Great Men and Large Numbers: Undertheorising a History of Mass Killing

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-143
Author(s):  
THOMAS KÜHNE
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Mass Murder ◽  
European History ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
German Jews ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Market Shares ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Baltic

Scholarship is not only about gaining new insights or establishing accurate knowledge but also about struggling for political impact and for market shares – shares of public or private funds, of academic jobs, of quotations by peers, and of media performances. Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands fights for recentring contemporary European history.1 No longer, his new book implies, should the centre of that history be Germany, which initiated two world wars and engaged with three genocides; even less should the centre be Western Europe, which historians for long have glorified as the trendsetter of modernity; and the Soviet Union, or Russia, does not qualify as ‘centre’ anyway. Introducing ‘to European history its central event’ (p. 380) means to focus on the eastern territories of Europe, the lands between Germany and Russia, which, according to Snyder, suffered more than any other part from systematic, politically motivated, mass murder in the twentieth century. The superior victimhood of the ‘bloodlands’ is a numerical one. Fourteen million people, Jewish and non-Jewish, in the territories of what is today most of Poland, the Ukraine, Belarus, western Russia, and the Baltic States did not become just casualties of war but victims of deliberate mass murder. Indeed, this is ‘a very large number’ (p. 411), one that stands many comparisons: ten million people perished in Soviet and German concentration camps (as opposed to the Nazi death camps, which were located within the ‘bloodlands’), 165,000 German Jews died during the Holocaust (p. ix), and even the number of war casualties most single countries or territories counted in the Second World War was smaller.

Jews in Eastern Europe and Russia since the End of Communism

2013 ◽  
pp. 424-462
Author(s):  
Antony Polonsky
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Imperial Russia ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
New Period ◽  
Colonial Empire ◽  
History Of ◽  
Independent States

This chapter highlights how the collapse of communism in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union initiated a new period in the history of the Jews in the area. Poland was now a fully sovereign country, and Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, and Moldova also became independent states. Post-imperial Russia faced the task of creating a new form of national identity. This was to prove more difficult than in other post-imperial states since, unlike Britain and France, the tsarist empire and its successor, the Soviet Union, had not so much been the ruler of a colonial empire as an empire itself. All of these countries now embarked, with differing degrees of enthusiasm, on the difficult task of creating liberal democratic states with market economies. For the Jews of the area, the new political situation allowed both the creation and development of Jewish institutions and the fostering of Jewish cultural life in much freer conditions, but also facilitated emigration to Israel, North America, and western Europe on a much larger scale.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Stephen G. Rabe
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
South America ◽  
National Security ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Latin Americans ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
History Of

This introductory chapter provides an overview of U.S. policies toward Latin America during Henry Kissinger's career as national security adviser and secretary of state. Henri Kissinger directed inter-American relations between 1969 and 1977. Like his predecessors, Kissinger judged relations with Western Europe, the Soviet Union, and China as strategically more important than relations with Latin America. But Kissinger launched noteworthy initiatives, such as the attempt to normalize relations with Cuba and to transfer the canal to Panama. The Kissinger years were also historically significant for Latin Americans. The 1970s represented the most violent period in the history of post-independence (1825) South America. This book provides a comprehensive investigation of the foreign policies of the Nixon and Ford administrations toward Latin America and Kissinger's central role in formulating and implementing those policies.

scholarly journals Urban Societies in Europe since 1945: Toward a Historical Interpretation

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 475-491 ◽  
Author(s):  
MORITZ FÖLLMER ◽  
MARK B. SMITH
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Historical Interpretation ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Alternative Communities ◽  
History Of ◽  
Post War ◽  
Eastern And Western Europe ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
The Way

How can we write the history of urban societies in Europe after 1945? This article offers an interpretative overview of key developments in both Eastern and Western Europe, while also discussing some key conceptual issues. Along the way, it takes stock of the relevant historiography (much of which is very recent) and introduces a selection of papers from a cycle of three international workshops held between 2011 and 2013. The papers range geographically from Britain to the Soviet Union and cover topics as diverse as post-war reconstruction and alternative communities in the 1970s. Their respective approaches are informed by an interest in the way societies have been imagined in discourses and reshaped in spatial settings. Moreover, the papers move beyond case studies, urban history's classic genre, and can therefore facilitate synthetic reflection. It is our hope that, in so doing, we can make urban history more relevant to contemporary European historians in general.

A Different Approach to the History of Islam and Muslims in Europe: A North-Eastern Angle, or the Need to Reconsider the Research Field

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 350-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
Göran Larsson ◽  
Egdūnas Račius
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Research Field ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
History Of ◽  
Muslims In Europe ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
Muslim Communities ◽  
Eastern Baltic

AbstractWhile the ever more strongly felt presence of Muslims in western Europe has already stimulated numerous scholars of various social sciences to embark upon research on issues related to that presence, it is apparent that just a few studies and introductory text books have so far dealt with the evolution of Muslim communities in other parts of Europe, especially in countries of central, eastern, and northern Europe. Without appreciation of and comprehensive research into the more than six-hundred-year-long Muslim presence in the eastern Baltic rim the picture of the development of Islam and Muslim-Christian relations in Europe remains incomplete and even distorted. Therefore, this article argues for the necessity of approaching the history of Islam and Muslims in Europe from a different and ultimately more encompassing angle by including the minorities of Muslim cultural background that reside in the countries of the European part of the former Soviet Union—the Baltic states and Belarus. Besides arguing that it is necessary to reconsider and expand the research field in order to develop more profound studies of Islam and Muslims in Europe, the article also outlines suggestions as to why the Muslim history in the eastern Baltic rim has been generally excluded from the history of Islam in Europe.

scholarly journals Swedish political attitudes towards Baltic independence in the short twentieth century [Kokkuvõte: Rootsi poliitilised hoiakud Balti riikide iseseisvuse suhtes lühikesel 20. sajandil]

2016 ◽  
pp. 397
Author(s):  
Mart Kuldkepp
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Baltic States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
The Third World ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

This article considers the history of Swedish attitudes towards Baltic independence during the short twentieth century (1914–91), focusing primarily on the years when Baltic independence was gained (1918–20) and regained (1989–91). The former was characterized by Swedish skepticism towards the ability of the Baltic states to retain their independence long-term, considering the inevitable revival of Russian power. Sweden became one of the very few Western countries to officially recognize the incorporation of the Baltic states in the Soviet Union in the Second World War. During the Cold War, Sweden gained a reputation for its policy of activist internationalism and support for democratization in the Third World, but for security-related reasons it ignored breaches of human rights and deficit of democracy in its immediate neighborhood, the Soviet Union and the Baltic republics. However, in 1989–91 the unprecedented decline in Soviet influence, the value-based approach in international relations, feelings of guilt over previous pragmatism, and changes in domestic politics encouraged Sweden to support Baltic independence, and to take on the role of an active manager of the Baltic post-soviet transition.

scholarly journals DIASPORA DAN IDENTITAS KOMUNITAS EKSIL ASAL INDONESIA DI BELANDA

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 33
Author(s):  
Gusnelly Gusnelly
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

This paper is the result of research on Indonesian migration that focuses on the diaspora of the exile community in the Netherlands. The purpose to discuss this issue is to tell about the existence of an Indonesian community that has been exiled from the country for decades and became stateless or lost citizenship, because its passport was revoked by the Indonesian government. They are the generation who have been forced to move to several countries and choose to seek asylum in various Western European countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The history of their existence abroad as a result of the event of G30S/1965. They were abroad when the G30S occurred in the country. Their departure abroad was in the leftist (socialist) countries of the mid-1960s not because of political affairs but for various interests, but in fact it was related to the occurrence of the G30S/1965. In 1989 with the fall of communism and the end of the cold war after the collapse of the superpower of the Soviet Union, most of them have registered themselves as asylum seekers to several countries in Western Europe, including to the Netherlands. As a Dutch citizen, their descendants get education and work in the Netherlands. Their descendants feel that the Dutch or Europeans are his identity but the exiles keep their nationalism for Indonesia. We call that with long-distance nationalism.Keywords: Dutch, diaspora, exile community, asylum, citizenshipABSTRAKTulisan ini merupakan hasil penelitian tentang migrasi orang Indonesia yang fokus pada diaspora komunitas eksil di Belanda. Tujuan untuk membahas masalah ini adalah untuk menceritakan tentang keberadaan komunitas Indonesia yang sejak puluhan tahun terbuang dari tanah air dan menjadi stateless atau kehilangan kewarganegaraan, sebab pasportnya dicabut oleh pemerintah Indonesia. Mereka merupakan anak bangsa dari satu generasi yang terpaksa pindah ke beberapa negara dan memilih mencari suaka ke berbagai negara Eropa Barat pascaruntuhnya Uni Soviet. Sejarah keberadaan mereka di luar negeri sebagai akibat dari peristiwa G30S tahun 1965. Mereka sedang berada di luar negeri ketika terjadi peristiwa G30S di dalam negeri. Kepergian mereka ke luar negeri yaitu di negara-negara beraliran kiri (sosialis) di pertengahan tahun 60-an bukan karena hanya karena urusan politik, tetapi untuk berbagai kepentingan, namun pada kenyataannya disangkutpautkan dengan terjadinya peristiwa G30S tahun 1965 tersebut. Pada tahun 1989 dengan kejatuhan komunisme dan berakhirnya perang dingin setelah keruntuhan negara adi kuasa Uni Soviet sebagian besar mereka telah mendaftarkan diri menjadi pencari suaka ke beberapa negara di Eropa Barat, termasuk ke Belanda. Sebagai warga negara Belanda, anak keturunannya mendapatkan pendidikan dan bekerja di Belanda. Anak-anak keturunannya merasa Belanda atau Eropa adalah identitasnya akan tetapi orang eksil tetap menjaga nasionalisme mereka buat tanah airnya yaitu Indonesia. Kami menyebutnya dengan nasionalisme jarak jauh.  Kata Kunci: Belanda, diaspora, komunitas eksil, suaka, kewarganegaraan

Stateness

2019 ◽  
pp. 656-660
Author(s):  
Timm Beichelt
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Weak State ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Look Back ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Concepts ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
Transition Studies

The chapter sketches the history of concepts of stateness in political science and transition studies from Dankwart Rustow to the seminal works of Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan. After discussing conceptual and typological aspects, the text deals with pertinent cases where stateness played a decisive role in post-socialist transition, in particular on the territory of the successor states of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. Different types of countries have evolved: states that had been dissolved in the 1940s like the Baltic states, cases with weak state traditions like Moldova or Montenegro, countries that look back to a long tradition as a cultural nation like Georgia, and the previously dominating titular nations like Russia or Serbia. Because of these different configurations, problems of stateness arise in different forms during transition.

scholarly journals Containerisation in the Baltic Sea Region: Development, Characteristics and Contemporary Organisation

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-25
Author(s):  
Arnaud Serry
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Baltic Sea ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
System Development ◽  
The Baltic Sea ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Baltic Sea Region ◽  
The Baltic

The main focus of the paper is on the container system development in the Baltic Sea Region studying cotemporary changes and organisation, as well as explaining the main driving forces of this situation. The Baltic Sea is a transport corridor between Eastern and Western Europe. Over the last decade maritime transport in the Baltic Sea area has changed significantly. The disintegration of the Soviet Union forced Russia to start developing its own Baltic ports and terminals and to find new routes to export its oil and gas. The Baltic ports have welcomed a remarkable growth, especially in oil transportation and containerised flows. The geographical configuration of the region naturally places it away from major global shipping lines. This situation is accentuated by the organisation of maritime regular lines, centred in Northern European ports. For this reason, the regional container network is mainly made up of feeder services.

scholarly journals REVIEW OF JEAN LOPEZ & LASHA OTKHMEZURI, JOUKOV: L`HOMME QUI A VAINCU HITLER

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 156
Author(s):  
Jan-Erik Lane
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Baltic States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
French Military ◽  
Red Army ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Baltic

Most of the history of the Baltic States in the 20th century is completely dominated by their relation to the Eastern giant, the Soviet Union. What the Soviet Union represented was not only an authoritarian, and at times, totalitarian rulership but also a constant fear of the unpredictable. Two French military historians, connected with the journal Guerre et Histoire, have recently managed to go through newly opened archives in Russia to unveil the unpredictable career of the most distinguished commander of the Red Army, Gregory Zhukov. Their book entirely confirms the impression among Baltic people that the Soviet Union was fundamentally instable in the sense that anything could happen: state arbitrariness. [...]

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