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Information is provided on the conference titled "Cultures of Secrecy in Soviet Life" held from January 25-27, 2017. The conference's topics, including the post-Stalinist Soviet Union state's violence, Soviet power over the circulation of information, secret communities' everyday life, state security policy on the Soviet space program and the science community's relations with the Soviet Communist Party, are discussed.

Between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s tens of millions of young people took part in the Communist Youth League's 'All-Union Tours around Sites of Military Glory', visiting former battle sites, walking old partisan trails, uncovering soldiers' remains, and meeting with war veterans. This was a prominent facet of the 'cult' that the Soviet regime built around the Second World War during the Brezhnev era, and it was also a crucial feature of work aimed at ensuring young people grew up to be good communists and loyal Soviet citizens. Based upon archival research conducted in several former Soviet republics and Russian regions, this article demonstrates that these tours and the wider war cult which they formed a part of were about much more than simply creating a new legitimizing myth for a system running out of ideological energy. They helped fulfil vital state tasks, like preparing youth for military conscription and caring for veterans, they served as a means of shaping young people's outlook on their country and the world, and they helped knit together the social fabric of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By the late 1950s, the Soviet Union had acquired a strong position as a world oil exporter, thanks to major discoveries in the Ural-Volga area. In order to transport their oil to strategic areas within the Union and to Europe, the Soviets devised a project to build a colossal pipeline system. This plan caused anxiety at NATO since Russian oil could be wielded as a weapon to weaken the West both militarily and economically. In order to complete the system, however, the Soviets needed large-diameter steel pipes and equipment, which they had to import from the West. Thus in 1961 the U.S. delegation at NATO proposed a comprehensive embargo of large-diameter pipes in order to delay the system’s construction. I argue that the definition of what oil pipes were as technological artifacts, as well as their final content, was ultimately shaped by the NATO debate on this U.S. proposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the emergence of Chernogolovka, a scientific town near Moscow, during Khrushchev’s thaw. Nikolai Semenov, the founder of the town, relied on the Khrushchev regime’s fascination with modern science, its interest in expanding the scientific enterprise, and the more relaxed atmosphere of the thaw to transform what the Soviet state intended to be a military testing ground into a renowned scientific centre. This case study demonstrates that there was space for individual initiatives in the post-Stalinist system, as long as they came from well-connected individuals and conformed to the political and ideological objectives of the state. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the Komsomol (Communist Youth League) Bureau for International Youth Tourism (BMMT) between 1957 and 1985. It was founded after the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin during the administration of Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev and continued under Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. The BMMT was responsible for encouraging thousands of young people from outside the Soviet Union to travel and study within the communist-ruled country.

This article examines the transfer of technology from Finnish enterprises to Soviet industry during the USSR's period of technological modernization between 1955 and 1964. It centers on the forestry sector, which was a particular focus of modernization programs and a key area for the transfer of foreign techniques and expertise. The aim of the article is to investigate the role of trips made by Soviet specialists to foreign (primarily Finnish) enterprises in order to illustrate the nontechnological influences that occurred during the transfer of technologies across the cold war border. To do so, the article is divided into two parts: the first presents a general analysis of technology transfer from a micro-level perspective, while the second investigates the cultural influences behind technological transfer in the Soviet-Finnish case. This study contends that although the Soviet government expected its specialists to import advanced foreign technical experience, they brought not only the technologies and expertise needed for modernizing the industry, but also a changed view on Soviet workplace management and everyday practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1970s era of detente represented a critical period in cultural exchanges between the United States of America and the Soviet Union. The 1960s set in motion socially liberalizing forces to which Soviet authorities were forced to respond. The Brezhnev era brought greater emphasis on orderly, rational consumption as a marker of mature socialism, including cultural products as well as standard consumer items, as formal state-sponsored cultural exchanges coexisted with more subterranean consumption. Musical cultural exchanges, featuring the Duke Ellington band, the Roy Clark Show, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, emerged as key sites of trust and distrust and impacted efforts to maintain a stable social order. Barbara Misztal's contention that ‘the weakness of undemocratic states lies in their lack of social trust’ paired with historian Sergei Zhuk's observations about how consumption of Western cultural products shaped identity formation under late Soviet socialism suggests the transformative power of cultural exchanges to undermine official efforts to enhance cultures of trust. As state authorities extended limited exposure to American musical performers and styles in a bid to accommodate the need for trust culture, the Soviet citizenry adapted and transformed them into opportunities for deeper expressions of identity and connection to diverse exemplars of US musical culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the evolution of nostalgic sentiment in Russia over the past 25 years. Unlike in the 1990s, the nostalgic perception of the Soviet past in the 2000s was transformed under the influence of a new government ideology. Leonid Parfenov’s projectNamedniin both its forms – a television program and a book anthology – is an example of reflexive nostalgia for the Soviet period of 1946–1991. Reflexive nostalgia as expressed by liberal intellectuals presumes a freedom of interpretation. Thus,Namednidoes not reflect the official “patriotic” discourse. The article discusses the specifics of the television and book versions, the significance of visual and literary imagery, and the relationship between history and historical memory. BecauseNamedniexhibits signs of an autobiographical text, the article concludes that memory takes a higher priority than historical science in Parfenov’s project. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses the formation of nostalgic sentiment in contemporary Russia. Nostalgic emotions which idealize the Soviet experience are typical of Russian society today. To a great extent, they are a natural consequence of the forming of historical memories concerning the recent past. However, to a greater extent, they must be viewed as a socio-cultural phenomenon formed in the context of the social catastrophe that accompanied the collapse of the USSR. Nostalgia is amplified by political practices. Nostalgic sentiment is also sustained and cultivated by the mass media, which responds both to consumer demand and to political trends. Nostalgia for what was lost in the aftermath of a social catastrophe transforms a psychological reaction, typical of the older generation, into a nostalgia of catastrophes. It is the particular condition of a society that has lived through complicated historical periods, when dramatic changes resulted in the loss of the behavioural models and values which used to define people’s lives. The nostalgic mindset facilitates the mythologization of certain intervals of Soviet history as a “golden age”, one that is not completely lost. The period of the 1950s to 1970s is particularly actively mythologized. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

After a lapse of 15 years under Stalin, parole was reintroduced into the Soviet Gulag in 1954. For justice officials anxious to expunge Stalin's repressive legacy, the resurrection of parole signalled a return to correctionalism, societal oversight over the Gulag, and a vastly reduced rate of incarceration. In practice, though, parole exposed significant continuities with the Stalinist Gulag, including endemic corruption, overwhelming concern with production, suspicion of outside interference in penal affairs, and constant upward pressure on the inmate population. In the broader view, the experience of parole in the post-war USSR aligned closely with that of the Western world. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

After the Sino-Soviet dispute had considerably weakened Moscow's supremacy in world communism, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev was keen on restoring control and unity. But he soon discovered that his meaning of unity did not exactly coincide with what others had in mind. West European communists were striving to accommodate social principles to domestic conditions so, as to be able to accede to government. They advocated for each party's right to make their own decisions independently and alsofor an enlargement of world communism beyond its initial sectarianism. Their cause was vulnerable though as internationalism was still an important part of their political identity, apart from the fact that Moscow did subsidize most of them. In the second half of the 1960s though, a new voice joined those asking for reform in world communism: Nicolae Ceau?escu, a leader of the Romanian Communist Party. Interested to promote his country's autonomy in the Soviet bloc, Ceaujescu had no reason to support Moscow's efforts to regain control. Instead, Ceau$escu developed close relations with West European Communist parties and assumed some of their ideological tenets, trying tofend off Soviet domination. This way, although he never was a Eurocommunist, Ceau$escu did play an important part in the ideological debates that were later to produce Eurocommunism, defending West European arguments in front of Moscow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on author Geoffrey Swain's biography and essays of Josip Broz Tito, president of Yugoslavia from 1943 to 1980, and communism in the country in the 20th century. Topics include Swain's exploration of alternatives in the history of communist Eastern Europe, his observations on the legacy of the Spanish Civil War, and his decision to revisit the subject of Tito in the I. B Tauris Communist Lives series to understand Tito's personal and political life in the context of a Bolshevik and Communist life.

Science fiction narratives appeared in the North Korean children's magazine Adong munhak between 1956 and 1965, and they bear witness to the significant Soviet influence in this formative period of the DPRK. Moving beyond questions of authenticity and imitation, however, this article locates the science fiction narrative within North Korean discourses on children's literature preoccupied with the role of fiction as both a reflection of the real and a projection of the imminent, utopian future. Through a close reading of science fiction narratives from this period, this article underscores the way in which science, technology, and the environment are implicated in North Korean political discourses of development, and points to the way in which these works resolve the inherent tension between the desirable and seemingly contradictory qualities of the ideal scientist—obedient servant of the collective and indefatigable questioner—to establish the child-scientist as the new protagonist of the DPRK. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The encounters between Soviet citizens and African students studying in the Soviet Union in the sixties inevitably generated problems of acclimation, social and political conflict, and racial strife. The article illuminates the ways the cultural clash affirmed Russians’ and Africans’ sense of cultural superiority. The African presence in Russia confirmed Soviet altruism in rearing Africans into cultured and scientifically endowed people. Similarly, African encounters with Soviet daily life reaffirmed their identity as culturally superior to Russians by emphasizing aspects of the individual that directly conflicted with Soviet notions of collectivism. The conflict over culturedness had direct ramifications on the Cold War as it strengthened Africans’ pragmatic stance toward Soviet patronage and their reluctance to embrace Soviet ideology and values. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Leonid Brezhnev's fragmentary notes to himself offer a valuable but unexplored source for insights into his eighteen-year rule, his interests, and his health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The disruptive effects of postcommunist instability have raised the approval ratings given by the general public to Leonid Brezhnev and have prompted scholarly reappraisals of his regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increased Jewish emigration from the USSR, itself a product of détente, threatened to undermine improvements in the Soviet government's relationship with the United States as the Communist Party tried to rein it in. The solution was to leave laws on the books but quietly ignore them in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the history of Glenn Gould's 1957 concert tour of the ussr as a pivotal moment in the Cold War and the evolution of Canadian cultural diplomacy. Classical music was a disarming weapon in the conduct of foreign relations because it was understood to have universal significance that transcended politics and ideology, even though the critical rhetoric of music performance often invoked notions of artistic power and triumph. Gould was the first North American pianist to perform behind the Iron Curtain, and his visit was a spectacular success artistically and politically. Western commentators played up his individualism, national identity, and modernist repertoire, describing the impact of his performances on Soviet audiences and translating the significance of that experience back home. Privately endorsed, but not officially sponsored by the Canadian government, the tour was organized by Gould's manager, Walter Homburger. Drawing on government documents about the planning of the tour, media coverage, personal memoirs, and the lectures about culture in the ussr that Gould delivered on his return to Toronto, the article explores the role of non-state actors in advancing the interests of Canadian foreign policy both at home and abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysing internal documents from recently accessible Soviet archives as well as International Olympic Committee (IOC) correspondence, this article explores how Soviet sports administrators sought to gain influence and authority in international sports in order to advance Soviet state goals during the Cold War. To counter the ‘reactionary’, ‘Anglo-American’ bloc they perceived in the IOC and International Federations (IFs), members of the Soviet All-Union Committee on Physical Culture and Sport sought to ‘democratise’ international sports organisations by transforming them into truly international bodies that included representatives from all regions of the world, especially those sympathetic to the Soviet Union. Because of the governing culture of the IOC and the personalities of many of its members, any stance taken on by Soviet members could not overtly challenge Olympic ideals. Couching their call to expand Olympism in the principles of international cooperation, democracy and the right for everyone to participate in sports, Soviet administrators could present themselves as dedicated promoters of sport and use their clout to further Soviet interests. Through their efforts to increase Soviet influence globally, Soviet administrators challenged the insularity of the IOC and IFs and helped to transform international sports and the Olympic Games into a truly global movement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article investigates the background of Soviet industrial design in Soviet art theory. Instead of considering design's interconnection with technology and science, or with consumption and everyday life, the author traces its conceptualisation as a new artistic phenomenon. Using archival records of professional discussions, polemical articles in the art press and design projects, the author looks at how industrial design was incorporated into the Soviet order of things. She concludes that accommodation of the Western model was the way to reform the system of socialism from inside, typical for the Soviet intelligentsia of the 1960s. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the historical and social legacy of the transfer of the Crimea to Ukraine in January 1954 by then-Soviet Union premier Nikita Khrushchev. The article speculates about the fate of Ukraine without the Crimea, the Crimea's association with Russia, and political activity in the Crimea. The article also discusses Russian-Crimean relations, Ukraine's non-membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and pro-Russian sentiments in the Crimea.

The article discusses Estonians' collective memory in postcommunist Estonia of the period during which the country was under the rule of the Soviet Union from 1960 through 1980, which is referred to as mature socialism. The article discusses narratives within autobiographies and biographies, including the portrayal of everyday life, so as to examine collective memory in Estonia. An overview of the relationship between Estonian personal and collective memory, including the impact of Estonian nationalism on memory, is provided.

Ideological considerations have always influenced science, but rarely as directly and massively as in the Soviet Union during the early Cold War period, when cosmology was among the sciences that became politicized. This field of science developed very differently in the Communist countries than in the West, in large measure because of political pressure. Certain cosmological models, in particular of the big bang type, were declared pseudo-scientific and idealistic because they implied a cosmic creation, a concept which was taken to be religious. The result of the ideological pressure was not an independent Soviet cosmology, but that astronomers and physicists abandoned cosmological research in the Western sense. Only in the 1960s did this situation change, and cosmology in the Soviet Union began to flourish. The paper reviews the relationship between cosmology and political ideology in the soviet union from about 1947 to 1963, and it briefly relates this case to the later one in the People's Republic of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This is a biographical-historical essay that traces historical context and developments that shaped Victor Zaslavsky as an intellectual in the pre-immigration period of his life. Victor belonged to a generation of the 1950s-60s that began to deconstruct the totalitarian communist system from within. Not being a dissident, Zaslavsky was part of the broader phenomenon of social and ideological devolution of communism, that ultimately produced the collapse of the Soviet empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Influential scholarship on the Brezhnev era has described the instrumental official support for Russian nationalist themes and pre-socialist imagery in public discourse as a deliberate "politics of inclusion," designed to co-opt certain nationalist intellectuals and the sympathies of the state's core of ethnic Russians for the purpose of popular mobilization. How thin policy related to and interacted with the ubiquitous official commemoration and mythologization of the Great Fatherland War during this period, however, has remained unexplored. Based on a number of the most important Russophilic publications in the censored press - the writings of the so-called "Chalmaevists" - this article contends that despite unambiguously russocentric, single-stream readings of history in general, when it came to the war in particular, nationalist intellectuals tended to muffle their russocentrism through opaque language or an avoidance of the war's larger significance, or conformed to the war's official (supra-ethnic, socialist) reading. It was only in samizdat that the essentially Russian, primordial nature of victory in 1945 could be fully articulated. The present study thus probes the limits of the concept of inclusionary politics and underscores the party leadership's apparent commitment to maintaining the war myth's predominantly supranational, socialist significance as a means of fostering all-Soviet, rather than Russian national, solidarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of prediction and forecasting in the social sciences over the past century and more is closely linked with developments in Russia. The Soviet collapse undermined confidence in predictive capabilities, and scenario planning emerged as the dominant future-oriented methodology in area studies, including the study of Russia. Scenarists anticipate multiple futures rather than predicting one. The approach is too rarely critiqued. Building on an account of Russia-related forecasting in the twentieth century, analysis of two decades of scenarios reveals uniform accounts which downplay the insights of experts and of social science theory alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the late 1950s the North-Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) made a major effort to fund collaborative research between its member states. One of the first initiatives following the establishment of the alliance's Science Committee was the creation of a sub-group devoted to marine science: the Sub-committee on Oceanographic Research.This paper explores the history of this organization, charts its trajectory over the 13 years of its existence, and considers its activities in light of NATO's naval defence strategies. In particular it shows how the alliance's naval commands played a key role in the sub-committee's creation due to the importance of oceanographic research in the tracking of enemy submarines. The essay also scrutinizes the reasons behind the committee's dissolution, with a special focus on the changing landscape of scientific collaboration at NATO. The committee's fall maps onto a more profound shift in the alliance's research agenda, including the re-organization of defence research and the rise of environmentalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Birobidzhan Jewish religious community, officially registered on 15 December 1946, was the only one recognised by the Soviet authorities in the USSR's Far East. During the first years of its activity the community represented a unique case – perhaps the only case in the country – of linkage between a synagogue and the Soviet party and economic establishment on the local level. However, the persecutions of the early 1950s and several anti-religious campaigns later resulted in the Birobidzhan religious community falling into to a very sorry condition. At the beginning of the 1980s, the Regional Executive Committee even decided to cancel the registration of the community and remove it from the books. At the same time, after the 1984 large-scale celebration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Jewish Autonomous Region (JAR), the central Soviet authorities found that Birobidzhan “clericals” could serve the purposes of the Soviet agitation and propaganda apparatus, as confirmation of the absence of any oppression of Judaism in the JAR. As a result, the chairman of the Regional Executive Committee of Russian origin was removed from his position and a new chairman of Jewish origin was appointed. Furthermore, for the first time in decades, not counting the construction of the temporary synagogue at the Olympic village in Moscow in 1980, Soviet municipal authorities took an active part in the establishment of a Jewish house of worship. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article reports on a conference on the Brežnev era in Soviet history, held in Tübingen, Germany, from February 9-11, 2012. Topics discussed included consumerism, social mobility, leisure activities, and cultural change in cities in the Soviet Union the 1960s and 1970s, the role of artists and intellectuals in Communist society, and Soviet foreign relations in the era of détente during the Cold War.

The article discusses penal reforms and counterreforms in the Soviet Union during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Particular focus is given to the roles of Soviet officials, penologists, the media, and the general public in efforts to eliminate inmate privileges introduced shortly after the death of dictator Joseph Stalin. The author emphasizes that although these privileges were removed, most reforms to living conditions and prison labor in the Gulag remained intact.

Despite extensive efforts by the Khrushchev regime to destroy the power and appeal of organized religion as the USSR made its transition from socialism to communism, the Russian Orthodox Church survived. Although the antireligion campaign succeeded in cutting the number of churches, monasteries, and ordained clergy, the population responded by becoming more religious. As a result, by the late 1960s gifts to religious organizations and numbers of baptisms had risen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Nikita Khrushchev usually receives credit for the Soviet shift to light industry and agricultural reforms during the Thaw of the late 1950s and the early 1960s, this article discerns precursors of the new economic approach in the period immediately following World War II. The political infighting that characterized the late Stalin years and the Thaw played out, in part, in support for or opposition to the proposed economic reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nikita Khrushchev's famous denunciation of Stalin during his secret speech to the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 may have been motivated more by internal power plays against his political rivals than by a desire to expose Stalin's "cult of personality." The denunciation surprised foreign visitors and resident party officials alike. Their scramble to attack Stalin's henchmen (Lavrentii Beria and Georgii Malenkov in particular), while shielding Stalin himself, explains the contradictory, halting aspects of the ensuing de-Stalinization campaign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soon after Soviet First Secretary: Nikita Khrushchev exposed Joseph Stalin's crimes in February 1956, several Stalinist dictators in Eastern Europe similar in outlook to Romanian general secretary Gheorghiu-Dej were discredited and toppled by rivals: Hungary (Mátyás Rakosi). Poland (Edward Ochab), and Bulgaria (Vulko Velev Chervenkov), as were Stalinist leaders in western communist parties, such as in Greece (Nikolaos Zachariadis). Gheorghiu-Dej. however, managed to keep his post until his death from lung cancer in 1965. Romania, the only country other than Albania to maintain a tight (lamp over its citizens, also became the only Warsaw Pact country from which both Soviet troops (1958) and KGB advisors (1964) were actually withdrawn during the Cold War. This article will show that that Gheorghiu-Dej, too, faced a threat to his power in 1956. Two Politburo members. Miron Constantinescu and Iosif Chişinevschi. had risked criticizing the Romanian leader, to some extent at the March Plenum. but mostly at the Politburo meetings of 3, 4, 6 and 12 April 1956. Drawing on the minutes of these meetings, never before published in English translation, as well as other Romanian archival documents and recent scholarship, this article will argue that the factional challenge of Dej failed primarily because of four factors that both discredited the oppositionists and mobilized the Bucharest leaders — especially the disgraced politicians — to act in concert to contain the spread of the Hungarian revolution into Romania. These are: the oppositionists' lack of support from Moscow: the lack of living martyrs and recognition of mutual guilt for spreading the personality cult: collective memories of their underground days with the concomitant fear of factionalism; and aversion to "petty bourgeois Intellectualism." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the impact of the so-called de-Stalinization program of former Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev in Albania in 1956. It examines the internal dynamics of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), a speech delivered by Khrushchev at the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU, and the Tirana Party Conference in Albania in April 1956. The article discusses the policies and platforms of the Party of Labor of Albania (PPSh), particularly the role of the party's first secretary, Enver Hoxha. It analyzes what the author asserts were tensions between Albania and the Soviet Union and within the Communist Party.

The article presents an in-depth analysis of the 1970s-era Soviet television program "Pesnia goda"/"Song of the Year." Introductory comments are offered discussing popular historiographical depictions of 1970s Soviet culture as "stagnant" and beginning the decline that would lead to its later collapse. The author presents an alternative narrative through the "Song of the Year" show and its predecessor "Little Blue Flame." Subjects addressed include the production history of the show, its political elements as a Soviet mass-culture ritual, and its continuing impact on Russian society into the 21st century.

This paper argues that the works of dissident Soviet bard Aleksandr Galich are best understood as folklore rather than literature, texts, or recordings. Since his songs were censored, live, person-to-person dissemination was crucial to their circulation. Unfortunately, though, the very underground, word-of-mouth mechanisms that allowed Galich to dodge censors has rendered historical record of his performative importance spotty. Drawing on newly-available memoirs, this paper reframes Galich's songs as a dialogue—with fans, other songwriters, and the Soviet government itself. Rather than a static, linear artist-to-fan relationship, emphasising the social bonds built through oral tradition deepens understanding of Galich's project, his influence on major musical trends in the USSR, and his contemporary, postsocialist significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Battle for Hill 3234 was a small, bitterly-contested mountain fight that was a near-run thing, yet part of one of the most successful operations of the Soviet-Afghan War-Operation Magistral. Indeed, this combat by an under-strength 39-man paratrooper company has gained iconic status in Russian and inspired the popular movie and computer game 9th Company. The movie is great entertainment, but hardly accurate. This is the most-accurate account of this battle in the English language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the impact of the launch of the "Sputnik" satellite by the Soviet Union in 1957 upon informal science education in the U.S. during the Cold War. The author offers a comparative analysis of informal education and formal education. The article presents a history of informal science education based upon the five common traits of curriculum formation identified by curriculum theorist Joseph J. Schwab including subject matter, learner, and teacher. The author focuses upon science centers and museums as places of informal science education. The article discusses the importance that the U.S. government placed upon producing American scientists, particularly the founding of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) of 1958.

From the late 1960s until the dissolution of the Soviet Union, numerous composers, especially those belonging to the generation born in the 1930s and commonly referred to as non-conformist, 'avant-garde' or 'unofficial', produced over 100 religious musical works. Some of these composers, such as Arvo Pärt (b. 1935) and Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998) employed the controversially flamboyant polystylistic compositional idiom to express their faith in God. Because the merits of the employment of mimetic polystylism in the realm of sacred music have rarely been analysed, my aim is to demonstrate that, in the Soviet context, it was a very appropriate vehicle for conveying religious sentiments by musical means, as it enabled the composers to express their beliefs, but also to narrate related stories. I shall address this issue by analysing three pieces: Arvo Pärt's Credo for piano solo, chorus and orchestra (1968), and the Credo movements from Alfred Schnittke's Requie m (1975) for three sopranos, contralto, tenor, mixed choir and instrumental ensemble, and Second Symphony 'St Florian' (1979) for mixed chamber choir and large orchestra. The reason for choosing the Credo 'genre' is that by definition it is a manifesto of the composer's faith in God, and hence it bears exceptional moral and spiritual weight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soviet soccer became a favorite target of bureaucratic wrangling in the post-Stalin era, pitting the local authorities against the Central Committee and its adjunct Sports Committee in arguments over players, league assignments, and conduct both on and off the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the death of Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1953, the members of the Soviet government's Politburo, or governing council, began a reform of the Soviet prison system. This article deals with the impact that these reforms had on the people who lived in the remote areas of the Soviet empire. Particular attention is paid to the question that faced Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev of whether people, in particular the Tartars, who had been freed in the Caucuses and in the Crimea would be allowed to migrate to Russia. The article discusses a political movement that lobbied for greater political and social rights for Tartars.

The article presents a discussion on the history of the Soviet Union after World War II. Particular attention is paid to the persecution of National Socialists as part of political cleansing efforts by the Soviet government. Statistics are given regarding the placement of Germans in Soviet camps between 1945 and 1950. Further note is taken of Soviet deportations, forced labor arrangements, and attempts at reintegrating Germans into society. The article also discusses alternate Soviet punishments for war crimes committed by National Socialists during World War II.

The article discusses the Soviet Union under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev, who ruled from 1953-1964. The focus of the article are reforms of the Soviet Union undertaken by Khrushchev, especially on the textiles industry. By focusing on the development of the chemical industry, the author states, the outward appearance of the Soviet people changed during the 1950s and 1960s. Other topics include the chemicalization of the national economy and fashionable clothing that appeared after World War II.