Download or read book Dedovshchina in the Post Soviet Military Hazing of Russian Army Conscripts in a Comparative Perspective written by Françoise Daucé and published by ibidem-Verlag / ibidem Press. This book was released on 2012-02-13 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In contemporary armies, violence among soldiers seems to be a universal phenomenon found in both professional and drafted armies. However, the comparison of violent practices in various armies around the world allows us to identify specific features linked to those countries' sociological, political or anthropological contexts. Hazing, for example, seems to be more violent in the armies of transitional societies (Russia, Eastern Europe, Latin America), where social tensions encountered by citizens in their daily lives are carried over to, and sometimes intensified in, the military. The comparison of Russian dedovshchina with the situation in other countries makes it possible to identify universal, transitional and national characteristics of military violence.Contents: Konstantin Bannikov on the consequences of the spread throughout society of archaic violence produced by the Russian army; Anna Colin Lebedev on the perception of military violence in Russian society; Anton Oleynik on informal relationships among prisoners and conscripts; Kirill Podrabinek on the reasons of the prevalence of dedovshchina in the post-Soviet context; Igor Obraztsov on the historical roots of dedovshchina; Vadim Mikhailin on the role of language in the military milieu; Julie Elkner on the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers; Bakit Katchekeyev on hazing in the Kyrgyz army; Irakli Sesiashvili on hazing in the Georgian army; Hana Cervinkova on hazing in the Czech army; James Wither on bullying in the British army; Eduardo Paes-Machado & Carlos Linhares de Albuquerque on hazing in the Brazilian police; Joris Van Bladel on dedovshchina and the all-volunteer force.
Download or read book Military Heroism in a Post Heroic Era written by Uzi Ben-Shalom and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy written by Anastasia V Mitrofanova and published by ibidem-Verlag / ibidem Press. This book was released on 2005-07-26 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyzes the ideologies of politicized Orthodox Christianity in today Russia including fundamentalism, pan-Slavism, neo-Eurasianism, Orthodox communism and nationalism. Apart from textual analysis, the volume provides a description of the specific subculture of political Orthodoxy, i.e. its language, symbols, art, mass media, hangouts and dresscode. This study represents the first scholarly examination of these topics. Unlike other publications on the politicization of Orthodoxy, it is focused not on the political ambitions of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), but on political movements ideologically based on their own interpretations of the Orthodox doctrine, often contravening the canonical version. The book demonstrates that the “political Orthodox” or “Orthodox patriots” are a specific branch of believers who frequently do not practice Orthodoxy properly, inventing, instead, their own quasi-Orthodox rituals. The volume shows that the ROC is not responsible for such religious politicization and that the community of the political Orthodox is rather guided by religiously oriented lay intellectuals. The book provides a brief analysis of this intellectual community. Finally, the volume demonstrates that, even in the absence of significant electoral achievements, some religio-political Orthodox movements—namely, fundamentalists and nationalists—have been able to gain public support at the grassroots level. They have been able to infiltrate larger and more moderate political organizations thus contributing to a general “Orthodoxization” of Russian political discourse.
Download or read book Ultra Nationalism and Hate Crimes in Contemporary Russia written by Galina Kozhevnikova and published by ibidem-Verlag / ibidem Press. This book was released on 2012-02-27 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a collection of the 2004, 2005 and 2006 annual reports as well as some additional statistics on 2007 compiled by Moscow’s SOVA Center for Information and Analysis. The reports are devoted to such issues as political nationalism; hate crimes; the use of police, administrative, political and social tools to counteract xenophobic violence; and the Russian authorities’ abuse of laws designed to counteract extremism, i.e. their cynical exploitation of this legislation for their own political purposes. Already in the middle of this decade, all of these problems were known to pose a certain threat to Russian society. In spite of the considerable public attention they received since then, only few effective measures have been taken and, thus, the situation is getting worse: The level of racist violence is increasing further and the spectrum of ultra-nationalist groups is consolidating. Moreover, representatives of the political elite have started to adopt cryptic and, sometimes, overtly xenophobic rhetoric. At the same time, the government’s current office holders actively utilize anti-extremist legislation to unlawfully restrict not only ultra-nationalist groups, but also the rights and liberties of other non-governmental and political organizations.
Download or read book In the Name of the Nation written by M. Laruelle and published by Springer. This book was released on 2009-10-26 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book deconstructs the equation of nationalism with the extreme right in Russia. Nationalism now extends throughout all ofthe countryand can not be seen as a phenomenon confined to the margins of society. This study rejects the interpretation that understands Kremlin-backed patriotism as simply part of a fascist trend in Russia and as a rapprochement between the political authorities and the extreme right. A simplistic analysis of such a paradoxical phenomenon addresses neither the basic issue of social consensus nor that of the inherent relationship between national identity and citizenship.
Download or read book Kazakhstani Enterprises in Transition written by Natalya Shevchik Ketenci and published by ibidem-Verlag / ibidem Press. This book was released on 2012-02-27 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The findings of this study illustrate how the process of post-Soviet economic transition engenders, among others, significant spatial industrial restructuring. In addition to well-known changes in the characteristics of individual enterprises, these spatial aspects of restructuring can be key determinants of a firm's performance. Moreover, the effects of spatial restructuring appear as influencing both industry-specific and location-specific characteristics of firms. A number of previous studies have discussed overall economic structural changes in Kazakhstan, but only few highlight the regional-industrial perspective. A focus on regional issues is particularly relevant in this case, since Kazakhstani economic development was uneven and industrial activities are concentrated in certain geographical areas. The present study contributes to the existing literature through its perspective on regional development, at the industrial level. This is the first comprehensive analysis of regional industrial development in Kazakhstan based on research into individual firms. The study fills a gap by way analysing trends of industrial location in Kazakhstan in connection with characteristics of particular enterprises – factors the consideration of which should play a prominent role in the formulation of future regional and managerial policies.
Download or read book Borotbism written by Ivan Maistrenko and published by ibidem-Verlag / ibidem Press. This book was released on 2012-02-20 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much has been written on the 1917-20 revolution in Ukrainian, on the national movement, the Makhnovists and the struggle of the Bolsheviks. Yet there were others with a mass following whose role has faded from history. One such party was the Borotbisty, an inde-pendent party of Ukrainian revolutionary socialists seeking to achieve national liberation and social emancipation. Though widely known in revolutionary Europe in their day, the Borotbisty were decimated during the Stalinist holocaust in Ukraine. Out of print for over half a century this lost text by Ivan Maistrenko, the last survivor of this party provides a unique account. Part memoir and part history this is a thought provoking study which chal-lenges previous approaches to the revolution and shows how events in Ukraine decided the fate not only of the Russian Revolution but the upheavals in Europe at the time. Ivan Maistrenko’s Borotbism is more than just a historical document. The debates during and after the ‘Ukrainian revolution’ of 1917 still have a contemporary relevance - and Ukrainian debate was especially rich because if extended beyond the ranks of the Bolsheviks to the ‘national communist’ parties, the Borotbisty and Ukapisty. Ukrainian ‘national communism’ proved ephemeral when reborn in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but ar-guably because it failed to reconnect with earlier polemics, being, as Maistrenko predicted in the 1950s, little more than a cover story for the nomenklatura to pursue its self-enrichment.The debate about the relative importance of national and/or social liberation is still of great importance, however, especially as Ukrainians arguably now have the former without the latter. In Putin’s Russia, market capitalism has to struggle with the state, and the left has often been prisoner to imperial nostalgia. The popular hatred of ‘oligarchs’ is as visceral in Ukraine as it is in Russia, but these sentiments are currently better tapped by opposition politicians like Yuliia Tymoshenko and Yurii Lutsenko. Both are often dismissed as ‘populists’, but building a non-communist Ukrainian left remains as important a task today as it was in 1917 or 1954.Andrew Wilson, Senior Lecturer in Ukrainian Studies at the School of Slavonic & East European Studies, University College London
Download or read book Russia at War 2 volumes written by Timothy C. Dowling and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2014-12-02 with total page 1189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This easy-to-use reference explores the people and events that shaped Russian military history—and impacted Europe, Asia, and the world—over the past eight centuries. Russian military history is an often-overlooked field. Yet Russia is and has long been an important player in global politics, and its military exploits have been central to its role on the world stage. This study of Russia's military past provides insights into European and U.S. history, including the conduct of the two World Wars and the Cold War, and will help readers better appreciate the current geopolitical situation. This work covers major events and figures in Russian military history from the end of Mongol domination in the 14th century to the present day. More than 650 entries by scores of expert contributors detail events, individuals, organizations, and ideas that have influenced Russian warfare over 800 years. Two alphabetically arranged volumes explore such conflicts as the Russo-Polish Wars, the Great Northern War, the Russo-Turkish Wars, the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War, the Russo-Japanese War, World War I, World War II, and the Cold War, including the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Cross references and further readings in each entry serve as jumping-off points for further exploration.
Download or read book Understanding Russianness written by Risto Alapuro and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2011-08-17 with total page 491 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In today’s world where other cultures are being tapped to a greater extent than ever before, the processes of mixing and matching are especially relevant in making sense of Russia. Not only do borrowing and assimilation, interaction between the familiar and the alien, constitute a venerable tradition in Russian culture, but during the two last post-Soviet decades a notable Western influence has become apparent. This book provides means for understanding Russianness in this new situation. By bringing together Russian and Western, eminent and younger scholars it provides insights both from inside and outside. By extending its perspectives to three fields – linguistics, cultural studies, and social sciences – it covers different dimensions of creative misunderstandings , hybrids, tensions and other modes of adaptation in the Russian culture. By offering concrete case studies it avoids easy stereotypes, deconstructs clichés, problematizes accepted truths, and identifies points of interaction between Russia and the West.
Download or read book Cultural Politics of Ethnicity written by Vera Sokolova and published by ibidem-Verlag / ibidem Press. This book was released on 2012-02-27 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book maps out the history of Czechoslovak linguistic and social practices directed at Roma during the communist period. It explains how contemporary Czech society has come to understand the Romani population in terms of inherited social, medical and juridical ideas. Rather than focusing on the Roma people as an object of analysis, the book problematizes assumed notions of “Gypsiness” and “Czechness” in mainstream society by highlighting the role of different socialist discourses in constructing images of Roma as socially deviant and abnormal. By uncovering the lines of continuity in the intersections of ethnic discrimination, social deviance and citizenship from the 1950s to the collapse of communism, this book comes to terms with a variety of questions that have not yet been adequately addressed in the literature: What underlying assumptions informed the socialist regime’s understanding of “Gypsiness,” and how did these conceptions relate to notions of citizenship, equality and normality? How and why did the meaning of the terms “Gypsies” and “Roma” become imbued in popular discourse with ideas of unhealthiness and social deviance? What implications does translating perceived cultural traits and lifestyles of Roma into non-ethnic frames of reference have for understanding racism and ethnic sensibilities in the country today? The work emphasizes historical continuities between contemporary xenophobia and the strategies which the communist regime used to deal with the “Gypsy question.” Focusing on the discrepancies between written laws and policies as well as their implementation, this study exposes the intricate relationships between official beliefs, institutional policies and popular consciousness under the communist regime. For it was these relationships which together created the mechanisms of social control that facilitated discrimination of Czechoslovak Roma under the guise of social welfare.
Download or read book The long way back to Europe Minority protection in Bulgaria written by Bernd Rechel and published by ibidem-Verlag / ibidem Press. This book was released on 2012-02-27 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The protection of minorities in Bulgaria presents a paradox. Although minority protection played a prominent role in the accession of the country to the European Union, hardly any positive minority rights were adopted in post-communist Bulgaria. Apart from the reversal of communist assimilation campaigns, only limited progress has been made in the area of minority protection. Positive minority rights have remained very restricted, some minorities, notably Pomaks and Macedonians, have been denied recognition, and the formal adoption of legislation or policy documents has often not been followed by implementation.By charting minority rights policies in Bulgaria in the period between 1989 and 2004, this study clarifies the main reasons for the limited progress in the post-communist period. While, in contrast to some other countries in Central and Eastern Europe, minority “kin-states” did not play a major role in post-communist Bulgaria, the European Union and the Council of Europe were instrumental in putting minority questions on the agenda of Bulgarian governments. However, their impact was smaller than much of the literature on enlargement and conditionality would suggest. Domestic factors were crucial in shaping minority rights policies in post-communist Bulgaria. Of particular importance was the communist legacy, which acted as a brake on the development of minority rights.
Download or read book Anamorphosic Texts and Reconfigured Visions written by Maryna Romanets and published by ibidem-Verlag / ibidem Press. This book was released on 2012-02-10 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Anamorphosic Texts, Maryna Romanets turns a discriminating lens on a still “liminal” Ukrainian cultural space and, through its relation to the experiences of one of the earliest decolonized nations, Ireland, puts it on the discursive postcolonial map, thereby destabilizing the paradigm of homogeneous Eurocentricity adopted by much postcolonial critique. Bringing together two peripheral European literatures, Romanets uses Irish and Ukrainian histories as a shared point of reference, charting an essentially untouched area of comparative typology in postcolonial cultural politics. Returning to the chiaroscuro terrain of respective nineteenth-century Revivalist movements, she projects their volatile energies onto contemporary struggles of the two cultures to represent their occluded, traumatic pasts and ever-evasive presents. In five linked essays, Romanets explores, in their sociocultural contexts, the works of Kostenko, Ní Dhomhnaill, Zabuzhko, Pokalchuk, Vynnychuk, Poderviansky, Longley, Heaney, Murphy, Carson, Montague, Banville, and Izdryk. She examines the ways these authors evoke the significatory powers of their traditions to forge imaginary ones; interrogate the boundaries and slippages among personal, national, social, gendered, and historical disjunctions; and make every history open to revision and contestation. Drawing on postcolonial, intertextual, representation, and gender theories, Anamorphosic Texts reveals the mechanisms of conversion whereby Ukrainian and Irish writers, by engaging in epistemic dialogues with their own traditions, colonial discourses, and multicultural influxes, devise political strategies of empowerment and enunciation.
Download or read book Changes in the Heart of Europe written by Timothy McCajor Hall and published by ibidem-Verlag / ibidem Press. This book was released on 2012-02-13 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From WW II until the Velvet Revolution, few outside anthropologists had access to Czechoslovakia, while only a handful of Czech and Slovak ethnologists published in Western journals. In recent years, anthropological interest in Slovakia and the Czech Republic has increased substantially. This volume brings together a broad sample of recent cutting-edge ethnographic studies by Czech and Slovak ethnographers as well as American and western European anthropologists. Contents: Raymond June on measuring “corruption” in Czech society; David Karjanen on structural violence and economic change in Slovakia; Karen Kapusta-Pofahl, Hana Hašková, and Marta Kolářová on women’s civic organizing; Rebecca Nash on Czech feelings about social support and welfare reform; Denise Kozikowski on women’s experience of breast cancer; Věra Sokolová on population policy and the sterilization of Romani women in Czechoslovakia, 1972-1989; James Quin on pornography and the commodification of queer bodies in Slovakia; Ben Hill Passmore on working women in a Moravian factory; Krista Hegburg on Roma social workers; Zdeněk Uherek and Kateřina Plochová on ethnic Czechs in Bosnia and Herzegovina; Leoš Šatava on ethnic identity and language among Sorbian youth; Haldis Haukanes on history and autobiography in a Czech village; Davide Torsello on memory, geography, and local history in southern Slovakia; Peter Skalník reviews Czech and Slovak community (re)studies in a European context. Afterword by Zdeněk Salzmann.
Download or read book The Ghosts in Our Classrooms or John Dewey Meets Ceau escu written by Annette Freyberg-Inan and published by ibidem-Verlag / ibidem Press. This book was released on 2006-01-16 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can democracy be learned? And how successful are we at teaching and learning it?This book does three things: First, it explains why civic education is important for the growth and survival of (any type of) democracy. Second, it focuses on a particular country, which is in many ways representative for the general problems of post-communist transition to democracy. It carefully examines the practical reality of civic education in Romania both at the level of general schooling and in higher education. Emphasis lies on the ways in which the ideals of civic education clash with post-communist realities and on the obstacles that continue to exist in this transition country to the democratic empowerment of citizens through education. Scarcity of resources, corruption in many forms, and attitudes of deference to authority, among other problems, perpetuate a situation in which education fails to support democratization and instead reflects the failures of regimes of the past. Third, the book offers concrete recommendations for how civic education in Romania (and elsewhere) can be improved. How can education be organized to suc-cessfully support the realization of democratic ideals?This book is based on its main author’s direct experience working in the field of civic education in Romania between 1999 and 2005 and draws on her wider expertise in the study of Romanian political economy and the country’s European integration as well as in the fields of political psychology and democratic theory. It is of particular interest for teachers and social scientists willing to reflect on the implications of their teaching or research for democratic empowerment, for policymakers and activists who seek to support processes of democratization, as well as for students of post-communist transition countries in general and of Romania in particular. It provides an accessible, informative, and frequently humorous account of lofty ideals clashing with harsh realities on the battlefield of democratic emancipation.
Download or read book The Role of the European Union in Moldova s Transnistria Conflict written by Florian Küchler and published by ibidem-Verlag / ibidem Press. This book was released on 2012-02-27 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 1 January 2007, Moldova has been a direct neighbour of the European Union. Nonetheless, Moldova and the Russia-dominated geopolitics of the Black Sea region receive still relatively little attention in the West. This is all the more surprising as there remain a number of consequential political divisions and unresolved conflicts in the area. One of them is the Transnistria conflict in Moldova.This book is a contribution to the, so far, small research and policy agenda on Moldova, and includes findings of several research trips to Moldova, Transnistria and their neighbouring countries. At first, the study reassesses the Transnistria conflict. Contrary to widely held assumptions, this conflict is found to be mainly based on a clash of elites and geopolitical interests rather than on ethnic tensions. The second part of the book analyses the interests, official position, actual impact and potential role of the EU in Moldova's internal separatist conflict and its related external tensions with Russia. So far, the EU has had a limited involvement in the conflict resolution efforts and in the international relations of Moldova. This book concludes that it is becoming increasingly important and possible for the EU to get effectively involved in this region, but that the scope of EU activities in Moldova and Transnistria depends on the country’s relations with, and on the actions in this area of, the United States and Russia. At its end, the study offers recommendations for future EU policies directed at Moldova.
Download or read book Preparing Liberty in Central Europe written by Josette Baer and published by ibidem-Verlag / ibidem Press. This book was released on 2012-02-03 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The often turbulent history of the Czechs and Slovaks in the 20th Century, leading from the Czechoslovak Republic to four decades of communist rule, ended with the Velvet Revolution in 1989. The independent Czech and Slovak democracies achieved EU membership in 2004. While their political histories under Austrian and Hungarian rule in 19th Century has been widely researched, their intellectual history is still largely unknown, mainly due to a lack of English translations. Preparing Liberty in Central Europe provides a collection of newly translated texts by Czech and Slovak intellectuals and political thinkers, covering the period of time from the Spring of Nations in 1848 to the Spring of Prague in 1968. The collection includes Ján Kollár’s On literary reciprocity, T.G. Masaryk’s The difficulties of Democracy and the debate about the Czech Fate between Václav Havel and Milan Kundera in 1968/9. The volume addresses students of history, philosophy, political science and Slavic Studies, interested in issues such as Slavonic national revival, Panslavism, Austroslavism, liberalism and Human Rights. Additional comments on text and author guide the reader through one hundred and thirty years of Czech and Slovak political thought. A large selected bibliography and index complement the volume.
Download or read book Russian Nationalism and the National Reassertion of Russia written by Marlene Laruelle and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-05-07 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Military action in South Ossetia, growing tensions with the United States and NATO, and Russia's relationship with the European Union demonstrate how the issue of Russian nationalism is increasingly at the heart of the international political agenda.This book considers a wide range of aspects of Russian nationalism, focussing on the Putin period. It discusses the development of Russian nationalism, including in the Soviet era, and examines how Russian nationalism grows out of – or is related to – ideology, culture, racism, religion and intellectual thinking, and demonstrates how Russian nationalism affects many aspects of Russian society, politics and foreign policy. This book examines the different socio-political phenomena which are variously defined as ‘nationalism’, ‘patriotism’ and ‘xenophobia’. As Russia reasserts itself in the world, with Russian nationalism as one of the key driving forces in this process, an understanding of Russian nationalism is essential for understanding the dynamics of contemporary international relations.
