Download or read book Cultural Dissent in Soviet Belarus 1968 1988 written by Tatsiana Astrouskaya and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause written by Benjamin Nathans and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2024-08-13 with total page 816 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A gripping history of the Soviet dissident movement, which hastened the end of the USSR—and still provides a model of opposition in Putin’s Russia Beginning in the 1960s, the Soviet Union was unexpectedly confronted by a dissident movement that captured the world’s imagination. Demanding that the Kremlin obey its own laws, an improbable band of Soviet citizens held unauthorized public gatherings, petitioned in support of arrested intellectuals, and circulated banned samizdat texts. Soviet authorities arrested dissidents, subjected them to bogus trials and vicious press campaigns, sentenced them to psychiatric hospitals and labor camps, sent them into exile—and transformed them into martyred heroes. Against all odds, the dissident movement undermined the Soviet system and unexpectedly hastened its collapse. Taking its title from a toast made at dissident gatherings, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause is a definitive history of a remarkable group of people who helped change the twentieth century. Benjamin Nathans’s vivid narrative tells the dramatic story of the men and women who became dissidents—from Nobel laureates Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn to many others who are virtually unknown today. Drawing on diaries, memoirs, personal letters, interviews, and KGB interrogation records, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause reveals how dissidents decided to use Soviet law to contain the power of the Soviet state. This strategy, as one of them put it, was “simple to the point of genius: in an unfree country, they began to conduct themselves like free people.” An extraordinary account of the Soviet dissident movement, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause shows how dissidents spearheaded the struggle to break free of the USSR’s totalitarian past, a struggle that continues in Putin’s Russia—and that illuminates other struggles between hopelessness and perseverance today.
Download or read book Jewish Studies in the Digital Age written by Gerben Zaagsma and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2022-10-03 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As in all fields and disciplines of the humanities, Jewish Studies scholars find themselves confronted with the rapidly increasing availability of digital resources (data), new technologies to interrogate and analyze them (tools), and the question of how to critically engage with these developments. This volume discusses how the digital turn has affected the field of Jewish Studies. It explores the current state of the art and probes how digital developments can be harnessed to address the specific questions, challenges and problems that Jewish Studies scholars confront. In a field characterised by dispersed sources, and heterogeneous scripts and languages that speak to a multitude of cultures and histories, of abundance as well as loss, what is the promise of Digital Humanities methods--and what are the challenges and pitfalls? The articles in this volume were originally presented at the international conference #DHJewish - Jewish Studies in the Digital Age, which was organised at the Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C2DH) at University of Luxembourg in January 2021. The first big international conference of its kind, it brought together more than sixty scholars and heritage practitioners to discuss how the digital turn affects the field of Jewish Studies.
Download or read book Belarus in the Twenty First Century written by Elena A. Korosteleva and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-05-12 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a comprehensive overview of current developments in Belarus. It explores how there has been an upswelling of popular support for the idea that Belarus must change. It highlights how the old regime, aiming to retain the Soviet legacy, reluctant to reform, presiding over worsening economic conditions and refusing to take measures to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic, has been confronted by increasing bottom-up social mobilisation which demands a transformation of state-society relations and a new sense of Belarusian peoplehood. The book outlines how the current situation has developed, considers how the present demands for change are deep seated and long brewing trends, and reveals much detail about many aspects of the growing societal mobilisation. Overall, the book demonstrates that, although the old regime remains in power, Belarusian society has changed fundamentally, thereby bringing great hope that change will eventually come about.
Download or read book Cultural Dissent in Soviet Belarus 1968 1988 written by Tatsiana Astrouskaya and published by Harrassowitz. This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Soviet Belarus has been often referred to as the most loyal of all Soviet republics, where there was no protest and no sign of nonconformism appeared. This image persisted well into the next decades, when Socialism collapsed, the independent state of Belarus arose, and the impulse of democratic development was once again endangered by the establishment of authoritarianism. This book focuses on the dissent ideas that circulated in the milieu of the Belarusian Soviet Intelligentsia both in samizdat (uncensored) and in the officially published literature. It argues that the latter was not less crucial for the transmission of the unconventional images of culture and identity than the former. These ideas forewent the unprecedented rise of the cultural and political life in the late 1980s-early 1990s, which had been often overshadowed by the further downfall. The timeframe of the study lies between 1968, when the events of the Prague Spring and its violent suppression altered the intellectuals' perception of themselves and of the Socialist order and 1988, when, on the eve of the Autumn of Nations in Eastern and Central Europe, the intellectual dissent in the BSSR melted into political protest. Which were the conditions of the rise and existence of nonconformism of the intelligentsia in the generally conformist society? How and by which instruments the samizdat publishing functioned, how and to which extent the exchange of ideas took place? And finally, how the Belarusian intelligentsia responded to the challenges of writing and thinking within the Socialist system? These questions are central to the book.
Download or read book Eastern Europe Unmapped written by Irene Kacandes and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2017-10-01 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arguably more than any other region, the area known as Eastern Europe has been defined by its location on the map. Yet its inhabitants, from statesmen to literati and from cultural-economic elites to the poorest emigrants, have consistently forged or fathomed links to distant lands, populations, and intellectual traditions. Through a series of inventive cultural and historical explorations, Eastern Europe Unmapped dispenses with scholars’ long-time preoccupation with national and regional borders, instead raising provocative questions about the area’s non-contiguous—and frequently global or extraterritorial—entanglements.
Download or read book Communism s Shadow written by Grigore Pop-Eleches and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-09 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It has long been assumed that the historical legacy of Soviet Communism would have an important effect on post-communist states. However, prior research has focused primarily on the institutional legacy of communism. Communism's Shadow instead turns the focus to the individuals who inhabit post-communist countries, presenting a rigorous assessment of the legacy of communism on political attitudes. Post-communist citizens hold political, economic, and social opinions that consistently differ from individuals in other countries. Grigore Pop-Eleches and Joshua Tucker introduce two distinct frameworks to explain these differences, the first of which focuses on the effects of living in a post-communist country, and the second on living through communism. Drawing on large-scale research encompassing post-communist states and other countries around the globe, the authors demonstrate that living through communism has a clear, consistent influence on why citizens in post-communist countries are, on average, less supportive of democracy and markets and more supportive of state-provided social welfare. The longer citizens have lived through communism, especially as adults, the greater their support for beliefs associated with communist ideology—the one exception being opinions regarding gender equality. A thorough and nuanced examination of communist legacies' lasting influence on public opinion, Communism's Shadow highlights the ways in which political beliefs can outlast institutional regimes.
Download or read book Ukraine written by Taras Kuzio and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2015-06-23 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A definitive contemporary political, economic, and cultural history from a leading international expert, this is the first single-volume work to survey and analyze Soviet and post-Soviet Ukrainian history since 1953 as the basis for understanding the nation today. Ukraine dominated international headlines as the Euromaidan protests engulfed Ukraine in 2013–2014 and Russia invaded the Crimea and the Donbas, igniting a new Cold War. Written from an insider's perspective by the leading expert on Ukraine, this book analyzes key domestic and external developments and provides an understanding as to why the nation's future is central to European security. In contrast with traditional books that survey a millennium of Ukrainian history, author Taras Kuzio provides a contemporary perspective that integrates the late Soviet and post-Soviet eras. The book begins in 1953 when Soviet leader Joseph Stalin died during the Cold War and carries the story to the present day, showing the roots of a complicated transition from communism and the weight of history on its relations with Russia. It then goes on to examine in depth key aspects of Soviet and post-Soviet Ukrainian politics; the drive to independence, Orange Revolution, and Euromaidan protests; national identity; regionalism and separatism; economics; oligarchs; rule of law and corruption; and foreign and military policies. Moving away from a traditional dichotomy of "good pro-Western" and "bad pro-Russian" politicians, this volume presents an original framework for understanding Ukraine's history as a series of historic cycles that represent a competition between mutually exclusive and multiple identities. Regionally diverse contemporary Ukraine is an outgrowth of multiple historical Austrian-Hungarian, Polish, Russian, and especially Soviet legacies, and the book succinctly integrates these influences with post-Soviet Ukraine, determining the manner in which political and business elites and everyday Ukrainians think, act, operate, and relate to the outside world.
Download or read book The Rise and Fall of Belarusian Nationalism 1906 1931 written by Per Anders Rudling and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2015-02-27 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern Belarusian nationalism emerged in the early twentieth century during a dramatic period that included a mass exodus, multiple occupations, seven years of warfare, and the partition of the Belarusian lands. In this original history, Per Anders Rudling traces the evolution of modern Belarusian nationalism from its origins in late imperial Russia to the early 1930s. The revolution of 1905 opened a window of opportunity, and debates swirled around definitions of ethnic, racial, or cultural belonging. By March of 1918, a small group of nationalists had declared the formation of a Belarusian People's Republic (BNR), with territories based on ethnographic claims. Less than a year later, the Soviets claimed roughly the same area for a Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR). Belarusian statehood was declared no less than six times between 1918 and 1920. In 1921, the treaty of Riga officially divided the Belarusian lands between Poland and the Soviet Union. Polish authorities subjected Western Belarus to policies of assimilation, alienating much of the population. At the same time, the Soviet establishment of Belarusian-language cultural and educational institutions in Eastern Belarus stimulated national activism in Western Belarus. Sporadic partisan warfare against Polish authorities occurred until the mid-1920s, with Lithuanian and Soviet support. On both sides of the border, Belarusian activists engaged in a process of mythmaking and national mobilization. By 1926, Belarusian political activism had peaked, but then waned when coups d'etats brought authoritarian rule to Poland and Lithuania. The year 1927 saw a crackdown on the Western Belarusian national movement, and in Eastern Belarus, Stalin's consolidation of power led to a brutal transformation of society and the uprooting of Belarusian national communists. As a small group of elites, Belarusian nationalists had been dependent on German, Lithuanian, Polish, and Soviet sponsors since 1915. The geopolitical rivalry provided opportunities, but also liabilities. After 1926, maneuvering this complex and progressively hostile landscape became difficult. Support from Kaunas and Moscow for the Western Belarusian nationalists attracted the interest of the Polish authorities, and the increasingly autonomous republican institutions in Minsk became a concern for the central government in the Kremlin. As Rudling shows, Belarus was a historic battleground that served as a political tool, borderland, and buffer zone between greater powers. Nationalism arrived late, was limited to a relatively small elite, and was suppressed in its early stages. The tumultuous process, however, established the idea of Belarusian statehood, left behind a modern foundation myth, and bequeathed the institutional framework of a proto-state, all of which resurfaced as building blocks for national consolidation when Belarus gained independence in 1991.
Download or read book The Great Terror written by Robert Conquest and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2008 with total page 606 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The definitive work on Stalin's purges, the author's The Great Terror was universally acclaimed when it first appeared in 1968. Provides accounts of on everything form the three great 'Moscow Trials' to methods of obtaining confessions, the purge of writers and other members of the intelligentsia, on life in the labor camps, and many other key matters. On the fortieth anniversary of thew first edition, it is remarkable how many of the most disturbing conclusions have born up under the light of fresh evidence." --
Download or read book Cultural Perspectives Geopolitics Energy Security of Eurasia written by Mahir Ibrahimov and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A History of the Soviet Union 1945 1991 written by John L. H. Keep and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2002 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Soviet Union is a subject of enduring fascination for the whole of the Western world. This book focuses on the main cultures, political, social, and economic developments in the USSR since 1945.
Download or read book The Neoconservatives written by Peter Steinfels and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-11-19 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "More than three decades ago, in 'The neoconservatives,' Peter Steinfels described a nascent movement, predicting that it would be the sixties' 'most enduring legacy to American politics.' Now, in a new foreword to that portrait, he traces neoconservatism's fateful transformation. What was a movement of dissenting intellectuals creating a new, modern kind of conservatism became a phalanx of political insiders urging the nation to flex its muscles overseas. 'The neoconservatives' describes the founders of the movement, disenchanted liberals recoiling from the turmoil of the sixties, a decline in authority, and a loss of tough-minded leadership at home and abroad. Written contemporaneously to the birth of the movement that would profoundly mark American history, 'The neoconservatives' holds clues, Steinfels argues, to how and why neoconservatism swerved from its original promise even as it successfully implanted itself as an influential and aggressive element in our politics." --
Download or read book Cosmopolitan Radicalism written by Zeina Maasri and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-06 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring visual culture, design and politics in 1960s Beirut, this compelling interdisciplinary study examines a critical period in Lebanon's history.
Download or read book The Cambridge History of Communism written by Norman Naimark and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-21 with total page 700 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second volume of The Cambridge History of Communism explores the rise of Communist states and movements after World War II. Leading experts analyze archival sources from formerly Communist states to re-examine the limits to Moscow's control of its satellites; the de-Stalinization of 1956; Communist reform movements; the rise and fall of the Sino-Soviet alliance; the growth of Communism in Asia, Africa and Latin America; and the effects of the Sino-Soviet split on world Communism. Chapters explore the cultures of Communism in the United States, Western Europe and China, and the conflicts engendered by nationalism and the continued need for support from Moscow. With the danger of a new Cold War developing between former and current Communist states and the West, this account of the roots, development and dissolution of the socialist bloc is essential reading.
Download or read book Lithuania written by V. Stanley Vardys and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-02-19 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores Lithuania's pagan ancestry and epochal struggles with Germanic and Russian states and examines Lithuania's struggle with the legacy of Soviet rule as it strives to establish democracy and economic prosperity.
Download or read book A Social History of Maoist China written by Felix Wemheuer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-28 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new social history of Maoist China provides an accessible view of the complex and tumultuous period when China came under Communist rule.
