managerial topics. Instead, change was initiated by the resolutions and decisions of the Ministry of Education. This article aims to shed light on the establishment of Foreign-Language Subject Councils in Soviet Estonia in the 1960s, how and why they turned into communities of practice (CoPs) and the role that teacher agency played in the Soviet foreign-language landscape. The article also shows how the Soviet top-down controlling subject council transitioned into a bottom-up initiative-rich Foreign-Language Teachers' Association (FLTA) during the collapse of the Soviet Union. The ups and downs of FLTAs as well as the development of teacher professionalism are followed through the period of 30 years of Estonian re-independence. As our study shows, there is evidence that FL teachers voluntarily bonded and socialised outside of the school environment. They had a common denominator that pushed them to collaborate closely – the lack of materials. Furthermore, their activities were driven by teacher agency, as we call it today. Their actions involved so much more than just creating materials. Moreover, their communication could also be perceived as a sense of belonging. These three features (joint interest, agency, sense of belonging) are common to CoPs. Thus, the journey of FLTAs from the 1960s to today has been described and explained, in order to better understand the present situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethics in the USSR revived in the middle of the twentieth century after more than twenty years of silence. The impetus for the development of research and teaching in this area was given by the supreme power, which considered ethics as one of the more effective tools of state propaganda, corresponding to the new social realities. But pretty soon, the very logic of research immersion in the subject required ethicists to deepen the philosophical and normative analysis of morality. This ultimately led to the revision of the postulates of orthodox Soviet social science and to the formation of a strict moral theory within its framework. The latter, by the very fact of its appearance, called into question the agenda of moralizing ideologization. The renewal of Soviet ethics proceeded in several directions, but in theoretical perspective, the key one was the turn from understanding morality as a form of ideological superstructure (which was dogmatically asserted in historical materialism), to understanding it as a way of regulating human behavior with specific functional characteristics. Today one can trace that transition by a number of intermediate steps in the interpretation of morality, the reconstruction of which, based on the texts of the 1950s to early 1970s, is of interest not only in the context of the history of ideas, but also in terms of the development of the methodology of ethical research and understanding of how a rigorous moral theory can be formed. Some episodes of the history of Soviet ethics are relevant today as examples of emancipated thought and intellectual opposition to the domination of state ideology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sixty years of nuclear-arms-control efforts have been successful in many respects, with one notable exception: it has proven difficult to transition from a bilateral (US–Soviet Union/Russia) to a multilateral format in seeking to limit and reduce existing nuclear weapons. This is principally because of a mistaken approach to multilateral disarmament that does not take into account the nature of multilateral deterrence among nuclear states. Yet a transition to a multilateral format is becoming an indispensable condition for the rescue of the non-proliferation and disarmament system in the emerging polycentric world order. Assuming that the Russia–Ukraine war can first be settled, a new approach to multilateral arms control is needed that takes into account the security interests of all the participating states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the ways in which both local Indigenous ethnic groups and non-Indigenous Slavs are remembered in the testimonies of Mountain Jewish survivors. Based on official reports from Soviet state institutions, memoirs and interviews with survivors, the article discusses the involvement of German administration and individual collaborators in the extermination of some Mountain Jewish communities, as well as the efforts of the local non-Jewish population in the rescue of others. It provides an analysis of these events through two case studies: the village of Bogdanovka in the Stavropol region and the town of Nalchik in Kabardino-Balkaria. By focusing on the multiethnic North Caucasus, the article highlights the complex relationships between Jews and other ethnic groups during the Holocaust in the Soviet Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the years, China's nationality policy tended to imitate the Soviet Union while also retaining its uniqueness. Existing scholarship has described three deviations the CCP made vis-à-vis the Soviet model: denying national self-determination, rejecting the supra-national union of nation-states, and undertaking constructivist classification of ethnicity. These features took shape around 1949. In this article, I survey China's observations on Soviet nationality affairs from 1949 to 1991 and provide a perspective for understanding how these deviations from the Soviet nationality model both crystallized and varied. My findings show that after 1949, Soviet studies in China lacked a coherent agenda for studying the nationality question. The experts gathered rich materials but subordinated nationality questions to themes such as revolution, a centrally planned economy, border disputes, geopolitics, and ideological indoctrination. They also tended to reduce ethnopolitics to class struggle and economic modernization. Such systematic evasion of nationality questions persisted until the collapse of the Soviet Union. The USSR's disintegration caused China to recognize the resilience of ethnicity and nationality, while before 1991, Soviet studies in China had lacked any systematic reflection on the Soviet nationality model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses Russian imperial intervention into Jewish ritual in the late imperial period alongside the rise of a Jewish bureaucracy, imperial legal centralization and expanded state claims in the realms of public order, safety and morality. It explores contestations around Jewish religious rituals, like the new moon blessing, in the context of imperial attempts to define and even ‘correct’ native religion and decide what counts as protected religious behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using recently released documents, this paper considers the viewpoints of Britain, the US and the USSR vis-à-vis Cyprus in the crucial years between 1955 and 1959. Having explained the author’s historical and mental underpinning, the paper shows how crude Cold War geopolitical considerations dictated the approach of all three countries, whatever the moral arguments. The documents revealed in the article show that the British colluded secretly with Turkey, and were fully aware that the Turkish Cypriot leadership had planted a bomb at the Turkish consulate, in order to instigate anti-Greek rioting—a fact covered up at the time, and only recently proven by the eventual release of British documents. The paper demonstrates unequivocally how the whole 1959 arrangement was predicated on the Anglo-Saxons’ insistence on a NATO solution, and how critical the USSR was about an arrangement that was clearly dysfunctional. The paper concludes that external tensions, fear of Russia, and a continuing attempt to solve a problem by repeating the same errors still hold true today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the period following World War II, the Federative People's Republic of Yugoslavia, under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito, experienced a pivotal moment in its history due to the split with the Cominform and the subsequent break in relations with the Soviet Union, leading to a profound military and foreign policy transformation in Belgrade. This period can be seen as a continuation of the rebellious pragmatic line that had already been outlined during World War II, when Yugoslav communists, in contrast to the Eastern Bloc countries, gained power almost independently through their own struggle. The realization that external powers, in this case the Soviet Union, could not simply dictate domestic or foreign policy decisions was crucial for Belgrade's strategic shift. Threats of a military attack from the Eastern Bloc forced the Federative People's Republic of Yugoslavia to seek aid and support, particularly military, from the West. These activities were particularly evident on the diplomatic front. This research reveals the complexity and dynamism of Yugoslav foreign policy, which Belgrade faced in its efforts to maintain its sovereignty. In this context, the Federative People's Republic of Yugoslavia gradually became an example of how to maintain a delicate balance between the superpowers. This shift and the steps taken by Belgrade are key to understanding Yugoslavia's role in international relations and its status during that period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article compares two films that focus on long-repressed historical events: Tengiz Abuladze's Repentance and Christian Frosch's Murer, both of which use courtroom trials to confront their nations' pasts. These films highlight unresolved historical trauma and the failure of their respective societies to fully reckon with it. Topics include the Stalinist purges in the USSR, Austria's Nazi past, and how courtroom drama in cinema addresses national historical reckoning.

World War II was a climax in 500-year-old Turkish-Russian relations. With the war, relations between the two countries have undergone a global and regional change, effects of which continue to this day. In this phase of bilateral relations, a crucial moment in the history of Turkish diplomacy was experienced with Germany’s attack on the USSR, and transfer of Moscow Embassy to Kuybyshev. In this context, this study discusses the activities of the Turkish Embassy, also moved to Kuybyshev, between 1941-1943. The period of the Kuybyshev Embassy deals not only with the relations between the two countries, but also with the difficulties experienced by the embassy staff. The reports sent by the Ambassadors during the Moscow/Kuybyshev periods have made it possible to have some very detailed information about Turkish-Russian relations. The study presents important data on diplomatic and daily life in Soviet Russia in line with embassy reports that witnessed the most critical period of World War II, and reveals how Turkish-Soviet relations transformed by addressing a very important period for historical Turkish-Russian relations. The study was carried out on Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archive and other sources obtained by documentary source scanning method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1990s, research libraries experienced an optimistic time after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The council members of the Council of Europe and the European Commission describe the situation of libraries around 1990 and how decisions from that time had long-term effects on future library trends. LIBER, the Association of European Research Libraries, played an important role in collaborating with the Council of Europe and the European Union, especially in the field of telematics for libraries. The development of libraries in the 1990s was also influenced by the concentration of publishers and the rise of the Open Access movement. [Extracted from the article]

This article describes the promising beginning of the "open" library, the information centre of the Goethe-Institute (GI) in Moscow, its cooperation with Russian libraries all over the country and the introduction of German reading rooms in many GIs. It gives an impression of the growing restrictions imposed on the work of GI libraries, as on many foreign cultural institutes. There is also a brief glance at the activities of GI libraries in the successor states of the USSR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effect of Constructive Intervention on Ukraine's decision to relinquish the nuclear weapons left in its possession after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Constructive Intervention is conducted by international organizations and involves capacity building and socialization of newly independent or post crisis states. The aim of Constructive Intervention is to familiarize states with international law, Western practices and norms, and integrate the state with the international community. The extended Constructive Intervention that took place in Ukraine facilitated its decision to relinquish the nuclear weapons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this research we aim to analyse the multimodal representations of the concepts of LOVE and PASSION in Lithuanian graphic novel 'Gertrūda', by Gerda Jord. The multimodal approach, that combines textual, visual, and semiotic analysis is applied in the research. In the work of these researchers, the analysis of the conceptualisation of emotions is based on the explorations by cognitive linguistics. The analysis of the multimodal nature of graphic novels particularly as it relates to the portrayal of complex emotions such as LOVE and PASSION, remains relatively undeveloped. The research revealed that the source domains for LOVE expose concepts of CLOSENESS, UNITY, MORAL VIRTUE and for PASSION source domains encompass PRESSURE IN THE CONTAINER, CREATIVITY, PHYSICAL POWER, and HEAT of the SUN. The investigation scrutinises the intertextual, visual, and narrative elements present in 'Gertruda.' We explore how the characters' interactions, visual symbolism, and narrative structure contribute to the representation of LOVE and PASSION within the context of a post-Soviet Lithuanian society. Additionally, we consider the socio-cultural and historical backdrop of Lithuania to provide a holistic understanding of how these emotions are intricately woven into the narrative fabric of the graphic novel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the history, current state and prospects of Oriental and African Studies (OAS) in modern Russia. It explains why there are several educational models of OAS at bachelor's and master's degree in Russia and describes the current situation where 22 Russian universities offering OAS programmes produce graduates with mostly only two majors, i.e., historians and philologists. The article addresses the position of OAS among modern Russian scientific disciplines. Another aim is to trace the historical logic of the development of Oriental Studies and related African Studies in Russia, placing the discourse in the context of the Eastern Question, or the political fate of the Ottoman Empire. Finally, it identifies and justifies some current alternative trends in the development of OAS in Russian education and science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decade, large-scale urban reconstruction has been ongoing in Dushanbe, Tajikistan's capital city. In this process, the city's Soviet architecture is being demolished and replaced by Dubai-inspired high-rises. This transformation of public space is a manifestation of the process of silent de-Sovietization that has taken place in Tajikistan. Unlike what has been seen in other post-Soviet countries, this form of de-Sovietization does not result from rethinking the country's Soviet past and deliberately departing from it. Rather, it is a casual by-product of Tajikistan's capitalist transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of the periodical press allows historians to further their understanding of the turn against the Soviet Union in the West after the Second World War, and delineate how anti-Bolshevism was constructed to repudiate wartime partnership between 1941 and 1945. Right-wing periodicals such as Truth were active proponents of opposition towards Communism in early Cold War Britain, articulating concerns about the perversion of democratic values and the threat to liberal societies. The nature of Truth 's anti-Bolshevism was reactionary but also reflective, highlighting unease on the Right around the postwar consensus, Labour's domestic programme of state intervention in the planning and management of economic activity, and the general eclipse in Britain's international standing. Truth 's attempts to conflate the Communist threat with Labour's democratic socialism also frame the paper as an embryonic staging point in a wider chronology of neo-liberal challenges to the postwar political order. Anti-Bolshevism was therefore multifaceted and could speak to many different constituencies and agendas beyond a commentary on the actual basis of Soviet rule, Communist subversion, and the polarization of postwar Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the implementation of Decree No. 0589/183c of August 26, 1950 on the amnesty of pregnant women and women with young children from the Gulag. This amnesty is considered in the context of previous similar amnesties. A brief overview is given of the state of the Gulag system in the late 1940s and early 1950s, as well as the economic and social situation in the USSR during this period. The stages of implementation of the amnesty, the number and contingent of women released are analyzed. An overview of the interaction of the structures implementing the amnesty is given: the leadership of the camps, the prosecutor's office, and the district departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Based on the reviewed archival materials, conclusions were drawn about changes in the assessment of crimes, from the point of view of their danger to the state: women convicted of economic crimes, mostly those convicted under the Decree of June 4, 1947, were a contingent not eligible for amnesty, while women convicted as family members of traitors to the homeland were given the possibility of release. The tasks set by the amnesty of August 26, 1950 were not fully realized due to the difficulties in the interaction of the structures that carried it out. About 5% of the total number of women with young children outside the camp remained in prison. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis article discusses the shift in Turkey’s nuclear alliance with the United States from client to junior partner. Ankara sought to bring the Turkish economy and military forces in line with those of its patron to signal its loyalty. But power asymmetries made it so that Washington became Ankara’s lifeline. From the 1950s until the mid-1960s, American policymakers applied a top-down style of alliance management, making important decisions without consulting Ankara. But the mid-1960s marked a turning point in the nature of this relationship, as Turkey became better able to stand on its own feet. Rather than relying on unilateral measures, the Americans had to consult and coordinate with Ankara. Also, Turkey could reject key American proposals involving nuclear weapons, such as the creation of a Multilateral Force for NATO, and even create some ambiguity about its nuclear intentions to signal its loss of faith in the American security guarantee. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the challenges faced in building a monument at Babyn Yar, the largest Holocaust site in the Soviet Union. Despite varying levels of state and popular antisemitism, the Soviet authorities struggled to decide on the design and inscription of the monument due to conflicting pressures from different groups. The construction of the monument was delayed for over thirty-five years, with the final monument dedicated to all Kyivans and prisoners of war killed by the Nazis, without specific mention of the Jewish victims. The article highlights the political, social, and cultural complexities surrounding the memorialization of the Babyn Yar massacre. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the historical and artistic representations of Hirsh Lekert, a Bundist martyr who attempted to assassinate a governor in 1902. It explores how Lekert's sacrifice became a symbol of redemption and struggle within the Bund and for Jewish workers. The text delves into the evolving perspectives on the Bund in the Soviet context, highlighting the anti-Bundist campaigns and the changing narratives surrounding Lekert's story in various artistic works. The article analyzes three works by different authors, showcasing a spectrum of approaches from extra-Soviet contexts to those aligned with the Bolshevik conceptual framework. [Extracted from the article]

The socio-economic, political, and cultural transformations that occur during wars, leaving profound and lasting imprints on individual and collective memory, also influence literature. In this regard, literary works serve as reflections of the events and phenomena that occur in societies deep in their existence processes. The Afghanistan War, which began with the Soviet invasion in 1979 and lasted for nearly nine years, resonated among Turkish writers and poets, finding expression in literary works. Themes of fear, trauma, pain, and heroism experienced during the war were processed by poets and became part of the literature of the time. This study examines the projection of the atrocities committed by Soviet forces in Afghanistan onto the world of children, as reflected in examples of poetry published in Mavera, one of the leading Turkish literary magazines. While some of these poems depict children suffering in dramatic war scenes, others present a “child” figure elevated with deep meaning, messages, and responsibilities. In these poems, it is evident that the message and discourse take precedence over artistic concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembene represented his oeuvre and how his films were received on both sides of the Iron Curtain in the late 1960s and 1970s, focusing on the Soviet Union and the United States. Sembene's resounding success in both worlds reflects not only his talent, but his skill for self-fashioning across ideological lines. American publics have celebrated Sembene as a postcolonial auteur. In the Soviet Union, Sembene mattered because of the collectivist aspects of his films—his political organizing, his collaborative filmmaking practice, and his understanding of film as a tool to educate the masses. The lesser-known socialist context complicates the canonical story of Sembene's significance as an African auteur, extending his legacy and the worldwide impact of his films beyond political auteur cinema. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the Soviet strand of nihonjinron, or the theory of Japaneseness, which gained popularity in USSR in the 1970s–1980s. Its purpose is twofold. The first is to contribute to the literature on Soviet perceptions of Japan by critically examining the overwhelmingly popular essentialist discourse on Japan's culture and national character. The second goal is to contribute to the literature on nihonjinron which so far has focused mostly on Japan and the Anglophone countries. By critically analyzing the role of this construct in the Soviet discursive space during the period of late socialism, I argue that it was fundamentally different from the one it performed in Japan or the West in terms of its relationship to the hegemonic discourse. In the case of the Soviet Union, this article argues, the narrative on Japan's unique culture existed simultaneously both inside the hegemonic discourse and outside of it, creating a deterritorialized space. Along with other, similar spaces, nihonjinron exposed the incongruities of the Soviet system and made its collapse completely natural to the Soviet people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how diplomatic representatives of the Republic of Türkiye assessed efforts by Japanese nationalist groups to install the deposed Ottoman Prince Mehmed Abdulkerim (Şehzade Abdülkerim Efendi) as the head of a potential Islamic state in Xinjiang. There is little existing literature addressing this historical episode, with only one English-language research article focusing on Prince Abdulkerim previously published. In our research, we draw on recently declassified and previously unexplored Turkish archives to further deepen our understanding of Prince Abdulkerim's case, specifically, and Turkish foreign policy, in general. Prince Abdulkerim's journey from the Ottoman Empire to Japan and his engagement with Pan-Asianist groups there highlight the complex diplomatic exchanges of that era. Türkiye's cautious and pragmatic response to Prince Abdulkerim's activities, including its collaboration with the USSR to counter Japan's expansionist ambitions, underscores the young Republic's priority to safeguard its domestic and international interests as perceived by the Kemalist regime. Overall, this study not only enhances our understanding of Prince Abdulkerim's case and Turkish foreign policy during the interwar period but also sheds light on the broader geopolitical shifts in early 20th-century Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a revisionist interpretation of the reforms in the late Soviet Union, focusing on the strong affinities between the perestroika and China's reform and opening-up. The article draws on social constructivism, poststructuralism, and post-Marxism and formulates an original typology of Soviet political discourses as the main method. Discourse analysis reveals that the implementation of the Chinese reform model in the Soviet Union was possible in discursive terms. Politico-economic analysis shows that the reform of Soviet socialism, which began in 1983 before Gorbachev's perestroika, coincided largely with the parallel process in China. The author argues that the neo-Leninist perestroika was modelled on Dengism until the hegemony of this discourse was replaced by liberal socialism in 1988. Nevertheless, neo-Leninism remained relevant up to August 1991 when the failure of the State Committee on the State of Emergency frustrated the prospects for socialism in the country. The article concludes that the dismissal of Dengism by Soviet leaders was one of the principal causes of the collapse of the Soviet Union. This historical experience provides the Communist Party of China with invaluable lessons and shows the crucial importance of the Four Cardinal Principles for reform and opening-up. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1929 and 1932, the influential New York Times music critic Olin Downes toured the Soviet Union as a guest of the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (VOKS), an arm of the Soviet government charged with cultural diplomacy. During these visits he attended performances, met with Soviet musicians, and surveyed music institutions. His reporting on these experiences garnered significant attention, given both Downes's prominence and the fact that he was the first major US music critic to visit the Soviet Union since the Bolshevik Revolution. In this article, I show how this early example of US-Soviet musical exchange bolstered Downes's professional authority and focused his critical agenda. I begin by reconstructing his Soviet tours and situating the critic in a story of interwar US-Soviet exchange that to date has largely overlooked the role of music and musicians. I then show that Downes constructed Soviet musical culture for US readers in ways that impacted his subsequent commentary on domestic matters. Significantly, key experiences in the Soviet Union stimulated his later advocacy of a nationally inflected voice for American music, an aspect of Downes's work that is central to understanding the critic's career and a crucial piece in the history of interwar musical nationalism and populism in the United States. More broadly, this study invites consideration of the varied roles played by critics during the interwar period, the international and cross-cultural dimensions of criticism, and the importance of interwar cultural exchange as a prehistory to Cold War music diplomacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During World War II, tens of thousands of Polish Jewish refugees spent several years in Soviet Central Asia. Yet, little of the intriguing character of the Silk Road remains in their memories. Rather, these convey the years of exile as a desperate attempt to survive in conditions where refugees' lives depended on the confusingly numerous and varied power actors in the region. Drawing on first-person narratives, the article describes how navigating between these actors affected the postwar identities of Polish Jews. Their refugee history ran the gamut from criminalization (by the Germans and Soviets) to discrimination (by the Polish state in exile). It turns out that the experience of Polish antisemitism and civic exclusion that caught up with them in this remote region was one of the strongest affects in their memory. By analyzing eastern destinations (Central Asia) as a space of refugee accommodation, we can appreciate the significance of this geography for the postwar disidentification of Jewish survivors with Poland. It was not only the attitude of fellow Poles in the German-occupied country during the war, but also their treatment of the citizenship of Polish Jewish refugees in Central Asia as significantly inferior that cast a lasting shadow over the emotions of surviving Jews toward their country of origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concentrating on Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus, this special issue combines historical, cultural, architectonic, and sociological perspectives to offer complex insights into the questions of dispossession, appropriation, and repurposing of Jewish spaces, the overwriting of Jewish material heritage, as well as Jewish attempts to seek justice and retribution and to preserve the memory of the shtetl, both locally and in the Diaspora. In different ways and using diverse materials, the papers explore the ways non-Jews interacted with formerly Jewish spaces, adopting and adapting them for new use, seeking to preserve them, or effacing the last traces of material Jewish heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the assimilation of second-generation migrants from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) who grew up in Israel's social and geographic urban periphery. Their upbringing in peripheral towns and neighborhoods exposed them almost exclusively to Mizrahim (Oriental Jews), a stigmatized minority group whose members make up the overwhelming majority in those locations. We argue that their interaction with members of this group resulted in an alternative process of assimilation, which we term Hitmazrehut (Orientalization). Children of migrants, who were unaware of the historical stigmatization of Mizrahim and their culture, conceived of Hitmazrehut as their only viable trajectory of assimilation into what they erroneously perceived as the Israeli mainstream. However, embracing Mizrahi socio-cultural practices, including consumption and production of ethnic culture, religious traditions and romantic partnerships, did not lead to their downward assimilation, as the model predicts. Rather, it allowed second-generation Russian-speaking migrants to fit in and attain social and economic mobility by assimilating sidewards, into the growing Mizrahi middle-class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I examine how migrant women make sense of their new positions in the labour market while drawing on and negotiating past meanings and experiences. I explore the individual biographies of legally privileged co-ethnic women repatriates from the former Soviet Union to Germany through a gendered perspective of work. These women found that the ethnic promise of being 'real' Germans given to them proved insufficient to access the labour market on equal terms, while their past Soviet socialisation led to struggles for recognition and marginalisation into low-status jobs. Although their labour-power is oftentimes devalorised, these women actively operationalise different memories of socialist work to reinvent themselves in a new context as worthy, resilient, and adaptable members of a capitalist society. Their stories of work reflect their present- and future-oriented life strategies and demonstrate how they relate different ideologies and systems of value, distant spaces and times in an attempt to challenge dominant discourses on human worth. By exploring individualised life strategies and gendered invocations of the past, this paper contributes to the discussion on post-socialist subjectivities, how they intersect with ambiguous socialist experiences and dilute the neoliberal project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fertilizer recommendations for phosphorus (P) are generally based on the soil content of plant available P and the amount of P exported by the harvested crop. In countries of the former Soviet Union (SU), a widespread method is the Machigin extraction. The relationships between soil P contents extracted with this and other European methods are not well established. Here, we compare the Machigin soil P extraction method with the Calcium Ammonium Lactate P(CAL) procedure that is commonly used in Central Europe. Both methods were tested with 94 soil samples originating from Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, and Germany. Overall, the P amount extracted with the CAL method was 2.8 times higher than that extracted with the Machigin method. However, using results from all analyzed individual soil samples, the relation between P(CAL) and P(Machigin) showed large scatter and an R2 of only 0.364. Differing relations between P(CAL) and P(Machigin) were observed for soils with pH >7 and <7. However, these are overshadowed by differences between the three geographic groups of the soil samples. The estimated soil P fertility classes for the Machigin extraction were mostly higher than for the German (CAL) procedure, resulting in lower fertilizer recommendations for the Machigin method. To improve the accuracy of conversion between both methods, evaluation of laboratory proficiency tests (i.e. analysis of the same soil samples in different laboratories with the same methods) of the Machigin method should be useful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article sheds light on the clandestine maintenance of Jewish traditions in the Soviet Union after World War II, focusing on Ashkenazi Jews in the European part of the country. It draws on post-secular theory to shed a new light on traditional Jewish practices in the atheist Soviet Union. The central argument is that Jewish traditions persisted in the post-war period (despite surging antisemitic campaigns) but were confined to private and domestic spaces. Three central characteristics of this tradition were: its relegation to the private sphere of Jewish households; its main expression through cooking Jewish dishes in kitchens dominated by women; and the ambivalent character of the clandestine Jewish practices in the '"double life'" of Soviet Jews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]