Search

Working from the memoir literature of Soviet Gulag survivors, the article explores the curious practice of tukhta as contrived by the toiling zeks of the archipelago. In a labour regime tasked with accumulating surplus, destroying political dissent, and transforming the subjectivity of the imprisoned, tukhta proved to be a tactical means for resisting the logic of Gulag as an audit regime. The subtle labour control of numbers effected by Gulag demanded equally sophisticated practices of resistance on the part of the zeks subjected to its technique, and tukhta was one of those practices. When treated as a kind of phronesis, the informal and ethical quality to the practice of tukhta can be appreciated in a way that more formal social scientific epistemology and historical method would miss. Perhaps the most salient counter-conduct to be found in the experiences of Gulag's orchestration of labour control, tukhta has the potential to reveal a great deal about audit regimes generically beyond the historical bounds of Soviet Russia. Historical inspiration for engaging audit regimes can therefore be derived from the ethico-political practice of tukhta, where otherwise there might just be pessimism, demoralization, and resigned acceptance to the awesome power of those regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The participation of the Cossack formations in the military operations of Dniester in 1992, together with paramilitary forces recruited locally and supported politically and militarily by the Russian Federation, remains a topic known superficially at the level of public opinion and approached almost entirely by chance by qualified researchers. This article aims to put into circulation hitherto unused information; to systematize and interpret the information dissipated in the memoirs, contemporary media, and chronologies drawn up by the participants in the events; and to open the phenomenon (much better developed later) of the mercenary engaged in the interest of the great powers. The authors apply interdisciplinary methodology, borrowed from historical, military, political, sociological, and psychological sciences. Consequently, the conclusions will reveal ideological motivations, tactics, and strategies; alliance and subordination policies; but also serious ethical slippages—all specific to mercenary behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article takes a look at the forms and functions of Romanian memoir writing in the 19th century, endeavoring to demonstrate that the literary quality is only one of the many criteria which determine its canonical status, others being its political and social value or its contribution to the coherent narration of the national culture. In order to better evaluate this hypothesis, I then propose the particular case study of Zamfir C. Arbore (1848-1933) and his memoirs as an early Narodnicist, Anarchist and political prisoner in the Russia empire, and afterwards as an exile to Switzerland, close associate to some of the great left-wing thinkers of his time and producer of clandestine literature. After going through the substance and technique of his memoir-writing, I come to the conclusion that such works, which the canon of literary tradition often avoids, are an integral part of the social memory which memoirs are a witness to. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the interactions of travelling musicians with the Russian court and aristocracy from the 1830s to the 1870s. Drawing on a broad corpus of memoirs, travel reports and personal documents of musicians who visited St Petersburg and Moscow in the course of their careers, it discusses the courtly dimensions of the Italian Opera; the role of the aristocracy and court in the organization of concert life under Nicholas I (r. 1825–1855); the relevant changes and continuities under Alexander II (r. 1855–1881), when concert life would undergo rapid professionalization; and finally, the symbolic dimensions of the rewards offered by the Russian elites. The persistent significance of imperial and noble recognition in this period, it is argued, added considerably to Russia's appeal for foreign musicians. Many visitors developed a positive, reciprocal relation with the Russian regime and its elites, even if the values, hierarchies and traditions of the autocratic regime could be at odds with the social status and sense of independence of successful performers. In musical discourse, reports of musicians' visits circulated an image of Russia – an urban image of luxury, refinement and high society – that contrasted with the stereotype of wild and barbarous expanses that have so far attracted most attention in music historiography; and their descriptions of the imperial court and family tended to match the image – of imposing authority and benevolence – the Romanov monarchy sought to project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the interplay between autobiography and psychoanalysis through the writings and personal experiences of Yakov Vladimirovich Veynshal, a prominent Zionist Revisionist journalist and Hebrew writer in Mandate Palestine. Veynshal’s memoirs and journalistic work provide insights into the connection between these two fields by using personal experiences, literary analysis, creative expression, and cultural and political commentaries. They also demonstrate how literature and psychoanalysis intersect through creative and symbolic expression. The article explores first Veynshal’s journey, from a non-traditional ‘bar mitzvah’ trip to Palestine to his experiences in Russia and his complex relationship with Russian culture. Secondly, it demonstrates how his writings reflect the formation of his Zionist sentiments and unique identity. Additionally, Veynshal’s experiences in Palestine during the 1920s are analysed, highlighting the historical and political context of British Mandate Palestine and the development of Jewish and Arab relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"After the Gulag: A History of Memory in Russia's Far North" is a book that explores the construction of memory surrounding the Stalinist Gulag in the Komi Republic. The author, Jeffrey S. Hardy, focuses on how former inmates of the Gulag formed strong attachments to the region, even after leaving. The book examines various forms of memory, including autobiographical letters, memoirs, artwork, and the concept of "spiritual resistance." It also discusses the challenges faced by Gulag survivors in reconciling their past with their post-release lives and the interpretation of Gulag history by journalists, activists, and state actors. Overall, the book provides a comprehensive understanding of Gulag memory and its impact on Russia today. [Extracted from the article]

From 1870 to the fall of the tsarist autocracy, the political prisons of the Romanov regime were filled with the sound of tapping. This was "knocking language" (perestukivanie)–a coded system of knocks and taps used by incarcerated Russian revolutionaries to communicate with one another through the walls of their solitary cells. This article tells the first scholarly history of this medium–using prison archives and radical memoirs to reveal its development in the prisons of the Peter and Paul Fortress, its varied forms and uses, and its pathways of diffusion and transmission. In doing so, the present text seeks not only to give a new empirical account of an understudied practice of carceral subversion. It also attempts to locate knocking language within the larger discursive landscape of the Russian revolutionary tradition–investigating how the specific ways in which this prison alphabet was wielded and understood reverberate within this period's considerations of self‐narration, radical struggle, and political agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the features of the collective memory of Kalevala District residents about the traumatic events of World War II. The source material for the analysis was testimonies of the participants of the Great Patriotic War published in the 1960s - 1970s and oral memoirs of our contemporaries. The stories of the respondents were collected in 2020 and provide information about both personal participation in the events ("children of war") and stories of the deceased participants of the war preserved in the family. Factors that have had a significant impact on the authors of these recollections include: the decades that have passed since the war; the very "image of the enemy" in the situation where the adversary was Karelian's kin; the historical turns in the relationships between Russia and Finland; international and cross-border cooperation; and the role of the memory of the war in Russia's historical and political discourse. The article presents the characteristic features of the collected body of modern war memoirs: symbiosis of official and individual discourses; the ethnographic nature; the presence of unique private facts that can form the basis for historical research; and "difficult" moments of personal history which often contradict the moral imperatives of the informants. The recollections contain a combination of heroic and traumatic narratives deepened by the cultural proximity of the war opponents: Karelians and Finns. The authors use the concept of "identity" to separate historical research and historical memory, focusing on the latter. An individual's historical memory of the war, a person's reflections on what they remember and what they know from the official version of history, allow us to address the issue of the influence of the "war" factor on shaping the person's identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of College of Education / Wasit is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, who was specifically posthumously appreciated as an outstanding thinker, wrote freely, without drawing boundaries to the internal conflicts taking place in human nature. His findings concerning man have been study materials for researchers from a great many fields from his day to these days. The author's own notes, memoirs that are about him, letters, etc. things which make it easier to comprehend the author's true intention and ideas, have provided insight to almost all the readers and researchers of all eras who wanted to seek the echoes of Dostoevsky's life, which was filled with traumas, in his works. In this study, Dostoevsky will be studied in a general outlook in the light of studies conducted about his art and his life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Autobiografia is the property of Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Szczecinskiego / University of Szczecin Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article examines the political views of Andrei Timofeevich Bolotov, as expressed in his memoirs and handwritten collections of news from 1792–1793, which described the events of the French Revolution, as well as in other writings and translations made in the 1760s–1790s. Bolotov's sources of information (foreign press, François Pictet, Christian Friedrich Schwan and Christoph Girtanner), his range of communication, and the nature of his writings suggest that his political outlook was not determined solely by the class perspective of a provincial landowner. His political views, formed under the influence of the Catherine II's coup of 1762, which he called the Russia's "Glorious Revolution," combined ideas underpinning Catherine's absolutism with notions of natural law and drawn from European intellectuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published in the mid nineteenth century, "Lettres de Russie. La Russie en 1839 " (Letters from Russia. Russia in 1839) is not only the travel journal of a European nobleman visiting the Far East, but also a mirror image - albeit, of course, tainted by its timely context - of a society situated too far away from the perception and genuine knowledge of the West. The Marquis Astolphe de Custine, the author of these memoirs (which, it is worth mentioning, have been printed in dozens of editions in French, as well as in various other languages, and number hundreds of thousands of copies sold, in the immediate aftermath of t heir publication) describes, in a succession of troubling and authentic images, Eastern despotism's forms of manifestation, the absolutist character of the state and the despotic nature of the emperor, the tsar, along with the specificities of the Russian world which he encounters during the few months spent there, almost anticipating the dramatic historical experiences which were to follow - both for Russia, and for Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the problem of lost silent films, an issue that is particularly relevant to the study of Russian cinema. Most early Russian films have not been preserved, and it is nearly impossible to describe the film history of this period without them. Reconstructing films that have been lost or only partially preserved requires using every available source: stills, production photographs, reviews, memoirs, and so on. This article presents one such paper reconstruction using the example of Vladimir Gardin’s Anna Karenina (1914), one of the most important Russian films of the mid-1910s. The results of this reconstruction prove that Anna Karenina was an innovative screen adaptation made in the spirit of the Silver Age that contributed to the development of the so-called Russian style in pre-Revolutionary cinema. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shortly before and after the USSR’s demise, a new literature emerged: memoirs by veterans of the Soviet Union’s massive military intervention in the Arab-Israeli conflict in the 1960s and ’70s. Resurgent Russian pride, coupled with condemnation of its corruption by Soviet crimes, permitted startling disclosures. Tools we developed to evaluate these sources found them remarkably reliable and necessitated a reassessment of existing historiography. The Putin administration marked a reversal. Russian nationalism now stressed continuity with the USSR’s great-power status. ‘Falsification of history against Russian interests’ was criminalized. Some veterans resorted to purported ‘fiction’, which if challenged could be disclaimed. But under even stricter scrutiny, these narratives generally proved to reflect the authors’ actual experience, providing significant pointers for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Victor Zaslavsky's memoir of evacuation, as a child, during the seige of Leningrad, describes the transport of Leningrad's children to the Urals, the difficulty of finding shelter, and the peasant family who took him, his aunt and his cousin in. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the concepts and perceptions of private property in Russia based on the memoirs of Russian nobles during the Napoleonic Wars in 1812. The article relies on the assumption that in a significant portion of Russian memoirs from that time, the loss of private property is depicted as even more tragic than the physical violence. From this, the article derives a strong sense of respect for private property during that time in Russia. The article continues to examine the perception of the enemy thus suggesting that the French were not necessarily perceived as the enemy, but also as preservers of justice. The Russian peasants, however, could be either perceived as allies or as the true enemy that threatened the nobility's possessions.

The memoirs of Ivan Chugurin translated below are of interest because they are written by someone who lived through some of the most crucial moments in the history of the Russian revolutionary movement. Chugurin's narrative takes us through the 1905 revolution in Sormovo and Nizhnii Novgorod, culminating in the overthrow of the tsarist regime in February 1917. He is able to provide insights into the development of Social Democracy in Sormovo, the 1905 events there, the Longjumeau party school, and the part played by Bolshevik organisations in the February revolution. In his revolutionary career Chugurin made the acquaintance of several prominent figures in the Russian revolutionary movement and is in a position to describe his encounters with Lenin, Plekhanov, Sverdlov and Martov. What lends particular authenticity to these memoirs is that they are an unvarnished factual account of events, with very little in the way of ideological colouring. The memoirs, which appear to have been written in the 1920s, were discovered by Professor Vladimir Sapon in the Nizhnii Novgorod archives. The translation is by James White and Vladimir Sapon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an examination of the early 18th-century memoir published by Russian Prince Boris Ivanovich Kurakin titled "Vita del Principe Boris Koribut-Kourakin del familii de polioni et litoania." The article explores what can be learned from the autobiography about early 18th century Russian life, the reforms that took place under the court of Peter the Great, early 18th-century Russian literary practices and Russian self-fashioning. The article traces the history of the text and discusses Kurakin's health, attitude and relationship with the tsar.

This article focuses on the recollections of Russia and Russians made by Fr. Stanisław Matraś, a member of the Catholic clergy exiled to Russia after the failed Polish uprising of 1863. Matraś kept a record of his experiences and journey through Russia to Siberia, a record that first became published in Chicago in 1885 and then 2007 ("Podróż do Syberii po moskiewskich etapach w 1863 i 1864 roku"). The author notes that his record reveals that Matraś was neither tendentious nor subjective vis-à-vis the Russians, but objective in describing the Russian nation, its inhabitants, and customs in the 19th century. Of note, remarks the author, is his unprejudiced chronicling of specific incidents with tsarist officials, soldiers, Catholic and Orthodox clergy, and fellow prisoners/exiles he dealt with.

This note draws attention to the recent discovery of the papers of the Chartist and newspaper editor W. E. Adams (1832–1906), summarizes their contents and explains why they are to be found in the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History in Moscow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author of the article analyses some points of view to the Baltic-Slavic interaction expressed in the 19th century Russian authors' memoirs of Vitebsk Region (M. Marx, N. Nikiforovskij, N. Losskiy). All memoirists come to the conclusion that the most optimal way of the society's development is a peaceful and mutually beneficial collaboration of all peoples living in Vitebsk region and even not only there. The researcher reveals the "Balto-Slavic sings" in Russian memoirs of Vitebsk region in the 19th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Napoleonic invasion of 1812 marks a watershed in the history of Russian aristocratic women. Their social position before 1812, while privileged and sometimes even quite autonomous, had mostly kept their political and social horizons narrow. In addition, eighteenth-century culture had presented them with competing, at times conflicting, models of aristocratic femininity. Based on memoirs by women who experienced the 1812 war, this article argues that the invasion disrupted their pre-war insular way of life and confronted noblewomen with traumas specific to their class and sex. In response, women reaffirmed the aristocracy's stoic ethos and its claim to leadership in society, and represented women as gentle humanitarians but also patriots and fearless protectors of their loved ones. The women of the 1812 generation thereby helped to crystallize the emerging intelligentsia's vision of ideal Russian womanhood, which in turn contributed to the rise of the Russian revolutionary movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guzel’ Ibneeva’s article, based upon original research and broad range of secondary sources, explores the influence of Catherine II travels into the Middle Volga region upon her imperial policies. Claiming that Catherine was far from being a Western traveler eager to project his/her own visions of “civilization” or “barbarism”, Ibneeva argues that Catherine’s attentive study of her different subject nations brought to life more tolerant legislation in religious sphere (which, in terms of 18th century Russian empire also meant ethnic sphere). The reader will find numerous references to Catherine’s own writings, as well as memoirs, correspondence, archival resources in the article and will have a chance to judge to what extent “the mapping of empire” occurred due to these remarkable journeys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]