scholarly journals Manoeuvring in Between: Mapping Out the Transnational Identity of Russian-Speaking Latvians in Sweden and Great Britain

Author(s):  
Iveta Jurkane-Hobein ◽  
Evija Kļave

Abstract The proportion of the Russian-speaking population in Latvia increased dramatically during the Soviet period from 12% in 1935 to 42% in 1990 due to organised labour migration within the Soviet Union. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, especially since the end of the 1990s, many Russian-speaking Latvians have migrated to Western countries. Very little is known about the national identities of these Russian-speaking Latvians. By analysing 30 life histories of Russian-speaking migrants from Latvia in Sweden and Great Britain, this study aims to analyse the transnational identities of Russian-speaking Latvians abroad. The analysis shows that the migrants’ own migration patterns in addition to the migration history of their families create interlinked and sometimes conflicting layers of transnational identity. Drawing on the interviews, three main processes in the identity formation were distinguished: aspiring to a Latvian identity, claiming an unrecognised Russian-speaking Latvian identity and developing transnational ‘non-belonging’.

Author(s):  
Irina V. Sabennikova ◽  

The historiography of any historically significant phenomenon goes through several stages in its development. At the beginning − it is the reaction of contemporaries to the event they experienced, which is emotional in nature and is expressed in a journalistic form. The next stage can be called a retrospective understanding of the event by its actual participants or witnesses, and only at the third stage there does appear the objective scientific research bringing value-neutral assessments of the phenomenon under study and belonging to subsequent generations of researchers. The history of The Russian Diaspora and most notably of the Russian post-revolutionary emigration passed to the full through all the stages of the issue historiography. The third stage of its studying dates from the late 1980s and is characterized by a scientific, politically unbiased study of the phenomenon of the Russian emigration community, expanding the source base and scientific research methods. During the Soviet period in Russian historiography, owing to ideological reasons, researchers ‘ access to archival documents was limited, which is why scientific study of the history of the Russian Diaspora was not possible. Western researchers also could not fully develop that issue, since they were deprived of important sources kept in Russian archives. Political changes in the perestroika years and especially in the period after the collapse of the Soviet Union increased attention to the Russian Diaspora, which was facilitated by a change in scientific paradigms, methodological principles, the opening of archives and, as a result, the expansion of the source base necessary for studying that issue. The historiography of the Russian Diaspora, which has been formed for more than thirty years, needs to be understood. The article provides a brief analysis of the historiography, identifies the main directions of its development, the research problematics, and defines shortcomings and prospects.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 178-182
Author(s):  
Alexander Ivanovich Repinetskiy

The paper is devoted to history of childrens home 25 established in 1946 on the territory of the Kuibyshev Region. Children of Russian emigrants living in Austria were accommodated there. These children were transferred to representatives of the Soviet authorities by the American administration. Under the terms of the agreements between the USSR, the USA and Great Britain signed at the Yalta conference (1945) people with the Soviet nationality were transferred to the Soviet Union. Children of Russian emigrants born in Austria didnt belong to this category but despite it they were transferred to the Soviet Union. Local authorities didnt know what to do with repatriated children. That is why the childrens home was established in a remote rural area; life and material conditions of its inhabitants were heavy: there was no necessary furniture or school supplies. Its tutors and staff were in a more difficult situation. Some of them lost their jobs. Some children were returned to parents. Unfortunately, available documents do not allow tracking the future of the children from this childrens home.


2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-94
Author(s):  
Sergey A. Bakanov ◽  
Ivan A. Medvedev

Introduction. This article deals with the subject of thesis in the direction of “Economic history”, which were prepared and defended in Russia in the post-Soviet period (1991–2019). The dissolution of the Soviet Union is getting rid of research from ideological clichés, which made the topic of economic history relevant and in demand. Materials and Methods. On the basis of the e-catalog of authors’ abstracts of the Russian State Library, the database “Dissertations on economic history of the late XX – early XXI centuries” was formed. The bibliographic information about the authors’ abstracts became the formal attributes of the described database. The analytical units were the attributes of the “geographical range”, “chronological frame” and “research problem”. Results. The analysis of the database showed that during the entire period were formed stable trends scientific subdirectories within the frame of economic history (history of industry, history of agriculture, history of entrepreneurship, history of banks, etc.), and in maintaining the status of leading research centers. The historical period from the second half of the XIX to the first half of the XX centuries attracts the main attention of the authors of thesis on economic history. Discussion and Conclusion. A quantitative analysis of the dynamic of thesis defenses showed a decline in the interest of authors of thesis in the problems of economic history in the 2010s. The key factors of this decline were changes in the requirements to thesis. Nevertheless, the authors believe that the direction of “economic history” has a potential to overcome designated problems.


KALAM ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-60
Author(s):  
Ramil Adygamov

Al-Maturidy theology has been considered as a traditional creed for many regions in the world, including Volga region of Russia. Throughout the Soviet period, Muslims in Volga were forced to practice their religion in secretive manner, which eventually caused an interruption in the chain of spiritual continuity. But, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Muslims in Volga started to return to their ethno-confessional tradition. At the same time, the theological tradition had to compete with the Salafi ideology which begun to arrive in the region from abroad. As such has triggered the Muslim proponents of Maturidy traditions to reclaim their heritage. This study aims at tracing the historical process of the origin and development of Maturidy thought in the Volga-Ural region. It uses descriptive and comparative methods and the theory of continuity and changes. Observing the chronological sequence, the study traces the process of the origin and development of Maturidy ideology. The chronological scope of this study is limited by the period from the tenth century until our time. The study reveals that the al-Maturidy's teachings in the region for all periods of historical development have experienced five periods. Three periods show a rapid development stage and two periods experience a decline.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 285-315
Author(s):  
Mikhail B. Konashev

The translation of Ch. Darwin’s main and most well-known book, On the Origin of Species, had great significance for the reception and development of his evolution theory in Russia and later in the USSR, and for many reasons. The history of the book’s publication in Russian in tsarist Russia and in the Soviet Union is analyzed in detail. The first Russian translation of On the Origin of Species was made by Sergey A. Rachinsky in 1864. Till 1917 On the Origin of Species had been published more than ten times, including the publication in Darwin’s collected works. The edition of 1907– –1909 with Timiryazev as editor had the best quality of translation and scientific editing. This translation was used in all subsequent Soviet and post-Soviet editions. During Soviet time, On the Origin of Species was published seven times in total, and three times as a part of Darwin’s collected works. From 1940 to 1987, as a result of the domination of Lysenkoism in Soviet biology, On the Origin of Species was not published in the USSR. During the post-Soviet period, the book was published only two times, and it happened already in the 21st century. The small number of editions of Darwin’s main book in post-Soviet time is one of the consequences of the discredit of the evolutionary theory in mass media and by the Russian Orthodox Church as well as the rise of neo-Lysenkoism. The general circulation of nine pre-revolutionary editions of On the Origin of Species was about 30,000–35,000 copies. Only four editions which had been released in the USSR from 1926 to 1937 had the total circulation in 79,200 copies. Two post-Soviet editions published in 2001 and in 2003 had already a circulation of only 1,000 copies. Subsequent editions in each period of Russian history was thus some kind of an answer to the scientific, political and social requirements of the Russian society and the Russian state.


Urban Studies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olena Betlii

Urban studies is still an undeveloped field in Ukraine, partly as a result of a lack of field institutionalization at Ukrainian universities. On the other hand, only in the early 21st century, urban challenges became a subject of interest of urban activists who started raising questions regarding strategic developments of Ukrainian cities. Thanks to that, the urban agenda has become visible and discussible on some independent research institutions or media platforms. Scholarship on Kyiv is a good illustration of this situation. There are not that many scholarly works dedicated exclusively to Kyiv. Ukrainian historians quite often address Kyiv issues in their research on a more general Ukrainian context. Western historians, focusing on the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union, mention Kyiv in their work but rarely choose this city as a main subject of examination. This article will introduce the reader to themes examined by scholars who have studied the history or current development of Kyiv. The majority of these studies are written in Ukrainian and have never been translated into English. Considering the emerging status of Kyiv studies, this article attempts to strike a balance between being inclusive and, at the same time, selective. A number of the sources cited here are the only existing examinations of a certain topic. Most of the citations refer to books, with just a handful of articles listed in this article. Papers written by Ukrainian historians are typically very short and do not analyze their topics deeply enough to be mentioned in a citation. Western scholars usually finalize their research in book-length publications, and their research on Kyiv is cited in this article. This article is divided into several topical sections, within which citations are organized chronologically, covering the time period from the medieval history of Kyiv to the present day. This article demonstrates that the late imperial history of Kyiv has been researched the best. There will likely be even more scholarship on this period due to the fact that Kyiv archives are rich and open to researchers, and their records have even been published online. In contrast, the Soviet period is barely touched by urban scholars. It is still uncertain to what degree the current challenges of Kyiv’s development will be reflected in scholarship in the near future. In order to get any further updates on the topic, one might consult the publisher Varto, which specializes in Kyiv literature.


Author(s):  
Justine Buck Quijada

History in the Soviet Union was a political project. From the Soviet perspective, Buryats, an indigenous Siberian ethnic group, were a “backward” nationality that was carried along on the inexorable march toward the Communist utopian future. When the Soviet Union ended, the Soviet version of history lost its power and Buryats, like other Siberian indigenous peoples, were able to revive religious and cultural traditions that had been suppressed by the Soviet state. In the process, they also recovered knowledge about the past that the Soviet Union had silenced. Borrowing the analytic lens of the chronotope from Bakhtin, this book argues that rituals have chronotopes which situate people within time and space. As they revived rituals, post-Soviet Buryats encountered new historical information and traditional ways of being in time that enabled them to reimagine the Buryat past and what it means to be Buryat. Through the temporal perspective of a reincarnating Buddhist monk, Dashi-Dorzho Etigelov, Buddhists come to see the Soviet period as a test on the path of dharma. Shamanic practitioners, in contrast, renegotiate their relationship to the past by speaking to their ancestors through the bodies of shamans. By comparing the versions of history that are produced in Buddhist, shamanic, and civic rituals, Buddhists, Shamans, and Soviets offers a new lens for analyzing ritual, a new perspective on how an indigenous people grapples with a history of state repression, and an innovative approach to the ethnographic study of how people know about the past.


2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Grant ◽  
Alice Fisher Fellow

Russian and Soviet nurse refugees faced myriad challenges attempting to become registered nurses in North America and elsewhere after the World War II. By drawing primarily on International Council of Nurses refugee files, a picture can be pieced together of the fate that befell many of those women who left Russia and later the Soviet Union because of revolution and war in the years after 1917. The history of first (after World War I) and second (after World War II) wave émigré nurses, integrated into the broader historical narrative, reveals that professional identity was just as important to these women as national identity. This became especially so after World War II, when Russian and Soviet refugee nurses resettled in the West. Individual accounts become interwoven on an international canvas that brings together a wide range of personal experiences from women based in Russia, the Soviet Union, China, Yugoslavia, Canada, the United States, and elsewhere. The commonality of experience among Russian nurses as they attempted to establish their professional identities highlights, through the prism of Russia, the importance of the history of the displaced nurse experience in the wider context of international migration history.


Author(s):  
Daniel Beben

The Ismailis are one of the largest Muslim minority populations of Central Asia, and they make up the second largest Shiʿi Muslim community globally. First emerging in the second half of the 8th century, the Ismaili missionary movement spread into many areas of the Islamic world in the 10th century, under the leadership of the Ismaili Fatimids caliphs in Egypt. The movement achieved astounding success in Central Asia in the 10th century, when many of the political and cultural elites of the region were converted. However, a series of repressions over the following century led to its almost complete disappearance from the metropolitan centers of Central Asia. The movement later re-emerged in the mountainous Badakhshan region of Central Asia (which encompasses the territories of present-day eastern Tajikistan and northeastern Afghanistan), where it was introduced by the renowned 11th-century Persian poet, philosopher, and Ismaili missionary Nasir-i Khusraw. Over the following centuries the Ismaili movement expanded among the populations of Badakhshan, reaching a population of over 200,000 in the 21st century. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Ismailis suffered a series of severe repressions, first under local Sunni Muslim rulers and later under the antireligious policies of the Soviet Union. However, in the decades since the end of the Soviet period, the Ismailis of the region have become increasingly connected with the global Ismaili community and its leadership. While many aspects of the history of Ismailism in the Badakhshan region remain obscure and unexplored, the discoveries of significant corpuses of manuscripts in private collections since the 1990s in the Badakhshan region have opened up wide possibilities for future research.


2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-91
Author(s):  
Natalia M. Dolgorukova

“The whole history of Russian thought during the Soviet period was a history with missing chapters”.1 One of such missing chapters is a history of the Soviet reception of the corpus of work created by Mikhail M. Bakhtin, Soviet thinker and literary critic (1895—1975). The history of the Soviet reception of Bakhtin’s ideas has not been written yet and there are no works on the subject. There is Zbinden’s book,2 which deals with research about some particular cases of Bakhtin studies in Canada and in French translations. Despite the fact that in the 1960–1980s the «theory of carnival» became, in the words of S.S. Averintsev, a «regular classic» and the subject of citation for any specialists in the humanities, the reception of Bakhtin’s ideas in the Soviet Union was not successful: all of his contemporaries and conversation partners could not come into proper contact with the Soviet thinker. The present working paper is an attempt to reconstruct one case from the history of the Soviet reception of Bakhtin’s heritage, using the works of Vladimir N. Turbin (1927—1993) as an example. The study examines Turbin’s books A Short While Before Aquarius: A Farewell to Epos and his articles from different years (including those published posthumously), relating to Bakhtin, his life, theories, ideas and books. All these works will answer the question why the Soviet reception of Bakhtinʼs heritage in the 1960–1970 did not take place, and why the book, which Turbin wanted to write about his teacher, has not been written.


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